September
13, 2008
BEFORE THE STORM OF WORK, IN PREPARATION:
Dropped into the anticipated heat at 11pm on the 11th, I arrived only
encumbered by the enormity of what will follow these days of preparation.
The heat’s intensity demands that one let go, almost as if it
takes too much energy to be anxious, creates too much additional heat.
Miranda, the lovely woman I have hired from Shanghai to be our company
manager and translator, had arrived before me. We have spent these
two days, before the company arrived late last night, preparing the
rooms, the China Mobile phones, gathering the food, phone numbers,
directions—securing the itinerary that hopefully will make it
easier to do the work.
Although not a new experience, it is always daunting to deal with
such heat (95 degrees) and of course, not speaking the language creates
a kind of welcome anonymity, peaceful oblivion as well as frustration.
Everything takes at least twice as long to accomplish and then realign
when one realizes that one has NOT been understood. There is no way
I could have done any of the tasks of these last few days without
Miranda. She is most capable and has the very necessary sense of humor;
and perhaps the best quality is her capacity to anticipate needs,
critical for this many people!
As in Kolkata, we are the only Caucasians. My large frame and whiteness
and hair draw constant attention. No doubt there are many American
business people in some other part of town, but Guangzhou is not a
tourist destination. It has none of the attractions that draw people
to Beijing or Shanghai for instance. In between trips to the grocery
store or meetings with the artist folks of GMDC, I read Bei Dao, the
exiled Chinese poet, or the detective stories that Cathy Simon gave
me about a Chinese detective from Shanghai.
I will admit to a unique kind of nervousness (what we are about to
embark on is like no other adventure—the point to some degree)
and you can imagine that despite the heat the fluttered heart is holding
its own. Temporarily assuaged by the company’s arrival, I know
that although they will add another layer of detail, they will also
become my partners and support in the process of discovery.
Today is the moon festival, a major holiday for China: everyone goes
home to his/her families, everything stops. Miranda reserved a restaurant
AND THE FOOD, for later tonight as the welcome dinner for our “family.”
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September
15, 2008
GMDC AND MJDC BEGIN
I don’t think these missives will come as frequently as the
days get longer and more intense, but here’s just a brief
update on the first gathering.
One of a number of things that greeted us here which was different
than the heretofore understandings, was how many dancers I would
be working with from the GMDC. There are now 12. Daunting yet exciting.
Although I had planned for 7, 12 raises both the challenges and
the complexity of this project.
The dancers are very lovely; some, as you might imagine just immediately
capture as they soar through the air or glide effortlessly to the
floor. We started at 2:30pm which was a blessing in terms of just
having another 1/2 day to get oriented. I gave a warm-up and then
went into teaching a phrase and giving some creative assignments.
A good beginning. They are open and eager and more than capable
and I think, for me, learning to pronounce their names will take
the five weeks. I am SO bad with this kind of retention. No ear.
Thankfully a good eye.
Watching 21 people do a phrase in the room which is as large as
a stage and not having room for all, I couldn’t help but wonder,
what new architectural strategies will present themselves, heretofore
solutions unrealized. But I have found it exhilarating. The challenge
is enormous but perhaps fascinating too. The weaving section where
dancers constantly replace one another could be amazing!
So the day ended with nods and assurances and congratulations and
now it’s already 8pm and I have to work on rehearsal and on
class and on calming down. There’s a big banquet in our honor
tonight for the mosquitoes et nous.
I now know that I need to embody a different form of surrender to
the one I eventually embraced in India. And I guess that, not unlike
many things while being in another country, one has to let go of
what one thinks one needs. Confucius must have some saying for this
phenomena.
But the dancing is real dancing and finally that will be as Bei
Dao the Chinese poet says like “the sea, suddenly breaks into
light.”
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September
18, 2008
FULLY INTO THE PROCESS
Ah, a full night’s sleep, just in time to get deeply and fully
into the process. This whole experience is giving translation, the
act therein, new meaning!!!!!! “How many translators does
it take to….”
