Yesterday was our last class and rehearsal at Harbour Dance. After a relatively quick warm-up, the morning was again spent refining specific moves, including the rotation of our heads and torsos on the monkey step, and then the leg lifts (or swings, as Barbara would say) on the sixes that follow. Given how long we spent on each move, I'm guessing we didn't succeed in perfecting anything to either Jay or Barbara's satisfaction.
After an early lunch we talk-walked the piece through once, and then ran it for the first time without music from start to finish. According to Barbara, we were "terrible." In fact, I think there was only one big disaster, and that was when the two circles are meant to cross in the first part of her section--which in this case got a bit chaotic and messy. We went back over that bit, and improved the second time around, but it's likely to be a whole other story on the beach--in part because I'm still a bit unclear of our directional orientation for all the different sections.
I also still don't know for sure how many turns we're supposed to do at different speeds during the picking-up-a-seed bit and whether "Molly going first with the sixes" means we in her quartet in the canon go at the same time, or wait a bit. I'm hoping I can clarify all of this in the car ride to the beach in two hours...
Of course, after all of the brutal criticism, at the end of yesterday's rehearsal Barbara turned into the sweetheart that she secretly is. She told us that we should take pride in all of the hard work that we've put into the process, especially given that the choreography is all new material and, in her words, is a real "Kokoro piece." Then we formed our car pool groups, confirmed our call time for the beach for this morning's "undress rehearsal" (8 a.m.!), and what to bring for supplies and gear.
It's just getting light out as I type this and the forecast is for overcast skies and a coolish 16 degrees for when we're meant to begin the run-through on the beach. At least it looks like the chance of rain has diminished. And we may even have a bit of sun for the performances on Saturday and Sunday.
Frankly, right now my only real concern is how cold the water is going to be!
P
Friday, July 1, 2016
Wednesday, June 29, 2016
Wreck Beach Butoh Boot Camp 2016: Day 8
Today it was all Barbara, and as often happens at this stage in the process nothing we did was right. It lacked energy, it lacked character; it was too fast, it was too slow; we were too much in unison, or not enough. I have learned, by now, that this is Barbara's way of pushing us, towards the end of the rehearsal period, once we more or less have the choreography in our bodies, not to become complacent and to keep striving to meet or surpass her impossible expectations, despite our exhaustion.
But it can still be dispiriting to be told, after the fourth or fifth stop and re-do, that "professional dancers learn to do it right the first time." Last time I checked most of us in the room wouldn't self-identify as "professional dancer." Not that I'm asking to be cut any slack. Just acknowledging that part of being a feeling body who can interpret complex choreography means that one also has feelings--and they can be hurt.
Then again, as Barbara would say, "boo hoo!"
P
But it can still be dispiriting to be told, after the fourth or fifth stop and re-do, that "professional dancers learn to do it right the first time." Last time I checked most of us in the room wouldn't self-identify as "professional dancer." Not that I'm asking to be cut any slack. Just acknowledging that part of being a feeling body who can interpret complex choreography means that one also has feelings--and they can be hurt.
Then again, as Barbara would say, "boo hoo!"
P
Wreck Beach Butoh Boot Camp 2016: Day 7
Yesterday I was tired. So I was grateful that, after our warm-up, Jay's morning class was devoted mostly to refining the detail and quality of some of the less physically taxing movement: the cat-cow back and arm waves on our walks to find our partners; our teeter-totter steps; and the arm bumps.
But in the afternoon we ran through Jay's section twice and Barbara's once, this time with the additional knowledge of our spatial orientation vis-a-vis the beach--with upstage the ocean, downstage the cliffs, stage left the north shore, and stage right south. We also were instructed on how we will emerge from the water at the beginning of the section to find our assigned places on the sand prior to the beginning of the dragging sequence. But no word yet on how we actually get into the sea to begin with.
Finally, we were assigned partners for the seed picking and arm bumping sequences. I was briefly with Molly, which I was very happy about, as this meant when it came to timing and counts (two things I still am not clear on with respect to these two moves), I could just follow her lead. But in the afternoon I was reassigned to Barbara! Talk about pressure--including on my shoulder. She puts a lot of weight and force into what I thought were supposed to be gentle taps...
