We never practiced our studies and choreographies in front of a mirror. In the beginning, when we started practicing It Is Thus, the accumulation, and the Trisha Brown piece, I always thought looking at myself in the mirror and reflecting on how my movements look would help me better master the dance. Especially with It […]
Studio
Parrot on Your Shoulder
The moment I received the assignment – to choreograph a sequence of a voguer coming downtown to Judson Church in 1963 – I immediately thought of “being inspired by” Twenty Looks or Paris is Burning in Judson Church because I knew that that was the answer to the prompt. Although I decided not to do […]
Audience
That we are being watched is fearful. When a set of movements that I have prepared for a long time is observed, I know what the audience will see and therefore I have the responsibility of the nervousness. Everyday, as we develop our accumulation piece, we grow immune to the fact that we have an […]
Fear of Being Boring
Teagan turned, and it was my turn to become the leader. I had already been the leader of the group at the very beginning. When I was the leader the first time, I started the group with a set of simple movements: walking, running, and stopping, for example. For I am not good with incorporating […]
Material
When we stood in two groups, facing each other, Ondrej told us that the most important thing when moving in a group is to become organic. We slowly started to move and express ourselves through movement which the followers in the group embodied. The making of the organism was interesting enough. When I was the […]
Improvisation
When Ondrej told us to hold our partner’s hands and walk around the room, he might not have anticipated such liveliness. Maybe, he may have anticipated more activity. What we presented to the movement class instructor is unique to the specific batch of j-term students at the particular time. No other group of students or […]
Repetition
The morning started off with a series of movement exercises. We started off with simple movements, stretching our limbs and bouncing on our knees. Yet, the movements got much complex toward the end – from crossing our hands and lifting them without raising our shoulders to following our partner’s lead and walking around the room […]