Gearing Up For EDC: A Few Words From Our Choreographers (Part 4)

It all comes down to this: an entire semester's worth of work into 4 performances.  As we prepare to launch into tech week, the EDC choreographers (students of the Choreography II class) have each written a few words about their inspiration, their choreographic process, and the development of their works.


Andre Lumpkin, Senior
 
The title of my piece is Ordeal of Ideals. I felt this was appropriate not only because of the context of the piece itself, but also its developmental process. Though this was not my first time choreographing, it was my first experience with Emory Dance Company and an abundance of resources, such as production and technical elements. However, my dancers had the most influence on my creative process. With a large cast of twelve beautiful dancers, all who possessed different technical backgrounds, body types, movement affinities, and personalities, I contemplated day in and day out about how to connect my dancers to one another and create an ensemble. 

As I was researching, I came across a TED Talk by Brene Brown titled the “Power of Vulnerability”. TED, Technology, Entertainment and Design, is a nonprofit organization devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. They ask prominent scholars to speak about a number of different social and humanitarian issues.  Brown wanted to research, simply, the connections between people. What she found was that vulnerability had an important role in the establishment of these connections. I realized that the idea of vulnerability is amplified for performers. Performers are put in a position where they have any number of people observing every word and action they make. Furthermore, as dancers we are challenged with the task of communicating with our audience through mostly movement. Despite the different technical elements that can be utilized to relay an idea or message, a performer must embrace vulnerability; open up and invite others in.

This task is easier said than done. A person must first be able to be vulnerable with themself, recognizing their strengths, weaknesses, habits and personal perspective.  Most often, evaluating ourselves is more difficult than passing judgment on others.  I’ve learned so much more about myself as well as the power of communication within dance through this choreographic process.  My dancers and I invite the audience to follow us on this journey, hopefully connecting us all in the end.

Thanks, Andre!

Don't miss the Emory Dance Company Spring Showcase, Tabula Rasa.  Click here for more details.

For more information on the Emory Dance Program, please go to our website.

 

Gearing Up for EDC: A Few Words From Our Choreographers (Part 3)

It all comes down to this: an entire semester's worth of work into 4 performances.  As we prepare to launch into tech week, the Emory Dance Company choreographers (students of the Choreography II class) have each written a few words about their inspiration, their choreographic process, and the development of their works.

Courtesy of ViVi Photography

Heidi Liu, Senior

My choreographic process began with a single concept when I discovered an article detailing a place off the Alaskan coastline where two seas of different densities collide, bodies of water lying adjacent to each other but unable to join.  This eternal dichotomy struck me as fascinating and perhaps a bit tragic as well.  From there, I began to experiment with how different movement styles and, certainly, different dancers can share space, time, and soundscape but be inextricably separate.

Courtesy of http://kuwaitiful.com/category/photos/page/2/

My movement style is full-bodied and places a heavy emphasis on technique.  Building upon that, I encouraged my dancers to test the limits of their performance habits.  The making of my piece, appropriately titled “Seas of Different Densities”, allowed my dancers a lot of room to create their own variations of a core phrase that I taught them.  The process has been one dependent on collaboration between my cast and me.  Their willingness to challenge the choreography I gave them as well as make drastic changes at half a moment’s notice has allowed me to gradually realize the full potential of my movement.

The dancing in my piece is inspired by water.  It knows the fluidity with which a body of water moves within itself, beyond itself.  It understands the patience of the Pacific Ocean but also the overwhelming power of the sea.  Though accredited as the choreographer of the piece, I sincerely feel that my dancers played just as prominent a role in the making of this dance as I did.  Their input and unique perspectives on my movement has allowed my work to transcend something that I can contain alone.  Rather, this piece has become a joining of many different seas, perhaps of different densities.  Together but separate, it embodies the spirit of that magical place off the Alaskan coast where two seas of different densities collide.

Thanks, Heidi!

Don't miss the Emory Dance Company Spring Showcase, Tabula Rasa.  Click here for more details.

For more information on the Emory Dance Program, please go to our website.

Gearing Up For EDC: A Few Words From Our Choreographers (Part 2)

It all comes down to this: an entire semester's worth of work into 4 performances.  As we prepare to launch into tech week, the Emory Dance Company choreographers (students of the Choreography II class) have each written a few words about their inspiration, their choreographic process, and the development of their works.


