I spent Thursday in the theatre w/ Sue and co. as they went through Bird Song. She is a great stager. She moves bodies through space in a beautiful way. They were working on moving the video from the in-the-round production to the proscenium space. Some images transferred well, others did not. It was great to hear Sue work out how things would work better or differently in this new setting. How she and the designers would alter the new imagery to better fit the choreography. I am getting an amazing insight into a new way of working. Getting a better understanding of how I can work. Great to get inside portions of her work and understand how she arrived there. She has pulled me forward this week to explain different sections of Bird Song and has been so open to my asking questions about how she and the dancers arrived at the present state. They have been working on one particular section for a few weeks now. Sue was unhappy with how it had gone over in previous performances. It just wasn’t working how Sue had imagined and she had some other ideas that she wanted to play around with. I am really looking forward to seeing this process first hand in the creation of the new piece as opposed to after the fact as I am seeing with Bird Song.

I have been offered the potential to perform at the ROH in spring ‘06 with Snag. They produce the ‘Snagged and Clored’ festival of contemporary dance at the ROH2’s Clore studio. This is very exciting potential so I will be sure to keep up on the offer!

On Saturday we attended the ENO’s performance of Wagner’s Twilight of the Gods. It was a 6-hour extravaganza at the Colesium Theatre in Trafalger Square. This was the last performance of a two+ year process to present new productions of the entire ring cycle.

Saturday was also the opening night of the BAC’s Burst Festival where we are working on a Scratch performance for next week! More on this later!

this entry will be brief, more of a place holder for things I need to write about. Short on time, as we are getting very busy now. But creativity is flowing in a beautiful way. Breakthrough. An intensive meeting about Saccades-as studio full day residency begins on monday. Great ideas flowing. Then-not much sleeping-but up late each night with strong ideas presenting themselves. I will have to come back to this entry to fill in. But ideas for Coma with JW, the Aids project in Mozambique, and the mahler show truly clarifying itself. I am so excited about the work.

Saw a truly special show at a special needs school in Pekham Rye yesterday. Matt was involved with it. It ws a creative partnership between the school and the philhormonia and the opera and a group called sonic postcards (or something like that) . It was a beautiful brilliant show. they involved the entire school--and it was done in such a smart, respectfull way that it was truly meaningfull to all the participants as well as the audience. It is shows like that that remind us why we do what we do-the importance of the arts.

I will write more about this but I have to run to see the ring cycle part 3 in town. M got us tickets. We later realized the show is 5.5 hours long. Should be interesting to see if I can focus through it. My first experience with Wagner-thecontraversial Wagner. I have decided to put aside his famed jew hating for the afternoon. I will see how I feel afterwards. Honestly- Hard to completely put it aside. Do we seperate the music from the man? That's the question.

Have to run.

Head full of images today. Two shows at once as well. Reading Mahler research late into the night, and tackling Saccades in the mornings--but its hard to keep it compartmentalized. Filtering through images and ideas for content concept and meaning. Trying to avoid imagery for imagery sake, but then, also not wanting to over filter. More like detective work. I know the idea comes from the thought--but from what thought is unclear. I am asking myself hard questions, and trying to truly see the connection of the ideas.

Have been scouting the apartment here in Forest Hill for a shoot I think I will do this week. As the place recently underwent major wall reconstruction, the colors of the just dry plaster are great. There are also many openings into the different rooms which would allow for great depth. The lighting is beautiful. I think deep warm colors would look great in the environment--- have an idea that would look great in the space too. Mostly it provides a great nuetral pallete-without being a black box. Also on the lookout for a series of nuetral backdrops for saccades. Something that gives the feel of the burdon of memories--emotional baggage-troublesome intimacies of the past-or even current troubles which are resisting their own burial in the sub conscious-refusal to die.

on that note. I dreamed of a giant rat last night. I think the goal was to kill it. but once i caught it and held it i thought it was sort of cute-almost cat like. At the same time it was repulsive-because it was a rat. As it was a dream this made sense. eventually the rat died--or sort of froze and I thought it was dead. Someone told me there were many more rats in the giant house where we were.I didn't recognize the house.

so anyway--will probably explore area around the train station as possible location. Most likely though, I will use very lived in rooms-real rooms-full of stuff and junk. Rife with memories, and mysteries, skeleton stuffed closets. A lived in room can be frightening for the potency of its energies-a good symbol of the mix of memories and unresolved issues we drag behind us (an wonder why its so hard to move forward)

