Old Dancers, New Tech
A while back I posted a link to an article about Sylvie Quillem, the Prima Ballerina who has re-invented herself at an age when most dancers are regretting their descent into teaching, administration, and lines of dancewear.
Not only is she exploring new avenues such as Kathak dancing in the "Sacred Monsters" tour, she is also pushing herself into even more difficult realms. The piece she will be premiering in New York, "Push", is no walk in the park–it’s more difficult, in some ways, than the choreography she performed in her youth:
“Yes, it’s dangerous. It’s moving upside down, on your back, your knees — things you don’t do very often in classical ballet — and it was painful. Any new style you take on is a shock, because there are always a lot of doubts. ‘Am I going to be able to do it?’ But it’s a game, and I love to play it.”
Gotta respect an attitude like that.
And speaking of venerable dancers, Merce Cunningham has done it again. Famous for his avant-garde, postmodern approach to choreography and especially his collaborations with musician John Cage, Merce was always about separating audiences from their assumptions. Dance going along with music? Pshaw! He’s gone so far as to hand out iPods to his audience members for his new piece, "eyeSpace" (gotta love the pun, too, making it litigation-proof from Apple).
This is how one company member described his approach, and its effect on audiences:
"If you didn’t relish the unexpectedness that happens with the freedom given to the components of the piece – the costumes, the lighting, the sound – it was probably very hard. Merce was in it for any adventure that might come up."
My new favorite Dance blogger, Apollinaire Scherr, described his new work:
"The iPod pushes this deliberate anarchy a step further. Up until "eyeSpace," audience members at least were listening to the same music, whatever they each made of it. Now, they may be watching the same dance, "but they’re having a private experience with the sound," Rouse explains. "What happens when you ask people to have both a shared and a private experience at the same time? I don’t think that’s exactly happened before. The question is, what is a theatrical experience?""
I have been part of a similar piece, called 50 Chairs, put on by Jin Wen Yu. Only 50 seats were provided in the performance space, but 100 tickets were sold, and as people came in they discovered no obvious "audience-performer" separation. They were left to sit in a chair, or the floor, scattered around the room, with the dancers and other performers (I juggled) moving around them as the performance happened.
In other words, the audience all heard the same thing, but got many different perspectives of the performance. I remember sitting in the middle of the stage as we’d rehearse, and how thrilling it was to be immersed in the dance like that. Wish there were more like that…
Tags: jin wen yu, merce cunningham, sylvie quillem, dance, ipod, improvisation
Comments Off