Kayla Davis, Senior
  
I started rehearsal with this note to my dancers: 

Dear Lovely Cast, 

Today we are going to try a little experiment, after check-in, nobody is going to talk. It will be a challenge but it will require us to tune into each other more. After being without my voice for four days, I’ve learned so much about myself and how I connect to others. If you must talk use the white board. 

My message was greeted with shocked faces but everyone accepted the challenge and fully committed themselves to having a new experience. When we all turned off our voices we were forced to be more focused in to feel each other more. This really helped my dancers find something new in my choreography. They became a collective group. They will probably never experience a rehearsal like that ever again because it is quite inefficient. But it was really quite beautiful to watch them connect in new way, in a new moment, that only they will share.

Through my choreographic process, I’ve been deepening my understanding of the beauty behind the impermanent things in life. Really everything in life is impermanent. You may think, well if nothing lasts then what’s the point of doing anything? However that logic is reversed, it’s because nothing lasts that there is value in doing everything.

Thanks, Kayla!

Don't miss the Emory Dance Company Spring Showcase, Tabula Rasa.  Click here for more details.

For more information on the Emory Dance Program, please go to our website.

  

Gearing Up for EDC: A Few Words From Our Choreographers (Part 1)

It all comes down to this: an entire semester's worth of work into 4 performances.  As we prepare to launch into tech week, the Emory Dance Company choreographers (students of the Choreography II class) have each written a few words about their inspiration, their choreographic process, and the development of their works. 

Courtesy of Lori Teague

Julio Medina, Senior

My working title is “Stay Real” and it was inspired by my research through the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship.  I am researching hip-hop vernacular dance on the concert stage. I explore themes of authenticity and appropriation through interviews with choreographers Kyle Abraham, Victor Quijada, and Rennie Harris.  I question, what happens when a street dance form is danced in a formal setting?  Is the movement restrictive or liberating?  Does it become a fusion with modern or ballet techniques, or can the vernacular live as its own entity on stage?  All of these questions surround my research and are the foundation of my work.

“Stay Real” addresses other concerns within the hip-hop community however, issues and themes I encountered during my research. For example, the theme of authenticity: whom does hip-hop belong to? Another issue is the current financial narrative of hip-hop music and the negative consequences it can have on youth, the black community, and hip-hop music itself.

I began with generating movement phrases in each of the street dance forms that fall under the Hip-Hop Dance Umbrella: breaking, popping, locking, whacking, Voguing, Krumping, and hip-hop studio.  Once I had the movement material, I started playing with composition to create structure, develop relationships on stage, and ultimately communicate something. In addition, my musical choices also play key roles in creating the right atmosphere for the movement.

Some say that choreography is all about the process. I agree, but choreography and composition are important because of the final product they yield. In the end, I hope my choreographic process will produce a great piece. So far so good.

Thanks, Julio! 

On April 12th Medina hosted an exciting lecture-demonstration, "Keeping It Real?"!  "Keeping it Real?" was the culmination of Medina's Fellowship work, an exploration of hip-hop on the concert stage.

Don't miss the Emory Dance Company Spring Showcase, Tabula Rasa.  Click here for more details.

For more information on the Emory Dance Program, please go to our website.

Exploring Conflict: Staibdance's "Versus"

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? 

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? 

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? 

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.

Out of the Vault

Next week the Emory Dance Company performs their fall concert, Vault. The concert focuses on the idea of the choreographers taking old pieces and ideas "out of the vault" to revamp them and propel us forward. Greg Catellier, senior lecturer, answers a few questions about the original version of his piece "Of Kiltering" and the process of modifying the work for the concert. 

Tell us a little bit about the idea behind the original version of your piece "Of Kiltering".

The original idea for "Of Kiltering" encompassed several notions of balance. One could watch "Of Kiltering" and think only of the balance of space, that is, where and how the dancers are distributed throughout the stage space. However, I was also contemplating the balance of relationships, the balance of power, and the homeostasis of power that groups fall into. I was so fascinated by balance at the time (2006), that I asked each dancer how much they weighed hoping that I could somehow figure out how to balance the stage mathematically by adding the different weights together. That didn't go over so well with the dancers.

