Task

In Bebe’s Making Dances class on Monday, she reminded us to look to the movement and allow the body to tell its story. I applied this notion to rehearsal. I asked the three dancers to do the movement with no “performance” intention other than accomplishing the physical task of each action. As a result, I was able to see what was really there rather than impose my idea of what should be there. For example, instead of telling the dancers to act as if they were “trying but failing,” I asked them to do a nearly impossible task. The high stakes of having to do a simple yet challenging task in public created a real experience of trying, wanting to succeed, and possibly failing. This directive gave the dancers the freedom to discover their version of the experience.

Brainstorms for Breakfast:

I usually brainstorm during rehearsals and often feel that there is not enough time to deepen the brainstorm or put the ideas into action in a thoughtful way. This week, I learned a new process that works great for me.

On Tuesday morning, Diana and I had a 2-3 hour brainstorming session and allowed our imaginations to spin out. Within the last hour we had completely reshaped the work and decided on a specific agenda for the rehearsal. Brainstorming with Diana was useful for many reasons. I’ve worked with her for over a decade, so she knows when I am going to cut an idea before I get too invested in it. What a time saver! We also have a similar sensibility. Her suggestions often lead me to places where I should go but can’t get to alone. The next time I create a work, I will plan on having company brainstorming sessions prior to going into the studio. If I had the luxury of another residency, I would brainstorm for breakfast, marinate for lunch and go to the studio for rehearsal just before dinner. This may seem like an obvious choice to some, but for me it was a fantastic revelation. It is less isolating and allows the dancers to be an inherent part of the process. I truly appreciated the insight, investment, and laughter along the way.

Music:

I am very excited by popular culture, particularly music. I like to work with irony and satire in relation to pop music, usually as a form of social commentary or to frame a particular slant on the movement. The lyrics are as equally important as the music.

At this point in this process, with one day until our showing, I felt like a racehorse at the starting gate. I knew I was about to spew the work into place. Instinctively, I sat for many, many hours and played with the piece’s songs in varying orders until I felt them click into place. A puzzle. I listened obsessively to every detail until I lost the ability to concentrate.

After doing so, I knew I had found it. Questions were answered and new ideas emerged. It felt right.

“What is this one in reaction to?”

I was having such a hard time simply stating what this new work is about. I think if you can’t say it simply then the idea, and therefore the work, is not clear. When I told my mom I was making one of the oddest – hopefully funny – and possibly most devastating works yet, she said, “Oh Love, what’s this one in reaction to?” It is a simple question. But when answered truthfully, it became the heart of the work. There were a jumble of emotions stirring in my belly, and when I directed them into the choreography in answer to her question, the dance finally introduced itself to me.

In Summary:

The supportive environment at the Bates Dance Festival encourages experimentation. “Theater in the Head” (new title) is quite odd, it turns out. I did whatever I wanted during these 3-weeks and shoved those nagging voices under the pink shag. During our Friday showing, I ran the sound from upstage and was “forced” to watch the faces in the audience. Not easy. I was surprised. What I thought was devastating made people laugh. (After the showing a few people shared that they had tears in their eyes as they laughed.) Uncanny. I guess you never know how people will react. It would be a lie if I said I did not care. I do, and I care hard. Nevertheless, it is the nature of our business to put our hearts in the hands of friends and strangers. And that is what is at the heart of “Theater in the Head.”

The End (for now) ~Adele

~Agnes De Mille

Monday, July 27th

Eureka of the day: There is no such thing as wasted time.

I felt like I was rolling a huge boulder up a soggy, slippery incline today in rehearsal. I had an idea to apply the same twister approach from the duet to the trio. It felt wrong as we began, but I could not tell why so pressed on until the boulder fell over the precipice. I eventually realized that it was too much of the same. There needed to be a new idea to move forward. At the end of rehearsal, I had an image of unified precision. The idea of an impeccable, seemingly inhuman perfection for the trio made more sense within our newly discovered conceptual framework of a “spectacle.” I may try the “Peter Sellers sings George Gerswhin” song as the sound score for this section. I am a little concerned about over-saturating with too many songs, but I’ll give it a shot anyway and see where it leads.

Like Judy Garland, Peter Sellers’s life was reportedly filled with substance abuse and emotional strife. I am really intrigued by the polarizing forces of humor and devastation in the lives of entertainers. A bright pink cloud with a dark cloud beneath the silver lining. I wonder how to convey the essence of this polarity without being too obvious.

Tuesday, July 28th

Eureka of the day: Form and space…and more Bebe

This week in Bebe’s Making Dances II, we shifted our exploration from context to form. We thought about how to allow the form itself to convey an idea. How to be careful not to tell you (the audience) what the form says.

