Dancers Input

My method of working with dancers has changed a lot over the years.  Coming out of dancing professionally for several companies I was used to the choreographer making up all the steps and teaching them to us, the dancers.  This is how I worked for many years, with occasional but brief forays into improvisation.  I found that when I did ask the dancers to improvise, they were by and large uncomfortable with the process and often resistant to it.  I am always searching for new ways of moving and of exploring how the body can communicate through movement and at some point found that I felt restricted relying solely on my own movement.

  I started devising more and more improvisation exercises for the dancers, developing their own unique movement vocabulary and embellishing it with mine, creating a hybrid of sorts that was fresh and new.  I found this more and more exciting because it gave me so many options and enlarged the movement vocabulary, and now I use improvisation liberally in the creation of new work.  I believe that the dancers also feel more invested in the work when they are part of its creation and are more attentive to the intent and execution of the movement. 

Of course a lot of this depends on the dancers themselves.  Many dancers are not trained in improvisation and don't have a lot of experience in it, I didn't when I first began dancing professionally.  I am continually learning with the dancers how to devise exercises that address specifically what I am trying to examine, be it in movement or feeling.  If the dancers are open and interested in exploring new terrain they will embrace the experience, but if they are uncomfortable in new and unknown situations they really dislike it.  Fortunately for me I now have a group of dancers who are able and willing to explore not only movement but their own inner depths and in the creation of this work on perception and memory it has enabled us to get into some powerful territory that is personal but also resonates on a broader scale.  

What exactly is perception?

Perception is generally defined as the process by which a person assimilates and makes use of sensory data.  Behavior is based on what people perceive, hence its importance.  There are a multitude of factors that affect perception, from what we select from the cornucopia of sensory stimuli that we are bombarded with to how we organize and interpret this stimuli.  There is so much information coming in that we can't pay attention to all of it, and we end up selecting what is meaningful to us and ignore the rest.

  Our selection process is based on what we need, want and expect, so in effect much of what we perceive responds to our physical, mental and emotional condition.  The organization of the stimuli we receive involves forming positive or negative responses to it, which in turn is affected by our assumptions and beliefs.

 In the interpretation of the data we receive our beliefs, values, attitudes, past learning and experiences combine to form a mental filter through which our perceptions are interpreted and evaluated.  With this in mind, it is evident that perception is highly individualistic which accounts for differing interpretations of the same incident.  Communication becomes imperative, or our interpersonal relationships can become minefields of discordance.  Do we know how to talk to each other, taking into account the importance that perception plays?  

So now the dancers and I approach a piece about this vast topic of perception.  Where and how do we start?  The best way I can think of is to start personally, having the dancers write about their feelings and memories attached to certain important events in their lives.  This becomes the starting point of our creative process and requires a certain fearlessness and courage to mine the depths of who we are and how we have become what we are.  

Choreographing Perception

The project I’m working on now is about perception and memory.  When I was doing research for my work on quantum physics I came across a statement in one of the books I was reading that perhaps as much as 50% of what we “see” is in actuality not visual information that is conveyed to the brain through the optic nerve but based on our expectations.  What?  I was flabbergasted by this.  If our sense of reality is largely informed by our expectations, which are in themselves influenced by our memories, how in the world do we come to a consensus about what is real?  Is there such as thing as a collective reality, and if so, how can it be explained?  There is of course a lot of evidence that we perceive events differently – try and find eyewitness testimony that is consistent amongst several people. 

But there is a great deal of agreement also – the earthquake and tsunami in Japan really did happen on March 11, despite what my expectations are I see the destruction in pictures and video.  My own research on this topic has unearthed scores of examples of brain malfunctions that affect both perception and memory, but these are anomalies, not the norm. 

I visit galleries whenever I can, and found an artist, Gwen Samuels, who I knew I wanted to work with at some point.  Gwen’s work examines clothing as identity and I thought it would be perfect for this dance because we have so many associations with clothing affecting both our perception and memory.  My first caveat then is that costuming will affect how an audience perceives and interprets the movement and the dancers.


 If a woman in a slinky nightgown does distorted, percussive movement, does it color how an audience sees it?  If gender clothing is switched but a scenario of a man abusing a woman is played out, does the clothing influence how the scene is interpreted?  If a movement sequence is performed with the dancers fully clothed and then performed again with the dancers almost nude does that change how the movement is read?        

Dance and Science?

I was not a science geek in school, so no one was more surprised than me when my choreographic interests turned to science themes.  Once I started on this path I unleashed the flood waters of what at this point seems an endless fascination with a myriad of science themes.  Ideas come tumbling into my head and thankfully they continue to flow into my consciousness.  My appetite seems voracious.  My mind reaches to grasp scientific concepts and I revel in the effort, even as I struggle to understand complex principles that by a layperson’s standards seem impossible. 

I gather books around me and plow through them – quantum physics, parallel universes, celestial mechanics, the brain, perception and memory, botany – all of them intriguing.  I often have the thrill of meeting with scientists, questioning and discussing the themes I'm dealing with.  Then comes the real challenge – how do I as an artist interpret the themes in a way that isn’t a science lesson but a work of art, that doesn’t try to spell out the science but instead offers a different perspective, one that is more often than not abstract. 

Can I communicate the essence of the science through non linear, non narrative ways, through kinetic movement, through feelings and visceral experiences?  I attempt to solve this puzzle with each new work that I tackle.  Dance and science are scary - people shy away from them because they're afraid that they don't understand them.  But if we can let all of that go, the marriage of the two has the potential to captivate the mind, senses and emotions - what could be more fulfilling?