Drafting Dances

I'm currently working on dances inspired by the art of Georgia O'Keefe for 100Flowers, a dance concert featuring the work of Brenda Siegel and myself at the Stone Church in Brattleboro VT on Jan 30 and 31.

Brenda and I had discussed the idea for this concert almost a year ago, so I began toying with the idea last year and thus have had a lot of time to play with my pieces.

I've been thinking a great deal lately about the way that some artists (O'Keefe is a good example) come back to the same idea again and again and try to access that idea in different ways. This is something I wrote about in my review of Candice Salyers' work, "You are Welcome Here" (see below). I've noticed that following the work of one choreographer (or artist of any medium) over time and seeing the recurrence of various themes or motives, and the increasing depth at which an artist explores those motives is extremely satisfying for me as an audience member. I think that in other art forms, where the art is set down in a solid way and exists in the context of the stream of work that's been created it is easier to see---consider O'Keefe and her flowers, or her abstract landscapes, or her skyscrapers (not to mention the recurrence of methods of abstraction, color, shape etc.). However, choreographers do not exist separate from their past works either, and they are subject to the same obsessions.

I am a case in point. I began working on one of my Georgia O'Keefe pieces (based on her Jack in the Pulpit abstractions) last year. I performed the solo (Jack-in (and out of)-the-Pulpit) at Open Marley Night at Experimental Movement Concepts (Baltimore). The piece at that time was a merging of the shapes I saw in the flower painting and the emotional feeling I got from the painting tossed together with my own emotional garbage of that time. This is not the type of work I normally do, and I was uncomfortable with it. I felt it was too literal, too emotional and not cohesive or well-crafted.

Months later, I began to re-work the piece and decided that I wanted to use this literal and emotional movement and re-interpret it against very different music in order to show that the same solo with changes only in tempo, music and facing was not the same piece at all. The piece was performed in progress at Keene State College in November and fell flat completely. Juxtaposing the vastly different moods created a feeling of disconnect amongst people in the audience and I was still not comfortable with the piece, which somehow felt both too personal and untrue.

However, by this time, while I still felt the "emotional garbage" attached to the piece was somehow making it difficult to turn into real "art", I was also obsessed (like really obsessed) with the puzzle of how to use this movement and create different effects. The movement material for the piece is not (I don't think) extremely inventive, and it is often literal---however, I'm convinced that much of the "meaning" we attribute to dance has more to do with the context in which we present the movement than with the movement itself.

The Jack-in-the-pulpit Series by Georgia O'Keefe includes six paintings. In my initial choreography, I had only looked at two. I began to realize, that O'Keefe had looked at the flower and chosen to interpret six different elements of that flower. I decided to turn my piece into a suite, a series, and interpret multiple perspectives of the emotional, shape-oriented and constructive elements of the original piece.

At the first Official Alumni Dance Concert at Keene State (Dec. 1, 2009), I presented two parts of my Jack-in-the-Pulpit Series. Part II: Jack-in (and out of)-the-Pulpit is a duet in which the original solo is presented by one dancer, while the other dancer sits and takes notes while observing the soloist and smoking a cigar (a la Freud). The first solo is extra emotional, slow and with very literal, music. The soloist does not seem to notice the other dancer. At the end of the first solo, there is an interaction (in silence) where the second dancer drops the notebook and pen and comes up to the first dancer, hands her the cigar (which the first dancer views with disgust and confusion) and then repeats the solo in a new facing at double time and with very different music (still with literal lyrics). The first soloist views this in confusion and disbelief, and the second soloist is clearly performing for the benefit of the first.

Part III: the jack-in-the-pulpit is a broken flower is a solo, performed in silence in an intimate proximity to the audience. In this section, there are piles of novels stacked in towers in a row, and the dancer is partially obscured by the books as she performs the same movement material and interacts with the books. She also reads text from the books out loud.

I have not yet finished and presented Part I: Jack-in-the-Pulpit Abstraction, but the piece will be a group piece and (using the same movement material) will present the abstract shapes and images from the paintings without the emotional subtext. On January 30 and 31, the parts will be performed in order as one piece.

My hope is that the repeated viewing (in a short enough time to see the connections clearly) will add interest to the work for the audience. It has been interesting (obsessing also) to me that the re-visiting of the material started out on a meta-level for this piece (perform, revise, perform) and has become so consuming as to drive the piece itself. Interpret; re-interpret.

Candice Salyers' Chamber Series takes us down The Rabbit Hole: A Review

Event Description:
Dancer and choreographer Candice Salyers, will perform at The Rabbit Hole, 805 Main Street, Fitchburg on Friday, October 16th at 7:00 PM. Her solo dance/movement 'Chamber Series' explores qualities that exist within the transformation of perception and the perceiving of transformation. This site-adaptive dance work travels through a series of intimate and expansive spaces, and stems from the artist's desire to inspire care about human being and to expand imaginings of what is possible for human becoming.

