Critical Correspondence

Tess Dworman and Mariana Valencia in conversation

Choreographers Tess Dworman and Mariana Valencia discuss LEGENDARY CHILDREN a shared evening of their work presented June 10 & 11, 2011 at BRAZIL.

Interview date: May 8, 2011

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Mariana: This is Mariana Valencia speaking with Tess Dworman.

Tess: At Brazil. And Mariana’s making a piece for two people. You and your collaborator.

Mariana: Yes, with Lydia.

Tess: And I am making a piece by myself. And I actually don’t like saying I’m making a solo.

Mariana: You don’t?

Tess: I don’t like saying that because it sounds like I’m making something really flattering. You hear “solo” and you think about a competition or school–it’s not like that. So I just tell people I’m working by myself.

Mariana: I’ve made a lot of solos, I usually say I’m making a dance: it’s a solo. It’s always a side note, I usually work by myself, I’m working alone again. That’s usually what I say: working by myself. I think that’s normal. But saying a “duet” is kind of stupid also, so I don’t say that either. I say I’m working with Lydia, it’s a duet… I also say it as a side note: it’s a duet, I’m working with someone else, duh. So you’re making a solo and I’m making a duet.

Tess: Let’s talk about our pieces.

Mariana: Okay.

Tess: You go first.

Mariana: Mine has been growing for a while. Lydia and I have made work together for the past year. I’ve been making work longer than that, but working with Lydia, who’s an old friend, has become this past year’s process. After we made our first duet we began growing away from it. I think our first duet was a

little bit stoic. I think it was very clean looking. I wanted to burn it up. So to do that, I entered this work from a burnt place. That’s what I kept telling Lydia, “This is going to be burnt. It’s gonna be like we’re small; We’re burnt.” We have to climb on things to get places because things are big. That was my initial vocabulary. Then the most on-trend that I’ve ever been in life has been in these last six months. I’m obsessed with grunge and what it means. But what I really think that is, is adolescence and this in-between moment and feeling like you don’t fit into one size or the other size of life. So you’re small, you’re angry, you’re ugly. You spit on the ground cause that’s cool. So that’s really where we started from again. There were many beginnings.

Tess: Yeah, on-trend.

Mariana: Right? I just discovered that grunge is on-trend. And that’s funny. I’ve never felt that way in my life, especially with my work. Like oh, the 80’s are in, let me do a running man in my dance where we do aerobics.

Tess: Yeah that’s funny because since we’ve been friends, you’ve been working on this piece. We became friends one year ago, and I’ve started to do the same thing that you’re doing just because we talk about these things.

Mariana: You mean in your personal life?

Tess: Well, I kind of reach for other things and I don’t realize it. I am just now realizing outside influences in my dance making, with all kinds of trends. I think about why these things are kind of “in” now. What was in like a year ago or two years ago. I’m asking myself, “What is it about these things that I really like?”

Mariana: Well because now we’re friends, this is what we talk about. I know. Well that’s funny… If you look at footage of my Judson though, it doesn’t look like a grunge dance. It’s not like I’m lifting and placing. It’s about what I’m reading and I’m reading a bunch of other shit… and then Legendary Children happened, which is a quote from Paris is Burning, which I just discovered, which is funny because I should have known about it so long ago. In finding that, language was a big deal, it was just a lot of things. It was like, okay I’m making a dance where I’m approaching this as if we’re small, we’re burnt, we’re things that are place-less. What else is place-less that has happened? Just those kinds of notions.

Tess: Yeah. I’m trying to think of the collection of influences for my piece. Like you’re saying. Like the grunge idea, and these different books that you’ve read, and other things that are maybe more abstract. I’ve been thinking about this movie, Muriel’s Wedding. I think about it all the time. Not all the time but most days. Have you ever seen that movie?

Mariana: No, I haven’t.

Tess: It’s with Tony Colette.

Mariana: Who’s my favorite.

Tess: Really?

Mariana: Tony Colette is incredible.

Tess: I can’t believe you haven’t seen it. It’s from the early 90’s I believe, although it looks like it’s from the 80’s. Tony Colette plays this girl who is really really obsessed with the idea of getting married and she ends up marrying this guy for this citizenship/money deal. She’s also obsessed with ABBA. She listens to ABBA all the time. There’re points where she gets really depressed and she’s really sad and she can’t leave her room and she just listens to ABBA songs. She calls them “ABBA songs”, which I really like. [Mimics Australian accent] “I used to only listen to ABBA songs, and now I don’t listen to ABBA songs anymore.” Anyway.

