A conversation:

"Have you found what you're looking for? Have you made sense of it?
(pause) Do you have an answer? A conclusion?"

"Not yet."

"Do you need to go back? See it all again?"

"Yes."


(and later)


"Why can't i see the real thing?"

"Because it's not yours. It doesn't exist any more."

"Then what am i seeing? Why am i stuck here?"

"Look again."

Crash Crash Crash! Live in Cinemascope!

So i've finally gotten it online! Sorry for the glitchy beginning (i had edited it out, but somehow uploaded this one...) but i can't wait any longer - i have to SHARE!

Here's the vid from our April 12th performance at DanceNOW[nyc]'s RAW festival! Check it out and TELL! US! WHAT! YOU! THINK!


13 Variations on a Car Crash - live performance version from Sarah A.O. Rosner on Vimeo.

You can just post about what you saw, what it made you think or feel, or you can check out the questions we posted if you want to respond to something more specific. Remember, there's no wrong way to see it, no wrong thing to take from it. Feedback on a new work is always immensely helpful, especially while it's still in process. It also just feels good to know that someone's out there on the other side of the 4th wall - sometimes a piece spends so long in the studio or in your head that it's hard to take it out of that context and think about the people who will be seeing it. And if you've got something to say but are shy about posting it publicly, you can always email us at theAOMC@gmail.com

We'll be showing a newer version of this (with an added three minutes from the section that leads into it at the beginning) when we perform with CrossCurrents Dance Company at the Dance Place in DC at the end of May, so all you DCers, put it on your calendars and tell all your friends! It's actually really nice to look forward to performing this again - it's become quite a baby of mine.

That being said, c o m m e n t a w a y !

A few of my favorite things...

As you (may) know, we'll be showing the first excerpt of this epic mass of stuff that we've been working on very very soon! Sunday April 12th to be precise, as part of danceNOW NYC's RAW showings. Car crashes have been sort of a fixation for me for a while now. Not the bloody, sudden, real ones, but the gorgeous, slow motion, sparkling ones.

I've been talking with Cory and Cristina (the "driver/passenger" for the piece...but abstract)about why i'm so fixated on them, and i think it's a few things.

1. Something about the sudden wreckage of a crash - that it's such a break from the way things normally are, to see sheet metal and glass and all those "strong" and "structural" elements ripped apart like that - keeps taking me back to feelings i had after the end of a certain relationship i emerged from about a year ago. How cliche, i know. But it certainly fits the piece, in that the slow motion study of these images is an attempt to enact or retain some sort of logic or control over something that a) has no control b) is governed by logic, but very unchangeable logic ie. physics and c) can't be undone even if you understand it. The piece itself (as a whole) aims to explore that space of visiting and revisiting - the search to find logic or clarity in something that is much more massive and out of control than yourself.

2. Something about how in slow motion you can isolate the moment when all the howevermany tons of car is completely in the air - it's almost like a lullaby.

3. The physics that make all car crashes pretty much the same. Inside of one, it must feel like the least organized, most instantaneous...crunch and thrash? There aren't really words for it. But looked at objectively from the outside it's pretty self explanatory. If the car is hit at this place at this speed, it will react in this way.

4. There's this whole sub-culture relating car crashes and sex. Recently watched the 199(6?) film Crash (no, not the race relations one) and didn't love it as a film (thought it lacked a lot of basic construction) but thought it was really interesting as a study. Also, Palahaniuk's Book "Rant" rocked my world this past summer, and i'll probably come around for another read sometime soon. When Adrienne was at rehearsal, she noticed a lot of the sexiness in the crashes that we had constructed so far, which surprised me as it hadn't been our focus. Since then we've made crash #7 - "sexytime". You'd like to see a clip of that one, wouldn't you? Well you can't. Not yet.

But enough po-mo mumble jumble, here's what i wanted to share with you: some of the best crashes i've found. It's worth watching till it gets to the slow-mo part, trust me!





And there's also this one, which won't embed, but is pretty cool: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZQMfb5naz8

Then of course there's the art of the cinematic car crash, for which the second matrix (in my humble opinion) takes the cake:



Yum.