Of course this gorgeous sunshine we've been having isn't supposed to last. We may be lucky for Friday's undress rehearsal and the first performance on Saturday. But they are predicting rain for Sunday--and cooler temperatures all around. Brrrr!!!
P
But in the afternoon we ran through Jay's section twice and Barbara's once, this time with the additional knowledge of our spatial orientation vis-a-vis the beach--with upstage the ocean, downstage the cliffs, stage left the north shore, and stage right south. We also were instructed on how we will emerge from the water at the beginning of the section to find our assigned places on the sand prior to the beginning of the dragging sequence. But no word yet on how we actually get into the sea to begin with.
Finally, we were assigned partners for the seed picking and arm bumping sequences. I was briefly with Molly, which I was very happy about, as this meant when it came to timing and counts (two things I still am not clear on with respect to these two moves), I could just follow her lead. But in the afternoon I was reassigned to Barbara! Talk about pressure--including on my shoulder. She puts a lot of weight and force into what I thought were supposed to be gentle taps...
Of course this gorgeous sunshine we've been having isn't supposed to last. We may be lucky for Friday's undress rehearsal and the first performance on Saturday. But they are predicting rain for Sunday--and cooler temperatures all around. Brrrr!!!
P
Monday, June 27, 2016
Wreck Beach Butoh Boot Camp 2016: Day 6
Week 2 and but for the stressed IT bands as a result of yesterday's half-marathon, the body is holding up. I do wish I were getting more sleep; I think, paradoxically, all of the physical activity makes it more difficult to fall into immediate and sustained restfulness. Then there's the fact that I keep rehearsing in my brain at night all of the choreography we've learned (in between worrying about everything else I have to do this week); Barbara thinks the choreography-as-counting-sheep idea is actually a good thing, as it will embed the movement even more thoroughly into our bodies. But if the rehearsing of it in one's mind over and over again actually prevents one from ever dozing off, then surely that defeats the purpose.
Speaking of the choreography, having learned all of it by the end of week one, Barbara today proceeded to do what she apparently always does (at least judging from last year and from more veteran participants' testimonials), which is revise it. Most of her edits were minor and involved jettisoning various phrases rather than adding others. However, there was one major new move she gave all of us that had me more than a bit flummoxed for several minutes--a variation on the boxed monkey step that in the third iteration she now wants us to do with alternating raised legs. While Barbara's demonstration of the move seemed reproducible enough, the count she gave for it struck me as counter-intuitive, and it wasn't until I figured out that there was essentially one extra step for nothing included in her count that I was able to get how to alternate the raised legs. Not that this accomplishment means that the movement is any more fluid or that I am now an expert. I wish I could commit more intuitively and fully from the get-go to the choreography Barbara and Jay give us, but there is something about my overly analytical nature that tells me I have to get it right before I can actually do it.
Of course there is no time or room for second-guessing in performance on the beach. Which is both the beauty and the terror of this process.
In the second half of this afternoon's rehearsal Barbara also let us in on how the first section of her choreography will unfold in two separate circle formations, one contained inside the other. I'm part of the inner circle, with Barbara as leader, which means the choreography as she claims to now have definitively set it will inevitably change yet again on the days of performance. Because Barbara has a habit of spontaneously changing her mind and also, though she'd likely not admit it, simply forgetting some of the phrases that repeat. As Bronwen whispered to me at one point after I queried the dropping of one move, being in Barbara's group means you follow Barbara, not what you learned in rehearsal.
Today was also eventful because just prior to entering Studio 1 at 1:30 pm one of the students in another class at Harbour Dance dislocated her shoulder. The cries of pain were truly arresting, as were those that accompanied the resetting of the poor girl's shoulder a half hour later when the paramedics arrived. My throbbing IT bands seem positively benign in comparison.
