bodies and their interior and exterior spaces

I was struck most by what I experienced as a loss of specificity to the kind of body and movement that is produced from each of the choreographers’ practice. The sharp, idiosyncratic lushness of Cynthia’s movement got more even, the quiet listening and sensing that was in the duets I worked on was completely gone, the rich interior state of bodies was flattened by a common denominator. It would be wonderful if the dancers could go back and recapture or re-imagine even re-invent the kind of space, time and body each choreographer worked with and try to re-embed that feeling into the dancing. Even if it is at a different place in the choreography. I realize that this will take time and patience and is a different task then remembering material and order but it is as important to that task and will help in the long run.

Breath

I always start with a collective warm up and on my first rehearsal we started with a focus on the breath. We spend most of the rehearsal doing some basic experiments with breath and ended up working in pairs. From there we worked on creating duets and one trio with the only instruction that the movement had to feel good. The dancers could decide to make a partner duet or make a phrase together. These duets had a strong sense of presence and attention to body and relationship. In the next rehearsal I started to put the material together and manipulated it minimally, mostly through speed and spacing. It was a satisfying and moving experience to work with the group. I was hoping to give them material that they could rest in at some point in the piece.