Tuesday, March 12, 2013

loves me a works in progress

I have been doing some thinking about dance since my last post about it.  I have much more thinking to do (and like I said, thinking that should be done after our "rillly big shewwww"....but meanwhile I have booked myself up with all sort of interesting dance things to explore elsewhere.

As filched from the Axis Dance Company site, here is what I did today:

Meet the Composer 
Attend a workshop and watch Beth Custer collaborate with Victoria Marks on their new work “what if would you”. See up close how a composer and choreographer work together and discover how Custer comes up with musical examples that eventually develop into the final piece. 






It's not often that you get a chance to sit in on a open rehearsal, and usually when you do, it's a late-in-the-process dress rehearsal or something.  Today was a pretty special treat because the piece they are working on is still very early in development, and honestly....as much as I love seeing art, I love seeing people make art.

Similar to what our own troupe is working on, the Axis piece involves dancers making music with live musicians, and musicians getting on stage and moving with dancers.  It was nice to be able to ask questions about their process, and also to learn that some of the resistance and challenges we've had with the musicians working with our ensemble are basically musician universal (ahhhh, the great dancer/musician divide!)

The other fun part about today was that this piece of theirs includes some audience participation, and they practices with some of us in the audience. It was really interesting to see into their process from that perspective (from within the piece just a bit).

Axis will be presenting this new work at their upcoming 25th Anniversary Show (details here)!

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