P
Speaking of the choreography, having learned all of it by the end of week one, Barbara today proceeded to do what she apparently always does (at least judging from last year and from more veteran participants' testimonials), which is revise it. Most of her edits were minor and involved jettisoning various phrases rather than adding others. However, there was one major new move she gave all of us that had me more than a bit flummoxed for several minutes--a variation on the boxed monkey step that in the third iteration she now wants us to do with alternating raised legs. While Barbara's demonstration of the move seemed reproducible enough, the count she gave for it struck me as counter-intuitive, and it wasn't until I figured out that there was essentially one extra step for nothing included in her count that I was able to get how to alternate the raised legs. Not that this accomplishment means that the movement is any more fluid or that I am now an expert. I wish I could commit more intuitively and fully from the get-go to the choreography Barbara and Jay give us, but there is something about my overly analytical nature that tells me I have to get it right before I can actually do it.
Of course there is no time or room for second-guessing in performance on the beach. Which is both the beauty and the terror of this process.
In the second half of this afternoon's rehearsal Barbara also let us in on how the first section of her choreography will unfold in two separate circle formations, one contained inside the other. I'm part of the inner circle, with Barbara as leader, which means the choreography as she claims to now have definitively set it will inevitably change yet again on the days of performance. Because Barbara has a habit of spontaneously changing her mind and also, though she'd likely not admit it, simply forgetting some of the phrases that repeat. As Bronwen whispered to me at one point after I queried the dropping of one move, being in Barbara's group means you follow Barbara, not what you learned in rehearsal.
Today was also eventful because just prior to entering Studio 1 at 1:30 pm one of the students in another class at Harbour Dance dislocated her shoulder. The cries of pain were truly arresting, as were those that accompanied the resetting of the poor girl's shoulder a half hour later when the paramedics arrived. My throbbing IT bands seem positively benign in comparison.
P
Saturday, June 25, 2016
Wreck Beach Butoh Boot Camp 2016: Day 5
Well, we made it through to the end of the first week, our bodies stiff and sore, but more or less intact, and having learned more or less the entire piece. In the afternoon rehearsal we put Jay and Barbara's sections together and ran them through from start to finish. The work clocks in at just over an hour, with our entrance and first foray into and out the water yet to be added. But Barbara said things always speed up on the beach, and how fast or slow we are next weekend will also likely be contingent on the weather. That is, if we're shivering in the rain, chances are we'll be going faster.
I experienced more than one brain fart during the run through, and I know the quality of my movement was far from refined; however, I was pleased to discover that the overall structure of the piece is now in my body. Indeed, waking up early this morning, I was running the choreography in my head and thought I must be missing something in the opening of Barbara's section; but when I checked my notes, I had everything right.
At the end of rehearsal yesterday several of us went for drinks and as I was sitting next to Jay and Barbara I asked them about their process of choreographing independently and then finding a way to mesh their material together in rehearsal. Largely it has to do with expediency, with each of them developing and testing ideas separately in the weekly classes they teach. They are also fuelled by a healthy dose of competition. When Jay announced to Barbara six weeks ago that he'd already worked up about 30 minutes of material, she instinctively went into overdrive in order to catch up--and now, in retrospect, I can see where she was developing different phrases in weekly class. The quality of the movement in both sections is distinct, but somehow the overall tone seems of a piece. No doubt this comes from Barbara and Jay having collaborated together for so long.
Speaking of which: the two of them will be performing, accompanied by composer and musician Stefan Smulovitz, this evening at SFU Woodward's Studio D, as part of the Powell Street Festival. More details here.
Our instructions for the weekend were not to be lazy and to review the material. As next week is seven full days of intense work instead of five Barbara doesn't want us to go all doughy in our two days off. No chance of that in my case, as somehow I have signed up to run a half-marathon tomorrow.
P
I experienced more than one brain fart during the run through, and I know the quality of my movement was far from refined; however, I was pleased to discover that the overall structure of the piece is now in my body. Indeed, waking up early this morning, I was running the choreography in my head and thought I must be missing something in the opening of Barbara's section; but when I checked my notes, I had everything right.
