Friday, March 14, 2008

First Look

By Paul Gordon Emerson

The question of creativity, and of the many processes that find their confluence in the placing of a dance on stage, led to this blog. Because CityDance uses many creative voices, the expression of those processes will take many forms.

Of all the questions I am asked, the one that comes the most often is "how do you do this?" -- meaning how do you make dances. "What gets you started, what happens when you get stuck, where do the ideas come from and how do you know whether you're on the right track or not?"

We've started this blog to invite the artists with whom we work - choreographers, dancers, composers, musicians, costumers, actors and more, to share their ideas, approach, methods, inspirations, frustrations and, really, anything they want, as a way of getting readers "inside" the question of creativity, and to invite conversation around it.

Our lead blogger is Isabel Croxatto, from Santiago, Chile. Isabel came into our world in 2007 as a teacher of a Master Class for our professional dance troupe, CItyDance Ensemble. In 2008 she was back in DC briefly and we got to talking about choreography and, specifically, Global Warming. Climate change is taking center stage in world attention -- and it needs to do so in a hurry if we're to turn this around -- and artists have a unique opportunity to speak to it. Isabel is deeply interested in making work which draws its inspiration from, and message about, climate change. And so, as we approach our first concert on climate change, "Warmer," we invite her to start us off.



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