Review (by Cindi L'Abbe):

Sometimes the dance world leaves me feeling cold, and not just cold, but helpless. I believe that dance, as much as any other art, has the possibility to be both incredibly emotionally compelling and painstakingly well-crafted. The dances that I see most often, however, seem to be more self-indulgent and (at the risk of sounding a little "red") decadent than either compelling or well-crafted (to say nothing of being both). This world doesn't seem hospitable for my own dances, nor does it offer me dance that feeds me and forces me to grow. Candice Salyers is one of a limited group of dance artists who renew m y faith in the art form and in myself.

Full disclosure alert: Candice has been a teacher of mine and a close mentor. I have affection for her personally, but she is also, to quote a new-agey friend of mine, "a powerful presence". Her small-space performance at the Rabbit Hole on Friday night provided the perfect opportunity to magnify and focus that power.

The performance began outside on the sidewalk, with Ms. Salyers who was (in spite of the cold) dressed in a lovely white camisole dress that evoked lingerie and formal evening attire. Lying on the sidewalk, thus attired, in downtown Fitchburg elicited a couple of cat calls from passers by. These did not at all detract from the performance, an exploration of the body as an objet d'art, flesh, matter---an exploration of seeing and being seen. In fact, later, the outline of her body chalked onto the sidewalk and bordered with small white-painted G.I. Joes, she wrote in the negative space, "My inner world is a post 'male-gaze' society." Somehow, Ms. Salyers, as a woman and an artist has moved beyond the objectification of a cat-call and if she does not feel objectified then it seems unlikely that she can be.

In the second section of the work, Ms. Salyers directed us inside the bookstore where she began moving slowly with her back to the small audience among the bookcases. As a performer, Ms. Salyers is impossible to look away from; even her smallest movements are imbued with obvious meaning and intention and she seems to always move from her innermost self with all of her might. Tucked into the stacks of books she moved in slow motion with a quality of seduction which made the audience feel that they were looking in at a private moment. At one point she slowly slid her strap off her shoulder and then back up. This coquetry (partially inspired by the ways Marie Antoinette might seduce someone, in other words, the flirtations of a powerful woman) was amplified by her use of direct eye contact. It was fascinating to see the reactions of audience members with whom Ms. Salyers made and held eye contact. Often she would smile at them, and at one point played a game of peek-a-boo by always finding the eyes of one audience member while spinning around. Some audience members reacted as though they'd been "caught" looking at Ms. Salyers, which is intriguing and led me to question what we are thinking of the people we see when we see a performance. Do we dehumanize performers so much that we fool ourselves into thinking that they don't know we are there?

Given the slow movement, the simplicity of the composition and the single-pointed focus of solo work, it may speak to the "powerful presence" of Ms. Salyers as a performer that no one's attention seemed to flag. I attribute this to something else (or rather, something additional); simplicity allows us to focus and humanity\meaning\consciousness intrigue us. How many dances have lost me because of too much movement? I have not known myself to ever complain because there was too little dancing in a dance.

Following Ms. Salyers up the spiral stairs of the Rabbit Hole, I was struck by the playfulness and kindness of her piece thus far. The last two sections of the work would prove to be no less intriguing, but, for me, more haunting, abstract and beautiful.

Part three of the performance was danced on a floor covered with rose petals. Given the themes of the piece throughout, the seductive nature of rose petals could not be ignored. The movement in this section demonstrated, more than any of those previous, Ms. Salyers' tremendous strength and technique as a dancer. However, her dance was much more than a display of virtuosity. Every movement of her hands, a foot, the top of the head was clearly intentional and meaningful. The repetition of a phrase which grew and crystallized with each repeat was so compelling that I didn't notice (but was informed by friends later) that the audience was once again, disconcertingly confronted with the objet d'art\flesh question. Flipping her body with power and strength, Ms. Salyers revealed her underwear, her thighs and the feminine nature of her body. Having danced in a work of hers in 2005 (Belief is a Persistent Angel), I couldn't help but see similarities. The primary dancer in the 2005 work has performed a similar solo in a similar costume with similar results.

The final section of the work at the Rabbit Hole consisted of a solo that I'd never seen, but had heard described. The fact that Ms. Salyers explores the underlying themes of her work over the course of years, is additional evidence of the intellectual prowess and attention to craft that she embodies. A worked and re-worked piece satisfies the audience with its completeness much more than the staged result of a stint at Jacob's Pillow, never mind the lights and set and flash. Familiarity with the work of a choreographer and their process is also satisfying, so my full disclosure clause applies here again.

During this last section a slide projector projects a single slide with the text, "My body lacks nothing.", while in one of the most beautiful pieces of dance I've seen (excepting perhaps a similar segment in the aforementioned Belief...), Ms. Salyers raises herself from the floor to standing with full understanding and experience of every movement. The most stunning moment, for this observer, occurred when, standing on one foot, she slid the other leg off the floor and slowly, reaching through the sole of her foot and toes (Ms. Salyers has some of the most articulate toes I've seen) she searches for and encounters the floor, feeling it fully before placing her weight on it. Once she was standing, she joined the audience (after smiling at us) and the projector clicked, "(except for you)".

To paraphrase Ms. Salyers, my inner world is a post "meaningless dance" society. She lives in that world with me.