THE MOVING ARCHITECTS

Extraordinary Bodies

2011-12-28T10:14:00.000-06:00

Bebe Miller Company HISTORY

This fall quarter in graduate school, I encountered two types of ‘extraordinary bodies’ that struck me from week to week: working with people with disabilities fondly called the 'ARC dancers', and conducting research surrounding the Bebe Miller Company. In both of these cases, I have been in the particular position of absorbing, observing, and joining the language, values, and histories that have been created in each unique community.

I am currently a Graduate Assistant for Bebe Miller, with projects that have included logging and analyzing audio and video footage of rehearsals and performances from the last few years. The culture of the company places value on research and collaboration not only through physicality, but the communal discourse surrounding the doing and making of the work. Through this process I experience extraordinary bodies, witness to the internal and external processes of dancer and director. In this I have also had the odd twist of also learning, through audio archives, the cadence and timing of how the company verbally communicates and how ideas are reinstated, re-questioned, and re-volve over time.

ARC Dancers, Ohio State University

Working with the ARC dancers, I have experienced a similar culture that values physicality, as it relates to music, physical touch, and community. I see in the class and fellow facilitators the desire to interact and access new ranges of physical and social possibility and movement expression with the population. I find in the ARC dancers a desire and willingness to move in their bodies, despite physical or emotional difficulties, with a drive that is more felt than verbally articulated during times together. We’ve all come to know each other and cultivate special relationships from week to week, and joyful would be my best descriptive word of these classes together.

What great value in experiencing these two groups – the spectrum of dance in both community and professional settings. It has been a pleasure as I look forward to what winter 2012 will hold.

We Heart the Midwest

2011-11-06T05:50:00.001-06:00

I’m at Links Hall, watching dancers warm-up on the creaky floor to Girl Talk. Running, internal, shaking, quaking, flowing, articulating, you name a verb and that’s what is done to warm-up, as I type and try to put the pieces together in one audiencechair among many audience chairs. I’ve somehow brought together a really amazing and inspiring set ofwoman to perform in this curated show The Purple State – women in their 20’s,30’s, 40’s, who have chosen to make dance part of their lives/identity with componentsof daily practice, higher education, continually inquiring into the form,families, living and travelling where dance jobs and opportunities lead. The entire show taking away the barrier between the dance space and the audience with intent, ownership, years of experience on stage.

Warm-up, Links Hall, Chicago

In our talk back Friday withLucia Mauro, topics were discussed surrounding one particularly intriguing question, does the Midwesthave its own dance aesthetic? With so manypart of the show alumni of Ohio State University dance, and Meghan currently avisiting professor, what came up is that there seems to be something to the OSU training method thatdraws out sensibilities of individuality, the ‘thinking’ and collaborative dancer,the choreographer following where the work leads. A OSU thing, a life-long dance artist thing,a locational thing, wherever it derives from, there is not always a sense ofindividual identity – whatever that is prescribed as – in choreography inChicago. My bias being that I am drawn to this, I see in Chicago (the Midwest? ageneration?) a general presentational quality of keeping the audience at a distance, assuming the exactstylings/emotive qualities of the choreographer, an ‘otherness’ in thedancer that is not transparent of them. Is this the elitism that dancehas carried as a badge of honor and a deterrent for audience members to tryout this abstract dance form? Is this embedded from training methods, from the historical flow of modern dance, left over from the pioneers, the postmodernists, the ballet, musical theater? Half-questions, vague answers, huge research questions, this is an intriguing show from top to bottom.

This and That

2011-10-20T16:56:00.002-05:00

As mentioned in my last post, I am one of the Links Hall Artistic Associates for 2012, and have curated "The Purple State" which consists of work by me and two other artists with strong ties to Ohio, one of whom is Kristina Isabelle. A Columbus, Ohio native, she is artistic director of Kristina Isabelle Dance Company and co-director of HighJinks Productions and will be premiering "The Floating City" and teaching the Master Class Workshop
Embodying the Body: Defining and Refining Movement Choices.

Getting to know Kristina Isabelle...

1. What was the last book you read?

Norwegian Wood - Haruki Murakami

2. If you were stranded on a desert island, what are 3 things you would need to ensure your survival?

music, matches and a partner with a tool kit

3. Tell me about yourself in 5 sentences.

I am a dancer with dancers tourette's- and I love to dance in the kitchen. I love adventure and traveling. I have been called a foodie but I am more of an eater than a cook. My passions include: vintage fashion, dogs, and music. I look at everyday as a possibility to learn something new.

4. Are you more of a "laundry line" or a "kite string" ?

kite string

5. What didn't you like at first, but like now?

As a kid I didn't like cats or eating fish.

6. What brings you peace of mind.

Nature

7. What are the top 5 most played songs on your ipod?

Hardliners - Holcombe Waller

Cosmic Love - Florence and the Machine

It's Okay - Land of Talk

Norwegian Wood Soundtrack - Jonny Greenwood

Feel Love - Ben Harper

8. What words do you say in dance rehearsal more than any other words?

That was awesome - did I get that on video?

9. Tell me what home means to you in exactly 8 words in one sentence.

Home is a place full of love and life.

10. Your favorite choreographer/dance company right now and why.

Kidd Pivot - she is creating dramatic theatrical works that our innovative, intellectual and full of powerful movement.

Kristina Isabelle is a native of Ohio and recent transplant to the Chicago area. She is the director of Kristina Isabelle Dance and HighJinks Productions and has performed with Bebe Miller, Stephen Petronio, Earth Circus Productions, Grimaldi Circus and Jordan Fuchs. She has her MFA from The Ohio State University and BFA from The Juilliard School. www.kristinaisabelledance.com and www.high-jinks.org

Loud and Clear

2011-10-12T12:08:00.002-05:00

As one of the Links Hall Artistic Associates for 2012, I have curated "The Purple State" which consists of work by me and two other artists with strong ties to Ohio, one of whom is Meghan Durham-Wall. A Visiting Professor in Dance at Ohio State University and director of Merge Dance, she will be premiering "The Kandinskian Equation" and teaching the Master Class Workshop Headlining: Exploring the Overlap of Language and Movement at Links Hall.

Getting to know Meghan Durham-Wall...

1. What was the last book you read?

The Anthropology of Turquoise by Ellen Meloy.

2. If you were stranded on a desert island, what are 3 things you would do to ensure your survival?

1. Stay in the present moment

2. Be present

3. Focus on the present

3. Tell me about yourself in 5 sentences.

I can't imagine my life without canine companions. Since the age of 13, I have never lived anywhere longer than five years. When I die, I want my ashes to be tossed across the red rocks of Snow Canyon in southern Utah. I love being a mother. I once had a job working on an assembly line in east Tennessee.

4. Are you more of a "laundry line" or a "kite string" ?

Total wanna-be "kite-string." Not quiet a "laundry line," but more like the rope that attaches a tether ball to the pole.

5. List 5 things you didn't like at first, but like now.

Avocados, Guy Smiley, yoga, adulthood, sleep

6. What brings you peace of mind.

My son's laughter

7. What are the top 5 most played songs on your ipod?

"One Minute" by Ryoji Ikeda

"Drums of Winter" by John Luther Adams

"For a Minute" by B.G. (Featuring T.I.)

"Djilile" by Elana Riu

"Questions for the Angels" by Paul Simon

8. What word do you say in dance rehearsal more than any other word?

Sorry

9. Tell me what home means to you in exactly 8 words in one sentence.

Me and him and him and them and that's it.

10. Your favorite choreographer/dance company right now and why.

Crystal Pite/Kidd Pivot...have you seen "Dark Matters?"

Meghan Durham is a dance artist, choreographer, educator, advocate, and scholar, and is currently as a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Dance at the Ohio State University. Meghan is Artistic Director of Merge Dance and as a collaborating performer (past and present) for Melanie Stewart Dance Theatre, Ashley Thorndike/Peter Swendsen, and Karl Rogers. She has her MFA in Modern Dance from University of Utah, an MS in Language Pathology from UNC-Chapel Hill, and BA in Linguistics from Wellesley College. http://mergedance.blogspot.com

New Eyes, Full Heart, Can't Lose

2011-09-28T18:11:00.001-05:00

Back when I went to camp every summer at Westminster Highlands, there was one particular year where word riddles and word play scenarios were all the rage. Something about two halves making a hole, and then you jump in the hole to escape the room, and then a door not being a door when it is ajar. What has come to my mind countless times in the past couple of weeks are lines from one of these long riddle poems 'I see said the blind man to his deaf wife, and he picked up his hammer and saw'. It's a little more than miraculous that I've had a few lasers hit my eyeballs and now I can see in this astounding way just like the little word play. And I would theoretically think that with such a miracle -before I could see clearly only something six inches in front of my nose- that it would have a monumental impact in on how I see the world. Maybe more crisply? keenly? specifically? grandly? With improved sight is there better insight?

I started my second year of grad school last week. As the department is spread out all over campus due to renovations in the dance building, I notice and see architecture and stadium seats and the contrast of buildings and the height of the library. I constantly see and hear the band practicing, and am acutely aware of how many students are on that campus with me (...literally thousands). There are windows in all of the dance studios, even one studio on the banks of the old Olentangy River.

My dance company has three new dancers, each with a body of knowledge and experience to bring to rehearsal. And each time we are together it is like a fitting for a dress - we have an interchange of making something look and feel and contour just right to the new design of the company. It is seeing something new, with these new eyes, and feeling something new by having different responses and exchanges.

New eyes, new school year, new spaces, new outlook this year's go-around. We'll see what questions make themselves known -seen- and fold into the year.

Wheally Working Wilson Week

2011-08-17T16:51:00.001-05:00

Creative residency, dance camp, choreographic intensive -what have you- my week two here at Wilson College is with my dance company The Moving Architects. A newly re-organized ensemble of four, I have before me four incredibly talented and focused ladies who are full of lovely surprises and little gems throughout our days. Learning how they move, why they move, initiations, familiar and unfamiliar pathways, what makes them laugh or listen, what they respond to or react to in and out of the studio, it is a pleasure to have their time and this space while creatively living here day to day. A new palette of colors. Thank you gods-of-bringing-smart-good-dancers-my-way.

Studio Time - TMA Dance Retreat

2011-08-13T07:24:00.002-05:00

Working with the students....

The Cheese Stands Alone

2011-08-10T21:03:00.001-05:00

I'm ending the day rather amazed by just all the information about the body and how one can make a dance and see a dance and find sensation in the body - that there can always be something new. And I use the word 'new' in the broadest sense of the term. New to you, new to them, new to re-consider, new to see placed in a dance film, new to read in a 1980 bound thesis, new to find new words to, new to remember. Abstract, not so abstract, the dance form has something for every kind of day, kind of mood. When the day is stripped away and the studio and the body stand alone (hence 'the cheese stands alone' melody comes to mind), that is something raw and safe and familiar and rather magical and not alone.

a certain kind of Soiree

2011-08-08T21:42:00.000-05:00

I’m preparing for the Wilson College soiree of 2011. And I will call it a soiree not only because it is one of my favorite places in the world (this is my fifth summer making work here) but also because this year is our first TMA Summer Dance Retreat followed by a week-long creative residency with the entire company. Two weeks of dorm-like-living, a beautiful dance studio, and a calming campus, it’s become a yearly staple for rejuvenating and resetting all of us leading into the dance season to come. This past year was like no other for the company –in NYC, Columbus, Chicago, Central Asia, many trips between Columbus and Chicago, rehearsing over Skype, and my balancing grad school, teaching, and the company. So here it is August. And after some summer sun, fun, and quiet nights, I’m ready to dig into some movement concepts, patterning, dynamics, and composition with students at the retreat, and work with my newly assembled gang of dancers. Soiree it is. And more frequent posts to come.

We love you Marc Maron

2011-07-08T07:04:00.005-05:00

I am a podcast fan. NPR Fresh Air, The Great Dance Podcast, Jay and Jack "Lost" Podcast, Real Time with Bill Maher these are some I have found to be the best company while commuting and working out over the years (yes, I am the target audience). It is rather exciting, and even reassuring, that the format of the one-on-one classic interview and discussion is only getting better. The idea is so simple. Some podcasts run their course, but there seems to be a new draw and need for them as entertainment, especially with media censorship for content and language, commercialization with time constraints and segments, huge corporations owning and controlling with non-polarizing political and social correctness, and in this, as for entertainment, all the good TV is on Showtime, HBO, MSNBC, etc and only available with the super plus bundle cable monthly blah blah and then with a slew of mind-numbing channels. This week I cannot help but recommend with high praise WTF with Marc Marin. A comedian by trade, he is seasoned, smart, transparent, analytical, and not afraid of his past or talking intimately about the 'human condition' with guests. He reveals the competitive and insecure nature of himself and the hard road of the comedian (surprisingly not so different from the choreographer) with the balls to show what's behind the curtain (here blogger Chris Kelly agrees). Described as 'dark' I prefer to think of him as raw and real and not shiny and produced with a political/social agenda. His podcasts are like books you can't put down. So I would like to throw Marc Marin into the ring as a go-to listening source for creative artists and leaders.

the Power of scale

2011-07-05T13:22:00.000-05:00

In my ongoing interest to see how Power can be portrayed abstractly and literally, three-dimensionally and in extreme scales, I've come across this visual artist.

"Korean artist Do-Ho Suh creates massive installation pieces that deal with ideas of power in numbers and mass participation. After moving from Korea to the United States, Suh's work is said to have been informed by this "transcultural" experience and loss of touch with parents." from Juxtapoz.com (note tiny army figures under feet)

we have the brains for a Nobel Prize

2011-06-09T08:35:00.005-05:00

This week I finished my first year of Graduate School at Ohio State (hold your applause, please) and have two more years to learn things such as the interesting correlation I am writing about below. In an Audience Development class I took through the Arts Education department, one of many articles I read included evidence that the creative process is, in fact, the same process as advanced problem solving in any area (see my previous post for my approach). Educational psychologist Ellen Winner describes the Creative Process in four stages (from her book "Invented Worlds: The psychology of the Arts):

1. Conscious deliberation of the problem
2. Subconscious deliberation of the problem while attention is turned elsewhere
3. Insight
4. Development of the idea from insight

This is oddly similar to the hallmarks of "competent strategic behavior" to solve academic problems (from "Transfer of Learning: Contemporary Research and Applications"):

1. Comprehension of the problem
2. Application of problem-solving strategies
3. Monitoring of strategies and possible discovery of the need for change
4. Processing shifts.

