Improvisations From Equivilents to Parameters

This exercise was led by Peter Dimuro as part of the Mixed Abilities Institute.
Starting with the word ambivalence we used Equivilents, Parameters, and added Structure to create an improvisation.


In a circle, everyone creates one movement for the word ambivilance with a clear beginning, middle and end.
We partner up, and witness, noting what we observe . Simmilar to a paramerters exercise, we write down what we see in descriptive terms free from judgement: folding elbows, slow, soft, crouching, covering, wiping…
As a duet, we then choose three ‘physical descriptors’ of ambivilance that we want to explore. My partner and I choose soft, wiping, and sinking.
We then improvise our first duet by using these three items as parameters, and adding a start and end position.

Later we added a floor pattern, the option of three moments of stillness, and the decision to focus on one parameter only at any one time. We did this because we found the parameter of soft automatically influenced those of wiping and sinking. We wanted to add the option of energized, violent or sharp wiping or sinking (anything without soft).

New possibilities for further exploration: I realized the parameters could be taken even further. You could create an opposites list from the ‘physical descriptors’ and combine those with the first list. This would create the element of contrast (we unintentionally did this by focusing on one parameter at a time free from the influence of the other two.) You could also repeat the physical descriptors exercise with the first improvisation to find a greater variance of movement. Ex: we noticed that a lot of the ‘wiping’ was occurring through touching. The next step would be to explore wiping without touching.

An Attempt At Structure

It worked! I finally have been able to upload this video. "Pause" (working title) performed at EDAM, for a MACHiNENOiSY's fundraiser performance showing of works in progress, September 30th, 2007, Vancouver. I apologize, the focus of the camera is at times quite frustrating. Approximate length: 9 minutes. Dancer: me. Text and sound arrangement: me. Music: Nannou, by Aphex Twin.

I've been wanting to discuss Dance Exchange ideas around 'structure' for a long time, and I think I can use the process of creating this piece as a means to do so. I was easily able to create movement for this work using some of the Dance Exchange tools, (see previous post) but I was left with a great deal of material and little sense of where to take it. I knew it was leading somewhere, but that somewhere was away from the poem - the place where the dance began.

Talking about structure with Liz Lerman. 'Structure' can be a means to craft material you already have or to generate more material. However, it is different from a choreographic assignment in that it acts as a container, forming the overall arc or development of the work. For example, imposing the idea of a logical beginning, middle, end, and arranging the material to fit into those boxes is imposing a structure. But it's more complicated then that. Structure is framing even larger. For example, perhaps you insert announcements between each section to define them, and this creates a through line. How do you decide what is beginning, middle, or end; where is the meaning? How can you categorize what you've done? Take every inquiry seriously, as nothing is too small to notice. Once choosing a structure it can be an in road to discovering more about the work, or it can send you back to the generating room.

There are formal structures and many dancers are familiar with them:
The MASH structure: little stories that have a through line connecting to a bigger story
The Palindrome: ABCDCBA
Chance: arbitrary selection and arrangement of material. Example: numbering sections and picking a number out of the phone book to put them together.
Narrative
Theme & Variation
Accumulation
ABA

Imposing a structure can make it easier to access different material, or difficult material. Structure, and ideas about structure are forever in the world around us, we just have to be curious about it and willing to play. With Liz we did an exercise where she asked us a series of questions about structure. Societal structures, structured experiences, learned structures, organizational structures, and environmental structures. We created movements based on these responses. For example the structured steps of how to drive a car. The structure of how someone organizes their ideas before writing a paper. The structure of a day. The structure of a week. How you organized your room as a child. The structure of an ecological system. Etc, etc... We then annotated our movement in small groups, and noted something that surprised us. We then took it a step further and asked if there were structures within our responses. I think we did this simply to broaden our idea of structure, to underline that sources and ideas about structure are everywhere, and you can always add or subtract meaning from something, you just need to be willing to play. Perhaps the structure you choose will have nothing to do with what the work is about, but it will lead you somewhere else and open new doors.

There is a difference between an arbitrary vs an organic structure. An arbitrary structure imposed on the work from another source can add meaning or give you clues about what the material is. An organic structure grows out of what you've done. None the less, it's a game to help you notice what you're doing. You need to ask questions to discover information within an arbitrary structure. The answers may be bizarre or useless, but they might also provide information. For example, based on the structure of organizing your room as a child you arrange the material into various clumps. How many steps do you take between sections? What age were you? Can you take 7 steps?

