So it hit me the other day…
Ok, I’m not generally a bubbly person, nor the image of positive thinking, but really I am not that bad either! I’ve been very surprised to hear so much how my best choreography is for the dark and sad themes.
Then I realised, it is exactly when I can’t understand something that I start a new piece. It’s always something that I’m trying to process in an alternative way…
So I might be able to say that when I don’t understand something, I choreograph it.
It might be that I am not the twisted person you might think I am when you see my work :p
Or this could make no sense at all, but at least it’s a very romantic hypothesis!

It is difficut to write anything dance related these days and not refer to the funding cuts… Sad news for all.
However, maybe something other than panic and horror could come out of this. I know we mostly hate it when people from the funding bodies say that it’s time to start collaborations… But maybe it is! Ok, we are in a very individualistic time, where most artist put their own names to their companies because that’s what counts and that what people want (or is it?). But we should not forget that it has happened before that in difficult times artists get together to rebel and find that it is much more productive.
Maybe the funding cuts will make us all a little bit more careful about the budget for a production and maybe we can remember that dance is much more than super special effects and amazing costumes. And maybe we will all emerge from this difficult time a little bit wiser and with lots of artistic collaborators.
Or maybe there is a reason why the Southbank Centre Move test called me an idealistic mover…
😉

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… 😉