The process of creating art is cognitively similar to the process of solving problems in academic areas. I find this rather reassuring, any type of order that places dance-making in scientific terms and boosts the status of the research of making dances in the public arena. The societal impression of choreography/performance is that it is outside the normal person, that there is inspiration and emotion and some sort of magic that has been bestowed to do the art form. But as I have always felt, the dance life is definitely a field of skill, practice, hard work, problem-solving, social compatibility, critical thinking, and essentially in its complete fruition needs a thorough process to be successful. Unlike the sciences/maths a little thing called 'ego' often gets thrown into the pot in such a way as to thwart or fully realize what a dance work can be. Works that fall short, I wonder if they are missing part of the process, struggle at a certain stage. Many choreographers create guidelines, rules for making new dance works to keep the vitality of dance. And this is how the dance form exists amidst the push backs, and this is what we need to reveal to our audiences - take away the mystery and be transparent.

Walking and Commuting and Thinking

2011-05-14T08:30:00.007-05:00

The process of making new work - I think every choreographer has their own dance making ritual / routine / approach. Whether specific and calculated at times (writing, videotaping, drawing, etc) or intuitive and personal (alone studio time, early morning hour preference, etc), I think that each of us who are in the practice of the craft have a baseline way-ness in the day to day of making work.

Since moving to Columbus from Chicago and starting graduate school, my life locationally and pragmatically has obviously had to adjust. For the past 7 or so years, longer commutes on bus/train/walking with my ipod and eyes open to my surroundings has changed to quick bus rides skimming readings and writing emails on my phone. Alone studio time has been replaced by "Oh shit, I can't use my studio time because ______ is due and I'm behind also in ________ " and it's me and my mac etc etc. You get the gist - thinking / not thinking / open brain time has gone a bit by the wayside in this new life (though I could write you a paper about it in a snap, so I suppose some new skills have been gained as some sort of unfair trade off...).

So last week was the student spring concert at OSU. A longish concert overall, there were a dozen or so short pieces, and there I was sucked into the abstract mind seeing and thinking and resting into what I refer to as my back brain space that processes without effort. And whoa, whoa, what a nice zone to rest into again. And the length of the concert let me do this because I was an observer, not a feedbacker or maker or instructor.

So less time in the back mind space I had noticed, but had not put it together. In the past my personal travel time was choreographic time to let the brain float from thought to image to thought without interruption; a very essential part to my making dances. Now interruption is constant (and now inherent in PLUCK) and I must find new patterns/efforts to bring it back into my life again. Grad school year 1: I learned something about my personal ways of making in a deep and profound way. Check.

Rules of PLUCK

2011-05-01T11:46:00.003-05:00

Last weekend (Easter weekend) the company was in Columbus with me, a pleasure to rehearse in the OSU Dance studios and enjoy each other in real time in a real space (as opposed to our regular skype rehearsal dates). After discussing the rehearsal process with each other, faculty, and feedbackers, we came up with a list of "rules" and "only in skype-land" facts that must exist in the work when we are rehearsing live with each other, to keep the consistency and feel of the doing and making and rehearsing on skype. Of course there are many questions as well in this process for this particular work - questions we continue to individually or collectively embrace and tackle from week to week.

The Rules of PLUCK:
1. Space (or spacing) is addressed in relationship to each other as opposed to where the relationship happens in the physical space.
2. Seeing and not seeing - making choices by what is in frame and what is not.
3. Dance as seen through a lens (remembering the loss of depth on video feels like flat layers through the lens).
4. Usage of physical/emotional states rather than characters.

Technology Set-up:
Erin at OSU Studio 5 - desktop computer, high speed internet wireless, camera, projector for computer screen image, microphone
TMA at Outerspace, Chicago - laptop computer, high speed internet aircard, HD webcam, projector for computer screen image, speakers plugged into computer

The Facts of Skype:
1. Shifting in heightened senses - hear and see most radically different (rather then touch and sense)
2. Enhanced sounds levels = need for clarity of language
3. Imprecise/Indirect movement happens when watching and learning movement = adjusting through use of time and language and landmarks in the room for facings

Questions of this particular work:
1. Transitions?
2. Resolving scenes?
3. Continuation or fragmentation?
4. Disordered order?
5. Continual need to see states of being rather than subtleties/relationship development? Due to skype or just this particular work?

Interestingly enough, I was in Chicago this past week and I realized, when reviewing footage from the OSU rehearsals, that I had broken some of these rules. These were areas I had to address and change in Chicago. So the give and take continues, this manner of dancemaking continues to force us to find the balance of working how we do with working in new ways online. Biggest lesson so far throughout this process: remembering to rehearse in the circumstances of the moment.

whoa to april

2011-04-13T13:22:00.018-05:00

I had no idea that it had been this long since I've updated this blog. Since the last posting, the main event for The Moving Architects and I has been a two-week teaching/performance tour in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan- an experience that I am continuing to unfold/uncover/unhinge/unwind from as I start spring quarter at Ohio State. We continue our Skyped rehearsals, the mediums becoming more familiar to me as I become more familiar with the technology and particularly ways of seeing. I am very intrigued by how this new work PLUCK is unfolding. I feel that the work is defined in my mind as pre-Central Asia, and is now living in the post-Central Asia mindspace. And I have come to embrace the differences in the original vision, and how the vision has reshaped to fit the realities of its making. The main theme I was very intrigued by when embarking on the project was Power. We see the struggles in politics, social dynamics, work places, acadamia, etc etc etc. A fairly broad topic seeable and feelable I should think to everyone. It works us up, makes us indifferent, pushes us, or makes us complacent. But since our trip to Central Asia, I feel like this topic has opened up for me with new images, attitudes, and accepting realities as best as possible. In Tajikistan, the architecture felt glued to my eyes. Dushanbe in particular (the capital) still largely a city of Soviet architecture. The metal fences still surrounding buildings from Soviet times, visible on the street and as exteriors of balconies and buildings at every turn, looked at first decorative and then like rows of bars/barbed wire. A quietness in the streets, with all men wearing suits in public, and women dressed in color and scarves, a contrast of daily life I have never experienced. Wide sidewalks, huge buildings again a contrast to the lovely hospitality and giving nature of the people. The great divide of city versus outside the city in both countries - hardworking people doing there best in their country. Countries that have only had their independence from the Soviet Union for about 20 years. This is just a taste of the present and historical Power I felt buzzing on a grandious scale through the landscape and the people, raw and not made into a 30 second news clip. No commercials or a pop-ups or a single chain store. None of it was in my LonelyPlanet travel book, and likely no foreseeable history book.

I was interviewed by BBC Persia while we were in Tajikistan, and WAS asked if I was going to take any of their famous Tajik Dance and put it into my dances. Besides my high sensitivity to appropriatation, my first internal reaction was "no". For what I realized as I spoke, is that I am taking the line and form of the architecture, the tones of these countries, the knowing that everything is not going to resolve, everything is not going to deconstruct. I find in this work that we have worked on piles of small ideas that I try to weave together. On paper they weave, in rehearsal, no weaving. What I am finding is a comment I received from our first showing in February, it is interruption. It is a work of interruptions, a reality of my (and likely your) everyday life, yes, but also the world that has been opened up before me. I have these amazing experiences - with dance, our company as a community, those who were with us everyday and their stories and ways, those we taught and performed for - and throw in lots of dance acadamia on more levels than I have patience to type, and the business that is life with technology connecting these things together at a clipped place - and the processing of the knowledge is only through interruptions. That is what this work is. It is a new set of realities I am experiencing, and it lives in the work.

moments of _________

2011-02-21T13:59:00.006-06:00

The weekend of February 11-12, we had our first Airings and Sharings of the season - a way for me and the company to get feedback about our new work PLUCK as we make the work itself. I find that in these talks, many of my half-thoughts are formalized, many questions and 'seeings' of what I hear I have a gut reaction to as potential or not potential avenues for research, and I end up feeling like I have received a little hug of encouragement. This is something we all need once in awhile, whether we are an artist or not, this 'affirmation' that naturally becomes part of feedback in supportive circles (Liz Lerman acknowledged for a reason).
So in the past couple of weeks, I have acknowledged a large new component of this project for me while rehearsing through skype - I miss hearing and feeling and responding to and sensing the dancers and space while we make a dance. It has a feeling like I am watching something separate than me -how can it not- even though we are interacting and communicating in this virtual land. So in these rehearsals I feel myself asking for more physicality, power, intention, pushing movement that may border on being sexual if I was there but not from my distance (an interesting notion that we talked about as a company). It is as if I am trying to feel and see and make dance with them, but because I am not there, I am pushing them to a different place in their physicality so that I can connect with them. Being with them last weekend, I felt this very intriguing, and it is something I have started unknowingly to choreograph and will likely continue because it now feels inherent to the work and this making process. As we likely pull in influences and experiences from our teaching and dancing in Central Asia next month (how can it not effect the work?), I am excited by these new frameworks. Interruptions, that was the most useful (beautiful?) word I heard (which was repeated both nights) for it feels accurate of life and the art. To make a piece filled with interruption - maybe I should call this "Don't Interrupt me while I Pluck" instead, and cross the line of language too (or not....). So I have in this post photos pulled from the computer screen during rehearsal this last Friday. My perspective. And I just noticed how many times I even interrupted myself with parentheses and dashes in this blog. Wow, brains ARE a web.

Country: Skype, Capital: St. Not There-ness

2011-02-08T08:37:00.008-06:00

The Moving Architects continue rehearsing through Skype. Yet at this juncture, I also have the added bonus of studying coursework that is helping me use (rather than be a bit fearful of) technology for what it is and can be and will be into my coming decades (gulp) as a choreographer. I was listing out all the places my company is traveling to in the next six months - Chicago, Berwyn (IL), Columbus (OH), Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Chambersburg (PA) - and I'd like to add to that Skypeland. For there are new realities in this land just as much as in these other lands, and for one thing I know audio levels are a problem. So I've listed below some of my food for thought and discussion points from an independent study with other dancemaking grads this quarter. And remember that our set-up is me Columbus, company Chicago:

Physical body vs. Visual Body
How to frame my perspective
I see phrases interrupted when they leave my view
Entrances and exits
Awareness through different parts of my brain
When dancers out of view but still there
Personalizing in the work my relationship to interacting with technology
My sense of "not there-ness", alongside my senses of "there-ness" - what is that?
Pretending to be there, when I am clearly not
Timing and Phrasing feels different
How to direct, play with a new set of permissions and the dancer's reactions
Intimacy through camera/scale with me seeing them and vice versa
Logic

This new work PLUCK we are creating is all about Power. I think that topic found me last summer, but now this set-up carries a new load of questions. And yes, I am fairly convinced at this point that I may turn into part robot by 2050.

Dance C-ing

2011-01-11T06:11:00.005-06:00

I think I should add to the title of this blog to aptly name it "Dancemaking and Dancethinking and Danceseeing", for I am taking much coursework in my graduate studies that propel me forward into the metaphorical action of wearing a pair of trifocals. As many choreographers experience, I am used to choreographing a dance in a studio with a group of dancers. Not much of a revelation in that process. Now we have mastered the use of Skype for our rehearsals and other such things in this such as learning from video, trusting the trust between choreographer/dancer, and my wearing a microphone to lead my end of things (not quite Madonna-style, but close, especially my outfits). So the physical body I experience in this process is intangible and largely visual. Add to this my dance and media class, learning about live-action video, delay, projections, textures as further options for layering images alongside dancers/choreography in space. Add to this my dance documentation class where I am learning to see dance through a camera lens as best as possible with such things as exposure, iris, and who knew you could actually 'for real' use a video camera manually. All of this to say, I am being pushed to the bounds of SEEING to choreograph, while simultaneously sensing my own physicality and missing the touch and warmth and creaking floor and group-ness of my company a timezone away. This experience is life-changing artistically and psychologically , the need and ability to navigate through these many lenses (literally) to make dance. The process of making PLUCK for June shall be a rich experience, and I'm liking how the title is an action verb, feels right.

being-pretty-with-makeup-day

2010-12-16T10:29:00.012-06:00

from all The Moving Architects (Erin, Laura, Lauren, Jessie, Jess, Natalia)

Snow-coffee-hair spray-photo day. We are all at Saverio Truglia's studio, the photo posted above hanging above where we sit, taking photos for our spring show " Pluck". We are still working through different looks and aesthetics to find what works on our bodies individually and as a group. Taking a quick break now to get some food before we launch into the next chunk of work, enjoying the lush couches and up-beat playlist.

laura here. blind photo shoot indeed...taking pictures for a piece that hasn't been created yet is a new animal. because ultimately one begins to gravitate towards familiar vocabulary from previous works or the innate qualities we have as individual dancers. but once we break the mold a bit---and delve a little deeper to avoid "sacred spacing* it"....(which is case you were wondering is actually a newly coined verb from TMAs. spread the word).

*sacred spacing: doing something in an awkwardly tense manner, normally forced into such mannerisms by the overcoming use of clawed hands. Use in everyday jargon "Hey man, chill out, don't sacred space it."

This is Jess! on our break here at the photo shoot, we are all just hanging out while Jessie does a personal photo shoot of Laura and I. We like the attention a lot. The space is really beautiful and comfortable to be in (plus there's a really cute dog!), which makes for an even more successful shoot!

Natalia now. I have to say, we look very pretty. I think I'll wear these fake eyelashes for the rest of the day. It's so much fun to have our makeup done by a professional. Our photographer is fantastic. He's very professional, thoughtful, and enthusiastic. We should do this more often!

Erin...and my response to my lovely dancers and the day. It is quite fun to do the pretty girl part of making dances. Wearing newly made artfully created costumes, of course the eyelashes, the comfort of the huge loft space, the technology flashing and pixelating etc etc. We work hard. Hard dances, very focused rehearsals, lots of traveling this year and then right to tech and show, body aches, it's like this day is the equivalent to a day on the beach. Gives you a boost and feels like a reward.

the "what's on shuffle" game

2010-11-30T16:05:00.002-06:00

So back on October 30th, the company performed "Sacred Spaces" as part of Hyde Park Art Center's Mischief Weekend connected to Halloween. A great center that we have performed in before, we were all pretty comfortable with the size of the space, the cement floors, and the art great art enthusiasts it attracts. While I am only relaying this story secondhand, for I could not be there, I can only imagine what I would have done as choreographer. Panic? Go with the flow? Be proud I pulled a successful Merce?

