Life as a Modern Dancer

Artist Profile #168: Tanya Chianese (Oakland, CA)

Hometown: Los Angeles, CA

Current city: Oakland, CA

Age: 30

College and degree: University of Oklahoma: BFA in Modern Dance, BA in Art History

Website: www.kaneisee.org

How you pay the bills: Choreography commissions, teaching dance to youth and adults, Summer Dance Lab Manager at Shawl-Anderson Dance Center

All of the dance hats you wear: Choreographer, teacher, company manager/administrator (which includes everything from social media marketing to budgeting to grant writing to booking space to editing music), dancer (less recently), mentor

Non-dance work you do or have done in the past: House cleaner, bartender, server, and clothing retail.

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ka·nei·see | collective in Cookie Cutter. Dancers Emma Salmon, Vera Schwegler, Rebecca Morris, Ali Weeks, and Mallory Markham. Photo by Rob Best.

The first year after college:

I had two full-time jobs and taught dance classes on the side. I chose to stay in Oklahoma for one year (where I had gone to college) before moving to the San Francisco Bay Area. I worked regular business hours (plus performances!) for the Oklahoma City Ballet as a general administrator, which was invaluable in my journey to becoming an AD. There I learned how to do everything from making budgets, to planning fundraising galas, organizing costume inventory, working box office during the busy Nutcracker season, etc. At night and on the weekends I worked as a bartender where I not only had a blast and worked for marvelous owners, but was able to save enough money to pay off a hunk of my student loans as well as backpack through Europe for two months (which is when I met my now husband). During that same year I taught at a local dance school one night a week, and eventually implemented a ballet program implemented by Oklahoma City Ballet for blind and visually impaired children and adults. After that sleepless year I moved back to California, where I hoped to pursue being a dance artist.

Five years post-college:

After 4 enlightening, scary, educating, creative, poor, and eye-opening years in the Bay Area full of freelance dancing, various arts administration jobs, and building my teaching curriculum, I launched my company ka·nei·see | collective (inspired by the words “can I see?” and the phonetic spelling of my last name) with my closest friends. The company’s first home season premiered January 2015 to sold-out houses and generous press. From there we jumped in. At the time I was teaching 6 days a week, dancing in 2-3 various projects, taking class almost daily, and figuring out how to run a dance company. It was during this time I started to back away from performing in order to invest more time and energy into choreographing. This is also when I finally understood that the spoon fed version of “success” in dance was relative, and that instead there are infinite definitions of success!

Now:

Still bouncing between my many roles, still taking stabs in the dark and learning new things every day. Overall, my teaching and administrative work is consistent while my choreographic projects (either with the company or commissions elsewhere) come and go in waves, bringing me in and out of the many stages of the creative process. No two months are the same.

Major influences and inspiration:

At risk of sounding cliché, there are too many to name! Some include: all forms of art (hence that degree in art history...); stories of perseverance and compassion; my family, friends, colleagues, and mentors; nature and non-humans; a long, ever growing list of dance movers, makers and teachers.

ka·nei·see | collective in Nevertheless. Dancers Clarissa Dyas, Rebecca Morris, Mallory Markham, Madeline Matuska, and Vera Schwegler. Photo by Robbie Sweeny.

What is on your calendar for 2019?

Having just been named one of Dance Magazine’s “25 to Watch” for 2019,” I’m feeling a strange mix of giddy excitement and crippling fear. So far in 2019, the company is producing a large performance piece and art gallery about sexual harassment in collaboration with Cat Call Choir, March 7-10 at Z Space (San Francisco); we are going on tour to Seattle, WA this June; I am a choreographer in ODC/Dance’s Sandbox Series program; I have a consistent teaching schedule throughout the school year; and I am directing the summer programming at Shawl-Anderson Dance Center. As is the norm in this career, I am continually applying to and seeking out opportunities - so we shall see what else arises.  I love choreographing for college dance programs, and I hope to cultivate more of these experiences this year - this is me putting this dream out there!

What is the role of teaching within your dance life? What do you love about teaching? What does the phrase “teaching artist” mean to you?

I could write a novel in response to these questions! Most of my income is from teaching dance, and I adore it. I used to teach upwards of 18 classes a week, but recently only 7-10 a week. Teaching helps me stay grounded and in reality. Because I have the pleasure of teaching a large age range (age 3-adults) I get to explore dance from all sides, ranging from focusing on the placement of our scapula bones to telling stories via creative movement. Each age, level, and context has taught me so much - both as an artist and a human.

But most importantly, teaching is not about me! It is about sharing this transformational practice in order to teach students a variety of lessons including how to take ownership of their body, how to express themselves, how discipline and respect will move them through life, how to be compassionate in the world, how to release stress and anxiety, how to work as a community, and so much more.

Can you talk about building your dance company? When did you know you wanted to start your own company? What does a typical week look like with your work with the company (choreographing, rehearsing, arts admin, fundraising)?

I have always wanted to be a choreographer: one of my first dances was to Madonna’s Borderline where my sister kindly lay on the floor and I continually jumped over her, the “borderline.” Innovative, I know...ha! Years later when I was ready to start presenting my choreography professionally I knew I didn’t want to present under simply my name. I wanted to create a cohort, a family of artists who felt proud of the collective work we developed together. Hence, ka·nei·see | collective.

There is no typical week of company work, as it depends on the current project(s) and what stage of the process(es) we’re in. We roughly rehearse together anywhere from 3 to 10 hours a week (more for tech weeks). On my end, for my various roles for the company, I work anywhere from 7 to 30 or more hours a week. All of the collaborating artists, myself included, have a variety of jobs and projects we are involved in, so we have to be efficient with our creative time together, which can sometimes be frustrating when we’re trying to sink into the creative process. Time is a gift.

As a choreographer, questions on your mind right now:

1. I am worried about the sustainability of concert dance and am wondering how we cultivate more dance goers and lovers. The word “accessible” is really important to me. Creatively, what makes a work both genuinely accessible to the masses and thought provoking to seasoned dancers? Logistically, what programs can we continue to put into place to foster dance interest, involvement and  appreciation?
2. How do we make social change? So far for me this means either hoping my work inspires audiences to ask questions of themselves and their environment and/or brings awareness to an issue, hopefully potentially resulting in individuals feeling compelled to do something in response. But is that really successful? What other approaches are there? And what are the psychological factors that make work intriguing enough to genuinely spark change?
3. Privilege, gender, and racial equality in dance.
4. Since I cannot emotionally sustain always making work about social justice, how can I discuss the necessity and importance of work whose mission isn’t as overt?
5. Personally, how do I switch my brain while in process between a creator and the person who’s receiving the “I’m late!” texts from dancers or the emails about ticketing system malfunctions. How can I stay invested in the work and not be influenced by the neverending outside factors? I am currently practicing this.

