Roadtrip Dances: Charleston, South Carolina (3)

Friday, August 12-Saturday, August 13

At about 8pm on Friday night I found myself processing the day by standing on my tiptoes in the middle of a swimming pool at the back of a parking lot in Charleston, my face at the level of pedestrians’ feet as they walked down the cobblestoned sidewalks. For the first twenty minutes of precarious balance I was accompanied by a man with a cigar; we didn’t make eye contact, a sort of performance in itself. As durational things often are, there was something soothing and meditative about standing on my toes in neck-deep water and slowly swirling my arms back and forth in the water to maintain balance, letting my mind wander. At least it was until a gang of bats came out and started dive bombing the surface of the water, ending my solitude and thinking.

Charleston is a beautiful city, it looks almost as if Boston’s Beacon Hill neighborhood uprooted itself and went on a tropical vacation - Federal-style architecture amidst palm trees and sweltering heat. Sweltering heat, I'm assuming, led to the lack of other people in Charleston which was quite strange. In what seemed like it would be a fairly touristy area (my travel companion Caty had been there before and reported packed streets) we saw just a trickle of human life. This did make it a great evening for exploring as we picked a nearby deserted street at random and walked it until it ended, at that point choosing the next street. Wandering at its best, accompanied by the incessant chirping of cicadas. I found my body easily adapting to the slow pace of the city, perhaps it was the humid heat in the high nineties. Shedding my sidewalk-racer inner Bostonian reminded me of the time I took an hour to walk down a street in seacoast Maine, heightening my ability to actually see, but in Charleston I saw sneaky messages inscribed in a smooth-barked tree, a hidden cemetery, locals sizing up tourists before manners provoked a smile, and tons of iron work. I wonder if the multitude of ornate iron gates and shutters on townhouse windows played into the sense of modesty I felt - women I passed on the street, while stylishly dressed, were quite covered up for extreme heat - or the idea of keeping others out.

The next morning, Saturday August 13, I performed in Washington Square. The park is frequented by regular tour groups, I felt that I had a chance for my tiny performance to be observed in this vacant city, and also it was inspiringly filled with gorgeous live oak trees, moss breathily dangling from branches. It was a fun performance for me but oddly everyone that stopped by as part of the tour seemed to look away, as if Southern manners provided me a bit of modesty for my strange park outburst. One very well-dressed homeless man lingered, perhaps he watched my movement exploration.

What left me unsettled about Charleston was that it felt like going to Oz. Inside its historic perimeter is a lot of beauty, calm and Southern sweetness, but it felt somewhat like a facade. We visited in the middle of Charleston Pride, and neither saw or heard a single sign that Pride was underway until encountering two decorated twenty-somethings in a Starbucks as an older man heckled their efforts. I’ve never been to the South and the blatant differences in Civil War and civil rights viewpoints from my education, and Northern upbringing definitely made for some culture shock. In Charleston I performed in a park situated near a slave market-turned-museum, and we walked past the site where a maniac tried to start a race war by shooting nine people in a church just last year. A short amount of time after we drove out of the well-off city we were looking at serious poverty, sites of education crises (not to mention the occasional Confederate flag which, history and free speech aside, is nauseating to look at). Income inequity obviously exists in the North, it runs rampant in the Boston area, but maybe it takes seeing something elsewhere to be fully aware of it or to take action in the place you call home. 

Taking these glimpses of a new part of America into my thoughts and sitting with the discontent, while also recognizing the great exploration, food and scenery and simmering on my performance experience, I spent the majority of the drive to Durham, North Carolina with a very full brain. 

For video click here. 

