CSU Fresno Day 2:

Expressive Movement Processing:
This is a group of students that have just started working together this semester. As I teach them how to dive into their subconscious, a frightening thing for many to do, they readily accept the challenge to learn to be comfortable in the discomfort that can arise when one lets go of conscious control and explores internal motivators. This is seriously frightening for many dancers, yet only by learning to be comfortable letting go of control can a dancer achieve the highest tenets of performance -drawing on multiple resources to disover and portray authentic motivations of the character being portrayed, even when those are outside of one's own comfort zone. In the movement research that we have done, these dancers have turned themselves over to the process and thus the dance -the creation of absolutely original movements that are authentic in their expression of both motion and emotion- has begun to take on a life of it's own.

Partnering:
In a 6 hour rehearsal I took the dancers through the basics of partnering -a course I typically would take 10 weeks to teach. We set some absolutely beautiful, original and creative partnering sections, and developed the basic movement phrases that will be the skeleton of the piece. They quickly established a level of trust that bonded the students as a cohesive group and they responded to my nudges to dive further into the abstract emotional content of the movement without trying to convey anything in specific, but rather allowing the movement to be real and to speak the truth in the way that only the language of the body can. I really enjoyed observing their professor (Kenneth Balint) as he watched the sections of the dance and saw new potentials in the students begin to be realized.

We ate dinner at Professor Balint's house with the department chair and enjoyed creative dialogue and great food, and then returned to the hotel to spend most the night creating the music.

Music:
I had asked the dancers to recall a recurring or vivid dream and during our lunch break I recorded their voices telling the story of their dream. Back at the hotel I created a score that includes sound effects, some beautiful cello music (I love the music of Zoe Keating, and will contact her through a mutual friend to get permission for the use of sections of her work) with effected sections of the voices of the dancers. The result is a vivid, textured soundscape that sets the stage for creating the dance in rehearsal today.

Costumes:
Professor Balint and I went through the costume inventory at the school to find various items that we could put together to create a pedestrian yet unified look for the dancers. We'll try the costumes on them today, then after rehearsal go shopping to fill in the blanks, get some dye and fabric paint. Then tomorrow morning the dancers will meet with me to create the pedestrian yet abstract, dimensional, textured look that I want for this dance.

Cal State Fresno residency Sept 24-27, 2010

Day 1
I've been looking forward to this residency even though it comes in the middle of the re-creation of a new dance on Moving Arts. Professor Kenneth Balint danced in A Ludwig Dance Co (although a few years after I did!) so it's all in the dance-family!

This is a short and quick process (4 days) so today we went through what would normally be ten weeks of material about Expressive Movement Processing in three hours AND covered the basics of partnering! And that was just the audition! Whoosh!

The students are great. Young & strong bodies, eager & open minds, they'll make the most of my time here.

We have chosen 12 dancers to work with and will create a dance for the American College Dance Festival. This will be fun.. AND we have our work cut out for us!

A new start

The keys to the warehouse (former dance center) were returned two weeks ago...
We have almost cleared out the third storage area to pare down to two (so much to get rid of!)...

This has been an amazing process.
Twenty plus years of creating and one month to dismantle.

It's great to find out how many people have turned out to support us, even with just notes or a call... all the way to those who spent their extra minutes and hours helping us!

Change is hard, but this can be a metamorphosis. Now we'll find out what greatness begins and where it will take our MAD community!

We'll perform "Whispers" in San Jose next month... looking forward to it!

Count Down to be out!

Counting days
Counting costumes
Counting sprung wood floor pieces and rolls of Marley
Counting friends
Counting our luck
Counting those who are there for us when we need them most!

We have until Dec 31, but hope to be done earlier. We could not do this without the support of the many, many volunteers and supporters! THANK YOU.

We have organized and tomorrow the dismantling begins.

Counting breaths
heartbeats
steps...

and freely letting everyone shed the many tears that are necessary to grieve this process.


It's as if I have been raising a child... really for 30 years... with the help of Scott for the last decade... and the child has been severely ill for the last three years... we have done everything we can to keep it alive, at great personal cost... and now it's time to let go. But the soul of the child will live on in the creative work of the professional company.

Changing Tides

Dec. 1 and our world is about to change. There's a whirlwind waiting for us.
We have a world premiere this Sat, Dec 5
Moving Arts Dance Center and School will close as of January 1.

