Biography of a Dance - Curvy Figures and Bony Places
I saw it coming - knew ever since I started college that I would have to choreograph a piece for my senior project. It scared me a little. I didn’t even take any comp classes in my two years at UW. But I figured I would work it out once the time came, and when the process started I had Creative Foundations and Comp/Improv under my belt, and was exploring Choreography 1. I didn’t feel like it was much to work from, but I remember meeting with John Dixon as I was trying to decide how to start, and I saw two ways to look at it: either I would freak out and try to figure out what I was doing and how I was doing it and what I wanted it to look like early on, or I could use the time that had been given to me and just… start.
I had a sense of my own movement (though I still don’t know where it comes from), of organization, and of the kind of composition I felt capable of. I decided to work with three dancers and create something that wove between individual and group choreography. I wanted girls I could trust, who would show up to rehearsals and play along when I told them to move in ways they had never moved before. I wanted to make something without worrying about counts and then get my friend Mitchell to create music to go with it. I tried not to worry about what it was about. I wanted to see what happened if I let it develop without a preconception.
And I began. I decided to take videos of what we had accomplished at the end of rehearsals so I had something to look back on and work from and so the dancers wouldn’t forget what they learned. I started with three different phrases - just random sequences I had made up for Choreography or when I was improvising in the studio - and taught them to the girls. After they had a sense of them, I tried having each do a different phrase at the same time. I adjusted where they were in space, when they started, how fast they danced the phrase, and I watched for moments. I realized that many of my movements bore resemblance to one another while still being distinct within their specific phrases. One day I wanted to try having each of them enter in a different way at a different speed at a different time, and I found the beginning that I used for the final piece. Another day I decided to rip a few seams apart and rearrange where certain parts happened in order to give the piece a better sense of build.
I wanted to make something that felt complete in my own mind, so I worked with almost all of the rehearsal space I was allowed. I called the dancers to rehearsals twice a week during much of the early part of the process, and used the rest to generate and develop material. I ended up with seven movement phrases, which I arranged and directed in different ways, adding what I felt were related transitions. While recording the results of our final rehearsal before winter break, I realized what the piece was about. My dancers each had their own path, but they ran into each other, stole from each others’ movements, fell in and out of unison, and got confused. It was just like real life!
As I am nearing the end of college, I have a strong sense of pull and purpose for my life. I want to continue dancing, go to Europe, be successful and fulfilled, fall in love, choreograph, live and laugh and learn. It is interesting to me how one goes about achieving all that. One aligns oneself with people, institutions, sections of time and geography, all to continue on with one’s specific, unique path. For example, now I am in school, with hundreds of other Cornish students, sharing their time and their space and their lives, but soon I will go back to the skinny line of my individual path, and things will look different. Then I’ll join up with a new set of shared circumstances, and the cycle will continue.
That’s the concept behind Curvy Figures and Bony Places. The girls want to find their own way, but they work with each other and in reaction to each other. It is interesting to me that the concept came after [most of] the choreography, and yet is a concept that is very near to my Self. Sometimes it really is all I can do to stay on my own track, as I wrote beneath my piece in the program. Perhaps the concept was embedded in my subconscious mind the entire time and I only realized it after I saw it outside myself. Who knows, I’m satisfied.
Conducting rehearsals was an entirely new process for me, but I had some good ideas based on what I didn’t like about a few of my rehearsal experiences. I tried to be clear about my intent during all of the rehearsals. I never kept the dancers late, and would often let them out early as long as I was satisfied with what we had accomplished. I prepared for the rehearsals. I took videos so I could have a record of the process. I called them to rehearsals often in the beginning and finished the piece before lighting showings so all we would have to do was polish it for the stage. We bonded as a group outside of rehearsals and I got to know Kate and Elisa better. We trusted each other based off of more than what we had experienced in rehearsals.
And the dancers were great. At the beginning of the process, I felt like only Elisa trusted me - Kate didn’t know me and Elissa seemed hesitant because I had confessed that I didn’t really know what I was doing - but it didn’t take very long for them to see what I was doing and that it wasn’t going to be a fluff piece or something that was put together with a formula. This was something that I put myself into. (Interestingly, I got many comments after the show that the dancers in my piece looked like three Whitneys dancing around!) I figured it would be worth doing blindly only if I really plunged into the darkness.
