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 leader, that others were imitating my movement and I could dictate how others moved was fun. On the other hand, when I became the follower, I enjoyed being mindless and observing how the leader moved. Then it struck me. Although we, as a group, became a single organism, silently promising to refrain from rigid movements, each person, as a leader, had their own unique style of movement. One would utilize her hands more to form graceful gestures while the other would experiment more with her speed and level. This uniqueness of each dancer in creating a single piece intrigued me.

The individuality of each dancer became more prominent during Trajal’s choreography workshop when partners copied each other’s accumulative choreography. Like how I observed in the flock exercise and in the original showcase of the individual choreography, each student has their own style. Sharon and Yuki like to utilize both their arms and legs in creating an elaborate choreography while Ophelia and Bunny keep their movements simple and pedestrian, accomplishing a postmodern style. Due to the contrast between the two, when the people of opposite dance form met, they appropriated the movements according to their own style. This was evident even though Trajal told us to recreate the dance in the postmodern, pedestrian style. People’s individual style penetrated through the given premise and the dance created by other people. That each person’s unique and individual style could still be identified through the effort of unifying them was interesting.

My vague, disorganized strain of thoughts on individuality and uniqueness of each dancer was put into words during the last component of the class. In the lecture seminar, we talked about the materiality of dancers. Deb described to us short incidents of Trajal’s creation of O’ Medea. One that struck me the most was that he, as a choreographer, only suggests a general direction of creation while it is the responsibility of the dancers to come up with their own movement, contributing to the process of creation. Ondrej added that this method of choreography enabled him to see, not only the dancer’s body but also their ideas and style as a crucial part of the material of the dance. In the same context, Deb critiqued that this approach to recognizing the dancer’s individuality was recent and that, before Trajal and his line of choreography, most choreographers used exclusively the dancer’s body in creating their dance. This new way of understanding material of dance confused me. I started to question – then what is the differentiation between theater and dance; whether the contemporariness of art form has the authority to blur the lines dividing them – which still is left unanswered.