Rehearsal #5

September 26, 2013

Time flies. This was an excellent rehearsal. Maida visited during the first section of our rehearsal, which was very helpful in terms of raising interesting questions and thoughts to explore. This time we deepened our work with the solos/duets/trios and tried out a new piece of music - "Nocturne Op. 72 No. 1" by Glass Duo. See videos below.

Tucked In

Cable Table/Characters

Awesome cast. Thank you!

Rehearsal #4

September 25, 2013

During today's rehearsal, we began experimenting with our "cable table" and did a few improvisations with two orange extension cables. Unfortunately no video is available because I was participating in the improvisation. Please expect a recording from tomorrow's rehearsal. In addition, Ian worked on developing his solo further, Molly, Alex, and Hannah each developed their work and combined their duet/solo into a trio, and I worked with Shannon on her solo. At the end, we pieced all of the sections together making up about 7:00 minutes of movement. The videos are below.


Ian's Solo #2

Alex, Molly, Hannah Trio

Shannon's Solo #3

Rehearsal #3

September 19, 2013

Our third rehearsal was excellent. I'm feeling amazed and excited by each cast member's contribution as people, dancers, and choreographers to the project.

We began today by sharing photos of each others' families. I felt this experience was important to building an understanding of each other and how we think of our families in relation to the concept of "family" that is informing this thesis. I asked each cast member to pay attention to any thoughts or feelings that may have come up while looking at these photos.

We then improvised to "Madness" by Muse (a song that reflects in part how I feel when I think of family) as a warmup for the remainder of our rehearsal.

The large part of the rest of our rehearsal today was spent working on solos and duets. Prior to beginning, I gave each person a costume item to try on (costume trial #1). I then asked Shannon to expand on her "eating" solo with the idea of the word "roiling" in mind and removing direct association to food.

Shannon's Solo #2

I asked Alex and Molly to work on a duet that would incorporate their two personal solos and expand on them together.

Alex and Molly's Duet

I asked Hannah to expand her solo with the idea of a spinal contraction in mind (Graham style). Hannah, I posted the first version instead of the second. I like how you never seem to stop in this video. The moment of relevé that keeps rising when you're in plié and contracted is beautiful.

Hannah's Solo #2

I asked for Ian and I work on a duet that would begin at the end of my solo and feed into Ian's solo.

Ian and Angela's Duet

I am very pleased and excited by the beginnings of solo/duet ideas that were developed this rehearsal. I'm very much looking forward to developing them further next time.

The last 15 minutes of rehearsal we reviewed the beginning phrase once and worked out a basic structure for how the piece continues thereafter.

Rehearsal #2

September 15, 2013

Thank you for an excellent rehearsal yesterday! I really enjoyed working with a few new movement ideas. We'll keep expanding those ideas and building on others as the process continues.

Ian's Solo

This is Ian's solo compiled for last rehearsal's prompt. Today each dancer was asked to adopt another dancer's movement quality while performing their own solo. 

Stomach Phrase
Gestural Phrase

We began learning some new movement that I choreographed based on the idea of "stomach." In the dancers' eating phrases from last week, I noticed several gestures toward the stomach that motivated a number of the gestures in the beginning of this phrase. We'll keep exploring this movement. The music we performed to today was "Walk Don't Run" by The String-A-Longs. Dancers, the second video is of myself doing part of the phrase for reference on specifics.

We also explored "Falling In" more, delving into what made it possible to fall, how do we share weight when falling, how do we approach the fall, etc.

Rehearsal #1

September 12, 2013

Hello All!

Please use this blog as a resource to access materials from rehearsals, choreographic updates, to revisit thoughts, for inspiration, to exchange ideas, and any other relevant purpose. I'm looking forward to an excellent few weeks ahead. This first post will be relatively brief in order to get the videos from rehearsal up as quickly as possible. Feel free to comment on the videos with any thoughts, comments, or questions!

Falling In

Here we experimented with our weights colliding and "falling in" or melting into each others bodies as we allowed our weights to simultaneously sink towards the floor. Dancers, please observe the fall between Hannah and Alex at second 00:43. What do you notice? We'll chat about this next rehearsal.

Eating Characters
Eating Characters (Ian's Phrase)

Here, I asked each dancer to compose roughly two sets of eight counts of movement describing what they think of when they think of their experiences at a kitchen table. I gave each of the dancers different  suggestions on qualities of movement or movements themselves to incorporate into their phrases. The second video is from a dancer who was unable to attend the rehearsal but who shared his movement phrase via video.

Kitchen Table

I shared a phrase motivated by my own experiences at kitchen tables that we practiced in a few different formations, speeds, and number of dancers. This version is of medium speed with four dancers in a circle (or square)

Alex's Solo
Shannon's Solo
Hannah's Solo
Molly's Solo
Angela's Solo
Ian's Solo

The above are each solos composed by the dancer under whose name each link is listed. Each of us prepared approximately two sets of eight counts of movement material with no direct prompt that we then shared at rehearsal. This exercise is tremendously helpful to me to better understand the great contribution each of us brings to this project and how that contribution happens in each of our bodies. Dancers, please watch each of these a couple of times and think about what impressions you receive from each. What do you feel when you watch each of these? What qualities describe each dancer's movement?