further ... O-WHITE

tonight I saw "traces & resonances" a series by performer Sato Endo and cellist Nina Hitz at Roodkapje Rotterdam (NL) with guest artist Lukas Simonis.

(see here an earlier example from their performance-series)

they managed to arrive at a nearly Cage-ian exchange of energies, whether it was movement of sound or body in the space freely interacting. the reactions went very well towards each other, each of the three performers acted in basic independence but with open responsibly to the other two, including the presence of the audience.
i was a bit missing the inclusion of or at least awareness / acknowledgement of the streets and passers-by outside, because Roodkapje on the Meent has these giant windows which open the enire room towards the street and the people passing by. i find it is such a traditional box-theatre thing to do. however there was one moment towards the end when Sato was slowly turning her head from side to side, acknowledging the cars that we could hear outside.

while I found that the number of audience was perfect for the size of the space and number of active performers, i also had the idea that in a larger city like e.g. New York, there would be simply much more energy concentrated, available, even just as a background against which such a performance could happen.
the state of con·sens·us was come very close to and present internally, although there was the focus inward within the venue, and a larger amount of independence between the performers.
i did write two more or less understandable Japanese haikus, one at the beginning and one at towards the end of the performance, and Sato and her friend Aki were very friendly and encouraging about them.

what got me really interested during the 2nd half was the idea that I should try to continue from where I thought they were, reach a sensorial consensus with my surroundings, and then go into a solo without music or other accompaniments than just what has already been . seeking a point of silence-zero-nothing, a kind of white where all of the sensorializing and calibrating-adjusting-tuning would flow into ONE thing, and to see what could go on from there and happen from that state of being ...
it would have to be a state where individuality would no longer be important, a kind of white energy that has absorbed all the colored movements before, the near-death experience of creating forms.
Hans Zender describes in his book "Happy New Ears" (a quote by John Cage)(1991) how from this near-death experience of art-making, comes the nothingness in which new experience, the experience of purely just being, can once again take place. any following making of forms, from this experience, would be a very different thing and matter. and definitely energy.
Gertrude Stein in her lecture "What Are Masterpieces and Why Are There So Few of Them" mentions a similar thing, namely that a master piece may talk about identity, but that there must be none involved in its creation, because as soon as identity happens, memory comes into play ("you are you because your little dog knows you") and "creation breaks down". this is a very difficult thing for any live performer, certainly a dancer or actor who communicate via their own presence, but possible when we succeed in maintaining this place of identity without interfering the realm where there is none.

just like Zender states that this experience of near-death of art ends the linearity of Western art-development of emancipation from any kind of convention until sensorial perception itself is left to be free, echoes with Mary Overlie's statement of Postmodernism leading into a circular situation where several languages of art interact with each other, without hegemony of any single one over another. (mentioned during her teaching at DANCE UNLIMITED, Sept 2002, not on this website -yet)

being so involved in working a part-time job and making projects with amateurs and communities (Delfshaven Dans! - uitnodiging aan stiekeme dansers) I doubly cherish the presence and opportunity to have these collegues working and living in this city of nearly 600.000 inhabitants to further such specialized concerns and helping me understand and think further in this direction as well - thank you! :-)

spoken en schimmen - ghosts and appearances

currently I am creating a choreography and joint dramaturgy for a performance of "Erste Walpurgisnacht" by Rotterdam choir Toonkunst, which is to be presented on June 25th in the Laurenskerk in Rotterdam. The story tells of two tribes, one Christian, one (formerly) pagan, oppressed by the Christian tribe. In order to continue their old tradition of honoring their superior deity, the pagan tribe assembles torches and rattles etc. to create the impression of a Devil's Night in the mountains, howling and making lots of noise. the strategy works: the Christian guardians run away in horror and the pagan tribespeople can put up a great flame (bonfire?) to honour their Superior All-Father. this story was written by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and put to music later by Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy.