So the dancers were trying to space the piece, warm-up, check the sound, and situate themselves in performance mode while the center was buzzing with activity. Amidst the flurry Jessie, who was in charge for the night, handed over her ipod with all six tracks tucked neatly away in the playlist and stepped back into her dancer role. So Sacred Spaces is a lengthy and physically intense work. The music adds to the intensity - they draw from the work and I feel the music draws from them. Places everyone. And music begins. Ah, nice opening section. Nice "thing 1" and "thing 2" as I have so fondly labeled sections. And then what -what?!?! - and so goes the rest of the tracks on shuffle. Shuffle, yes Apple, thank you for so slyly sharing that shuffle can be turned off on an ipod but not simultaneously on a playlist. So, the professionals they are, they continued on their marry way. Whatever track will be will be, and as the audience gathered and watched, and even the children stayed connected to the work, they pulled it off. They even liked some of the choices they made with the new music.

So the composer of the work, Ian Hatcher, performed live with the company when we performed in NYC in November. I thought I should tell Ian and our company friend David the story, for I thought it was funny, as we were packing up and leaving. But I was a bit worried about his reaction. But have no fear, Ian and David busted out with laughter and we all called ourselves rock stars. So that was Sacred Spaces at HPAC.

Columbus Sparkles with Reflections

2010-11-06T02:55:00.013-05:00

Below are a few thoughts and reflections and photos from recent travel and shows in Columbus, OH October 21-24.

ERIN CARLISLE NORTON
My experience of our show at Columbus Dance Theatre seemed to be all of my life shaken up in a snowglobe, me the dancing figure that stays put in a beautiful arabesque (what a metaphor!). I planned this concert as a way to jump into life in Columbus and at Ohio State, showing repertory from over the years alongside our most recent long work Sacred Spaces. The weekend was a flurry between tech, coaching, master classes, staying up too late talking. However, I also think it was one of the most rewarding concert experiences I've had to date. With the location as Columbus, it was possible for all of my worlds to come together - dance instructors and friends from Pittsburgh came who I haven't talked with in ten years, current peers in the OSU Department of Dance, OSU Professors who knew me then and now, my wonderful dancers and crew from my Chicago life, and most importantly my parents and in-laws and other family members. I felt pleased to show what I have been doing all these years. A bit isolated from this support in Chicago, I could feel how proud everyone was of me and it felt good. I also loved getting my feet wet in the Columbus Dance Community and I hope as we continue touring during this coming year I will continue to feel this sense of completeness with sharing my work.

LAUREN BISIO
How great to be back in OH-IO. Even though I spent 4 years swearing I would never return, I found myself strangely excited to return to my undergrad home. I was looking forward to seeing former professors and old friends, dancing in familiar studios, and being part of a dance scene that appears to have rapidly expanded in the years since I left. But most of all, I was looking forward to dancing with some of my best friends in a mini-vacation from life as we know it in Chicago. It's always refreshing to get out of town, away from work and responsibilites, and just be able to dance. And the weekend did not disappoint: 1 Gaga class, 5 master classes, 2 performances, and a little rehearsing for good measure... dance we did! Gaga was a wonderful experience, and something I am excited to explore more the next opportunity I have. I feel like there was so much to just listen to and observe in that hour and a half that my physical experience can't even compare to how much I walked out thinking about. And while I did feel physically amazing, more importantly I feel artistically and intellectually nourished in a way that I don't often experience in Chicago. Part of it, I suspect, is the thrill of getting to revisit academia when I can realize from the outside what a luxury it is. I mean, how amazing that this place (and others like it) exists where the hundered or so inhabitants get to sit around (in sweatpants and socks) and discuss, disect, critique and make dances all day? And where do I sign up? Even though I think I have it pretty good here in Chicago, more than anything this trip made me realize that I can, and must, carve out a little more time for dance in my daily life.

I thought the performances went well. The theater ("theatre") was a nice size, and the audiences were receptive and kind. I definitely a felt a lot of pressure to be performing in front of people who knew me from 5+ years ago, and found myself thinking a lot about the dance experiences I've had since then and how they've changed me. In many ways, I think of myself as an OSU dancer in terms of how I watch and think about dance. Which makes sense, given that it where I really started to develop an intellectual approach to what had previously only been a physical practice. But when I look at myself in a studio mirror, the dancer that I see reflected back is a much bigger sum of my expereinces both at OSU and since then. And returning to Columbus, I was very eager to see if that would be clear, and understood, and appreciated. I was very conscious of wanting to be different, and better, than I had appeared then. And while I can't be sure if that was in fact the case, I do think that I danced relatively well (Friday more than Saturday), and hopefully just being a little bit older and a smidgen wiser translates to being a "better" dancer.

NATALIA NEGRON
Our performance in Columbus provided me my first experience of truly convincing myself of success. Thursday was a grueling day of travel and rehearsal. We all woke up sore and achy on Friday. The Gaga technique class we took was helpful in many ways. It gave us a chance to improvise, which provided the satisfaction of freedom. That evening, however, I was not in top form for the show, mentally or physically. As a result, I was disappointed with my performance. The disappointed made me angry with myself. Come Saturday, I vowed to do a better job at our second show. All day, I prepared mentally. I told myself that I was not tired or achy, and that I was going to be sparkling and beautiful. I prepared physically as well, doing the best I could to warm up my body. My mental coaching paid off in a way that I had not experienced. I was very satisfied with my performance and was proud of what I accomplished. It is amazing what a difference my attitude made on my dancing.

JESSICA WRIGHT
Performing this weekend felt amazing, on a few levels. It was amazing to be dancing with people I loved and I felt like I was challenging myself as an artist, performer, and technician. From the moment we arrived Thursday evening, I was already exhausted from being up since 5am and sitting in the car for 6 hours along with my other dance mates. But we pushed through tech and dress rehearsal and I felt
really accomplished when it was over. I also loved the space we danced in. The space was raw in a way and I really appreciated it for its flaws. I love that we were able to tie back the wings for our final piece in the show, Sacred Spaces. We were then able to use the walls and the entire space more thoroughly. Friday and Saturday were much smoother in terms of what we had scheduled. We took an amazing Gaga class at OSU and had a variety of classes taught by Erin and fellow Moving Architects. Overall, the weekend was a huge success and I feel extremely appreciative of dance, movement, and most importantly my body!

behind the curtain

2010-10-29T08:34:00.004-05:00

I've been thinking much about the place of modern dance as performance in our society, our culture, the times we live in, the Midwest, the US of A, within the context of the history of modern dance itself. And I am left with the conclusion that it exists in small pockets of cities and in academia, produced for the educated, for other dance folks, for our own needs and desires. I could scream the value of it from the mountaintops, and yet I know that it all goes round and round through grants and donations and partnerships with other disciplines and teaching certain populations in certain places, not so much ticket sales, and in a field largely monopolized by men, in a time when 'entertainment' and So You Think You Can Dance is what the masses seem to be screaming. So I rack my brain, trying to scheme as to how this thing we label 'modern dance' (whatever that exactly means) can exist in new ways (realms? structures? stage? no stage?) into the coming decade, decades, without selling out, dumbing down, becoming too elitist or too self-indulgent. Maybe this is a question only unto myself, or unto the field, but this is the crossword puzzle where I know the word, I do, I do, I just can't quite find the answer yet. Yet.

Columbus stage - life in pictures

2010-10-27T14:01:00.013-05:00

Photos from SACRED SPACES this past weekend at Columbus Dance Theater. More words from the dancers and myself to come.

the active mind, the active body

2010-10-09T12:31:00.006-05:00

This week I've had many overlapping dancelearning, dancemaking, dancewatching, dancefrustrating (thank you folks at Sprint for denying me wireless for my Chicago dancers), dancepromoting, and danceplanning experiences. I'll skip the frustrating and promoting and planning topics, and description of the bags under my eyes, and focus on that which has existed in discussions and garnered my interest. What is dancer 'code', the 'power' between the male and female in art and on stage, how do I find the relationship between my heals and ankles (Gaga, see pic), balancing the inbalances while experiencing ballet in a 30-year old body, approaching dance performances with no expectations and a seeing eye (les ballets C de la b), working with new dancers, imagining my future dance creations mixed with technology and the stacks of readings I will likely give The Moving Architects to prepare for our next big work. This is Saturday thinking, so I have no interest in going into acadamic cloud and bunny land, but I will say that this life, this bubble that is dance graduate school, is a luxery. Precious. To be a sponge and to love what I am learning and be consistantly engaged and curious, has with it a freedom like the potential of summer did as an eight-year-old. Up next: The Moving Architects perform and teach in Columbus.

Flesh and Quaking

2010-09-25T14:25:00.007-05:00

So I just completed my first few days of pure engagement and enjoyment as an MFA student in the Ohio State Dance Program. Having learned, it seems, volumes already, I'd like to relate a bit about my experience taking Gaga that coincides with re-finding my 2009 solo "Standing Girl with Raised Right Elbow" for The Moving Architects' upcoming Columbus performances.

The solo work, largely improvised to a set movement score with exploration of bound/shape oriented movement, was 'inspired' (for lack of a better word) by my liking of visual art by Egon Schiele (particularly the "Gertie Schiele in Checkered Cloth" print I own that is in this posting). I am largely drawn to line and form, and with my background in Laban Movement Analysis, am increasingly enjoying observing and experiencing the body's million unexpected movement possibilities. Beginning Gaga technique this week connected to my interests in the solo by expandeding the narrow framework I was working in, while simultaneously upholding it. A paragraph from the Batsheva Dance Company website that is an accurate description of my experiences so far:

"We are letting our mind observe and analyze many things at once, we are aware of the connection between effort and pleasure, we connect to the sense of "plenty of time,” especially when we move fast, we are aware of the distance between our body parts, we are aware of the friction between flesh and bones, we sense the weight of our body parts, we are aware of where we hold unnecessary tension, we let go only to bring life and efficient movement to where we let go . . .
We are listening, seeing, measuring, playing with the texture of our flesh, we might be silly, decorating our insides, we can laugh at ourselves."

So here is where the sharing of dance ideas becomes essential to the tenants and rules the dancemaking brain makes without realizing. My mind continually uses my frameworks to experience dance - especially effort qualities, clarity in space, the ever essential dimensions and diagonals that connect through the sternum and spine. And here I have the pleasure of re-evaluating my framesworks with no force but simply through curiousity. To the trained, or perhaps untrained eye, I think a different "Standing Girl with Raised Right Elbow" may emerge here in a few weeks.

Kinks and Kicks

2010-09-11T09:54:00.006-05:00

I've been posting small updates on facebook and such this week about my woes in setting up skyped rehearsals between my Studio 5 at Ohio State and Outerspace in Chicago. I'll label the experience 'working out the kinks as we work on our kicks', or more like working out the airspace and magic and cords and signals that make what you imagine to happen, happen. I have nothing to do but laugh about our Thursday attempt. At my end, a buzzing in the studio had been 'fixed' thereby unfixing the smartboard. Getting help from the OSU staff guru, who presses buttons and clicks and seeks plugs, I am trying to communicate everything with my dancers on my cell. They can't find an internet signal, my phone dies through this communication (mind you they have just had a technique class, are being measured by our new costume designer, and preparing for rehearsal) so there was a little bit of overload and the 'doh!' feeling. Somehow giving them tasks for the day amidst this, I call it to an end, and decide to warm myself up and work on my own. My video camera battery dies, so I am unable to re-watch our last rehearsal and re-imagine changes in our latest March of the Oys. Ah, maybe I'll take a picture out the window of the beautiful day, my digital camera battery has no life. And I think, why am I treating technology like it is a good friend being mean to me. This is how mystifying my relationship with technology can feel. One attempt down, we will work out the kinks and kicks and clicks and ticks, and I await the fun working with these new devices in the coming months! We may have to change our name from The Moving Architects to The Moving Technologists.

A Weekend with Cliff and Andre

2010-09-01T16:06:00.014-05:00

The last weekend in August was my first trip back to Chicago as one now spending the next three years at Ohio State. Yes, I had only been in Buckeye territory for two weeks before this first trip, but nonetheless I felt homesick for my dancer-friends, the closeness of things, knowing I was near water, independent businesses, and the familiarity and life in it all. So I headed out with my Hyundai (glad I didn't give in to the bus option this time) for a road trip, my only companionship Andre Agassi's suck-you-in-narcissistic-self-loathing-self-perfection biography playing in the sound system, to present my dance company for an evening with the Cliff Dweller's Club Arts Foundation.

Could not have been a more beautiful weather weekend. Despite feeling as if I was running around the city with my head cut-off for three days, for there was rehearsal and quickbooks and the event and yoga class and meetings to be had, even now in my memory the weekend could not be more entangled with Andre and late into the night wonderful chats with my group and seeing the city from a bird's eye view.

However, I digress. The Cliff-Dweller's Club is located on the top floor of a building across from the Chicago Art Institute. I thought nothing of going to the top floor when I entered the elevator, for who doesn't like going to the top of the tallest thing around and look down. But the space was beautiful - three sides full-length windows, an outside deck - the city seemed so quiet, the space so peaceful.

That evening we performed for a variety of arts lovers (two who have been to Uzbekistan), my group performing Sacred Spaces. Very well received in the intimate space, we were able to talk to audience members post show. Amidst some feedback and chatting, a woman came up to the group to thank us for the performance. She explained that her husband of 43 years had passed away the week before, and the performance was the first time she hadn't thought about him, and she was grateful. Talk about humbling! What a gift we could give without even realizing, without really remembering the reason why we make dance and dance in the first place.

I think of this week, how I've been so invested and lost in the computer shuffle of the press release, the eblast, the updates, new copy, budgets, researching, this dancemaking thing often becomes and needs to be a business. But it is so good to remember that we do all of this hoping to connect to an audience, to individuals.

A List in a File

2010-08-07T16:54:00.004-05:00

As I sort through my filing cabinets before moving to Columbus to begin my MFA at Ohio State, I find this list on a photocopied sheet of paper between folders from who knows where or when without an author. Worthy of a share simply because it is a list you cannot be taught, only learn dance by dance.

A Choreographer's Checklist

Symmetry is lifeless.
Two-dimensional design is lifeless.
The eye is faster than the ear.
Movement looks slower and weaker on the stage.
All dances are too long.
A good ending is forty percent of the dance.
Monotony is fatal; look for contrasts.
Don't be a slave to, or a mutilator of, the music.
Listen to qualified advice; don't be arrogant.
Don't intellectualize; motivate movement.
Don't leave the ending to the end.

