Day 31.

well, here we are!  the end of january.  and in the vein of my 2013 mantra (focus more, worry less), here are snippets of the month's worth of choreographic ideas for one piece.

resolution 2013 from jaema joy on Vimeo.

conveniently, you can see the actual finished* piece at steps on broadway on saturday, february 2nd!  don't miss out!

so, what did i learn?  two things.

one, it's totally freeing to imagine any number of ideas for one piece, but it makes capping the ideas really difficult.  and therefore i felt a strange sense of sadness after we completed the material in rehearsal.   which reminded me of this:

"The development of an imagined piece into an actual piece is a progression of decreasing possibilities. . . Finally, at some point or another, the piece could not be other than it is, and it is done. That moment of completion is also, inevitably, a moment of loss -- the loss of all the other forms the imagined piece might have taken."   
          - David Bayles & Ted Orland in their book Art & Fear

so at least i'm not alone in this feeling!

two, it's really difficult to focus for that long on one thing! i found myself more aware of the inspiration i find in everyday life - i had different ideas on my mind, different rhythms i was inspired by, and by the act of focusing, i was able to not only create what i was focusing on, but i was more mindful of what else was happening around it.  pretty cool.


*i mean, it's never really finished.  but it's ready for a first staging. :)

Day 30, and thoughts on space & improvisation

this morning i had the amazing good fortune of being ready enough for saturday's showing that i had 15 minutes of rehearsal space that i didn't need to fill.

so one of my favorite collaborators had the idea to improv for a few minutes, because it's such an incredible luxury to have SPACE.

which we did, and my goodness it feels good to move.  it's rare, in an artist's life, to have space to use without a very specific purpose for it.  i cram my choreographic thoughts into my kitchen (as shamelessly displayed here), into my mind as the Q train crosses the manhattan bridge, in the hallways in between classes at Steps, and i really only ever get to do them full out when i'm invested in creating something on a deadline.  the show is three weeks away, this application is due, etc.

the constraints are monetary; everyone and their brother knows that open space is a hot commodity in manhattan.  i wonder about these sorts of constraints for other artists.  is this similar to what a composer feels when creating a piece of music only on a piano?  does "full out" equal "orchestration?"  does a visual artist feel this way as she dreams up and sketches up ideas before she invests in the paint and the canvas?  i'm not sure.  actually, visual artists and composers (*cough* Dan... Grace...) feel free to chime in here.

regardless, it makes me feel dizzy with possibilities to daydream about having such a space available to me whenever i wanted it.  or even just for a couple hours each morning.  or even twice a week.  it would change my work.  the constraints, of course -- the tension of creating in my kitchen -- add dimension and artistry in their own way, as constraints always do.  so who knows if the space would be crippling in its emptiness, or how it would change my movement.  but my personal opinion is that i would do well with a little more of it.

anyway.  back to improvisation.  it's obviously a big part of the choreographic process, and is the source of most of my work.  it's influenced by who i'm training with at the time, what the music is, how tight my body is feeling.  and sometimes really interesting things happen, yes.  but mostly, i know what i look like when i'm improvising.  i know what my "things" are.  my go-tos.  so how to adjust those?

when i started, in 2010, choreographing something every day to start each year, those questions were a big part of the impetus.  it's about the act of creation every day, which is important, and it's also about allowing myself the chance to observe my patterns and my tendencies, and to purposefully move a different way.  when i would create a phrase, sometimes i would look at what my body wanted to naturally do next, and i would make it do something completely different - sort of opposite.

now, of course, i've gotten used to the "opposites."  i know what my body wants to do, and i know what my analytical mind likes to make the body do when i'm being contrarian.  so how do i get to something altogether separate? as in, not related to my natural tendency at all?

i don't have the answers, naturally.  but in the meantime, here's our work from today....




january 30th improvisation from jaema joy on Vimeo.

Day 29.

a little living room improv on the diagonal.

Day 28.

a spatially-restricted version of part of the second section.

Day 27.

it has gotten distinctly harder to create hypotheticals since we worked through a first draft of the entire piece on friday.  here, though, a bit of an adjustment of the opening bit of my own role.

Day 26.

a bit of purposeful wobblyness to add to the first section, perhaps.

Day 25.

another day, another rehearsal!
constructed this morning:

Day 24.

potential for more driven movement at the end of the second section (see yesterday!)
obviously marked.  (kitchen constraints.)
food for thought for tomorrow's rehearsal!

Day 23.

got a couple people in on the act today.  rehearsal at gina gibney dance center, new york city.

Day 22.

stillness, balance.

Day 21.

continual movement as contrast to spoken word.

Day 20.

i like for you to be still.
(i pictured this straight on, but i actually like the audience as the camera's view.)