When I got stuck, I would have Deb come to rehearsal and give me feedback or I would meet with John for chai and talk about what I was struggling with. In general though, I was self-directed. I would tell the dancers what to do and how to do it, give them lots of individual notes, determine how many times we were running it and when I would videotape the end product and let them go. I didn’t spend an immense amount of time working on the piece outside of Wednesdays and Sundays, but everything I was taking in while I was composing it affected my process. Being in Choreography 1 definitely affected how I thought about my piece as I was putting it together, as did my experiences in Deb’s and Bill’s pieces in fall CDT. I also brought in the concept of a walking phrase from the ParkDance I did with Aiko Kinoshita last summer.
By the end of the process, what I had done merely to get along paid off with time to step back, tweak the piece, and feel satisfied. After I finished it, I felt hesitant for a while. Was it really finished? Was it going to work? Did the material have enough depth to draw an audience in? I would step back for a few days, then look at the videos again, take a few more notes, remind the dancers of their intent, and run it again. I couldn’t find any spots that felt icky to me any more, so I left it alone and hoped that it would stand on its own.
We put together simple costumes that fit the mood of the piece (in my mind), Mitchell gave me the final version of the music, and we went into the theater. Spacing was easy, lighting made it feel that much better, and by the time they performed it I was standing up in the booth watching and feeling immensely satisfied and happy. I got goosebumps. I had told myself that week that the piece was theirs now, that I had put months of work into it and now was the time to sit back, let it happen and wait for a reaction.
The reactions blew me away. I knew that I liked what I had created and was proud of it, but hearing people say that they loved my choreography, that it was their favorite piece… you can’t describe how good that feels. In my head, a month or two before the show, I wanted to ask my dancers, “how would you perform this if you knew it was going to be the best piece in the show?” I never actually asked them that, but they performed it that well without me saying it. And I certainly don’t want to be pompous and tout my stuff as the best, but it makes me feel good to know that it came out so well. After the Thursday night show Matt Christman from the Bellingham Firehouse Performing Arts Center approached me and asked if I would consider setting my choreography on their Repertory Dance Company. They would commission me. I said of course!
I will definitely keep this experience in mind when I choreograph again. I love the idea of taking videos of rehearsals, because I tend to have a hard time remembering exactly what I did, and it helps me tweak what I’m working on without making the dancers do things over and over again. If I continue to choreograph the same kind of quirky movement I’ve worked with so far, I’ll definitely want to have lots of rehearsal time to get the movement in their bodies, because I know it’s foreign to everyone but me. And I will always only work with dancers I trust. I understand dancers having to miss rehearsals on occasion, but you hear about the people who do it more often than others. Unfortunately, they are often the talented ones who can get away with it, but I want the dancers to be talented in their own rite AND well rehearsed with me. Or at the very least evenly rehearsed, if that makes sense.
Compositionally, I have no idea what will carry over into my future projects. I may choose to challenge myself and have a specific intent before I start, or choreograph to preexisting music instead of having it made for me, or focus on different elements and dynamics instead of what naturally comes out of my body. I like the idea of choreographing authentic dances though. It creates a different world. It would be cool to work with more dancers next time, but I don’t know when that will be or how it’ll come together. It’s easier for me to just make decisions like that when they come to me.
The challenges that came with this piece were pretty minor. I didn’t know how to begin, but I just came up with some phrases and started. Mitchell procrastinated with the music and I had to bug him to get it done, but it came together perfectly by tech week. For a little while in the middle I didn’t know what to do choreographically, but with a little thought and a few suggestions from outside eyes, I worked it out. Every time there was a decision to be made that I was unclear about, I did what made the most sense to me. How does one title a work anyway? I just picked a line out of the poetry I wrote for possible lyrics. I wanted long sleeved shirts for their costumes because I liked the idea of only their head and hands being exposed, and then when I tried it to see what it would look like, it looked good. I gained the most control by letting go. I did what made sense in a given situation. It wasn’t bad at all!
Creating the piece was a reward unto itself, especially since I had never choreographed a group piece before. The fact that I made something cohesive that took up five minutes and was entirely my own creation is amazing. I feel that much more like an artist. And then to have people like it! I wonder how the Bellingham thing will work out. It’s nice that I have all those videos to work from.
I am very proud of my dancers. Each one of them pulled something new and original out for this piece, and they completed my choreographic intent. And on top of that, they are beautiful people, and are all willing to work with me again, should there be occasion for it. I am proud of Mitchell, for working with dance for the first time and fulfilling the amorphous, upbeat idea I had for the music. He made the whole thing from scratch, and was great to work with. He even expressed interest to do a whole show with me at some point!