Bringing the Racket like Venus and Serena

2010-08-02T17:16:00.010-05:00

This week we are performing Sacred Spaces site-specific at the Welles Park Tennis Courts in Lincoln Square Chicago. This performance is part of the Driehaus Foundation "Chicago Performs!" Program, an effort to have arts performances scattered throughout Chicago all summer long to make life a bit more interesting for all of us. A great idea, right? But then you may ask 'why a tennis court'?

I've been teaching Pilates at Midtown Tennis Club for the past year, which I have noticed is a sacred space to many in its own right. And during this time I have walked time and time again beside the great lengths of green and netted courts, housed in two buildings alongside the middle of a busy Chicago intersection. One would never know looking from the outside that so much internal space could exist where it has been placed. And how jealous I have been of these great spaces folks have to run and to learn and to get better and hit balls back and forth! The dancer type fights for such spaces to rehearse our craft. So maybe here is where I have begun to relate Sacred Spaces to tennis - the importance and perception of focused place whether in sports or in performance.

The essence of the dance work explores not only the historic significance of sacred spaces, but also all realms, forms and various individual perceptions of the sacred space as internal and external spaces. The format of the dance work includes five dancers performing bound movement phrases with very little sense of breathe or recuperation; the dancers are detached and search for connection, unison, and moments of softness (I wonder how this will read outdoors, how like or unlike tennis it may be perceived or if tennis even enters the mind). At moments the dancers are raw with emotion, at moments they are architecture in form, intensely exploring the spectrum from physical limitations to internal nuances. The dancers all in white for the Welles Park performance (much like a 'team'), this new environment will allow viewers from the park and passerby’s to experience watching the dancers close-up in the court or through the fence. The park’s natural sounds and cityscape as the musical backdrop, I wonder if the performance will create a new sense of what a ‘sacred space’ can be. I wonder how the dancers will move on the concrete with the endless sky above them and gates and lines to mark the space's boundary. I wonder about this intersection of sport and art, sound and silence, interruption and surprise.

four windows and a floor

2010-07-23T16:31:00.010-05:00

I'm in an unusual position and frame of mind in our dance studio OuterSpace right now. A nicely prepared meeting with files and budget projections and press coverage in front of me with even my company's nice new little laptop to type on, now postponed. So I have a free moment here. A moment to think and connect before time gets to me again. In front of me, as I stare out at the 105 degree steamy day through four windows, the day reflects on the floor. I notice the sound of the train that I do not ever notice. And all I can think: how many hours have I spent in this studio in one year - 100 or 1,000,000 - I do not even know the difference. Some precious, some crippling, some merry, some even I humbly admit genius. Me and my ipod and my little book and my body and the windows. And my dancers. Too cold, too hot, dry. This feels like a home to me, how comfortable I feel to be myself in this space that can be anything to me, including memory and the future. Sentimental as I write now, for my time to become one who lives between two cities - or as I like to phrase it "My Tale of Two Midwest Cities" - will begin in a couple of short weeks and continue for three years. When I will soak up my MFA at Ohio State, rehearsals with large projections of supersize me on the walls instead of real me on the creaky floor in Chicago, continuing this life here and the new life to come and the third life of what they will be together in my every day new city that I have trouble calling a city. As I wrote on my facebook status today - seven years of long days, but they were short years. Full of wishes and desires and attempts and disappointments and pushing it and growing up, and when all is said and done, I am proud of the part of me that is a Chicagoan and experiences that have made me me here. I chose to live in Chicago with my then fiance (now husband)on quite a bit of a whim, and now I hear the accent every once in a while in my voice and complained about potholes at work for an entire five minutes the other day and Wednesday all I wanted was to wear my scarf and layers to dance in. But there you have it, I know what I like, I know where I want to go, and I always have my dance spaces.

it's not just me anymore

2010-07-19T20:54:00.002-05:00

Additions to June 21st! Day 1 from Wilson College

Wilson Reflections

2010-07-12T19:58:00.004-05:00

It has been a few weeks since our residency at Wilson College in the eastern hills of PA, and as I still weed through my notes, and my dancers email me their own dance journal entries for me to paw through and post, I'd like to sum up my overall deep gratitude and appreciation for everyone who made the week happen. To Paula Kellinger, who invites me with her deeply giving nature to return yearly since 2007, to my husband, who made the journey this year and was therefore part of the journey of the week, to the Driehaus Foundation, who generously funded our week, and to my wonderful dancers. Ah, and here is where my heart is most full.

These dancers, would you believe I left the week feeling that because of and despite of their tiredness and desire and energy and friendships, they only wanted MORE from me and each other? Dance as a full-time career, more performances, matching hoodies (swackets), more laughs, more days in the week, more time to stay in that one weeks' time, large spaces in which to move, more discussions on dance, more photos and facebook posts, more good meals, more knowledge of what the future will hold and is holding.

The Moving Architects begins a new phase this fall - new schedules and distances and expectations. The Moving Architects soon approaching year five of formal existence, year two with the same five dancers still bodily and mentally intact. What better ambassadors could I ask for.

Notes from Day 4

2010-07-08T09:04:00.007-05:00

Thoughts and quick notes from my little book on day 4 of our Wilson College residency:

-dancers physically getting exhausted - hamstring, neck, floor burns, energy

-started with body connections. standing warm-up more connected than beginning with psoas fundamentals

-balls (tennis and large fitness balls) big hit, big relief to the body

-two dancers wearing fluorescent leotards from younger days spiced the day up

-my picture day

-conversation with Paula, always enjoyable

-resetting old work - seeing it on new bodies is like looking through a photo album

-everyday focusing on each dancer for pictures - I value each of them for their perspectives, unique approaches, durability, commitment, ability to laugh over breakfast, not afraid to admit that "dance camp" must have a viewing of "Center Stage" involved

for the viewing

2010-06-27T06:01:00.002-05:00

As I transition from a day of travel back to the midwest, to another day of travel to a beach on the east coast, I wanted to share another aspect of the residency week. My dancer/rehearsal director Jessie Young has been highlighting a dancer each day through a series of photos to be found on our Facebook Group Page, alongside a few rehearsal clips. More on my thoughts about the week I have scratched in my little dance book when the ocean breeze is in the air.

day 3

2010-06-24T06:20:00.005-05:00

While it is early morning on day 4, I permit myself to comment on day 3. What struck me most about yesterday - the Wednesday of the week which is historically my hardest day here - was the luxury of time. Not to say that I feel we have had time to spare this week, if anything it still goes by too quickly, but time to get into our bodies in the mornings, time to compress the aches away with tennis balls before lunch, time to find the 'balance' with a movement closure at the end of each day. Time I have to lay on the floor in the middle of the expansive studio and listen to 'opa cupa' on repeat from the speakers above me and just imagine what the dance could be. To walk from our dorm rooms to the studio and there is grass and I don't have a bag packed for the day and my brow feels relaxed. And to have my dancers not running to and fro and me checking the time every 20 minutes because in every day life it tics by differently. And we had a wonderful dinner last night with Paula who leads dance here at Wilson - delicious food, so much laughing, dissecting the dance world for what we feel it is and what we want it to be. Each of us our own version but so nice to just listen too. Time and expansive space, you are great. (pic from dinner at Paula's! photo caught us laughing, my favorite kind).

day 2

2010-06-22T14:24:00.003-05:00

Woke up this morning to a cell phone alarm that I snoozed and then 'dismissed' without even knowing it - one of those wonderful unconscious decisions one makes in a world that feel like an earned luxury of choice. Besides, I would have missed waking up to the best alarm ever - hearing my dancers laughing over coffee at 8.30am down the hall. Wonderful warm-up today though - not sure if all the creaks and moans in the room were our bodies or the floor. Started through sensing the skeleton through pressure shifts, Bartenieff Fundamentals finding the psoas (heavy closed eyes), X work to bring in the body connections (moans), spinal articulation with arms seated in vertical guided in space by shifting of the sitting bones (urg hips), and then there is the hanging and stretching and the plies and the feet and those 10 minutes when I put on upbeat music loud and it does the trick and we are all alive. So here is where I made the comment that continues to be repeated through the day - how can these small awakening movement patterns I've academically listed above be so profoundly uncomfortable and even painful and frustrating, but 30 minutes later, well you should see what comes out of the dancers. And there are no complaints, there are laughs, there is me laughing, there are movement motif ideas abound, there is a whole piece that is working itself in the way that things always work themselves out here. Baltic music, my new love of Baltic music has made its way to Wilson College. If you ever need a good song to be stuck in your head for hours, let me know, because I found it. This is my favorite week of the year.

day 1 of year 4

2010-06-21T05:51:00.012-05:00

monday

ERIN - ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
Hello from beautiful Chambersberg, PA. Just had some blueberries, soon some coffee, and off for early morning studio alone time. Fourth year having a week residency at Wilson College, and I find great comfort in how the physical place does not change - these dorm rooms, keys on a little red rubber phonecord, the smell of the hallways, the air, the feeling when I walk into the dance studio, the smooth floors, always wishing I had packed that other one thing to wear because how could I not have brought that. I've only ever been here in the summer - first as a child with cousins and family for church camp, and now as a choreographer/dancer and adult. And I have discovered that here it is always summer and there are always people to laugh with and a walk alone is a nice meditative thing and waking up to the sound of birds is refreshing. We will be documenting this week in many ways this year - hope you can enjoy it with us through this site, facebook, and whatever other online social network we are hooked up to.

LAUREN - DANCER
As we arrive back at Wilson and look forward to another productive week here, one thing I've been struck by is the impact this place has had on our body of work. While this is only my second time here, so much of the work we've performed over the last year - and are preparing for the coming year - has been touched by Wilson. There's the obvious: Sandy Cube, The New, and this summer's piece that will all have been conceived and created here. But so much of the other work has been influenced by Wilson, too. We reset Stops on the Line last summer, and are resetting Sandy Cube and the duet this year. And so now all these pieces bear the influence of Wilson college. And while the steps may not change much or at all, I know that something about this studio and this experience resides in the dance and in each of us while we do it. I can't think about dancing Stops on the Line without remembering the process of resetting it on the current company last summer. And just as I could once only imagine Sandy Cube with the only cast I had seen perform it, not I know my experience will be influenced by watching it reset and reborn with new people in this familiar place. It seems fitting that so much of our repertory, which is quite diverse, is touched in one way or another by this special place.

NATALIA-DANCER
Our first day of rehearsal started painfully. We were all feeling tight and sore from our long car rides, and the tough beds. I think we were all happy to get moving, though. Erin's new phrase work is very different than Sacred Spaces. It's a welcome change for me because the right side of my back was on fire after our performances two weeks ago. In the afternoon, we started learning choreography from works that are being restaged. I enjoyed watching them and seeing how different Erin's work can be. We finished the day with some restorative yoga, a yummy dinner, and some wine drinking on a blanket out in the field. It's so refreshing to be in the quiet away from the city sometimes.

JESSIE-DANCER
Never underestimate the power of a good floor. In some sense, I believe I am a connoisseur of "floors": marley, wood, rotten wood, pavement, laminate, astro-turf(only on rare occasion), tile, marble, etc; and what I have learned is that (as a dancer) you can never underestimate the power of a beautifully cared for wooden floor. Wooden floors are like the adult/dancer version of the "Slip & Slide"- you have only to look at them to envision yourself whooshing and zooming to your destination (which may or may not include crashing into some one. Oh well. "whoever" they are, they'll live.)

As we kick off our flip-flops and shuffle into the studio, we are all drawn to the promising golden light emanating up from the floor and it is only a matter of seconds before we are all down on it, belly-down or belly-up. Warm up begins, which then spills into building movement and eventually brings us to phrase work. I am so excited to see that Erin is including floor work and spinning into the phrases (for reasons listed above) and as I begin to lose skin from the top of my right foot, I know this is going to be a kick-ass week.

Running Sacred

2010-06-05T05:33:00.006-05:00

I like this little pun that TimeOut Chicago used as an article title this week - Running Sacred - about Sacred Spaces. So here I am, awake a bit too early on this Saturday where we have two shows behind us and two shows ahead. I will never get over the oddness of all the feelings that accompany opening performance weekend. My job is largely done - for all the details have been in place, a year of rehearsals (my favorite part) over for this project, and I've given it all up to the dancers and techers, and what remains is left to fate (that may be a questionable way of putting it in light of the piece itself). I'm very pleased with our venue and audiences - a nice air conditioned chapel at St. Pauls Church in Lincoln Park Chicago with people coming up to me a bit shocked and in awe at what they have experienced. The work is intense, and as one who made it and has seen it 500 times and is taking all the feedback in, I feel that I have put something new and exciting out there that takes you all over the emotional map and leaves one feeling fulfilled. Now 30, I think this work has ushered in a new era of dancemaking for me. And did I mention just how good and "goddess-warrior" my dancers are, how the heart beat in the percussive sound score makes your own heartbeat a little louder, how the lighting shifts pull and suck you through the space. Two more folks.

find more of us in 30 seconds

2010-06-03T08:57:00.006-05:00

I've been fairly diligent keeping up with 30 second a day clips leading up to our premiere tonight of Sacred Spaces.
See more for yourself!

30 Seconds a Day with The Moving Architects no. 3

2010-05-25T20:29:00.004-05:00

Jessie's jem. Actually made very early on in the project.

30 Seconds a Day with The Moving Architects no. 2

2010-05-24T14:39:00.004-05:00

Rehearsal at Outerspace, Fall 2009. Fun exploratory times.

30 Seconds a Day with The Moving Architects no.1

2010-05-23T10:51:00.003-05:00

Welcome to our rehearsal home. So in preparation for our premiere of Sacred Spaces I'm posting a 30 second clip a day from behind the scenes of our rehearsal process through the evening length premiere June 3-5, 2010.

religious location no. 4

2010-05-20T06:17:00.005-05:00

religious location no.4

Baha'i Temple
Winnetka, IL
2007

I believe the first experience I had visiting a sacred space that I did not understand was in my own backyard, the Baha'i Temple back in 2007. As their logo states 'religion renewed for a changing world'; it felt just so. A white space nestled along Lake Michigan surrounded by beautifully sculpted and pruned flowers and trees. Ornate, out of place amidst houses and a busy road, and as you drive by it catches you as if you are suddenly in a foreign land. I visited with my husband and parents a few years back, and what I remember most is sitting in a pew in this round santuary with windows circling the space. Despite not knowing the religion's tenants, history, rituals, and the like, i still felt calm, peaceful, and accepted. I think this was the first seed of my Sacred Spaces work. The idea that sacred spaces are like no other and we can all come to them and simply be.