Artist Salon Re-Hash Part 1: Defining the Epic

So my program on wed @ Chez Bushwick went really well in my opinion - supper under attended, but interesting and fun nonetheless - and we got into some really great conversations by the end. I'm really grateful that Anna invited me to moderate it - it helped me solidify and test out everything that's been rambling around in my head for the past year or so

Since a lot of you couldn't come, i wanted to post some sort of doug-fox-inspired guide to/artifact of the presentation and discussion. Stick with me, it's going to be a long one.
Shocker, i know.
I'm going to break it down into a few separate posts to make it a little more manageable. I'll serialize it, if you will (for those of you who were there and get how clever i'm being.)

Here's a basic outline of what we talked about, broken down with the media samples to go along.

***
How does one define "epic work"?

While some might stick to the literary definition, others jump to the vernacular understanding - long, dense, hard to get through. Though the definitions are clearly different and quite specific, I actually don't think it aids us a great deal to split hairs between them. What ends up happening (and you'll see this as we go) is that there's so much overlap that what matters is knowing the definitions, not necessarily following them. So let's define!

The literary definition of "epic" (according to wiki - full article here) is as follows:

a lengthy narrative poem, ordinarily concerning a serious subject containing details of heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation.

Additionally, traditional epic literature contains these nine characteristics:

1. opens in media res
2. The setting is vast, covering many nations, the world, or the universe.
3. begins with an invocation to a muse
4. starts with a statement of the theme
5. the use of epithets.
6. includes long lists.
7. features long and formal speeches.
8. shows divine intervention on human affairs.
9. "Star" heroes that embody the values of the civilization.

Now, these are clearly definitions of a traditional epic, and as Ben pointed out near the end, most of what I'm looking at are postmodern epics. However, keeping these nine characteristics in mind can help us examine how pieces and works are epic and how they relate to each other, even if their epic-ness is derived from being in contrast or negation of one of the categories.

We can also look at the genre of film to get a slightly different definition. Epic Films are

"a genre of film which places emphasis on human drama on a grand scale. They are more ambitious in scope than other genres which helps to differentiate them from similar genres such as the period piece or adventure film. This often entails high production values, a sweeping musical score by an acclaimed film composer, and an ensemble cast of bankable stars, placing them among the most expensive of films to produce" (wiki).

And then there's this vernacular understanding. "Epic" as long, big, never ending, dense, a journey, a quest, a search. Also, "Epic" as "awesome", historically reinforced, precidented. It leads to a confusion of terms and an esssentializing of what the epic really is. Take this for example, from wiki:

"Many refer to any film that is "long" (over two hours) as an epic, and as such a definition of an epic film (especially among today's films) is a matter of dispute among many. As Roger Ebert put it, in his "Great Movies" article on Lawrence of Arabia:^[3]

"The word epic in recent years has become synonymous with big budget B picture. What you realize watching Lawrence of Arabia is that the word epic refers not to the cost or the elaborate production, but to the size of the ideas and vision. Werner Herzog's 'Aguirre: The Wrath of God' didn't cost as much as the catering in 'Pearl Harbor,' but it is an epic, and 'Pearl Harbor' is not.""

Burn.
However, i think this essentializing and cross-meaning can be a great thing, becuase it means that more and more things are becoming entwined in the eipc conversation.

Now, when i was trying to map out how to speak about all these different artists and their individual yet collective epic natures, i grappled a bit with what direction to come at it all from. In terms of their definitions? In terms of why they are made? In terms of how they are recieved?

In the end, i decided to look at these works through the skeleton of five categories, which to me represent the main attractions (both as a audience and a creator) to epic work. I'll lay them out here, and then go into detail using the artists at hand as an example in a post to follow.

1. Humans are attracted to epic work becuase we are "World Builders".
We create order, structure, and relationships everywhere we go - most notably in our societies and lives. It then is only logical that we are driven to re-create these world-structures in our art, and that we find it satisfying to watch or experience these world in the art of others. Main examples: Myst and Ulysses.

2. On the completly other end of the line (so far that if you make the line a circle the two end up being right next to each other) is the idea that life isn't clean or organized - it's messy, crude, confusing, and infinately complex. Any art that mirrors this complexity may end up being epic in scope. The epic is a mirror to the complexity and largeness of life. Main examples: Ulysses and Sara Rudner.

