Defaulting to Front
A brief preface to this post....I choreograph for dancers and horses. Usually there is no defined, flat front. The immediacy of our work makes it impossible to be concerned with what angle a dancer is seen from. Now, when I watch choreography that seems to be unintentionally flattened, aligned with the viewers' gaze, I am baffled.
The again, some things just look more interesting seen from one angle than another....
Observations on Choreographic Defaulting to Front• Innumerable choreographic elements communicate to the viewer how to see, how to watch and how to engage with the work. One of the strongest elements in this complex choreographic stew is the use of space. This includes space between dancers (often the not too close distance that two dancers can stand close but not hit each other); facings within the piece; relationships of bodies to each other; and how the dance maker arranges the performers in spatial relationship to the audience.
• No choreographic element is so completely neutral as the squared off, default to face front. Dancers facing downstage, squaring their movement off to a visible or invisible proscenium is a convention that, if not defined, justified or given a reason to be there inside the choreography, says nothing. Space becomes powerless.
• That said some choreographers use this device very consciously and astutely. Their intention might be to confront the audience or deliver a message directly to the audience.
• I suspect that many choreographers make their work in a square room with a mirror along one side. They have fashioned their choreography to "fit" into that rehearsal space and perhaps inadvertently chosen front to keep things organized. Dancers use the mirror to "see" their cues. Front takes on meaning. But it is not consciously part of the fabric of the work. (Unison is also puzzling, if not used for a good reason. But that is another subject).
Horses, Planes in Space and Choreographing to Front
• I work with quadrapedal, consummately kinetic animals.
• Being quadrapeds, horses are always carving the space three-dimensionally. Humans do as well but being bipeds,that is less obvious.
• The horse's survival in the wild is dependent on being fully engaged in space at all times.
• Equine life does not exist in the pure planes. Equine behavior cannot be flattened or idealized into flat surfaces.
• So, the movement I make is never planar. For the most part, nor are the formations.
• Using planar formations has however been an interesting way for me to allude to abstraction. In a recent work I used a frontal square formation to communicate an idealized memory. In
Walking Score I used repetitive walking lines to create a human grid inside through which the equestrian and (ridden) horse would weave. At the climax of the piece the lines converge into a circle to trap horse and rider.
Making Three Dimensional Dances• Choreographing for dancers and horses has heightened my awareness of how powerfully space communicates. How a choreographers uses space contributes to defining far more than just "where." Space between communicates complex power structures. Movement through space, its ease (fluidity) or constriction gives movement its texture. Use of space defines time.
• The first stage of making a work is to create a landscape, then define how the humans and equines live inside that landscape. If the human bodies move in a flattened planar fashion, the horses will inevitably become the strangers inside in that human landscape. Or vice versa. This could be a very interesting choreographic tool. If not deeply attended to this divergence is space becomes a huge and unsatisfying disconnect.
• In training dancers to do this work, I must be sure that every dancer is able to constantly shift spatial orientation. Every choreographic module (and within each module) the choreography must function facing any direction.
• I eliminate all concern with orientation to the viewer. The viewer becomes secondary.
• Being seen is secondary to creating a dialogue between human and equine mover.
• Having written this, at times I do have to be concerned with the dancers being on the inside shoulder of their equine partner which can at times place them behind (thus hidden) from the audience.
• FYI: This is actually quite different from the concerns of a dressage rider who wants the judge to see certain movements of the horse from its most advantageous angles.
Posted by JoAnna Mendl Shaw at 10:26 AM - Permalink
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