I realize as I go along that I, too, am touching upon various cultures.
the piece is created within the inofficially still ruling Dutch bourgeoisie, who are (for the most part) comfortable enacting such a story from their understanding. some Christian members of the choir however, chose not to participate in this performance.

now I am looking for pieces of religions that today I perceive as having a similar quality: bringing to the edge of understanding, practised by a socio-politically oppressed group of people, often defamed or denied - Candomblé in Brazil, Gnawa music in Morocco - Afro-American Spirituals? Celtic rites? Trance-music from the Raves of the 1990's? or "just" left-overs from e.g. Spring processions and Masked Dances from many parts of Europe with e.g. the advent of Spring, Epiphany (around January 6th) etc etc.

and I realize that I, too, must be very careful towards my commissioners who asked me to merely create dance that accompanies their vocal-performance: how far is it reasonable to go? how much light, challenge will be OK, what will be too much?

can I insert a reference to Palestine & Jerusalem without, figuratively, blowing up the Church and risking to 'bore' the expected audience of 800 people?

I do want to make a re-interpretation from and for the 21st century, but obviously I must not simply force my views on others. (that would be soooo 20th century and before that ...)
and although it was agreed that it is OK if I create a dance that questions the more simplistic, paternalistic perspective of the original story by Goethe from the 19th century, how to make that real?
I find important to challenge those points of supremacy, while the story itself is a perfect example for the unwillingness to give up traditionally inherited patterns, actually the necessity to continue practicing them, especially when they are connected to one's endangered survival due to oppression by another group.
being an intercultural person myself, I have experienced many times how important it is to re-iterate and re-perform certain songs, words, poems, records, videos that have been imbued with so much emotional content in my own past. (obviously not nearly being so threatened as countless other people on this planet at the same time)

do & see ~

Invitation to Secret Dancers - Rotterdam 2011

This coming Friday I get to realize another edition of Elaine Summers' "Invitation to Secret Dancers" as introduction to a neighbourhood-dance event in Het Oude Westen (the old West) a very multi-cultural neighbourhood in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. The performance happens in collaboration with the Elaine Summers Dance & Film Archives and is a part of the ongoing project "Elaine Summers Dance Scores", where several of her works from the 1960s until today are collected, together with data on first performers, archival photos, footage etc.
Also, we are honoring the call of UNESCO for the yearly International Day of Dance, this year promoting dance in public spaces ...  
click here for the Dutch blog with more information about participants, photos, and videos


realisation 2010 on the Schouwburgplein, Rotterdam
What keeps fascinating me is that while the dance may appear 'easy' and is designed to be very accessible, it is actually quite a challenge for anyone involved: the dancers have to be very sensitive to the presence of the passing-by audience who they make contact with and invite to dance. They also must maintain an acute sense of actions around them and have a sense for how they can contribute to it.
And any Secret Dancer coming by may still feel like having to overcome barriers of not being used to dance in public, before letting go and happily joining the dance in their own way, rather than simply exercising a prescribed dance routine. (which might, however, be a possible option)

for a wonderful realisation of "Invitation to Secret Dancers" 
by Elaine Summers Dance & Film Co. at CEC Solar 1 in New York, 2005 click here

"Invitation to Secret Dancers" is very clearly an outstretched hand / arm / limb / gesture towards anyone, inviting and enabling them to dance, and potentially encouraging them to find their own dance as they go along. I find that this is an ongoing theme in her work. By originating Kinetic Awareness® Elaine Summers has even developed an entire technique / practice where students are developing just that, under guidance from a teacher - their very own way to move and dance. "Invitation to Secret Dancers" deals with the fifth and final phase of Kinetic Awareness® where after articulation, coordination, speed and tension-levels, the practitioner deals with relating one's own sense of movement to those of others.