As if I had order it, i walked up the steps at Clapham Junction yesterday behind a man carrying on old television--the kind with a carrying handle which lifts out of the top of the fake wood grain veneer. The idea of a single carrying handle on such a heavy and awkwardly shaped item was perfect. It was a perfect study of the ideas I had been exploring for Saccades-involving televisions, and weights, and forced body language and movement in relation to imagery in the performance space. Here it was perfectly represented in the real. The man lumbered up the steps in an awkard, hip extended limp. There was a single minded determinedness to carry the set only by the one handle, as the handle almost demanded this treatment by its very presence. It was an image of burden, in the weight and how it injected its presence into the entire physical language of the man, and it was an image of time--the image extended back 20 to 30 years---you felt it in looking at it. The style of the set, and more than that-- the idea of its portability. The notion that at the time this tv was manufactured, it was boasting its conveniently small size and ease of transport. That same item 20 to 30 years later, is burdomesome and awkward. Its owner however--is still determined not to let go of its original promise. He reaches the top of the steps with years trailing behind. yes it is for me a perfect image of the emotional memory and history and baggage. A domestic item. the tv-We place them into our most personal spaces (even on refridgerators and in bathrooms now!). We stare at them for hours on end. It makes you want to ask yourself, what has the TV seen, over the years--reflected in the glass...

anyhow... a great image which I will surely recreate and use in this upcoming show.

Well, back in the swing of things a bit. Meaning that I am back in London with rehearsals for Sue. Last Thursday and Friday we worked with the composer Matteo Fargion(sp?). He brought in some traditional Italian folk songs for us to play with. He actually had some very specific ideas that he wanted us to play with. He was looking to see the melody of the music in the body without necessarily setting moves to the music. So he gave us each some specific tasks- first he gave the dancers words to create one step from. Random words like tire or attic- things like that. He wanted a move for each pulse so the moves were to be short and repeatable in that you would not have to take any extra time in between to do the repeat. From those moves we were to give each move a value on the musical scale. Then we were to put the move to the corresponding note on the scale for the song. (This is quite tough to explain in writing) Anyway, what we ended up with was some rather interestingly different moves to a musical song but the moves did not really sing within the body. So…we decided to create our moves from the same word or thought and then put each move to a note form the scale, etc. This did produce more of a melody within the body. He has many more layers on which he would like to play with the movement. One thing we started to look at before running out of time, as it was Friday, was to change the tensions of the moves. In order to do this without simply changing one or two of the moves was to change the value in accordance to the position of the note on the scale- we used the second line to begin putting tension into the first line. This makes no sense in writing!

Tobin came in to watch rehearsal on Friday and was so happy to see that Sue let her collaborators work with her dancers. We want to work with our dancers in a similar way with video and film direction so it was good to see this in practice with another company. Sue’s dancers tell me that this is not actually usual practice for the company. It is usually Sue and the dancers in the room with themselves. So I am seeing that from start to finish Sue is really challenging herself for this new piece. By bringing in the collaborators and idea generators to have direct contact with the dancers we are all getting a closer look into the absolute beginnings of the new piece.

As an aside, this weekend was the beginning of Passover and we were not with our family to celebrate. Tobin and I decided that we wanted to do something for ourselves and headed off to the grocery store to get all the fixin’s. Not such an easy task in London! Well not in Southeast London anyway! We managed to find some Matzah and some Homous that was Kosher for Passover. I made harroseth from apples and nuts and wine. And that is about all we could come up with really! We couldn’t even find horseradish, only horseradish sauce. I couldn’t cook up a chicken because our oven does not work. We thought we could go out for a roast chicken dinner but all the restaurants had sold out of their roasts by about 4pm. We have not yet been able to find roast chicken on a menu. This weekend we will have to head up to the north of London for a proper matzah ball soup.

Sitting in cafe Nero at Clapham Junction, being annoyed by all the smoke. But this is where the internet connection is. First images from Lincoln center are coming across. So I will post them as they come. Not great pics, from someone's phone, but proof it really happened anyway.