Excerpt from a distraction-packed convo with GWashington on the topic of gorgeous Spanish moss hanging in the live oak trees. (Hair plays the role of moss.) Partially viewed by three meandering tour groups, a homeless man, a couple of passing tired horses pulling tourists... fully viewed by the filming @caitfay87 ! #roadtripdances #roadtrip #charleston #southcarolina #dance #danceeverywhere #georgewashington #greenery #liveoak #trees #tourists #improv

See this Instagram video by @kholman * 21 likes

Roadtrip Dances: Florida and on to Georgia (2)

After the airport dance and a far too brief overnight stay with a pair of my alternate parents (thanks, Audrey & Paul), my traveling companion Caty and I hit the road at 7am with the intention of covering Florida and Georgia before stopping in Charleston, SC. I say intention because we didn't even make it out of the driveway before needing to jumpstart the car and charge the battery a bit. We ignored the potential bad omen. Eventually we got our act together, hopped in the car full of Caty's classroom supplies and my miscellaneous collection of things that seemed important to take on an art road trip, and found the highway.

Our first day on the road was a disguised exercise in mindfulness. All of my pre-trip fears about the worst part of long-distance car travel being sitting and confinement were somewhat validated but also the experience wasn't quite as torturous as I'd anticipated. Nine hours of Florida and Georgia highway was a considerable amount of sitting and monotony. We didn’t stop for the first few hours which consisted of mile after mile of the thin grey line that is the Floridian highway system. I know many parts of my reflection on the trip will appear to be generalization, and I do have memories from some beautiful beaches in Florida and family theme park extravaganzas, trips that made me realize not all of America is arctic in winter months, but Florida highways are incredibly uninspiring. I spent the first hour of the drive trying to hold on to some of the novelty of the landscape; imagine roads that are simply straight, no curves or changes in elevation for as long as you can drive with a border of trees on either side obstructing the possibility of a view. It was amusing, as lack of curve and elevation might be to a New Englander, but amusement quickly turned into a sense of doom when the horizon just didn’t change. I had a notebook at the ready to record my findings but I simply ended up repetitively affirming my intrigue in palm trees, the superior cloud formations in the sky, the fact that trash is made into mountains, and a recurring billboard for divorcemenonly.com. Also the prevalence of truck drivers and the general impatience of our neighboring vehicles.

I completed my first dance at a rest stop because it was simultaneously something new, respite, but it was also set directly off the same rigid path we were fated to endlessly follow. Like ourselves, everyone at the utilitarian rest stop looked tired, bored and sticky. I took interest in a random grove of five palm trees, definitely not natural to the ground they were rooted in, growing upwards with the same straightness as the road, and made a movement sketch to match. No one really seemed to watch or care and at that stage that was ok with me. We ventured on, past many more of the aforementioned divorcemenonly.com billboards, enduring a continuation of the grade school lesson in perspective as the straight highway shrunk into the distance. There were tall buildings in Jacksonville, an exciting shift in environment that quickly flattened back out to our day’s norm. There wasn’t much change at the Georgia border, besides the proud declaration of PEACHES! and PECANS! every time we would hit the mile marker, the introduction of something called Huddle House, and an influx of churches. There wasn’t enough time to do justice to Georgia, besides some in-car miniature movement sketches likely observed by no one. Sorry, Georgia. The South Carolina border was an exciting milestone, but also one where our surroundings felt decidedly southern. A long day.

For video click here. 

An excerpt from a Florida rest stop dance... After you pass beachy So. FL things get really linear, flat, straight for about a billion miles. No elevation, no curves, not much to see off the highway. 🙀 The people at the rest stop directly to the left of the screen were mostly not amused by my moves, even though I'd expect they'd never seen some nut making a dance for the straight/boringness of the Floridian highway and the rigidity of palm trees. #basic #palmtrees #highway #reststop #roadtrip #sorrynotsorry #blueskies #flat #boring #florida #dancelife #danceeverywhere #roadtripdances

