Dances

What is the choreography like?

The choreography is distinguished by its architectural use of repeated and interlocking patterns and by its unique relationship to each piece of music developed through listening.Within intricate stepping patterns lay evocative movement knots.Each dance has a unique structure that then is woven into that of the music.In these dances emotion and interpersonal relationships do not motivate movement; they spring from movements and movement patterns.When they occur they are neither analyzed nor explored.They are simply there like the sun is there in the sky.It is there always; always it is at once nearby and far away.And always it is only one thing.Usually it is not the focal point.These then are less psychological dances of the 20th century and more environmental dances of the 21st century.

And they are not made so much as found.To make them choreographer and dancers must use imagination, intelligence, heart, and personal experience; to grasp them viewers must do the same.Then hopefully the best of these dances will carry each into his/her own unknown.

Squiggle #4

Why Notate?

I developed the material for the new dance over a period of about three years.  In order to do this I had to notate the movement material so that I could return to what I had made previously while at the same time freeing myself from the burden of remembering it.  I needed to clear myself of the old in order to embrace the new, and do this on a regular basis, systematically.  I continued a process I had begun earlier of developing a system of notating which involves words, symbols, and various sorts of images.  What is new about the system at this time is that almost all the material for the new dance is not only on paper but also on computer.

I have notated somehow or other all the material of all my dances.  So developing a system for doing this has always been a side project of my dance making.    Over time it has grown clearer to me what aspects of a movement sequence I must notate if I am to recover the material.  Increasingly this set of facts becomes smaller and begins to fall into categories. Images like the one above are scattered all through my notes and I will probably let them pop up here and there all  through this web site.                      SEV  3/14/2009