Day 19.

more kitchen phrase and self-manipulation.

Day 18.

kitchen phrase built off of the gesture of looking up and to the side.

Day 17.

halfway through the month, switching to another half of this dance idea.
music: "the resolution" by michel camilo

Day 16.

a super short gently flowing phrase in silence.

Day 15.

another day!  halfway through.

Day 14.

i like for you to be still
(but you don't.  and you keep trying to move the others, too.)

Day 13.

i like for you to be still
(but you won't)

Day 12.

after an all-day yoga immersion, the appropriate choreographic effort required an improvisation starting seated.

Day 11.

more kitchen choreography.

Day 10.

a bit of kitchen choreography to do with extended tailbones and leading with feet.

Day 9.

movement improvisation in silence.

confusion & non-negotiables

i was inspired today by a post by an amazing friend to write a little bit about my current state of mind as a 20-something artist, living in new york.  (as if there aren't enough introspective pieces of writing done by self-absorbed young artists living in new york.  also, appallingly, some of my personal politics are included.   ...you've been warned.)

alongside my normal yearly christmas festivities and end-of-year reflection, i caught the terrible bug that everyone in this city seems to have, and i tell you, i haven't been this down and out for this long in my adult life.  (i took less time off of normal activity when i was hit by a car last year.)  i'm of the opinion that i caught a pretty nasty bug, yes, but it hit me as hard as it did because i'm more susceptible now than i have been in my adult life.

i'm almost three years into this experiment i call being a full-time artist.  if i break this down to the constraints imposed by my past and present lifestyles, this means i went from working sixty hours a week plus at a job that engaged me mentally but didn't fulfill me, to working on projects that are endlessly challenging and utterly fulfilling; i took a salary cut of more than 65% and a rent increase of approximately the same; creative work went from being my weeknight/weekend release to being my near-daily focus.  these are choices i made willingly, and i would make them over and over again.  i am not complaining about my choice to leave a career path that promised financial stability - i worked hard for that job and in that path, and i'm grateful every day for the skills, education, and support i've been given throughout my twenty-six years.  if stability was the priority, i could have it.  i have the tools.

but it's not, and i don't, and that's okay.  i live in brooklyn in a small rented apartment that i adore.  i budget every penny i earn, and i make choices that i feel good about (i have an iphone and an old macbook, i buy groceries to cook interesting things and eating out is a special occasion, i bought myself two pairs of leggings and three pairs of socks as my fall/winter 2012 clothing allowance, i debate heavily about whether or not i'm sick enough to pay the $50 insurance copay to go to urgent care).  i'm young, i'm mostly healthy, i am only supporting myself, and i'm actually pretty proud of myself for making it all work.

i was prepared for this to be difficult.  i was not prepared for how deeply exhausting this is.  i am, for our intents and purposes, pretty disciplined, energetic, motivated, and i generally feel powerful in the decisions i make for myself.  my beliefs about finance and the economy are a little more conservative than they statistically are likely to be, and i do feel that it is my job to figure this stuff out for myself.  there was an article floating around during election time that resonated with me.  it focuses on personal responsibility (that conservative ideal that appeals to me) and how cognitively exhausting it is to be poor, and it goes on to say that the wealthy often don't understand the constant barrage of choices and weighing priorities that people living in poverty are going through.

now let's be real:  i had a pretty darn privileged childhood and adolescence, and i live a pretty great life right now.  i'm not claiming to be really on either end of this.  i haven't wallowed in wealth and i haven't been hit hard by poverty - i have always lived somewhere in the middle.  what i have noticed, though, is a distinct shift in how much energy it takes to operate day-to-day, just in different parts of that middle.

in chicago i used to use my spare time getting drinks with friends, going to dance classes and the gym, and navigating my way through self-producing dance work, fronting the money from my savings and paying myself back in ticket sales.  now, all i want to do in my spare time is sit quietly and just not think.  i used to have all this motivation to chase dreams in my free time.  now, more and more, i am just trying to find a way to give myself a break.  the creative ideas are still there - i do believe i am honing my voice as an artist and getting ever closer to work that is authentically what i'm going for.

it is just ridiculously, prohibitively exhausting to churn them out.

this shift in energy wears me out, stresses me out, and i believe made me extra susceptible to the nasty virus i'm getting over.  but most of all, it confuses me.  it's a paradigm shift.  i've always been able to count on a determined spirit and creative energy in myself, and now it's getting buried with "can i pay for this dance class and still be able to buy enough food next week?"  my energy and decision-making abilities have been nearly depleted by day-to-day life, so i feel confused about my career, my art, myself.

