Thanks to all who came out to the NYC premiere screening of finding the 51st (dream) state: Sekou Sundiata’s America Project last Wednesday. It was an inspiring time and we look forward to continuing the dialogue about the relationship of art making and creativity to citizenship.
Sari Nordman, a performer in Dean Moss’ Namesless forest, shared these excerpts from a journal she’s been keeping throughout the creative process:
I came to this project after having seen two full-evenings and one shorter performance by Dean. I admire his skill as a choreographer who has honesty and discipline in his vision, and felt honored to be selected to participate in the work. He is extremely bright and in most rehearsals I see him come up with new, little masterpieces. The collaborators involved are very interesting and I cannot wait to meet them all. I love my fellow dancers; everyone is supportive, creative, very individual and we have so much fun. I feel I have been encouraged and pushed not only as a dancer-employee but also as an artist. Since past fall I have been writing a journal and am going to include a few chapters here. I thought these moments would be fun to share.
Kacie and I have a duet, a women’s duet, and it went through a transformation from last fall. As I read back in my journal I was amused to read a description of the first version:
In one direction I have a sad smile, I look to another direction and feel insulted, I turn my head away but continue moving to this direction, then smile but suddenly fall down. I turn my head to another direction and give a resigned smile. That was hard! I’m not sure if I ever did it right.
When we began the second rehearsal period we did not visit the old duet but instead Dean asked me to tell him what I usually like to do when I break up with someone. Well, I ended up telling my last break-up story and that is how Dean gathered movement; my break-up gestures, my gestures when I was talking, telling my story. So simply he came up with material that is meaningful in the context of the piece and has context to me. (Luckily there are a few years from my last break-up so I am not going to cry over it but can share and perform it!)
As a dancer I am used to expressing physically with my body, and now I do lots of expressing with my face. Often I feel quite self-conscious as I feel there is so much attention to my face. This is hard, and a new skill for me to learn, to consider my facial expressions. Dean says to me: keep it alive. That helps.
Most of the male dancers have family members who were in the military or FBI. Dean’s father was the mayor of a West coast town. We sow lots of humor in the rehearsals (which is such a delight), and it is fun to imagine that if all of these dancers had followed their family members’ paths they might be in governmental jobs, and Dean might even be the president. Instead, they became dancers and choreographers! Hurray!
Steven Reker in rehearsal at Morishita Studios in Tokyo, Japan
“Where language would have been, we had to use the work as the medium for communication… And in there was a space or opportunity to discover how we were both approaching our shared work. ” -Steven Reker
Listen to a preview of the music in Tyler Tyler here.
We’re back in rehearsal. During the time we were down, I began to rethink the role of the audience on stage. Sungmyung Chun had thought of the idea in relation to Korean traditional circular theatrical space and I thought it was interesting because my last two works had also dealt with the audience and though I wasn’t sure about the how of that integration in this work, I was sure it was something I wanted to explore, something that I was already exploring.
A rendering of the stage space made during the first rehearsal period
But what is it, having some audience on stage? How does their activity and image relate to what the performers are doing? During the break that question kept gnawing at me. The first rehearsals had gone well. We had made some work that accurately captured the feeling of Chun’s sculptures. But like my experience with Laylah Ali’s work forming the basis for “figures on a field”, the replication of the painting’s visual composition alone as the performance narrative would, to me, result in something limited, and it would not take advantage of the true translation from one medium to another. That was solved by thinking about the larger environment. So what is the larger environment here, I thought.
We had decided on the circular space and having a few audience members on stage with us. I began to think that the offstage audience could think of the performers and the onstage audience together as a single community. If that were true, what would then make up the dynamics of our relationship? From this question came the idea that the performers are “hosting” the onstage audience and the interactions on stage create a spectacle for the offstage viewer that frames not only a translation of Chun’s work but also the community for which and from which it emerges.
More questions. Hosting is visually simple. What is its nature? What are the expectations between guest and host? How can that dynamic be heightened, made visible, commented on? I begin to think of ways an audience is engaged in performance. Virtuosity is the top of the list. If virtuosity is a traditional mode of communication then what is its role in the presentation of vulnerability, of experimentation? How is that related to Chun’s practice or mine. How do we expose and share our idea of rigor through the presentation? What is it that communities see in the individual’s presentation of “existential angst”…. themselves? others? mere indulgence? What is the role of sincerity, of cynicism, of abstraction?
I think about what Warhol said about life: “being born is like being kidnapped, and then sold into slavery.” I laugh, I think it’s true, but doesn’t that say something desperate and inevitable about our condition, our communities?
We’re in the third week of our second rehearsal period, we’re inviting guests and more questions.
From Kayvon Pourazar: This was such a short trip, but I don’t know if it could be possible to be immersed into such a deep aspect of Japanese culture as a visitor in such a short amount of time any more than we did. I never imagined that the work that I do as a dancer could bring about the opportunity for such vast doors to be opened. It is a huge privilege to have experienced this trip to Japan.
From Julie Alexander: Studying with Masumi Sensei was incredible. The Nezu school where we trained the first day is so quiet, clean and beautiful and there is such a tone of reverence in that space that Masumi Sensei governs with quiet authority. We gave her our gifts. We were so careful to enter the room on our knees, respectfully, and to offer our gifts to her. She seemed very excited to have us there. The training was intense. We each worked with her one on one while the other watched. She was so conscious of our bodies, being sure we were okay sitting on our knees the whole time. She was so detailed when she was training us, but quite different than our experience with Kayo Sensei in Florida. With Kayo Sensei, we focused on the form and technique and we were able to communicate the visual information through our bodies. Masumi Sensei also focused on form, of course, but we definitely relied on Yasuko to translate for us as well, because Masumi Sensei really wanted us to understand the stories, history and tradition in these dances. During rehearsal, she brought out traditional incense smelling set so we could see the objects and the tradition that are referenced in one of the dances that Kayvon does. She took such care in wrapping and unwrapping the objects and explaining exactly how they are used – not just functionally, but there is an art and a physical form involved in the delicate act.
This attention to detail that we’ve been honing in on in studying this traditional Japanese dance form is so much a part of Japanese culture from what I experienced first-hand in Tokyo – from the architecture and the food to the paper-wrapped chopsticks and the efficient subway chart (which I was particularly impressed by).
Through the studio showings, we learned that it is customary in Japan for audience or friends to bring food for the performers. We were showered with food… pastries and rice crackers and lotus root and this delicious potato with a wonderful texture. And we learned the usefulness of the phrase- “otsukaresama.” It’s hard to translate in English. But from what I understand, means something like “good job” or “you must be tired” or any time there is some sort of effort involved or even answering the telephone.
