My favorite part of today’s dance class with Ondrej was ‘second-option’. I was initially confused about what second-option meant—are we expected to predict our future? But then I realized it shouldn’t be taken literally and the main focus should be on deliberately creating an unconventional (in my perspective) flow of movements. It took me a lot of thinking to decide on the next move because I wasn’t allowed to let my body flow in the most natural way possible. There were some moments that I was completely still for a few seconds because there were constant conflicts and compromises of ideas in my mind. It was a refreshing way of improvising because when I had to improvise before, I remember finding myself resorting to the same movement repeatedly or a certain sequence of movements that was too cliche. I tried to defy my body’s tendency to create those cliche patterns; for example, I consciously turned my body to face various directions instead of a particular side where the invisible audience is or I connected a flowy and gentle movement with a sudden drop of levels and rigid angles. I believed that true creativity stems from an organic moment of unexpected inspiration. However, this activity suggested a possibility that creativity could also be inorganic, if it is created from the right recipe of thoughts.

It was interesting how the main topic of today’s workshop with Professor Harrell was about performance, which was also the main focus of my reflection from yesterday. Postmodernism dances’ characteristic of not making dancing look like a performance, evident in Trisha Brown and Trio A’s works, was fascinating, given that dance was always equal to performance my entire life. As a person who is accustomed to phrasing and telling stories through dance like most other people, the concept of postmodernism dance baffled me. In the absence of a story, what is dance supposed to say? Then I realized, the absence itself becomes the message: an open invitation to anyone or any movement, even from a mundane everyday life. But even as I finish this sentence, I can’t stop pondering over what I really mean by my definition and how close it would be to the true definition. What significance does the ‘open invitation’ have apart from just better integrating dance into our lives? It does not offer something to empathize with like the conventional form of dancing with a form of story-telling. My own understandings of postmodernism dance still battle with each other in my head and I struggle to extract coherent thread of thoughts from entangled ideas.

During today’s seminar session with Professor Levine, we discussed the play Medea and how Professor Harrell would adapt it to create his new choreographic work, O! Medea. When I was reading the play, I noticed that some elements of Medea are very much a reflection of the flaws in our modern society, mostly regarding gender equality. Women were repressed, notably manifested in Medea’s monologue: “[the husband] becomes the master of our body,…, but should we divorce we’re seen as soiled somehow – we’re seen as damaged goods,…, we have to use all our intuition so we can best please our man”. Also, Medea says, “women who stand above the ordinary attract both bitterness and jealousy.” Obviously, Medea was written at an ancient time that dates far back in time, but the gender inequality present at that time is represented in such an extreme extent that it almost felt like a satire to me. I am curious as to how Professor Harrell would interpret and morph the complex character Medea and the way he would reveal her repressed past to justify/defend her rage.