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.