Day 2 in Studio

I started my morning stretching and contemplating the first poem my friend sent me to work with.  I was struck with an idea and decided to turn on the camera and go with it.  My experience of reading the poem and connecting it with dance was one of trying not to be too literal.  The same goes for the lyric of "La Vie en Rose" (but more on that later).  What often helps me with choreography is having transitions and growth in a "story."  Thus far, my dance characters are often not static.  I enjoy trajectory and resolution- it helps the piece seem more meaningful to me.  In the poem God loses his shyness, "thaws as it were, and no matter what now, no matter what you do the sacred will begin to grow inside."  This transition from shyness caught my attention.  The hand gestures I learned from a co-dancer Bethany Williams and I love the way they make the hands look as if they have minds of their own.  For me, in this clip, the hands are God, searching shyly and then not so shyly.  I will have to work more on the body experiencing the growth of the sacred inside (wow).  Poem and video below:

 The Color of Your Ocean Will Change

                                                    It is possible that just a drop of dye from

                                                    a vial the Friend holds could change the color

                                                    of an ocean.

                                                    I know I have talked about this in different

                                                    poems, this basic concept,

                                                    but will now say it from a slightly different

                                                    angle in case that first arrow I shot completely

                                                    missed.

                                                    The presence of a Perfect One reaches a seed that

                                                    is planted in you,

                                                    and from that divine warmth, God will lose His

                                                    shyness, thaw as it were, and no matter what now,

                                                    no matter what you do, the sacred will begin to

                                                    grow inside.  The color of your ocean will change.

                                                    The drop of holy water, the needed dye, has

                                                    touched your forehead,

                                                    the air did that to you at birth, as did the first

                                                    hands that touched you,

                                                    and the soft walls -- so many times -- of your

                                                    Mother's womb you lay against.

 As for "La Vie en Rose," I went a bit of a different route.  It is always so tempting to not change whatever "progress" I have made for the sake of accomplishing a piece of choreography. However, I did just that and abandoned what I had set to the music yesterday.  I have been watching the works of an Italian choreographer named Ambra Senatore whom I discovered in Bordeaux.  Her works are highly theatrical and seem to push the limits of dance.  However, her works are so seamless that when I watch them I feel as though I am watching a brilliant dance piece.  The way themes and emotions are projected from her and evoked from the audience is amazing.  I saw her perform "Passo" live and was just floored.  My themes for this piece are more or less the same as I described before, but I am breaking it into three sections. 1) a woman is caught experiencing sadness and self-frustration, she tries to hide it, but is unsuccessful. 2) the woman indulges in the despair. 3) the woman accepts the sadness and is now able to move on from it.  The theatrics thus far are mostly in the facial expressions. And yes, in me holding a glass of red wine. My video from today is much more of a skeleton for the piece than actual set moves.  Oh, I'll stop apologizing, just watch.

Final thoughts: I believe that creating art is a balance between self-expression and perceptions others will have of the work. "Dance audiences are scavengers for meaning." I read in a NYT article titled ABC's of Choreography: Teaching the Unteachable? I think this is true because I see it in myself.  When we experience work we know that another human created in from an emotional/spiritual place. We try our best to interpret what we see/hear to trace back to those human roots.  However, inevitably each person will see something different, and perhaps no one will know the artist's mind.  The final sentence in the article states "She and other composition teachers seek to provide environments in which choreographers can make their meanings clear." I am not sure if the goal of artists should be to make meanings clear. It seems impossible. Yet, we cannot escape it if we hope to display our art to audiences. How to reconcile?