The Spaces Between: A Preview with the Collaborators
From Editor Jill Randall:
This week I got to catch up with the 7 collaborators for The Spaces Between with Nina Haft & Company (SF Bay Area). You can experience one of the upcoming performances in Berkeley, CA October 14, 15, 21, and 22 at 3pm each day. Sliding scale tickets can be purchased here.
Read on to get a peek into the work.
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Each collaborator was asked to contribute a few words and phrases to make a word bank together to describe the project. These words naturally created a kind of introductory poem:
breath, stillness, sensing, touch,
distance, closeness, repulsion, energy
spark, disconnect, oppose, ignite,
sink, melt, soften, boundaries
engage, see, take in, light, flow,
connect, leave, follow, flow,
edges.
a witnessing practice, absorption
inviting the unknown in as a collaborator,
building trust and relationship over space and time
movement research,
a continuous experimentation and simultaneous discovery in real time
instinct, desire to connect,
practice,
uncertainty,
embracing awkwardness.
being present with each other, trust, depth, seasons,
the space inside of us,
the space surrounding us,
play, desire, boundaries (verbal and nonverbal),
discomfort
Feeling the room, feeling each other.
Responding to impulse, responding to one another.
“Why improv?” What does it offer artists? Audience?
Jennifer: As an artist, the opportunity to use improvisation, not only in the creative process, but in performance, is endlessly satisfying. I enjoy the freedom to tap into what’s available in the moment; not settling into old habits or relying on the comfortably known. I find richness in the score’s problem solving, the constant mining of movement layers.
Improvisation embraces the inevitability of change: allowing my growing, developing, aging body to be present in the moment. For example, how I moved, or what moved me, in the beginning of this project period may not be the same as what I’m experiencing now, pre-performance. Sometimes, with set choreography, movement I developed early on feels uncomfortable, strange or inauthentic a year later. It can be unfulfilling to “perform” my former self.
I’m so grateful to work with Nina and her uniquely inspired direction. Via her “almanac” guided process, collaborators are invited to tune in and respond to variable influences. I love that in this particular project, each collaborator has their own movement language, or offering. I respect and value each voice so much. It’s a privilege to participate in process, rather than product-based projects.
For the audience, I believe we’re creating a window into a more internally driven dance. My hope is that our audience will experience dancing made from the inside out, rather than outside in, and be stimulated by spontaneous connection and live decision making.
emma: Even the recorded sounds for this work I made starting from improvisation - asynchronously, at home, to rehearsal or showing videos. I love making music for dance in general, but especially when it invites me to think sonically as a mover, or, I would hope, with some empathy for the very physical senses and expressions dancers are working with. A music person has a lot of responsibility in this space, as sound is so vast and in some ways unavoidable, in the sensory space. I love the sensitivity and care that improvisational practices invite, and love the ways it can be supported in sound and silence alike.
Nico: Improv allows us to take in and respond to each other, the room, space, time, a room of people, that particular day. Cultivates a practice that is open yet specific. To be with what is.
Nina: Improvisation is like life - we are purposeful and not planful about most of our daily choices. These choices add up to a day, a life. Improvisational performance gives performers agency, and brings collaboration into new territory. It really doesn’t work (for audiences or artists) without tapping into some kind of hive mind.
What is your dream of the audience? Who do you want to be in the room with you?
Frances: I would say anyone interested/willing to do this with us! There is something in what we do for everyone - whether they realize it or not, appreciate it or not. We do not fully know what each person will bring to the space, everyone is different. It is up to the audience whether they are willing to walk with us in our journey and where it takes them. This work is not for ‘us to show you,’ it is for all of us to do together. The barriers of audience-performer do not exist from the very beginning (at least that is how I am entering this space).
Nina: An audience that reflects the intersecting circles of our lives, not only folks who identify as contemporary dance goers. I’d like anyone who has been challenged to find health, safety and belonging to recognize something of themselves in our work.
Jennifer: To connect and engage in mutual curiosity. Feel and see something they haven’t before. Recognize the humanness in our dancing, rather than the dancer being separate.
What excites you about live performance right now?
Jesse: Finding the hive mind, witnessing the hive mind. I love seeing groups (and being a part of groups) of people invested in something together. Whether they are in unison or just in the same world or trying to get on the same page. I am excited by what people can create with their bodies in space. There is power in numbers. Stepping into unknown, staying open.
Rose: The ephemerality and unpredictability of live performance is so exciting. We all share a fleeting experience together that will never and can never happen again.
Recently I’ve been getting really excited when small things go "wrong" during a live performance – how does everyone react? What does real time problem solving look like? How does the production/creative mind come together with or without words to move through the obstacle?
I am also really curious about the power of live performance to inspire awe and wonder - two things I feel we all need more of these days as we survive ongoing social and climate crisis. Live performance, especially dance, can be a portal to other worlds, invite self-reflection, spark conversation, distort our sense of time, and give us hope.
Please offer a few guiding questions for the audience to consider as they prep for the performance experience.
emma: When in a “witnessing” mode, what parts of your felt experience might be nearer to “performers” than you’d expect? When does sound feel like a bridge into their experiences? When does it feel like a barrier?
Rose: What is the choreography of your day to day life? How do you move through your day relating to the spaces you are in, the people (and animals) you are around?
Frances: What speaks and drives you in your day to day life outside of what is expected of you by others? Who are you to yourself? How much of that in pure form do you bring to your environment?
Nico: How do you communicate your small, everyday boundaries? Physical and otherwise.
Jesse: What are the ways you initiate connection? Do you get the kind of connection you crave?
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Related posts:
Somatic Writing Series: With Cynthia Oliver, Nina Haft, and Jill Randall
Blog Series: Studio Practice/Studio Time (Nina Haft)
Artist Profile: Nina Haft
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