Justify It

I have to admit a bias here. And this is my own personal belief, but it is my own personal blog. For a long time, I have found the current state of choreography a bit... underwhelming. Not that I don't think that there is some wonderful work being done, but... The proliferation of competitions as an aspect of ballet and the almost too easy crossover with contemporary dance has created an odd beast. Too often I see dances that have no dynamic range that are just an almost stream of consciousness series of poses and random ballet steps. The only thing that seems to hold them together is some sort of unchanging drive toward forward motion. Linking steps are given the same emphasis as big jumps and everything just seems to be an exaltation of whatever extreme line the dancer can accomplish. I often feel that if I were to ask the dancer, "But what is the most important part of that 3 minute dance that you just did?" they would have no answer for me. That is really unacceptable in an artist. At least an artist who is trying to move the audience in a particular way.

As we were playing around with the Swan, there was one particular moment towards the end where Jessica kept going for a balance before she melted into the ground. The rest of the dance was coming along and then every time we came to that moment, I could see her mind working. "Pull up on the foot. Turn the leg out. What shape is my torso in. Look up at the exact correct angle." I stopped her and asked her. "Why do you want to put that balance there?" and she admitted that the reason wasn't because of a dramatic justification. It was to make it a bit more choreographically dense or interesting. At that point, I just reminded her that she doesn't have to be more "interesting", she just needs to get the idea of a soul in transition across in the clearest possible way. If that balance does that, great. If not, then it is just in the way of the movement that does do that. 

I will always remember Anthony Hopkins once making the point that as you rehearse, you should always be on the lookout for anything (speech, movement, gesture, etc) that distracts from what you want the audience to understand. In the end, your performance should be distilled in such a way that everyone is getting the same message. Who am I to disagree with Hannibal Lecter?

So the extras, the doilies (as an old dance teacher used to call them), that we are so fond of need to go away. External baggage that keeps us from focusing on the internal... that is now free to be revealed externally.