Reflections

Discuss the aesthetic issues which you find guiding your choreographic choices, how they link your dances into a body of work, what the influences have been, and the thought processes that have led to the choices. In answering this question, avoid rehashing practical “how” questions (What I did in my concert; How I did it) in relationship to your concert in favor of “why” and “who” questions (Why do I work primarily in abstract form? Why is it important to include video with my work? Why is it important to audiences or to me as a dance maker? Who has influenced this belief?)
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In creating my culminating work, I focused my perspective to take the audience into consideration. Currently, Americans are fighting overstimulation and I find that many audience members have a hard time finding their own meaning in dance as they are so used to being spoon-fed meaning on television and in music. As a dance maker, I am interested in continuing to think about how I can educate audiences to create their own meaning for work and to continue thinking about it once they leave the theater. I hoped to convey a sense of diversity through a common aesthetic by considering overstimulation and attention span. As an artist and as a human being, I feel that my interests have a vast range and I don’t feel that I fall into just one category. In order to create a cohesive and meaningful experience for my audience, I decided to attempt to create work that was similarly fashioned in the concert dance style, but to vary my approaches in form, content, and tone. I wanted to explore the range of possibilities within my own aesthetic choices but also recognize the modern attention span of the American audience member.

I believe that modern technology has had a large impact on the way in which Americans think and live. We are interested in overstimulation, yet we are not sure how to divert our attention to really understand it. In my culminating work, I was interested in exploring this idea of overstimulation, but instead of trying to confuse my audience, I wanted to see if there was a way to both create interest through overstimulation, but also to direct focus at the same time. In many of my choreography classes at UNCG, we have focused on clarity and form and I was hoping to draw from the experiences I have had in my graduate choreography classes and keep the wisdom of my professors and classmates in the back of my mind as I created my concert.

In “As I Recall,” I hoped to create a piece that was comprised of shorter sections in order to form something that was connected, yet different. It may not read as one piece in the traditional sense, but I tried to explore one idea in five different ways. Each of these ‘movements’ could most likely exist without the others, giving me the possibility of reuse or expansion in the future, yet for my audience for this performance, they existed together as one entity. Some sections seemed more connected, such as movements I., II., and IV. (Recollection, Forgetting, and Remembrance). These were made up of the larger cast and more clearly through numbers and space were representative of the process of memory than the duet and solo, making that more tangible to the audience. The duet, Refraction, and solo, Rivulet, felt more personal to me as an artist, and though I did not approach them all that differently, I believe that the presence of technology greatly impacted the audience’s perception and understanding of their integration into the larger work. Audiences see this unnatural form, in this case video projection and electronic sensors, and are interested in how it all works, drawing attention away to the larger question of ‘What does it all mean?’ An added stimulant for Refraction was the integration of tap dancing, layering one more distraction for the audience.

I think audiences were interested in my work because of the layering of multiple stimulants. The change that came after intermission was well needed, in order to create contrast, I began the second half with two pieces that were emotional and physical, yet had no extra stimulants for the audience, allowing them to just enjoy the physicality onstage and really see the dancing. Because of this shift, I think the audience was able to appreciate the sheer physicality of the work.

In thinking of my own aesthetics overall, I realize that I like to see bodies moving in a way that is beyond the average human’s capabilities. Dance training is completely necessary and functional for most of my choreography and even in the less technical work; the training should be visible underneath the simplicity. Line, shape/gesture and motion are the three elements that are most important in my own sense of aesthetics because that is how I prefer to move as a dancer and what I find most interesting as an audience member. I do not want to pay to see things that I could easily execute; I am more interested in movement and structure that is beyond my own thinking and abilities. Because of this, I often ask my dancers to be involved in the creative process so that the range of possibilities extends past my own ideas and challenges me to continue thinking forward. Another reason for having dancers create movement that I learned in my time at UNCG is that dancers often create movement that they like to do, in turn making it easier for me to get them to look good doing it. This year I feel that I found a system that worked really well for me, guiding my dancers fairly specifically in their movement invention and really working with it to my satisfaction.

I work mostly in form, designing dances based on space and motion. I find that seeing space in this way is beautiful and compliments the type of movement I am drawn to using, especially in the more dynamic and athletic forms. Along with the idea of diverting and drawing the audience’s attention, this space was created sometimes by cutting off something else that wasn’t quite finished, especially in the larger group pieces, going along with the idea that Americans generally have a short attention span. In studying film and video, I’ve noticed how more current work is often full of short cuts and multiple camera angles, very rarely allowing for more than a minute on one particular shot, and I feel that this has influenced the way I structure my larger dances. “Habit of Change” is an excellent example of this as much of the dance was interrupted by other things cutting through the space or quick entrances and exits. Even in the Refraction duet from “As I Recall,” I used quick light changes to appear and disappear in the space, giving the audience little time to get used to anything going on.

Rivulet from “As I Recall” and “Stay.” were more challenging as there were only one or two dancers to deal with and I was more aware of time spent on stage and how the audience would react to lengthier and more focused work. In Rivulet, the elements of production and technology piled up on top of the dance, continuing to add to the piece, always giving the audience something else to see or think about. However, in “Stay.”, the only element existing on stage was the relationship between the two dancers. I wondered how the audience would react, but I also placed the piece there specifically to stand out in its simplicity after the other more layered dances. Instead of trying to choreograph new emotions into the piece with movement, I decided to let space speak, using distance between the dancers as an indicator of the development of the relationship, often repeating movement though in a different way to enhance the development of the perceived relationship.

Thinking beyond the physical movement of my work, I also found myself questioning intent and audience perception along the way. Many believe the choreographic experience is autobiographical; making it easy to believe that the dance author’s intent is the meaning of the dance. I found that I could locate meaning in the my own experience and/or in the actual form/structure of the work rather than fixing meaning in the will of the artist, though I might occasionally seek out artist or other connected intent for my own personal knowledge. I experienced a number of levels of this when I was approached about meanings of different pieces in my concert, specifically “Stay.” I had my own reasons for making the work, primarily to create a dance that could affect any human being based on their own experiences, but I certainly pulled from my own life experiences in rounding out the emotional curve I created. When approached about this piece, I had many viewers wanting to know if their interpretation was the “right” one and they were slightly disappointed when our stories did not align.

It seems that the post-modern movement did a great job at overturning the interpretive hierarchy of the choreographer as the “know all” of dance works. Sometimes knowing the artist's intention is something that I am glad to know because I can take less time trying to decide what I'm watching and can continue forward from a slightly narrowed lens. I think it can often be exhausting to try and figure this out every time I watch a dance. I don't think this is necessarily most the time for me, but I know it helps me be in the moment and enjoy the movement and bodies that I often get distracted from in finding "meaning" and "intention." It seems important to interrogate the artist’s intention to understand a positioning of art in the world based on power and such, but also we should recognize that dance doesn’t always do what we say or want it to. Thinking back to the overstimulation of American audiences, I find that many audience members have a hard time finding their own meaning in dance as they are so used to being spoon-fed meaning on television and in music. I am interested in continuing to think about how I can educate audiences to create their own meaning for work and to continue thinking about it once they leave the theater. I hoped to create a memorable experience for my audience that would carry on into their lives and perhaps they would think back and find their own meaning down the road.