3. Creating epic work is a process that, for the creator, involves not being able to contain or process the whole work at once. This nessitates the artist's creation of new strategies, processes, and medias, not to mention whole ways of thinking. In this way, epic work is an evolutionary tool for artists, pushing them to evolve their art and art making in ways that are distinctly different from other processes. Main examples: Sara Rudner and my work.

4. Epic work is inherently lends itself to a plethora of marketing posibilities. In our current economy, specifically in the arts, there's a constant focus on reduction and simplification. However, if we look to mainstream culture, we see that things like epic movies (lord of the rings, the matrix) and epic books (Harry Potter) are a commanding presence. Additionally, serialization (Deadwood, the wire, etc.) provides veiwers with a new watching format for the epic. Epic work provides artists with a way to go more in depth and yeild a greater return, and at the same time can be more engrossing and exciting for veiwers and audiences to watch. Main examples: my work and the Matrix.

5. One of the main reasons that epic work is so engrosing to us as audience members is its subtextual (or subvisceral, subaural, etc) abilities and nature. The fact that we can not only take the work at surface level, but are also encouraged to go inside of it to explore on our own, and as a collective group of schollars and thinkers makes the work in a constant state of dialouge with other works, people, and ideas around it. Due to this interconnectivity, we not only experience the work, but all the other works that it is communicating with. Main examples: Girl Talk, Sara Rudner, Ulysses, my work, and the Matrix.

So those are the big five!
In the next few days i'll be posting a more detailed post for each categories, with media examples so you can get a better sense of what i'm talking about. I also want to reserve a post at the end to bring up some of the (amazingly exciting) ideas that came up in our discussion as well. As always, questions and comments are welcome at any stage of the process.

Reminder: Artist Salon TONIGHT @ Chez Bushwick

Hey all, just a reminder for you to come on down (up? over?) to Chez Bushwick at 7 to see my program on Epic Work.  I'm really excited to share it - i've been doing a ton of research and interviews over the last few weeks to prep for it!

For those of you that can't make it, i'll try to get some short version (gross.) posted here with some links within the next few days.  If you have any questions, or insights to add that you want me to bring up tonight in liu of your presence, just leave 'em in the comments section of this post and i'll do my best.

Hope to see you there!

Kitsch, Cliche, Australia, and Big Emotions.

The concept of "cliche" has been following me around lately.

It all started with Sarah Dahnke, who's been working on a lovely blogject, "This Dance is a Cliche", examining and exorcising the cliches that seem to keep presenting and re-presenting themselves in dancemaking. Then the awesome Adrienne Truscott (who's my mentor through the Van Lier Fellowship) came and sat in our last rehearsal, checking out the guitar solo along the way, which lead to a great discussion about the fear of cliche in postmodern movement work. Link number three in the chain was an email from friend/collaborator/composer/co-poster Theo Wilson warning me against palling prey to cliche in my piece. Last, the New York Times reviewed Baz Luhrmann's new epic "Australia" (which, for the record, i've yet to see) with some words about kitsch that helped me tie all this haunting together (full review here).

So this is the story about all of those things.

What is a cliche? Why has cliche become frowned upon (specifically in PMD, but in a larger context as well)? Are they dangerous, or simply a nuisance? Why?

For me, the idea of "cliche" has always been one of the simultaneously most terrifying and harmless things i deal with as a dance maker. On one hand, I've always had a fixation with doing something "new", never wanting to make the same dance over and over, never wanting to make something that i've seen before. While i assumed this was the mode of all artists for quite some time, my friend Jeremy helped point out that this was far from true. But, while some would like to make the same dance a million times (since, of course, each one is vastly different anyway), each time refining their skill and craft, that option panics and bores me. New, new, new. It's a pathos. And, even if the end results don't look that vastly new or different, holding myself to it in the process keeps me interested and making dances. On the other hand, much as i might wince to admit it sometimes, much of what i make is highly cliche. What is a cliche, after all, than something that's been felt/thought/expressed so many times and by so many different people, that rather than having to respond specifically to this incantation of it, audience members look at it as one instance of the larger and largely repeated occurrence? Love is cliche, heartache: cliche. To look at it flatly, humans are cliches, repeating an endless cycle of life love loss recovery heartache brilliance sex and death. And, for better or worse, that's what i make dances about.