Palmer’s poem, from years ago, which was the text, the launch
place, for May I Now in 2001 continues to resonate:
I DO NOT
"Je ne sais pas l'anglais." --Georges Hugnet
I do not know English.
I do not know English, and therefore I can have nothing to
say about this latest war, flowering through a night-
scope in the evening sky.
I do not know English and therefore, when hungry, can do no
more than point repeatedly to my mouth.
Yet such a gesture might be taken to mean any number of
things.
I do not know English and therefore cannot seek the requisite
permissions, as outlined in the recent protocol.
Such as: May I utter a term of endearment; may I now proceed
to put my arm or arms around you and apply gentle
pressure; may I now kiss you directly on the lips; now
on the left tendon of the neck; now on the nipple of
each breast? And so on.
Would not in any case be able to decipher her response.
I do not know English. Therefore I have no way of
communicating that I refer this painting of nothing to
that one of something.
No way to speak of my past or hopes for the future…
After two days of improvising, teaching various phrases, trying
out the “new clothes” to see what the fit might be,
we decided to dive fully into the beginning. We also showed them
Other Suns, part one, and they a piece by Liu Qi about calligraphy.
The dancing was amazing; the respect between both companies heightened
and we knew we had the information we needed to begin. The screams
of equal appreciation solidified the respect and desire to learn
from one another so off we went.
We divided into many groups, for instance, to work on a response
to the concept of fragility (took two translators to finally find
the word in Mandarin): quintets, quartets, trios with MJDC and GMDC
in each group, and found we needed a translator for each group to
communicate what works what does not and the why. If a GMDC dancer
wants to try something: “get the translator”. If an
MJDC dancer has an idea of how to bring some subtly to a move: “get
the translator.”
Translator overhears dancers saying they do not understand the difference
between modern dance and contemporary dance (neither do we). Requests
for how to order the day, what to order in fact, when there are
breaks, when there are needs to separate and work independently
and why and what the tech needs will be, etc. Tis literally a full
day’s work to organize what to translate and how to define
what to translate so the translation is close, but how would one
ever know if it is?
The sheer volume of people and the needs of all are astonishing,
but exciting. The energy is at once touching and demanding.
Having Miranda to translate from the specific: step here, go there
to the broader conceptual frame is critical and then she overhears
that the Chinese dancers think we are rich for instance. Therefore,
at the breaks we try to talk about life as a working dancer/artist
in the states among other things
We are discovering their sense of humor, their particular backgrounds,
their religions. When I introduced the poetry of Bei Dao they were
excited to read since they are not able to get his work here and
a few of the older ones spoke to this. We have culled from his work
for motivation and I asked Karen, the chief administrator, if it
was a problem to be using his work. She said, no, not anymore and
was quietly and obviously pleased.
We continue to talk with the dancers about how they are used to
working which surely is not like this. No matter, we are offering
another way to look at layering material, creating meaning. And
they seem to be running with the land. There is no room or time
for “hmm, not sure yet”, or “what do you think”,
which is good and not at the same time.
The days are a very different use of energy; it takes SO much time
to translate that a section that would take MJDC 5 minutes to construct
or at least get the draft of, takes an hour at least, and given
their different understandings of words and how movement might be
re interpreted, yikes…. fascinating. How to honor what they
know and feel, yet remain in charge? I gave a long, translated of
course, description of how we work, why I work this way and not
to feel hurt if I do not use something they suggest.
As in 2004 the men are just breathtaking in their ability to hit
the air, glide to the floor; the women are more subtle and shy,
but incredibly eager and much more able to invent. The MJDC dancers
are troupers in the deepest sense of the word, showing things over
and over, trying to find ways to communicate, sharing and helping
and taking full advantage in the best sense of THAT word of being
here.
