Roots, Renaissance, Revolution!
It was a privilege to sit chatting with SITI Company Director, Anne Bogart, in one of the closing events of this year's Theater Communications Group (TCG) Conference in Baltimore. The Hippodrome Theater was full of the high spirits that come when diverse individuals convene to commiserate and celebrate the thing that they all love and that sustains them. Though it was a theater conference, it had begun with a keynote address by film director, John Waters, and ended with a conversation between director Anne Bogart and myself, a dance-maker/choreographer who is quickly morphing into some hybrid.
The conference's above mentioned title was the territory Anne had decided we would explore in our 45-minute conversation with a short question and answer session following. It was warm, full of laughs, some cursory demonstrations of partnering as I understand it and some improvisational movement. However, it would be most accurate to describe it as inconclusive.
What did get said?
Roots: I tried to address the compositional biases I have inherited from the post-modern strategies of such thinkers as Merce Cunningham ("any movement can follow any other movement!") and Yvonne Rainer's Manifesto of the Judson Church Experimentalists that eschewed the overtly psychological. This attempt at defining what had defined me inevitably included a well-polished piece of biography: my mother's Christmas prayer with its incantatory form and its sweaty epiphany of confession. Later in the question and answer I was pressed for more information about the post-modern ethos and practice. I tried to pull a bibliography/discography from my memory and failed. The compiling of such a list is definitely a research project that we would all benefit from...
Renaissance: I have questions. Was this supposed to be a way of talking about new beginnings or about the need for a multi-disciplinary approach to performance creation and practice? I'm not sure. However, in the discussion, and the question and answer later, there was a general agreement that our era's penchant for multi-disciplinary work was being fed and provoked by the new generation of creators and consumers. One young woman artist defines herself as a Generation Y-er.
Revolution: This is a potentially embarrassing term for middle age artists such as Anne and myself because - at its most feeble - it is a holdover from the fashionable clinch-fist posturing of our youth. At its best and as I think Anne intended the term to be used as such, is a sort of periodic reinvention, rife with various levels of belligerence, struggles and spite in the face of our own creative lethargy and that of our community. At this point of the discussion I related a favorite story of mine of how Georgia O'Keefe when asked how she had kept going in the hard years is said to have replied, "Out of spite!" This got a roaring laugh and applause from the audience and a hearty endorsement from Anne, but I - in thinking just how difficult I have felt lately in working with my dancers and collaborators and how often I am angry and unpleasant to be with - declared that I was weaning myself from negative motivations and am on a strict diet of "positivity." The conversation was moving so briskly that save a brief flicker of dismay in Anne's intelligent, piercing eyes, the topic was eclipsed, by what? I can't remember other than the time was short.
I told Anne that while I am flattered to be seen as a "revolutionary" it would be more accurate and less pompous if I said simply that I am a survivor working with every tool I have to make work, maintain an organization (will we always be a dance company?) and stay in touch with that impulse that lead me to this life in the first place.
At the Baltimore train station later, in chatting with some conference attendees who like myself were heading out of town, the feeling of the conference's good cheer and excitement I had glimpsed during my two hours there was still palpable in our breathless exchanges. One observation offered was that as young theater creators are turned away from more established theaters and venues because of the low marketability of what they make, they have started presenting their works in bars, clubs and in each other's homes. Wonderful! My question and one we all agreed should have been asked at the conference, was how do these young resourceful people define success - if not now, then in ten or twenty years? Is it higher production values, more resources, greater financial rewards, larger audiences?
Anne had decided that all of the above would in fact be a way of talking about art making and, in particular, how I am going about making a work like Fondly Do We Hope... Fervently Do We Pray. I have to say that I lacked the presence of mind and the opportunity to truly make the connection between Roots, Renaissance and Revolution and that big, rambling, multi-layered event that we recently rehearsed over two weeks in the chilly, green and wet loveliness of Ravinia's main stage. We are scheduled to have a recap, post-mortem, of the results with all the collaborators next week...
-- Bill T. Jones (Friday, June 19, 2009)
2 Comments
i LOVE what you said ...I said simply that I am a survivor working with every tool I have to make work...
So genuine, in-touch, in-tact, unafraid. Real.
I've always admired your work. Really admired. And respected. I moved to NYC to dance with your company. You don't know this, of course, you don't even know I exist. But I quickly lost the discipline I needed to thrive on that level. But dance has never left my blood.
I'd love the chance to talk to you someday......
wrote:
Although I don't quite fall into the category of young or up-and-coming choreographers, I do wish to respond to your discussion of current measurements of success amongst young dance artists, as it is also a discussion those of us working in the middle of the country engage in often. And it seems the various answers to the question have at least one common denominator.
We have watched our teachers, mentors, and come-befores redefine performance and challenge our perceptions of dance-making. It can, at times, be a more significant challenge to avoid remaking what has already been proven to work, to avoid being inspired to the point of mimicry. And so, for many of us, finding some small sliver of innovation can be the most rewarding discovery. It's true that this has been obtained by presenting work in a variety of public or private settings, and I think using methods that allow for interaction with the "audience" is becoming not only more popular, but expected.
But even while these newer applications are becoming "old school", I believe the goal remains the same: setting ourselves apart. (Although this must be achieved while avoiding the gratuitous and while still engaging in thoughtful and informed dance-making. Yikes!)
At least, this is my belief. It's a great topic of conversation. Thanks for including it here.
On a side note, those of us working in Louisville can't wait to welcome the company in November. The city hosts a fantastic arts scene, and the dance community grows each year. So we're all thrilled to have you! Hope you all enjoy your time in our city.
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