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.