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| Photo courtesy burnaway.org |
Tonight at the Schwartz Center for Performing Arts, Staibdance premiers its evening length work, Versus. Versus journeys into the relationship of tension and conflict within ourselves and others. Artistic Director and Emory Dance faculty member George Staib takes a moment to answer a few questions about his work and how he tackles such a heavy concept.
How did you first come across this idea of conflict? What made you want to delve deeper into that concept?
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| Photo courtesy burnaway.org |
I originally wanted to re-work some older repertory pieces, update
them, deepen them, and substantiate them more with the original content.
After examining the pieces that most interested me, I discovered that
there was a through line of interpersonal
or personal tension. I found that they confronted a conflict between
people or within the self. I then decided that digging deeper into that
idea was where I wanted to go.
At the start of the process, I realized I was being too broad, and
it was my experience at Tanz Farm last fall that allowed me to hone in
and focus upon what I really wanted to examine. I became more interested
in the subtlety of conflict and the impact
it has on self-esteem and the psyche in general.
What are some of the different types of conflict that you explore?
I became invested in exploring the implications of love lost, the
impact of touch and physical aggression, the turmoil that comes from
not speaking your mind, and the agony that comes from not trusting. In
addition, the second section of the show addresses
our love of watching others in conflict and comments upon the ways in
which we glorify the woes of others: basically saying, "whew – better
them than me". We also play around with historical conflicts such as the
origin of life, Roe v. Wade, and criminal acts,
as frivolously as the media does.
What are some of the different ways the dancers express these types of conflict?
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| Photo courtesy burnaway.org |
The dancers have been asked to reveal themselves, become vulnerable
and delve deeply into their own history to provide motives for the
movement. They have been asked to find associations to their own lives.
While they haven't been asked to reveal their
connections publicly, they have been asked to worry less about being
right choreographically, and concern themselves with being honest. It is
an ever-changing, ever-shifting experience. I believe that as each
performance comes and goes, we will see a very
different dance. They have been asked to respond in the moment and not
plan their reactions, movements, interpretations in advance.
Is there anything else you would like to tell us about your work?
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| Photo courtesy burnaway.org |
As always, we want more time, we want more information, we want the
process to be all-encompassing. But I also believe that an important
part of the process is showing what you have so far. I trust that we
will come back to this to work with what we discovered
via these performances. I find that now, after tech rehearsals, more
questions have revealed themselves…it never ends, and that is what makes
this experience so rich for me. So in short, this is where we are
currently in our research. If I acknowledge that
it is not a stopping point, but rather a passing through place, it
erases the finality of a performance run and makes it less difficult to
bid a temporary good-bye to the material.
Staibdance Versus shows March 21-23 at 8pm; tickets are available for purchase here. Please see our Facebook page for more details. For information on the Emory Dance Program, please go to our website.
