Critical Correspondence

Jean Butler in conversation with Jen Rosenblit

Jean Butler, who is renowned for her work as a practitioner of Irish dance, talks with choreographer Jen Rosenblit about DAY, the evening-length solo that she commissioned choreographer Tere O’Connor to create for her. DAY’s New York premiere will take place at Danspace Project on November 11-13, 2010.

Interview date: October 14, 2010

Download this conversation as PDF

Jen Rosenblit: I’m here with Jean Butler, talking about Jean’s experience as an artist/performer leading up to the New York City premiere of DAY, choreographed by Tere O’Connor. Jean, just to give a little background information, please talk about your training in terms of how you understand the body. How you came to dancing and where are you at now?

Jean Butler: I’m going to be 40 next March, and I started dancing when I was three. My mom put me in ballet and tap, which I did not like very much. My mom is Irish, and she eventually found an Irish Dancing class. She thought it would be a great way to keep her culture in our family. There was something immediate about Irish dancing that I loved, probably in the informality compared to the ballet class. I think it had a lot to do with the teacher, Donny Golden, who I still consider my teacher today.

Irish dancing is a cultural art form that exists within a competitive world. It’s related to ballet in the way it’s taught. It’s a formal technique. It’s codified. There’s a correct way of doing things, and there’s an incorrect way of doing things. As a result of the competitive aspect of Irish dancing, there’s less consideration for process.

There are three defining features of Irish technique. One is verticality. It’s posture, i.e. there’s no movement from the waist-up. Your arms are at your side. Your spine is not locked, but it’s straight. You turnout the feet but there’s no turnout at the hip. There’s no plie. Another aspect is musicality or timing that has to do with dancing directly on the music, to the music. The third aspect in Irish dancing is rhythm, which would be an interpretation of music but again, on and with the music. There are also two types of Irish dancing. There’s soft-shoe and then there’s tap or hard-shoe.

As a child you learn by repetition, and you learn toward an end-goal, as in perfecting a particular movement in a particular way. For me, the idea of how to get there was always missing. You just go and hope you pick it up. I also think being taught in that way, perpetuates a disconnect between the mind and the body, to a certain extent. Your legs are just going and going and going and you just hope that it turns out okay. I remember being very young and trying to figure out how to jump higher. I was about 12 years old and it was a very simple jump. Your two legs are together and you just vertically jump straight up into the air. As you leave ground, you point your feet and your knees should lock. I did this for hours on end and I kept trying to get higher. I remember getting tired and I started taking breaks in between the big jumps and doing a little jump so that it was a little jump and then a big jump and then a little jump and then a big jump. I realized from doing that that I was releasing down into the floor in preparation to spring up into the air. That was a really critical moment for me, because I had to engage in what I was doing with my mind and my body and figure this hole out – this hole in technique and how it was taught.

From then on, I started engaging with the dance as problem solving. For instance, if I wanted to do something that I saw an older dancer do, I had to take it apart and start thinking, “Where is my weight when my leg goes here? Where is my spine in relation to my knee in relation to my ankle?” Although I wouldn’t have had that vocabulary to talk about it then, [that’s what] I was investigating. I was investigating it because I was really interested in it. That inquiry, that questioning, that examination bring a level of presence to the dance. It’s a layer. It’s not something I was just taught and then simply regurgitated. This is something that’s been deconstructed to figure out how to make it better. I had to figure out how I was engaging with this. I was really lucky because my teacher, Donny Golden, recognized that interest and really pushed me towards it.

And I really enjoyed the work aspect of it. Things like style, interpretation and individuality . . . they’re layers that come after the mastery of principles of basic technique.

Jen: How did DAY come to fruition? What was the first thought in your head about approaching Tere [O’Connor]? Did you approach him?

Jean: My only training, really, is in Irish dancing. I did a Masters in contemporary dance performance years later. I started exploring a different physicality. I did this because I wanted to evolve as a dancer and a performer. I still had a real interest in continuing to dance and I had to figure out how to do this.

I moved to New York and was really interested in the downtown dance scene. I had a few friends who had introduced me to different choreographers and their work. Out of all the pieces that I saw, the one that resonated most with me was Tere O’Connor’s Rammed Earth at the Chocolate Factory. There was something mesmerizing about the performance that I couldn’t fully articulate then. I forgot I was watching dance. There’s something in that that really attracted me. It wasn’t derivative of anything I had seen. There was an inherent theatricality to it, there was poetry to it, there was a cinematic overtone. There were so many other things than just “dance.” I started getting really interested in Tere’s work. I would go to his talks and I did one of his MELT choreography workshops, which I found enlightening. He is very different from the world I come from in that he said “I am not a master at this. I’m not interested in authoring or owning this. I’m interested in this as a continued practice and exploration.” That [sentiment] resonated with me.

