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.
<3
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