Tanya Chianese in rehearsal with ka·nei·see | collective. Photo by Rob Best.

How do you find dancers? What do you look for in a dancer?

When I started ka·nei·see | collective, I asked my closest friends to collaborate with me. Besides the obvious, which is that they are powerhouse performers, this was the best choice because out of love they were willing to commit fully to a process with me for little money and also to compassionately stumble through things with me as I learned how to direct. Besides those who have moved away, all of these marvelous women still dance with the company and have been pillars to our success.

I am drawn in by dancers who clearly have a technical foundation but have also clearly cultivated and explored their personal movement aesthetics. Because I do so much group work they still need to be able to move as one with other dancers, but when given solo movement they can transform it into their own language. Of course, I am also interested in artists who ask questions, who invest in the process with me, who communicate, and who are both passionate and compassionate individuals.

I am still figuring out the best way to find new dancers. Auditions have proved remarkably successful for me in finding brilliant artists, however the rejection process is by far the worst part of this role I have yet to experience. Our recent audition had 67 participants, and writing 64 personalized “no” emails took all of my emotional wellbeing, especially as I cherish many of the dancers I could not afford to hire. The rejection practice in general is not how I wish to be involved in my community, though there is simply no way around it in some cases.

Asking artists directly seems like the best option, but I also only want to work with movers who genuinely want to collaborate with me, too. The best processes are conversations, and those are best had when both parties enthusiastically want to be there. If only there was Tinder for pairing makers and movers...

On finding a mentor:

Don’t be afraid to reach out to someone you admire; they are only human and are probably honored by your enthusiasm!

How do you balance the administrative and creative needs/projects for your company?

I don’t - it’s honestly a constant struggle. Over the past few years I have had to make sacrifices in other aspects of my dance identity, such as performing less or teaching fewer classes, in order to make enough space for the many aspects of running the company. I don’t regret it even a little bit; how lucky I feel that I get to do this! When I have to negotiate admin work that is no fun or genuinely horrible, I move forward by reminding myself of the end goal which is the creative work itself and its possible impact, the opportunities built for others, and the self fulfillment.

Financial advice to pass onto dancers just embarking on starting their own company:

As leaders in our field, it is our responsibility to change the trend of unpaid dance work, not the performers’. I think suggestions that imply dancers should insist on not working for free is unfair - it underestimates just how hungry and desperate dancers are to move, especially young artists. The job is not on them, it is on us. The first time I presented work publicly I paid each dancer a whopping $15 - basically their bus fare and a coffee. Fortunately I pay more than that now, but still nowhere near enough. Regardless, I have paid artists for every single show we have ever done, no matter how small, and am working hard to continually increase pay.

I have never made a single dollar from my work as director of ka·nei·see | collective, but rather, I still pay for much of it out of my own pocket. All company income (donations, grants, or ticket sales) goes directly towards production expenses and my collaborating artists. Though many have told me to pay myself, I have zero regrets. This is my dream, and the happiness I receive from making work is worth more than anything. And it is also necessary - my collaborators are still not paid enough, and monetarily supporting and thanking them is the most important financial expense. Without them, there is no art.

What does wellness mean to you? How do you support wellness for your dancers?

With our current project Nevertheless about sexual harassment and assault, we have had to take lots of emotional breaks both in and out of the studio. Not only are we researching difficult stories, articles, investigations, and history on a daily basis, but inside the studio we are embodying, and swiftly shifting between, both the harasser and the victim. It takes a significant amount of vulnerability and strength. We are practicing loving touch at the beginning of rehearsal and conversation throughout the process. I make it a point to check-in (outside of the studio) with dancers when I notice them struggling. I strive to be open and approachable - I believe and hope if my collaborators know I trust, believe in, and listen to them then they are given the freedom to push themselves and the work to new levels.

Final thoughts: Hope/belief/love of the profession:

There are simply no words to express my love affair with dance - perhaps you feel the same way. Everyone dances, and everyone deserves to dance. It is never ever about perfection or about “success” (as I thought as a young dancer), but instead about the art and making sense of the world via authentic, shared explorations and experiences. It is my hope to make this creative world more accessible to the masses.

And thank you, everyone, for everything! I am so lucky to be in this family of dance with you.

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Writing on Dance: A Response to Katie Faulkner’s Divining (ODC Theater, February 15, 2019)

The Oxford English Dictionary defines divining as an intuitive, sage-like form of discovery or a power for seeing the future. It often refers to the practices that people rely on to navigate the unknown. In her notes, choreographer Katie Faulkner references these definitions, suggesting that within them “the body becomes a conduit for felt or intuited knowledge.” It is here - with the body - that Faulkner’s Divining explores human power and fragility within a stark landscape that seems to be everywhere and nowhere.

Photo: Stephen Texeira

The dance opens in stillness, in silence, in fragments. A slow humming sound accompanied various tableaus that sculpted the dancers' bodies into shapes with hands supporting or resting on each other as if to signal future intentions. Once the dancers start moving, Faulkner’s suburb movement vocabulary is on display - articulate, intimate gestures and rhythms. The dancers - Alex Carrington, Chinchin Hsu, Tara McArthur, and Suzette Sagisi - moved diagonally across the floor, mostly in unison, with feet pounding while arms and heads moved sharply. Their hunched over bodies suggested a reverence of sorts, perhaps for the practice of seeking or devotion. This reverence-without-object was a frequent tópos in Divining, a common reference point throughout the full-length piece. The dance kept drawing the audience into such moments that seemed almost other-worldly due in part to the superb music composition by Ben Juordvalkis that incorporated both familiar and unfamiliar soundscapes. Did I hear the cracking of wood burning; the sound of an airplane, crickets at night?