I stayed with the idea of unison and precision for the trio. I had images of the Rockettes performing their mechanized spectacle in a small space on the edge of a cliff. Being more specific about where the dancers were looking helped me think about what they were seeing and how they felt about what they saw. When perched on the edge of the carpet, the dancers appeared to recognize the precariousness of stepping off the shag and into …

Some questions about space and form:

Through subtleties of form, intention, and actively seeing what is around us, can we transform the floor into an endless void? Can we change how we and the audience sees/experiences the space on, above, around and below? Can we make a 4×6 shag seem enormous? How does spatial attention inform and clarify what is happening?

Wednesday, July 29th

Eureka of the day: Slow down no matter how much it costs.

I learned a valuable lesson today. When I rehearse in NYC it costs so much money that I feel pressured to work fast, complete the picture, and then go back and refine. When working with narrative, to avoid a simplistic and predictable story, the narrative must unfold itself and emerge out of the form.

At this point in the process, we are getting a sense of who the dancers are in the context of the spectacle. I am on the verge of discovering their chemistry with one another. Yet, instead of going forward, my realization today is that there are still too many questions about who, what, where, why and when that need to be answered before we can move toward the next impasse. In short, we have met three people, and we need to know more about each of them before they begin interrelating.

Why do I always want to work so fast? There is a satisfaction in clarity and detail. Tomorrow — nothing new (unless new just happens). My plan is to go back to the beginning and start again, again.

Thursday, July 30th

Eureka of the Day: Begin again, again

It is about performing from our hearts, the ‘performance of extremes,’ as performers. That is what we found out today. We each have our individual stories of peaks and plunges as performing artists. Now our hearts and imaginations are sparked. Let’s begin again, again. We’ll caulk the spaces between movement ideas with our memories.

None of what I just wrote makes sense to me. Bummer. That usually means I am losing clarity in my vision of the work. So be it for today.

Friday, July 31st

Eureka of the day: Time limits can be helpful guidelines. They prevent ambling.

Before Rehearsal:

I found out this morning that we have an audition slot for Fresh Tracks at DTW on November 7th. This situation instantly clarified some questions for me. For DTW I need to move away from the intimate viewing of the work. This is tricky considering that what I like about seeing the work so close is how the dancers’ toes press into the shag; this and other such details get lost at a distance. There is also a 15-minute time limit. Given these new perameters, what is this dance about now? We already have 13-minutes, and I do not feel any nearer to a cohesive chunk. That must mean the dance is ambling and not saying anything. I need to edit with care and be as succinct and clear as possible. Oof!

After Rehearsal:

I’m still stuck! We had a great group of people come to the open rehearsal today. Good insights from most, but what stood out was that there were way more questions than comments. In working on details of movement, timing and intention, we seem to be going in a different direction than we realized. Yep. I’m still at an impasse. This is the point where I have to return to what we have been playing with in Making Dances—Let it tell you. Don’t tell it. I liken this part of the process to a roller-coaster clunking up the ubersteep incline. Not quite arriving but knowing a free-fall is inevitable. The question remains, will I grip the safety bar or throw up my hands and wail during the thrill-spill?

Saturday, August 1st

Eureka of the Day: Make each moment necessary

I was in awe then felt paralyzed after seeing Bebe’s latest work “Necessary Beauty” last night. The experience unfolded as it should. How did she do that? Bebe’s ability to dwell curiously in an unknown state is admirable. She seems to trust her process enough at this point to know it will unravel accordingly, whatever it may be.

I could not sleep last night. I kept seeing Tara, Diana and Kellie perched on the edge of the pink shag waiting for what comes next. That’s where we ended yesterday. Nothing was coming to mind except ‘retina burns’ or ‘after flashes’ from “Necessary Beauty.” The dancers in Bebe’s work were individuals in the exact right colors making their way through what was happening as if discovering knowingly. What made the work so appealing is that we had just enough information to formulate something but not too much that we were being spoon-fed a concept. Wisps of images and interactions that barely connected but did. How did they do that? These were my thoughts….all night long until daybreak. How do I make each moment necessary?

Laura (Faure) came into rehearsal today and offered some truly informative insights. After viewing the work, she asked me to tell her my intentions. As I struggled for words I realized that I was still unclear, and therefore so was the work. I know it is all there, but I do not know what it is. I feel it in my gut. This part of the process is fascinating to me. I doubt I’ll create new material. It is now a puzzle that I have to figure out. The question is: What is going on?

Here’s what I realized after rehearsal: I was getting lost in the details and forgot about the significance of the pink shag. If I return to the shag, I think I’ll get clues there. I think this dance is just barely a narrative. Instead, it might be a string of instances that happen on a pink shag. There is something about the very end that ties it all together. I’m just not sure what that is yet.

