I feel like so much of what I am trying to do is right at the tip of my tongue. I would like to bring my dancers more into an understanding about what this piece is, but I have a hard time synthesizing the big ideas into something cohesive – it’s just out of reach. I’m hoping this week I can help them ground more and get more into the movement qualities I’m interested in incorporating and experimenting with. I am struggling with wanting to give them enough concrete material and wanting to ask them to produce/how to do this adequately.

I am so grateful to be able to create with people in person. I can feel myself growing from this new challenge and I am so lucky to have dancers willing to dive headfirst into this process with me. Today I started developing what I hope to be the beginning of the piece. It felt right to return to the idea of glacial calving I began this process with. I brought in a video of glacial calving events to share with the dancers which was really fruitful. I am interested in the tension and build up of the event – how the movements can be almost imperceptible and suddenly so visible and happening.

The first half of the piece feels like it is coming together and is fitting together. I’m exploring what kinds of transitions are possible between these segments and how they can become one whole being rather than discombobulated parts.

Visualizing what these transitions and connections will look like has been hard, especially not being able to see everything with the dancers in space together. I’ve begun taking over the wall space in my apartment with these maps. In them are camera angle ideas, transitions, specific directions about what I am imagining in my head. I’m a little stuck with how to move into what I have deemed the “breakdown section.” I am now thinking rather than it be stationary I can have it be like a series of crossings to change the visual set up – because of the way the dancers have to social distance I was having a hard time trying to get it moving throughout the space. I envision this as the height of tension build up and chaos and I think mobilizing the space in this way will invigorate it and heighten that. Plus I can play around with the cameras perception a little. More to come on this once the actual movement material is solidified.

I had the whole cast in a rehearsal all together for the first time. We were able to work through a lot and develop what for now is the last section of the piece. My dancers have done incredible work creating movement with me and now that we have transitions and spacing it is feeling like the identity of the piece is revealing itself to me.

I’m really looking forward to being able to work with people physically all together and have other people look at what did/didn’t work and what they think of the audio.

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