The dancers go off to drink, into the heat; needless to say, I go
back to the room and collapse, try to regenerate and plan the next
day. It’s amazing what a good meal one can make with a hot
plate: soup and fresh vegetables and wonderful relishes. Of course,
Miranda takes us to the supermarket so we do not return with a cow’s
head unless we want it of course.
On the hotel welcome card:
In order to make you feel convenient in our hotel, we hope our
service does not have anything culpable. On the software, we endeavor
to create happiness like with family.
Okkie dokkie.
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September
20, 2008
END OF WEEK ONE
Friday:
End of week one: we have generated an enormous amount of material;
they are quick and right there. The energy continues to feed us all.
As we fall tired into the weekend there is laundry, a boat ride on
the Pearl; a visit to an island where the main museum is hosting an
exhibit of contemporary art which happens every three years. We’ll
go on a big bus with the GMDC.
At the end of Friday we took the last hour to talk about the work,
its current incarnation, and its future; but perhaps the most interesting
exchange was their need to hear about our lives as artists in the
US, astonished by the fact that the dancers are not on a full-time
salary and have other jobs and that I can’t employ them year
round.
We talked about everything from workman’s comp to insurance
to how the dancers manage, to how funding works in the bay area at
least, what drives us all to do this regardless and finally the privilege:
case in point: working with them!
They are on a full-time, albeit a small salary, but enough to cover
housing and food and clothes. It would not occur to them to work for
nothing; it’s just not heard of. Up ‘till very recently,
the government completely supported them. In the last few years as
the government gives less, they are having to rely on corporate support
and private as well. There is no paradigm for another way of working
and of course there are only three modern dance companies in China.
When I talked about the number of companies in the US, and how that
provides work for a lot of dancers, it also makes competing for funding
fairly overwhelming.
They asked many questions about how our dancers balance their other
work with dancing and some of MJDC spoke up about how, in making their
own work, they don’t pay their dancers at all. Pretty quickly
we disavowed them of the notion that we were rich.
There are many more discussions to have, thoughts that got provoked
by the discussion; the good news is that we have four more weeks to
continue the dialogue. Of course we can only guess really about what
they think of us and our lives and even though we have wonderful translators,
who knows what anyone really feels as opposed to says!
A drink was necessary: a long week’s celebration. I was very
touched to have the dancers say thank you; how extraordinary their
week has been, how wonderful to be here, etc. I have often told people,
when asked how I or anyone like myself who has been doing this for
a long time, continues: “every so often someone says thank you.”
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September
23, 2008
GMDC AND MJDC CONTINUE:
We are two days into the second week and while the heat has not abetted,
there is a promised typhoon, which should bring lots of rain and some
decrease in temperatures, but as I am learning in being here, they
could mean next year!
Sometimes I feel I’ve been here for months and make sure not
to look at the calendar in terms of the amount of time left without
the comforts of one’s place, but then there are many suspended
moments when…I cannot recollect when it began or if there were
a day when it were not…and time seems of little importance!
Each day brings both glorious and puzzling surprises. The glorious
ones are in rehearsal with the ease and the speed of the dancers’
capacity to learn and generate material. We get caught every so often
in their need to do their tricks which are plenty and are trying to
find the way to incorporate what they can do but give it a firm conceptual
base from which to “take off.” The rehearsal schedule,
at first, was perplexing, but given the heat in the middle of the
day it makes sense. They do class from 9am-10: 30am, then rehearse
till 12:30, take a two hour lunch break and work from 2:30 to 6pm.
We thought we would be very resistant to the odd combination of hours,
but I find I use those two hours to prepare for the day and of course,
take a brief nap.
20 dancers is truly something--at once really exciting and then one
cannot help but feel that only an opera house will do. The intriguing
part in having so many is what one can do with groupings and reiteration
and mirroring and partnering and mass. In A Slipping Glimpse we had
two traffic sections; we’ll need two more for this piece. Pedestrians
do not exist and there is a rush into any market and then a magical
clearing as if all of a sudden people disappeared.
