Conceptual Warm Up

Here are excerpts from e-mails and phone call notes in preparation for our upcoming intensive in Arnhem:

(from Lisa): We all would like to come away with a form, a score, a series of sequences- that we can continue to practice/develop/evolve on our own afterward. The Deborah Hay model of “practicing” the dance and having it reveal itself that way applies.

Here’s a quote from Meredith Monk: “Every time you make a piece, fear is always there and you’re always working with it, playing with it, allowing the interest and curiosity of what you’re making to become more compelling than the anxiety. Then you’ve actually walked through the fear, and then there’s a sense of discovery.”

(From a phone chat with Vicky and Lisa:)
Craft what you want to see
Step back from the obvious
Overarching conceit that frames different kinds of activity
Feeling level wants to manifest fully
Layer in elements that are part of the process
Abstract personal emotional material to make it more universal (stand-ins)
Forms, conventions, strictures
Household scraps
Hanging in there until you see how the whole thing will interact
When you perceive something not “happening,” engage rather than withdraw
Persevere through “I don’t get it” – is there a piece of this that’s interesting?
Practicing the dance rather than building it or rehearsing it

(from Eva:) Red Thread tasks/scores/games/structures
July 2008- Post-it note grids
Supermarket Shoppingwalking patterns on a grid
Speaking while moving; tapping into emotion remembering our fathers
Catch 3 moves from each person, teach each other

December 2008 - Lisa shows Desert Island; we replay what we saw.
Vick - specific nothing - alone, then in duets.
Eva - "stitching" - stitching paths to travel lines,and lay grids and patterns."stories and spaces" and ways of supporting in improvisation.
Transformation - letting a movement transform itself through repetition.
Lisa's score for Eva: walk a straight line/straight lines (pedestrian action) and when it wants to happen, take journeys off.
Lisa's score: 5 stories and 3 spaces.
Things we like about stitches- the initial thrust of the first entry of 'needle into fabric'- the aspect of repetition- that small changes can enter- that feet can retain the same pattern and arms can embellish with other ones
Eva's score for Lisa: give time for resting, yielding - nothing time; softening, creating internal space, wrists and heart; connection of hands and heart, hands to earth.
Lisa's score for Eva: find scraps with which you could eventually build, but at this time, don't think of building, don't think of value; don't judge, don't think of having to entertain. Speak about the found scraps.
Eva's score for Lisa: you arrange your things into neat piles before we begin to work; it could bridge the gap between formal structure and the sensory world. Take some time to create a formal physical framework in the space, set up somewhere where you can then spend some 'formless' sensory time.
Lisa's score - 50 moves with repetition.Repetition not just to do it, but because it has a purpose.Play with timing, phrasing, musicality of the moves. Same task having a traveling path - gave clearer purpose.50 moves using the torso (Lisa), and 50 moves leading with the head (Eva) generated unusual material.50 moves with the addition of high drama gave surprising emotional twists in places.50 moves and gathering scraps can be a practice.

March 2009- Tasks: Grid Stitching and lacingMovement becoming smallerErasing Post-it notes

For Aug 2009- Instructions from Eva: make and bring 5 scraps - material you gather/ collect from around the house. Domestic scraps or in-the-home moves.