So you think you can write dance?!
Posted by Ashley Byler
So, I was just reading Tony’s post on Lepecki’s Exhausting Dance and I’m thinking… what am I doing in the studio alone? I’ll tell you what i’m doing. i am trying to round up people to tell me what to do, so i am not just in there alone (or there telling others what to do).
But, no one wants to make me their subject, so far. I have been delighted with the email responses (one was a complete script of spoken word and movement direction, one a call to dialogue on desired dance moments described as “utopias”, one was a plea to reinvent Michael Jackson’s scarecrow in “Ease on Down…” from The Wiz with greater integrity to the concept of boneless walking), but there has been a real reluctance from the various artists I have implored here in Alaska to enter the studio and just make something (too many ghosts?).
They are all artists of differing media and ages and maybe the perceived exclusivity of dance as medium is keeping them from going for it… maybe they’re just busy! but, conversation around the idea has been pretty great.
My friend Ray suggested I go to a specific spot where the “humpies” (aka hump backed salmon) will be “running” (aka swimming upstream) here and film myself imitating the movement, then respond to that projected video in live performance. Another friend, Hilary,has an undulating tidal idea and Craig “King” Koch demonstrated a Norwegian net dipping gesture that could grow into something.
In general, it seems like people want to have complete ideas before they are willing to commit to setting something… SO, I have mostly just been working off of my solipsistic self in the studio. making the things that seem to come naturally, responding to the movement i’ve seen recently, like.. So You Think You Can Dance (the hit Fox network dance competition show that those of us familiar with Miss Dance Masters of America competitions find all too familiar).
Montages of externally rotated arms reaching out, long fan kicks the pause in precarious, hip lifting balances, triple turns. while i am usually less engaged with the content of these dances, i am generally taken with the range of physical approaches among the dancers (hip hop artists, ball room dancers and those studio mutts like myself that are hard to define- “contemporary”?). the spectacle is probably most worth noting. this is what a lot of united statesians are calling “dance” right now. this show is both reflecting and shaping an experience of “dance” that is already more common/ prevalent to contemporary usa culture than any social form. i’d be quite solipsistic to ignore it… i’ve been trying to identify my own style favorites in capsule size portions- a little soft shoe adoration, space hold adoration, green jumpsuit adoration, an homage to the way my elbows lock into my waist. anyway, i think this tv show is another way of scripting/ writing dance and creating subjects of aspiring “dancers”.
p.s.- i’m not totally positive about the definition Tony Schultz is working with on “subjectivity”. here is my personal, subject definition- subjectivity is the effect of some constructed ruling set of forces/ norms/ ideals to which i am a humble servant. a servitude, perhaps? So if choreography IS a subjectivity maker (as Tony quotes Lepecki), the choreograher takes responsibility for identifying and either supporting, adhering to or subverting the components of that entity. for instance, Sara Rudner was working in the studio a bit more than a month ago on a basic phrase of weight shifting and, having identified the Western penchant for legs high in the air and quick gestures of the leg (as in ballet beats), asked the dancers to throw in an improvised fast and high leg gesture on certain beats. That is one way of working this idea of subjectivity… am i mangling this word? help me out.
So i am recording my mini macdances on my maccamera. what about that writing? why don’t i just post the macvideos rather than these macwords? i’ll tell you why, i don’t know why. but i will show and tell you how the long-distance (email) written choreography goes.
Here is a picture of me and my oldest nephew, Sean. once i get everyone i love to record themselves to make things, we will start a solipsistic tribe!
Also. if you are curious about what goes on with de arts in Ketchikan, click this word.
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