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Last Fall I read this article by Adam Mostroianni and it’s been following me around ever since. He posits that instead of ‘doing what we love’ we should, instead, do what we can’t stand not to, pursue that which annoys us; the problems we can’t let go unsolved.
Dancers and choreographers go to one another’s shows then they grab drinks and dissect the work. The higher the expectations, the more rigorous the dissection. Dissection is absolutely the wrong word because it’s much, much more emotional. We get elated, deeply envious, woefully disappointed, furious to the point of rage…in short, other people’s art bothers us, in good and not-good ways. I used to feel bad about this practice and at its worst it really is just a catty, gossip-fest. But, at its best, it’s a group of likeminded people getting together to talk about the thing that annoys them the most: dance performance that isn’t quite what they think it should be. Or performance that is exactly what it should be but was not made/performed by them which is both inspiring to experience and exquisitely painful, a bit like eating the ripest, most delectable mango while standing on broken glass. As a choreographer on the verge of premiering a new work, I know why I’m doing this (see above). I even know why I make dance that is permeable and responsive: because I so badly crave that extra-ephemeral, only-this-way-with-this-specific-group-of-people, experience. What I don’t know is why other people attend live dance performance. So, I’m asking you: Why do you see shows? What are you interested in experiencing? What do you want from a dance performance? And, if it’s relevant, you can throw in what really gets under your skin – in performance or otherwise. That’s it for now. Keeping it shorter and, perhaps, sweeter for now because spending my days with a five-month-old is kicking my energetic butt in a deeply satisfying and all-encompassing way.
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 Past-Gina gazing at the empty seats and gearing up for a RealLivePeople Presents production. I’m a sucker for systems of categorization, especially those problematic personality-based ones. There’s something profoundly satisfying about both feeling seen and being able to point at something and say, “I’m not that.”
A few weeks ago, I was getting bodywork. Rolfing to be specific. I have a new practitioner who knows more about bodies than I do and it’s incredible. I spend so much time teaching people about how to listen to their physical intelligence; it’s a gift to be a student again. She was explaining that children don’t develop the ability to understand clock-based time until they’re 7 or 8 years old because the left hemisphere of their brains develop later. But they can understand space and physical relationships because those are developed in the right hemisphere. In other words, we learn space before we know time. She then posited that some people continue to live ‘in space’ while others live ‘in time’ – an oversimplistic categorization, so of course I perked up. What, I wondered, were the differences? After a brief dip into neuroscience, I came away chastened and enthused. In short: space trumps time in our awareness (which makes sense based on human development), but our understanding of time is also culturally grounded. Not all human societies orient around clock time; it is not a biological necessity. Ok, so what does that mean for my Rolfer’s assertion about ‘living in space’ and ‘living in time’? For me it comes down to social conditioning. I don’t think there are necessarily people who live ‘in time’ or ‘in space’. I think we all have the capacity to do both. However, when you are ‘in time’ you tend to be preoccupied with planning for the future: making schedules, lists, plans—and struggle to be aware of your current surroundings. And when you can arrive in ‘space’ you have more capacity to be present in your environment but may chafe and struggle against external pressures and expectations. Too simple? Absolutely. But what if we apply it to movement? Right now, Chrissy, Amanda, Surinder, and I are trying to solve a puzzle. between us and everyone here needs to be authentically responsive to its audience. The work itself must come alive not just in the space of the theater, but in the space between the dancers, our musician/sound designer Chien, the lighting technician, and every member of the audience. But for this to be possible, we need a way to transport our audience members into a shared ‘space awareness’. I believe that I use dance, movement, improvisation, and some somatic practices to drop into ‘space,’ so maybe it’s just another word for ‘presence’ – but I don’t think so. I think it’s about being oriented to your present experience, sure, but also to place and connection. So, that’s what we’re attempting to cultivate in the studio. It’s…not simple. I’ll keep you posted. |
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