Interactions 2

On Saturday September 7, I had my second experience interacting with visitors at the Annenberg Beach House, asking them, again (the first interaction happened at the begging of the residency), to imagine a dance piece on the facilities. This time the interaction happened within the patio area with orange umbrellas. 

All the visitors I approached this time coincidentally suggested to centered my performance on dances from different parts of the world, while they identify foreign expressions with colorful costumes and happy vibes. They felt the aesthetics of those dances matches the space. They suggested Polynesian dances, Hula dances, among other styles. A person even suggested to bring a blend of styles from different parts of the world to make the event even more exciting. All participants imagined a group of dancers moving and none of them suggested a solo or a duet. 

One of the visitors suggested as costumes white dresses with smooth and flowing fabrics that would move with the wind. This person says that her ideas about dances focus on the visuals while she is a photographer. 

A group of visitors that were siting in a table discussed their opinions within the group and came up to the conclusion as a collective that the music for the performance should be percussive and should start before the dancers enter the space. They also suggested that the dancers should enter the space one by one from different directions and that the audience should be all around the dancers while any perspective of the performers would be interesting.  

I had another interaction with a group of visitors from Argentina. Some of them did not speak english, so we had most of our conversation in Spanish. One of them suggested some type of Jewish dance for my performance, but the rest of the people in the table did not received well the proposal. They consider it was not pertinent for the space. Another person suggested a folkloric dance from Argentina. Another person suggested that the producers of the Annenberg performances should incorporate food as part of the event, so they can get some earnings out of it. Also this person said that food can work as a hook for people to come and see the performances. She also mentioned that it would be very important to offer some information about the history of the place as part of the performance. She believes that the community does not know enough about the donors and contributors that have made the Annenberg beach house a public space for all.  

That day of the public interactions, my son came with me, and before I started connecting with visitors, him and I participated in one of the guided visits at the guest house.  A sweet woman from Argentina showed us the guest house and shared with us details about its history.  Our tour was in Spanish, so my son had the opportunity so practice and show of his Spanish speaking skills and the guide made the experience it kids friendly. We had a wonderful time.

Rhythms

Willy, my collaborator, is not only an incredible dancer, but he is also a musician. I am fascinated by rhythm, and I have studied it through the lens of flamenco dancing for an extended period of time. However, I have always felt like an amateur in relationship to music.  Willy's dance training is in African and contemporary dance and my training is in flamenco, contemporary, some African dance and salsa. We share the interest in rhythm, and we both have experienced the challenges of navigating a dance world that is still mostly white and Euro-centric. My work belongs to both the center and the periphery, and it claims my double identity (triple, quadruple). My work fights for visibility for those dance styles and any hybrid form that exists outside of the "first world" culturally, politically, and economically.  

The Euro-centric dance traditions have a way to relate to rhythm that often differ from the perspective of "ethnic dances'" in this area. Once a flamenco teachers told me that you can not perform a flamenco sequence of steps unless you are able to sing it.  When I started dancing flamenco, sequences were a succession of movements that happen to produce a sound. But in flamenco dancing each step has a sound, so the sequence of steps eventually become like a songs in your brain. After years of flamenco practice I have noticed that if the musical information is clear in my brain, the specific technique required to perform the movements in a sequence is not longer that important, and the body would be able to figure if out the little details if the musical information is there to rely on. On the contrary, if I can not recall the specific sound of a step I would not be able to performed. I could move similarly, based on the organization of the body, but I would not be able to perform the step (or sequence of steps) as it is in the meter, while for that I would need to be able to sing "its song" and recall it "before" performing the step.

I have noticed a similar approach in this regards between flamenco and Ghanian dance while in both traditions steps are associated with rhythms that can be sang. In the case of flamenco the song comes from the sound that the steps produce, and in the case of Ghanian dances the songs come from the drumming.

On the other hand,  contemporary dance functions differently in relationship to movement and rhythm, while the timing of movements is relatively loose if one compares it with the specificity and intricacy of other styles. Within the contemporary dance context the rhythmical experience comes from breathing, from the time that it takes for the body to perform a specific task, or from an external source, such as the choreographer request, the musical track, but not from a song in my brain. So in this style one does not need to "recall a song" as a prerequisite to organize and deliver movement.

For the piece I am creating during my residency, I am looking for a multicultural approach about how rhythm and movement relate to each other. The perspective offered by the work includes different ways to organize the sound/movement interaction and its causality.

