Scotty Reynolds blogs about Miguel Gutierrez’s “Everyone.”

And I got a glimpse of what the hours of rehearsals might have been like, the inner workings and relationships.

I also came to appreciate Laurie Van Weiren’s post-performance question format at 9×22 Bryant Lake Bowl.. She gets the performers to ask the audience questions and it is a much livelier interaction because as an audience member I am mostly interested in experiencing how the artists pose questions. I can’t ever think of any questions as an audience member! I can always make-up my own answers, figure it out. That’s my own intellectual fun!

As a performer, I have participated in them quite a lot. More and more, I have been trying to be as honest and real as possible. IS that even possible and does anyone actually want that? I’m not sure. I take off my shoes, my make-up and undo my hair while I am out there. But even this effort is still a show, I admit. Someone actually commented once about me holding my hairpins and false eyelashes and pointe shoes. They could see my blistered feet and the circles under my eyes. I only meant to save time, mostly, and it helps to have a real task.

About method vs. content or object vs. statement: I think they go hand-in hand for me. IN MG’s case very much so. It was a bit like watching excercises. Luckily, everyone was so watchable and comfortable in their own skin/t-shirt the exercises din’t make me cringe too much.

Onward with OUT THERE– !

The looking–I said this in another note somewhere–disturbed me because I felt it had to be fake. I mean, how many of us can they look at? And how seriously can they look, given that they have to keep their minds on the performance? But eye contact is truly bizarre anyway. Sustained eye contact always leaves me feeling like a hole has opened up in the usual fabric.

I avoid post-show discussions. . . thanks for taking the bullet there, Sally. What did you learn?

I had not read the program notes until afterwards, a bit during the post-show discussion, which kind of soured my enjoyment of the performance actually. I just shouldn’t go to those, and yet I learn something when I do. It might have been better for me not to have heard Gutierrez speak so much, though. Illuminating one’s work can easily sound pretentious, especially if one goes on and on, which on thursday night one did.

“Everyone” didn’t feel essential to me either, but I’m a sap and I tend to find essential the things that make me cry, and this just wasn’t in that neighborhood. Still, I liked it, I enjoyed it, it made me think. And I should say I reviewed it positively:

http://msp.blogs.com/themorningafter/2008/01/1908-miguel-gut.html#more

I want to suggest (and perhaps I should do this in my own post, but I’m lazy, so see my review) that the strivings of “Everyone” (intended subjects, that long speech at the end) perhaps aren’t as interesting as the methods. I found myself following not the gist of the thing but the smaller scale–the repetitions, the individuality vs. unison, etc. Overall, I like “Everyone” more as object than as statement.