The Chelsea Chelsea project had its two showings in New York this past week. Very interesting overall. A lot of hours of teching, trying to get this link between the theatre in NY and the room in the 606 club in Chelsea London, but in the end, The Lincoln Center show worked and I was happy with the result, or what I imagine to be the result. It was an odd practice though. Sitting in a room in the middle of the night with Pete, and Steve Rubie, the actor/owner of the club who was reading some of the poetry. Performing with earphones on, hearing the audience in New York, and the performance, and seeing the feed of imagery that was being sent from our room, to a large white screen behind the performers in New York. Perhaps the oddest- when the performance is over, and you hear the show continuing in NY, through the speakers, and you can't talk to anyone about how it went. You go from performance mode to a few guys in a room (and woman--amanda was there for the second show). You are not really sure what you did, or if it worked. We took a bow in front of an audience in New York we could not see. As Matt put it the next day--what does this say about transcontinental communication. There were huge moments of time during the afternoon, where we sat in front of the screen waiting for communication from New York, wondering when someone would come by the computer and notice us. They may have been on break--but noone told us. We had become a window on a computer monitor in Lincoln Center-a part of the digital fabric--somehow less human, easier to forget, or walk away from, in our digitized form--than if they had seen three dudes and a sleeping woman, asking a question repeatedly.."New York, do you hear us? Hello new York? Do you still have the link? hello..? I wish we had not had our hands so full and could have documented our side of the link better, It was an amusing set up. A camera mounted on a laptop, pointing at a wall on which a video projector was relaying pre recorded and manipulated imagery. Into this was placed the live participants at varying depths of field, lit from the chest up by the projection itself, and from the side by a halogen bulb. The video was being manipulated live by keyboard and a mini shuttle controllor on a long extension. This manipulation was being done to the live music feed being recieved from New York. In addition Pete was laying music in live to the concert, including guitar and radio distortion.

For the Lincoln Center showing we had a small audience of Matthew Sharp and his friend Fiona, as well as Amanda who had been helping with the set up throughout the day. Fighting sleep- they observed the three of us performing in silence--passing around a shared headset so that they could hear the relay from NYC. It was interesting how different it felt performing with people in the room, in contrast to the chelsea gallery show in which it was just Pete Steve and me.

The Chelsea show was good for us, but tech glitch kept the video from reaching final destination on stage. In the end, on that night I performed for an audience of one, Nora who was working the computer on stage in NY. At least I had an audience of one. She said she enjoyed it immensely.

We immediately turned back to Saccades the next day. Pete started sketching more music yesterday. I was happy to hear that a visual I had described to him for the piece broke his "block" on the music. It was the first time I have been told of having this effect. Petes music has often done the same for me--where I hear the song and the creativity flows after a dry spell. I had never described a staging with video and had a composer say that that spurred on the writing. I think it is a great result of the time we have been spending working together.

Directly related, I am getting strong imagery and staging ideas for this piece, which both Pete and Matt seem to be responding to. It will entail a lot of experimentation around associating weight and Physicality with the projection. In this a way a natural and very authentic interaction can occur between the performer and the media. I am also looking at how this interaction can link intrinsically to the script. We will be working more on this this week.

I took a visit this week to Sue Davies studio where composer Matteo Fargion (spelling?) was working with the dancers. As I had been working with relation to score with pete, I wanted to see the exercises he was conducting with the dancers. It was very interesting. I will visit them again this week when they go to Laban to work with video.

Mostly spent this weekend being domestic and thinking. Lots of big questions brought up by our trip to Netherlands last week. Still working on absorbing it all. This whole experience is most definitely a turning point, and the Netherlands experience in particular an acute turning point, although one which is still sinking in. Simon Dove's Springdance festival was an intense experience. We saw numerous shows each day and then engaged in discussion on each one. The shows were provocative and challenging. Some worked and some did not. There were gems and secrets in many, often times hidden in work which were very difficult and at times unpleasant-but all the same the experience changed me as an artist without a doubt, and what more can you ask for from that type of experience. I will be writing more about it in the coming days. We also took a trip to PARTS, the dance school in Brussels, and saw many showcases in Amsterdam. We were introduced to a very interesting production house in the hague, Korzo. It is amazing how much the Dutch support their arts. You can feel very strongly the different place that arts and culture hold in that culture. The government was so proud of their artists.

Saw fantastic piece in a movie house, Horace Benedict, by Boris Charmatz.

we do not have as much access to internet now, but hopefully I will get this posted tommorow.

Concept for a piece- “ Six Degrees of Contamination”

Or- “How do I move beyond what William Forsythe is doing?”

Is that even possible?

Well it has to be as everyone dies at some point and can, therefore, not continue to direct his or her own work. So… How do I move myself away from or perhaps within/ without my technique?

Question- no, maybe comment- A work’s technique or movement aesthetic should work within/ without the conceptual question of the work. There should be a natural or organic link between the vocabulary and the content. Ok. ??? No. Maybe it is just that the movement aesthetic should not be a superfluous add-on to the context? Hmm.

