Here is the unedited list of ideas and questions* that inspired each of us to engage in this endeavor. It comes from the original email I sent to the cast: 1. exploration of “expression” through Laban, postmodern dance, and Somatics lenses in an attempt to continue the evolution of what that word means in the performing arts. 2. release technique, interrupted 3. contact improvisation as a way of honing listening skills, creating connections within the cast, revealing the physics of human relationships….a million other things. you’ll tell me, I’m sure, but it’s always a part of my process in some way. 4. speaking, soundmaking, singing 5. I took a choreography intensive with Joe Goode a few years ago. He talked all week about “setting aside the imperative of genre” and I’ve been very interested in that idea ever since. The body, moving, is my primary inroad, but I am interested in humans being fully human, which for me means language, objects…so much more than just bodies moving. BUT, I’m also interested in dance. I hope to learn something about that this summer with you all by teaching actual dance phrases and working with them until they are both dance and…something else. 6. Emotion. What has happened in dance that makes me cringe when this word comes up? We are emotional beings! Maybe a bit like spirituality…how do we recognize what’s already there, let it in (or out), but not try to “make” it? I don’t know….but I want to learn something about this. I’ve been practicing a bit in my own performance work and really want to step outside of it a bit. 7. breaking, (bending, moving, moving in, standing in, questioning the location of) the ‘fourth wall’. What our relationship to the audience? What is our responsibility to them? 8. revealing process in the product (I think improvisation fits somewhere here, and I hope that some of our performance is made during the actual performance). 9. silence, stillness, spaciousness. how can we make that work for us (and the audience) in the age of Bigger, Better, Faster, More?? 10. most of my work has happened on a bare stage. hopefully not this time…11. Accessibility.
* It feels important to mention that we ended up spending more time working with Deborah Hay’s ideas than any of these!