The medical side of things is captivating in some odd sort of way,
but I am more cautious and way more Western that most of the dancers.
This doctor who is kind and careful and thoughtful is quite amazed
at all the injuries in this company; he never sees this many in China
or Chinese dance but then there is less history in modern dance; they
are younger (early 20’S) and can’t afford to go see him
very often ($12 the most expensive visit). Who knows what the other
variables are and surely we are not doing research, just observing
through another lens, perhaps.
He uses acupuncture, pressure points, cupping to draw the blood and
create circulation, massage and apparently with some dancers has done
very painful ear pressure points, and much more aggressive treatments
for sciatica. As he works, he talks and explains a lot and always
asks about pain and pulls back when there is some that he thinks should
not be. He also is very taken aback by how much we use ice for treatment.
Blocks the chi, says he. The dancers seem to trust him and are letting
him abound on their bodies. I’m a bit more reticent but then
I have a different history and am older, but I do find it fascinating
and listen carefully and while I will admit that I don’t surrender
to his touch, I do appreciate hearing a different “language”
about the body.
Chinese medicine’s been around a long time. I have yet to see
an overweight person in my wanderings and he would most likely not
have let any of us have the surgery that we have had. But he is not
dictatorial in the way that might have sounded. He just says what
he knows.
On Thursday we are setting a time aside to talk about the working
process and what they are feeling about what we have or have been
doing. We’ll see what that yields. It seems like each group
exchange (which you must understand takes 2 hours, with translation)
is freeing everyone in small incremental amounts.
On Sunday we went to the Triennial Art Exhibit with ALL the dancers.
It was about post-colonialism and toward that there were some very
evocative works—some curiously risky video art—documentaries
as art (people’s personal histories from many different countries)
with nudity and “questionable” language. We were all delighted
to find a great French Sunday Buffet restaurant while we waited for
the other dancers to finish.
In rehearsal today the GMDC wanted to know what we thought of the
work and if it was like what we had in the US and if so how and if
so how not and then many mentioned looking at the work differently
since working together and talking about symmetry.
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September
27, 2008
REHEARSALS: A FEW, AND A DAY OFF: ONE!
I’ve just returned from a couple hours off; it’s the weekend
but I’ve so much to do to prepare for week three I couldn’t
really take the whole day. However, I do know enough that the brain
and body need some recovery time and the heat dropped by 10 degrees
making wandering possible! The company went off to Hong Kong.
Off to the old city:
The herb market is about 10 square blocks where doctors from all over
china come to get their remedies refilled for their hospitals or acupuncture
treatments or bone setting as Chiropractors are called: whether magic
mushrooms, dried red beans, special teas for smokers, dried fruit
and special treatments for leukemia, endless flowers dried, meats
and fish too.
Through all of this it is heaven to have Miranda translating and knowing
so much about food, her husband being a cook, that it’s great
fun AND educational. And of course having her order the dim sum, essential.
As I was still the only Caucasian, anywhere it’s most curious
and two people at our table applauded my use of chopsticks!!!!!!!
Another huge part of the market: stalls and streets and streets of
Jade, which comes down from the mountains, Guangzhou being the main
exporter. In this area we thought we really needed someone to say:
go to this one not that; there are literally hundreds of stalls.
Rehearsals:
The week ended with a long talk with GMDC about our working process,
their observations, what’s different for them, what’s
working, what’s not. Not sure I have the energy to write it
all but they feel as we do that having to translate everything stops
a flow of creating, but it’s absolutely necessary to do it the
way we are. We then got in to a big discussion about humanity—what
that is in china, in the US and how to address it in the work. It’s
an odd word, kind of like the word, idea of community, not sure what
it means--it is so over used. They recognize that the reason we have
generated so much material—over 45 minutes—is because
we can’t easily go deeper because it takes so much time to communicate
what any one of us thinks is needed to do so. But after that observation
and eagerness TO go deeper, the next day’s rehearsal really
did that and of course made everyone nuts cause it took 3 hours to
get 12 seconds.
