This is my country!

Gamet, by Ah Hock and Peng Yu, a contemporary dance company in Singapore. This site-specific work was performed at Raffles Place, in the Central Business District of Singapore. I really like the open, green plots that Aaron Khek performs around; they are located in a little plaza between two office buildings, providing employees with a place to breath and take refuge from the concerns of work. Sort of. It's still hard to rest in that place when everyone is rushing about, even during lunch hour. But the greenery does calm one's spirit slightly.

I first experienced contact improvisation at a workshop conducted by Ah Hock and Peng Yu (also known as Aaron Khek and Ix Wong) when I was 14. I'd locked that experience away in my memory and forgot about it until now. Why did I forget it, when even then I was enthralled by the prospect of moving with another person, the challenge of always being in contact with my partner?

I wonder what things will be like when I return.

Pushing it

Today was the second day of the Emory Dance Company concert. We've been having a pretty good run so far; people have been really enjoying our piece, and that's encouraging. On Sunday after the previous post about my lunch, something changed about the way I performed the piece. We had technical rehearsal that day so we got to try out our costumes and the lighting man did his lighting design on the piece. As we ran through the piece I suddenly began to see all these moments where I add textures of meaning. Instead of just being nice or timid, I could be mischievous, sly, content, annoyed, upset. And that made things so much more fun! George, the faculty coordinator, and Lindsay, the choreographer, say that Tuesday's technical rehearsal was the day the piece finally came alive for them, but I think it came alive for me on Sunday. It just needed a few days for me to process it, get over my hang-ups, and tell the stage that I was going to dance on it and no one was going to stop me. I finally got to that point on Wednesday.

It helps that the piece's concept is so irresistible. The piece has a storyline, a great score, and movement that is energetic and sharp. Working with F to choreograph her dance made me realise how hard it is to choreograph for other people because everyone moves differently. I think Lindsay did a great job recognising my and Steph's strengths, and channeling our energy to a dance that we enjoyed and thrived on.

Tuesday's tech rehearsal, the piece came alive. Wednesday's run was great; Steph and I really connected when we danced and I felt we were both pushing our limits while performing. That night, I couldn't get to sleep because I was so worried that I would mess up on opening night and not meet George's and Lindsay's elevated expectations. That didn't happen; Thursday night was a lot of fun, partly because of the audience. I could sense that the audience enjoyed the performance, and I fed off that energy. I felt like a wicked little imp as I ran across the stage, pushing, pulling and jumping into Steph. Although I'd had only 5 hours of sleep that night, once I stepped on the stage I felt as if I'd drank three cups of coffee. I loved it!

Tonight the energy on stage was just different. I hope it wasn't noticeable from the audience, but as much as I tried to regain yesterday's magic I couldn't. Maybe I wasn't making eye contact with Steph enough; maybe I wasn't as energetic; maybe it was out of my control. Still, the audience enjoyed our piece, and my friends who came were very generous with their praise. The audience laughed at the right moments and the final bow was, as usual, very gratifying. I enjoyed dancing it, pushing my limits, but something seemed off.

This diminished audience response made me realise, for the first time, the beauty of live performances. Most of the time when I sit in the audience I feel passive; I leave all the performing to the person on the stage. Entertain me! Yet when I am entertained, and I respond by laughing or cheering or staying very very still, I am feeding this response back to the artist, who senses it and feeds off it. And even in this staged performance there is an uncontrollable factor; in this artificial environment there is humanity and understanding.

On rare occasions, when we step outside the black box, our lives are changed. That's when art is powerful. Someone once said that entertainment presents us with what we know; art presents us with the unknown. I hope that our piece, besides entertaining the audience, made the audience think a little more about human relationships.

An Inspired Lunch

When you're an Asian college student in the US trying to finish up the semester along with the 200 non-transferable dining dollars on her meal plan, you don't have time to go to a grocery store, let alone an Asian one. Unfortunately, I cannot eat bread or pasta every day; I need rice and Asian seasonings. If I can't eat a fully Asian meal, I'll make a Eurasian one. So this is what I put together.