We've put our hearts and souls into this dance center. We have loved every step, even the most difficult, because each step brought us closer to perfection in the creation of this school and theater. Now, this week marks our last performance in this wonderful location.

So now we'll find another way to make the world a better place. But we leave knowing that we have made a difference in many lives. As dance changed my life, gave me a place to call home, physical confidence and grace, and a voice with which I could speak non-verbally, so I believe we have helped many who have crossed our paths.

I will miss the school and theater so very much. I will miss seeing everyone weekly and knowing that we are all on the path together to be more gracious, sophisticated people... to creating art on the forefront of creativity in dance... to developing this creative village that we have enjoyed for too brief a time.

So, here we go... into the whirlwind of the known and unknown.
• A very difficult move awaits us. Literally. Everything goes into storage in December.
• And then, a very difficult move awaits us in January. Figuratively. Everything must be re-created into it's new form,
whatever that will be!

Here's to the future, and the steps each day to help us achieve even higher goals than we can imagine today! Keep your chins up and your spirits high. Great things await us all.

The Beginning or the End? Day of the Dead approaches

Our "Welcome Back" concert Sept 12th was produced at the end of the first week of classes for the Fall 2009 session at the dance center. It was an amazing concert and exemplified the vision for the dance center.... to provide a venue for experimental dance theater to be produced and have audience feedback. It was an amazing concert and made me very proud of the work Scott and I have done along-side a multitude of volunteers, to make this possible.

The first week of classes showed us that we do not have the income from student fees to survive this session. If all our students were paying we would be fine. However, our studio has been hit very hard by the recession. Since about March we have been approached almost daily by a parent who have lost their job, been given furlows or reduced hours. Now, a class of nine students may have as few as one that is not on scholarship.

Our session is gearing up for performances of Night Visions on Oct 24 & 25 (Sat times: 3:00, 5:00 & 7:00
Sunday Times: 5:00 & 7:00). Then we have one more week of classes to end the session on Oct 31. Thus, Nov 1, the Day of the Dead, become our deadline for raising funds to cover the almost $10,000 a month it will take to keep us open.

I will keep this blog up to date on details. As I said at the concert when I announced our dire situation, we have done tremendous work and we are in this situation because we are a humanitarian driven, creative based, non-profit arts organization rather than a BUSINESS. Our decision in running the business have been made on strong spiritual and moral grounds. We have aimed to trian gracious, creative minds along side athletic dance artists. We are the only training of this sort in Contra Costa County. To find this sort of training you have to go to Berkeley or San Francisco. And to find this sort of training for children limits the pool to less than a handful of schools in the Bay Area.

With only Scott and I to run it, our energy has gone where the needs were immediate in order to assure the spirit and soul of the business was pure. We have tried very hard, at much personal cost, to keep the business alive long enough for the economy to recover. So we offer no apologies that we are not "good businessmen". But now, without the help of the community stepping forward to fund it, we will have to close.

We have the best team of faculty to date, each fully committed to creative-based training at the highest tenets of professional dance... for every age and level without prjudice for beginning dancers or bais toward advanced dancers. It's a rare gem. I have felt like we are "Picasso's of the dance world in Contra Costa County" in that we are ahead of our time. This training is what is offered in universty settings and where national standards in dance are taught... but California schools lag behind the national curve in the teaching of dance offering it as exercise rather than art. And, California studios offer dance as entertainment, competition or ELITE art, only for those with chosen body types and natural skill. We are completely different. I hope it is a service the community decides is improtant enough to fund. In a short time we will know.

I am at peace with whatever the community decides, and I think I can speak the same for Scott.

Scottsdale EMP Residency -last day

The last day of the residency was magical. The dance and costumes came together with a calm grace, (not that I got much sleep that week though!), so the last day was not a panic at all. We polished the piece, and did a photo shoot in the finished costumes. I had SUCH an amazing time with these dancers. They are FULL of LIFE with the rapt attention that is necessary to absorb so much information in a 5-day residency! I think that this dance is one of my all-time favorites. The students are authentic in their performance, take physical risks, and are ever grateful!!!

I can't wait to see performances of the dance and am really looking forward to the Arizona Dance Festival Oct 8-10 at the Tempe Center for the Arts where I heard they may be performing! My company will be there also! What fun! If we can raise the funds, we'll take OUR version of Whispers to perform on the second night!