Moving in the Moment: Shoe Circle

Moving in the Moment video clip: yappers in action

I think we all can feel the momentum of the Bates Dance Festival.  To borrow from the fabulous BDF improvisation performance, we are ‘moving in the moment,’ living each day not in what will happen tomorrow, but in each and every second.  It is both remarkable and coveted to be able to commit three whole weeks to becoming completely absorbed in your great love.  For me, this experience was more intense than ever.  When not dancing, talking to dancers.  When not talking to dancers, watching dance.  When not watching dance, filming dance.  When not filming dance, editing films of dance…

And boy did I have fun creating these videos!  All other responsibilities fell away, and the project consumed my thoughts.  Like when I choreograph, my head is barraged with images, and I can rest only once my ideas have become tangible.

I had so much fun creating the videos on the Youth Arts Program and the Emerging Choreographers Program.  The YAP students were so incredible, not to mention adorable, and they are only a reflection of the extraordinary and gifted staff.  I learned so much from observing their classes, and I am glad to be able to share what it is like to spend a day at YAP through youtube.  A special thanks to Dana for all her help and for making us (Victor and me) feel at home at YAP.  And then there is Deborah and Helen, who let us follow them in their creative explorations, and were just, to say it bluntly, super cool.  I look forward to seeing how their works-in-progress continue to develop.  At Bates they were gathering momentum, their works evolving from the first showing to the last…

But I think the videos speak for themselves, so check them out! Go to the BatesDanceFestival youtube page, or follow the below links.

YAP Chapter 1: A Day In The Life

YAP Chapter 2: Master Classes

YAP Chapter 3: Creation Of The Piece

BDF Emerging Choreographers Program

-Alissa Horowitz

I return.  A Bates alum, I have not set foot on this campus for two years.  I revisit.  This festival I love, the people I love.  This is my third summer of three weeks at BDF.  I reinvent.  Same festival, but I have evolved.  There is fresh purpose driving me forward.

This year I return not just to dance, but to document.  In collaboration with Victor Lazaro, I am working on a series of videos about the Youth Arts Program (YAP) and the Emerging Choreographers.  I return as a dancer, (notice the subtraction of the word “college”) who knows what it is to struggle to find work that works around rehearsals (or vice versa).  There is new found glory I now relish in as I go throughout my classes.  Dancing all day in a huge space with people who push me to reach greater heights is a treat I no longer take for granted.  I am now a dance teacher, and thus class is not only about my own technique and expression, but also about paying attention to the flow of class and ways to correct students positively and effectively.

And I am not the only one returning to Bates.  Like birds migrating back home in the summer after a winter spent in the tropics, we are a community of artists returning to our haven.  We are here for a second, third… thirteenth time.  The returning educating artists: Doug Varone, Cathy Young, Michael Foley…  The musicians: Shamou, Peter Jones, Jesse Manno… (TO NAME A FEW.)  My fellow dancers whose faces I recognize from… that Modern IV class I took three years ago?!

This summer I am dancing in Omar Carrum and Claudia Lavista’s repertory piece.  They were here as International Visiting Artists when I was here in 2007, and Omar and I shared the same “were you here…?” moment I have shared with so many this past week.  For their rep, we are recreating a piece (Lleno y vacío) that was originally set on their company, Delfos Danza Contemporanea.  Yet another example of artists returning here to revisit and reinvent.

We are all here looping.  But unlike the random media generated loops we watched Troika Ranch get stuck in (during Dawn Stoppiello’s Dance & Media talk on Thursday), we are using the past to launch ourselves into new territory.  We are honing our skills and experimenting with novel ideas.  Now with one third of the festival behind us, let’s remember to continue to dive out of the safety of our habits, and dare to re-[fill in the blank].

To sign off, I share with you a quote that resonated with me from this week: “It’s not about going against tradition, it’s about using it as a source.” ~Panaibra Gabriel (in response to a question about tradition and dance at the Global Exchange Panel)

Alissa Horowitz