The 'Meaning' of Space and Time

2010-05-11T08:56:00.007-05:00

I wonder about the direction of dance in consideration of where all the money is going, wondering how the field will sustain into the century, wondering if/how it will grow during my lifetime, and done hearing about how grassroots is the way to go, largely because there is no other choice. Not new thoughts, today it particularly comes via TimeOut Chicago Blog by Zach Whittenburg that I was emailed due to the mention of my company. And as I sit in a coffee shop, waiting to teach some more Pilates clients, catching up on plans for opening my own space in July, I wonder what the big guys in the big suits and shiny shoes and feet with no callouses think about me at 30 years old, or if they think of me at all.

I have heard stories from past professors about how easy it was to receive funding in say the 70's or so, how artists supported one another, how completely new approaches to movement were invented, despite politics of the time. And I want in on this excitement. I'm excited about my work (of course), but what of paying your dues while plodding on trying to finance all that a company takes to grow (marketing, rehearsal space, production costs, bookkeeping, design team, photography, all things website and web based, grant writing, travel, paying everyone, paying yourself, running as a non-profit). And I wonder if the people who make it to fifty years old and beyond made it because they are the most genius and talented or because they have the drive and have worked so damn hard.

Ramblings here, as I try to paste together a fall that includes starting my MFA at Ohio State, overseeing the running of our new Chicago rehearsal space The Moving Space, shows in Chicago/Columbus/NYC, possibly a winter international tour, and don't forget hoping that all of those who are so beautifully committed to The Moving Architects will enjoy me on this ride. All of this not to say 'look at me' but to say, damn it, look at what it takes, and what is my place in the light of all the dance, all the foundations, all the super established companies, all of those who support me, all of those who are jealous of me. Now back to the simplicity of drinking coffee and loving the knowledge that I wear workout/dance clothes everyday. And loving that the dancers and space in the photo above are 'mine'.

I am a Disco Dancer (or wish I was)

2010-05-08T16:50:00.002-05:00

Worth a post simply for the joy and inspiration it brought me (and a moment away from my own dances). And I'm sure other dance enthusiasts out there will also feel just as delighted...

One for the Books (or not)

2010-04-27T08:42:00.006-05:00

This past Sunday evening we performed at the Pakistani Student Association at Illinois Institute of Technology's Dance Fusions II, a paid gig and opener for Raghav, the Canadian/British/Pakistani vocal superstar. We performed (for the 9th time we counted) The New, our 60's inspired smart surf rock crowd pleaser dance work. Or so we have thought.

Tech set-up was slow and rushed, so one of my dancer's mothers, jean jacket collar flipped up Raghav and I had a nice chat about Central Ohio, Puerta Rican passports, and my dance company's postcard. All while Raghav constantly repeated my name into the microphone with his charm/ego making him seem a superstar, while my dancers ate fruit and did their 60's updo's backstage. So our start time of 7pm turned into 8pm, and may I remind you that by this point the audience was full of college students waiting for Raghav, not waiting for hip hop dancing and The Moving Architects. The crowd chanting "Raghav" along with many other things in Pakistani that we did not understand, I wasn't sure if this was amusing/offensive/immature/or typical. The star-spangled banner was played over the sound system (?) and thus the show began. And thus the list of words of how to feel, mentioned above, continued. To sum it up, the jeerers outshouted the calm onlookers during Dance Fusions II. My poor dancers. Kept their cool while quirky lifts were cheered on , yells of "leave" errupted during a moment of silence, and boohs when the 3rd section started, to end off with loud cheering applause during bows. Whoa, what to feel at this point. But, as I like to call them now, these dancers are truly my seasoned warriors (warriors being my newly coined term for how I percieve them in our new work Sacred Spaces). Despite all of this, the individuals who brought us in were very gracious and enjoyed the performance. And it really was a good learning experience for all of us. Propelling us to talk about such topics as the respect of artists, the fight to make modern dance a valued part of our arts culture, how to stay focused despite difficult situations. So there you have it, we are up for the fight one crowd at a time.

Heartbeats and Birdhands

2010-04-21T07:59:00.007-05:00

Lots of planning interwoven with the dancemaking these days. This week we start up technique classes again, have a benefit at The Dailey Method fitness studio, and perform "The New" for the Pakistani Dance Association at the Illinois Institute of Technology's Dance Fusions II . We are also very excited to be in the planning stages of our transition in the takeover over Asimina Chremos' dance dedicated loft spaces in Wicker Park, renaming it as the newly designed "The Moving Space" (more on that in the coming weeks).

In the meantime, we also had a great visit from our composer Ian Hatcher, flying in from Brown University. We both watched the dance at first in silence, and at the end Ian commented "Yeah, I can't use the choral score I've been working on". A true testament to the weakness of how online videos do not do dance justice. (After seeing Avatar in 3D, I'm greatly looking forward to the day when all dance videos have the same depth and energetic physicality). Through Ian's eyes, I also saw the work in a new light. He started playing with the idea of a percussive sound score. After a bit of playing around, we tried it out, and how the dance changed! A sense of protection and driving force emerged. The music was like a heartbeat, the angular and bound movements even more so, the moments when the dancers softened resounded in a way I could feel in my limbs. With this new sound score, I'm very excited about the juxtaposition between the angular movement with what we call "bird hands" motif, drapey goddess type costuming that makes the dancers seem like warriors, the church chapel with stained glass, and the heartbeat percussive rhythms. As of yesterday, our newest summary of the work:

Sacred Spaces pairs fluidity with ecstatic angular movement; creating a complex harmony that juxtaposes our infinite interior worlds to the delimited sacred spaces that human cultures inspire and impose.

Premiering June 3-5, 2010 at St.Pauls Chapel in Lincoln Park Chicago!

mind space

2010-03-16T09:15:00.004-05:00

I am really enjoying the process of creating The Sacred Spaces Project with these lovely dancers. I am noticing this process is far different than that of Stops on the Line - dare I say there is more movement? More spreading and enclosing in the chest, angles, visuals, shapes, speed, abstractness, loneliness yet dependence yet separateness yet equality? I have been having trouble sleeping for the past week or so, and I often find myself going into the dance in this mind space, seeing what I can extract or summon. Or to find what I am missing I watch rehearsal footage over and over and over again, until I can see and know what is next or what is missing or what it 'means'. Meaning! A quandary unto itself. With our composer on the east coast, we are also working in silence, something which I often associate with sacred spaces. And I think that silence is a large part of this process for me - like a clean canvas or open field or fresh summer day as a child. Silence and a creaky wooden floor and the thorough commitment of my wonderful five dancers.

Fun with Reading

2010-02-18T07:51:00.005-06:00

While researching the history of sacred spaces, I have come across quite a bit of information that has surprised, impressed, and interested me on many levels. Sacred spaces filter in and out of our lives at a rapid pace - for what else inherently combines architecture, history, art history, culture, spirituality, innovation, conquest, geometry, astrology, artistry, and politics? Travel anywhere in the world and the local attractions are religious cathedrals or pyramids or palaces or ruins, take any art history course and you learn the definition of buttress, all while loving The Da Vinci Code and the idea of royal weddings and how every religion has its own look and mysterious differences to try or hate or question or appreciate. But in all of this, I have recently been particularly drawn to design models that are considered to most embody the sacred.

Reading "Sacred Architecture" by A.T. Mann, he has a knack for sneaking in his opinion as fact, bringing these spaces into the spiritual reflection in which they were intended. Such as:

1. In Hindu Temples, it is considered improper to align the energies of nearby buildings with the temple itself....As a result, all architectural elements are displaced in a minor way to slightly distort the symmetry of the building. When this principle is applied to the entire building, it is irregular in the every element, but the whole carries a level of harmony which is so obvious that it is palpable.

2. The entire complex in the Boyne Valley is so beautiful and powerful that its rare integration of nature and cosmology strikes the soul and inspires holy thoughts.

3. Symbolic architecture is based on principles which extend beyond formal rules, because they tap into the unconscious and mythic layers of being, and activate higher spiritual qualities.

And now I'm off to rehearsal.

Tuesday phone calls

2010-01-30T21:31:00.004-06:00

Every Tuesday I call Ian to talk about sacred spaces. It is strange to me to schedule a weekly phone call - during a time when I have the luxury of my own empty dance space and its potential of movement and unmet possibility. But I also know that in the luxury of time alone, the hardest thing to do is give in to my time alone. To not tick away the clock, or worry, pace, plan, sleep, pace, overdo it, underestimate it. So we talk and compare this and that and dream of our project and realize our project, I through dance and he through music. And realize that the subject of 'sacred spaces' isn't so much a gimmick but revelation of the connection between all people connected through all time by thoughts of sky, earth, spirituality, geometry, stars, quiet. And that we are part of this for one moment or every moment, if we can adjust our lenses just right. And even if I can only feel this for a few moments every week, it is better than no moments every week. Sometimes it is hard to step back and look at a day and a week and place it within a larger significance, place it as a specific time in one's lifespan. And while some form of a dance studio has been in my life for 25 years, it is only now that I am finding how to 'be' within it, desire it, find the utmost sense and calm and assurance in it.

religious location no.3

2010-01-18T21:49:00.002-06:00

Church Behind Hacienda Xaybeh Dcamara Restaurant
Yucatan, Mexico
January 4, 2009

On my recent trip to Mexico with my husband, we ate at a restaurant after visiting Chichen Itza, and I was captivated by this church next to our tour bus. Still functioning with a congregation or just a bike rack? Simple lines, simple colors, simple shapes, I was drawn to the simple.

Outer Space Wednesdays

2009-11-19T08:16:00.005-06:00

I have been teaching weekly company class at Outer Space for the last couple of months, and it continually leads me to ask the question: what is dance technique? We have the tried and true plie, tendu, leg swings, and prancing, a short list I have had ingrained in my modern training since the age of 16. Add to it focused improvisations, Bartenieff X work, yoga stretches, and diagonal scales, and we've progressed through my 20's. So here I am - with so many movement practices I layer on my days and weeks, continually trying to seek a balance in my body so as that I don't ache and groan particularly on the cold rehearsal days. Seeking to balance my training and my physical movement practices with the needs of my dancers and the attributes of my choreography in order to shape a class to align/define/inform/ balance/challenge/integrate/strengthen/unhinge/reshape/enhance moving dancing bodies. If I look at the next 40 years of my life, I have no idea how I can do this. But last night, Bartenieff "arm circles" felt like the secret to my success and the longevity of my spine. So who are we fooling really. Though modern dance is fairly young in light of other art forms, all we really do is integrate and exchange "ideas" of movement through generations of teachers and students back and forth around the globe. We say "yes, that's a GOOD class" when discussing the spectrum of classes to take around town, but what does that even mean. We must arrive at our call time 2 hours ahead of time to "warm-up" when really we can pretty much jump into anything and make it fairly remarkable despite that deep ache in our hips that seems to go away when we aren't focusing on it. We suddenly "get" the psoas/hamstring connection and our backs feel momentary relief until we step off the train and goodness gracious ow. All of this to say, the older I get, the more I just don't know, the more types of classes I want to take, the more I just want to crank up the heat and come up with 300 ways to improvise across the floor with a new intention and focus each time. And now I'm suddenly aware of every ache and soreness in my body, urg.

Garrison Keillor, he's the man

2009-10-12T07:52:00.004-05:00

For all the modern dancers out there, this is defineatly worth a listen:

The story of Lake Wobegon's most famous dancer, Bob.

equation of the day: mad men = laban movement analysis

2009-10-11T20:46:00.008-05:00

This week is our show The Tasting Room, and in some sort of unconscious preparation, I have found that I am inexplicably equivocating this week, and my approach to the dance works, to the show Mad Men and back to the movement frameworks of Laban Movement Analysis. What do these two things have in common one may ask? Besides the obvious 'ding' I heard in my head minutes ago, I see the structure of a time period, the structure of a body. The undercurrent of emotion, the exact precision of a motion. The silences, the stillnesses. The ability to craft a show that pulls together exacting elements, the ability to craft a body that pulls together exacting intentions. The layers of artistry, the ability to layer artistry. This is it, this is my day.

Get to the Point

2009-09-29T08:41:00.004-05:00

We returned Sunday night from a week-long residency in Stevens Point, Wisconsin over-tired (if such a thing exists), yet fulfilled. My company was part of a benefit dance concert, Dance for Cancer, held every other year at Sentry Theater led by the AIR Project. We were invited to perform two dance works in the benefit concerts, one of which included restaging sections of Stops on the Line with community members. I also taught master classes in the dance department at University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. Our community cast ranged from individuals aged 3 to 80, all with different movement abilities, all loving to move. Looking at the big picture, the week provided me two things that I forgot I needed - fresh air and time. Hard-working time and enjoying life time. Fresh Wisconsin breathing air and away from 'real-life' breathing air. The appreciation of meeting and working with new people, the generosity of sharing love for dance, being able to immerse myself in teaching dance and composition and creating, being able to enjoy relaxing time and studio time with my dancers, being able to walk through a farmer's market and stay up all night like a slumber party. All of these components leave me feeling so grateful, personally and professionally. We love these residencies: bring em on.

religious location no.2

2009-08-24T12:46:00.007-05:00

Cathedral Basilica of Saint Joseph
San Jose, CA
June 2009
(research for the Religious Architecture Project)

I was visiting the beautiful Santa Cruz, CA area back in June with my husband. While he had his days full attending an education conference of sorts, I was able to independently explore areas of Northern California. I came across mention of the Cathedral Basilica of Saint Joseph located next to the San Jose Museum of Art, and thinking I could soak in the local art and culture, spent a day in San Jose (do you know the way to San Jose?).

As I drove toward San Jose, the landscape surprisingly changed quickly from hills and green to desert and mountains (beginning with a windy road that turns my stomach just thinking about it.) This cathedral stood out to me as I approached downtown, a white beacon of height and history in contrast to the flat brick city with little character. As I made my way from admiring the structure street side to within, I felt captivated by the beauty and 'otherness' feeling of this white ornate bold structure with its airy nature and quiet and calm beauty.