I am now heading headlong into the all important third week when we
have to make some sense of all this material, find its voice: what
is it trying to tell us, what lessons are hiding that want to come
forward?
I will admit to loving some time away from translating myself and
everything else; a moment to be unguarded or unclear! But, the room
is always full of laughter which entangles the voices and is intertwined
in the movements as experiments race around the room (the world?),
as we all work and fail and gain a minute or two of something “right.”
What world have we entered of like limbs, but not, like minds but
not, with histories that don’t compare? Perhaps the work will
answer this?
PS I ate the oysters, not the scorpions.
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October
4, 2008
END OF THIRD WEEK:
Although my days are full of observing laughter among all the gorgeous
dancers, I’m too occupied with the “what if’s and
what now’s and “how comes” and the translating”
to participate.
Of course the dancers are having one kind of experience as they develop
the material and exchange words, their meanings, their moves, misunderstandings,
and the wonderful accidents that come from what’s lost in translation
and I, to some degree, am a witness doing the usual balancing of actions
in the room, greeting interviewers, designers coming and going, etc.
and handling the endless: I thought you meant….
I’m looking forward to tonight: Karaoke with both companies
to celebrate two birthdays within MJDC and just surviving three weeks.
At one point we were talking to the dancers about where we were going
after hours, on the weekend, etc. and they were amazed that the MJDC
dancers had found and walk to a big supermarket, a pizza restaurant,
a Thai restaurant, etc., the old city, Shamian, temples---which revealed
how closely and tightly they all stay near to the living complex,
don’t venture out alone, surely; and even tonight will come
with their teacher. Of course I’m going too, but not for the
same reasons. A country and people slow to find their solo voice.
The week has been rich with discovery: many 2-minute nuggets have
emerged looking for their place, still more to discard, more that
is asking to be made. As we get to know one another better, the later
developed material is richer, more nuanced, and subtler, more in dialogue.
We will throw a lot of the earlier made material to the winds of the
sun. I am very moved by what we are building, finding out, notes in
the margins, the meanings perhaps between the lines, the movement,
the gestures, the mass of humanity that inhabits the studio.
I think the work will be at least 40 minutes. I’m pleased with
the atmospheres or fields/tones we are creating. They feel other,
but familiar, fragile but on firm ground, contemplative without being
underground. By the end of the week I’m exhausted, not so much
from the length of the days, albeit, they are long, or from the physical
activity I am having to output, but just I think/suspect from the
enormity of having to keep track of so many, so much, what is flying
out the window in translation, what is taking too long to get across.
It took 2 hours the other day to get everyone to walk around a square
in slightly different directions from one another and then there’s
the assessing and gathering of 21 opinions.
Last night I went out to dinner after a week of noodles in my room
to a Thai restaurant around the corner, which was a hoot. In SF I
probably would have left: very “out there” singers wandering
around getting people to dance, sing, cavort about while serving actually
GOOD food, but after so much seclusion it was a gas to see people
letting it all hang out. There was a huge group/family from India
celebrating someone’s birthday. I couldn’t help but think
about being in China, being served by those from Thailand, serenading
a group it turned out, from Kolkata. Everyone was dancing, lots of
kids from India, China, us—a few corny things occurred to me
about “we are the world.”
The misconceptions we All have of one another are exhausting to navigate.
We think because we know people from China in the US that all of China
has the understandings or perceptions that come from direct contact,
but when we were at dinner with Miranda (our company manager) and
her husband who had come from Shanghai to see her said: “You
need a visa to come to China; I thought Americans were completely
free to go wherever and do whatever they wanted?”
