walking towards the finish

Huge kudos to the dancers last night for pulling together all the strands of information left by so many choreographic hands! It was a feat and I was moved by your presence and commitment throughout. So my comments below are towards the choreographic shape of what I saw last night and not any comment upon the performance of material – yet:)

I was very interested in the loose, and sometimes loopy nature of this journey. I enjoyed not knowing where things were moving to next. However, I found myself responding agitatedly to the walking into place and then dancing as the piece went on. I wondered at the logic of this. Will this be magic in lights and other high jinx? Or can it be that the dancers can dance to their next locations? Can movement – either designed or improvised lead to these places? I think a combing through and looking at all the “walking” moments that take someone to a place to then start dancing could be a good place to begin editing. I did like the walking that described arcs, that moved back and forth like waves of an ocean and left a residue of bodies like they were strewn ashore. Aside from these sorts of transitions, I also thought there could be longer moments with some things. We could see them stand longer, shift and hold space longer before moving on to the next thing – just in general staying with some things longer. I know last night was a feat of memory and the rhythm of the entire evening is still yet to be determined, but it has so much potential for those moments – something to think about. Might be interesting to create arbitrary chunks (segments) and move them around to greater or lesser affect?

In terms of costumes I was very interested in what Ellinor wore – a purplish color t-shirt with lots of knots at her back. The front was smooth and when she turned around one could see a jumble of ties and holes. really interesting. and beautiful color.

And for music, we discussed this briefly last night and I know there was a lot we have not yet heard, but my one burning question – whaddup with Barry White? I know he is no longer with us, but IS HE NO LONGER WITH US? Holla!