Creating Choreography
The creative process of choreography is my favourite place to be, my favourite street to live on, and my favourite window to look through. It is here, where we discover new ways to bring about communication, collaborate on new vocabularies, and create new connections with ourselves as well as with our fellow dancers and the music: all the while, we are thinking of you, the viewer.
Come Prepared
When I begin to create, I usually come to the studio with at least a minute of choreography prepared. It is beautifully packaged with a happy bow, written out in colourful ink in my favourite notebook, that contains years of magical notes which I can never understand when I reread them. Do you have one of those books? I highly recommend it. I do this because I know the dancers in front of me are ready; they are brilliant dancers, and swift thinkers, completely encompassed in a very smart body-brain… I need to be prepared, so as to not waste their time. The long and the short of it is, however, that I am completely intimidated by initiating in this process with them. Will they love it as much as I do? I’m eager to work with them, and I want so badly for them to like my choreography, therefore, I walk in to the studio with this one minute of work, packaged in that happy bow. Their eyes are on me as I unfold the movement. Within minutes the choreography is committed to their bodies, my creation reflected back on me. Huh. That’s pretty good…but it looks too “set”. It’s missing something. Perhaps breath? What’s wrong with it? Oh. I know. It looks like it was packaged…in a box…with a pretty bow.
Now the work begins!...
Twist It, Bop It, Turn It, Tear It UP!
At this point, the dancers are feeling quite comfortable and warm, and I’m able to read their bodies to see where they want to go. So now, I begin to deconstruct and tear up what I just sweated out to teach them, perhaps taking only a portion of that initial minute to leave as a solo or duet, while the rest of the dancers in a counterpoint around them are asked to figure out a separate section of the initial choreography and retrograde it by sequencing it completely backwards, all the while moving in slow motion, giving focus to the solo or duet staged in the centre of the studio. I then ask another section of dancers to take a motif of the initial minute and formulate it into partner work that eventually evolves into lifts, leans, and complete weight transfers of two or more people. This entire time though, I am biting my nails. I recognize that the rest of the world has fallen away, and the words exiting my mouth are a compete jumble as I see the images beginning to develop in my mind, so my body takes over as a form of communication.
Quilting
In order to organize all these manipulations from that initial minute, I have developed a simple method which works for me, and has worked on dancers of all ages. Initially, as a younger choreographer, I began at Point A and finished at Point Z, creating sequentially with the music as my guide. Now however, I sometimes start at Point F or X or Z itself; the point being, I rarely start at Point A. Once I’ve created the manipulations and twisted my initial choreography, I organize them into what I call “patches”. Alongside the dancers, I write these patches on a board or in my notebook, where we— as a company— collaborate on which order these patches should fall to create the quilt that will be our piece. After many iterations and trials— ZBFA…nope….FDRQ? Maybe. HTGW…yes, that’s the one! Working this way leaves much of the vocabulary on the cutting room floor, with my initial minute of choreography barely recognizable.
NAIL BITE.
Come Unprepared
When I begin to create, I often come to the studio completely unprepared; a yang to the yin of my first paragraph. However, there are days where I have nothing ready— perhaps because I didn’t have time, perhaps because I have creator’s block, perhaps because, once again, I’m intimidated and I really want them to like my piece. So, I begin by opening a window. This is both for fresh air, and for some sort of spiritual invocation; a guidance, if you will. On these days, I look for that one kernel, like the light that came through the window when creating our piece “Passages” or the rain that beat upon the rooftop when creating the duet in “All’s Fair…”. In both cases, I came completely unprepared. The talent of the dancers, and their ability to improvise as I began to direct and guide led us into a completely new realm. Each improvisation was laced with motifs, drawing the audience back and giving them a beacon to hold on to.
Music, Music, Music
Music, for me, is essential. I need to feel in partnership with the composer, whether it be someone current, like Ludovico Einaudi, or someone from the past, such as Benny Goodman. My mind bounces between two of my teachers. The first, Mrs. Looker, who always told us that we needed to be sensitive to the music. “If not the music, then what?” She’d say. “If not the music, then we might as well grow potatoes out of our ears because we’re not listening!” But I digress. In choreography classes it was essential for us to maintain the notion that we could hear the music in our movement, and see the movement in the music; much like the choreography of a really strong hip hop piece, completely knitted to each beat and accent. The second teacher, Professor Callison, was very adamant that the choreography should stand on its own; he fought for the choreography. He argued that movement should not be the “Robin” to the music’s “Batman”. Having said that, they both agreed that the choreography and the performance must be musical. So, though this presented me with a challenge, I tried the latter. With the music off, sometimes creating in silence, I realized I had more space to create with the dancers through both improvisation and set vocabulary. Though the experience was frustrating, I did recognize where the creation of movement began to step forth on its own platform. What I did then was return to the music, and embed a quilted patch into a set of musical phrases. Reverting back to Mrs. Looker, we then moulded the movement to connect to the music, highlighting some— but not all— musical motifs or accents.
It is at this point that all ten fingers are in my mouth. BITE BITE BITE BITE BITE.
Hit Play
You know that moment when you fear for your life? This is it. The piece is somewhat done, all of my words are on the studio floor, and I get to watch it unfold; the beauty of the dancers relaying my words in such eloquent phrases. Wow that really worked! No, that needs work. Gotta fix the phrasing there. Ahh yes, there it is. There "It" is. THERE IT IS!!!
Damn, I need a manicure.
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