Mariana: That was a really good accent. (laughs)

Also, that’s funny. Well, it’s not funny that I’ve never seen that, because I’ve never actually seen anything. Like Star Wars, I’ve never seen, I’m that person, never even seen that shit, but I’ve seen random stuff… I think what I’m realizing right now is that maybe because we met about a year ago, and we never knew each other, and then we found out that we were from Chicago… I think part of our conversational friendship started from knowing the same place at the same time, because we grew up there and we didn’t know each other then. And I think maybe that has a lot to do with how we’re approaching this evening of work and how we’re psychotically interested in these things all of a sudden because I’ve

never felt this way before. And maybe that’s it; that is a point of departure for us to relate and we’ve become relatable that way. Not like I don’t know how to relate to you without these things but that was definitely a place to start, which is interesting. I never thought about that!

Tess: That’s true. Yeah just like shared nostalgia.

Mariana: Right? Nostalgia. It’s like that, or maybe it’s our age.

Tess: Maybe. (both laugh)

Mariana: This is where we return. Someone was talking to me about Saturn returning and that’s right around this time, when you’re 27. It’s where your Saturn returns and drastic things happen to you between 27 and 30, either you make really big life decisions or whatever. So maybe this is part of that. Probably not.

Tess: Probably not. (both laugh)

Mariana: This is not interesting at all.

Tess: So anyway to get back to the point, I am Tony Colette in Muriel’s Wedding.

Mariana: That’s how you feel these days.

Tess: That’s me. All the time.

Mariana: All the time.

Tess: But that’s one of the jumping off points for this piece.

Mariana: Have you liked this movie for a while?

Tess: A few years.

Mariana: Oh, a few years.

Tess: I think that’s all I want to say about that.

Mariana: …about Muriel?

Tess: About Muriel. Oh, and also. I’m learning a lot about improvisation. I’m teaching myself.

Mariana: Improvisation?

Tess: Yeah.

Mariana: That’s cool.

Tess: Yeah. I think that that’s one of the reasons why I’m also doing a solo. I’m in new territory and I don’t want to feel uncomfortable telling other people what to do. I have to figure it out on my own first.

Mariana: It’s difficult. I know. No, it’s really hard. I think me too. I mean, I’m working with Lydia because I’ve known her for so many years. I’ve known her for eight years or ten years, but never worked together until this year, which is funny, because she’s also a performer and whatever. But we just never did work together, not even in college, which is crazy, because we were the same year and everything.

Improvisation is difficult to approach with a pair. With another person also because two bodies will always be read. It’s an initial relationship. It’s one against the other it’s one compared to the other, next to the other. So that’s already loaded. Two people is loaded. [smirks]

Tess: Two people are loaded.

Mariana: Yeah, they’re pretty loaded. So I guess what we’ve decided is that instead of improvising, which I’m terrified of–I’m terrified of the word if it’s with someone else. Basically I’m wasting their time and I feel I should have thought of this before. Rehearsal time’s very specific to me, and it’s about getting it done, as opposed to what I do at home, I prepare at home. I don’t tend to prepare in the studio, unless I’m by myself, obviously. That’s how I make work. I guess it’s about how do we pair off in new ways. Which is so cheesy but definitely the best pairings, or the ones we’re most comfortable with are when we’re super piled on each other to become one. If you look at it long enough then you’re just one a person. We’re not two people anymore, we’re one thing. So I think that’s how I’ve approached pairing. But that does come out of an improvisational place, cause its like, “Hey Lydia, how can you melt into me in this weird way? Let’s try a couple of things.” So we try it together, but it’s because we’re both involved. I guess that is improvisation but it’s not like “Now let’s do this for an awkward amount of time and lets feel ourselves.” I can’t approach that.

Tess: Yeah.

Mariana: I guess I always feel like I’m being judged by her in a way. I mean she has an opinion and I’m scared of exploration sometimes. I feel like, “This is lame, this is lame, this is lame.”

Tess: She keeps showing up to your rehearsals.

Mariana: I know. (both laugh)

Tess: So I think she probably likes it.

Mariana: So is your work improvisation? Is it a score, an improvised score?

Tess: Yeah, it is. It’s a score that I developed out of improvising a lot. It’s going to take me a long time to figure out how you really do that. I’ve been taking a lot of classes lately with classclassclass and they all kind of happen to be brushing up against this too. This question of how you are crafting your experience, but then you’re also leaving it very open. It’s about performance.

When you’re practicing or rehearsing, it’s not completely open because you are focused on something specific. I don’t know. I really don’t know what this is. It’s been good to try it out.

Mariana: When I thought about having a show with you it was about the timeframe. It was the biggest deal. I felt like we could both use more time as in months, almost like a year of months to make a longer work, because I feel that 15 minutes was the longest dance I’ve ever made. And it’s usually made within 3-4 months and that makes sense to that amount of time. That makes sense. It’s a limited amount of exploration for a limited amount of movements. So how do you free yourself from that? Just don’t give yourself a limit. Obviously within reason, it’s not like we have a two-hour show.

Tess: Well I told you I was gonna make a solo that I’m gonna show in a year. I was like “Starting today, I’m making a solo.”

