Tag Archives: Tanya Rosenblut

Everything Inside this Box is Dance

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This weekend, the collaboration between our four idiosynCrazy performers and nine Swarthmore College students culminates in a performance for the Swarthmore Spring Student Dance Concert, this Friday and Saturday night at 8pm.  The show is free and takes place in Swarthmore’s Lang Performing Arts Center.  Collectively, the 13 collaborators formed the following manifesto:

WE are for an art of independent actions.  CREATION is a winding path. This piece is first and foremost a collaboration. All parts of this dance are flexible and are not permanent. This is democratic.  NOTHING is more interesting than three giraffes. This piece is genuinely weird, steeped in quiet stillness. A somber, opaque dance, sans impulse, which corresponds to the whimsical nature of John Cage’s music (curious and aloof).  YOUR pain doesn’t affect or move me. Each event is caused by the previous event, and causes the following event in a clear way, with a clear impetus. Everything is interrelated, but only because it is witnessed. We interrupt ourselves. Small movements require MORE space. WE coexist in a strange world.  We are apathetic.  It’s about coping with the absurdities of life. Its purpose is to struggle with various conceptions of reality. This is dance. This is art. This piece does not end when the lights fade and dancers leave the stage.  ANYTHING is a correct answer.

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A peek into our Swarthmore Project #3

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Shavon Norris reflects again on our Swarthmore project, looking at her experience as a supervisor and outside eye to the project.  Coming next week, we will see some video on our One Year Vlog Project that highlights some of the work our 4 idiosynCratz and 9 Swarthmore students have been doing since October.

*check out our One-Year Vlog Project

It is March, we started in October
mentors, mentees, John Cage
production deadlines, discomfort, newness and April approaching
debates about improv, about what belongs on stage
about how to create a dance, about what dance is
there are challenges
confusion, frustration, understanding, compromise, trust
buttons pushed, toes pointed and bodies moving
there are writing exercises
warm ups that are fun and sweaty
there are insecurities, confidence, change and beauty

there are 13 bodies/brains making decisions
13 bodies/brains negotiating preferences, perspectives, aesthetics
trying to make something honest and good
trying to make art
trying to be heard
trying to be seen
trying to make sense
trying to form relationships, friendships, ownership

this is collaboration to the tenth degree
a collision of histories and personalities in a studio
a collision of values and techniques
of humor, communication and needs

I admire these bodies
I respect these bodies
I am glad I am not one of these bodies
these bodies are journeying into territory that frightens most
they venture into the unknown
they move into undiscovered language and hip flexion
they make time to hear all of what is being said
time to witness all of what is being seen
and include all of what is being created
accept what is offered

the studio does not feel big enough to hold it
the stage deep enough to share the story
but they are making a dance to store the journey and the learning

I look forward to April

above: Karim Sariahmed; photo by Tayarisha Poe


A peek into our Swarthmore Project #2

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Gregory Holt, one of idiosynCrazy’s mentors in our Swarthmore Project, shares with us some of his realizations, frustrations, and hopes for the project as it continues to unfold.  Coming soon, we will see some video on our One Year Vlog Project that highlights some of the work our 4 idiosynCratz and 9 Swarthmore students have been doing since October.

*check out our One-Year Vlog Project

i think there is a lot of exciting stuff just below the surface, but i also feel that it will only just begin to emerge by the time we’re nearing the end (as usual?). i think i expect a higher level of ‘buy in’ from the students- it seems that many of them are pretty ambivalent about what they want from dance or what they are willing to risk for it. we have begun to establish relationships with some of the students where we can use our own vision and their trust in us to ask for that risk, but with the other students its hard to know what to base that request on, especially in an ostensibly collaborative situation. i feel the lack of exploratory time and relationship building time. i mean, its clearly happening over the course of the work, but again, its going to feel like it all emerges at the end. its also hard to set my own ego aside sometimes. what i want from my art is not necessarily what i will be helping create in this project, so i need to open myself more to buy into other priorities as well. how can we make all this VISIBLE? i mean, all this dialogue and reflection is super interesting- can we frame it in our bodies to allow the audience to make it real with their witnessing? i’ve enjoyed going to the shorter rehearsals a lot- with danielle and gabi. its much more close and intimate. i’m excited to see images develop- there’s already some very strong stuff, so just letting things take their time and also varying the density of material will do a lot for the final product.

those are my thoughts right now!
best,
greg
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stay tuned in weeks to come for more from inside this process…


A peek into our Swarthmore Project

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This week, we get another peek into the collaborative process of 4 idiosynCratz and 9 Swarthmore students.  idiosynCrazy’s Danielle Currica shares with us some of the goings-on at Swarthmore from the first rehearsal post-Winter break.

