never alright always just fine

6/29 & 7/6

 

6/29

Max and I worked pretty determinately on developing our "little motif" but I left feeling more lost than found. However, the last little nugget we landed on, though badly drawn, has been ringing in my head all week. It's just a simple exploration of how my body can move into the space that Max is moving into - in order to get him back where he started. When I look at the rehearsal tape it does NOT look pretty or right, but I keep jumping back to it and thinking with some good old fashioned attention, it could be exactly what this piece is about. More than once I have thought that I should get another dancer into our rehearsals so I can step out and look at it - but I am avoiding that instinct right now. I am going to try to stick it out a bit longer. There is much work to be done. We need to do it 16 times and seeeeeeeeeee.... But also be open to discarding if the piece unfolds to reveal something clearer.

7/6

I watched a couple of hours of Lionel's rehearsal today. It was so exhilarating to be in the room and participate in this moment of his creative process. It is way more enjoyable to be a part of someone else's creative process than your own. You don't have the burden of responsibility - but you're just as eager and devoted to figuring out what kind of gems are there. One thing that really stood out to me is when improvisation came out of a set structure, Lionel's movement instincts naturally moved the physicality forward. It's something that we have talked about, but seeing it happen (quite a few times) drove it home. And it wasn't a mess of movement, it was usually one or two simple movement ideas that surfaced. For example, at the end of an improv he said he felt that he wanted to crawl on the floor and gather up the clothes. So, the next time they did the improv he did that and out of it came this flurry as he tossed the clothes into the air. The toss of clothes, that one thing, put the cap on the climax for that section.

Allowing improvisation time to create itself also seems key, as well as not allowing yourself to get attached to one thing. For example, someone joked after one particular un-dancey improvisation that the movement was like, "1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 3" as if someone was counting out dance steps. I immediately latched onto this idea. It's quintessential "Arianne" in some ways. It's funny and it is commentary, or meta-text, about the dance process - about dance itself. We were all talking about different things that could go on there, and I kept bringing it back to that text but Lionel's brain went outward from there and he never landed back at the starting point. The idea of the text there, connected him to the microphone, and to sound, and back to physicality. I was still relentlessly spinning my wheels about "1,2,1,2,1,2,3" and he had moved 4 steps beyond.

It's interesting to note where my brain goes - and where Lionel's goes. I see that he is open, broad, and accepting to allowing the piece to tell him where to go. I also see that he has similar insecurities, questions as I do. And he gets stumped. I like that. It's not easy.

I also just want to add that I so appreciated being welcomed into Lionel's practice. Within 5 minutes of begin there, Lionel asked me, "So what does it look like from the outside?" I felt I was a part of his rehearsal for the next 2 hours - not just an observer. I felt like I had something to give, and it was being accepted. As I drove home, I realized that so much of this Mentor/Mentee journey so far has been about coming out of hiding in some ways. This relationship has validated my path.

The work is worth it.

rehearsal 6/15 and 6/22

On June 15 Max and I set to work pulling images or moments from previous improvisations and trying to re-create them and find transitions. It was much harder to do than I anticipated and we found ourselves having to keep the video camera in hand - turning it this way and that - in order to figure out which arm was supposed to be in which direction, etc. At then end of our time together we had a little motif that was a basic road map for this duet - which at this point seems to be about moving and being moved, or restricting or surrendering to moving and being moved. I appreciated that at our last meeting Lionel said something about artists always making the same dance over and over - which of course I had heard and said myself before. But, hearing it then allowed me to enter into this strange, yet familiar, dance AGAIN. It's like I say with my husband, or in therapy, "How many times can we have THAT conversation again?" Apparently many many times.

Also, just to point out and NOT to forget. Max and I talked a bit more about something he had said in rehearsal last week that really struck me. He said, "When you focus completely on me during our improvisations, I try to luxuriate in it and keep you there for as long as I can because I know it is fleeting and won't last long."

