So the first change I experienced when moving on to a more contemporary training was the focus on the breathing. In ballet it is a bit more of a “save yourself” philosophy, or as someone said the other day “don’t worry, you will breathe anyway”. (With time you realise that breathing at the right time can actually make a huge difference in certain steps, like pirouettes!).
In contemporary breathing helps guiding every movement, it affects the weight of the body and, because of the variety of movements of the abdominal area, it is necessary to actually perform some sequences.

I understand all this and enjoy using the breathing and learning more about it. I also understand that breathing can help a group if dancers find a common rhythm. What I don’t understand is why the people on the other side of the studio or even in the next one should hear me breathe.

This comes to its highest point when during a performance you can hear the dancers breathing (from the upper circle!). And I can thinkg of several examples of this…

I just can’t see why you would want to show the effort it takes to do what you’re doing. Maybe the ballet tradition is at play here with me, but I think it kind of breaks the “magic”.
NB: I don’t like using the word “magic” when writing about performance (unless we’re talking about a not supernatural, born-from-effort typeof magic) but it suited the purpose here.

Now, maybe some people would say that this is a way of transmitting what the performer is feeling on to the audience. Which leads us to the next question… Is what the performer feels more important than what the audience feels?
If you have been reading this blog (thank you!) you can probably guess that my answer to this is almost categorically no, and I say almost only because I believe the feelings of both audience and performer are closely linked.

Apparently this debate appeared as early as 2000 years ago in the Indian book Natya Shastra. (Very interesting to read about, by the way).
I, like the book (or the person that wrote it, rather), think that the audience is more important. At the end, if you were to feel accurately depressed while doing a piece about depression, the result would probably be a piece in complete stillness (and no, this is not a challenge to one of this very alternative choreographers!).

This debate could probably go on forever, and maybe I’ll come back to it, but for now I’ll leave it for you. As always, you’re encouraged to disagree. And please keep breathing… Quietly 😉

It is clear in babies, todlers, children; it kind of gets a bit confusing when we are teenagers, but mostly goes back to its natural state once we grow out of our teen messy time. We don’t all have this need to move but clearly all dancers do (or is it also tricky to generalise here?).
We are not always aware of how big this need is or how important to our lives…
Personally, I’ve just realised that it is as vital as to have changed my psychological state in barely two weeks of proper, regular training!
I’m calmer, more stable and definitely happier, so what more can I ask?
It’s a pity it is so easy to forget how happy dance can make us, when we live worrying about the sad and difficult aspects it may have…
With so many reasons to worry about the money, we should go back to the studio after all the protests, to remember what all this is about…

So I went to see Alvin Ailey (actually I’m still here, I’m writing at the intervals) and at the end of the first piece they used this Ailey quotation:
“The dance came from the people and it should always be delivered back to the people”.
Now, I like the idea behind it, but in this era of post postmodernism and disenchantment, maybe we should reflex a bit more on this “super statements”. Not to say that I don’t agree with or like the quote, but…
To start with… Who is the people?
Is the people that the dance came from the same that we need to give dance back to? Well, quite clearly it is not, as that wouldn’t make any sense.
So, let’s guess this is “people” in a general sense. Dance came from human beings and needs to be given back to them? Hardly surprising!
Is it then that we’re talking about “the people” as the regular, average person, the “masses”? If it is so, the dance that came from the masses (that still comes) and the dance that dance artists give back have little to do with each other at this point (and no, it isn’t even an expression through movement, as there are dance pieces that are movement for the sake of it, without expression behind).
At this point the statement doesn’t have much meaning left as a super quote…
It does however remind us of how often we dance people feel that we’re elevated over all the rest… It’d be good for all of us (and some more than others), that dance is made for the audience, and if you don’t like this, well, then maybe you’re in the wrong business!

This one is for my dancers, who (some more than others) hate me for never counting when I choreograph…
Well, it is true, I don’t put counts to the music. That doesn’t mean I don’t follow it with the movement, I do, I just follow the melody and get some cues from it rather than using the counts for the beats.
I’d say some things to defend myself for this ofense… Firstly, Alberto García’s amazing music is not always easy to count, but it is always very clear to follow!
Second, I don’t like music and movement so closely linked that it doesn’t give space for the dancers to breath, but I do like them to relate to each other and hit some points together (I do give counts in some complicated group parts).
Then there are the most important reasons: I hate counting when I dance, especially when it all becomes about the counts. And I hate counting beatiful music (same reason why I don’t like the movement to stop between steps, you see the technicalities behind).
Now, I went to do a summer school at PARTS, and when learning repertoire of Rosas the teacher told us that they never use counts! So I’m not alone! They follow the music closely (and obviously in a much more precise and intrincate way than I do!), but they don’t count it.
I’m not comparing myself with de Keersmaker of course, but I could barely wait to tell the dancers at DDG!

PS: Ok, I’m also pretty bad at counting anyway… 😉

On my last trip to Spain I managed to get the DVDs of Royal Ballet’s Romeo and Juliet (Rojo/Acosta) and a Marinsky Swan Lake with Lopatkina (for the amazing price of €13!!).
I have seen this R&J live, so the first one I chose to see was Swan Lake. Once I got over the fact that it wasn’t Zelensky and Makhalina (my first ever ballet tape, it died after so much use), I realised that there was something missing. I couldn’t put a name to it until the white swan pas de deux. It was the eyes…
It was a general thing, but the swans especially didn’t express with their eyes. Of course a DVD, showing the dancers from that close, is not exactly forgiving. And of course the eyes wouldn’t be noticed like this on a big theatre performance. But it came to my mind that they were looking more for the emotion from the shape. They were using positions and movements that they know give out the feeling needed, they are read like this by the audience. (There are lots of really interesting articles on the reading of emotion, I think they could be a really useful tool for choreographers).
On the opposite side, I feel, are dancers from the National Ballet of Cuba. Often criticised by the technique purists, the Cuban express with the whole body, bringing the feeling from the inside. Sometimes this sacrifices a bit the shape, probably because of the strength of the emotion?
So we have the emotion coming from the outside in, or coming from the inside out.
Personally I prefer the emotion coming from the inside, it is more true and it shows so on stage. But I don’t think technique should be left in a secondary place.
Mastering the technique when letting the character take over is what really makes a dancer. And we have so many good examples of this! (and so many in Royal Ballet, close by!).

I feel this is only a first thought on the expression of emotion, and there will be more coming. Any opinion on this matter will be more than welcome!

And for those a bit picky, this is not intended as a critique to any of the dancers. I trained with both Russians and Cubans (more with the latter), and love both companies. It is just a bit of food for thought!

There are moments in which an idea for a piece just appears in front of you. Usually, this inspiration is brought by the magic of other, much greater artists.
In my case it’s usually literature, I read and suddenly a sentence hits me as having enough material to create a whole piece from it. It’s usually just a feeling, a vague idea of the mood… Lots of them go almost as quickly as they came, which means they weren’t ready (or I wasn’t ready for them). But others will leave a tiny seed, they just won’t wear off, and they’ll keep growing and attacking your thoughts every two minutes, until there is no other option than to start researching and planning. You can delay them, but a battle against one of these ideas is a lost cause!
An example? Benedetti! (Anthem:Absence was born from one of these fighting ideas).
Another… Medusa and Maya, the idea of the truth and the illusion… An idea I used for 60×60 and I will develop because it won’t leave me alone.
Another one hit me this morning, it is from a book by Ian M Banks:
“Nevertheless, there was another reason -the real reason- the dockyard mother didn’t give its warship a name; it thought there was something else it lacked: hope ”

I’ll let you know what happens!