Carrington, Hsu, McArthur, and Sagisi danced with committed grace, displaying the complexity of Faulkner’s choreographic thinking. At one point Hsu moved in large steps around the stage, clasping her hands together, never letting go. Her body appeared both in and out of control, reflecting how it feels during times of not knowing what to do or where to turn. Similarly, Faulkner’s use of the breath reminds us of how we experience the unexpected as felt surprises. In another diagonal movement, the four dancers move backwards, holding the breath and slowing down as if caught by something. This kind of repetition is also reflective of practice - if we keep doing the same thing again and again can we gain new knowledge or perspective? Can we change? Will something else change?  Divining included many of these repeating moments that played with the multiple sensibilities of being human or other than human. All four dancers scampered across the stage in crab walks that ended up with ears to the ground, slowly moving - suffering? searching? waiting?

Photo: Stephen Texeira

As Divining came to an end, stillness returned and with it a single note. Hsu slowly goes to each dancer, looking for a way to connect. She finally does - her hand to an elbow. As this sweet moment evolves, Hsu doesn’t let go. Can an elbow be enough? Following this question, Hsu, Carrington, and MacArthur witness, along with the audience, Sagisi's bursts of laughter evolving into an overwhelming display of how an emotion, like joy, which is not singular but multifarious. Taken to the edge of uncomfortableness, this section leads into the last tableau with all four dancers leaning back on their forearms, staring up at the sky with expressions of wonder. This last scene offers hope. Hope that our bodies, for all of their faults and fits, know something about being in the world. Faulkner’s faith in the body’s resilience offers a way of seeing the future not as an object, but as a process of discovery.

The work on display in Divining - choreography, lights, music, dancing - raises important questions about how we we face the future and offers hope in the form of moving, breathing, and wondering bodies. We are definitely not alone - all we have to do is find a welcoming elbow, look up at the sky, or just breathe.

 

Michelle LaVigne is a dancer, writer, and teacher. Currently she teaches rhetoric at the University of San Francisco. Her writing/research focuses on the intersections of dance, rhetoric, and performance. Michelle is interested in how practices of rhetoric might be rethought from the movements of dance and choreographic praxis. Her current project on The Nutcracker explores what its multiple repetitions over time say about the cultural present and contemporary ballet. Michelle often presents at national and international conferences and has published reviews in the Quarterly Journal of Speech, Text and Performance Quarterly, Theater & Drama Review, and Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. She was also a guest writer for the ODC Theater Writer in Residence Blog, Triple Dog Dare, in 2014 and 2016.  Since 2018 she has been a guest scholar with San Francisco Ballet. She blogs about dance in San Francisco at sfdancematters.

 

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Related posts:

One Good Quote: Katie Faulkner's Divining

Artist Profile #1: Katie Faulkner

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One Good Quote: Katie Faulkner's little seismic dance company in Divining

Photo: Stephen Texeira

In Fall 2017, Life as a Modern Dancer launched a new concept for post-performance discussion and writing. The goals are multi-fold:

• What are new ways to invite post-performance writing (since so few publications now print dance reviews, and there are fewer and fewer dance critics in the United States)?
• How can choreographers hear and read more from audience members about their impressions and experiences of dance events?
• Can we offer new mechanisms for choreographers to gather language about their work, to further their work and to promote their work? 

The premise is simple. If you attended Katie Faulkner's little seismic dance company in Divining at the ODC Theater in San Francisco February 14-16, 2019, please take a few minutes here to leave a comment. Write down images, impressions, appreciations, and questions from the performance. These can be words, phrases, or a few sentences. 

We thank you for your time, support, and thoughtfulness. Here's to more dialogue, more reflection, and more writing on the dance performance experience. As choreographer Mariah Steele noted, we are "democratizing dance criticism."

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CriticalMasses: 8x8x8 (January 24, 2019)

For the second year in a row, Paufve Dance invited 8 people to write and respond to its annual 8x8x8 performance. The event on January 24, 2019 at The Uptown in Oakland, CA was its 13th iteration. These 8 writers include audience members as well as performers in the show.

Dazaun Soleyn and Hien Huynh. Photo by Hans Holtan.

Aviva Rose-Williams

Many thoughts leaving 8x8x8…

A cacophony of reflection.

I receive this performance as a gift. It is planned, ordered, well-thought out. Hours of studio time weave themselves through the performers’ physicality. Thoughts emerge as momentum. Sound. The environment and its audience are wrapped around these delights, coveting them, witnessing them, giving them reason to exist. Creating a space in which they can resonate. Finally.

Though the presentations hold their own valuable wonders, I experienced 8x8x8 this year like most 1 year olds experience birthdays. Nothing could snag my attention and get me more reeling in excitement than the colorful, crunchy wrapping. An audience practically humming with energy, I was taken with how powerful the simple presence of witnessing can be in terms of justifying a piece of art’s existence. How the mass of people ironically adds to the intimacy, how the exposure in-the-round can create such a feeling of shared experience.

I leave in deep question within my own practice about the strength and necessity of others to create a framework in which my work can resonate, in this top-secret collaboration. 

Molly Rose-Williams and Aviva Rose-Williams. Photo by Hans Holtan.

Molly Rose-Williams

My sister's body next to me, my beating heart, attentive generosity on a round sea of faces. Not hard to keep a straight face; easy easy easy to smile.

Heather Stockton of Wax Poet(s). Photo by Hans Holtan.

Garth Grimball

On January 24, I attended my first 8x8x8. Randee Paufve, creator and curator of the annual event, invited the dance collaborative I co-direct, Wax Poet(s), to perform. My best friend and dance partner, Heather Stockton, performed an excerpt from our upcoming show. Usually when part of a festival or mixed bill I don’t get to see the work of fellow performers. Being part of the artistic line-up, but not performing, allowed me the unique experience of all-access backstage and a front row seat for the show. On this night, the comradery of the artists and the generosity in their performing reminded me of Jerome Robbins’s commentary on the counter-culture of the 1960s:

“What’s the matter with connecting, what’s the matter with love, what’s the matter with celebrating positive things? Why – I asked myself – does everything have to be so separated and alienated; so that there’s this almost constant push to disconnect.”

To be completely genuine can be the most transgressive act. It is disarming. Few are the daily conversations not laced with sarcasm or glibness, fear or self-deprecation. Casualness passing as caring. It is easier to put yourself down than declare your vulnerability. 8x8x8 felt like pessimism Febreze; each dance a spray dissolving my own dismissiveness, revealing the love that brought me to dance. Whether it was creating rhythm on and through the body, piercing the commodification of activism, or dissecting the bond of twinhood, the art was vulnerable, the performers genuine, and I drank it up.