so what to do?  how do i remain effective as an artist, a friend, an employee?  how do i be the person i want to be?  how do i not sleep twelve hours a night and watch Say Yes to the Dress all day?  well, my friends, i don't know.  but i'm going to try focusing on the things i consider non-negotiable.

the person i want to be - the person i am - is generous with time, attention, talent, money.  the person i want to be am is committed to creativity.  the person i want to be am is warm and friendly and funny.  the person i want to be am is an inspiring dance artist who tells stories through movement.  she rolls with the punches.

so i'm going to go with that.  things are going to feel confusing, and i'm going to figure it out.  i'm also going to go with a little generosity towards myself.  i'm going to say the fact that, 8 days into 2013, i'm already torn up with worry about this being the year everyone says "gee that jaema really had something going but she just fell apart" means i probably still have enough energy left to make some sh*t happen this year, no?

Day 8.

an edited floorwork improvisation around a steady pace of movement.

Day 7.

allllright.  i was stuck on the idea of exploring controlled movements from positions of the body that are difficult to control.  the plank variation was definitely not interesting enough, and neither is this, really, but it's a step in the right direction, and more of an adrenaline-producing challenge in my body than two days ago.

i wanted to film this one a second time, change the leg movements and the placement of the body relative to the audience, but i did some kickboxing this afternoon and my core/shoulders were like "screw you, it's 11:30pm, we're done here."

Day 6.

today is an improvisation on the idea of the limbs being "referred to" as connected (it's a little superficial, a little distal, not really cohesive) in a way to reflect what's happening inside, ie, contraction.

Day 5.

today, still contemplating the idea of constant movement in the face of a soundtrack talking about stillness.  i am kind of into the defiance of it.

further cramped video recording choreographic cliff notes.  i think i would use this concept as a structured improv in rehearsal as well.

so i chose a base body position that requires some effort - in this case, a little ab work - and this is an improv based on a plank.  (my knees actually aren't down, even though they're hidden behind my bed...)

Day 4.

"i like for you to be still"

... so what if the mover is decidedly *not* still?  this idea i explored by creating a short phrase, in silence, that felt like one continuous pace or one consistent momentum.

also realllllly feeling the limits of apartment video recording.  these choreographic cliff notes will become what i actually imagine them to be given a teensy bit more space!  but until then....

Day 3.

Well, it's happened.  I have this choreography resolution and I end up at 8pm, at home, with no actual space to choreograph anything big, and I resort to.... gestures!

This is not new.  Sometimes it is woefully unsuccessful, and other times it actually ends up being an opening to a show.

Jury's still out on this one... I'm interested in the idea of multiple styles or modes of movement (full-body, articulated gesture) with stillness for this piece, so we'll see where it goes.

Day 2.

a couple of reflections/disclaimers for today:

1. i took class today for the first time in a couple weeks.  this is actually the first activity more strenuous than climbing the stairs to my apartment that i've done in two weeks, as i was hit by a nasty virus and more laid out than i have been in my adult life.  as i wobbled and shook my way through balances and developes, i was struck by how much of my body and my ability i take for granted: two weeks of illness and inactivity and i was already so out of shape!  on the flip side, these legs are pretty incredible to stay as supple and strong as they do on a regular basis. sigh, gratitude.  sigh, humility.

2. please forgive the terrible lighting and dumpy sweater outfit.  (reference the above... it's an accomplishment that i'm not wearing pajamas.)

3. the name of this poem is "i like for you to be still."  there is so much to work with, in only that title! i'm starting my improv of today and yesterday with a play on stillness and movement.

.... i also added video to yesterday!
here's today.

Day 1.

Well, happy new year!

It's been a big day already: Northwestern University won its first bowl game since 1949, I saw some fireworks in Prospect Park, and my apartment is so clean.

Additionally, I made an intention for 2013 and taped it to my fridge:

I'm really great at worrying.  I have noticed, though, that as I am now an adult, with a lovely support system, I can usually figure out how to work my way through whatever situation comes up, and worrying about it doesn't really do anything for me.  (I expect this "no worrying" policy will fly out the window when I have kids someday, right Mom?)  For now, I'm trying it out.

In light of this, I have decided to focus, for 30 days, on the new piece of choreography I'm working on. While I have focused on and reworked pieces (sometimes in 3 or 4 performed iterations, countless rehearsal iterations), I'm curious about what it's going to be like to focus on the same piece, every day, for all of January.

The first bit of the piece is set to a reading of a Pablo Neruda poem.  The second bit is a solo piano piece.  Today's work is set to the poem... and is not videotaped.  It is now!(It turns out, my everyday life right now doesn't provide much access to open spaces, so I need to figure that one out!)  It's in my body after a living-room-marked-jam, and it'll be on here in one of the next posts. It's posted below, videotaped January 2nd.

Here's to a focused 2013!