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!

… to update this more often, to use it as a board to air thoughts, as a blank paper where to sketch designs and ideas, to use the process of “bouncing” the info so that we can learn from you, readers (whoever you are, thanks for being here!).

And to start with this new promise a great quote from Jack London, that is inspiring a new process of creation, maybe a piece, who knows!!

“Man, awake, is compelled to seek a perpetual escape into Hope, Belief, Fable, Art, God, Socialism, Immortality, Alcohol, Love. From Medusa-Truth he makes an appeal to Maya-Lie”

I prefer to identify Maya with Illusion, instead of Lie, but I leave this up to you as well.

Medusa? Or Maya? Can we be both? Can we be neither? Is really Illusion opposite to Truth in this world we live in? What about the performing arts world? I would say there is lots of Maya going around so that we don’t have to bring Medusa up… and that bringing Medusa up through Maya is exactly what the arts should do. Maybe that’s why dance can be so dissapointing sometimes (the materialization of dance that is, not Dance in itself).

We might be soon getting into the studio with another piece, mine this time, but there’s still lots to be thought in this case! Part of a bigger project and a very old wound that needs to come out somehow! More on this one soon 😉

We also have lots of ideas for things to come, let’s see how much we manage!

So back to our discussion of today… how much is this Medusa/Maya problem a choice? Is really dreaming with a better world a lie? is art a way to escape from a world we don’t like? Or could it be a way to change it? I know, it sounds very idealistic, but why should that be a bad thing? At the end, art is made BY human beings FOR human beings, so why wouldn’t it be a way of changing things?

It has been said before, and much better that I do, so I’ll leave you to your own thoughts with an extract from a really good movie called “Noviembre” (directed by Achero Mañas), inspiration for the name of our group and for many more things…

Nosotros creemos en un arte que sea capaz de cambiar los corazones de la gente…
Que les alegre, que les de fuerza… un arte que les haga sentirse vivos… un arte que llegue directamente al espíritu de todos los hombres, y al de todas las mujeres… un arte que los haga conscientes, que los mejore como personas… un arte universal, un arte sin fronteras ni religiones, sin razas… y creemos en él como en un arma, pero no un arma de fogueo, un arma de verdad, un arma que se pueda hacer oír, y que tiene que dar en el blanco…

 

We believe in an art that is capable of changing the hearts of the people…

That would cheer them up, give them strength… and art that would make them feel alive… an art that would get straight to the spirit of all men, and of all women… and art that would make them conscious, that would make them better persons… a universal art, without borders or religions, without races… and we believe in it as a weapon, but not a starting pistol, a real weapon, one that could make itself heard, and one that has to hit the target.

Lucía