Laura had another brilliant, albeit simple, question yesterday, “Is this about some sort of pathos, and if so, what is it?”

Sunday, August 2nd

Eureka of the Day: To get unstuck…go to the “Theater in the Head”

There is an exercise I do when I’m stuck. I suppose it is my form of meditation. It’s called “Theater in the Head.” I made it up several years ago in graduate school. I close my eyes and let the images from the dance (thus far) circulate in my mind however they want. I do not choreograph it. I watch the dance unravel however it wants to in that moment. I try to pay close attention to the details. After I feel a sense of some type of arrival, I write down the images as they came to me.

This is where I am today after last night’s slew of imagery. Seriously, it is like a slot machine in my mind. I arrived at something a bit looser than a logical narrative. It was more so a series of tasks and instances on and/or about the pink shag. I am going to try them out on Monday to see where they take us.

As a teaser, what I saw was: matter-of fact meets absurd meets creepy; a series of instances on or about the pink shag carpet; three (maybe four) individuals brought together by a singular moment on the shag. It’s an ode to the pink shag!

Summary of the week:

We began the week discovering a context of spectacle, and within that frame, individual figures emerged. The impasse in this scenario is how to show the essence of these individuals within Diana, Tara, and Kelly. I don’t want them to act. I want to draw these states of being from who they already are. The week ended with a possible revamp. I hope we find that the layers of discoveries and edits begin to give the work dimension. We also seriously need to spunk it up. The pacing of the work in terms of its dymanic structure is lagging. I’m looking forward to this week’s adventures!

Intro and such…

My name is Adele Myers. I am the Artistic Director of Adele Myers and Dancers, a five-member contemporary dance company based in NYC and CT. The five dancers, Tara Burns, Diana Deaver, Kellie Lynch, Philip Montana, and Rebecca Woods, live in NYC where we usually rehearse. I live in Hamden, CT, where we sometimes rehearse. The work is (usually) a mix of inorganic athleticism and theatricality with a sweet-creepy twist. I launched the company in 2000 as a thesis project while completing an MFA in dance at Florida State University. The company has been presented throughout the United States, most recently at the Dance New Amsterdam Theater in NYC as a 2009 Artist in Residence, and at Jacob’s Pillow Inside/Out. As an Emerging Choreographer at the Bates Dance Festival, I will be developing a new work and performing current rep in the Different Voices concert. Check us out: adelemyersanddancers.com.

The new work…

We have open rehearsals everyday from 5:30-6:30 in Muskie on the 2nd floor. Muskie is next to Chase Hall. Please come play with us!

I’m working with three company members: Tara Burns, Diana Deaver, and Kellie Lynch
…and a 4×6 pink shag rug. I tend to shy away from ‘things’ because I think I am bad at using them. We’ll see.

I have given myself the challenge of keeping the trio on the shag, and as I am inclined to work with a mess of full-bodied movements, that should be an interesting challenge. I like what I create when I have a problem to solve. The effort, friction, and inorganic choices that result from guidelines appeal to me. I enjoy watching the ‘work’ of trying.

I’m starting with the idea of dislocation and relocation with a dash of glam.

Day 1: Monday, July 20th

We played Twister. (Diana did not arrive until Thursday so I began with Kellie and Tara.) We added three extra body parts to each of the four sections of the spinner. For example: “Kellie put your right scapula on yellow and Tara place your left pinkie toe on blue.” Spin spin…We did this the entire time and took it off the twister mat to see what happened. I dig it as a starting point. I think I’ll bring the pink shag tomorrow. Curiously, the shag and the twister mat are the same size.

Day 2: Tuesday, July 21

Placing the duet on the pink shag was an interesting feat. I wanted to take the shag away but made myself work slowly and meticulously in confining the duet the 4×6 boundaries. I noticed that as the dancers became more comfortable, their use of space created an illusion of way more space than was actually there. We played with flirting with the edges of the shag and teasing but not quite touching the floor. Instead the dancers were to flay above and hover over the space anywhere else. I’m glad I made myself stick to this task.

Annie came to our open rehearsal. I asked her to make two lists of obscure body parts. Returning to the idea of dislocation and relocation, I paired the words to make a three-dimensional twister of body parts for Kellie and Tara. For example, “Kellie, place the outside of your ankle into Tara’s armpit. Kellie, place your right ear on Tara’s anterior superior iliac spine.” At first it was a series of chunky, awkward moves. As they found the shifts and sharing of weight, the duet grew more fluid. I still like some of the awkwardness, so I pulled them back a bit from getting too gooey with it. I combined the two twister tasks and felt a sense of completion about our initial shag study.