This lunch is inspired by my roommate Kieu-thu, who likes to put everything in a bowl and mix it up.

1. Those things that look like worms in the picture? They're Korean-style anchovies (aka ikan bilis, dear Southeast Asian readers). They are also technically expired (see picture below), but I've been eating them for the past year and I'm perfectly fine. My friend Bona gave them to me to keep for her over the summer and then let me have it once she realised they were expired.


Expiry date is on the reverse of the package: it was sometime in August 2009.

2. Peas and spinach from the salad bar in Cox hall food court. A rather expensive grocery store but it'll do for now.

3. Ham from the Costco in Nashville, TN. We bought two hunks of ham over our camping trip during spring break and left them in Ju Heon's freezer when we left for the camp site. So we've been slowly working through them.

4. Rice, my own, flavoured with Justin's spicy Korean red paste. I guess you could say this meal is my take on his spicy kimchee rice.

A delightful lunch, accompanied by either an apple that was left over from spring break or an orange I grabbed from the SAAC. I haven't decided yet.

I've been depressed about dancing lately and so I went for a swim and delighted in the many other ways I can move. Right now is also the first time I'm listening to Pandora (and music in general) this week and it is very refreshing to dive into the art form of sound.

Pandora was playing Justin Timberlake and Ne-Yo just now. Very uncharacteristic of my recent state of mine, and it's nice to get out of the reflective, butoh-esque rhythm and movement I've been using lately.

Colbie Callait, by the way, did a cover of MJ's "I Want You Back", and I think it's the best thing I've heard from her ever (I'm not really a fan).

Of course, Jason Mraz just came on with his Live on Earth version of The Remedy and blew everyone else out of the water. How is he so secure in his individuality and so un-self-conscious of others? (check out his blog)

Diminishing Marginal Returns

From OrkDork.com.
http://okdork.com/2005/11/03/easy-way-to-explain-diminishing-marginal-returns/

I think I'm reaching the point of diminishing marginal returns in the semester. This is when the extra utility I'm gaining from learning is not worth the effort, time and thought I'm putting into it. I don't feel like moving anymore; my dance improvisations consist of me being very near to the floor, watching my hand move itself through the air. Drooped over one bent leg trying to balance (which is a difficult task in itself). I want to go to sleep.

Maybe it's all about sleep deprivation and rest. Whatever it is, I'm glad I finally reached this point because sometimes my voracious appetite for learning and experiencing scares me. It feels limitless. Now I know it isn't. I need to learn how to rest and get through these next couple of weeks.

Mirrored

From www.annmariehughes.net

I was working on the piece for F today and videoed myself doing some movement. Maybe I was out of it today and my body didn't feel like moving, but I didn't like what I saw on the video. What goes on in my head when I dance doesn't translate into what is seen. It's kind of like how everyone hears their speaking/singing voice differently from everyone else. You always imagine you sound/look/act better than you actually do.

I think this is what Lori means when she talks about strengthening the mind-body connection. You can see someone perform a movement, but can you get your body to replicate it? Likewise, you can feel an emotion, but can you convey it to an audience through movement? All of us do that to some extent every day: the way we walk, look, and interact with people reveals to others our state of mind. But actions can be so easily misinterpreted, and the challenge in dance is to be precise in our movements.

It was discouraging seeing myself on film. 10 hours of dancing a week for 16 weeks and this is how I look? I could see so much room for improvement: I am still too flowy, my hands are not used efficiently, my plie could be deeper, my upper body could be better articulated.

And then I reminded myself that I need to stop striving to be better and accept where I am at this moment. I didn't always spend this much time dancing, and I encountered many obstacles that discouraged me from pursuing it further. More importantly, I don't have to be good (or the best, or excellent; these are all relative terms) at something to enjoy it. Most importantly, I don't need this to validate my existence, because I will never be content if I keep clinging to superficial, transient things.