Dance Scores
Just like many of the dance scores that Elaine has created throughout her career, I understand this dance as a tool for empowerment, directly in line with other works such as "Illuminated Workingman" or "One and One and One and One". The artistic background is one that practices inclusiveness of all kinds of movement in their own right, from the very start, without giving up either trained or untrained vocabulary, but rather understanding both as being in a continuum, and accepting each for its own potential. Aesthetics become perception again, just like is suggested by the Archaic Greek term 'aisthesis', taking for true, rather than merely a specified design that is accepted as "beautiful" or "desirable".

By interpreting the score for the dance, anyone involved can learn more about the subject of the dance itself. This, too, is very much in line with many of Summers' dance scores - another example could be "Walking Dance for Any Number" where one becomes acutely aware of ways to walk, simply by closely following the instructions.

Doing this dance, I find myself becoming ever more fine-tuned and able to make contact and have possible communication with potential strangers in public space, an issue that I've met with over almost 15 years of producing and performing work in public spaces (see below a first production with "Invitation to Secret Dancers" as part of the series con·sens·us in 2004)
But I also find I become ever more aware and able to formulate possible kinds of choreography that can be included to become a part of "Invitation to Secret Dancers". 

And so on we go ... as Elaine likes to say: Merry Dancing!



uitnodiging aan stiekeme dansers / Invitation to Secret Dancers has been realized with Natalie Dupon, coordinator of Neighbourhood Park Het Oude Westen (the Old West, a neighbourhood in Rotterdam) with thanks to Corrie Kreuk, Culture-Scout Menno Rosier / SBAW, Bernadet van Winden / SKVR and Janine Brall / Studio Yoga Maya. The overall event has been made possible by grants from the Rotterdam Arts Council, Stg. Bevordering van Volkskracht, Alliantie West-Kruiskade, Stadsmarinier, and a large number of volunteers - thank you very much!

inside - out

these past two weeks I've had the luck of seeing several dance performances: the improvisational presentation of Ivo Dimchev as a guest of Baila Louca and Para|Diso by Emio Greco | PC.

having seen and enjoyed much of Conny Janssen's piece 'zout' which uses live-guitar music and some video-projection, having seen her in an interview-show on television, i realised that she is able to move and interact on the same level as Dutch people in general, which allows her to become a mainstream-accepted choreographer in the Netherlands (and certainly in Rotterdam, where her company is one of the main modern dance companies of the city, next to the Scapino Ballet, Rotterdam Dance Works and the Meekers)

nearly finishing my own video of my contribution to Elaine Summers' "SKYDANCE / SKYTIME / SKYWEB improvisation with sun, moon, stars" I realised today that all of us essentially choreograph on the same level, because we make intentional choices to influence events that create the experience of a dance which can be witnessed, experienced, and in some way or other appreciated by present public in a social setting. this is the same for all of us and it happens on a directional level.

i also noticed however how we each can fall short on the fulfilment of what we set out to do.
in the case of the mainstream work, i found that the sensorial experience was not always fulfulling what was promised by the choreography, it hinted at what may have been intended, but i found that the dancers did not always have sufficient kinesthetic understanding of their own physicalities to realise the intended movements, let alone having space for the quality of dreams and their un-directedness, unless one choses to consciously interfere, such as in waking-dreaming or day-dreaming. (i learned very much about this value during my particpation in Ione's 15th Annual Dream Festival, on invitation by Elaine Summers Dance & Film Co.)

to put it short:
they do arrange reality in a certain way that has been accepted, but in my own experience there is more to life that is bypassed by these choreographies.
one could say meta-level and micro level, the meta-level being 'culture' the micro level our universe as it is every day in any detail of our living being etc.
throughout time there are always other people who do feel the necessity to realise a way of directing / meta, that is more in synchronicity and understanding of the micro.

any scientist, any philosopher, but also any artist, any professional at all (peasants, bakers, priests etc.) have areas that they are researching, finding out about, in their own time, exactly about problems arising from such macro-micro mismatches