And yeah, I’m proud of myself. You never know you have artistic potential until you tap it. I am immensely satisfied with my senior project, and I’m thankful that I was given the opportunity to do something like this while still in school. It has given me invaluable experience and ideas for the future.
I had a sense of my own movement (though I still don’t know where it comes from), of organization, and of the kind of composition I felt capable of. I decided to work with three dancers and create something that wove between individual and group choreography. I wanted girls I could trust, who would show up to rehearsals and play along when I told them to move in ways they had never moved before. I wanted to make something without worrying about counts and then get my friend Mitchell to create music to go with it. I tried not to worry about what it was about. I wanted to see what happened if I let it develop without a preconception.
And I began. I decided to take videos of what we had accomplished at the end of rehearsals so I had something to look back on and work from and so the dancers wouldn’t forget what they learned. I started with three different phrases - just random sequences I had made up for Choreography or when I was improvising in the studio - and taught them to the girls. After they had a sense of them, I tried having each do a different phrase at the same time. I adjusted where they were in space, when they started, how fast they danced the phrase, and I watched for moments. I realized that many of my movements bore resemblance to one another while still being distinct within their specific phrases. One day I wanted to try having each of them enter in a different way at a different speed at a different time, and I found the beginning that I used for the final piece. Another day I decided to rip a few seams apart and rearrange where certain parts happened in order to give the piece a better sense of build.
I wanted to make something that felt complete in my own mind, so I worked with almost all of the rehearsal space I was allowed. I called the dancers to rehearsals twice a week during much of the early part of the process, and used the rest to generate and develop material. I ended up with seven movement phrases, which I arranged and directed in different ways, adding what I felt were related transitions. While recording the results of our final rehearsal before winter break, I realized what the piece was about. My dancers each had their own path, but they ran into each other, stole from each others’ movements, fell in and out of unison, and got confused. It was just like real life!
As I am nearing the end of college, I have a strong sense of pull and purpose for my life. I want to continue dancing, go to Europe, be successful and fulfilled, fall in love, choreograph, live and laugh and learn. It is interesting to me how one goes about achieving all that. One aligns oneself with people, institutions, sections of time and geography, all to continue on with one’s specific, unique path. For example, now I am in school, with hundreds of other Cornish students, sharing their time and their space and their lives, but soon I will go back to the skinny line of my individual path, and things will look different. Then I’ll join up with a new set of shared circumstances, and the cycle will continue.
That’s the concept behind Curvy Figures and Bony Places. The girls want to find their own way, but they work with each other and in reaction to each other. It is interesting to me that the concept came after [most of] the choreography, and yet is a concept that is very near to my Self. Sometimes it really is all I can do to stay on my own track, as I wrote beneath my piece in the program. Perhaps the concept was embedded in my subconscious mind the entire time and I only realized it after I saw it outside myself. Who knows, I’m satisfied.
Conducting rehearsals was an entirely new process for me, but I had some good ideas based on what I didn’t like about a few of my rehearsal experiences. I tried to be clear about my intent during all of the rehearsals. I never kept the dancers late, and would often let them out early as long as I was satisfied with what we had accomplished. I prepared for the rehearsals. I took videos so I could have a record of the process. I called them to rehearsals often in the beginning and finished the piece before lighting showings so all we would have to do was polish it for the stage. We bonded as a group outside of rehearsals and I got to know Kate and Elisa better. We trusted each other based off of more than what we had experienced in rehearsals.
And the dancers were great. At the beginning of the process, I felt like only Elisa trusted me - Kate didn’t know me and Elissa seemed hesitant because I had confessed that I didn’t really know what I was doing - but it didn’t take very long for them to see what I was doing and that it wasn’t going to be a fluff piece or something that was put together with a formula. This was something that I put myself into. (Interestingly, I got many comments after the show that the dancers in my piece looked like three Whitneys dancing around!) I figured it would be worth doing blindly only if I really plunged into the darkness.
When I got stuck, I would have Deb come to rehearsal and give me feedback or I would meet with John for chai and talk about what I was struggling with. In general though, I was self-directed. I would tell the dancers what to do and how to do it, give them lots of individual notes, determine how many times we were running it and when I would videotape the end product and let them go. I didn’t spend an immense amount of time working on the piece outside of Wednesdays and Sundays, but everything I was taking in while I was composing it affected my process. Being in Choreography 1 definitely affected how I thought about my piece as I was putting it together, as did my experiences in Deb’s and Bill’s pieces in fall CDT. I also brought in the concept of a walking phrase from the ParkDance I did with Aiko Kinoshita last summer.