See this Instagram video by @kholman * 21 likes

i hate performing/the quest for self exploration

For the last several years I’ve been quick to state that I hate performing, though I love dancing and moving. Growing up taking dance class after dance class I was always the blank-faced kid on stage, feeling openly resentful towards the artificiality of ‘pulling face’, but so eager to take on the physical challenge of dance. (Spoiler alert: I still feel that way - even as a choreographer that asks for facial involvement in some of my work - more power to those of you who enjoy that sort of thing.) In college I was really aware of my imperfect technique and lack of natural flexibility and a ‘dancer’s body’ and with the beginning stages of a hip injury that followed me through the past decade, my distaste for the ‘being on stage’ part of dance grew and grew and was easily justifiable in my own thoughts. Honestly there was nothing to miss by taking myself out of the performance equation; I’ve always wanted to create, never perform, and I find no greater personal satisfaction than in developing new work on a group of performers and watching it become their own physical and mental property - magic.

This year something happened.

A month ago I found myself in the midst of an hour-long solo performance, engrossed in what I was doing and truly enjoying it. Yes, it was a safe space and I was surrounded by peers. Yes, I had created the work from a completely genuine place with a collaborator I trusted. But… I [think I] was performing. And enjoying it.

I’m curious about everything - especially the inner workings of the brain - and have the tendency to crave the search for ‘why’, we can blame this on being the offspring of a therapist. Of course my brain jumped on the task of determining how and why this shift snuck up on me. I could track threads back to fall 2014, when I was participating in a choreographer’s residency at Green Street Studios (immediately after hip surgery) and had to share work that I was exploring with outside eyes. I remember being slightly terrified and equally thrilled when Karen Krolak and Lorraine Chapman pushed pushed pushed me one weekday morning just to be real, to be present, to deliver the movement I made as my own impulse dictated at the time. What felt right? Where did my body want to pause, and why ignore it? Karen, who I consider a great mentor, spent a few more mornings on the hunt for the identity of this phrase, continuing to (delightfully) challenge the process. Another evening Andy Taylor Blenis pushed me through that same phrase focusing on owning the physicality in the present. Real… present… These were things I totally stand behind as a human, and my conception of a performer based outside of one’s own true self started to melt. I’m not sure any of these wonderful women artists know what they jumpstarted, as they kindly shared their time, compassion and thoughts, or that it took me a full year and a half later to find the depth of my gratitude!

Another opportunity to be grateful for and the point of this entry... through the entire fall I was fortunate enough to work with a friend and fellow artist, Wolf Luman, and to sustain a deep dialogue through music and movement. He would communicate through brilliant sound that streamed into my ears, I would answer by following what my body needed to say in honest response. We never met in person, but kept a steady flow of tracks and filmed rehearsal sessions volleying back and forth. A few months later, Wolf had created an entire new album and without knowing it I created an hour of movement, obviously the fruit of both of which was a stand alone performance piece. And when you create such a beautiful performance piece, you have to perform it! And we did. And it felt incredible. And the audience was enraptured. There’s more to explore here about creating such a personal work through organic mediums (body and sound) with completely digital communication, but I’ll save it for another day.

I think the greatest takeaway is that a performance experience doesn’t necessitate ‘performing’ if you’re simply being authentic and present in live movement research. During each second of my hour long performance/sound exploration I was making choices - to move or not to move, if I decided to move what did my body need to do to fulfill my internal needs and the needs of the relationship between music and myself at that split second in time? What was I feeling at any given second and how could I merge that with what I wanted to say with my body? Yes, I recognized the fact that I was being watched and yes, those individuals viewing the performance shifted the goal ever so slightly just due to the fact that they were present in the space and all focusing their energy on the same subject (me!), but it was ok.

Looking ahead, where does this new found intrigue in exploring movement in front of others lead? Perhaps for me, a performance that is enjoyable and satisfying will always be improv so I can be absolutely authentic in any given split second of movement. In any case, I’m happy to have the beautiful ability to evolve, grow and see where the self exploration takes me.

