(This was written as an essay for the Jazz class of Kristen DeBottis at Arizona State University. I am posting it here because I think it's kind of fun.)
In her work "This is just an experiment", AJ Niehaus explores how the
DanceForms (formerly LifeForms) animation program can serve as an inspiration for movement, and how the movement translates onto human bodies. I got involved into the process on an early Tuesday afternoon, when AJ approached me about being in her dance. "Hey, you want to be in my dance?", she said. I replied affirmatively, and then had to duck for an incoming barrage of questions about whether I was sure I had the time. I returned the attack by asking AJ whether she was sure I’d be good enough for the dance. "You know, I've been desperately trying to find people for the dance, and am really at the bottom of the barrel now.", she replied. Good. That makes me feel better.
Originally, the piece was supposed to be a trio, with Erica Nielsen, Monique I. Jones and myself as the dancers. Monique showed up to the first rehearsal to say that she can’t be any in the piece any more. The thought of the dance being a duet was a slightly chilling proposition – a proposition which immediately turned into a less chilling reality, since the Friday night rehearsals turned into a backdrop for comedy and horseplay.
So, there we were, AJ, Erica and I, and three Danceforms characters that AJ had "taught" some movement. For the rest of the rehearsal, the characters moved, Erica and I tried to mimic, and AJ facilitated the transition of the movement from the virtual realm to the real world. There was a lot of experimenting, and improvising with DanceForms concepts such as snapping limbs together. AJ was amazed at how quickly we picked up the "stiff, robotic" movement quality of the virtual dancers. It's just the way I move, hon.
Pretty soon we had some good ideas that were promptly forgotten by the next rehearsal, when we faced a new set of virtual phrases embodied into a male and female DanceForms duo. Cute. After a few rehearsals, we had a set of phrases that represented human approximations of things such as impossible ways of going to the floor, impossible ways of coming up from the floor, deformed limbs, and animation glitches. AJ slapped the phrases into a dance, and decided to have it performed to punk music.
The music idea came from the fact that you could have a metronome accompany a DanceForms animation. AJ remembered that many punk songs tend to have a very simple and steady metronome-like beat, and there we were doing our first performance of the piece for her choreography class to "London Calling" by The Clash. There was some feedback received, there came some changes, and The Clash were replaced by the Sex Pistols. The first part of the piece was pretty much done.
Then came the completely unexpected second part of the piece. "After you finish, I want you guys to walk back to where you started, and I want you to do some ballet." It was brilliant. After setting the first part to movement choreographed in DanceForms, we were going to do the second part without DanceForms, but keeping the movement quality. And we were going to do it in ballet. And it was going to be to "God Save the Queen". Pure genius.
The idea was to take the structure of the first part of the piece, but translate the movement into ballet vocabulary. AJ also tried playing with bringing a few of the elements back verbatim, but her choreography class suggested that if we're to do ballet in the second part, we should stick to ballet. They also suggested we accentuate the things that parted from usual classroom ballet technique, such as doing funky arms and not paying attention to each other when partnering. That was a very welcome suggestion, because deviating from standard ballet technique is something I do very well.
One of the most amusing moments of the ballet part was choreographing the obligatory male-showing-off sequence. The process mostly went like this: AJ or Erica would say something like "Can you do X". I would then try to do X. They would watch me, after which their heads would drop in deep thought, and after a while they would rise up again with a twinkle of hope and "Oh, oh, how about Y?". The process repeated itself for a while, until I did a cabriole. "Hey, that was pretty good!". I had to explain that in almost all ballet classes I have taken, the guys would just do what the girls did, so I never learned how to do all those tricks. The male-showing-off sequence eventually became a cabriole followed by a grand jete.
And so, we eventually finished the piece. Two days before tech, I felt for the first time that I actually had the movement. What really helped was getting into the character of a DanceForms virtual dancer. I kept my face completely expressionless, kept my hands bladed and stiff, placed my joints at precise angles, and moved mechanically. It made me realize that getting into character was an essential part of every dance performance. Without that, there are too many gaps left by the choreography, such as not always knowing where the focus should be, how the hands are positioned, what the movement quality of a specific part of the body is, etc. For me, assuming a role within the dance fills the gaps in a consistent way, and it tends to look good. Well, better, at least.
Finally, we performed the dance. The audience loved it. AJ got a lot of good feedback. I performed a duet in a public performance for the first time and survived. Someone even though I was a trained ballet dancer. Go figure.
I learned a lot from this process, mainly about how you could take an inspiration for a performance and weave it through all of its elements – the mood, the movement, the music, etc. Realizing the importance of character and attention to detail was an irreplaceable lesson. Spending my Friday nights with AJ and Erica was a complete and utter blast. Doing ballet to "God Save the Queen" was a dream come true.