So I know, on one hand, that what I'm making will always have a tint of "cliche" about it. I don't make abstract anatomical experiments, i don't make strictly spatial analyses, i make dances about love, and i make people cry. Invariably, my pieces seem to strike a human chord with my audience, prompting both dance people and non dance people to tell me that they've "been there before" or "reminds them of that time in their life". My dances, very simply, are love stories. Why fight it?

At the same time, working on this piece, i find myself terrified that this piece is nothing more than a cliche. For me, the saving grace of working with a cliche base is that it offers connection and humanism. From there, there's always a new way to see it if you work hard enough and look in unexpected places. As Aderine pointed out in our meeting, when someone tells her that something is "cliche" it just signifies the challenge of finding additional layers to it. However, it makes sense that i'm terrified: though i'm no stranger to narrative work, this is the first time that i'm taking a direct chain of events and crafting them into a dance (eg: boy leaves girl, girl is heartbroken, struggles toward meaning) rather than using a question or topic (eg: long distance relationships or gender power struggles). Additionally, dances have always held a therapeutic position in my life, meaning that the working of my personal shit into some sort of craft has always been my catharsis, my way to process and finalize. That doesn't mean that the entire making it therapeutic, however. Crafting necessitates remembering, reanalyzing, and reworking, all of which are usually messy, sometimes painful, and hold the threat of sucking you back into the muck that you're exorcising.

The recent big question for me being: when is this process helpful and productive (god forbid i ever stop being productive) and when is it whiny and a sob story...dare i say...a cliche?

A recent email from Theo snapped me on guard again. I've been thinking about the setting of the piece as a sort of purgatory - a reckoning place for the characters at hand. He writes:

You get to weep. You get to bitch. If he's allowed to break your heart, you get to tear him apart. There is no need to respect his feelings. But righteous self-pity is a self-extinguishing flame. Eventually contemplation must preside, and it presides in purgatory. You feel bitter, but you don't feel good about feeling bitter. You know how you must behave, but you find yourself unable to live up. That's an interesting struggle, and one I haven't seen you attack, whereas you have explored victimhood already (very skillfully, I might add). Like I said, though, as a thinking person you cannot continue without morality asserting itself.

Men have a right to hurt women's feelings. Women have a right to hurt men's feelings. The utopian alternative is emotional chattel slavery.

Use the rock song test. Rock songs have a built in language of cliché to address break-ups. Go down the list. Can any of your dramatic or symbolic devices be fond on the list?

Is anyone breaking your heart and tearing you apart?

Are you standing in the pouring rain?

Do you find yourself saying "how dare you"?

Are there clouds in an otherwise sunny sky?

Were you "shocked to discover"?

Have you "lost everything"?

You are literally taking out the trash. That's a filthy enterprise. The dirtiest part is getting rid of one's own hypocrisy and coming to terms with righteousness. The cleanest, easiest, and most rock-songy part is vilifying the other party.

So there's the line. Victimhood versus villainy versus reckoning. And reading it again in the midst of writing this post, i'm immediately aware that he's not saying that victimhood isn't necessarily "bad" or a cliche, just that i've been there before. Funny how when i read that, his pointing to that i've already explored it immediately crossed it off of my list. Oh, patterns, oh pathos. But this piece, though i've been here before, needs some sort of understanding of victimization to initiate the reckoning. At least, i think it does. Will this be the piece that re-makes what i've already done? And...don't I do that anyway? I've been joking that this piece will be called "Over Again" since it so closley parallels "The What's Left Over After", but as the piece evolves and tectonic plates shift, that become both more and less true.

Regardless, i don't want to play victim in this piece. It feels weak, feels uninteresting, and frankly, isn't where i am any more. I don't need this to be a victim piece because i've already exorcised that journey i took. I need the answers about what happens after. In words it seems clear enough: the difference between the question of "what is remembered and why/who does the other become?" versus "why did this happen to me? I didn't do anything wrong". However, it's one thing to be able to speak those two and understand the difference, and quite another to express them through bones and muscles.

