CSU Fresno Day 4

Finished
We completed the last of the dance. I love the students enthusiasm, not only diving into the movement but also taking the content of the movement more deeply each time they run the dance. I am really please with the dance, it is what I had hoped for, a dance of significance.

Significance
A dance of significance moves both the performers and viewers to examine life in some manner. It creates a wave of change, leaving with the dancers and viewers an impact that is not quickly forgotten because it initiates thoughts and discussions that move people deeper into an understanding about the humanness that we all share.

Costumes
Thank you to Professor Balint who released the students early from Ballet so that we could create the costumes together. We used pedestrian clothes that were from other dances, and Kenneth died them all shades of grey. Then after Ballet I taught the students how to dye-paint to achieve the effect of distressing the clothes. Each student created their own costume effect that is now an abstraction of pedestrian clothes... making the dancers appear both as people, as abstractions of people, and of a group that belongs together. In my mind, all of these characters are aspects of the dreamer, but as people observe the dance I fully expect each viewer to interpret from their own experience -as if the dance were a Rorschach Ink Block.

Music
After now 20+ hours editing the music I am pleased with the result. Each students voice is part of the soundscape, and the selection of music and sound effects that are interspursed flow together in the way that allows the dream to change scenes logically (which in a dream is sometimes illogical!). Although I always want to surprise the audience, I don;t wish to jar them, so it's a delcate process to edit so many sound bytes together gracefully!

Final Showing
At the end of the last rehearsal we decides to invite people to come witness the first run of the completed dance. The costumes were barely dry as the audience arrived. We fit about 3 dozen people into the studio to observe and the dancers completed a great run through. The audience responses were quite helpful, sharing with us in a question and aswer (we asked questions of the audience). As am I (and Kenneth has said also) they were very impressed with the passion of the dancers... the commitment to the movement... the risk. And the images they sahred with us helped the dancers understand how they have guided the audience to share in this expereince of a nightmare. I loved the audiences excitement about seeing a dance that was beautiful in it's darkness.

Accomplishment
More than learning a dance to perform, these dancers have learned through EMP how movement communicates with a viewer and then applied that to the dance to direct the nuances of what we want the audience to witness. They have demonstrated to me that they understand how the use of tension/release and time signatures of movement change the meaning in gesture and movement and how one movement can mean many things when performed in different ways. They have been courageous in the emotional and physical risk needed to accomplish our goals and have maintained a supportive enthusiastic comradery among the group members.

The Ongoing Challenge
The dance is successful in pushing the time, space and energy to extremes and thus creating a dance that walks a path that is uncommon. It is hard as a piece goes into rehearsal to hold onto the uncommoness because our human minds group things into familiar in order to remember them. These movements must remain extreme to retain the power of the piece. Now, as they take the piece to rehearse it will be important that they contunally recall:

• the core motivation for the movements (spine, head, shoulders, pelvis)
• the risk of taking the time to the extreme of slow with the intensity of bound tension
• the moments where bursts of movement surprise the viewer (quick, forceful)
• the manner of creating a guesture that appears to be motivated from outside one's own body (time signature quick to slow)

and of course, each run through should conquer any exptra steps or shifts of weight and should polish any partnering moments that have not captured complete and powerful flow.

What a please it has been to work with this company. I have to say that their director, Kenneth Balint, is training them in the manner of professionalism, open minds and strong bodies that will make these dancers ideal candidates for whatever they choose to accomplish in dance!