During our video shoot at Vassar College last weekend, Vanessa Cheung managed to get some lovely stills with her point-and-shoot camera. It’s quite a challenge to capture this movement with the variable lighting. The motion will tend to blur creating trace forms of the fabric action. This effect, however, can produce ethereal and captivating images. Enjoy!

A few weeks ago, I saw a shared program with the choreographers Rebecca Stenn and Ben Munisteri. Each artist allowed the other to “re-mix” dances made for his or her own company. Then each re-mixed the others’ re-mix. It was fascinating exercise, seeing such thematic variations spun out in sequence. The evening proved how infinite are the possibilities of dance-making.

Choreography means making decisions. As a dance takes shape, I always have mixed feelings — excitement for the new work, of course, but also a sense of loss for all the possible dances I could have made in its place. (I especially miss the one that I had to describe with great detail in funding proposals a year in advance of its making.)

I usually console myself for the loss of un-actualized choreography (i.e. the alternate assemblages of material or all the cool moves that just don’t fit in) with “there’s always next time.” For my new piece, Forms of Dilemma, I’m letting myself make “next time” part of the process.

I just spent the past two weeks in a creative residency at Vassar College, working on version “A” of Forms of Dilemma. For this incarnation, I set the movement to Grieg’s outrageously melodic Peer Gynt Suite.

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It’s a lot easier to remember and repeat a movement when it has a name. My rehearsal process starts, literally, with “vocabulary” building. The dancers and I improvise until we come up with moves we like and then we give each one a name. Once we have a bunch of named chunks, we arrange them into sequences to fit a musical structure.

Here’s a video clip from Friday’s rehearsal during our a residency at Vassar College. The newly “coined” partner moves are: The Butterfly, Flags, Over/Under, 1/2 Umbrellas, Rainbow, Comet, Jacks, Spooning and Pacman (variations). I used YouTube’s annotation tool to label the video. You can choose to view the video with or without the labels by selecting the little carrot icon at the right corner of the video player.

I often joke with the dancers about “naming rights.” If you feel inspired to sponsor and christen a move, let’s talk!

Having been dancing with silks “a La Loie” for over a decade now, I’m always exploring new ways that the body can move in relation to fabric. In Ghosts (right, 2008), I played with juxtaposing the unison movements of two dancers, one of whom wore a Loie-style cape while the other did not. What interested me was the way that the way the “naked” dancer (Emily Lutin) appeared to shape the space around her — you could almost see the swirls of her invisible cape. We are always moving amidst dynamic unseen forces. Loie’s genius was in creating an art that made these elusive energies visible. In my work, I aim to sculpt the spiraling forces which constantly embrace us.

For my latest project, I’m playing with Loie-style flags. (These are my own invention, not conventional “flagging” flags.) Videographer Linda Lewett shot me improvising, both with my new flags and in my “old” Loie costume.

With the flags, the figure is revealed. It’s possible to see footwork and to execute more “dancey” moves. It’s also possible to cross the arms and to reverse course in ways that would ensnare the cape. I’m working here to find full-body movements that fully integrate the action of the fabric.

Linda and I are planning to collaborate on a dance-for-camera project during the company’s upcoming residency at Vassar. So today’s rehearsal was an opportunity for me to explore movement vocabulary and for her to practice shooting.

Look what I found on the uptown N/R station at 23rd Station.

choreographer at "work"

My roommate, who happens to be a triathlon competitor, asked me why whenever he sees me working out, it looks like I’m taking a nap. I have to admit that we dancers do spend a lot of time lying on the floor. Without getting defensive, I had to explain that it takes me about 45 minutes to “balance” my pelvis before I can move properly. I know it sounds half-obscene half-indulgent when I say it, but what I mean is this. The asymmetries of life pull on my bones. (Case in point, here I am sitting hunched over, legs-crossed at my computer. A moment to re-adjust.)

How do we undo life’s torques? Carefully, patiently. With micro-movements and intense awareness. I wish it weren’t so. But I do my time, nudging my sacrum a smidge this way, then that, making hints at lateral motion, then flex-ion or extension, knowing that this subtle, imperceptible work makes all the difference in being able to move fully without popping or tugging at ligaments or scraping down cartilage. I don’t want no artificial hip, ever!