Reading the New York Times's review of "Australia" gave me a little clarification this morning, and pushed me to write this post. A long time fan of Luhrmann's work (especially his over-use of everything, refutation of "clarity", and love of the epic) I haven't really been drawn to Australia, perhaps because of my bordness with it's two main actors. However, reading this review might have convinced me to see it instead of Transporter 3 (say it isn't so!). Also, the pictures of Hugh Jackman. Of Luhrmann, they write:

A maximalist, Mr. Luhrmann doesn’t simply want to rouse your laughter and tears: he wants to rouse you out of a sensory-overloaded stupor with jolts of passion and fabulous visions. That may make him sound a wee bit Brechtian, but he’s really just an old-fashioned movie man, the kind who never lets good taste get in the way of rip-roaring entertainment. The usual line about kitsch is that it’s an affront, a cheapening of the culture, a danger. “Kitsch causes two tears to flow in quick succession,” Milan Kundera wrote. “The first tear says: How nice to see children running on the grass! The second tear says: How nice to be moved, together with all mankind, by children running on the grass! It is the second tear that makes kitsch kitsch.”

True, but it doesn’t make the second tear any less wet.

So that's the line i'm walking right now - trying to move, together all mankind, to remember how that purgatory feels, without making it a victim story about me. Though, clearly, it's my story. I guess what i'm saying is, i'll take a tear that's backed by kitsch over dry eyes any day. Always have...probably always will.

And so it begins...

It's reached that time again - when webs, artifacts, and sticky notes begin mounting a battle to cover my walls and encroach upon my sanity. (It's a good thing)

Thought i'd share some pics, blurry as they may be.
Sketches courtesy of Oliver Hensel brown, note cards courtesy of myself, bone courtesy of chicken.

Photos from rehearsal number uno!

These are some photos via Tony Shultz @ interslc.net of our first rehearsal, way back when in August. We've come so far! Check it out.

Find more photos like this on www.interslc.net

As promised...

As promised, here are the two full videos of mine and Lillie's final improvs for the day.

These came as a result of going back and forth watching each other's improvisations, picking out things that worked and didn't work, and then going again.





We also spent some time looking at specific guitar stances from the Red Hot Chili Peppers's "Can't Stop" video (an all-time favorite of mine), which i've also added below. If anyone else has any favorites, feel free to post a link in the comments section!

Update on New Work

So in between the videos i thought it might be helpful (for me and for you) to verbalize some of what I'm working on for this new piece. I'm going with a tentative working title (...maybe...) of "over again". Although "Remote control" and "Clutch Clutch"would also be options.

We've had two group rehearsals (although, in true form we've yet to have a rehearsal with the whole cast at the same time...) and I've had five or six studio times to work on material. Needless to say, it's just starting out, and nowhere near gelling into some cohesive gloop yet.

But there are certain truths that have revealed themselves to me so far, as well as specific questions that i'm starting to investigate. I kind of see all the ideas and questions i have right now as fitting on a series of continuums or spectra. One of theses spectra starts as pure art-for-the-sake-of-art creative investigative questions and ends at pure dollar sign economic questions about the business of running my company and producing this piece. Within that spectrum lies a more specific dance-making spectrum of questions and ideas, ranging from the purely visceral to the purely subvisceral (having to do with the information and ideas related to the movement, but outside of the body). The third continuum is altogether separate, and slides between the pure-movement end and the tech/video/programing end.
Which is all just to say: I have many questions and ideas right now. This is how they look in my head so I don't go crazy.

One of the biggest revelations that i've had while working on the piece is a deeper understanding of where this specific movement vocabulary (or at least, one of them - what i'm referring to as "lush") is coming from. Larissa (who i first worked with in "the What's Left Over After") sent me some great questions (as she always does) after our first rehearsal, one of them being a basic "why me for this piece/role". As i've been working more and more during my studio times, I've realized that much of this movement comes from a melding of mine and Larissa's impulses. While it's not the first time that i've been in a great relationship of making dances "for" a dancer - specifically with them in mind - I think it's less common than I would like to believe. I always make movement with my dancers in mind - trying to fit their bodies and keep them engaged and interested, i think it takes some working with each individual to really understand how they move enough to be making for their body through your body when you're alone in the studio. Maybe the best way to describe it is the difference between being really good at knowing what someone would say and actually being so inside their head that you both say the same thing at the same time, but don't find it at all out of the ordinary. So that's exciting. And from here i'm looking forward to the point which we break apart again, and both surprise each other with what we do.