At the end of rehearsal yesterday several of us went for drinks and as I was sitting next to Jay and Barbara I asked them about their process of choreographing independently and then finding a way to mesh their material together in rehearsal. Largely it has to do with expediency, with each of them developing and testing ideas separately in the weekly classes they teach. They are also fuelled by a healthy dose of competition. When Jay announced to Barbara six weeks ago that he'd already worked up about 30 minutes of material, she instinctively went into overdrive in order to catch up--and now, in retrospect, I can see where she was developing different phrases in weekly class. The quality of the movement in both sections is distinct, but somehow the overall tone seems of a piece. No doubt this comes from Barbara and Jay having collaborated together for so long.
Speaking of which: the two of them will be performing, accompanied by composer and musician Stefan Smulovitz, this evening at SFU Woodward's Studio D, as part of the Powell Street Festival. More details here.
Our instructions for the weekend were not to be lazy and to review the material. As next week is seven full days of intense work instead of five Barbara doesn't want us to go all doughy in our two days off. No chance of that in my case, as somehow I have signed up to run a half-marathon tomorrow.
P
Friday, June 24, 2016
Wreck Beach Butoh Boot Camp 2016: Day 4
Morning class with Jay yesterday was less physically taxing than Tuesday, but also more philosophically enlightening. That's partly because Jay spent much of the time refining the smallest of details related to the very basic elements of his choreography and, in doing so, explaining what distinguishes engaged movement from pedestrian movement. Much of this centred around our practicing of different versions of the butoh walk, which I was happy to see return. One image that Jay gave us was to imagine ourselves as Buddha walking on water while holding a tray of water on which we, again each our own Buddha, were in turn walking on water, and so on ad infinitum. As we completed our slow steady tours across the studio floor, Jay kept repeating this mantra, while also inviting us to feel the farmers threshing wheat on our calves, the forest growing from our shoulders, and the orchid we were also holding at our throats. Thinking about how all of those images combine to move one's body with intention rather than moving the body mechanically to approximate some perceived external representation of said images is what distinguishes butoh from other kinds of dance. As Jay reminded us, his choreography is mostly pretty simple, and frequently repetitive; if it's performed mechanically, without bodily engagement and mental intention, it will look boring. But when one is engaged and intentional it can be beautiful and it can feel, for both performer and spectator, that time has in fact expanded to open up "the space between," or what in Japanese is referred to as ma.
After lunch we devoted the entire afternoon to putting most of Jay's choreography together, from the dragging and rolling sequence on the floor through to the arm bumping with our partners. We didn't get to the tick-tock sequence that follows the bumping, and there may me more yet to come, but it was nice to see how most of the parts are linked and, more especially, how we are meant to transition between them. It was a bit of a slow and laborious process as Barbara, working from a print out that she'd asked Molly to type up, had us go through each sequence over and over again, insisting that we get every detail into our bodies before moving on. This meant a lot of stopping and starting, and also some tense back and forths between she and Jay, but at the end of the day I was certainly more confident in my knowledge of the material (if not entirely competent in its actual execution). As Barbara said just before our dismissal, she knows that her methods can seem harsh, but it's the only way she knows to get us to learn an hour's worth of demanding choreography in nine days. And she added, with atypical generosity, that we should applaud ourselves for even making the effort, as many professional dancers wouldn't consider submitting to the process.
Not that Barbara got all warm and fuzzy. As I was leaving Jay had me show her my hip bruises from all the floor rolling we've done, and whose robust mauve tones he was fascinated to discover he had caused in the morning. Barbara's response: "Boo-hoo."
P
After lunch we devoted the entire afternoon to putting most of Jay's choreography together, from the dragging and rolling sequence on the floor through to the arm bumping with our partners. We didn't get to the tick-tock sequence that follows the bumping, and there may me more yet to come, but it was nice to see how most of the parts are linked and, more especially, how we are meant to transition between them. It was a bit of a slow and laborious process as Barbara, working from a print out that she'd asked Molly to type up, had us go through each sequence over and over again, insisting that we get every detail into our bodies before moving on. This meant a lot of stopping and starting, and also some tense back and forths between she and Jay, but at the end of the day I was certainly more confident in my knowledge of the material (if not entirely competent in its actual execution). As Barbara said just before our dismissal, she knows that her methods can seem harsh, but it's the only way she knows to get us to learn an hour's worth of demanding choreography in nine days. And she added, with atypical generosity, that we should applaud ourselves for even making the effort, as many professional dancers wouldn't consider submitting to the process.