I received a brief tour of the sanctuary, my guide surely could write four thick volumes on the history of the area and the church's unique place within it. I come to find that the original cathedral was established at the location in 1803 by Spaniards associated with the Santa Clara Mission - a Catholic mission trying to convert the 'natives'. Amidst a series of buildings, earthquakes, rebuilding, blessings, additions, and restorations, the cathedral celebrated its 200th year in 2003. What I found most striking in the interior was the mix of Spanish, Italian, and Mexican architecture, stylings, color, and ornamentation. This cathedral felt to be a product of its unique history, and a visual history of the region. I was captivated - this sense of history combined with place felt foreign and beautiful. As if I only had one small taste of a grand feast.

tail end homage

2009-07-17T22:51:00.003-05:00

So here I am on the tail end of SUPA with Jeanine Durning, having experienced an entire week of navigating through dancemaking tools. In an atmosphere where days link with ease and new questions and frameworks for practice are eagerly consumed, I am left simply feeling privileged and lucky for recieving this sacred time. Only two weeks ago I recieved a grant to allow me to fly and attend this workshop - and I have benefitted from great generosity to be here and learn from Jeanine and all who have been part of the week's community. I feel excitement in this coming year - of rehearsing in the new space Outer Space, working with new dancers, finding my adaptability as I navigate between all of the upcoming projects. A cheers and head bow and handshake and hug to all who made this week happen.

religious location no.1

2009-07-05T19:53:00.008-05:00

First Presbyterian Church, Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania
May 23, 2009

I decided to rightfully begin my research into architecturally significant religious locations by spending some time in the church in which I was raised, First Presbyterian Church in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania. Located about 30 miles northwest of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the city has been in decline since closing of the steel mills in the 70's and 80's (or as Western PA pronounces them "still-mills"). Upon my visit, the city was looking even worse for the wear, yet there still lingers one beautiful old Gothic church.

My father pastor from 1987-2001, I had the privilege of growing up to intimately know the congregation and the structure. Sanctuary, chapel, library, lounge, dozens of tiny classrooms, balconies, a gym and secret back rooms and stairways, the church was built for earlier days when pews were overflowing and everyone wore their Sunday best. Next time I'm visiting my parents I'll ask for a more detailed history of the structure, but for now, a video of the sanctuary captured on my camera will suffice.

What I was most drawn to from a choreographic research perspective, was the settling of distinct smells in the space's breath and life (candles? cleaning supplies? funeral processions? old perfume? hot summers? old wood? nervous brides? wet wool?). The clash of textures (worn wood, stone, crushed velvet, stone carvings, stained glass, new and old pew books, light and dark). How everything from afar was impressive and up close worn out. How my memory of the sensory experience of the space was comparable but not identical to the current experience of my senses in the space. How the space felt empty with sad eyes, but still arrogant and ready to welcome guests and air out a bit and maybe laugh.

spheres and peers

2009-06-13T21:26:00.008-05:00

While our Stops on the Line premiere was nearly a month ago - hard to believe - I wanted to take a moment to post a few of the comments I personally recieved via email. They reflect individual viewpoints from audience members who have followed my work for the past year. Also here is a fun photo sphere I recently recieved from our photographer Peter McCullough.

Before anything began, the dancers coming out and taking their places. People finding their way to seats...I felt as though I was in the grand hall of a train station. The opening sequence (it made me want to cry it was so beautiful)... circuits of stag leaps forwards and backwards, in lines and circles. What activity that must take place in the city beyond union station. Where does the train take you? Are there destinations now? or are we just travelling the same patch of track back and forth over and over again? Is the railroad now only a glorified commuter rail system?...

The choreography is very fresh and innovative... one strong visual recollection I have is of the first time the dancers do jumps and lifts for each other...the waiting in the pews side business with smaller character chamber interaction was an interesting counterpoint to the bigger sections, gesture, floor work -- like chamber instrument groupings out of an orchestral work... the effective opening when the music and the dancers start to emerge out of stillness...

I just loved seeing you work in that space. I think what was so magical about the show was that ALL the elements from lighting (truly stunning), music, costumes, audience arrangement and the movement came together and fit so well. I felt like they all worked to showcase and support your vision. I felt like this was one of the best shows from a Chicago Choreographer that I'd seen in a very long time... I thought the dancers were so connected and moved in unison with like-minded intention and motivation. I think the fact that Ian was with them every rehearsal really shows in the way that they moved and in the way that transitions occurred. It was so very seamless and made a lot of sense. I was involved and invested in what they were doing and could have watched it for much longer. It felt like it had gone through a significant transformation since I saw it at Links Hall (work in progress showing). Reflecting back on the piece this morning I remember it as being a gentle sacred quiet meditative piece, watching it I got the chance to enter their meditation. Even though it's cliche I felt in the moment watching not thinking but being fully engaged in what was happening right now. I don't experience that very much in performances anymore so when it does I remember why I've loved dance...

I have begun research for my next large scale work that utilizes religious architecture as thematic framework - a year-long process collaborating for the third time with composer/musician Ian Hatcher. Part of this mode of research is spending time in various places of worship, choosing architecturally unique locations rather than locations by religion/denomination. Responses to structures in Beaver Falls (PA) and and San Jose (CA) coming next.

offshoots of Stops on the Line

2009-05-19T08:05:00.004-05:00

Soon I will post more after-thoughts to our premiere weekend of "Stops on the Line", but for the moment some writings and such will tell the story.

Preview: TimeOut Chicago
Radio Preview: Chicago Public Radio's 848
Review: Trailerpilot

us

2009-05-15T00:15:00.004-05:00

Despite the late hour, and a week full of teching and last minute plugging, I feel this night deserves an entry. Our show opens tomorrow, but it feels different this time. Maybe it's because I'm not performing; the dance is memorized through my eyes and I could likely not perform for you a single phrase bodily. Maybe it's due to the venue; a beautiful old church where warming-up feels as if you are in a magical and forgotten church in a foreign land. Maybe it's the dancers; they work through the dance pushing themselves and each other for hours at a time and not one complaint. Maybe it's the nice press we've gotten; who wouldn't love an article here and there and a radio spot and your picture on a bus. Maybe it's how the live music and lights make the dancers glow; I watch the dance from the side and I feel I could reach forward and pop the bubble-world they make above the marley. This is why I make dances - it leads to all of this.

arm = foil

2009-05-07T07:57:00.009-05:00

On Monday night, my husband and I saw a great concert at Chicago's Schubas with La Strada and Bowerbirds - bands that used the accordian, guitar, cello, violin, drums, and voice to perform truly beautiful and melodiously-filled music. While watching I thought to myself 'wow, how do they come up with this? who is in charge? who writes each part? how much do they rehearse? what kind of training do they have?', all before realizing that these are questions I am asked and have thought the answers too obvious/unclear to answer with much tight knit thought. Not until I experience something as pleasant as this do I attempt to articulate more clearly about how I put it all together.

The word formulaic is the clearest word to me when I think of how I've made Stops on the Line. I sought to find rhythms throughout the work - fast, slow, sustained, stillness. For Laban-ites, use of shape and body-halves are prevalent in my movement vocabulary, but so is my specific use of stage space to guide and carry the dancers/characters through the piece. I often felt these decisions were like putting together pieces of a puzzle, filling in an equation, stacking up blocks, the logic and innate sense of 'yes' seemed that strong to me. But really, it is not quite so simple.

I am noticing that the older I get, my use of good strong vocabulary words are getting lost (I like to think that dance movement logic is taking over vocabulary word logic). I few weeks back I became locked into the word 'foil'. I was trying to make a foil. That was it! If I could make a successful foil the piece would simply be brilliant. So... I may or may not have made a foil (Foil as verb: to set off by contrast, foil as a noun: a person or thing that makes another seem better by contrast.) but I find it amusing now that I was seeking one word to answer the dance.

But as I step away from dancer land into logical man land, there isn't a formula or puzzle piece that makes art good, art bad. The value of art (a weighted concept in itself) is grounded in craft - in understanding the tools and elements of an art form enough to manipulate them in an appealing way to a stranger, an artist, a blue-collar worker, a businessman. So my sense of 'formula' likely isn't logical and straightforward, but rather using the visual and physical tools I have honed in a clear and intentful manner. I think I will stick with the word foil after all.

creative genius: a loaded notion

2009-04-30T10:25:00.005-05:00

I am not generally one to go out and buy New York Times Bestsellers, but they always seem to find me long after the general public has had their way with them (though I must admit I was ahead on the DaVinci Code craze). That said, I've been reading Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love for the past week or so and it's really striking a chord in me. I found a lecture she gave at the TED Conference 2009 in which she thoughfully discusses a clever solution to approaching the joys and trials of making work throughout one's artistic life. There's something to it...

Arching and Marching

2009-04-28T09:21:00.006-05:00

Well here I am - busy weeks upon me. We are well into finishing Stops on the Line while performing and gracing our architectural moves throughout the city. A few of the highlights of the past month:

Wexner Center, Columbus
While not a company event, my husband and I visited our alma mater Ohio State over Easter weekend to see old faces and to check out the Wexner Center's latest exhibits. Robin Rhode's Catch Air interactive chalk drawings, COOP HIMMELB(L)AU's architectural wonders, and my favorite, William Forsythe's Transfigurations. Each informed the viewer with their approaches to form and space in smooth and silky layers while touring the exhibit. I left inspired and satisfied by the simplicity/profoundness of these works of art (and ready to spend hours on Forsythe's corresponding website Synchronous Objects).

Links Hall, Chicago
We had a works-in-progress showing of Stops on the Line on April 18 at Links Hall. A well attended event by a wide variety of artists and arts supporters, it is always good to have an early deadline to push the setting and settling of all the big ideas. Our post-showing discussion was moderated by Dancer/Choreographer/Teacher Ginger Farley - an encouraging task-master in exacting what the audience members really saw. Similiar to last year, I'll list a few of the observations:

Two-sided stage piece, Tasks, Clear Confrontation, Journey (tinkering, slowly unrolling lines), Period Piece (nothing locked into period but still felt it abstractly), Film Noir, Juxtaposition, Rhythmic Uniformity, Three layers of one world

Company Class with The Moving Architects, Links Hall, Chicago
A series of 6 classe I'm teaching, these are just super fun nights where I get to pull out new phrasework and new tunes while wrapping our brains around a physical concerpt. The pelvis, the spine, the sitting bones-heals connection were explored our first three classes. Interesting to me how varying focuses can alter body patterning so quickly, while bringing about next mornings of new sorenesses. Three more in May.

Adults with Special Needs Performance/Workshop, Chicago Suburbs
This past Friday April 24th (and this coming Friday), we had a performance/workshop with a group of adults with special needs. Engaged, responsive, interactive, vocal, open, genuine - all of these words are an attempt to describe how these individuals responded to dance, movement, and rhythm. What a wonderful experience this event was for all of us in that room.

Performances up next: Hyde Park Art Center in Chicago (you may just see our picture on the inside or outside of a CTA bus with an add for 70 Days for 70 years celebration), our big show at Epiphany Church in Chicago, and our This Sandy Cube at World Dance Alliance Conference in Madison. TheMovingArchitect.org

finding the meat of it

2009-03-31T16:12:00.005-05:00

We had our first long rehearsal at Epiphany Church last night – in a sanctuary where gold halos on the walls continuously shimmer, where the evening sun enters through the stained glass in tones unimaginable on Sunday mornings, where dancing within immeasurable height and depth naturally provides intent and wonder. As I type, I continue to have a full-body memory - the grittiness, my odd layers of clothing for warmth, Ian on his back listening to his music echo, and my feet are aching still from the old wooden floors. It could have been any year, any city in the world, any day of the year, the familiarity I felt in this religious and historical building.

My dad a minister, I was raised in structures – a term I use here both ideologically and architecturally. I was part of the traditions of bible school, Sunday school, youth group, and often visited churches where uncles and a grandfather were ministers and Carlisle’s were always the last to leave. Last to leave meant lingering in the hallways, in the pews, finding the stillnesses of the sanctuary, the velvet red cushions on the seats, patterns of the stones in the isle. How familiar Epiphany Church is to me, ‘as familiar as two and two makes four’ so says a line of my grandfather’s poetry.

So here I add to the montage of places where I have experienced dance-making, and this last night’s rehearsal only deepens this spacial (special?) connection.

America Dawn with JTC

2009-03-24T13:06:00.012-05:00

Reflecting back over the process of creating our Union Station dance project Stops on the Line, I found these remnants of influence. The video clip is a brief moment I caught at Union Station, the poem written by my grandfather I used in rehearsal.

America Dawn
by Thomas John Carlisle

Out of the dawn
the American cities
rise
pure
and white
even their smoke
like colorless vapor
easing over the rooftops
like a sheltering tent
a benevolent benediction
enduring the sleep
and the safety
of all beneath.
It is a beautiful
picture from the late
late train arriving now
or the all-night bus
or the coastal plane
circling to set down
beside it. The city
I say is beautiful
reverent
austere
steeped in centuried memories
its buildings like monuments
raised in the burial ground
and reminding its people
of titans who labored
and entered in
to the labors
and left
a cryptic message
of what their industry
means in the new horizons.

They fail to guide us
clearly. They know
dawn's pristine ecstasy
grows gradually grayer
till soot and smoke
and daily deposits of other
effluvia and excrement
turn day's reveille
to a dark and urgent dirge.
It is not fair we say.
Our original dream
is sataned
by the sin
of millions
of greedy fingers
producing
becoming products
consumed and being consumed
wasting and being wasted
by forges, assembly lines
the heat and the belch
and the automatic
mountain of goods-
we call them good
in the plural-
piled high against
the sky of our future

It is hot and noon-
No-long past noon
and the evening
offers no natural promise
redeeming our Babel.
This shining city
of painted wood
and cracked concrete
and iron and stained steel
cries for cool tunnels
or bathyscaphe depths
or orbits of moons
or an Eden planet
for a second start
and hope
for bombed-out memories
of the despicable knowledge
of how to despoil and desecrate.

And yet
the day waits again.
I feel it as the artist-
conductor comments:
My city beautiful
he says at dawn-
and someday maybe later-
but at dawn how white
and hopeful how clean
even the air refreshed
from some higher reserve
while the busy and tired
were resting against their will-
my city the beautiful.
The bus driver smiles
at his terminal
and the early workers.
The night shift he knows
beats the day by a small margin.
He rejoices to be
within reach of home.
The stewardess yawns
and adjusts to a different
seatbelt politely
inquiring how sunrise
renews you as well
as the city you sink to
with musings of Athens and Rome and Paris
and London and Brussels
the older the building
the better in retrospect.

