DAY # 53 BC SHELTER IN PLACE ORDER: GIVING TUESDAY NOW
VOICES FROM THE ZOOM REHEARSAL:
“Zoom? very dislocating and provoking! The practicalities are so exasperating - it’s disconcerting. So is working with a stranger I’ve yet to ever physically meet!
“It’s harder not to have met in person but very interesting. We began right in the very beginning of the lockdown – checking in, processing the new situation. and more open and vulnerable than otherwise, entering the moment in time together. “
“As a somatically based dancer, zoom is upsetting on many levels. There is so much to process - time lags, sound or visuals cutting out, seeing yourself - this one particularly grates, as I take pains to work in rooms that are without a mirror. It’s exhausting and disjointed.”
“This process has been incredible - open, generous interactions, and what the choreographer is bringing in terms of the work. I’m listening, hearing in new ways.”
“Well, for someone like me, who loves to work, this rehearsal period is transformative. The assignments let you percolate, return with homework. Our studio is struggling - we’re offering virtual classes - so grateful for the loyal clientele! So I’m scrambling on the fly for renovation work - with our second baby coming very soon! This work, which is meditative, therapeutic, open-ended and full of realizations, does much to balance the intensity of my situation.”
“It’s a strange time. I am finding it incredibly useful. There is so much I do that I would never have time for in my regular life, and I find so much of it very worth doing that I wonder what I was doing before. It’s a completely different sense of time and it is going to really change the work we do.
“A lot of time to think. That’s good and bad!”
“It’s inspiring; but the ZOOM process is not the same as time lived in the work. That’s largely absent. How do we ensure enough physical time lived in the work? After all this choreographer has work processes that arc over several years, with some of the best dancers in the world! I want to be steeped in this work.”
The Zoom work is accompanied by with conversation one-on-one – lovely. Am always so curious in making any work about what actually wants to emerge or what emerges from people that I can never really predict. What stories, images these artists have shared with me from their lives!”
“There’s something potent about the time - and distance - lag. Making dances is close work. Then you’d have a very different perspective - at some point in the gestating of ideas, a deeper focus emerges, or some event takes place and gives a pivot point to the work. Time together in intimate communion then time apart where process continues. And funny odd things - like I discovered that Facetime allowed for more direct feedback than in person…!”
“My problems are so small and the world is in such big crisis. I can’t complain about anything, only look for ways to make it better.”
“Things have changed since we started. I think for a lot of the time we sort of didn’t look ahead too much, or go into our deeper feelings. Now there’s a shift. For me, about three days ago I finally let myself feel the grief and fear part. For the world. For my work. What will happen to all my cancelled gigs - works I have poured myself into? Will they even see an audience? What is left of them? Will they even be relevant, if and when they do? It is a lot. ”
These comments were woven through glimpses of the challenging contexts the artists are also facing - from geographic separations, babies arriving, to financial collapse, isolation, health crises etc.!