Such vanity--beauty, intelligence, talent, money, popularity. All these things ebb and flow through life, and to put our worth in them is such foolishness.

Because I'm Hungry

It's a tau sar pao! A red bean paste bun. The smooth, thick, sweet paste--I can feel it on my tongue. The fluffy skin is soft and slightly sticky, neutral flavoured and perfectly complementary.

I miss you, my dear bun.

Facilitating

I'm currently choreographing a solo for a sophomore, F, who decided to enter a pageant. She saw the Easter piece on Sunday and asked some of us if we were willing to work with her. Fresh from the excitement of the choreographing experience, I agreed. I then realised that I'd have to do this along with all the other gazillion deadlines I have to meet by the end of the semester.

It's not like I could back out, and I really was interested, anyway. F isn't a trained dancer, but she wanted to do a dance for the pageant to worship God. The pageant isn't a Christian pageant, but she still wanted to reach out to people. So--a non-dancer, doing a solo about God in a secular pageant. An interesting, irresistible premise.

F had two songs in mind--Imagine Me and More Than I Can Bear, both by Kirk Franklin. I immediately took a liking to Imagine Me; it was quieter and more lyrical, more suitable for a girl's solo. I could also see a narrative forming during the dance that I think would give it more meaning. After I explained my reasons, she agreed to use that song.



How would we come up with movements that would look good on F despite not being a dancer? We improvised. We talked about the basic concept of the song and brainstormed ideas for the story. It's simple; a timid girl is hiding in her shell and finally breaks out of it with God's help. Then we talked about ways we could depict this with movement. We sketched out a couple of movements and I watched her do it to the music. I also got her to improvise to the music and noted certain interesting movements. Then we clarified the movements and tried to stitch them together with the music.

The more we played around, the more we began to enjoy ourselves. I particularly liked watching F move. She has a very good musical sense and is unafraid to explore her imagination. She follows through on her movements and I think sometimes she gets lost while she improvises and forgets that I'm watching her. It's great to see such authenticity. As we worked through the first verse yesterday, I recalled my dance teacher Lori's words last semester, when she was also the choreographer for my EDC piece: "I see myself more as a facilitator, organising all the things you've created".

Of course, I can't have F do pedestrian-esque stuff for the entire 4 or 5 minutes, and while F enjoyed making up movement, she also asked for more "dancey" stuff. I'll have to make that up tomorrow so we can work on it on Friday. I'm excited!

I think what was most fulfilling for me at the end of that session was when F told me, "this is fun!" I was afraid that our improvisation would be disappointing to her; that she had been expecting me to create great and wonderful moves for her. But she had a very realistic understanding of her physical limitations and she came to me with a humble goal that dovetailed with mine: create a dance that uses her--her strengths and maybe even her weaknesses--to reach others. She genuinely seemed to be having fun, and I encouraged her to work with her ideas, stay with them, and not dismiss them as cliched or "un-dancey" because she's not trained.

I think that F's humility and her willingness to be used will help this piece reach others. I hope it does.

Creating/Fermenting

I think I'm slowly making a transition from absorbing to creating. I'm accepting my skills, talents and interests; my weaknesses, hang-ups, and pride. I'm making things. And it's fun!

Over the past two weeks I choreographed a dance for Easter Sunday celebration at church. When my friend Philip first asked me to choreograph, I was rather apprehensive because I'd never choreographed before. That wasn't a good reason to decline; also, even though I'd never choreographed formally, I do it all the time. I make up movements when I can't get to sleep, when I'm walking to class, when I listen to a catchy/emo/stirring song. I've been dancing so much this semester it's no surprise that it overflows into the rest of my life. So I agreed.

The task was to choreograph for the chorus of Kutless' "What Faith Can Do". The cast was a mix of dancers from various backgrounds (hip hop, jazz, tricking, and modern) and people who don't have much dance experience. I wanted to make a dance that moved, that involved hands and legs and the body. Most of the dancing I'd seen in church involved more hand motions, which I knew made sense given the space and time constraints, but I couldn't bring myself to choreograph that.