That struck such a cord with me... I cannot explain. It was how I remember feeling as a child with my own mother (wanting so badly to keep her attention for a sustained amount of time), and what I know I do now with my two daughters (play with them intensely and then, feeling overwhelmed, abruptly end the play with excuses, "OK. That's enough. I gotta go make lunches.")

I even do it in dance.

There are things to do.. things to move on to... always...but it is more than that too.

It runs very deep.

And, it is something I would like to change.

 

Today, June 22, Max and I met Lionel at UCLA. We showed our motif and Lionel gave us a soft delighted applause. "You have some material!!!" He said gleefully. It is a small miracle and gift to actually have "some material." Again, I allowed myself the sense of relief and the pleasure of being in the work of it.

Lionel asked us to work for a half an hour on some aspect of the dance we wanted to explore further. He watched as we worked which, despite my comfortability with him, felt really intimidating! After we worked, Lionel talked about using external structures as a tool for developing ideas rather than movement intuition which had been my original approach (What feels right here? What seems to be the next thing here?)

He talked about setting up repetitions like: do this 8 times, then this 4 times, then this 2 times. Within the repetitions all sorts of new stuff comes out - which you then use, or don't use. But the new renditions allow organic development of movement images. He noted that my first instinct was to approach the narrative arc of the piece and to try to "set up" the beginning of the dance better. Another approach he said, is to wait and do that later. Why not concentrate on getting the "meat" leaner or tougher first, then thinking about the whole plate later.

Near the end of the rehearsal, he did my role in the opening part of the duet so I could see it. It was amazing to notice (something I had actually felt in performing but not been able to conciously make a choice about) what a powerful a difference it made where, and for how long, I put my hands on Max's arms or body in the opening sequence. Sometimes it's almost too overwhelming to know how these subtle choices can make a dance go in a different direction.

Who was it that said they had to stop making dances when it no longer mattered if they went right or left? 

Right now the weight of right or left is too heavy. 

I think I just need to repeat 8, then 4, then 2, some more.

5/ 8 - studio time with lp

- how do we express ourselves? let the meat do the talking.

rehearsal 5/6 & observations

 
video still from today's duet improv   

Today we gave ourselves two parameters for our improvisations:

1. do only movment that feels good (but I think we have discovered that almost everything feels good...)

2. When someone does a "dance move" say, "dance move"

Here is the duet improvisation part 1:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jE8CbGiNgbY

Here is the end of the duet improvisation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiIkq9EGuq0

Here is Max's solo:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xAigWbhBmQ

Here is Arianne's solo:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kA7R_k-XyVs

Observations:  

1. A quote from Max: "You move through despair to release into joy. But there is a restlessness to the way you start. Then you get going... and I see and feel a revelation - but it is a cautious revelation - not fully entertained. You are very pragmatic."

2. A quote from Arianne: "You always start in a place or joy and play - even when you are angry there is an underlying lightness. Although you could probably fake being tortured very well, I doubt it would ever be true. It's a survivor mechanism. When sadness is an everyday atmosphere, ones own internal joy becomes the only reliable medicine."

3. Lionel invited me to watch a repertory class he is teaching at UCLA. He is working on developing a piece based on original choreographic notes and personal research on Ruth St. Denis. In his invitation he wrote: "I thought it might be a nice way to get at some discussion about living in institutions and still maintaining a creative practice - since that is a topic for both of us!!" I was grateful for the invitation. I have admired Lionel's work from the position of an audience member only. I have been curious of his creative process - his puzzle making skills. Also, I have always loved watching people at work in the mess and delight of creativity. Everyone has such personal ways of examining, re-arranging, looking. And today was no different. Here are the thoughts that came out of observing the rehearsal - although many were fragments...

- Once you give yourself a problem to solve, you just need to set out to figure it out.

- There is a lot of play and happy giddy laughter here.

- awkward is good.

- "There was a nice level of panic."

- "Go to where you think the piece begins."

- Often the answer is, "I don't know."

- Lionel made choices, changes, adjustments that I would have never thought of. It was delightfully surprising.

