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As the project is just passed half way, Taryn struggles to place each section in the right order. Simon, Jenn and Melina work on a challenging lift and Ralph feels the shift of moving from improv-based work to a more structured rehearsal.
In the past few rehearsals i had a breakthrough, which nominated me as a featured dancer for those rehearsals. For one of the rehearsals Pam, Melina and i had to use Melina’s solo she developed from the day before and find ways to use contact in it. We played with some lifts and contact through our limbs and taryn would come often to see what she liked, and fix what she didn’t like. There were a number of lifts where i was the one that was lifting and since im not as experienced in lifting liked to have more time to figure pathways out. But before we got to a point where we actually got it, taryn would change it because it was not working. I was annoyed a bit and did tell her half way through to back off a bit just because we all need the time to figure stuff out. Which after the three of us found our rhythm and cleared up pathways and it was all fine and dandy! She later made us do our phrase we made x3 to the point of exhaustion which actually turned out pretty well from what she said.
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%
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.
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.
Movement and performance creation has always been with me since a young age. I was really expressive with my creativity and always quite kinesthetic and physical. In Grade 6 I remember being inspired by a movie on tv so i decided to write up a whole play on my own time and performed it with a friend for the whole class. I would also always go the extra mile when we were asked to write book reports in Language arts class. I would create a whole performance instead of write a “report.” I also remember creating every kind of club possible like a cooking club, a sewing club, an animal club, a Fear Street club… Me and my friend would organize field trips and events for all our clubs.