The making of Flood is a process of rescuing, redeeming, and reprioritizing the primacy of the body and lived experience. Through movement research we are considering moments in our lives where our internal landscape radically shifted as a result of external events. Our “rehearsals” are a way of receiving and accepting these moments and giving voice to their significance. The challenge lies in staging this process as a performance. How does one choreograph experience?
Lying on my back with my feet standing on the floor, I close my eyes and begin again. This place is at once familiar yet different. I am practicing my daily ritual of “dropping in”, “tuning-in”, reconnecting with the self. Yet instead of following my impulses I am embarking on a journey of repetition. Over the course of many sessions I have “set” my movement based on patterns that continuously reappear and satisfy. The gestures transport me to a state of flow, narrowing my attention to a single point.
This moving with eyes closed is the beginning of the dance. It is a practice that is deeply familiar to all five dancers, a way of working that focuses the attention on one’s internal landscape, prioritizing the experience of moving and the desires of the body. Yet in the context of performance, the practice shifts. Movements that normally stem from the impulse of the present have been crafted and while they were birthed from this form, they carry the responsibility of performance. As we contend with tapping into our felt sense and sensations, we are also aware of the demands the choreography is making on us.
I want to stay in this section much longer; I want to indulge in the idiosyncrasies of the day. I want to roll, pour, wiggle, sigh, and wait. The choreographer part of me knows that I cannot humor this desire. As I shape my own experience, I must also consider the other participants in the room. We will all “drop-in” at different rates; it could take me five minutes one day and two hours the next. Due to the framework of this dance concert, we have a limited time for this journey to take place. I am giving us two minutes, three at most to enter the work.
The limited time demands immediacy, a quick shift of consciousness and awareness, an intensity of concentration. I am asking the performers to reach into their inner life and access a state of openness and vulnerability. In order for this to happen with consistency I have carefully considered how to craft the opening experience by evoking a familiar ritual and transforming it for the context of the performance.
Lying on my back with my feet standing on the floor, I close my eyes and begin again. This place is at once familiar yet different. I am practicing my daily ritual of “dropping in”, “tuning-in”, reconnecting with the self. Yet instead of following my impulses I am embarking on a journey of repetition. Over the course of many sessions I have “set” my movement based on patterns that continuously reappear and satisfy. The gestures transport me to a state of flow, narrowing my attention to a single point.
This moving with eyes closed is the beginning of the dance. It is a practice that is deeply familiar to all five dancers, a way of working that focuses the attention on one’s internal landscape, prioritizing the experience of moving and the desires of the body. Yet in the context of performance, the practice shifts. Movements that normally stem from the impulse of the present have been crafted and while they were birthed from this form, they carry the responsibility of performance. As we contend with tapping into our felt sense and sensations, we are also aware of the demands the choreography is making on us.
I want to stay in this section much longer; I want to indulge in the idiosyncrasies of the day. I want to roll, pour, wiggle, sigh, and wait. The choreographer part of me knows that I cannot humor this desire. As I shape my own experience, I must also consider the other participants in the room. We will all “drop-in” at different rates; it could take me five minutes one day and two hours the next. Due to the framework of this dance concert, we have a limited time for this journey to take place. I am giving us two minutes, three at most to enter the work.
The limited time demands immediacy, a quick shift of consciousness and awareness, an intensity of concentration. I am asking the performers to reach into their inner life and access a state of openness and vulnerability. In order for this to happen with consistency I have carefully considered how to craft the opening experience by evoking a familiar ritual and transforming it for the context of the performance.