Which brings me to another highlight of this event – intimacy. The audience surrounds the performers on all sides, just a few feet away, drinking, laughing, snuggling. It’s a performance surrounding a performance. Like Christo and Jean-Claude wrapping the Pont-Neuf in fabric, the container of the audience transforms the familiar into the fantastic. Contours merging and emerging. It’s not distracting. It’s liberating from the constant push to disconnect.

AXIS Dance Company. Photo by Hans Holtan.

Raven Malouf-Renning

This was my third 8×8×8, and my first being a member of the audience. Being on the other side this time afforded me a different perspective on how the space and the immediacy of the audience has an effect on the performers and the work. AXIS Dance Company - Quartet No. 1 Excerpt What struck me the most about this piece, aside from the fluid technique, strong partner work, and palpable onstage chemistry between the two dancers was just how normalized it was that one of the performers was born without a left arm. She was able to give and receive weight from her partner, and the way her partner touched the limb - no hesitation, no skirting around the reality of it, was beautiful. Antwan Davis - Commitment to Fire Antwan Davis has a knack for taking to the stage and weaving together a symphony of textures of movement, sound, and audience participation. He ably wove together complex patterns of tap dancing, body percussion, and the sound of his voice, and made it look graceful and effortless. At one point, he asked the audience to inject a few overlapping and interlocking clapping rhythms so that we were not merely voyeurs, but part of the score. Molly Rose-Williams and Aviva Rose-Williams - Mind The Gap This piece was particularly poignant for me, as I am an older sibling of identical twins. So many times over the years, I've witnessed my sisters being so telepathically linked that they appeared to be sharing the same brain. Seeing a very similar dynamic play out onstage felt like being home. Partnering work requires being intimately in sync with the partner you're working with. Molly and Aviva took advantage of their unique link as "wombmates," and with their strong mental link, they were able to take more risks with their partner work than most dancers.  Heather Stockton/Wax Poet(s) - fey/done/a/weigh Speaking as another dancer of size, it was truly gratifying to see Heather Stockton take up space on the stage and own it. There was a strength and clarity to their movement that I especially appreciated. Fog Beast - A Little Bit of the Big Reveal At times, this piece was difficult to watch, which was rather the point. When one of the dancers arrived onstage shirtless, he was described by another performer as an intricately designed AI. This felt to me like commentary on the objectivication and fetishization to which we often subject members of marginalized groups. What struck me about the dancer being described was that he seemed to be looking right into the hearts and souls of every single member of the audience. That, ironically, was the part of the piece that felt the most human. Julie Crothers - Second Hand At first, this piece felt like a simple, garden variety solo dance. After a time of watching the dancer emphasize her left hand, it struck me that the fingers never moved. Just as I thought to myself "Is this a prosthetic?" - her forearm and hand disengaged from her upper arm, hanging from her sweater, and exaggerating the length of her limb. Watching her duet with her prosthetic, and then later removing her own clothing and using it to dress up the prosthetic, spoke to me as a commentary on the lengths we go to in order to make ourselves "acceptable" to the average person on the street. Seeing Crothers standing in her underwear, wholly and unapologetically herself, was a powerful moment for me. Dazaun Soleyn - Emergence It is still such a rare thing in the dance world to see two men partner with one another with such a feeling of tenderness. It was so gratifying to see. Bandelion - Room to Fall Apart Reviewing a group that I've been lucky to perform with as a guest artist is tricky at best. One of Bandelion's strengths is its ability to explore emotional landscapes that most groups don't quite touch. Seeing each performer show up in the space as themselves, with whatever rawness they were feeling in the moment, rather than putting on a brave face and "making it work," has beautiful potential. The constraints of time and space inherent to an event like 8×8×8 tends to hem in the group's long-arcing, exploratory style, and so we as the audience merely got a taste of what the full scope of the piece was about. I look forward to seeing this piece in its entirety, where the group will truly have room to fall apart. Antwan Davis. Photo by Hans Holtan. Antwan Davis

How does an artist know if their work is landing/resonating in their community? And what does a community response to art look like?

Hmm, great question. I believe as an artist you embody your artistry. Your passion, intentions, and creativity are reflected back at you when you give your essence, either in class, on stage or in daily interactions. You can feel the energy in the room, see their faces and hear it in their voices if your creativity had a positive or negative effect on them. I feel as artists, what we reflect to our communities is light, the possibilities, and a gleam to our higher selves. Now, what does it look like? Inspiration is a muse that will propel you in many directions. After performances you can see it in body languages. For me personally, I had people feel open and free enough to share their personal passion with me. It’s an energy and light I don't believe we as people get to live in or share in enough. It's fresh and a pure joy when you get to do so.  

I also believe when you are talking about the artist community, knowing if your work resonates and seeing the types of community responses can be a positively monumental experience towards moving an art form and an arts community forward. I know for me, when I see art that really moves me. I'm inspired to share my love and passion more. I am a student again, relearning, restructuring fundamentals and looking to progress the art form I represent the way I experienced it the night before. Or, I've been inspired to go vote, teach as many children as possible and call my mother to remind her, that everything I am, is an extension of everything you are.

Fog Beast. Photo by Hans Holtan.

Rebecca Johnson

8x8x8 was a marriage. I am now a single married woman.

Every moment of movement allowed for a peculiarly delightful voyeurism, watching each other watch the dance. Watching the photographer capture an even closer view of what was unfolding.

The union multiplied throughout the evening as I fell in love, not only with each dance, but with each person watching the dance. It was a knowing that each moment of movement shined brilliantly because it was fueled by dedication, courage and honesty – but also because it was received and regarded with deep respect, beautiful attention and a willing levity.

What was dark became light and the light became dark in the dialogue between dancer and recipient. The electricity of so many intimacies happening all at once, like the architecture of a protein: miniature, delicate, mutable, temporary yet powerful enough to sustain a body. “Proteins form by amino acids undergoing condensation reactions, in which the amino acids lose one water molecule per reaction in order to attach to one another…"* Each molecule of dancer perspiration shed that evening fueled a bond to hold onto.

*from the Wikipedia page on “protein structure”

Julie Crothers. Photo by Hans Holtan.

Ramona Nadaff and Sima Belmar

Last year, Ramona Naddaff and I live tweeted 8x8x8 together. This year, Ramona couldn't be at the show, so we met after the fact to talk about it. Some of the questions I pose in our discussion have since been answered, but we've elected to leave the mystery in tact here. 

Sima: There was one element of this 8x8x8 that I had never seen before. They had a photographer who was on the floor for every dance, but I mean all up in every dance. And I don't know if that was on purpose but he was like a bug that was literally like really close, really moving around, really a presence in every dance. It was the weirdest thing I'd ever seen. Apparently, it really bugged (ha ha) a lot of people. They were like, What the fuck is he doing? He's in the way. And he was sometimes literally in the way. Melecio at one point had to move him out of the way as he entered into the space to do his thing. I loved it. I was like, When does that happen? So I spent a lot of time enjoying that negotiation.

Ramona: I'm going to push you with your verbs and adjectives. What did you love about this?

Sima: Well, he didn't belong there and he became part of every piece. And it surprised me that no one caught that in advance. How did a dance photographer get all up in the dance? Was that an 8x8x8 plan? And so what you had in the first piece, two women doing dancey movement with arabesques and legs and partnering and dramatic music, in stretchy Lamentations-style skirts, with big bounding rhythms, and then the photographer was going [here I offer a series of sound effects in the effort to produce the photographer's skittering bug or flitting fly rhythm]. 

Ramona: So in some ways he was the weird body –a sort of out of place body. Did he have any rhythmic sensitivity to music, sound, body?

Sima: No. He was like a quarterback. He was finding the holes. He wasn’t on the periphery. He kept scooting into the middle. It was so funny. He held the spirit of 8x8x8. I think 8x8x8 is meant to be messy, surprising, even awkward. 

Ramona: I am trying to give him another name than a bug. Could have been the stranger? The interloper? The uninvited?

Sima: I don’t know. As a viewer I'm disinclined to make a story out of it. The material reality of him was interesting to me. He was the photographer, he was meant to be discreet. He was the opposite. If 8x8x8 is meant to re-contextualize and reframe concert dance so we see it differently, he added another layer of that. He made me think about the labor of capture and of documentation and he made it look like it was hard to do. Which it is. Few take good dance photographs. He was like a TV version of a fashion photographer, the one running around saying, "Yes yes yes! Do it again! Gorgeous! Just like that!" but silently. I am kind of obsessed with him. 

Ramona: Two free associations about that night. 

Sima: Words?

Ramona: Whatever you want want—words, movements. Asking questions is not fee associating.

Sima: I don’t know!

Ramona: Okay. Here’s a word: Hand.

Sima: One or two.

Ramona: Rhythms.

Sima: Concatanated. That's all I got.

Ramona: Title you would give it.

Sima: Dreamboat. I’m really bad at this. Dreamboat has nothing to do with anything.

Ramona: Moving on.

Sima: It's difficult for me to talk about 8x8x8 because it's run by one of my best friends. I was there at its inception. I feel excluded from it, but by my own design. No fault of anyone's. One of my former best friends was there, and it was awkward. There's so much history, so much that is personal and emotional at stake.

Ramona: Maybe I should have talked to some one else? [laughs]

Sima: What were you wanting to know? Did you have an agenda?

Ramona: Not really. I only knew I did not want you to describe each dance. I wanted elements that remained in your mind and body. That’s all I knew. I do want to ask you this and I knew this: How or did it affect how you taught your class [at Cal], your thinking on writing and embodiment? 

Sima: I think I am gone from any kind of dance writing I did in the past. I can barely describe a dance anymore. Patricia Hampl, in her essay "The Dark Art of Description," talks about how description leads to memory, history—a recursive, dialectical relation. You describe something and it tells you what you are interested in. With dance, I am already so meta. Like with 8x8x8, it’s a discursive project. I don’t’ know what I am trying to say. I have such a personal relationship with 8x8x8, anything I say would be mostly about me and my lens is so particular. So for my class, I suppose my experience thinking about writing about 8x8x8 reinforces my belief that writing practice, even academic writing practice, is about discovering the "youness" in your writing and being responsible for your perspective, your interests, to let us know what your relationship is to your subject and get out of the garbage of objectivity.

Bandelion. Photo by Hans Holtan.

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Related posts:

CriticalMasses (2018)

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One Good Quote: Heartland + Dance Party, with Molly Heller (February 10, 2019)

Molly Heller. Photo by Tori Duhaime.

In Fall 2017, Life as a Modern Dancer launched a new concept for post-performance discussion and writing. The goals are multi-fold:

• What are new ways to invite post-performance writing (since so few publications now print dance reviews, and there are fewer and fewer dance critics in the United States)?
• How can choreographers hear and read more from audience members about their impressions and experiences of dance events?
• Can we offer new mechanisms for choreographers to gather language about their work, to further their work and to promote their work? 

The premise is simple. If you attended Molly Heller's Heartland + Dance Party at the Beehive Concert Venue in Salt Lake City on February 10, 2019, please take a few minutes here to leave a comment. Write down images, impressions, appreciations, and questions from the performance. These can be words, phrases, or a few sentences. 

We thank you for your time, support, and thoughtfulness. Here's to more dialogue, more reflection, and more writing on the dance performance experience. As choreographer Mariah Steele noted, we are "democratizing dance criticism."

Photo by Tori Duhaime.

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Reflections on Kristin Damrow’s “Impact”

Shareen DeRyan, center, with ensemble in Kristin Damrow's Impact. Photo by Robbie Sweeny.

Reflections on Kristin Damrow’s “Impact”

By Molly Rose-Williams

I was aware of my size the minute I entered the space. Three enormous cement blocks hung over a vast stage, surrounded on three sides by rows of seats. In the cavernous Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Forum, the blocks looked small. I felt even smaller.

Kristin Damrow writes in the program that her newest show, “Impact," was inspired by the Brutalist movement in architecture. According to Brutalist scholar Reyner Banham, Brutalism was “an attempt to create an architectural ethic rather than an aesthetic;" an ethic that valued function over frivolity. “Brutalist structures continue to hold a history that prioritizes equality for all people and reminds us of the power of a united community,” the program suggests.

The cement blocks hung over the stage like provocative abstractions of the Brutalist movement. When you’re proposing to prioritize function over form, ethic over aesthetic, what are we to make of enormous cement blocks that serve no visible purpose but to cast shadows like looming threats? I found my gaze seeking the softer forms of audience members across from me and meditating on a vision of “egalitarianism” that so intentionally de-centered individual humanity and aesthetics, and so fully prioritized function. Who defines “practicality” in this case? How do we decide what merits our collective efforts?