- To me, Lionel's piece is abut the difficulty of remembering, recalling, conjuring, re-counting, and living up to an icon, an ancestor, a mentor... (Ha. - I know something about this too I guess...)

As far as the question of how the work we do in our "jobs" can intersect (or not) with our professional work, I think both Lionel and I agreed it is a difficult and huge discussion. There are times when it is right to separate the two - to not have one have anything to do with the other. But more often than not, this is not the right choice, and not even a choice at all. Because we have access in our jobs to dancers, space, time - it often lands on us to work out our questions and projects in the work place. I think there is a lot of value in having to work things through in a more elemental atmosphere. I also see and feel the tension between the kind of work we create "at work" versus the kind of work me make "in the world." I could sense that tension in Lionel's situation in particular. When one has to make many versions of a work to serve particular venues, audiences, dancers, and obligations it becomes many versions of not quite the right version.

When do we get to make the version of the dance that deserves to be?

video still from Arianne's solo improv   

 

rehearsal notes 4/22

Here is a short re-creation of a few movements we liked from an improvisation we did a few weeks ago. We did it three times with improvisational transitions.

CHIME Rehearsal

Here is a little dance that we made. I created a series of movements with the intention that, "they had to feel good to do." Max told me to do the phrase once standing, once on the ground, and back to standing again. We pressed "shuffle" on the iPod and the Hokey Pokey came on. We laughed for a long time afterwards...

CHIME Rehearsal2

half of Me and Max

rehearsal notes 4/6

                                                                                                                                me and Max, happy

Last week I told Max that one day he should tell me that he's meeting me for rehearsal but then not show up at the last minute. I told him this will force me to be alone in the studio - which I know I need to do. So, this week, not by intention, Max was an hour late. What did I do? I walked around. I checked my phone four hundred times. I went to the bathroom. I made a few phone calls and looked at my datebook. I wanted to tweeze my eye brows but had no tweezers. So I sat around some more, eventually laid down, stared at the ceiling. Not very productive. But then again... somehow this time in the project is about surrendering, letting go of controlling movement, but allowing movement to come  - or in my case today - not come. People have told me that I am relentless. This is a word that has rung around me for years - since grad school. I am easing into the idea that maybe I don't need to force things down people's throats, and maybe not even my own.

After Max arrived we jumped right into an improvisation that had us riffing on the art of flying, falling, growing old, and buckets. When we watched it afterwards I was amazed at how wise and happy we looked. At one point we are discussing how to categorize things into levels of importance. One area is designated "very important," another "important" and another just, "tant".

"What goes into the "tant" area?" I ask.

Max replies, "All the good stuff, of course."

"Well," I say, getting off the table we were sitting on and walking over to that designated area, "I guess I need to go over there then."

Max comments on how confident, casual and matter-of-fact I was about making that move - placing myself there. I hadn't noticed. But then I do.

                                                                                                                                me and Max, cool

rehearsal 3/29

Every time I meet Max I learn something new. He's a good story teller and I drink up the little tidbits of his personal history that he reveals each time we meet. There was one image that stuck with me. It was something like, "When I was growing up, it was all about siting on the porch and saying, Let's see what we can do here." I imagine him sitting with his neighbors and friends as a kid, mimicking and hanging around to be a part of whatever they had cookin'.

The idea of having the time and space to sit on a porch and be able to spend creative energy is a foreign concept to me at this point in my life. That is why these weekly meetings have become a treasured secret - a stolen time. I almost don't like writing about it, because it feels so self-indulgent.

There is something child-like about where I am right now in this process. Max and I both noticed while we watched our improvisation on the camera that today's material was much more playful than the past weeks. We are more comfortable with each other now but also I think we have surrendered a bit to the silliness of this - two adults skipping, hopping, spitting, blowing air - it's really quite absurd. There was one 10 second movement section that we rewinded a few times to look at again because it had a lovely shadowy quality. We were in tune with each other - following and leading. It was natural and simple. We could use that - but for what? Maybe just hold onto it and know it's there if we need it.

