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I have an opinion.
Ok, that hardly warrants an announcement. If you know me, which you do because I’m not trying to spam people with these emails, you know that I am rarely without an opinion. My reactions come in hot and often need to be expressed with some immediacy. I also like to be in charge – not bossing, just guiding/facilitating/holding the space—so leading a project, directing new work, that all tracks. Especially in a dominant culture that is still obsessed with asking artists to contort themselves to fit the trope male artistic genius. But…I am not an artistic genius. I am a person. A female-identifying person. And, for all my personal preferences, one of my biggest opinions is that the best ideas emerge from dialogue and collaboration. People talk a great game about collaboration right now. In job interviews, there’s often a question about how you navigate collaboration with others. When friends speak to me about their work and relationship woes, they often stem from difficulties in collaboration. Well, one difficulty really, a lack of interest or capacity for genuine engagement in what the other person/people have to share. Just like the work of attention, listening to understand takes a fair amount of effort. And, to do it well, we need to build trust over time so we can be vulnerable and open with feelings and ideas that are often forming-as-we-speak. Choreographing a dance and bringing it to an audience requires some degree of collaboration. But there’s a spectrum: a director could treat the dancers, sound designer, costumer, lighting designer, production manager all as paid help to support the fruition of their artistic vision: hire their skill, deploy it, and reap the reward in the art. This feels like the baseline expectation in late-stage-capitalism. My opinion? It stinks. It stinks because the underlying assumption is that the choreographer/director knows best. They are the genius in tune with the art and their ideas and instincts trump all. I’m being a bit overly simplistic and hyperbolic here. Obviously, most artists fall on a spectrum, accepting some input whether it’s from their partner, a long-time dancer, a valued board member, but the model of director-knows-best remains dominant. And for some work that may be best. I am not arguing for a fully democratized creative process. That is a noble endeavor and an achievable one, but it also takes a lot of time and energy to get on the same page, a lot. What’s worked for me in the past and continues to develop is a hybrid model. It’s my project: I make the plans and offer initial thoughts and suggestions. For between us and everyone here this meant seeding the original movement material, gathering the group, booking space, and scheduling time – oh and money. But Amanda and Chrissy have done so much more than arrive in the room and learn moves. They have brought themselves fully: their frustrations, curiosity, enthusiasm, all their physical skill and in-the-midst, ever-evolving personhood show up at every rehearsal. And it is that generosity of self that allows us to uncover the heart of the work anew in every performance. To allow this kind of hyper-intimate, auto-phenomenological exploration to emerge, I’ve had to plan and then be ready for anything; trusting that the best way forward for the work is not to be found in solo-prep but in the discourse between the dancers, myself, and our two dramaturgs Verena and Surinder. I write this and it sounds easy and obvious, just get out of the way and let the work happen. But that’s bullshit. It’s not about getting out of the way. It’s a delicate dance of guiding, listening and reflecting, and listening again and translating into an actionable step, facilitating the experiment, giving feedback, listening to the inside and outside takes, refining, trying again. It’s making a piece of art that could only emerge with the alchemy of people and experiences in the room. The collaborative adventure, caring by listening, serious play and experimentation: this is what I hope audience members can experience during our performance. It is why the work must be permeable and transparent, prepared but not premeditated. I want you to join us on the journey, not just witness the final product. It takes more effort this way. It can hurt to share something before we’re sure we know it’s just right. But, in my opinion, the world has plenty of polished, perfect-seeming products. What we need are more generous, open, sometimes messy in-betweens.
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 Still-life of the space around my feet at rehearsal. Credit: Surinder Martignetti As an embodiment coach there are certain phrases I repeat all the time: “find the most easeful and satisfying way to do this movement” is one. When the goal is to develop a communication between one’s thoughts and physical sensations this makes sense. Too much force or effort reinforces the ‘mind over matter’ paradigm that often brought clients to me in the first place.
So, when trying to make friends with one’s body: ease is good, effort is distracting. But in many other contexts effort makes things matter. For example, I know that I could type in some things I’ve been thinking about into AI to write this essay. But it’s the effort of wrapping my own words around these ideas that allows me to connect disparate thoughts and discover something new. My creating and drafting are necessary for the discovery. This is true with cooking too. Josh and I used to order out regularly before we had Harriet. Now we cook pretty much all our meals. We were especially attached to Detroit-style pizza but, by necessity, we’ve taught ourselves how to make our own pizza dough and sauce, creating a product that rivals Jets, our go-to weekly pizza delivery. I lightly dread the work and advance planning but pretty much always end up enjoying the process (and the product of course). In each of these examples ease or effort are the more difficult choice. When listening to my body, it’s easier to override with instructions and fixes, rather than tuning in gently to what might really be going on. And in everyday life, it’s easier to outsource the labor to others (which is sometimes necessary but has been taken to abhorrent extremes in present-day America) than to commit my time and energy fully to the work. And maybe that’s the rub: it isn’t about ease or effort. It’s about attention. Intentional attention. Which requires a strange alchemy of both focusing (effort) and getting out of the way (ease). We’ve been having some wonderful guests come by the studio and engage with what we’re developing. Last Friday, one of them said that she felt ‘implicated’ as an audience member in this work. There was nowhere for her to hide or fully abdicate responsibility. At first, I felt apologetic. “Implicated” can feel icky, like you’ve done something wrong. I want our audience members to feel like they have the option to weigh in, not like they’re being forced to engage. But then, I started to wonder about effort and ease. Our default state in society right now is a consumer. We extract, absorb, exploit…all to minimize our own daily friction. When one of our dramaturgs, Verena, asked me a few weeks ago why it was so important that our audience members be included in the performance my first response was: “why is it the default that they aren’t?” When I asked why you go to performance, the overwhelming majority mentioned community as a part of your answer. And, as any of us who is a genuine member of a community knows, you must give of yourself, in action and vulnerability, if you are to experience true belonging. Perhaps we must feel implicated, seen, or uncomfortable to have experiences that matter or to make us present enough to make an impact on others. Sometimes that requires loosening our grip and listening carefully, other times we step up and act. Either way we need to choose to do the more difficult thing. The other day in rehearsal Chrissy said “why do we [she meant all three of us, C, Amanda, and I] always have to choose the hardest, most impossible artistic endeavors?” At the moment I think I just laughed, she was being funny – honest but funny – and said something like “I guess that’s just who we are.” But, a few days later, I’ll say this: Most artists I know are asking themselves continuously, but especially at this political and environmental moment, why make art? Why does it matter? It certainly isn't economically remunerative nor can one claim (except on a lofty grant application) to be significantly moving the needle on the state of the planet. But we can offer generative friction; pairings of deliciously satisfying beauty with enough discomfort to earn your way somewhere new. But making art like that is impossible. It’s a tightrope you walk between leaning on skill and pushing into new territory without leaving anyone behind. We fail as often as we succeed. Thank goodness the benefit is in the doing, together. |
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