The lights faded to black in resonant silence. Footsteps, lights up. It was a rivetingly brutal beginning - bright lights, jumping right into the middle of a moment. One dancer (Anna Greenberg) lay at the feet of four other dancers as if defeated (Heather Arnett, Allegra Bautista, Shareen DeRyan, and Hien Huynh). The standing four exchanged looks in indecipherable silent conversation. A crowd of dancers dressed in black emerged from behind, moving in synch. Lights out.

A series of tableaus revealed by brief moments of light began to paint a picture of a dystopian world of an epic scale. Unmoored in a deeply satisfying way by the nonlinear exposition, I was thrilled by the audible efforts of the dancers to get to their places in the dark commas between the light.

I found myself increasingly drawn to watching the “chorus” of dancers in black. Their uniformity and exclusively synchronized movement suggested to me that they were intended to be more metaphor than human. But in their work to become a single entity, every tiny difference was fascinating to me - every variation in angle, gaze, curve and rhythm felt like a bright ray of humanity leaking through the cracks of an otherwise monolithic construction. I found myself musing at the difference between synchronized group choreography - at which this group was prodigiously skilled - and deep group listening - where I felt they were less in tune. Could the distinction between these two modes of group engagement also stand as a metaphor for the distinction between conformity and community?

Anna Greenberg with ensemble in Kristin Damrow's Impact. Photo by Robbie Sweeny.

Where the chorus deepened and texturized as the piece progressed, the principal dancers coalesced into solid archetypes, each defined by specific, caricatured movement. Anna Greenberg, the dancer at the others’ feet in the opening image, began to stand for me as an evil queen. Where she went, the chorus in black seemed to follow. She held dominion over them, physically and energetically manipulating them to do her bidding, which more often than not included oppressing the other principal dancers through physical obstruction and domination.

Was the chorus an externalized manifestation of her power? Magical shadowy subjects? Human subjects oppressed by an unjust power structure? Or some other metaphor exposing the dark sides of power? The explicitly narrative interactions between dancers, the archetypal roles they played, and cohesive, albeit nonlinear, plot made me lean towards literality in my viewing.

Over time, I decided we were seeing a series of flashbacks to explain the dramatic opening image. My questions kept me fully engaged like a good story - primarily, how had the queen gone from all-powerful monarch to the defeated figure from the opening? Why and how had she come to hold dominion over the others? And how had that dominance been lost? The five principal dancers, including the queen, wore the same style of simple grey and blue costumes, and I found their movement to be largely descriptive as opposed to expositional. Because there were no particular clues to explain Anna’s primacy, I concluded that the arbitrariness of her dominance must be intentional - a broader suggestion at the arbitrariness of political power in general.

A solo by Hien Huynh about two thirds through the show heralded a narrative shift. With exceptionally nuanced and deeply-felt movement, he became the first of the principal dancers other than Anna to influence the shadow chorus to his will. Under white-blue light and the ever-looming shadows of the cement blocks, he banished the black-clad chorus from the stage with full-bodied energetic sorcery. The sound score shifted to what sounded like ocean sounds, the most “natural” of the soundscape thus far. For the first time that evening, I felt transported outside of the concrete building to a place at once more and less human than the harsh pragmatism of this Brutalist world.

Once again, I found questions unanswered; what gave Hien the power to banish the shadow chorus where the others had failed? And at what point had I ceased seeing the chorus of dancers as individual humans in favor of a symbolic abstraction? Was it intentional that he, the only male of the dancers oppressed by Anna, uniquely possessed this power? My meditations on the role of gender in the landscape of power increased triple-fold as a love story between he and Allegra Bautista began to unfold. Their amorous duet was so archetypal - he the powerful and capable man and she vulnerable and in need of protection - that I was unclear whether it was meant to communicate something in particular about love, power, and classic archetypal gender roles, or if it was simply a narrative device.

Their love affair also represented the first notable moment of connection between the principal dancers since the opening image. Until now, each of the principal dancers had been existing in effective isolation from one another, oppressed by the queen and her shadow army in the midst of impassioned solos. Anna and her shadowy minions descended on the lovers to tear them apart, and Hien was imprisoned, harsh bars of light traversing the stage. In an unexplained move towards solidarity, the three women (Allegra, Shareen, and Heather) united in their efforts to free him. Was it significant that romantic love alone prompted this move towards community?

With a scene shift, the queen returned, and all of a sudden the clump turned against her. Though a shift in music and lighting supported this dramatic pivot, I was left questioning if there had been a driver for the turning point in movement or physical narrative.

The three women arrived to save Hien from a breathtakingly poetic physical lament of repeated jumps. Mad from extended imprisonment, he collapsed to the floor with every attempt they made to heal him. In what felt like a parablistic allusion to “pulling himself up by his own bootstraps," Hien returned to his power only after the three women finally let him fall unsupported to the ground, at which point he leapt to his feet three times and finally stood on his own two feet. The quartet departed for the final showdown.

Anna, broken and defeated by the figures she had dominated for so long, was carried onstage by the black-clad clump. In another unexplained and somewhat baffling twist, the group of principal dancers that the fallen queen had oppressed all show, without seeming to miss a beat, unanimously and instantaneously chose mercy. Together, they began to “battle” the chorus in black, freeing her from their grasp and finally succeeding in subduing them to the floor.

One part of the message seemed crystal clear - together as community, we can overcome what alone would be impossible. But another part of the story felt muddier to me; why had all four previously oppressed dancers so quickly jumped to arms on part of the fallen oppressor? Again, I was confused as to whether I was meant to read this decision as an intentional commentary - on power, forgiveness, and morality - or if it was included simply for dramatic effect as a narrative device. Either way, I felt burningly cognizant of the fact that three of the four oppressed dancers appeared to me to be POC, while I read the queen as white. As a result, regardless of the intention behind the choice, I saw on stage a realized prayer for mercy from the formerly oppressed in the face of adequate weakness and remorse on the part of the oppressor, an uncomfortable echo of the classic white liberal fantasy of redemption.

The four dancers joined the fallen queen downstage, and the evocative opening image materialized, she at their feet. The standing dancers helped Anna to her feet. Together, they surveyed the wreckage like superheroes, and then exited upstage as if walking into the proverbial sunset. Just as the lights were about to fade fully to black, the dancers in black began to stir and rise once more: “The fight is never fully won.” But at this point I was unclear if the fight was against “evil” or “injustice," or both, or neither.