At the time, I was also reacting to my somewhat new environment: the cast is matched in number and in gender to that of the Emory Dance Program full time faculty. I'm not making any direct statements about my colleagues with this work, but like all groups the balance of power shifts between us. 

Why did you choose to take this particular piece "out of the vault" and not another one of your works?

I considered bringing back several pieces but I was able to cobble together a great cast of student dancers that matched the number and gender of dancers needed for "Of Kiltering". Furthermore, it is one of the pieces that I really like, which is unusual. I find most of my works abhorrent a year after making them.

Looking at it with fresh eyes I see that it started me down the path of the work I'm doing now. The evening length works I create take a subject and approach it from many different angles. "Of Kiltering" is a mini version of that formula.

What about this new version is different from the old one? How do you think these changes affect the work?

In the old version there was a section where Lori Teague and I were attached to ropes that went through a pulley system above the stage and attached to the two chairs that are used in this piece. As we moved through the space the chairs would fly up and down. I was really trying to get at the visual balance of vertical space. The mechanism was also a kind of upside down scale. The section worked in and of itself but stood out as something foreign within the work as a whole. We ended up cutting it for a version at the Modern Atlanta Dance Festival.

In this new version I added to a trio section that focused more directly on the balance of power. The trio is kind of comical and I always felt that it got short shrift in the original piece. I also feel that this change has allowed me to tailor the work to the talents of these particular dancers. I'm pleased with the new "Of Kiltering".

The Emory Dance Company Fall Concert Vault shows November 15-17 at 8pm and November 17 at 2pm; 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. 

Ending a Series With New Inspirations: George Staib and Gaga Technique

As our last Opening the Space event arrives, we ask George Staib, Senior Lecturer, to delve into his experience with Gaga technique after journeying to Tel Aviv for a Gaga intensive. Staib shares with us how Gaga has influenced his technique classes and helped shape his upcoming evening length piece, Versus. Staib will be teaching a technique class next Tuesday, November 6 at 7:30 pm in the Schwartz Center Dance Studio.

When most people hear the word “Gaga” we think of a crazy pop star.  For those who don’t know, what is Gaga technique?

Gaga is an improvisational technique developed by Ohad Naharin, the current artistic director of Batsheva Dance Company in Tel Aviv, Israel. The technique is founded upon vivid imagery, used to provoke specific movement qualities and assist in developing a keen awareness of the entire body while moving. Participants are asked to work internally, always using sensations as a source for movement, rather than psychological triggers. This allows for greater individual exploration and helps the mover become acutely aware of his/her habits, offers keys to new movement inventions, and strengthens the performer's ability to communicate physically. 

 

When did you first come across Gaga? What was your initial reaction?

My first experience was in New York while watching the Cedar Lake dancers perform Naharin's work Deca Dance. I was transfixed; moved by their physicality, intrigued by their ferociousness, and in awe of their command over their bodies. Since that experience, I stalked Batsheva on-line and became obsessed.  Never having been an improviser myself, I was skeptical; but having had the experience in Tel Aviv, I must admit that I am a believer.

 

How do you incorporate Gaga into your technique classes? 

I found that since studying, my eye is now more focused upon subtlety. I believe that I am gaining more insight where finding "glitches" might be concerned, and I feel better suited to offer advice. Certainly, I do not wish to turn everybody into a Gaga inspired dancer, I simply wish to provide a different perspective from the things I am able to understand more fully now. I do use imagery I obtained in Israel, and use the freedom I felt as a point of departure. When something is especially wonderful to you, you want to share it. And although I am by no means a certified Gaga teacher, I can offer a little of what I learned while studying in Israel. I must admit, that becoming certified is on the horizon for me, and I will be returning to Tel Aviv this summer for the Gaga Intensive.

Has Gaga inspired any of the movement in your upcoming work, Versus?

Gaga, or rather the study of Gaga, I guess you could say, has certainly opened my body to new movement and that freedom has brought new vocabulary. I would say that, yes, I do feel as though "Versus" will look and feel different, not only because of the subject matter, but because my dancers are moving differently and we are all feeling ideas differently. It is an exciting time. I believe we will always like what reminds us of home, but sometimes, it is nice to redecorate - for me that's what Gaga has done - like fresh paint on familiar walls.

 

All Opening the Space events are free.  Please see our Facebook page for more details. For information on the Emory Dance Program, please go to our website.