Working on:  The whole thing?

So much has happened so fast since I last got the chance to reflect and write. I started to forget whether I write these after rehearsal or after class and whether I talked about class or rehearsal in this blog. But here we are with a bunch of undocumented changes that will get documented now.

• Duet: We finished the duet we had been working on and then hated it, so restarted choreographing with some of the movements we had already come up with. We weren’t happy to do the 1st one we made but this one brought so much more energy and dynamic movement. We’re happy to dance it now. I was looking for energy and weaving of nameless and named movement, for the dance to be harder to do and keep up with. I wanted moments where we’re the same but different, where we connect, where we disconnect and find ourselves, where we show each other how to do things. I wanted to replicate what it was like to meet someone and see what we already know together, and what we can learn from each other.
• Isabel’s Narrative: Isabel’s narrative changed to now speak about hip-hop and reggaeton. She has come up with her own base movement to weave in between her named movement. In the beginning, she was very hesitant to include her own story and what she felt was right for her. But one day she came to class with something that was truly hers and I couldn’t be happier. I’ve found that there are only a handful of things that really need to be the same between the two of us to tie us together to the same piece. After that, it makes it more beautiful for us to have differences in what we do. Isabel is both an actor and a dancer, her dance is acting things out and that’s what has been fed to her body throughout her life and that shows up in her narrative. I am completely the opposite of this and it truly makes a line of difference that we can work with once we get together. What I want for ger in the coming rehearsals is to look up and feel as confident as she feels when it’s just me and her in a room.
• Isabel’s Reggaeton: This is a new section. Something felt odd about me narrating about movements that I then go on to show with music, and having Isabel not get the chance to do the same. Therefore Isabel has picked a Daddy Yankee song that she can do immediately after her narrative to tie in what she feels when this music comes on.
• Costumes: I found costumes! I had a vision of jumpsuits and I found the right ones! This has been a fight because I really wanted to wear red while Isabel wore navy blue. However, the right size wasn’t available in red so now I am in navy blue and Isabel is in olive green. It’s still beautiful and we look good!
• Duet Music: Last-minute after completing the duet I asked Jake to build me a track that would add salsa instruments one at a time. After completing the new duet, the clave alone wasn’t doing it justice so now we are using this beautiful salsa track that gets stuck in my head every time I do it. One thing I found so special is that the first time I played it, it breathed joy, energy, and passion into Isabel’s movement, while for me it seeped into my body especially once that bass comes in. I think this is what we’ve been talking about all along in the piece, the power that these rhythms have to seep into our bloodstreams and recall physicality’s that we don’t know where they came from. Yet they have a name and they show up as if someone shouted for them. In that moment of the duet not only are we sharing those but exchanging those movements, and they later become part of that collection that gets called whenever we hear this music again. It’s truly fascinating.
• Order: Initially I thought I wanted my narrative -> merengue -> duet -> Isabel’s narrative, but as we’ve progressed I feel that she deserves an introduction before you get to see us together. After all, we all start with something before we go out there and show it and she is a person with movement in her body before she meets me. Additionally, I am completely and utterly out of breath by the time I finish my merengue section so this also adds space for me to catch a breath before the next section comes on. The new order is my narrative -> merengue -> Isabel’s narrative->  reggaeton -> duet

All in all, here is the piece today: