now the film has been out there on good ol' youtube for the world to see (below), and after just now watching it again, i have some stream-of-consciousness thoughts and associations to share.
1. "improvisation" vs. "choreography"
what ended up in the film is probably 70% improvisation, 25% improv-based material from the rehearsal process, and 5% material that i "choreographed" in the sense that i went in a room, made it up, and then taught it to kim and britt.
i nearly always work in an improv-based way; it's a great way for me to get a pulse check with my dancers on whether material is resonating with them. it's also a great way to steal inspiring authentic things from my dancers (my secret's out, i'm a thief). i think i used my improvisational tools similarly for this project as i have in the recent past.
in live performance, though, i would say it's more like 60% "choreography," 35% improv-based choreography from rehearsal, and 5% live improv. why? ... probably because i can control it. with live performance, i love happy accidents, but i usually have something specific to get across, and in order to communicate clearly i choose to shape the events the audience sees with a steadier hand. on film, and through the editing process, we could just let it all happen, and i could choose the moments that i loved - the moments that otherwise i might see in rehearsal but would never quite be recreated on stage, or the moments that half the audience would never see in performance because they were looking at someone else, or the moments that are otherwise overshadowed with what comes immediately after them... etc. i could curate.
it allows me to immortalize choices i only made once out of the sixty times i picked up some sand, like tossing it (at 13:50). it allows the viewer to be surprised when kim kicks up a little sand (at 14:37) instead of allowing an audience to watch the movement of her feet that inevitably led to it.
a thought.... is it really improvisational once it no longer lives in space and time? since i'm editing it?
really, it's about ME as an artist being in control, which was the point of the whole project.
2. collaboration/ownership
with this higher proportion of "chance" that made it into the final cut (so much of the improv was so much more interesting than the macro proscenium shots of the "choreography"), i started to wonder more about the ownership of the creative material. a shot of all of us included direction from me, movement from each dancer, a cinematic eye from eric, and an edited beginning and end from me and eric together. so who "owns" that? is it really "my" art? i credited each person as a collaborator. it feels more accurate to call it a "jaema joy dance film" (translation: this wouldn't have gotten created if i hadn't decided to do it) than a film with "choreography by jaema" (translation: i made this up), because it was my "choreography" sometimes, but it often wasn't, in the closed definition of choreography i mentioned before, at least.
now i'm comparing this to live performance. if i credit eric with creating a beautiful shot for the movement (choosing to let a dancer slip out of the frame, ie at 5:50), which feels like some "ownership of the art" of that moment, do i also credit an audience member when she allows a dancer on stage to slip away from her focus while she watches another? it creates a different experience than her friend's, who continued to watch the first dancer. it could be a whole different piece. do they have some ownership in the art, then, too?
or maybe not, because they are taking responsibility for their own view, not affecting the piece of art for others, as eric's lens was?
anyway. i'm sticking to "ownership" of this as shared with my fellow creators, and the fact that it's out there at all means the world has a little bit more of my point of view in it.
3. why do we choose to move/act/stay
as friends and family have watched the film, and for me as i rewatch it, i notice viewers struck with the question "why did she decide to do that?" why did kim decide not to go through that door? why didn't britt just walk away after i ran into her? why did we get on that train? why did we all go to the beach and play in the sand?
this is really satisfying, because part of what i was exploring is what it takes to NOT do what you always do, and choose to do something different instead. you go dance on the sidewalk by the high line instead of continuing on with a busy day and a full bag. you decide to get on a train instead of letting it pass by. you choose to create something instead of just going to work and going home. et cetera.
4. a time capsule
in a different way than just a video-taped performance, the film allows me, as an artist, to remember very viscerally what some of that movement felt like. what it felt like to start sweating on the beach and have sand stuck to my whole back (i can see it). to remember what the scrape of my sneaker felt like on the pavement (i can hear it). it allows me to travel back to the moments of creation, which are the feel-in-your-gut moments of rehearsal and performance that artists are constantly chasing. the memory of the art doesn't lose-- or gain-- as much when it's always there to be re-experienced.
5. what's the point of this being out there?
another part of what i was exploring with the film medium is something that was "dance" that still exists after the fact. it's not just over, like all live performance is. it was created to be recorded; it doesn't exist without the recording, and it was created to be out there any time someone feels like looking at it.
but let's say no one ever watches it. is the world different? i think so. i think it's somehow different because a bit of me, and a bit of kim and britt and eric, has been expressed in a new way. i think that changes something. of course, there's also the potential for a change in someone's moment, or day, or how they look at a certain subway platform, when they watch. and i think the existence of that "potential energy" changes something.
isn't the world just better when folks are creating rather than coasting?
