Directed to Fly
Picture taken by Haley Abram at Motion Art 2016 featuring a collaboration between the Dear Abbeys and Dance Theatre Group
By Sadie Lozano-Mieles
Want to see a performance featuring a site-specific piece and more? Attend Motion Art, organized by Dance Theatre Group in collaboration with the BU Dance Program. The performance will feature a variety of groups, such as The Dear Abbeys, a live artist illustration, Afrithms, and more. The night will conclude with a fun, all-levels line dance lesson! Come join us on October 26 from 8:30-9:30pm at the 808 Gallery. The performance is free and open to the BU community. Follow DTG on Instagram (@bostonudtg) for more information!
Four years into my college career, I stand face-to-face with a challenge unlike any I have encountered before. And no, it’s not one of the assignments pertaining to the myriad of pre- medical courses that I’ve resigned my fate to nor an hour-long presentation on a scientific paper written in such neuro-specific jargon that lead me to question if that’s even my major.
As part of just the second assignment for my directed study in choreography course, I am to pick a site in FitRec – any space that I can conjure up confined only by the walls of the building – and choreograph a piece rooted in the exploration of that given space. To an individual who has never composed a dance piece before, the task seems difficult, if not insurmountable – at least at first.
Its premise was incredibly intriguing, to essentially choreograph a piece, with a distinct beginning, middle, and end, that interacts in the given space in a way that it cannot be replicated elsewhere in the building. As I work my way through the assignment, I find that the hardest part is choosing the space I am to perform alongside.
After mulling over the various ideas for locations I immediately envision, I narrow it down to a space that should not be all too inconvenient to the people of FitRec, and land on the space on the lowest level, surrounded by the squash courts, staircase, and water fountain. It is a space that I choose because of the two benches perched on either side of a trash bin, an odd choice to say the least.
Surprisingly, the part that I discovered to be the easiest was the story that seemed to fall organically into place once I established that I would be exploring my environment through my interaction with the benches. The process of creating is a grueling one, one that definitely left me open to a vulnerability that I have never experienced before. I start lying on my back on the bench and somehow find my way where I find myself most comfortable: the floor. The outstretching of an arm and the deepening of a plié later, and slowly it becomes apparent that the next challenge is going to be composing in the deafening silence.
Written somewhere in the assigned pages of Doris Humphrey’s The Art of Making Dances, she likens asking a dancer to choreograph for the first time to taking away all the comforts the dancer has and suddenly directing them to fly. I can now confidently say I thoroughly agree.
As I present my site-specific piece to my Instructor and classmate, we run through various alternatives to my ending that add terminating punctuation to the interaction between the bench and myself. Two passersby watch on as I, in my stressed state, struggle to remember the choreography that I designed, but I push through the initial discomfort. As the assignment draws to a close, I learn that something as seemingly minor as a tilt of the head or a change in focus could completely sway the intention of the entire piece. I have so much to learn on my journey to composing my first piece, but I am thrilled to embrace the uncomfortable and grow from the confrontation.