Since i mentioned the "spectrum thinking" that i've been using lately (...this morning...) I'll talk about the other side of realizing i'm really in tune with Larissa's moving - I'm stuck on Ollie and Nick. Being the two "newest" to work with in that i've never made work for them (as I have for Cavin, Lillie, Larissa, and Laurel) and never danced for or with them in a piece (as I have Christina and Julia), i'm a little out of touch with who they are, and uncomfortably so. I'm having my first small group rehearsal tomorrow and focusing on the Cavin/Nick Larissa/Oliver duets, so hopefully that will give me some time to get into their bodies a little more, but I'm also wondering how much of my ignorance in terms of what to make for them is their maleness. In addition to Nick and Ollie, I've also found two more male dancers who are interested in being a part of the piece (who i'll be meeting with and deciding on within the next week or so...) who i'll know even less - i've at least known Nick and Ollie as friends and gotten to see them move as humans and fellow dancepartiers for about a year.

I generally LOVE making movement for men, but for a few reasons making for this piece and these men is hard for me. I hesitate to generalize or present some over-masculinized or flat stereotype of "maleness" in the movement that I make for them (at this point i'm even somewhat internally conflicted about doing a piece that divides so neatly into "male" and "female", even though that's not a new thing for me), and yet at the same time, the piece is about my specific relationship to a male person, portrayed through these series of duets. Yet at the same time, he wasn't even stereotypically male. Yet it's important to me that there is a distinction between the male and female movement because at some level, the piece is about the end product of how the inherent differences in how men and women communicate and think. And yet.
So that's a big one for me right now. The mens.

Another big question is how much to "stay true" to my instincts and ideas, and how much to really listen to the feedback that i'm getting from myself, the dance world around me, and on past work. It's clearly always a balancing act, but it always needs to be re-negotiated. I got really freaked out after the first DTW meet and greet cocktail party really realizing for the first time what Ashley was going through last year - that, yes, it's incredibly intimidating to feel like "The Dance World" is watching closely to see what you'll make. Kind of the same way, i've been meeting more and more people who "read my blog" which is always hugely flattering and exciting, and a little bit terrifying. The world is watching. Who knew? I did. Or maybe I didn't...

Anyway. Part of the fear is that I'm a narrative choreographer. Yes i'm interested in the movement, but not for the sake of it just being movement. I'm interested in what it says and why it happened, and everything that it might convey in a personal, historical, or social context. As long as i've been making dances, it's been the "story" first (or the images, relationships, etc.) and the movement to convey or explore it second. Which is not to say that the movement itself isn't at the heart of my work - i'm a firm believer in the idea that the movement we do can tell us more about what we're feeling than we could ever intellectualize or verbalize or tell. It's just that narrative is so out of style right now - so many choreogrpahers working to deconstruct the limits of narrative work and so many critics just beginning to speak that language - that i hold fear that the work will be dismissed as "young" just because it's telling a story. Which it might be. Because I am. But my belief is that the work is strong (or...you know...will be) and that the use of narrative is a choice and viewpoint rather than a fallback or lack of innovation.

Over drinks with ashley a few weeks ago, I confided that "i don't know if i'm revolutionary enough for new york modern dance" - a statement that she prompted me to really take some time to think about and work through. After seeing two "fall for dance" shows at city center as well as a handful of other work, and doing a good bit of searching online, i'm ready to amend that statement. All of NY modern postmodern dance isn't revolutionary. It isn't all new. And that's okay. My obsession and instinct (regardless if i ever succeed in in) is to make new after new piece. I don't want to see the same thing over and over again. So it's easy for me to fall into this trap of thinking that i'm not "new" enough, because it's a standard that i'm holding myself to. For now, i'm trying to concentrate on making exactly what i want to make and holding myself to that standard - really being 100% satisfied.

I am sharing a lot more of this process than i ever have before - posting all these videos and such. So. Ask me questions. What do you want to know about the process? About what we're making? About the work? About our business practices? I'm hoping to do some website updating soon, and that will have all our new writing up there, but in the meantime, let's keep talking. Hope this was interesting for you to read - it helped me organize my continuums a little.