The agonizingly frustrating thing about being a dancer is that you could spend all day every day working on physical skills and never arrive anywhere close to your aspirations. Or maybe this is the beauty part, that you can spend your life in pursuit of physical balance and never run out of a challenge.

As a choreographer, I sometimes wonder if my time is well-spent in this direction. Why not delegate the chore of maintaining the physical instrument to others? The “problem” is that my love of choreography comes out of a love of dancing. I can’t separate the two, yet. For me, inspiration is still physically motivated. Only after I’ve done the work–work that might look like napping–am I ready to dance and make dances.

Welcome to my new blog created by Doug Fox and designed by Joan Greenfield. I want to make dance a part of the larger conversation. I’m interested in how moving arts, physicality and sensuality relate to environmental issues, social policy, economics and history. The current financial crisis has given us a huge opportunity, individually and collectively, to re-prioritize and shift direction. I can feel the thinking changing, and fast. As a life-long urban dweller, dancer, art-maker, reader and writer, I’ve got things to say about where we are heading. A little perspective, the 1930s and the 1970s may have been tough times, but for the arts these periods of crisis were also fertile and transformative. Let’s see what we can make out of now. Stay tuned!

Kevin Colton, the official photographer of Hobart & William Smith Colleges, enthusiastically documented Time Lapse Dance’s residency there March 24-27. Once it was over, I ended up with a pile of DVDs containing no less than 3,826 images. Kevin was there for my master class, the company’s technical rehearsal in the theater, our dress rehearsal, and then, still not bored, he mounted his camera on the lighting grid to get overhead shots of the public performance.

The camera had an extreme wide-angle and Kevin sat in the audience with a remote trigger. Unfortunately, the shutter sound was clearly audible, so he was somewhat inhibited from snapping away. Moreover, a chip in his camera was partially corrupted, so only the first two pieces of the program (my solo “Clair de lune” above and “Bang for the Buck” below) were captured. However, the shots he did get were extraordinary. I was especially excited to have this perspective on my work. We’ve got a lot of great photos of repertory, but this was something new.

It’s been making me think a lot about viewpoint. Back in 2006, when developing the mirrored set piece for Roman Sketches with Philip Drew, we had discussed the idea of suspending a large mirror over the stage angled so that it would reveal an overhead vantage point to the viewer.

Other ideas that are lingering: doing a site-specific piece in a sunken auditorium so the audience is above; making a film shot from this angle; expanding this photo essay into an art project in it’s own right, i.e. a book.

One last thought, my favorite overhead film which I will re-do one day:

Monkey House intern Gaby Mervis talking with Jody Sperling. This interview originally appeared on the Monkey House blog.

GM: How and/or why did you start choreographing?

JS: I’ve always loved dancing and I can’t imagine being a dancer without making dances. My first choreography was for our high school musicals (including “Kiss Me Kate”). My first semester in college I founded a dance troupe.

GM: How do you record your choreography?

JS: Of course, video is key . . . BUT as far as notes goes . . . The first thing is that I give names to all the moves. It’s important in the process that we all agree on the same names for the steps — and I do sometimes offer “naming rights” to the dancers! I sometimes make a vocabulary “key” (eg. correspond name to sketch) and then write out the sequence of moves of the dance, along with sketches for spatial orientation. If the work is musically based, I’ll write out the timing as well.

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I recently participated in an “incubator workshop” through Ladies Who Launch, an organization that promotes female entrepreneurship. I met a terrific bunch of women who I miss already! I signed up for this experience because I’m striving to find a viable business model for a not-for-profit dance company. To be successful, it’s not enough to be a great choreographer, you also have to become an entrepreneur. Over the four sessions, we had plenty of homework that included writing a vision statement, conceiving our “launch map,” practicing an elevator speech and a gentle reminder to do something nice for ourselves everyday.

Lately, I’ve been thinking “big.” At one level, my artistic vision is growing to require higher production values, more dancers, bigger arenas (literally—we’ll be performing in a stadium in India in December). There are also more opportunities and resources for larger companies. Growing may help us to become sustainable. I am thoroughly committed to expanding TLD, and this “incubator” has helped me articulate goals in this direction and clarify a strategy.

These are the amazing LADIES I met:

Ladies Who Launch

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