raw. live. interactive.
At this point of the inlayers process I’m feeling emotionally drained. In the past weeks Taryn has been using several structured improvisations to develop material for the work and the relationships between the dancers. As we’ve been researching and working to ‘drop into’ our states of consumption more quickly… an unsettling trend in my behavior has been happening when we really get into the meat of our improvs– that of becoming so emotionally frustrated that I begin to cry.
The dancers take a second go at the improv where they had to chose a word to describe each other dancer’s energy and try and get them to work in the opposite direction. During the next rehearsal, Taryn starts to piece some of the work together and the dancer’s have a group chat about becoming closer in the process.%POST_TITLE%
The dancers take on more contact improv and Taryn asks them to chose a word that describes each person and what type of energy they bring to the work. Their task is then to pull out the opposite quality of each dancer, making for some pretty interesting work!
I focus on dance because it is something that takes place every day. In a sense, we are all dancers – and as cheesy as that may sound, it is true. Dance was a way for me, like many artist, to express myself and was a tool to release my frustrations and anger towards life. The first time anyone told me that “you inspired me” also gave me another reason to keep dancing. I wanted to be able to touch and inspire others through dance. I wanted them to have imagination people and to think of their bodies as a way to communicate to the world and not merely a static object in space.
The dancers review the existing material then take part in their first contact improv as a group. They get to know each other on a deeper level and give their thoughts on the topic.
The project’s title, Inlayers, is meant to represent the peeling away of layers to “reveal the raw essence of the behind-the-scenes work of creating and producing a dance performance,” says Jenn Doan, Inlayers head of production and dancer. “The blog discussions and dancer diaries… also open up another mental and cognitive layer that most dance audiences do not usually get to access.”
Presently I choose to work in live performance because I believe it is a medium with great affective, creative, intellectual, emotional, and reflective potentials. I have trouble with dance’s ability to only communicate one specific thing, but am continually surprised at its ability to communicate so many things at once. I go to see live performance because of its capacity to use bodies to speak about socio-political, intellectual, emotional, and epochal issues, which are always somehow closely related to the body.
So I am one of those dancers that has been dancing since the age of four (it’s really not as fancy as it sounds). As a little one, I was completely uncoordinated and had the attention span of a peanut. Dance class was an extra-curricular activity that my mom enrolled me in as a strategy to exert my creative energy in ballet rather than destroy her white carpets with all my crafty creations & materials – hot glue gun and sparkles included.
Taryn got on the floor and moved through a personal improv while the dancers watched and moved with her. They picked moments that they connected with and started building their own solo piece from it. Taryn also gives some insight into her process and how she thinks as a Choreographer.
The inlayers New Years Dance Off was a lot of fun, and we’d like to thank everyone for coming and helping out.
Taryn Javier: its true...this specific improv shed a great deal ...
Taryn Javier: melissa....i just want to say that your last sente...
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