Amy
Historically, I like Kim's movement. Kim is a sweeping, swooping, jumping choreographer. Her phrases are big and wide. They stretch to all corners of the studio, to all seats in the house. They travel, they move you, they take you places. Long lines of energy shooting past the physical limits of our extremities.
This is the kind of dance that I especially like to dance.
So, suffice it to say, I was a bit concerned when in our first rehearsal for the "Fugue," Kim presented us with paper, sheets of music, dotted incessantly with teeny tiny black notes all over the scales. They were everywhere and abundant. They were frantically scattered about the page in no seemingly logical order, as if a clumsy waiter had spilled fresh ground pepper all over someone's beautiful song.
We're gonna Kim-move to this?
Well, as it turns out, yes we are.
The "Fugue" is turning into a top favorite Kim piece for me, and that's not just because it's topical in this piece of writing. It's making me think in a way that I've never had to dance before. It's forcing, forcibly forcing me to listen and hear music in an entirely new and active way...and also dance while I'm doing that. As we work along in this piece and things become more and more ingrained and natural to our bodies, I'm noticing that I've started to hear the choreography in the music. While I truly know nothing of notes and the letters assigned to them, I can hear where my arms are supposed to be, or the jump that I'm already late for (oops.)
Even tonight I had to remind myself, in rehearsal, that I really ought to count the music, use the tools that I've been using as a dancer for the past one thousand years. But then again, this is an entirely new experience of dancing to music, or rather, dancing WITH the music, and maybe even, dancing BECAUSE THE MUSIC SAID SO. I remember once performing as a high schooler in my studio's dance recital, and I caught myself, on stage, realizing that I wasn't counting at all. I was just doing the routine that had been drilled into my body after hours and hours of rehearsal. It was exhilarating. I felt like a real dancer, to move so seamlessly with the music, quite literally without even thinking about it.
This is a similar, and yet slightly more enlightening experience. While I look forward to further drilling of this routine (my muscles need to make some memories, if you know what I mean) it's fascinating that, from the very very beginning, it wasn't about the counts, but it was very much about the music. While that seems like it should be an inherent concept in dance...it really isn't. The counts always go to the music; you can always find the 5, 6, 7, 8, somewhere in the song you're listening to. This time around, we're listening for our parts, we're listening for our movement, and oh, by the way, maybe there are numbers in there, somewhere, but don't worry about them just yet.
So truthfully, when I come to rehearsal, I don't come ready to dance as I do come ready to think. And listen. And hear. And that's not entirely appropriate, because even though I need to think, and listen, and hear, Kim-movement is still Kim-movement, and even though the Fugue is fugue-ing at a thousand black dots a minute, my arms still need to stretch, my legs still need to swoop, and unless I'm instructed otherwise, my toes still need to point.
Oh and also, there are two other dancing humans on stage, who are occasionally tethered to me.
It's active, physically and mentally. It's hard, physically and mentally. It's slightly absurd, but all the best things are, aren't they?
Despite our beloved Kim's calm, cool, and eternally relaxed and easy-going demeanor, this piece is not easy. But when has a bit of a challenge ever detracted from our love of dance? When has it ever stopped us? Um, I'll tell you; it hasn't, and it certainly won't now.