Mariana: Yeah, and that was pretty awesome, because we gave ourselves our own time residency to live with for a year and say we’re gonna have a show, we’re gonna have a show. That’s exciting, you know? We didn’t even know what we were gonna make. I just said I wanna have a show. So. This is a show about our friendship and how when we met…(both laugh)…we started talking about nostalgia.

Tess: Nuh-stal-juh. Sort of.

Mariana: Kind of. And now we’re obsessed. Where’s it gonna be?

Tess: It’s gonna be at BRAZIL.

Mariana: We’re having a show at BRAZIL. June 10th and 11th. Plug. 8pm.

Tess: Plug.

Mariana: Plug. (both laugh)

Wait. There was another thing also. So after this, where do you go? What’s this solo, is it done at this evening?

Tess: Oh no.

Mariana: You’re going to tour it this summer?

Tess: Yeah, I’m going tour it. I’m going to do a Midwestern tour.

Mariana: Nice. (both laugh) Me too. No, I’m not touring; I’m not. I think this is the end.

Tess: Really? You always do that.

Mariana: I always do that. I kill my babies. I’m going to burn all the costumes, and then kill Lydia, and I always make something and then I throw it out. Throw. It. Out. It’s already had three versions, although the finished version is the longest version and that hasn’t had three versions… It’s a whole new dance from the last thing. Basically. Maybe I will show it again, but I don’t know. Right now June 10^th to me is the end of the world.

Tess: The end of it.

Mariana: Right? It’s the end. That’s been such a deadline for so long to me.

Tess: I know it is a deadline. Sort of. But I guess I’m really not thinking of it–because I’m trying to come up with a new way of working for myself.

Mariana: Yeah, which is exciting. That’s also another thing you said to me, before I asked you. It was like, “I think I need to move on into new ways of making work.” I thought that was exciting. So it’s pretty cool.

Tess: Yeah, it’s pretty cool.

Mariana: That’s great. Right?

Tess: Mhmm. And I rarely have material that I keep for awhile.

Mariana: You’re maturing.

Tess: I’m becoming a woman.

Mariana: You’re becoming a woman. (both laugh)

Tess: I think once I’m sort of done with this phase of working, I’ll have something to move on from and I’ll probably keep working on it. It’ll be something.

Mariana: Well, either way I always say I’m generally always making the same dance no matter what my influences are. I’m always investigating within the core of my work. I’m always investigating a very similar brushing of things. Every dance is not the same dance, I mean yes. No. (both laugh) My dances are not the same, but I’m the same person so it’s the same dance. However they do grow from each other just like how last time that dance was too stoic and we were trying to be too cool or something. I was like, “Okay, run away from that. Burn the babies. We’re gonna be ugly this time.” You know? Influenced by the last thing. Maybe next time you’ll approach a group dance, from your solo, it will be many solos… You’re always gonna be super influenced by your last thing.

Tess: Yeah.

Mariana: I’m going to take mine to Mexico.

Tess: You’re taking yours to Mexico?

Mariana: I’ll take wherever will have me. Plug. Plug.

Tess: I’m Tony Colette. I just want to get married. (both laugh) That doesn’t make any sense. I’m just remembering that I said that, and that’s not actually true about Tony Colette. Me being her.

Mariana: You don’t feel like Tony Colette?

Tess: No, that was untrue. I think you just have to watch the movie. Then you’ll understand. There are really nice, interesting little character studies in there, I think, particularly with her. She’s such a weird person in that movie.

Mariana: Well I think that I’ve also been into this idea from movies. There’s a part in Paris is Burning, where they’re showing the house La Beija, and it’s all the people who live in that house. And it’s an incredible shot because it’s a family portrait, but on video, they’re holding their poses, so if there was a camera, there would be a still image, right? But it was on video and they were being still on video, which is really incredible because they’re still moving. Obviously they’re still slightly adjusting and moving. And that is also I think another part in my work that I’ve been trying to look deeper into. How do you take a picture without using an actual picture camera and using a video camera? How do you sustain a moment

without it being still and have to keep it growing until it’s done? Because when they finished being still, they stopped being present that way, but they were still in the room and there was still footage being taken of them. So it’s like where do you take it to before it releases into the next part? There’s a lot in that–the way people are portrayed and then the characters also that are developed and their face.

Tess: The face is big for me. Like the face as a character and as a muscle… as a group of muscles.

Mariana: Yeah.

Tess: What could we tell them? Do you have anything? Do you want to say anything else?

Mariana: Yes. Come June 10th and 11th at BRAZIL.

Tess: Come June 10th and 11th at BRAZIL.

Mariana: Legendary Children, an evening of work by Tess Dworman and Mariana Valencia. Featuring Lydia Adler Okrent… Lydia. I’mma burn her. (both laugh)