Where does one start to answer that one or with Miranda’s question
about what the Holocaust was. That night it was Rosh Hashanah so I
took a minute to wish myself a happy new year and explain just a bit
of its meaning to the gathered hordes.
There is something to be said for solitude, which surrounds the evenings
and mornings of my time now, organizing focus and priorities so clearly,
like the fine broth of a soup before all the ingredients are added.
As always these adventures into others’ realities, priorities,
necessities, reveal so much about one’s own needs, what one
thinks one has to have to continue, to survive, to feel replenished,
enlivened, engaged, at attention, only to find that one makes accommodations
to that which one cannot have, denial being a great and useful drug
most of the time.
As since there is not much one can do to get what one thinks one needs,
there is a form of surrender that encompasses and like a great down
blanket becomes the weight the grounds us to this earth and the capacity
to move in and under this other sun.
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October
9, 2008
END OF FOURTH WEEK:
As we head towards Friday, we almost have a work. It has some mystery,
some haunting moments, some sense of the chaos we have experienced
as well as the calm and although there is NO question it won’t
be finished by the time it’s performed they will do it as if
it is, as always.
The process of the “temporary” final touches are exasperating
as the clock ticks and the translations continue to consume the hours.
It makes me long for being one of those choreographers who tells everyone
what to do on each step (not really), but the process of finding the
character of the work means that everyone, including the Chinese dancers,
have to reach deeper for the nuances that will reveal something heretofore
unrealized. They are not so used to this and it’s challenging
to find the “language” to speak this need: how to encourage
them to explore their own choices, how to get them to rehearse independent
of someone giving them suggestions about how to move, to which I think
they are more accustomed.
There are a few who emerge as with any group as having the appetite
for other, for more; one can feel their hunger and I suppose that
even a few out of the twelve is a good number. There are two in particular
that we would love to put in our suitcases. In addition, of course
it is hard to know what they are feeling about all this and even though
we ask, I do not think they are accustomed to telling that truth or
revealing what they think. They have a job. The job is dancing and
so they do it.
So the week has been outstanding in some ways, the amount we have
uncovered and drafted is a miracle: 20 dancers coming and going and
merging and separating and more often than not elevating one another
to new “heights”; and my dancers continue to amaze and
astonish in their commitment to getting every possible lesson out
of this experience. Whether through karaoke night and letting it all
hang out with all these lovely YOUNG FOLKS, or going to temples, markets,
quizzing the dancers on their lives, etc. they abound with energy
and curiosity and endless and interesting creative ideas to embellish
and broaden and make more meaningful this work. They are simply remarkable.
There have been two birthday girls in the company--last week: Heidi’s
was celebrated at the Karaoke bar with presents galore from everyone
and Steff’s was celebrated at the Hot Pot with equal gaiety
and number of presents! Large pots of broth are put on the table full
of great spices and then other plates full of wild spices and herbs
are brought to the table to make your own sauce. The come the meats,
and fish and vegetables to add to the broth. Simple idea, great fun
and delicious. I went right for the calamari only to be told that
I could not eat the fish until last, that it was disrespectful to
them. Oh, I said and snuck one anyway.
We spend every available minute finding out about their lives, their
dance history, their hopes for their futures. Again very hard to get
them to open up or perhaps that’s not really a concept. Life
is what it is what it is! They enter dance school at 9 years and that’s
the end of reading, thinking, wondering. Their legs go high or they
are out. One only learns about the variety in their souls by how they
respond to some freedoms, to left-open questions about what to do
next in the work, or a moment of wildness at the Karaoke bar.
Friday night Al and Paul arrive, Sunday Alex and his family. I’m
sure they will add their magic to the volume of information. The last
week will be nuts but hopefully satisfying and a culmination of a
sort. Don’t know if I’ll be able to write again till it’s
all over, but we shall see how the nights, the days, unfold.