Not that Barbara got all warm and fuzzy. As I was leaving Jay had me show her my hip bruises from all the floor rolling we've done, and whose robust mauve tones he was fascinated to discover he had caused in the morning. Barbara's response: "Boo-hoo."
P
Thursday, June 23, 2016
Wreck Beach Butoh Boot Camp 2016: Day 3
More bruises in more places. And in a rainbow hue of colours. It's surprising, stripping off at home in front of the bathroom mirror, to discover when and where new ones occur and, more to the point, not to be able to remember them being incurred. The work is physically hard, particularly Jay's floor rolling sequence, but in the moment you're concentrating so intently on learning the movement that you're not consciously registering the pain it's causing. That comes the next morning, as you try to roll your stiff and tired body out of bed. But, I have to stay, so far I'm surprised at how the old carcass is holding up. The day to day recovery is proving easier than last year and I haven't pulled anything major yet. I also haven't had to take any epsom salt baths yet, and I'm hoping to keep it that way. Notwithstanding Barbara's undeniable claims about their therapeutic value, I just can't stand sitting in a bathtub for any length of time; I get bored and intensely claustrophobic.
I really felt for Molly yesterday. When both Jay and Barbara forget their own choreography, which they inevitably do, she is the one who has to remember for them. This usually means demonstrating different sequences more than once in addition to participating as part of the general ensemble. On top of this, at break most of us cluster around her, peppering her with questions about when this move comes, and how exactly to do that one, etc. She handles it all with equanimity and grace and, selfishly, I have to admit that it is a treat to be able to watch such a talented dancer up close in the studio.
One thing I haven't quite wrapped my head around yet is the spatial orientation of the beach vis-a-vis our rehearsal of the movement in the studio. Last year at EDAM the west wall was always the ocean, and Barbara and Jay both made a point of emphasizing how the movement we were learning would translate directionally to the Wreck site. However, this year not only are we going back and forth between two different studios at Harbour Dance, but in doing so we are also switching our downstage facings. And with no indication as yet about how all of this gets mapped onto the beach. At least we know we will have a lot more space for our rolling on the sand. And Barbara did let us know that the corkscrew move we do at the end of the canon sequence is what locomotes us into the water.
That canon sequence had to be reset as we have apparently lost two members, taking the number of participants down to 12. I discovered last year that this happens; for various reasons people drop out. More often it's because of the time commitment than the physical rigours of the process. I'm discovering the consequences of that commitment as the number of tasks facing me keeps piling up. We'll see how I manage to revise that essay by July 1st...
P
I really felt for Molly yesterday. When both Jay and Barbara forget their own choreography, which they inevitably do, she is the one who has to remember for them. This usually means demonstrating different sequences more than once in addition to participating as part of the general ensemble. On top of this, at break most of us cluster around her, peppering her with questions about when this move comes, and how exactly to do that one, etc. She handles it all with equanimity and grace and, selfishly, I have to admit that it is a treat to be able to watch such a talented dancer up close in the studio.
One thing I haven't quite wrapped my head around yet is the spatial orientation of the beach vis-a-vis our rehearsal of the movement in the studio. Last year at EDAM the west wall was always the ocean, and Barbara and Jay both made a point of emphasizing how the movement we were learning would translate directionally to the Wreck site. However, this year not only are we going back and forth between two different studios at Harbour Dance, but in doing so we are also switching our downstage facings. And with no indication as yet about how all of this gets mapped onto the beach. At least we know we will have a lot more space for our rolling on the sand. And Barbara did let us know that the corkscrew move we do at the end of the canon sequence is what locomotes us into the water.
That canon sequence had to be reset as we have apparently lost two members, taking the number of participants down to 12. I discovered last year that this happens; for various reasons people drop out. More often it's because of the time commitment than the physical rigours of the process. I'm discovering the consequences of that commitment as the number of tasks facing me keeps piling up. We'll see how I manage to revise that essay by July 1st...
P
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