So that's what we did at the Dance Exchange. But what did I do? I returned to the poem, and decided that it might be about one becoming the victim of their own perceived reality. I imposed this on my own experiences and started thinking about the process of writing an email (sometimes used as a therapeutic way to confront one's perceptions) and the structure that my thoughts would take. Post script made me curious. The idea of adding on thoughts, taking things away, saying things in a different way, or saying something you shouldn't say, or thought better of and this is why you didn't say it in the first place. I looked at the word post script, and created two other phrases that P.S could stand for. Parallel sentences, and paradigm shift. I think I then also imposed a structure from personal experience. Starting off in a place not seeing eye to eye, or feeling unseen as if in a hallway, on a parallel path but in a different room. Something to say, but no one to hear you (perhaps because you refuse to send that damn email!) And evolving to a place of 'seeing.' Seeing surroundings, and shifting to a place of new perspective, and some sense of resolve. How did this effect the material? Accumulation and adding on is easy. Introducing new ideas. Inserting other material from a different creation period when my perspective was in a different place. This is still a starting place, I think the work can still evolve from here, but my experiments with structure were effective in adding new meaning.

Life Lessons with Liz

I've experienced so many shifts of brain space since last week, I don't know where to begin. I think I'll move backwards.

Liz Lerman said something today which I would like to make note of: There is nothing at the Dance Exchange that is not about expertise. That her mandate (and I'm rephrasing here) in starting the company was to have equal commitment to themselves on stage and equal commitment to the world. In other words, while yes, the Dance Exchange does a great many activities that may be considered in the realm of "community dance" and they also do work on the stage - that the two areas of dance do not need to live on a vertical spectrum. That in fact, placing things on a vertical spectrum is an impoverished way of thinking. She and the Dance Exchange have discovered and continue to propagate the idea that they can be artistically excellent and engage in the community in a horizontal, collaborative, synthesized way of being. Boundaries can be recognized, but they also need to be permeable.

We shared our dance space (the last day of Generating/Crafting Dances Institute) with 40 or so Truman Scholars today. I had no idea that the day would begin with so much insight. Having a large group of young academic achievers in our mist and being part of their experience really underlined how powerful art and physical experience can be. We began with blind lead. Liz related experiences of waiting with eyes closed for a leader to find you with the difficulties of being a follower. Hypersensitivity, desire to nurture, be clear, with the difficulties of being a leader. The desire to break the rules or perhaps change them, with the recognition that entire groups of people can function within a structure and then decide as a group when rules need to be broken, or the structure recreated in order to get to a new place. Someone observed the pleasure associated with simple touch. Again the vertical spectrum, touch has been outlawed in some places because of abuses of touch. What a disaster this is! People can go years without any form of human physical contact. Blind Lead and Sculpting (shaping someone's frozen body) allow complete strangers to engage in a form of touch that requires trust, listening, responding, and mutual respect. Someone observed that they could get ideas for movement by watching others. Liz highlighted the idea that people so often confuse creativity with originality. That in fact, copying in one of the most used forms of creativity. That it's okay to learn and experience from what others have done.

When I told people that I was coming out to intern with the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange, some assumed that this must mean that I was moving into the realm of "community" dance and leaving my stage pursuits behind. Not the case. So you ask why I'm here? I'm here because my world matters to me. Dance matters to me. And I want to learn how these two things can be mutually enhancing.

Stage hand goes to work....

This photo was taken in rehearsal today - the cast working on a full run through.
(Stephen and Jeffery in front, Cassie and Susie behind, Elver and Isabelle upstage left, Sarah stage right with three more people behind her whom I can't make out.)
Yet another day working on the VSA piece "The Farthest Earth From Thee," inspired by Shakespere's sonnets, and choreographed by Peter Dimuro at the Dance Exchange, will be performed this weekend at Greenberg Theatre in Washington, DC. I've been given the opportunity to come on board as an extra stage hand, which is great because it means I'm being involved at every level of preparation up until the show. I began sitting in on rehearsals last week for the first time and was amazed at how seamlessly the multi-ability cast was able to work together. For all the complaints and usual difficulties, my impression is that this team is experiencing far fewer creative differences and hold-ups then the average group of dancers and we're talking a 22 member, multi-generational, multi-physical ability cast, and a dog. Not your average group of dancers. The cast is moving in and out of various transitions with multiple props on wheels, with multiple issues to still work out from props, costumes, lines, and transitions, the cast is surprisingly calm with only a few days until the opening! I've especially enjoyed watching how adaptations and accommodations are made in a way that remains artistic and true to the quality of the work. Wheelchairs that can't make cross overs are worked into the stage space, some cast members are assisted with their entrances and exits, the crutches make cross overs whenever needed, and the dog is always entertained (and entertaining). Particularly interesting are the artistic choices when able bodied dancers are moving in the space with disabled dancers. The image is always interesting to watch and the choices clear. Here's a look into the creation of the work if you wish to read it:

Shakespeare’s Sonnet 44 for instance, gives us some obvious places to start for dance. Its references to “leap large lengths,” “injurious distance,” and “heavy tears” might lead us to seek 20 ways, both obvious and unexpected, of turning each of those phrases into motion. (movement metaphore) Also inspiring are the image polarities of sea and land, earth and water. But the ultimate, juicy challenge of this sonnet will likely be in what it says about the limits of physicality. That is where we find the true possibility for movement, partnering, imagery, and staging. That is where we find the permission for fantasy.(an interesting use of structure).