But now
now
now
now
purely and simply
it is dawn
world dawn
America dawn
dawn in the city
and the day waits again
uncolored and new
and we know
as we step
down into it
or up into it
or out into it
that seeing these white
monolithic figures
rising from the earth
which holds them with minimum sway
and suspended from heaven
like pendulums of promise
ticking and tocking
with temporal insistence
created from creation
designed by courtesy
of a greater than Euclid.

In retrospect
we almost know
boxed in though we are
conditioned as we may be
in the complex we occupy
our not-s-private compartment
among these totems
and temples
and tombs
we know
there is life
in vision-
the sculpture
that we
and others
can quarry
and carve
the jagged components
of Camelot
or Jerusalem
or even a new Chicago
in this new dawn
this millionth chance
this unconsumed mercy.

A cock is crowing.

studioland

2009-03-18T18:31:00.004-05:00

We had a great rehearsal tonight. I like how the ending informs the beginning, how having no answers is a relief, how one person out gives me a new idea, how dancers can be people or machines or weird characters or rocks or structures or a crowd, how we come to rehearsal and our clothes match, how the train goes by and sometimes we have to yell to hear each other, how I steal ideas from myself, how I don't really have an idea and they move and I get 80.

I like being in dancer world; a day wherein most is spent in a studio thinking, and imagining, and supposing. It feels like me in there. I feel lucky to know of a place (physical and in me) that has not lost its essence since I was 7 and only continues to mean more to me at 29 with "I can do anything I want, I can do anything I want" and "I can breathe better, I can breathe better" rattling around in my thoughts.

Riding the Rails

2009-03-08T20:09:00.007-05:00

Talk about a timely article - not only feeding my desire to travel, but also feeding my creative juices. Believe it or not, my nickname for one of the sections in our Union Station piece is 'Riding the Rails'. Go New York Times! You are reading my mind. Read!

where are we?

2009-03-03T09:45:00.005-06:00

We are at about the midpoint in creating our Union Station project and during rehearsals I'm continually wishing for more limbs and heads and time to try out every fluke and spark of an idea simultaneously. We've got a good theme here that continues to give me points to ponder with trains and stations conjuring such moods of sentimentality and newness and far away lands and people watching. Maybe this is egged on due to my new dream of traveling to Barcelona (hence the recent viewing of Vicki Cristina Barcelona)or my dream of being a perpetual student (hence my looking through of a precious notebook containing all my gems from my Laban training). I certainly do like categorizing my work into doable structures while choreographing. For our current project, I have divided the work into three sections, with the second continually now in the back of my mind in full problem solving mode. A short rundown of section two: a 'riding the rails' bit with much jumping and catching, a space harmony solo (utilizing Laban's choreutic scales) to introduce the transition into an interior space, character/class structure studies, unraveling into what? and into a this and that and introduction of the mud. All if this said, it seems to be that I'm still in that place of finding my gut to say 'yes' when something is working, to keep trusting our time and the dancers and composer, to find patience in the conjoining of all of these things. Ah, I really like rehearsing.

I am liking the revival of my academic pen and paper dorky Laban side. I've missed my little symbols and charts and puzzling sensical space theories.

the hierarchy

2009-02-27T16:36:00.005-06:00

I came across an article the other day that re-prompted my frustration with the hierarchy of male vs. female in the dance community. I must say, and this article specifically backs me up with figures and stances, I've been bothered since my early high school days by the fact that this hierarchy is so obvious and apparent in all types of dance communities. I can rattle off examples from colleges, as a professional in Chicago, the audition circuit, as a dance instructor. Is a man naturally more gifted if he even dares to choose to enter the dance field? Is my dance company 'more' professional if I have male dancers? Would I be a more noteworthy choreographer if I was male? Read!
>

The Moving Architects: A Montage

2009-02-18T11:43:00.004-06:00

We had this little montage put together that features excerpts from performances in 2007-2008 including 1001 Afternoons in Chicago, This Sandy Cube, and Loop Detail.

Union Station in Detail

2009-02-01T20:01:00.002-06:00

winter travels

2009-01-22T16:36:00.007-06:00

I've taken an unintentional break from this blog - these winter days just seem to be rushing by with little documentation. We are progressing well on the new work based on Chicago's Union Station, and it is such a pleasure to work with this theme and group of artists. We are honing in the movement and music, playing with travel, character, class lines, the resulting senses of space, and striking visual images. I must say, when it comes down to it, travel is such a part of our current ways of operating. I found a Norman Rockwell drawing today of Union Station depicting Christmas 1944. The drawing was rather romantic, particularly when compared to the aloofness and exaggerations of today's airports and unromantic notions of trying to sleep through the night on Amtrak. Travel has become so commonplace, despite the long history of having earned through trial and labor the train, the car, the plane. I visited Hartford last weekend, and was struck by how commonplace this travel even feels to the system - the sense of distance lost, stiff joints, hungry but not hungry, how it only takes a few hours to go hundreds of miles. Even when I arrived, how it felt like yet unlike Chicago - cold here and cold there, we use salt on ice and they use sand, we have beer glasses and they plastic cups. Yet when it comes to thinking of Union Station, its hard to imagine it with a sense of the present. I continue to see it as a location prominent in the past, recalled in conjunction with the city's history. Hence we are making a dance, and we shall see.

photo: The Moving Architects dancers

Stefanie Karlin, Jessie Young, Lauren Bisio, Anna Goldman, Alison Riazi

an elf in edgewater

2008-12-10T13:12:00.003-06:00

I went to Hancock Fabric in Edgewater earlier today, and I think I encountered one of the most interesting Chicago characters I have ever met. Having a new prop idea for our Union Station project (we shall see if black elastic amounts to cleverness or elementary school recess held inside), I unhurriedly browsed through a store that always makes me wish I could make my own clothes. Here is where I found my character study of the day. A little old man was measuring out goods - he came up to my shoulders and had a faint accent, bushy white eyebrows, and was elf-like in posture and task. He bickered with an obstinate customer, complained of his 14 years at the store that had 14,000 problems, shared his political views - wide-eyed and lip-accentuated - of "so stupid" Blagojevich, and laughed at the inappropriate style of the straight pin in my elastic roll. Was it 2008, 1922, or 185o - I have no idea. I couldn't help myself and chimed in with a political thought, and who knew that the governor hated his father-in-law, as well as the families of so-and-so, and he said this-and-that, and we all knew he was a crook. I forget sometimes that I live in a city that isn't all about the hoity-toity shoppers on Oak Street and driving on Lake Shore Drive and treating myself with Starbucks and shopping in overcrowded Trader Joes. Things can be so much more interesting when one just steps out of the daily routine. Oh yes, and the elf was wearing a plastic doctor's glove on his right hand.

Union Station, Chicago 1945

2008-12-03T20:22:00.001-06:00

changing pulses

2008-11-12T20:49:00.003-06:00

Sarah Palin needs to just go away. Politically, professionally, or socially, sometime things just need to go away. When there is a drive for change, a pulse, that says new, fresh, new, fresh, interrupted only by the thorn that in this metaphor is Sarah Palin, it simply makes me feel tired and grumpy. My husband and I returned from Las Vegas last Friday, to a Chicago city that is now in winter, a new president-elect that is making me nervous because it is too good to be true, a performance schedule that is becoming fuller by the week, and economy that is bringing me (and you and everyone we know) some slip-sliding financial times. But if Sarah Palin would just go away I think that would be the symbol I need, the chant that says new, fresh, new, fresh, whatever the newness and freshness may be.

Yesterday my new and fresh was a bit of the olden style days. My composer Ian and I were at Harold Washington Library doing research on Union Station. A majority of the entries in the library database were for documents in closed stacks on the 5th floor -rather vaguely described entries, but many of them. We seek them and find vast numbers of documents from the 1920's describing the designing and construction of Union Station train station. The old pages smelled of my grandparents house, and the language was as eloquent as poetry. Such beautiful diagrams too. Next week we are going to people watch at the station, see what we see, feel what pulses we feel.

brassy thoughts

2008-10-19T19:43:00.004-05:00

We had a great show last week at Hamlin Park - it was nice to perform for Chicago folks what we had created in Pennsylvania and performed already in Michigan. Audiences seemed really pleased with the show, and I too felt like it had a nice balance of narrative/ theatrical/ doily and simple/instinctual / crisp. A version of the two different worlds that I think we sometimes see and feel is the way of the world- through the dreamy Sinatra style black and whites, and the over digitalized robotic isolation of Will Smith blockbusters. Ah, and lighting helps.

This week we have also been working hard on organizational aspects - the board, future planning, more writings of this and that, monies this and that, strategies and so forth. Nice to see circles widening. Adding the role of Company Manager onto my dancer Stefanie, a sure and good and obvious fit. Not so many thoughtful and inspiring thoughts of the moment, but what to expect when current days are spent writing about what dances are and what future dances will be rather than the doing of the making of the dances. Who knew at the age of 16, imagining the future of what dance things would come, that so much of it would be about spreadsheets.

Palin, playoffs, pals, palpability

2008-10-03T10:06:00.005-05:00

I think of this past week as one of hard felt climates - Palin/Biden debate, Cubs/Sox playoffs, fall crispness suddenly arriving, so many around me seeking change whether personally, professionally, or politically. I think of Wednesday. We rehearsed at Links Hall - a block south of Wrigleyfield with its drunkards and scalpers and catcallers and t-shirts and city workers in flourescent tops 'directing' traffic. Listening to NPR while navigating the blocked streets, trying to re-imagine one moment of "This Sandy Cube" that still doesn't feel quite right. The buzz in the air became a buzz in my brain and was agitating. What's important, what's the fluff. What's the conversation, what's more of the same whining. What's to just have a good time, what need is there for things important and meaningful. And then I parked and then I was warming us up. And moving the body seemed to me controllable and uncomplicated and constant, despite the achiness and soreness and that one moment in "This Sandy Cube" that still doesn't feel right. And all that buzz was quieter - saved away for later thoughts and ideas and dances. I kept talking about "weight sensing" in class - whether a sense of lightness or weightedness or the unsuspecting play through and between. Thinking now that weight sensing in the body builds weight sensing in the brain - noticing and choosing what is light or heavy or the play through and between.

scrappy thoughts

2008-09-29T13:51:00.004-05:00

The weeks seem to be flying by this fall. We had a great time in Kalamazoo, MI for our show "Brass Figures" in early September. Despite the tornado warnings, flood watches, and one night of a truly wretched hotel experience, we got some great press and had a wonderful time performing. How I do love good lighting. Whether shining into our loft or on a stage, there is nothing to quite set a feel and a mood and a sense of time and place (and memories of moods and times and places) than good lighting.

We were able to perform this past weekend with the "scrappy" company of David Dorfman Dance. All of my company was selected for the community cast; the group was quite a variety of those I've connected with in the past and many new faces. Interesting what daily rehearsals with a company and group like that can do to you - as a dancer or more so as a choreographer, I continue to feel the sense of newness and desire that resulted from the learning, dancing, and seeing of the work and presence of the company members. Maybe the simple word "possibility" strikes me most here. The idea of "change" that is simpler than Obama's, more mindful than a new season, more earned than my last paycheck. Ah, to trust in possibilities, these are thoughts that simmer in today as I type in rainy Chicago with a looming list of things to do in preparation for things I always seem to be preparing for.

sandy, tingy, and oatmeal-y

2008-09-08T07:51:00.005-05:00

This has been a busy month for the company - finishing up "This Sandy Cube" while resetting and tweaking the first half of "1001 Afternoons in Chicago". I've really enjoyed making a new work with a group of artists mostly new to me. Ian creating his musical score simultaneously with us creating the dance is a rewarding treat - it allows movement decisions to truly correspond and enhance musical decision and vise versa. The feeling is cohesion, not to mention that Ian has a keen literary sense that pushes me to keep going back to the vivid details of the Dave Eggers story that serves as our framework.

I've noticed also in the past couple months my liking of small props and add-ons in these pieces. I remember taking a beginner improvisation class as a freshman (at VA Commonwealth Univ. with Francis Wessels) where we could choose from a pile of odd props. I remember a long wooden rod and an amazingly tall African man treating it as a pet and friend. I also remember thinking "wow, why would I ever find a random object and dance with it." Who knew that someday these little add-ons and random pile of goods would sort of find me and creep into my dances. Hence things like oatmeal, puffy vests, a dress form (no I am not dancing with it), coins, beads, witch nails, and such are now part of the works. In the prop quest I've grown quite fond of the party store, despite my hatred of all things Halloween, and its great spread of odd products.

this is fresh air

2008-08-17T13:44:00.004-05:00

I returned to one of my favorite places in the world last week, the dance studio at Wilson College in Chambersberg, Pennsylvania. While I worked solo in the studio last year with my brother (note this blog's first post), this year I was able to attend with my company, as seen here in picture perfect order left to right: me (Erin), Stefanie Karlin, Alison Riazi, Anna Goldman, and musician Ian Hatcher.
Hard to quite tack down with succinct prose the retelling of what the week meant to me, and the web-like connection that formed between us. Maybe though somewhere in the account is something about our place in the literal landscape of Wilson, the imaginary landscape of Egypt, and the foggy landscape of all the places we have inhabited. Adding some sensory images concerning the flavor of rich hours making sense of movement and sound, listening and telling, reading aloud, partaking in good food, being in the quiet darkness. And somewhere must be stated the gratitude of feeling when good people and things and groupings come together unexpectedly, especially in this business of dance.