In the meantime, I was doing my own work, mostly funded through Ireland. A commission came up for my next piece from the Abbey Theatre [National Theater of Ireland]. I knew immediately that I didn’t want to create this piece. Somehow, I knew what I needed to do was envelop myself in somebody else’s process to pull things out of me that I wasn’t aware of or that I wasn’t able to do. Immediately, I thought of Tere. I never in a million years expected him to say “yes.” But he did. That’s how the whole piece started.

I think he realized where I was coming from was almost a similar place to where he was in terms of inquiry. I was very clear that I didn’t want to become something that resembles a contemporary dancer. That’s not my evolution. My evolution is to explore the possibilities I might have as a dance artist.

Jen: What has it been like stepping into the work of someone who has such a honed language? How did this affect the time spans when he wasn’t part of the rehearsal process?

Jean: I didn’t know what to expect. I had never been involved in somebody else’s process to this extent. For some reason, again, I had to rely on some instinct of not judging myself, not judging the piece, not judging Tere. It was like somebody was creating a script for me to learn and do and continue to deepen and interpret. [In terms of] the movement material, I think it’s very similar to how he works with his company. There are certain pieces that he sets absolutely and he will teach verbatim. Then, there are certain pieces where I will respond to what he’s doing and he’ll pull out things that spark and he’ll reintroduce them in a new way. There are moments of improvisation. The movement material is very organic. It was also, at times, very difficult because I had to learn different ways of moving. One of the main ways had to do with the spine.

Another thing that we talked about was fully embodying the movement. This was a notion I understood maybe theoretically, but not physically. I wasn’t able to inhabit that in the beginning. I began to realize when I was using my whole self and when I wasn’t. That’s a big departure for me, to understand that. I see that in performers that I’m attracted to and now I understand more fully how that works. That doesn’t mean I’m successful at all times, but I understand more what’s involved.

Jen: You’ve mentioned to me previously that the piece pretty much eats you alive. Maybe you used different words. Could you talk more about being inside the work and the experience you’ve had in relationship to all of these things you’ve just mentioned?

Jean: It’s a brand new experience for me to be working on so many different levels simultaneously. I’ve had to learn to move in an entirely different way that is an extension of me, not imposed on me. I’ve also had to remember phrases, timings, and non-sequential episodic situations that are unnatural to my thinking. On top of that, there’s a whole personal narrative within the score of the piece that is fluid, that changes. It’s incredibly complex for me.

The experience of performing that piece and what it does to one’s nervous system was very unexpected. There’s not a moment when you can’t believe fully in the awkwardness of what you may be feeling. The minute you do that, you’re outside of it in a way that’s not relevant.

The piece eating me from the inside out also relates to the way I view the work. I sometimes think of a Jackson Pollock painting where the visceral action of the painting is as evident as the totality of the painting. Tere’s work, for me, is almost all subtext. There’s no text, it’s just the subtext.

I had to constantly locate exactly where I was at each moment, and [each of those moments] throughout the several times I’ve performed them, are completely different. [It depends] on how I am, how the audience is, or what just happened previously. I am putting myself into this car, and I know where it’s going to go, but I don’t know what’s going to happen along the way and when I get there. That’s total engagement. So, in the middle of all this, I feel like the piece is on top of me and around me. I’m swimming in it and I’m struggling in it and I’m breathing in it and there’s mud thrown at me in it. It’s pretty psychological for me.

Jen: You mentioned earlier to me that you were going to be teaching in and around some of the thoughts, concepts, and ideas that have come up through this work and possibly other work you’ve done. Can you pinpoint any of those at this time? What is some language that you find yourself negotiating even when you’re not on stage in front of people? What are the parameters that have to be there for you to be a performer now?

Jean: Tere’s piece requires an absolute commitment to every single breathing moment you’re on stage. [There needs to be a] commitment to the actual vocabulary and a commitment to the fluidity of state that happens in performance. Sometimes I feel like a little girl, sometimes I feel like I’m not human, sometimes I feel like I’m just a fixture of choreography. It’s the complexity of that experience that is absolutely engrossing and engaging to dance.

I think about the full possibilities of the transformative powers of performance. That really interests me. Who am I when I do this? What memory do I have of the performance, if any? What has occurred? It’s almost like my Hamlet. It feels that intense.

Jen: What was it like to premiere DAY in Dublin, where you’re known as one kind of performer? How did that feed into your desires, anticipations, or worries?