I like the feeling of not having to craft right now. I like being able to give myself to letting this be what it is for now - in the moment. I know looming ahead the time will come to settle into the grunt work of choreography. But for now, just letting myself boogie like a child at a birthday party is teaching me a lot. Humility mostly, but also that totally giddy joy that comes only with letting your body move where it wants to. (It was hard for me to read over that last sentence. It doesn't seem like me. For so long I have rejected this kind of dancing. I have cut off my heart and put my head in every movement, every word. I fight fight fight against movement that feels good. Is is bad to say that I hate dance? I might hate dance... I don't know. I am still stuck...)

an excerpt from Free Play by Stephen Nachmanovitch

What is the Source we tap into when we create? What did the old poets mean they talked about the muse? Who is she? Where does the play of imagination come from? When are sounds music?When are patterns and colors art? When are words literature. When is instruction teaching? How do we balance structure and spontaneity, discipline and freedom? How does the passion of the artist't life get coded into artwork?How do we as creators of artwork see to is that the  original visions ad passion motivate us get accurately portrayed in our moment-to-moment creative activity? How do we as witnesses of artwork decode or release that passion when the artist is gone and we have only the artwork itself before us, to see and listen to, to remember and accept? How does it feel to fall in love with an instrument and an art?

photo credit: Angelina Attwell

Arianne and Lily dancing

Rehearsal Notes 3/11 & 3/27

Four things from 3/11:

1. The will to go.

2. It's amazing how loud you can be by just being here.

3. I have arrived.

4. must watch Burt Williams in The Gambler

Max and I start off by giving ourselves this task: Write something short and then perform what we have written with no words. I show my dance and Max says something like, "You were present." We talk about presence and authenticity. This is when we discuss how loud you can be by just being. This reminds me of something I included in my Mentee application and keeps ringing in my ear:

My dance-theater piece started out with a man and a woman staring at each other for a long time in silence. After some time in this awkward and tense staring match, the woman screams into the man’s face, “FINE!” and storms off.  The piece, of course, went on from there but Lionel commented on that first section saying, “That was the whole piece. You could have ended it there.” His statement rang true to me. His comment was validating because I was proud the theatrical moment had said so much in its simplicity, which was my intention. However, it also made me wonder, how can I bring that same truth to the dance sections?

Max shows a sequence that slashes at the beginning and then ends with fingers fluttering. We share our writing. After I finish reading Max says laughing, "You are a born choreographer!" The writing was an identical map of what I showed. I talked him through each sentence and connected it with the movement I had just performed. We realize together in that moment, I think, that this trajectory of words first, movement second is where the Rubik's Cube of choreography is easy for me, but that our real challenge is going to be the inverse.

This was my writing from that day. Max, what was yours?

The dance I wanted to make made you think I was beautiful. It made you know that there was something important going on - something important being said, being danced. It was there. You saw it.You listened to the movements as they trickled down into you. They stirred up inside you and you were moved. You saw me. I was seen.

P.S. We video taped but I did not look at it afterwards. Still dealing with the ugly/stupid issue.

3/25

Today, I look forward to our "just dancing" session. We video tape and watch together through the mini view-finder on the camera. Again and again I have to surrender myself to ugly/stupid. I must confess that a good hour was spent analyzing this issue in therapy. I CAN"T FRICKIN' BELIEVE THAT I AM STILL A FRICKIN' 13 YEAR OLD GIRL WHEN IT COMES TO SEEING MYSELF. 

There is value in beauty. When something is beautiful, no matter how useless it is, it still holds value. I am in this weird transitional time in my life when I am no longer beautiful in the way that I have experienced myself in the past. I am coming to terms with this new beauty that I have. It's... different... and I don't know what it is yet. It has something to do with allowing myself to be happy despite and because of my imperfections. It has something to do with caring a little less about oneself. But it is a sad kind of beauty - one that comes with late nights spent crying with your husband, holding sick babies, burning the lasagna, carrying old dogs to the water bowl.

