Reflections on Centered

I wrote about this in a Dance Lab Redux reflection paper back in graduate school at Naropa University. Here is the general concept of the piece as stated in my reflection paper with consideration of cultivating inner eye vs. outer eye awareness:

"At the end of summer vacation before returning to Naropa, I started constructing a short performance piece for the Naropa Performance Jam. Facing the blank canvas of the studio in which I was rehearsing in San Francisco, I became present to my inner landscape of that moment. Rather than project an outer eye to grasp an illusive idea I thought would be more engaging to a general public, I activated my inner eye to witness the content rolling around inside myself. This content was welling from a summer of romantic affairs, risk-taking, loving, trusting, fearing, and dying. I brought forward the words love, trust, fear, and death to investigate the challenges of engaging in intimate relationships as a gay man in a world steeped in HIV/AIDS. Through this activation of inner eye I was able to construct a five-minute solo piece investigating this concept through a simple sentence spoken to the audience combined with a dance contained within a circle of letters and words that reveal the acronyms of HIV and AIDS."

The dance within the circle of letters and words was originally an improvisation. When I performed it at the Naropa Performance Jam it was an improvisation set to a piece of music by Phillip Glass. As I moved onto other projects, like my thesis which sprang from some of the concepts of this piece, I still carried the structure and concept of this original piece in my psyche.

In 2012, the piece came to full fruition. Incorporating a character I had created during another process while at Naropa, The Boy in the Blue Dress, I placed the character within the framework of the piece to illuminate the role of the feminine in the acceptance and transformation of disease through love. I also changed the music for the dance to another piece holding a repetitive essence, but not so iconic Phillip Glass. During the rehearsal process toward final creation of the piece I kept the dance an improve. I was intrigued by the exploration of authentic movement in relation to the circle, the words, and the witnessing of the audience. I felt improvisation allowed a more authentic relating and dance to occur rather than worrying about choreographed steps. Thinking compositionally though, I did incorporate some set sequences into the dance each time I rehearsed it or performed it. I feel these sequences allowed a balance within the dance happening anew each time. I learned through this improvisational dance to trust my performative self in the moment and to connect with the music, space, and content with a spontaneity of true awareness.

I currently am preparing the piece for another performance, this time in New York City. I submitted the piece for a performance festival happening in July and it was selected from a wide variety of submissions from across the country. I will be performing Centered on Saturday, July 13, 2013 at The Wild Project in NYC as part of the All Out Dance evening for the Fresh Fruit Festival.

In remounting Centered, I have enjoyed a wonderful discovery about improvisation. At first, I assumed I would keep the dance section an improvisation, but after reviewing the video I was struck by the choreography I performed in the premiere last year. I feel compositionally the dance illuminates the personal and collective struggle of being surrounded by the words, concepts, and anxieties of disease and connection. I also felt the essence of improvisation was cultivated over a period of rehearsals and connected to allowing the space for dance to show itself outside of a pre-determined choreographic mind. I decided to honor this exploration by taking the choreography created through improvisation and saying Yes to its presence as now the choreography for the work.

Moving forward in my rehearsals I’ve found the acceptance of the choreography to be a fresh way of moving forward in rehearsing the dance. I am able to anchor into the specifics of the movement in a more articulated and intentional manner as a choreographed dancer rather than as an improvisational dancer. I don’t mean to set up any hierarchies here about one form of dancer mind or embodiment over another, but more to acknowledge the difference of embodiment or mental state in the dance. And as I define the movements within my body and performance, I am always giving consideration to some essence of improvisation in the doing. I believe the improvisational element keeps the piece alive in its authenticity of felt experience.