Jean: It’s a tricky thing when I perform in Ireland. I’m part of the national landscape of dance because of my relationship to Irish Dancing. At the same time, the contemporary dance world has witnessed a certain departure [from that tradition], but not an exiting. It was more just like “She wants to explore something else, but she’s not denying her past in any way.”

I did a solo show in Ireland that was very much a portrait of where I was at the time, where I had been, and what might come in the future. I feel that the Irish audiences were intrigued by where I was going and what I was doing, but I didn’t feel any sense of validation. I felt skepticism.

When I came back [with DAY], I didn’t have a sense of what people would expect. I didn’t really worry about it that much. After the piece, the reviewers were heralding my arrival into the contemporary dance scene, which was kind of amusing. I felt authenticated by them in some way because of that. But it was about them, not me. I think this also had to do with the combination of me and Tere’s work. For them to enter into Tere’s work through me was a very interesting thing. For me to enter into the contemporary dance world (from their perspective) through Tere’s work was an interesting thing.

I also think Ireland is thinking “Well, what is she going to do next?” I have no idea what’s next. That will hit me when it hits me. It was a very personal choice to put myself out there in this way.

Jen: Do you have certain anticipations or hopes for the upcoming New York premiere at Danspace Project?

Jean: My ultimate dream was to do this piece in New York. I like to think I am somehow a small part of a community, and I have a lot of very good supportive friends who understand what I’m doing. I have a lot of other people who maybe know me but haven’t seen me dance anything relevant to what I’m about right now. For me, it’s important in terms of an introduction. But I wouldn’t be naïve enough to think that my background won’t be omnipresent [in viewers’ perception of the piece]. All I can do is hope that they view the piece not just from that perspective and that they view the piece as what it is: a dancer dancing Tere O’Connor’s work.

Jen: We have ideas in our head that in order to work with an established choreographer, you have to build a long history of a relationship with them. You don’t ask them, they invite you. The childlike nature of how this came about, this inquiry of “I’m interested in this information. Will you show it to me?” is amazing.

I’d also be interested in hearing you talk about Heather Olsen [who acted as rehearsal director for DAY] and the other dancers in Tere’s company. Matthew Rogers [a performer in Tere O’Connor’s company] said at your first showing at the Joyce Soho that there was just so much integrity in the work. Whether it’s beneficial for you to be aware of your load, it’s there. [Tere] has a honed voice, and he has specific people he works with consistently. We’re used to seeing that. We’re used to taking the work in a certain way. There’s a just a brilliance in your performance that took a lot of work. You probably don’t even realize how much work . . . maybe you do. [laughs]

Jean: No, I don’t. I don’t really see the affect of it. I realize the nature of it, and I talked a lot about commitment and being interested. I also think I had nothing to lose. Jodi Melnick was the one who said “You can ask. He can say yes or he can say no, but you’ve got to ask.” It does seem ridiculously simple. I’m sure Tere’s decision to say yes was not simple. Maybe he was just curious. Maybe he was interested in working with somebody he hasn’t worked with or that wasn’t part of his world. I had only seen one of his dance pieces. He had never seen me dance.

Heather was a big part of this process as were Michael O’Connor, the lighting designer, James Baker [composer], and Sylvia Grieser, the costume designer. It doesn’t feel like a solo. There are five people with me on stage as I’m doing this. That is a huge amount of support . . . even though it’s my ass out there if I mess up! There is an enormous amount of work that everybody has put into this and I feel very grateful for that. I’ve danced alone a lot, and I’ve never experienced this camaraderie.

The piece was made in two parts of the year, because Tere teaches in Champaign-Urbana [Illinois]. We finished it in December 2009, and then Heather and I went into the studio on and off for three months. She literally combed through the material with me and reiterated things that Tere had been talking about and reintroduced new angles. It’s too simplistic to say Tere wrote a short story and Heather came in and helped me punctuate it. There was something about her experience and actually doing the movement with me as we combed through it and her suggestions about certain things. Useful things like imagining the floor is foam or a trampoline or a rock or . . . Images that I could work with that give certain things a different tone. She really helped me understand from a dancer’s perspective. She was invaluable to the process.

My whole dance background has been to please or impress, to a certain extent. None of those things matter in this type of work. I had to constantly re-check my relationship with what I was doing to make sure this isn’t about the pleasing. This is about entering in the deepest possible way. That was pretty heavy stuff.

There’s a whole part of me that’s tried to stay practical about the piece. That’s been some weird strength. This is like learning a different language and speaking it through a translator in a different country. This is something you have to completely immerse yourself in and don’t question in a judgmental way. If anything, I feel it has a conviction about it that reads. It’s important to me, because I want to continue to dance, so it’s nice to know those things.