In a show that portrays such a harshly stark political reality, what are we to make of power dynamics that appear unquestioned and unexplained? When the premise of the show is meant to conjure “a set of egalitarian and socialist ideas” but doesn’t explicitly acknowledge the systems of oppression that so deeply characterize the time they evoke, how do we create a more nuanced portrayal of “social cohesion” and community? How do we employ the power of archetypal narratives for the depth, entertainment, and legibility they offer our work without recreating the systems of oppression they are born from and describe? And what does it mean to use groups of people primarily for their symbolic potential, such as the dark clump, as opposed to their individual humanity? Especially when the context of the work deals with meditations on collective justice?

The lights came back up and many in the audience rose in a standing ovation. The show was inarguably ambitious, epic, and stunningly successful in so many ways. In the discussion of power, I can’t help but to zoom out and reflect on the power dynamics inherent to dance writing in general, and dance criticism particularly. While the hours, days, and years of love, sweat, and labor contributed by every artist involved in “Impact” is, in many ways, innately transitory, the words I set down based on my singular, completely subjective experience of the work will be far more permanent, accessible by many for potentially years to come. In this discussion of power, what value might I offer in sharing my personal experiences and thoughts prompted by Kristin Damrow and her collaborators’ work?

Above all, for me, “Impact” was an invitation to reflect on and discuss the roles narratives, both intentional and incidental, play in our work as artists. To what extent can we be aware of the multiplicity of narratives inevitable in our work? How can we cultivate opportunities in our creative processes, both before and after performances, to hear the narrative perspectives of others? And especially, what might we learn from the narratives that pop up unbidden?

There are many moments from “Impact” that continue to stick with me, and I suspect will stick with me for a long time. Each image evokes a question, and in that way, “Impact” may be one of the most important shows I’ve seen in a long time. Thank you to Kristin Damrow and all the collaborating artists for such a thoroughly immersive and provocative experience.

 

Molly Rose-Williams is a Bay Area artist and writer. mollyrosewilliams.com

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Dreaming/Preparing/Dancing: 2 Weeks until Impact, with Kristin Damrow & Company

 

From Blog Director Jill Randall:

Please join us for several posts with choreographer Kristin Damrow throughout the 3 weeks leading up to the premiere of Impact at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Forum in San Francisco, January 31-February 2, 2019. Purchase your tickets here.

For the second post, I asked Kristin about the idea of transformation...about how a piece and project, with its specific cast, shapes and changes you, your ideas, and your process. 

Photo: Austin Tovar

Impact has been the riskiest piece I’ve ever made. But I guess that's what art is to me, challenging myself to have new approaches, stretching the limits of my capabilities as a choreographer/director, allowing myself to be risky, and being candid about those risks when they are triumphant or when they don’t turn out so well as I anticipated.  

Choreographically, I wanted to create a unique world, a movement language that was true to the the characters that exist in Impact. Rather than taking my own movement studies, the dancers and I collaboratively dove into how their character would react in this world, how they would interact with other characters, and how their character's movement changed based on different relationships or events that happened in their individual storylines. In the beginning, we played with superhero-like abilities: flying, seeing the past, moving the earth, and controlling people's minds. This opened up new possibilities of ways to generate movement with the dancers and also began to unlock some ideas that felt fresh and new and true to Impact. 

As a director, Impact has had the most moving parts I have ever had to juggle. I am working with 15 dancers in rehearsal, and collaborating with a scenic designer, composer, lighting designer, and costume designer. Plus, realizing the financial risk of presenting at YBCA, while spending just about as much time fundraising as choreographing. It’s all very REAL in this production. It has made me step up as a director and understand all of the different hats that need to be worn, and sometimes at the same time. No one can write a handbook for running a dance company. The process is so unique to each person and show. And as always, the best guidance came from asking questions of friends, colleagues, and people I look up to. The process of this work in production and creation has reminded me how valuable community can be.

Please join us January 31-February 2 in San Francisco. Purchase your tickets here.

Photo: RJ Muna

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Related posts:

Dreaming/Preparing/Dancing: 3 Weeks until Impact, with Kristin Damrow & Company

Artist Profile: Kristin Damrow

Reflection + Response: EAMES by Kristin Damrow & Company

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One Good Quote: MIND THE GAP, with Molly Rose-Williams and Aviva Rose-Williams

Photo: Eric Gillet

In Fall 2017, Life as a Modern Dancer launched a new concept for post-performance discussion and writing. The goals are multi-fold:

• What are new ways to invite post-performance writing (since so few publications now print dance reviews, and there are fewer and fewer dance critics in the United States)?
• How can choreographers hear and read more from audience members about their impressions and experiences of dance events?
• Can we offer new mechanisms for choreographers to gather language about their work, to further their work and to promote their work? 

The premise is simple. If you attended the performance of MIND THE GAP, with Molly Rose-Williams and Aviva Rose-Williams at the Kinetic Arts Center in Oakland (January 11-20, 2019), please take a few minutes here to leave a comment. Write down images, impressions, appreciations, and questions from the performance. These can be words, phrases, or a few sentences. 

We thank you for your time, support, and thoughtfulness. Here's to more dialogue, more reflection, and more writing on the dance performance experience. As choreographer Mariah Steele noted, we are "democratizing dance criticism."

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Related posts:

One Good Quote: Social Movement, with Molly Rose-Williams

Review/Response: We came, We saw, They conquered

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Dreaming/Preparing/Dancing: 3 Weeks until Impact, with Kristin Damrow & Company

From Blog Director Jill Randall:

Please join us for several posts with choreographer Kristin Damrow throughout the next 3 weeks, leading up to the premiere of Impact at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Forum in San Francisco, January 31-February 2, 2019. Purchase your tickets here.

For the first post, I asked Kristin about celebrating and sharing details about the production elements.

The cast: For Impact I am working with the largest cast I have ever had, 15 dancers. It's invigorating to see that many bodies moving though space. Each and every dancer is contributing something special to bring the work to life. I have been creating with 5 core dancers since April: Anna Greenberg (who is a founding member of the company), Heather Arnett (this is her fourth season), Allegra Bautista (who joined us last year for EAMES), and new dancers Hien Huynh and Shareen DeRyan. In October we brought on the ensemble cast of 10: Alexa Manalansan, Brianna Torres, Dalmacio Payomo, Emily Hansel, Kyle Limin, Liselle Yap, Lydia Clinton, Marlene Garcia, Nell Suttles, and Oona Wong-Danders. It has been exciting to dive in with this group to add elements of brutalist architecture translated through movement into the piece. Some elements of brutalist architecture include: repeating modular patterns, revealing the basic nature of structure, and offering an unforgiving monolithic feel. 

