I sat next to Vania during the dinner today, one of the dancers of Trajal’s company (and a truly lovely, inspiring woman). We had an interesting conversation which jumped from one topic to another, from what having an accent while speaking English means in each other’s cultures to what our childhood dreams were. I was asking Vania about how she got to work with Trajal and she told me that she watched his work in New York with her friend and decided to audition for his work. To break the ice, I jokingly said, “Oh, so was that like, meeting a celebrity for you?” But her response almost embarrassed me, of how shallow my question was. She said no, because even though he may be a world-famous choreographer, she doesn’t put herself at an unequal level as Trajal merely because of that. I could clearly sense her pride in her work and her philosophy of dance. Her response made me ponder over what I meant when I asked the question. Was I subconsciously creating, or establishing the existence of, the hierarchy between a choreographer and a dancer in our society?

I reckon the seed of this thought to have come from my cultural background. In K-pop, uniformity is highly valued in group performances and there is an expectation for the dancers to appear as replicas of each other. A dancer’s unique style of dancing may sometimes ooze out of the rigid structure, but there is still a notion of a ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ dance move. The choreographers begin to be the judge of that, along with intense trainings to look as ‘flawless’ as possible. I believe that being accustomed to this approach to dance lead me to believing that there is an inherent power dynamic between choreographer and dancer.

This chain of thought lead me to a section in A Choreographer’s Handbook by Jonathan Burrows. Burrows addresses the complexity in the relationship between choreographer and dancer and how there is often a both-way frustration of choreographer feeling obliged to “know everything about what they’re trying to do” and dancer “to be good at what they’re doing and to come up with ideas”. I could relate and understand both perspectives with my experience of being in both positions. Burrows also said that “sometimes performers are called the ‘translators’ of other people’s work”. While I can understand that performers ‘deliver’ choreographer’s ideas to the audience, I don’t like the loss of dancer’s voice in the metaphor “translator”. Perhaps, a ‘story-teller’ may be a better one, because I value the dancer’s unique and personal narratives being shown, even though they might be dancing the same choreography.

It made me more appreciative of the environment Trajal tries to create in the studio. From what I have experienced first-hand and also during the O’Medea rehearsal showing, I felt that in Trajal’s studio, a lot of the frustration is absent because of how he makes the creative process collaborative. It is a respectful environment where Trajal listens to dancers’ opinions open-mindedly and dancers can feel comfortable sharing. This made me reflect on other fields of profession in our society, where one creates and the other showcases. I believe that the showcaser should be appreciated more as they blow in their own palette of colors to the creator’s work, making our interaction with artwork more colorful and meaningful.