It was really great having people come into our open rehearsal to get immediate responses to choices we were toying with in the moment. I am usually hesitant to have people come into the process so early. The reason I opened rehearsal here at Bates is to get over that. For me, this all needs to be a little less precious. It does not need to be about trying, impressing, succeeding, failing. How about just trying and free-falling?

After this rehearsal, we had about two minutes of material that I decided to put forth for the informal showing. I was pretty nervous about showing it, but I liked the idea of just going for it so early in the process.

Day 3: Wednesday, July 22rd
No rehearsal today. The company is hitting the road for a performance at the Stonington Opera House.

Day 4: Thursday, July 23rd , 2009

Stonington was amaaaaaaazing! It is a beautiful coastal town located on a small island off an island off the coast of Maine about 3 1/2 hours from Lewiston. The NYC peeps drove 10 hours to get there. Ouch! It was worth every mile though. The Opera House is a renovated 1912 vaudeville venue with wooden seats. The performance was a blast, and we received our first standing ovation. The post performance conversation was equally as pleasurable. The Opera House has cultivated a remarkable following over the past ten years. There is so much more to be said about this experience. I am more than happy to share, in person, as it requires facial expressions, a enthusiastic roller-coaster ride-tone of voice, and excited gesticulations of the hand to get the full experience across.

We got back to Lewiston around noonish and ambled our way into rehearsal by 4:00. We all had a post-performance-high crash loaded onto our bodies, so I wondered how we’d fair. To animate rehearsal I brought in costumes and some tunes. Diana came back with us. So now there are three and me.

In Bebe Miller’s Making Dances II class on Monday I hit a zone as she guided us through a meditation on diving into the place just where you think you are going to move onto the next idea. Has your first idea been fully realized or over-explored? Did you really deepen it fully? I hit a zone and literally dove/rolled slowly down, flew up against gravity then rigorously pressed, squeezed, prayed, splayed, dove again, peaked then deflated. This meditation became Diana’s solo. It was one of those “days in comp class where you are SO IN THE ZONE!” I’ll call this meditation a slow-lo.

I am being commissioned to set a new work in the fall at Ball State University in Indiana. They want something a la Gershwin and/or Cole Porter. I’m pretty excited about that because I think I am in the wrong kind of dance anyway. I think I exist in some odd place between ‘modern/contemporary’ or whatever you want to call it…and musical theater. I have been listening to a bunch of Porter/Gershwin lately and found Judy Garland’s version of “I happen to like New York.” I am really drawn to the spectacular devastation of the song, particularly sung by her. I put a blue dress on Diana and asked her to stand at the corner of the shag and ‘do’ the slow-lo. As she danced, I kept hearing Judy singing. And so it was, the birth of act 1: The Demise of Judy.

Day 5: Friday, July 25
Go For What You Know!

The showing went well, whatever that means. Full disclosure: I wanted to hurl on the way over when I saw how many people were walking to Plavin from the dining hall. Alas, it was going to happen. I just hoped it was going to happen in a good way.

It felt good to try it out. Laura set up a great ‘feel the love’ environment and forum for experimentation and feedback. I think people offered particulars in their responses that were useful. What I came away with after the showing and seeing the work of the other choreographers was a reminder of what Jawole Zollar, Artistic director of the Urban Bush Women, often says:
Go for what you know! That’s all you can do…

I felt affirmation after the showing that something was brewing and that I should continue diving. Here is where my discipline needs to come in. At this point I want to work reaaalllly fast and crank it out. Much like being a child and tearing open a present instead of elongating the pleasure of suspense, I want to know what the story is and how it is going to end. And so it was. This morning I woke up with my daughter Isabel (Bella) at 5:15 my portals where wide open and ideas were pouring in…all in varying shades of pink. I saw enormous pink shag covering the entire stage for a later section, one that was almost long and furry, like pink grass. And a pink neon sign flashing That’s Entertainment! above Diana’s slow demise. (Like Madison said after Tania Isaac’s stunning performance of Stuporwoman tonight, Dream Big! Maybe you need the things or maybe not. You will know in the end.) When thinking about the duet, I started hearing Barry Manilow singing “I Can’t Smile Without You.” Yep. It just felt like right.

Most of today’s rehearsal was spent playing with music on top of material we created here and some recycled material from another work. The music gave us a context. In some cases it gave too much information and oversaturated the curious thirst. But from here, I now know how to begin carving and continue diving deep, deep down into the peculiarities of my habits—Thanks for that Bebe!—and a special thanks to Lily, Kate, and Sam for stopping by and playing with us.

Another final thing too… We are tentatively titling the work, Normal. But you have to visualize the word written in block letters with the texture of the bright pink shag on a shiny white surface.

Week 1: In Summary

Our exploration so far has led us to the pink shag as an “extremely” experience of success, comfort, and disappointment, with silver linings of dreams that some day I’ll become…