Image from performance at Goddard College, Feb 1, 2016. - Photo Credit: Dan Goldman

2/3/16

Today I spent a considerable chunk of a 2.75 hour meeting admiring the distinct silhouette of a completely average black desk lamp sitting against a window allowing diffused light from a grey drizzly nondescript day to gently enter the room. It was beautiful but entirely unimportant and my intent was to grab a quick photo of the moment on my phone at the end of the meeting - before becoming distracted by the next task - but in the last 5 minutes of conversation the lamp was knocked off the windowsill, lightbulb glass shattering everywhere. 

Authenticity

As I write, reflect, watch and create my way through my graduate studies, I've discovered an increasing frequency of the word authentic popping up in my writing.

Why? Authenticity is the most important quality in my interaction with art, a constant goal for my own practice, and subsequently a lens through which I view performance.

Why this blog post? As I recently thought about a personal definition for the word, I realized that while I value it to the same high degree in both creation and performance, I define it differently for each of these situations. 

Yes, this is what life is like when your full-time job is pursuing an MFA.

Authenticity in Creation

To me, authentic in terms of the creative process means the artist is finding genuine ways to express what needs to be said in message, medium and means.

If you didn't catch on, this is an opinion piece. I don't intend any judgment against those who don't agree or work in this way, nor do I practice what I preach without fail every now and then. 

The message, what your art attempts to say, is something one cares about, believes in, stands behind; even the exploration of a sudden interest in a new idea can count. The passion and care for the message should carry through as you create, even if you get into a rut or fall in and out of love with any part of the piece itself. In theory (and I have a long career ahead to test this, let's check in a couple of decades down the road), the authenticity behind and commitment to the message could even be the jury for what stays and what goes. What truly fits what you're trying to say? Is there an actual need for the extraneous stuff besides not wanting to cut things time was spent on making? Perhaps you're making work about extraneous stuff; then, I suppose, it would stay. Bring on the high kicks and confetti.

When thinking about authenticity in terms of medium I don't mean one should fiercely commit to a sole genre, or the pursuit of showcasing stellar technique (to be honest I think sometimes technique gets in the way of expression, though it's a good thing to have in one's toolkit). What I believe is that the medium should be the best possible vehicle for the message. Even if it's five different genres delivered at once, or a painstakingly crafted classical ballet abandoned for throat singing, or simply standing in an empty space and reading a letter. 

I view means as the logistical process of making a piece, and it's easy to stay on track here; either make the piece with full effort, or don't. It's usually evident (as a viewer) when the maker stopped caring about their work, or perhaps ran out of time for a particular section or component. If you don't care to make something to the best of your current ability, why should someone care to watch it?

While my rambling thoughts could continue forever, it's this trifecta of message, medium and means, all carefully attended to, that makes an authentic piece. (Though I bet we can think of more important m-words if we try...)

Authentic Performance

In performance, I define authenticity as embodiment on both a mental and physical level. Authentic is the performer that finds the reason to be truly present onstage, the reasons for doing the action they've been given to do and finding a new and genuine interest in doing it multiple times. It's a serious skill; you know you're watching such a high caliber performer when you can't look away. I'm not entirely sure how this works outside of theatre, dance, or forms where the human body delivers the content directly. I would be curious to know how this exists for those that perform through an instrument. 

Authentic performance can be informal as well. I personally don't enjoy 'performing', but I do love to move. Lately when I'm improvising or moving without agenda, I try to match my mind to my body, following physiological impulses and making them into an internal dialogue, or my body to my mind, letting the thoughts that roll through my mind influence how my body corresponds. Very similar to authentic movement, but in my case the internal choreographer is sporadically distracted by aesthetic as I move.

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That's all I've got on authenticity, for now. It was important for me to personally define what it means for art to be authentic as I carry on looking for it in my own work and that of others, historic and contemporary. If you got through the entire thing, congrats! 

What is YOUR single most important quality in making, performing or viewing of art?