Why do I wonder about this all the time? What is my obsession with technique? So… See this leads right back to the concept for a piece “Six Degrees of Contamination.” Or, “What the hell language do I speak in?” (In what language do I speak?)

Inspirations- Bill T. Jones’ solo where he improvises and speaks on the improvisation; Linguistic Theologist who I met via Sue- ‘second phase contamination’ in relation to how one speaks and puts together languages and phrases and words; Merce Cunningham’s thought that a dancer must dance in silence and pay attention only to the rhythm of the others around him or her; Simon Dove and the eternal Question (perhaps a little inside joke for those of us attending the Spring Dance Festival- perhaps only funny to me); Jerome Bel’s work for and about Veronique Doisneau and her life in the corps de ballet; My own personal struggle with how I can say what I want to say and with what language.

So… all in all, I would say that this trip both to work with Sue and to the Springdance Festival has been a raging success so far in that it has provoked an unbelievable amount of thought and personal reflection. As for my time with Sue I am just at the beginning, as for the Springdance festival we are on our last day.

I am feeling very liberated! This festival has been a great eye opener for me. Really, I almost feel silly for ever thinking that my ballet background could be a hindrance to my own contemporary work. I am understanding Sue’s comment to me to just let that background have its place in my body as it is there. I do not have to feel the need to bring it forward or highlight it in particular. It just is. Hmm. I really can do what I want to do without worrying whether or not it references well… whatever!  I can just do what I want to do. See what I mean? Liberating. Now lets hope that I can remember this. That may be the real challenge. Remembering this. Not running back to my familiar but allowing myself to sort of ride around in fresh ideas.

Almost a week since last entry. In Utrecht now. A beautiful city although our schedule has been full since arrival. On our first evening, as part of Spring Dance Festival, we saw Bruno Beltrao's show H2. It was truly interesting experience. Especially after the time touring with Rennie, to see this new take on a hip hop show. The Hip Hop movement was entirely deconstructed, set within a simple and clean designed environment of a projected sentence.

HIP HOP LOVES THE BEAT OF THE MUSIC

as the show progresses, the sentence is reduced. i.e, HIP HOP LOVES THE BEAT this led into an entrancing solo in a cube of white light-- in silence

at HIP HOP LOVES- a very memorable, and I think daring moment, was when the entire cast, all men, lined up on the front of the stage and proceeded to engage in a long kiss with each other. The quality of the lighting stayed very much in the realm of a LCD quality, as though they were being lit by projector light only--or "digital" light. By the end of the show they were saturated in chroma, popping out from orange and greens reminiscent of an atari missile command background color.

The evening before we left London, we went to see A COMPANY OF SOLDIERS and LAKENHEATH, the first two docs in a series on the Iraq war. I am trying to catch up her, so I will talk more about this later, but it was an interesting show, especially A COMPANY OF SOLDIERS. The Director spoke afterwards. It was haunting and sparked a lot of conversation. We saw a different version than what as shown in the states, but the director said they were essentially the same, just with much less naration in the UK cut.

Yesterday visited PARTS in Brussels, dance school of ROSAS, got the name of a multimedia research lab and post graduate studies program in France that I want to check out- Le Fresnoy. then saw two shows Charrlotte Van Eynde, Nicole Beutler, very challenging.

We went off to PARTS in Brussels yesterday to visit the school and learn more about how the program and curriculum work. I have been interested in the school for quite some time and we thrilled to finally have the chance to learn more about it. I was surprised to see that ballet classes play an integral role in the training of the students. They use the classes to give the students technique. It is not that they are training students to become professional ballet dancers it is just that they feel that the technique and control needed to execute the class are important tools for the dancer. Well I certainly agree but actually thought I was on my own on that one. Good to know I am not so crazy after all. Perhaps it is that my own training was so closed off from the contemporary dance scene that I never made the effort to notice. Or perhaps it is that ballet is such a part of the European dance scene that it is not an option to separate the two worlds, however I do not really think that I believe that so really what am I trying to say? I have no idea! Sorry for the extreme ramble but this is where I am. This is what I am struggling with on a personal level. Where does my ballet training and background come into play in my own explorations into the contemporary dance scene? I mean I cannot leave it behind, as it is an integral part of my background and training. Sue (Siobhan Davies) was adamant about the fact that it is a part of me that will be a part of all I do so I should learn to accept that and work with that and use that as a reference point to some degree.