< the wonders of life & existence


< level of conscious direction, focussing


< wonders of life & existence


in my own work, i came to let go of any 'meta'-level until i had more explored from the micro-. this has lead me to the Kinetic Awareness® work of Elaine Summers, and the work of Mary O'Donnell-Fulkerson, Mary Overlie and, again, many other teachers, where such explorations can happen without demanding that a preset meta-level must be met as a result in order to be acceptable (as does happen in forms of Yoga, or TaiChi, or Bartenieff Fundamentals, or in fact any set of movements that are codified into a 'language', similarly in archaic societies that recognize only one set of specific possible choices in design)

gradually, I was more and more able to re-relate the micro to the macro, and now have forms that have in themselves the conscious understanding of change being embedded in the choreography itself as a vital and decisive component. this is a demand I also make towards my own culture: that the ability of change be inherent and acknowledged as a fundamental part of any large-scale cultural system that wishes to remain alive and developing over longer stretches of time. (and be able more resiliently to deal with catastrophes or minor events of crisis)

the study of Open Form Composition at DANCE UNLIMITED in Arnhem was a great clarifying tool to learn, and it helped me to understand choreographies for dance-pieces as growing entities, that are moving, changing, have their own energetic conditions over time, and can give these excitements to others watching.

so who knows, after all, i might as yet be able to cross the bridge and make more and more people appreciate that what they may think of as a 'lack of choreography' '(too)ephemeral' etc. is not only very much adherent to the ephemerality of dance as in our life, but also can give very many vital components to any kind of culture, therefore being worthy of support.



[ "it's not impossible to - TURN IT IN-SIDE OUT ..." ;-) ]

Hosni Mubarak stepped down after 30 years of Power

I have been following Egypt with excitement these days, like so many of us. It is wonderful to feel the excitement and energy that is in the air. Democracy Now! and Facebook have been my favorite sources of information.

Movement is movement is movement :-)

Chatting with a friend of mine in Alexandria, I remember the blog I wrote at my very first visit to Egypt http://alexandriaconsensus.blogspot.com This has obviously made me more concerned.

What got me especially were the fact that so many people got to organise themselves and together with each other. It reminded me of the term 'responsible anarchy' coined by Mary O'Donnell-Fulkerson , originally a choreographic practice (to read more from here as an excerpt online you can click here or go to her website directly to download her book 'release')

many more people I find related, you can find their mentions further on this blog: Elaine Summers and her long-term work, many, many more artists, thinkers, originators, etc. etc. etc.

and so we are in movement ....

Elaine Summers: Improvisation with Sun, Moon, Stars - Danspace @ St. Mark's Church, New York City - March 2010"

From March 15th until April 2nd I once more got to enjoy the privilege of being an invited artist-in-residence at the Elaine Summers Dance & Film Company, made possibly by a generous grant from the Kinetic Awareness® Center and private hosts Harriet Bograd & Kenneth Klein, as well as Rachel Cohen / racoco productions

The occasion was the 3-day show "Improvisation with Sun, Moon, Stars" performed March 18, 19, and 20 at Danspace Project @ St. Mark's Church, as part of the series "Back to New York City" curated by Juliette Mapp.

It was a most fruitful experience and I came back, once again, filled with impressions, learning, wonderful experiences, and above all, inspiration that is gradually unfolding to bring me further than I thought possible.


The Concert:

Summers presented a continuous line of development from completely abstract and "difficult" to a very approachable and friendly ending.

film still from "Absence & Presence" 1968-1987 ©by Elaine Summers

The evening started with "Absence & Presence", a film-dance lasting 8 minutes, no sound, projected onto an old-style screen of the type one could once find in class-rooms.
While I thought I was well used to the ways I could enjoy Summers' work, this one challenged me once more: 12 minutes of shots of body parts moving, in black and white silhouettes, completely silent, so abstracted that -semiotically speaking- the movie is indexical, suggesting relationships and sensation, rather than iconic and presenting easily identifiable images from the world around us.

