Excitement at NCSU!!

Laura's and my residency at NSCU with the Panoramic Dance Project began on Monday, and so far, so good! We began with our first rehearsal on Monday evening with a large group of eager dancers. I was happy to recognize many faces in the group from my work with the company the year before. After an energetic warm-up, we begin the process of soliciting material from the students for the piece. As I have mentioned before, we are workshopping aspects of our collaborative work, "Common Threads." Before our arrival, we asked that the members of the PDP write a letter to an influential woman in their lives. We of course, plan to use these words as fodder for the piece. The students put much thought into their letters, and there were many strong words and phrases. There were also tender, loving words, words of admiration, questions, and hard experiences. Laura expertly led the students into a collection of activities to edit down their letters down to mere words, for use as seed material. At first shy about speaking out loud, Laura begins to pull the dancers out of their shells, and after some initial resistance, the dancers are talking and moving out loud. As Laura leads her activities, I observe in her a flexibility and ability to think on her feet that would be valuable to any educator. She has an energy that inspires creative thought, playfulness and desire to move forward. She is lovely with the students. They respond well to her open nature and her quirky demeanor. On the way back to Winston Salem that night, we discuss the arc of the piece. We quickly come to some conclusions about how each sections should play out, and how we should conduct the remainder of our rehearsals. We devise a mental map for the piece, and realize that as far as the "larger" piece that we will perform is concerned, we don't need much more. Everything we have is already at our fingertips. We have all the music we need. We have all of our conceptual elements. We have the bodies to execute our ideas. I'm so glad we are engaged in this opportunity!

On Tuesday, we are back in Winston for the morning, as I need to teach my classes at HPU. I bring Laura along to my classes, and I introduce her to all of my lovely students. As always, I have a lot of fun teaching my classes, but by the end of the day, I am tired. As a very demonstrative, energetic teacher, I often forget to pace myself while I'm teaching, and only when I am done, do I realize how much energy I have burned! But there is no rest for the weary...we are right back on the road to Raleigh for our Tuesday evening workshop, "Performative Painting," in this case, drawing, as we are not allowed to use paint in the studio. We have almost an entirely new group of faces at our workshop, and they look as though they do not fully know what to expect from this workshop, with large pieces of paper lying on the floor and music making objects about the place. I explain that the students are not really there to participate in a workshop, but a collaborative, interdisciplinary performance experience. We begin with some general ridiculousness, which I love, as a warm up. This group of ladies is energetic and immediately ready to play with us! The performance begins: all of us begin by moving slowly in a large clump, moving in and out of each other, as Laura makes a rhythm for us. There are rocking motions and searching motions and sensitivity to the space and people around us. I wouldn't call it careful, but certainly a contemplative start. Soon, the group begins to let loose. A voice sounds out in "Happy Birthday," swirls and colors begin to appear on the large pieces of paper, and the energy is quickly rising. The space between our bodies begins to expand and new sounds begin to emerge. There are times of utter silliness, and times of quiet wondering. After about an hour, I step out of the space to observe the goings-on. There is paper strewn everywhere. There are joyous bodies strewn everywhere...some balancing chairs on their feet, some beating drums, some furiously doodling, some skipping and running about. I ask Laura if she thinks the performance will resolve itself. We wait. But the group continues, and evolves again and again. Finally, I call the performance to a quiet close. I instruct the group to quietly clean the floor and to convene in a circle. During our time in the circle, the members of the performance have positive things to say about their experience, and many expound upon how refreshing it was to play so completely. Many members noted poignant moments in the performance where they observed fleeting moments of beauty, aggression, tenderness, play and uncertainty. How lovely!

We are looking forward to this evening's rehearsal, as we will begin to set some of the larger aspects of the piece today, and continue with the material we began on Monday. Tomorrow, it is back to HPU. As always, I'll keep you updated!

~Cara