We started the session by asking Aiden how he would feel about showing last session’s raw improvisation to an audience? What value does it contain as a work? Certainly there is solid technique and strong instincts have made it aesthetically complete. After all, the more experienced the dancer, the more likely they are using things they have done before.
But is it that simple? Is dance created this way meaningful enough?
Form vs. Content
Will fusing dance as form and text as content give audiences a more meaningful experience? Will it push young artists to create more meaningful dance?
Can the dance share the same complexity and richness as the text? And if they do, must they head in the same direction? What would constitute a good collaboration of the two forms?
Discussing form and content, Aiden shared some of the limits faced by dancers :
Dancers tend to rely on the vocabulary/knowledge that’s already comfortable to the individual dancer, rather than create new vocabularies. Music makes less demands and allows the dancer to work within their comfort zone. Perhaps text, which is more specific in its needs, can challenge them to stretch.
Choreographers do not always challenge dancers to explore, but rather rely on them to execute their vision. And since much of dance emphasizes group choreography, dancers spend most of their time in synch with other dancers. This can be limiting to personal creativity.
Dancers are usually dancing as themselves. Their main partner – the music – becomes something they absorb and ‘feel inside’. There is a truth and honesty in this, but it can also narrow the scope of the dancer’s imagination. Text that captures other people’s experiences can challenge the dancer to think outside themselves, to express new things and find new ways to do so.
Perhaps it is akin to the way actors may have certain comfort zones and familiar tools they always use; but when a certain script comes along that forces them out of that zone, forces them to find new tools – that’s when they grow as artists. It is the specificity of the script that demands the actor to stretch. We hope dancing to text will encourage the same stretch.
We continued exploring Maybe Not Me, introducing Aiden to the process of text analysis, akin to “table work” in theatre. The aim is to move beyond surface understanding of the text to the underlying meaning – the subtext.
The strategy – close reading – where we try answer specific questions from clues in the text, without speculating too much. This gives us the chance to mine the true richness of the text before layering on wider interpretations of our own.
We hope that by having Aiden approach the text this way, he will gain a deeper understanding, which will in turn unlock a wider range of creative choices while keeping the dance focused on the text’s meaning.
However, simply tackling the poem as a literary exercise felt too alien to the dancer’s context. It would be appropriate in a literary setting, but for dancers, it could be impeded by inexperience with, insecurity about or even aversion to handling text. A broad discussion of “what you think this poem is about” soon ran aground because while he danced, Aiden was not listening and analyzing, but listening and responding. He could share what he felt he was responding to, but it led to broader and broader speculation rather than more detailed understanding.
So instead, we reviewed the previous session’s improvisations, and used Aiden’s choices as a springboard for discussion. The idea was to discuss the poem in relation to its dance possibilities, bridging the literary and the dance.
Dancing alongside the text VS Dancing the text
Aiden felt that thus far, he was doing the former – keeping up a connection by latching on to keywords (and maybe sometimes the rhythm and tone of the speech), but the text was still an external impetus, only occasionally shaping his dance choices. Without more connection, he had to fall back on a combination of technique and dance-aesthetic to ‘fill’ the performance.
While these instincts may have made the improvisation legitimate in a purely dance sense, and even impressive as a performance, we wanted to understand how it fared in terms of conveying the meaning of the text. To do so, we discussed the “matches and mismatches”.
Matches and Mismatches
Going through the text line by line, Aiden identified specific movement choices he made, or impulses he was responding to – such as keywords or speech rhythms. Then we discussed the triggering words/phrases in the context of the poem, to see if the dance choices triggered matched the meaning. Where they did, we expanded on the meaning, offering ways for Aiden to modify/detail the choices.
Where they did not match, we read the text closely and explored the subtext, to find a different interpretation of that trigger.
Some of these matches ad mismatches allowed us to tweak the expression of a particular line/thought; while some led us to a wider understanding of the text as a whole, or an underlying theme.
For example, the opening lines “And I see me / Looking at what is not quite me” were initially interpreted by Aiden as a person closely examining his body; but discussion revealed that it offered the image of a man facing his refection in the mirror, and inspecting that reflection closely. A subtle difference in meaning, but a vast difference in how Aiden starts the dance, and how he expresses the rest of the poem. The following lines zoom in on specific boy aspects – and the choice to look in a mirror rather than be looking down at his own body is a significant one.
When discussing the list of body parts, Aiden shared that responding to them as they are listed made it an almost random list, all of equal weight. Analysing the list as a pattern however - from eyes and ears, to skin and muscle, and eventually to butt and cock – reveals a thought process that heads towards the sensual, even the erotic. Realizing the pattern gives Aiden a different starting point, because the intention behind this act of reflection, and the nature of the gaze, is totally different.
We found that comparing Aiden’s initial instincts to what the text offers upon analysis becomes a good way to start understanding the text in the context of dance choices, rather than as a strictly literary exercise. The latter can be intimidating, uninspiring or even dull to a less literarily-inclined artist. But discussing the text in terms of adjusting movement choices makes it more tangible and purposeful.
Keywords vs Connectors
Another aspect of comparing his improvisational choices with what the text offers was contrasting the keywords that triggered him with the context around them.
For example “the answers are blowing away“ is a tempting visual for a dancer to respond to – but when one looks at the line preceding – “and the answers, my friend, are blowing in the wind” – it is clear that it is a cynical twist to the Bob Dylan song lyric – rich in pop-referential meaning but probably a distraction if taken too literally in the dance. However, it’s not a dead end – linking it with the “questions” that “spin to the ground and are trampled”, the imagery of falling leaves and autumn becomes quite vivid – perhaps there is an autumnal mood here, and a sense of windswept impermanence that might affect the dancer’s body at this point.
It seems that keywords can be traps in improvisation – but useful traps, because the mismatch triggers the discussion, and discussing the connecting words between/around the keywords offer new directions. Consider them a springboard for discoveries. But care must be taken to avoid letting the dancer feel like they have misunderstood or danced ‘wrong’ – their instincts should be taken as the first layer of interpretation, necessarily responding as a dancer’s body rather than a writer’s mind. Subsequent discussion should serve to align the two perspectives.
Note : because the dancer instinctively found those keywords “danceable”, it is worthwhile exploring how those movement choice can be relevant, even if the specific literary interpretation shifts in analysis.
Reminder : what we seek is the meeting point where the text and the dance can complement each other without overpowering one another or distracting too much from one another.
As our table work unpacked the poem and exposed more layers of meaning, the question arose : when the text has too many layers, what can the dancer do ?? It is impossible to dance them all. Perhaps then it becomes the unique responsibility of the dancer to select what layers to convey through their body. Rather than getting bogged down under much inexpressible meaning, the dancer needs to make choices that allow the dance to communicate specific things clearly to the audience.
Fusion VS Confusion I
Bear in mind that just as performed text can be tricky to understand because it moves fast, text with dance can be doubly confusing if the two forms are at odds with each other. An alignment of meaning brings clarity – that alone is a good reason why the text should be better understood before it is danced.
Some criteria for a good fusion :
The dance must gain from the poem, becoming something grounded and focused
The poem must become clearer to the audience through the dancer’s body
In the resulting performance, the two forms must feel inseparable – not just complementary but compulsory to each other
By collectively analyzing/understanding the poem, the process is transformed into a shared meaning-creation. It may even arrive at a completely new and original interpretation of a text.
This collaborative result can only come from a collaborative process – the performers must own the discovery of meaning and the making of choices
Form should serve content, so that the content keeps the different elements aligned
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