Once again Summers succeeded in challenging ingrained habits of perception, and goes on for 8 minutes, as it seemed to me without regard for dramaturgical development or climax, these seemed irrelevant for this dance. (Summers regularly creates films which are a dance, in extension of the once-hallmark Judson regard for any movement, including so called-pedestrian every day actions as viable dances and art)

Instead of being contained in conventional forms, the film became an experience for which there is as yet no habit, no ready-made set of keys or standards for interpreting business-as-usual. It took me until the third showing to actually get to enjoy the sensations based on what my mind had learned by then.


(excerpt from the original filmdance)

The next item went one step further: "Two Girls Downtown Iowa", made in 1973 during an artist-in-residency at Iowa University (with thanks to Professor Hans Breder, who pioneered the Intermedia Department of this University) again is a silent film-dance in black & white, no sound, and lasts 11 minutes. But this time we can identify see two women dancing together on a street in downtown Iowa in a single shot and single take. The film was recorded on a high-speed camera: when it is projected with a standard-machine, the result is one of equally distributed slow motion.

This movie not only lets the viewer experience the abandon and rush of dancing, which at times is so close to flying in the air, that old dream of mankind, now evoked by sequences of both dancers floating in the air - but it also blurs the distinction between intentional dancers and passers-by of the street: because the camera doesn't move from its opening-shot, when the women leave the frame or become small specks in the background, suddenly the daily pedestrians become prominent, their motions too, slowed down to be enlarged and tasted.
(notice the similarity of this strategy with the first phase of Summers' revolutionary movement approach Kinetic Awareness® where moving one body part at a time, as slowly and as relaxedly as it will go, creates a heightened sense of one's body in movement and a general sense of well-being, literally allowing enough time for sensations to become more clearly perceptible)

The film-dance demonstrates to me an early understanding of dance as a phenomenon of our everyday lives and makes it possible to sense the variations between letting the body move its ways and doing this with a projected goal like e.g. to cross the street, walking home, sitting down etc.


(excerpt from the original filmdance)

"Windows in the Kitchen" filmed 1976 for the famous Kitchen New Music and Video Center in New York City, opens up one further phase: the small-projection screen is taken away by a dancer who comes jumping in with a huge leap in white workingman's overall (courtesy of Thomas Körtvélyessy / Reàl Dance Company) - the next projection hits the large white wall of the altar-side of St. Mark's Church. The film-dance shows the late Matt Turney, long-time member of the Martha Graham Dance Company and student of Elaine Summers for Kinetic Awareness®, moving along the windows of the kitchen, filmed in color (camerawoman: Paula Court) showing several shots and angles of Turney ever so refinedly balancing and lightly shifting her weight as she moves along the windows.
This time there is live-music by John Gibson on the flute, travelling through the space, which opens up the ears after about half an hour of concetrated silence, ... and live-dance in the church space by Douglas Dunn, himself a most prominent 2nd generation Judson choreographer and dancer from the 1970's onward, dances a duet with the larger-than-life projection of Turney: sometimes funny, sometimes purely poetic and stilled in magic, adding the 3rd dimension of actual space of the church and his direct physical energy.

Seeing all together made me understand once again the crucial importance of timing and dynamic-phrasing of energy in space, which is so essential in performance, but especially in an improvisation. His delicacy of listening to his own flow of movements and character and Turney's recorded, visually projected movements, plus Gibson's live flute, formed an experience of sheer magic and poetry, an entire conversation about the ageing dancer, reproduction of a person who has passed away and one who is still alive, here, stillness, listening, absurdity, serenity, and humour.

The evening progressed to a quartet of four women: Dr. Jill Green, Professor of Somatics at the Dept. of Dance at the University of North Carolina, Dr. Meg Chang, dance-therapist and professor in Adult Education, Gabriella Hiatt, and Kiori Kawai who danced an interpretation of Summers' "Crow's Nest" from 1980, to a live-performance of the original music by Pauline Oliveros, sung by a choir of 12 people who were positioned around the upper balcony of the Church.
Here, the score consists of the full-color movie showing Birchtree Forest, Ocean, Desert, and Desert Flowers, again projected against the full wall of the altar-side of the Church.
The dancers interpret the film by partly improvising, partly performing set choices made to certain moments in the movie.
Again, the dance was intergenerational: two of the performers were in their mid-twenties, one in her mid-forties, one in her mid-fifties. All four dancers are following other full-time professions as well, but for this production they worked as professional dancers. And again all the participating media were blended together: projection, colors, singing, movements.

Rather than using the original installation of silk-stripes arranged along a cube-structure, Summers chose to show the movie in larger-than life-size, which made a special challenge for the dancers to use the upper half of the projection efficiently. There were several moments like Kiori Kawai's beautiful still moments where she blended together with the enlarged flowers, or Meg Chang's walking along the image of the desert and riding the waves projected behind her. Gabriella Hiatt performed beautiful arabesques and extensions and Jill Green used her costume of a floating night-gown as an extra projection-screen.
The sound of the chorus singing mesmerized in its clarity and aural opening up of the entire church as a space to be in acoustically.


(excerpt from the performance of "Skydance" at the 2nd Intermedia Festival, University of Iowa, 1984)

Finally came "Skydance / Skytime / Skyweb" an assembly of elements of the original "SkyDance", rearranged by Elaine Summers for the specific conditions of the Church and performed by a total of 9 dancers, including all the previous ones. Following the diversity of styles and approaches which is so characteristic for the overall work of Elaine Summers, this dance was completely unlike her other work: its style, structure, design, and music all had a 1930's feel to it, almost that of a dance-revue, performed to the very exuberant and varied original music of original SkyDance composer Carman Moore, played live by his ensemble: there were narrative elements, romance, humour, conflicts, and again interaction with this time 6 different video-projections.

Some unforgettable moments:
- Kiori Kawai and Kevin Ho, positioned at the very beginning in silence in the niches on either side of the back wall of the church, while Gabriella Hiatt stands in the middle holding up a small blinking light - against a projection of a blue and orange galaxy in the middle and a sun above Ho and a moon above Kawai: strongly reminiscent of the feature-sequence known of Columbia pictures with its iconic woman holding up a torch...
- a passionate, at times nearly romantic duet by the Sun & Moon characters, interpreted with daring contact-acrobatics by Kawai and Ho, echoed later in a mesmerizing duet by dancers Marion Ramirez and her husband Jeong-wong Kim, and finally in a hilarious and original duet danced by Hiatt and Douglas Dunn, both wearing costumes that suggest 1930's style pilot-outfits, with perfect comedian timing.
- stilled, beautiful solos by Elke Luyten and by Meg Chang, both making full use of their very own unique qualities as dancers and their costumes.
- an unforgettable solo by Jeong-wong Kim in which he dances in and out of the performance space, in perfect sync and partnership with the spiralling galaxies on the floor, at times using shades of movements from traditional Korean dancing, moves out of contact improvisation, and his very own incredibly physical talent which surpasses any single style of movement.

- and finally group moments: Dragons vs. Birds, using single characteristic moves for each; the 'comet' section lead by Kiori Kawai holding up a long veil of white tull and followed by the other dancers joyfully running with wonderful impact and childlike abandon on a circle, then cutting across the diagonal from downstage left to upstage right before dispersing again.

Finally, there is a solo section in which every dancer of the evening comes out wearing shiny, glittering, and diversely colored costumes, freely improvising through the entire space with the abandon of eight year old children who enjoy a moment of play, against a projection of recordings from the very first performances of "SkyDance" during the second Intermedia Festival at Iowa University in 1984, ending with running along in a circle and clapping, applauding the audience before taking a final bow.