We watch Burt Williams in a two minute scene from The Gambler where he tells a story with his face, hands, chest. A miracle of some kind, he is.

Max gives me the book, Free Play by Stephen Nachmanovitch and when I get home I read the inscription he has written inside the front page. "To Arianne MacBean, This books helps me surrender, it reminds me that there's nothing more rewarding than free play.. especially when we're so-called "adults." Max.

I realize that this time is a chance for me, for maybe the first time in my life, to be a dancer. I have never thought of myself as one.

At the end of our long "just dancing" session, Max and I end up back to back. All of a sudden he picks me up and turns me upside down and holds me there for what seems like a long time. I just hang there laughing laughing laughing... my head facing the ground, my feet in the sky.

I can't remember the last time I was picked up, let alone turned upside down. I like it.

photo: Lily's 5th birthday disco dance party

Rehearsal Notes 3/3/11

Here are the three things I wrote down from my first rehearsal with Max:

1. Are you interested in revealing the truth?

2. How do you tell the audience what you're really thinking?

3. Let the improvisations we do live in our minds and then see what rings back.

Here are some other things:

I have only met Max a few times. I actually don't know him. I know he is an actor and a dancer and that he loves sports and that we have mutual friends but that is all. I am nervous. I don't know what I am doing. I need him here to make me do this but... I don't know what to do when I don't know what to do. (Here I am eating my own words - this has been the mantra for my students this year. I am trying to teach them "what to do when they don't know what to do." Here I am, the teacher... uncomfortable, agitated, looking for help from a stranger...) 

I need to create some kind of practice where this work I am charged me with can begin. I need to find a way of practicing allowing movement to create its own meaning, then read it, then craft it - not the other way around like I usually do.

I am telling Max about the project and about what I think we can do and after a long winded explanation he says plainly, "Well, yes and we should also set aside ten minutes to just dance." I stop suddenly. "Oh. Alright. I guess. Should we do that now?" I ask. "Yes!" Max says smiling.

The thing that is shocking is that the concept of just dancing is shocking to me.

First of all, just dancing can sometimes entail looking ugly and being stupid and those are two things I have spent my entire life trying to avoid. I realize that in fact all of my dances have been attempts at moving as far away from ugly and stupid as I can. I tell Max that I would like to make a dance where the performers stand there and say all the things they can do but aren't. Like, "I can stand on my hands and lift one leg at a 90 degree angle with the other leg at a 45 degree angle and then flip around to stand on both legs." I think that is when Max asks if I am interested in revealing the truth. I know he has his own notes from that day too.

Max, what do you remember?

I think this is why Lionel said improvising was going to be painful. That first day was very strange. But thank god Max made us just dance. Here are a few things stuck out: I watched Max transition from emotion to emotion with only his eyes changing. I did something and Max said it was beautiful and I smiled and felt good about myself. I learned that Max had an incredible childhood and that in addition to theater, dance and sports he loves jazz, french theory, speaks three languages, know deconstructionism like the back of his own hand, and can discuss vaudeville history as if it's the menu at In and Out Burger.

 

 photo credit: will taylor

2nd street tunnel, downtown LA

sad realizations, and a yes!

sad realization number 1: this is going to be hard - that sounds dumb - but I have to write it because that in fact was the sad realization

sad realization number 2: I have no fucking idea what I'm doing

sad realization number 3: I have to go to the studio

sad realization number 4: I am not going to the studio (because there is always a reason not to like, runny noses, no babysitter, a tired cranky overworked husband, a rainy day, a pot of chili that no one will eat but I still have to make because I bought the damn kidney beans, etc.)

sad realization number 5: I have got to hire someone to make me show up (how sad is that???)

totally amazing awesome cool thing that happened to me number 1: I asked Max to be that "someone to make me show up" and he said yes!

totally amazing awesome cool thing that happened to me number 2: I once asked my husband what his favorite word was and he said, "Yes."

I thought that was pretty hot.