The space: We are presenting Impact at the YBCA Forum. I want the audience to feel like they are in the belly of a building, and the Forum offers that vast feeling inside brutalist architecture. The audience will be seated on three sides in the Forum, representing the purpose of most brutalist buildings to serve the public:  a place where communities come together. Suspended from the ceiling will be an original scenic design by Alice Malia. Alice is creating four faux-concrete shapes that give ode to brutalism and brutalist architecture. These shapes also give the space a dystopian feel, which is the setting for Impact. 

The costumes: I collaborated with Rita Parks to incorporate into the costume design texture and structure that resembles brutalism. We also wanted to tie in the dystopian feel. Once the costumes were completed we distressed them by rubbing sandpaper to the edges, painting the creases, even applying glue then dusting with flour to give them a worn-in feel. It makes the dancers/characters in the piece feel like they have history. 

Lighting design: Allen Willner and I have been dreaming up lighting the piece as if it were the inside structure of a brutalist building. How the light would shine though cracks, windows, or entry ways. We are aiming for grays, blues, and stark white to highlight a cool concrete feel. 

Original sound score: Aaron Gold has been KDC’s resident composer for almost 6 years now. Aaron grew up in post-Soviet Prague, around many brutalist buildings, so Impact is a project near to his heart. He spent a lot of time playing inside Prague’s Strahov Stadium, which was then just a massive relic of crumbling concrete with moss clinging at the edges. Aaron’s music has a way of leading you though the story lines of Impact and sculpts the space with brutalist sound.

Please join us Jan 31 and February 1 and 2! Purchase your tickets here.

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Related posts:

Artist Profile: Kristin Damrow

Reflection + Response: EAMES by Kristin Damrow & Company

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For a Graduate Level Choreography Class: A Reading List

Nia Love. Photo by Ciceley Fullylove.

From Blog Director Jill Randall:

A colleague recently asked for my help to compile a reading list for her course. I thought that you might like this list as well. Please find below 16 artist profiles for your students to read throughout the semester. As your group makes, tinkers, and explores over the course of several months, these artist profiles will share both reflective questions to consider during the choreographic process, as well as career paths and personal stories related to be a dance maker in the United States right now.

 

Each post takes about 5 minutes to read. 

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Artist Profile: Nia Love (NYC)

 

Artist Profile: Camille Brown (NYC)

 

Artist Profile: Dayna Hanson (Seattle)

 

Artist Profile: Donna Uchizono (NYC)

 

Artist Profile: Colleen Thomas (NYC)

 

Artist Profile: Marc Brew (San Francisco Bay Area)

 

Artist Profile: Gesel Mason (now in Texas)

 

Artist Profile: Cynthia Oliver (Urbana, IL)

 

Artist Profile: Joanna Kotze (NYC)

 

Artist Profile: Rogelio Lopez (San Francisco Bay Area)

 

Artist Profile: Ivy Baldwin (NYC)

 

Artist Profile: Raja Feather Kelly (NYC)

 

Artist Profile: Kristin Damrow (San Francisco Bay Area)

 

Artist Profile: Susan Marshall (NYC)

 

Artist Profile: Reggie Wilson (NYC)

 

Artist Profile: Becca Levy (FL)

 

There is also a series on the blog of short pieces (5 of them) about "The Choreographic Moment." They are beautiful and written by: Jeanine Durning, Douglas Nielsen, Stephan Koplowitz, Jo Kreiter, and Keith Johnson.

https://blog.lifeasamoderndancer.com/the-choreographic-moment/

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For an Undergraduate Course: 45 Questions and Prompts for Post-Performance Discussions

For an Undergraduate Course: 45 Questions and Prompts for Post-Performance Discussions

These 45 prompts are to spark reflection and dialogue after experiencing a professional performance. This can take many formats. It can be a whole-class discussion, a discussion in small groups, a writing assignment, or even a walk around campus with a partner during class time (with 5 prompts in hand to reference during the walk).

Throughout the semester, consider working with 5 ideas from the list (randomly or selectively) after each performance experience.

I hope that this list is useful and a springboard for the next semester. Please join me! Consider adding more prompts and questions in the comments section below. I would love to hear from you. Thank you.

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The questions/prompts are in random order here:

1. Describe the beginning, middle, and end of the whole show
2. Draw the energetic pathway/arc of the show
3. If you could be cast in one role, which one would it be? Why? What skills do you possess to do this role?
4. Which role do you aspire towards?
5. Highlight of the event for you
6. Speaking of the costumes….
7. Speaking of the lights…
8. About the music...
9. About the text...
10. Audience attendance; perceived engagement
11. Timeliness of the start of the show; curtain speech/introduction (aka the start/the set up)
12. Paper program and information shared
13. Order of the pieces; curation of the evening. Length of the performance...
14. Post-performance experience
15. What information did you have going into the show?
16. What or who do you want to research further?
17. Use of narrative
18. Social impact of the piece
19. The venue/setting for the performance
20. List 5 people you would recommend this show to
21. What training/skills did the dancers need to fulfill the performance?
22. Write a tweet about the show
23. Three questions you want to ask the choreographer
24. Describe the ensemble and ensemble work
25. Pushing the envelope or honoring tradition?
26. Role of unison
27. Create a word bank/word list of the movements, steps, action words of the show (10 or more)
28. If you could change one thing….
29. Use of space….
30. Dynamic qualities….
31. Gesture…
32. Timing…
33. Partnering…..
34. 1-3 other works of art it reminded you of
35. Social relevance of the work
36. A moment that is sticking with you
37. Your physical response while watching it
38. Describe the show in 2-3 sentences.
39. Emotion(s) you experienced throughout the evening
40. Casting: gender, race, age of dancers, body types, skill levels
41. By yourself or in small groups of 2-3 people in class, make a 20-30 second movement sketch to capture some of the moments/memories/potent images from the show; share with the group
42. By yourself or in small groups, get 6-8 index cards. On each index card, write a word or phrase to describe an element of the show. Organize the cards to create a “found poem” of 6-8 lines.
43. How can this performance inspire your technique training/class this week?
44. What kind of choreographic assignment/experiment could we do this week, inspired by the show?
45. Speak about the title of the evening and titles of the pieces. What role did the title have in your experience of the work?

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