We have experimented a lot about who leads who?  We have tried one person producing their own sound and dancing at the same time. For this exercise each individual has sang songs that correspond to the sequences of steps that he/she is doing, and he/she has performed those movement sequences while singing.

We have also tried to deliver movements that do not belong to the song that we are singing, and to deliver movements that belong to the contemporary dance style while still singing rhythms that are related to steps from other dance traditions. It is challenging to detach the sound of a given step from the step it self. It feels like speaking two different languages at the same time: flamenco with your voice and contemporary dance with your body.

We have also explored the option of having one mover and one speaker/singer. In one version of the exercises the task for the mover is to react to the sound heard by replicating a movement that is "the same" as the sound heard and to deliver the movement at the same time that the sound is happening, so the mover would have to anticipate the rhythm.

We also have tried the option of the mover developing other types of connections with the sound heard.  The mover could replicate or not what the singer is bringing into the conversation and would not longer be a follower of the sound, who monotonously accentuating the strong beats of the music.  The mover would have more independence, and their task would be to build layers into the movement-sound dialogue that stimulate complex interactions that involve tension, contrast and a notion of balance and harmony that is not flat and predictable.

In another exercise a mover and a singer are interacting having the dancer as the leader.  The singer task is to follow the mover by delivering a song that replicates what the dancer is doing, so the singer would have to anticipate the dancer's choices. Using this same structure, we have have explored using the whole body as a percussive instrument that follows the movements, instead of producing sound only with the voice.

Partnering Dancing

Willy, my dance collaborator, amazing performer with extensive training in Contemporary and African Dance, does not have experience with social dancing, and that is why I am particularly interested in exploring with him salsa and other partnering dance styles. My intension is not to teach him how to dance salsa, or merengue, but to witness a body making choices within a foreign territory. I have noticed that no matter the movement background and the long term experience in dancing, keeping the ongoing pattern of the lower body within the rhythm, independently from the interaction that is happening with the other person in the upper body, it's always a challenge.

I learned how to dance latin styles and particularly salsa at a young age in my country Colombia. I never took a dance lesson for that. The skills were gained by dancing in parties and gatherings, and by interacting with other bodies in "real time".  Back then social dancing was a fundamental part of social life. I studied in a "girls only" school until I graduated from high school, so my interactions and connections with boys throughout my teenage years happened almost exclusively in parties and through dancing. The gender roles in dancing were very strict and well defined: Females would wait until a male invited them to dance, and males lead, while females follow. It would basically mean that as a female you would have to always listen your partner's movement proposal,  process the information, and accept any movement initiative that the male would generate by delivering with your body the expected movement or some movement would matches his own.

Sometimes when I have explained "the follower role" to people that did not grew up in the culture of social dancing, the idea of being a follower arises strong reactions while they perceive the movement power dynamics, as unfair. I can see why, and I understand the social and political connotations of someone having to follow over and over someone else's ideas with out a space to disagree or state openly their own statements. However, there is little in this world that gives me more pleasure than following a good salsa partner.  I feel complete freedom in my 'submissive role" of doing what my partner is asking me to do. I feel relieved from having to answer the question "what to do", while I am only focusing in how to do it. I can direct my attention in little details such as delaying an action (that I am not even been very concious about what it is), to hit an accent in the music, or making a decision about how much strength or resistance I am going to bring into the "conversation", or how much weight I am going to release to my partner at any given movement. I can also chose not think anything at all, just listen to the music while paying attention to my partner's body. I is like a guessing game. The What is often not part of my experience, nor are the specifics about the movement or the space in relationship to the directions in which I am turning, nor what arm or leg I am using at any given time. All of that is taking care for me by my body/non conscious brain. My body knows better than my conscious mind how to handle that, so I don't have to think rationally to be able to  deliver a movement while in this context, it just happens automatically. I could think rationally about what I am doing, but I don't have to, and I am often amazed by the level of difficulty in the tasks that my body performs while salsa dancing without the help of my rational brain. It feels like having the chance to experience the joy of movement without having to even think about it. So putting that rational brain on pause, definitely feels like a liberation instead of a subjugation.

But pausing that rational brain and trusting the body you are interacting with takes time. I have noticed that the issue is precisely overthinking about what is happening. Throughout the weeks Willy is starting to trust and allow his body to take control over the situation. It is very interesting when we arrive into blurry places where the partnering is something in between contact improve and social dancing. Those are the events I am interesting in capturing in the piece: Physical interactions that are stylistically undefined and that can belong to more than one place.