Dance is an art in space and time - Merce Cunningham
I loved training in the Cunningham technique as a young dancer on the East Coast. His studio in the West Village was a clear, sunny space that housed his clear, organized training exercises. Coming out of the narrative-heavy and emotionally expressive traditions of Ballet and Martha Graham technique, he found a liberation in thinking, ‘A dancer is a body in motion and time.’
This concept worked for me as well. I didn’t want to put a story on dance. I didn’t want to presuppose what a dancer might feel when performing a series of physical tasks. I asked the performers to simply have an experience and let the audience see them having it.
As my approach to my work has shifted, I now see myself as an experience designer who crafts actions to occur along the timeline.
Sometimes those actions occur in and on an elaborate motion sculpture, performed by virtuosic dancers, to custom-composed music in carefully crafted costumes with specific lighting, natural or artificial, in a meticulously curated environment with an intentional background and a thoughtfully composed introduction and following activity.
Sometimes those actions entail setting the stage for the most transformative experience at the base of a 700-year-old redwood for a single traveler to embark on a deep psychedelic journey, where my choreography is a duet with the body as they ascend the ramp into the psilocybin interaction.
Sometimes those actions occur as a mommy/daughter spa and ramen day to give my child the special time she so craves.
It is all the same. Actions occur along the timeline in space. Sometimes we craft them and watch them unfold magically. We can craft the vision and then clap our hands to come into the here and now so we don’t miss the moment.