By the end of the process, what I had done merely to get along paid off with time to step back, tweak the piece, and feel satisfied. After I finished it, I felt hesitant for a while. Was it really finished? Was it going to work? Did the material have enough depth to draw an audience in? I would step back for a few days, then look at the videos again, take a few more notes, remind the dancers of their intent, and run it again. I couldn’t find any spots that felt icky to me any more, so I left it alone and hoped that it would stand on its own.
We put together simple costumes that fit the mood of the piece (in my mind), Mitchell gave me the final version of the music, and we went into the theater. Spacing was easy, lighting made it feel that much better, and by the time they performed it I was standing up in the booth watching and feeling immensely satisfied and happy. I got goosebumps. I had told myself that week that the piece was theirs now, that I had put months of work into it and now was the time to sit back, let it happen and wait for a reaction.
The reactions blew me away. I knew that I liked what I had created and was proud of it, but hearing people say that they loved my choreography, that it was their favorite piece… you can’t describe how good that feels. In my head, a month or two before the show, I wanted to ask my dancers, “how would you perform this if you knew it was going to be the best piece in the show?” I never actually asked them that, but they performed it that well without me saying it. And I certainly don’t want to be pompous and tout my stuff as the best, but it makes me feel good to know that it came out so well. After the Thursday night show Matt Christman from the Bellingham Firehouse Performing Arts Center approached me and asked if I would consider setting my choreography on their Repertory Dance Company. They would commission me. I said of course!
I will definitely keep this experience in mind when I choreograph again. I love the idea of taking videos of rehearsals, because I tend to have a hard time remembering exactly what I did, and it helps me tweak what I’m working on without making the dancers do things over and over again. If I continue to choreograph the same kind of quirky movement I’ve worked with so far, I’ll definitely want to have lots of rehearsal time to get the movement in their bodies, because I know it’s foreign to everyone but me. And I will always only work with dancers I trust. I understand dancers having to miss rehearsals on occasion, but you hear about the people who do it more often than others. Unfortunately, they are often the talented ones who can get away with it, but I want the dancers to be talented in their own rite AND well rehearsed with me. Or at the very least evenly rehearsed, if that makes sense.
Compositionally, I have no idea what will carry over into my future projects. I may choose to challenge myself and have a specific intent before I start, or choreograph to preexisting music instead of having it made for me, or focus on different elements and dynamics instead of what naturally comes out of my body. I like the idea of choreographing authentic dances though. It creates a different world. It would be cool to work with more dancers next time, but I don’t know when that will be or how it’ll come together. It’s easier for me to just make decisions like that when they come to me.
The challenges that came with this piece were pretty minor. I didn’t know how to begin, but I just came up with some phrases and started. Mitchell procrastinated with the music and I had to bug him to get it done, but it came together perfectly by tech week. For a little while in the middle I didn’t know what to do choreographically, but with a little thought and a few suggestions from outside eyes, I worked it out. Every time there was a decision to be made that I was unclear about, I did what made the most sense to me. How does one title a work anyway? I just picked a line out of the poetry I wrote for possible lyrics. I wanted long sleeved shirts for their costumes because I liked the idea of only their head and hands being exposed, and then when I tried it to see what it would look like, it looked good. I gained the most control by letting go. I did what made sense in a given situation. It wasn’t bad at all!
Creating the piece was a reward unto itself, especially since I had never choreographed a group piece before. The fact that I made something cohesive that took up five minutes and was entirely my own creation is amazing. I feel that much more like an artist. And then to have people like it! I wonder how the Bellingham thing will work out. It’s nice that I have all those videos to work from.
I am very proud of my dancers. Each one of them pulled something new and original out for this piece, and they completed my choreographic intent. And on top of that, they are beautiful people, and are all willing to work with me again, should there be occasion for it. I am proud of Mitchell, for working with dance for the first time and fulfilling the amorphous, upbeat idea I had for the music. He made the whole thing from scratch, and was great to work with. He even expressed interest to do a whole show with me at some point!
And yeah, I’m proud of myself. You never know you have artistic potential until you tap it. I am immensely satisfied with my senior project, and I’m thankful that I was given the opportunity to do something like this while still in school. It has given me invaluable experience and ideas for the future.