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October
18th
OUR LAST DAY, THE FINAL PERFORMANCE
A few quick reflections before I crash. We have two hours of sleep
and then off to the airport and Shanghai,
We are just back from the performance. Remarkable to think we actually
did this. As I sat in the audience (about 400 people) and watched
the complexity unfold, a nuanced and I think haunting piece, I was
overwhelmed with emotion, a sense of both awe and disbelief. At that
moment, as the theatrical experience can provide, we could have been
anywhere but we are in China, and we have made a work with 20 dancers,
33 minutes long thrust from the limbs and heart of so many.
Of course it needs work, the inevitable edits that putting something
together this quickly demands, but they danced with such compassion
aided by a great score from Paul, wondrous light by Alex of course,
and breathtaking dancing.
The embassy came, other than the American as well---all impressed
as well they should be. The lights faded and the intense response
began, which was very satisfying. I think we are all in shock that
we actually pulled this off. I have photos and video and proof that
we were here, but perhaps the real proof lies in our hearts, our tired
bodies, and all that will resonate over time.
There are other stories about our week leading up the end, but I’ll
save those for later. Bed beckons for an hour or so.
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October
19, 2008
SOME FINAL THOUGHTS:
The last night after the performance GMDC hosted a wonderfully generous
dinner at the restaurant that is in their complex. The first course
up was a great mushroom soup that they had discontinued, but brought
back for this occasion. It had been my favorite in 2004 and Karen,
the administrator remembered, and ordered it. In some curious way,
this was the most telling sign that we had done well! She also, during
the festivities, let me know clearly and directly how much she appreciated
all my efforts, the work, and the working process. “This is
the most money we have ever put into a project (they covered hotel
and per diem) and I really wondered what I was doing with our funding
going down so since the earthquake, but it has been worth it on every
level.”
That was echoed not directly by anyone else but in the joyousness
that surrounded us at the various tables, lots of hugging and kissing
and thanking and crying. One lovely man, who clearly has a dark and
complicated side that fascinated us all through the residency came
up to me and handed me a wonderful scroll of an ancient myth that
I’ll need to learn about and said: “I love you, all of
you.” Those were the first words and words of English I had
heard from him in five weeks. Another person who is an administrative
artistic position said I had done a great job but told Al, my husband,
that he thought the work needed more unison. That made me smile, since
it’s exactly what I was railing against.
Each dancer handed out presents to each of us, all sensitive to who
we are, the people they have come to know.
Up until the premiere, the week had its intensity in a different way,
almost desperately looking for our “ending” to the work--a
punctuation of sorts, a sign about where we were as the piece rounded
the corner to its temporary conclusion. As I said to Paul (composer)
after the first meeting we had about the music: “this might
be our first Cage/Cunningham collaboration, no time to connect the
dots between the music and steps in any specific or accurate way and
perhaps the curtain just needs to come down at a certain time.”
Paul’s music became the organizing device as it often does,
rich in its history from which he drew with a few more recent flurries
inserted. It was such a pleasure to wake early each morning and work
with Paul on the music, get to the theater and bathe in Alex’s
lighting. Each, Paul and Alex, gave the work its raison d’etre.
The last few days full of the agony of translation trying to get everyone
on the same foot, same page, toward the same goal, were exhausting.
As Heidi said, you can’t just go off stage or at the end of
rehearsal say: “let’s work on x or y.”
As I watched the performance I DID think, it’s a miracle, they
are all going the same way at the same time and then the complexity
of what they made was equally awesome. I love those moments, even
when one has been intimately involved in the making, when on watching
one says: how the hell did that happen? Where did that come from?
How did they do that?
This piece is more of a true collaboration in that the dancers were
so intimately involved in the making, where with Tanusree’s
group it was less so, of another kind, although equally compelling
for all of us.
I had great meetings with the staff the last day; they are poised
for the whole nine yards of making this thing happen. I’ll return
in February to oversee the GMDC part of the trilogy and we’ll
all come together in September for the premiere.
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