Best Choreographer in the World

2008-07-16T19:13:00.003-05:00

So maybe not in the world. But I was recently voted "Best Choreographer 2008" by readers of The Chicago Reader. Links Hall, which has been my rehearsal home for the past year, also recieved an award for Best Dance Venue.

the next thing

2008-07-08T14:03:00.002-05:00

After a great audition for more dancers and a few days at the beach, I've started the process of planning the next mini-project for this fall. We'll be reprising some of "1001", while adding new work into the mix for a shows in September (Kalamazoo, MI) and Chicago (St. James Presbyterian Church). Thanks to all of you who came our for our "1001" show - we were pleased to see so many new and familiar faces, and it's always pleasing to hear so many positive reactions and points of view! More on this newish project soon...

afternoon 365

2008-06-18T14:08:00.002-05:00

So I may be exaggerating that it is day 365 of this project, but what would this posting be without some reference to a number. Our second, and final show, is tonight. While I foresee this work be resurrected and not just put to rest after tonight, there is still an odd sense of finality that is oddly calming and settling. We've worked really hard, learned lots about ourselves and how to relate and communicate, and grew a little wiser throughout, and we place it all before an audience to enjoy (and likely judge a bit). Days like today, I always recall my most implanted surreal moment. I was at my wedding, sitting at a table by myself during the reception. And there I was - not knowing exactly where I was or how old I was or how everyone I ever knew managed to get into one room. And my mother came over, said a few words similiar to what I was thinking, and there we were. Here we are, 1 year of rehearsing, and it'll be over by 9pm.

600 words and Chicago Public Radio

2008-06-13T12:35:00.006-05:00

Esther J. Cepeda is one of the panelists for our Evanston show on June 18th and has written about the project on her site www.600words.com on June 11th. There is also an article about Neil Steinberg, another of our panelists, on the site.

We will also be on "Hello, Beautiful!" on Chicago Public Radio (91.5FM) Sunday the 15th at 10am central time. It can be streamed online at www.chicagopublicradio.org, and will soon be in the archives. As a huge fan of NPR, it was quite a kick to visit their station on Navy Pier (despite the fact that I had to go to Navy Pier, not a fan). As a Fresh Air podcast listener, I imagined myself to be very interesting and intriguing and making the interviewer say 'ahhhhhh' with every other thought. Not so sure that was the case, as I have just learned of such a thing called editing in a radio studio, but I think it will be interesting between my point of view, composer Seth's, and music samples. As nerve-wracking as it was for me, for I speak but the language of movement, it's fun doing new things that you never though you'd do.

goodness and kindness

2008-06-06T20:47:00.003-05:00

I've recently had the pleasure of re-reading "Little Women" - a large hardcover I pined over as a bookworm fifthgrader at the mall's Waldenbooks during the Christmas season. In spite of the old-fashioned language and fads (such as 'pickled' limes), I am incredibly drawn to the emphasis on kind hearts, good deeds, overcoming personal faults, and cozy meal times around the fire with embroidered handkerchiefs. And in these last two weeks leading up to the 1001 performance, I feel this goodness and kindness leap off the pages of the adored novel. I have felt it with the support of people's actions during some trying moment in this project. A surprise gift and note in the mail, a poem written by my father, listening ears, practical and patient guidance, always my hubby by my side. And with learning and doing better next time, working with a group of smart and caring women, sentiments in these books do exist.

twenty hours

2008-05-23T14:03:00.002-05:00

How strange to estimate that we are down to about 20 hours of rehearsal before our performance of "1001 Afternoons in Chicago". Seems like many, but again I think about how fast a day seems to fly by the older I get, and 20 seems so little, so young, so part-time. Instead of contemplating (again) on the value of an hour, I'd like to reflect on the process of making this work from where I see it today.

We were rehearsing yesterday, marking through sections we completed in the fall, and I watched with a little fascination the dancers refind familier phrases. And I remember how they formed and I remember how sometimes it was obvious and instantly right and other times it was again, again, again, again, nothing looking or feeling right. And I think about how making dances has changed for me, how it has changed me. It used to be one 8-minute piece that was so wrought and agonized over, trying to find the perfect work when I was not sure exactly how I moved or what I wanted to see or how to get the dancers to do what I imagined so easily. And here I am at 28, feeling like it has all become a little more intuitive and flexible, working through my current project while also imagining my next project waiting in the wings, while also remembering my last project as a shadow. Because there always is a next one, all of these dance works I've made at times feel continuous, at times feel like another step in the staircase, and at times feel like "yes, the next one will be just right".

I remember getting a job at Starbucks when I was 22. I was about to graduate from Ohio State, I couldn't find an off-campus job anywhere, and I suddenly find myself in an apron at a mall reading 3-inch binders of directions on how to label a paper cup properly. I think of how the job made me nervous with all its rules, all of its brand pride, co-workers who would glare when I didn't understand how to properly this and that. I transferred to another Starbucks when I moved to Chicago, and suddenly all of my co-workers were some form of an artist, none of us mentioned that we were sort of sellouts with our little piece of health insurance working 20 hours a week (there's that 20 again), knowing not that I have become some sort of coffee elitist who wants a one-tea-bag-grande-steamed-soy-topper-earl-grey-tea (a drink not to order in Kalamazoo, Michigan).

All of this to say what exactly. That you start to do things easier with practice once you stop trying so hard? Surround yourself by like-minded people and things are a bit easier? Find some skill so as to not work for the man? Many lessons and correlations I can twease of Starbucks, twease out of the past 10 years making dances.

But instead I think "wow, this work has been good for us all" and I think "yes, I now realize this and that and realize I am this and I am that" and I imagine "that moment is just right, in one hour of dancing I have one moment that is just right".

1001: a photo

2008-05-19T12:51:00.003-05:00

scribbled notes

2008-05-04T14:45:00.002-05:00

some of the flavorful written comments I recieved from our showing April 19th:

synchronized swim
process of physical progress
red scare
hoarding
beautiful
Phoenix
elevation
gesture implying a) a lady's hot b) masculine strength
body as an awkward location, and a modern disjunction
the spine. the baroque.
snowflakes
dialogue
the hips
to get scared/lost
obsession, improvement
not feeling good enough/satisfied
new things we pick up along the way but continue to do the same things
human sculptures
"mishap ballerina"/accidental debutante
pious parade
feels like an opera
remarkable feel of a city of people interacting
solo gets my empathy
never prissy
greek chorus feel
solidly gestural and narrative
inner texture consistant
reverential
cooperation moving the space

ta-da, new name

2008-04-29T11:39:00.003-05:00

I am working throughout this year with Solorohm Associates Arts Constultants on aspects of developing my dance company as an organization. My favorite step so far, changing the company name to The Moving Architects. More new looks and company tidbits coming soon - as I have learned, growth is a process. Right now a very interesting, challenging, and encouraging process.

We had our first showing for 1001 Afternoons in Chicago on April 19th at Links Hall. Thank you to those who came out - your thoughtful comments, perceptions, phrasing, and giving nature are much appreciated by me and the dancers. I will post on here some of the more vivid written comments in the next couple of days.

it's in the air

2008-04-17T09:28:00.002-05:00

Lots of new developments on the project - received a live recording for the first half of the concert, and how the notes soar! Met with a wonderful photographer yesterday, quite an expert eye and keen insight. Noteworthy panelists have signed on for the Music Institute of Chicago show, and in about an hour I leave for rehearsal to try to put all of my puzzle pieces together for our showing on Saturday. The costume and video completions are nearing, and, knock on wood, all of our little injuries and aches are temporarily subsiding. See, all we needed was a little spring air and hopes of tree buds to give a little shove. That and a looming timeline.

video hardships

2008-04-07T14:10:00.003-05:00

Seems my new video camera format is too sophisticated for blogger video add-ons. I was hoping to post excerpts from February's Dance Forum duet and the piece I set on University of Chicago. I'll work on it. Because all we need are more enticing things to click on to spread the world's need for contemporary modern dance.

out of town guest

2008-03-24T14:31:00.003-05:00

As a pretty much weekly volunteer usher at Chicago's intimate performance space Links Hall, I've had the privilege of seeing artists in theater, dance, puppetry, performance art, and live music pour their time and efforts into sharing their work in the space. The performances I've seen have run the entire spectrum - but these days who I am most intrigued by are the travelers. This month I've seen the work of many artists based in Los Angeles. With theatrical undercurrents, unique sound scores, inclusion of text and simple costuming, and pedestrian-esque flavor, I find myself identifying with these out-of-towners in a satisfying way. I have been in Chicago's dance scene for 5 years now, and I cannot say that 'satisfying' is my general response to seeing new dance here. At a time when I am continuing to develop my artistic identity/vision and final stages of '1001 Afternoons', I whole-heartedly welcome these co-conspirators.

my hourly rate

2008-03-05T12:42:00.005-06:00

Last weekend students at the University of Chicago premiered my dance work "Left and Leaving". A wonderful crew - smart, prepared, focused, artistically open-minded. Together we set a piece in less than two months in a process such as this: learn phrase, learn phrase, add walks, cut, paste, do just part of that, you two keep working over there, let's throw a lift section in, leave again, find intent, find rhythm, breathe louder, try again with your hand here. Add some grey and blues to create coolness in costuming, an obscure Sigur Ros track, and we had quite a captivating piece that we can all be pleased to be a part of.

My thoughts - perplexing, the value of an hour. Dawdling in circles or tearing through choreography, such variations in the rehearsal process. The luxery of time leaves space for movement to be organically found and change forms and textures, yet there is something to be said in making quick and fast gut decisions. Everything I do is in such hour increments - teaching Pilates, taking a class, fitting in a rented DVD TV show drama, wanting an hour massage to last 3, the length of treking to downtown Chicago on the CTA, changing clocks on Sunday and knowing I'll be extra sleepy Monday.

So is an hour a little or a lot. Is wanting a Vespa hip or impractical. As Colbert would say, is Bush a great president or the greatest president. Is reaching toward 30 liberating or unsettling. Likely it all depends on what time you ask me.

Did Ben Hecht live here?

2008-03-03T18:37:00.003-06:00

SO, last Tuesday evening we had a wonderful review session in the foyer of Liza's building. While running through the various phrases that we were struggling to remember, it dawned on me that this building held inside it everything we were trying to express about the stories of 1001 afternoons. Surrounded by the dark wood walls, which according to Liza have seen a few stories themselves...from drunken sailors to tenants paying off their rent by refurbishing the wood, we could feel the energy of generations past. Their stories and their tales. Behind us stood this great mantle with sculptures of faces similar to those often seen in the dances we are making. They were growling at us, but not with a menacing tone, instead with a serene glare warning us that they owned this room and while we were allowed to stay for the evening, when the lights grew dark and the moon was shinning through, what went on in this room was not for us to see. I imagine that at night the figures loosen from their frozen state and have their own dancing sessions, howling around the pillars and waltzing past the windows. Maybe some of the building tenants are allowed to stay. This is when it occurred to me, maybe this is the exact building that Ben Hecht himself was living in while writing these stories. Maybe, he walked out towards the sea and sat down each afternoon to scribble down the stories that the statues had shown him the night before.

Or maybe it was all a dream...a figment of my funny imagination. However, we will never know. Let's pretend, may we?

good lines

2008-02-24T10:18:00.000-06:00

A Friday afternoon in Chicago

five days in michigan

2008-02-18T19:31:00.007-06:00

I was in Kalamazoo, MI last week, teaching in the dance department at Western Michigan University and performing at Wellspring Dance Forum at Epic Center. I must confirm that Kalamazoo is not a grid, but a directionless one-way road system, and I must admit that I still have a fascination for small towns. The entire trip was a wonderful experience -the students, performing, spending time with my old friend Megan Slayter and my dancer Liza, and meeting and getting to know other performers and members of the community and faculty. We had wonderful responses to our performance, a duet that has continued to grow for a year now, having been performed now a total of 9 times in Chicago, Stevens Point (WI), NYC, and Kalamazoo.

During my time there I also had a chance to visit Prof. Bob Schmuhl at Notre Dame Univ- a Ben Hecht expert full of fascinating information. I learned much about Hecht - the man, the genius, the writer, the womanizer, the uncredited Hollywood scripter, the high-lifer. Most interesting was the fact that everything he ever said about himself was an exaggeration or simply didn't happen, an attribute that can be conjured from his writings in "1001 Afternoons in Chicago". While at Notre Dame, I was also able to go to a student performance at nearby St. Mary's College. Steeped in a faculty of Ohio State alums I could relate to, it also featured a work restaged from score by my dear OSU advisor Ros Pierson (who has sinced passed away). Very interesting evening of works - I saw and sensed a lot of new things during my mini day in Indiana.

In the Kalamazoo theater is where we will be premiering "1001" in May, a wonderful space and stage that I wish were mine; I'm looking forward to it even more after such a great week. I'll be posting the duet we performed on here soon - the piece is part of "1001".

eleven fingers, maybe twelve

2008-01-30T19:11:00.000-06:00

give it 40 seconds. ah, finally a music video with my kind of dancing.

paperdoll q&a

2008-01-29T11:44:00.001-06:00

We had a wonderful meeting with our costumer designer Lisa Stevens this past Friday. Theater actress and costume guru, her sketches and knowledge of the stories revealed a unique eye for detail and design. Lifting costume ideas directly from the stories and corresponding illustrations, she envisions costumes with hand drawn detailing and paperdollish 2D layers. Her frank demeanor was much appreciated - she trusted her perception of the work and how she could add to it.

On this note, I'd like to briefly discuss the idea of audience perception and the audience/performer/choreographer relationship. How it can be genuine, how it can be forced, and how it can be helpful.

I attended an informally formal concert this weekend with 3 new dance works- a short performance emphasizing a post-show q&a session with a list of questions provided in the program to ponder. The knitty-gritty of it: overall the choreographers were at a loss for clear language, the audience members were guided into thinking that dances are linear stories, and questioners were led into imagining that one can only properly view dance on a proscenium stage a safe distance away from the action. Throughout this process, the audience began to judge the work; they became confused by what they saw and heard. I silently became uneasy- the discussion was so misplaced, led poorly. Yes, it is hard to put words together to describe concepts, movement intuition, the 'why' of it all. But if we, as the dancemakers, can't discuss what we do with an insightful eye, how can we expect anyone to bother giving dance a chance? Yes, giving dance a chance, rhyme and all. I value public discourse with its place in the artists' creative process, its place in the viewer's absorption process. But I've never been a fan of generic discourse coming from professionals. What was the intention of the discussion? How can such discussions be valuable to both audience and creator?

I will defiantly dig back through my Aesthetics and Criticism class notes from Candace Feck to prepare for our April works-in-progress showing, take some cues from how others have thoughtfully developed conversational methods to talk about dance. Ah, I continually reap the benefits of living in student loan debt.

a tangy taste

2008-01-22T11:48:00.000-06:00

Now that my hard drive is free of mean viruses, I'm pleased to post some of what we have been working on. This clip is from a December rehearsal at Links Hall with dancers Stefanie Karlin and Liza Travis. Presented here in silence, this is my take on the story "The Thing in the Dark" from 1001 Afternoons in Chicago.