Monday marked the opening of the third week in the studio creating as part of the Emerge project. Susanne Chui dropped in to view what we’d put together. Hers were the first and freshest eyeballs to view the piece so far! It was exciting to hear what she had taken from our embryonic kinetic draft. She said the movement was interesting! And that the piece evolved at a nice pace. She shared with us the moments she felt were more emotionally telling and encouraged us to pursue finding this emotion or intention in other phrases of movement. This is always the challenge in creating; how to get across what you wish to say or how to uncover what the creation is trying to say. Often it’s the latter as the creative process, especially a collaborative one, is often a compromise between ego and the creative inertia. Where is the balance of channeling, searching and letting be? This balance has come pretty natural for the four of us I think in part due to us having worked together before. Sara believed our process to be fruitful and well on time which is always a bonus. Some vital but often lingering ‘to-dos’ on the creation list are: costumes, in this case music, and a title. I’m excited to see how these finishing elements will ultimately define the dance and hopefully help portray something cohesive and alluring.
Before we began this process we talked about creating a world and an element of ‘storyness’. We emphasized that this through line is important in contemporary dance to offer anchors in a conceptual or interpretive world. I think this is true of any good art. A clear intention, a bold vibe, symbolism, repetition perhaps, unique and often simple pathways or an element of surprise are some of these visual story telling tools. As we do the final tune-ups on our piece by refining movement I notice the importance of these ‘anchors’ and finding ways to carry these shapes and qualities through the dance. They will ultimately tell the story for you and the fun part is knowing when to let tension build and when to let the audience have the pleasure of coming back to these familiar places.
Susanne also mentioned the challenge of creating movement and also dancing it because there is a special layer that a dancer/choreographer/collaborator may not get to until later and that is their very deep, intuitive responses to the creation. Like I said, a collaboration is obviously somewhat of a compromise and so you are always shared in the process. However, once the dance is deemed complete, and oh this day will come.. your role in it is truly yours. It is this personal release that is always so liberating. Once everyone agrees on what it is, then it’s time to find in you what you bring to the whole.
I think the four of us bring a palate of personalities that will compliment this dance. I think we’re all bold enough in our own tastes but open and constructive with each other. It feels like a very nurturing creation environment really, very natural. I think we work well together as collaborators and performers and we’ve shared these roles before. Susanne noted that it was nice to see a collaboration because no one style rubbed off on all the movement, that it really was a blend. In conversation we also pondered the success of the intention of ‘creating with no transitions,’ in hopes that there wouldn’t be any really obvious or bad transitions made, only one effortlessly evolving story. I’m finding being in this headspace of letting the material fill the gaps as oppose to our logic brains really allows the piece to sprout. Quite literally sprout new movement and layers and underneath, a story. If you just tune your intuition to what the creative energy is bringing forth you can navigate from there.
Sara brought this word navigate into class the other day as a prompt for a solo improv composition. It’s really a lovely word because it implies that nothing need be born of nothing, only found. It implies that we only need to sift through in order to create. Like a sculptor, the work exists in the stone it only need be revealed.
By: Vivika Ballard
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