This happy, magical atmosphere was continued into an "Invitation to Secret Dancers" another long-time classic by Summers, this time directed by Harriet Bograd (who together with her husband Kevin Klein very generously allowed me to stay at their homely and welcoming apartment and providing a space of rest and joy)
The dance was accompanied to an original score composed again by Carman Moore and performed by his ensemble, this time quoting jazz and big-band music from the 1940s and 1950s. White, large helium filled balloons and umbrellas made extra canvasses for the multiple projection of original footage from the performance of "Flowing Rocks / Still Waters" of Summers from 1987 done at Lincoln Center, New York, in a part of the complex that has since then been rebuilt.


conclusion:

In this concert Elaine Summers arranged a large portion of her palette as a choreographer, film-maker, and intermedia-artist, a sample of the sheer range of diversity that she is capable of creating, arranged in an incrementing order from indexic and abstracted, all the way through to participatory and directly inviting.

While there are certain premises underlying all of the dances, e.g. that there is a great emphasis on the moment of actual interpretation by the individual performers, depending on the specific structures and intentions of the dance, helped by the long-term study of Kinetic Awareness® and related body-mind exploring approaches, or the demand that any costume always be body-friendly, not limiting the range of expression of the dancers, Summers defies a single, identifiable look, or method, or certainly any single style or let alone what these days is called 'branding'.
Rather she irreverently and diligently is producing an enormously diverse variety of possible uses of the human individual bodymind to produce unforgettable moments of art and conversation between elements of a performance, be those dancers, media, or the audience completing the event.

It was a tremendously instructive learning experience for me in many respects: choreographic structures in real time and in relation to the individual interpreters, the use of video-projection in a given space with its specific qualities and asthetic challenges and its various possibilities to interact with the actual performing space and the audience's ingrained habits of watching a dance.

Even though my own activities were very relaxed in comparison to earlier, more stressful residencies, my mind was filled with singular and individual moments of being in relation to a reality around me, with a hard-working group of people realizing a vision and spirit of one pioneer and instrumental artist that has created not just one but continuous moves forward in expanding what dance can be understood as today.

credits -
choreographer and filmmaker: Elaine Summers
realized in collaboration with the dancers: Kiori Kawai, Douglas Dunn, Jeong-wong Kim, Marion Ramirez, Meg Chang, Jill Green, Kevin Ho, Elke Luyten, and Harriet Bograd

music: John Gibson (Windows in the Kitchen) Pauline Oliveros (Crow's Nest) Carman Moore (SkyDance SkyTime SkyWeb - and - Invitation to Secret Dancers)

curator: Juliette Mapp, Judith Taylor-Hussey
production: Danspace Project @ St. Mark's Church, with special thanks to Abigail Ramsay and Abby Harris-Holmes


special acknowledgements:
My residency was made possible through a generous grant by Kinetic Arts & Sciences / Kinetic Awareness® Center, the kind hospitality of Kevin Klein and Harriet Bograd, as well as Rachel Cohen / Racocoproductions, with special thanks to Deborah Goldberg, Lily Cohen, and Jenneth Webster.

Kind support in the Netherlands came from: Bruno Listopad / Stg. Disjointed Arts, gallery Mirta Demare International Art, Pauline de Groot /Stg. Dansstudio Pauline de Groot.

I would like to thank all the dancers for their continued friendship and all the interactions we've had, and for continuing to make me feel part of the company in my own right, their continued support and energy, and those many wonderful moments of being allowed to witness them dance.
Dr. Thomas Houser was a delightful and exemplary presence for me during this trip.

Juliette Mapp, Judy Taylor-Hussey, and the staff at dancspace project realized an incredible production assistance and above all a wonderful PR for this evening: as a result, articles and announcements appeared in TimeOut New York, and reviews in the New York Times, as well as several other newspapers.

Finally I would like to specially thank Elaine Summers for the many years of her generosity, kindness, and continued inspirational learning experiences.

Thank you ~ ...


(note as of July 23rd, 2010: several errata have been reviewed and corrected)

danslab: gender on the dancefloor March 6th & 7th 2010

a very special meeting initiated at Danslab Den Haag (NL) with choreographer Jack Gallagher. more information here