Critical Correspondence

MR Festival 2009: Catalogue of Engagement – Create/Process: DEMOCRATIC DANCE SESSION

by Maggie Bennett
MR Festival Spring 2009: Roll Call

led by Milka Djordjevich
Dance Theater Workshop, Robbins Studio, Sat April 25, 2009

Milka was giving us very challenging assignments. Create a loop of movement with one body part. Image 3 physical images (example: open lung with right foot forward, pelvis low, hart open to ceiling, arms above head like holding giant beach ball). Utilize the loop to move from one image to another. Not by freeze framing, move bit by bit, but by getting the loop to resonate through the whole body in order to achieve an echo of the image. The loop is this repetitive pulse that has its origins in that one part. To not skip any step, to not create a new loop or movement in order to expedite the process, to stay TRUE to the process, was the work she was asking us to do.

It felt hard, it felt impossible at times, it would bottom-out — I would bottom-out. It required full commitment to the investigation and process, suspended from self-judgment (there are those same old movement patterns coming up again…). As soon as I went into anything other than the task, it was lost. Even getting seduced by the sensation of the movement the loop was creating in my body would distract me from the actual loop, and it would morph, become this other thing, totally divorced from the clarity of origin and the pursuit of the unknown path between images. When I finally made it through a cycle of images, pushed through my loop, problem-solved my navigation of gravity and my relationship to the ground with the transferring of the loop through my structure, filling out every moment of transition, I felt masterful, it over-took me, and then it was over.