Upon entering the room, for the first time I could sense hesitation among the mentees. There was a definite withdrawn and removed sense of self while stretching and making small talk before diving in to the first rehearsal in the spring semester.

I’m sure all the mentors were aware of it.

We began rehearsal with a talk. I started by stating the obvious. “We all want to know where the piece is going, yes?” This cracked a laugh in all of the mentees, which opened the room up a bit. All the mentors began to take turns discussing our plan of action for the semester, and how we hope to guide but more importantly collaborate on creating a piece, based on the movement practices, games, and experiments used during last semester.

The shape of the piece would be created through the method of the “exquisite corpse”. Each rehearsal is an addition to the rehearsal before. We’ll start at a proposed beginning, and work our way through a ‘body’ of movement, asking ourselves “what’s next” and “why”. Closer to April we will have a cut off point where new movement is no longer generated and we will start to clean and edit.

With that discussed, along with the students concerns and questions, we started warm up with a viewing of last weeks idiosynCrazy’s vlog. It surprised the mentees to see how much had been done and explored.  We moved into a warmp up with an exercise led by Greg that dealt with direction and breaking habbits. Two partners, one giving one word or simple phrase directions in succession so that the other had no choice but to move one form extreme to the other. It loosened up everyone, and really ate the space. We then blended the groups into pods of four. One person was to be directed, and the other three took on directing either the eyes (open or close), mouth (to speak or be silent), or body (to free move or to be still).

This generated great discussion about movement habits, feeling like one has to move when talking, or the discomfort of dancing with one’s eyes closed. Also, thoughts on the role of the director. Why as director we purposefully wanted to break certain habits, or let other habits remain. How does a director’s role in dictating movement affect the over all image of what is being seen, versus what what a dancer does naturally.
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stay tuned in weeks to come for more from inside this process…

*remember to subscribe to our weekly vlog project, too


Our Swarthmore Project

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Since October 2011, idiosynCrazy productions has been involved in a partnership with Swarthmore College’s dance program, sponsored in part by a grant from the NEA Arts in Education program.  Four idiosynCrazy performers are involved as mentors of nine Swarthmore dance students.  The Swarthmore dance students, in turn, are mentors to several middle school students from the Chester Children’s Chorus.  This week, Shavon Norris shares some feelings about being involved with the project as a supervisor – negotiating communications among the several sets of bodies involved.

 

Swarthmore Project
– Shavon Norris

 

idiosynCrazy productions
a company of three heads and many bodies
a company of art, relationships and somatics

the me in the 3
to mind and mine the relationships
to remember that we are parts of small and large communities
the me in the 3
to remind that we want to see others while we are being seen

the Swarthmore Project
4 idiosynCrazy members, 9 Swarthmore students, middle school girls, John Cage and me
a collaboration
me the organizer
idiosynCrazies the mentors
Swarthmore students the mentees
John Cage the score

a collision of minds, aesthetics, bodies, wills
a building of movement, language, knowledge, relationships
juggling responsibilities, work, time and priorities

a collaboration
of playing with ideas and concepts
a collaboration
of challenging comfort and exploring new
a collaboration
of how to make a dance

in rehearsals there is laughter
there is frustration, adjustments, sweat and care
there is pushing and pulling
there is try it again
there is smashing of movement, adding, subtracting and connecting
there is individual and collective anxiety
there is mentorship and ownership
there is peeking into the life of professionals and remembering the needs of the student
there is teacher as student and student as teacher
in rehearsals there is reciprocity and seeing

in April there will be a dance
a sharing of what the rehearsals made
a sharing of the smashing, laughter and learning

in April we will know how to do this again in September