New York City
Monday, October 24 2011
The Bowery Hotel
One of the things I love most about the people with whom I have the pleasure of working is their creative intelligence. Each could direct -- and each often does in their own way. Take, for example, today.
In the midwest Rob Priore is knee-deep in a two-works in nine days marathon at Dayton Contemporary Dance Theater, one of the great contemporary companies in America. He was asked to make a new work not just for DCDT 1 or 2, but for both. AT THE SAME TIME. That's insane. But I know Rob and I know he'll make something great for each, working to their strengths, challenging their sense of limitations and building new understandings in each dancer of what they are capable of.
**The image above is of Rob during one of our Master Classes in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan in October 2011....
Here's Rob's journal entry on the first days:
"After two rehearsals the dancers have really started to make something beautiful. A working title for what we have started is called the " Four Corners Of The Heart". I just tried compressing the video files and they are all still too big to attach and send :[ I try to have someone who is understudying take some pictures during process over the next few days and once I start working with the first company I think I will have more to say. I do have something to say about the collaborative artist."
"After meeting with Willis "Bing" Davis, it became very clear to me how organic this collaboration would be. His series of paintings called "Ancestral Spirit Dances" is making its way into 400's. They all look very similar however once he explained his inspiration for the paintings they began to take on hundreds of very different looks. Each painting is based on the different meter of poly rhythms in tradition African music. Half of each painting is pure improv wild strokes of color. The other half is based on kinte cloth patterns which is very structured and layered. This all started to make sense for me. I love to structure my work. Starting large maybe with all seven dancers on stage then as I progress I break sections down into smaller groups of dancers like the structure of the African meter 7,5,3 and so on. The other half to my choreography is based on some loose improv as well. As Bing and I continued to talk about how we like to create our art it became clear this collaboration was going to be dynamite."
-- Rob Priore in Dayton, Ohio
October 24, 2011
Meanwhile, in Utah Christian is in the middle of his own process of work. We haven't seen him since we came back from Kyrgyzstan, and won't again till right up before we leave for China (or Russia if we go there before China).
Jason, Kathryn and Amanda are in DC, rehearsing at Achmedova Ballet Academy and crafting the newest Company E work as a collaboration that Rob will leap into as well when he comes back from Dayton.
And as for me, I'm in New York, writing a business plan, meeting with the New York members of the Board -- Susan Wall and Aaron Graham -- and meeting with collaborators and potential partners for NEXT.
Four cities, four projects and processes, yet all tied into the creative spirit of the Company and its vision.
Crazy.
No comments:
Post a Comment