My living room became the rehearsal space as it was about the same size as the stage. I was surprised at how easily movements came to me; I had half the material down within the day Philip asked me to choreograph. The rest came in the next couple of days. I daydreamed on the way to school, mining my repository of jazz and modern moves--Lindsay, the choreographer for my Emory Dance Company (EDC) piece, once commented "we all steal from each other"--and improvised to the song again and again.

Kieu-thu was my model; I taught her the movements and watched her do it. This helped me see if they were difficult for non-dancers. I also threw in some partnering moves since there was a mix of guys and girls in the piece. When I taught the partnering stuff to the dancers, I was surprised at how easily many of them latched on, particularly the boys. I was also very thankful that they were so supporting and willing to move out of their comfort zone. Even the "trained" dancers were new to these type of partner situations.

I was also surprised at how collaborative everyone was. As a dancer in Singapore, I was trained to do what I was told and stand back to let the choreographer tweak and think. Since participating in EDC I've begun to realise that most modern choreographers see choreography as a collaborative process. I didn't think that my friends would be as vocal as they were during rehearsals, though. Their criticism and feedback was hard to take sometimes as I get very attached to my movements. We do this lift here because it's what the music and the previous movement calls for, and my body feels right doing it. My friends, however, spoke up when they felt something wouldn't look good, or that the stage was too small, or a movement was too hard to pick up.

It was a challenge learning to listen to my friends' feedback and either stand my ground or modify the choreography to form a compromise. It was also challenging teaching my friends the movements. In modern, we are given a basic shape to copy but there is leeway on how and when our individual bodies interpret the shape. A lot of times being in sync with other dancers is less important than using movement to interpret a specific point of time in the piece. (Also, personally, I need to be more on the beat when I learn combinations.) While learning the choreography, though, most of the dancers in the Easter piece seemed more concerned about blocking [where they should stand] or where exactly in the music a move should go. I had to stop and think, either to answer their question or dismiss it for later.

I choreographed the chorus of the piece on my own, and collaborated with Jonathan for the bridge. I prefer working alone because collaboration takes a lot of emotional energy out of me. Despite that, I really enjoyed what we produced. Jonathan isn't a trained dancer, but he is a guy, and guys move differently from girls. I didn't want to make an emasculating piece; I wanted the dance to honour the guys as well. I hope it did, at least a little. I came up with a short phrase for the guys and encouraged Jonathan to modify it as he saw fit. I also watched him perform it to see what things he tended to do so I could incorporate that into the choreography. Kieu-thu watched and gave us feedback on what worked, what was realistic, and what was my flight of fancy. In the end, we came up with a bridge that I was very satisfied with.

Our final rehearsal on Saturday was rough. It was then that I saw the challenge of choreographing a piece with a lot of movement. We were actually performing to two songs: one choreographed mainly by Philip and Frances and the other by me (with the rest's help). Despite my lack of emphasis on coordination, I began to realise, as I watched the videos of our rehearsals, that it was necessary to be very conscious of when we should do certain actions. Since we were performing most movements in unison, they had to be done simultaneously, in the same way. Cleaning up was very challenging for me, but luckily Philip and Frances, being part of dance teams, have a lot of experience with this. It also helped to film ourselves dancing so we could each identify our mistakes.

We were still practicing up until the performance; I was surviving on about 3 hours of sleep, having stayed up to finish my multivariable calculus homework. I completely messed up during the second run, but people still seemed appreciative. Most of all, I was really blessed that the dancers stuck with my choreography despite the rough patch the day before. I know how it feels to have to perform a piece that feels awkward on you, and while reflecting on Saturday I realised that may have been what some of my friends felt. Because of that, I was thankful for their grace toward me.

I think I'd like to do this choreographing thing more. Now I know why Lindsay enjoys choreographing!