Working on:  May & Isabel Living Room Sets

This part was one of the most exciting in this journey. On the first day, I got to go to the lower level of the theater and pick out some furniture and mark it with yellow tape. What I want to build with these rooms were living rooms that would feel close to home. Here are some of my initial picks:

About two days later after spending some time down there I got to use the theater orchestra pit as an elevator and bring up all the things from the basement. I brought my friend Aboni to help.

In the end, we ended up constructing the following rooms:

The first room is mine, and we hope to be able to turn on the lamp. This living room is set to reflect more contemporary furniture because this piece was born in a Queens, NY apartment I was renting for the semester. My actual living room is too small for dancing but this modern living room gave me the space to flourish choreographically. I am missing the pieces of cloth from the couch, but have lately gotten scared of having too many details in this piece. I don’t want there to be an overload of information. I hope the rug brings that same vibe of there being different characters to my story that make up my movement.

The second room is for Isabel. I asked her what her NYC home apartment looks like and she described and brown couch, a big plant, and a big Jesus picture on the wall. I bought a Jesus frame online and we hope to have that on the wall. I am a little scared that it takes people somewhere else but I hope it comes across as Isabel’s home decorated by her mother. We are also looking to have a brown rug that could bring it all together. There will also be string lights in the tree which will give the room a little twinkling.

I took great care in curating these rooms. After all, most of the dancing is happening in these two sets and I want them to truly represent the space in which Isabel and I have felt comfortable dancing. I think we’re definitely on our way there! However, sometimes I wonder if the stories need these sets in order to be told. There was a rehearsal in which I brought a stool and an espresso maker to rehearsal in lieu of bringing a couch. The espresso maker is something that I grew up seeing on the stove, a staple in any Dominican household to start the morning or to offer someone coffee in the afternoon when they visit. It was about having something next to me that could call in those memories for me. Maybe that is all that we need, a stool and something that can bring back those memories for both of us. An artifact that could transport the audience into something beyond Hallie Flanagan theater. It’s hard to give up on the one thing that started it all, but, all is in service of the piece. I’ll keep thinking about it.