Chris Schlicting’s love things made me ask so many questions throughout its entirety: questions that amused, alarmed and delighted me the entire time. I wondered who these people were to me, to each other, to their world. And the answers came and kept coming. Chris deftly created a world of gesture, rhythm, intricacy, moment and image. The dancers knew the rules and played wisely and skillfully. Pink nail polish. Moments of air after feeling like the ceiling was caving in. Hannah and Morgan finding a moment of humanity within the world of quirky interaction. Surprises around every corner. The question I kept asking myself during the show was “Where are they?” My imagination was fed just enough to thoroughly enjoy answering this question. In a birthday cake. In a flocked garden at sunset. In a world full of excess and misdirected interactions. Somewhere where authentic moments were just around the corner. The deftly crafted ensemble sections unfolded in satisfying ways. Jessica flaunting her dance moves in a most uncomfortable way. Justin and Jessica dancing a duet of the future. Of never quite being where the dance is in a way that makes me question how I am watching. At the end of it all, I felt like Chris and his ensemble presented me a fascinating snow globe containing a world worthy of study. And I really would like to keep shaking it up to see what happens next. Maia Maiden and Ellena Schoop’s The Foundation, et cetera not so delicately wove a series of vignettes into a commentary on generational differences in an attempt to unify and activate. Watching Anneka and Roxane is always a treat. The fast-paced structure moved in a way that made me interested in what was next, and Tiyo Siyolo and Selfish generated and performed words that came from an authentic, motivated place. Very satisfying. The evening was varied in the way the audience received it. Momentum is always good to bring people of differing training, life experience, gender, sexuality and ethnicity into a space to tell their stories, attracting different populations into the seats. I distinctly felt that these two pieces were designed to speak to very different groups. I felt included and unincluded. I think the rest of the audience felt this too. Please correct me if I’m wrong. Interesting. And troubling somehow. I don’t have any answers. Just questions. Let’s talk…
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I am interested in what you percieve as included vs unincluded? Chris’s work, me and Maia’s work, both? Sections, entire piece. Secondly, I find it interesting that there is a perception that the work presented was for 2 different audiences.
Comment by Ellena Schoop (Scope) — 7/18/2008 @ 10:16 am
I love watching dance because I am not a dancer, nor am I a choreographer. There is no barometer with which I take in and judge dance. It’s all so outside of my education and understanding. It is from this point of view that I write:
Chris Schlicting's piece was an absolute delight to watch overall. The ‘gestural phrases’ (I thank my dance friends for telling me what they are called) were concise and often pedestrian, even literal in some cases. I always appreciate it when I watch dance and feel like I am understanding what the choreographer has intended, even despite feeling like I might have been one of three people laughing at parts. On my way home I joked that they should have given separate credit to Justin Jones’ amazing head of hair. The relationships and the campiness of their shared movements, though seeming two-dimensional in parts, spoke to the actual heart and honesty of the piece. The last 1/3 of the piece felt a little bit mushed up and less pointed to me. To ME. Or could have just been my blood sugar. I have never met Chris Schlicting, but after his dance last night I get a strong sense of modesty, humor and not-taking-himself-TOO-seriously. The details of the set pieces and costume pieces were pitch perfect for creating the ‘lair of fantasty,’ I will call it. Mr. Schlicting, you have a new fan!
Maia Maiden and Ellena A. Schoop put together exactly the kind of performance that I LOVE (I’m inclined to say ‘expect,’ but need to be realistic) from artists. Not only did they dance (and speak!) with an acknowledgment of history and progress, but they created a dialogue about it (’What do I look like to you?’ asked the man with the slacks, shirt and tie). As a white man, I have to disagree with Maggie Bergeron’s assertion, “I distinctly felt that these two pieces were designed to speak to very different groups. I felt included and unincluded. I think the rest of the audience felt this too.” Okay, so maybe when ‘I’m black and I’m proud’ was said, I didn’t throw my arms in the air like many who did. And who am I to tell her that she’s ‘wrong’? I don’t think she’s ‘wrong,’ I simply do not believe it. I did not feel like I needed to be a black man (or woman for that matter) to take something from this piece. I am white and cannot and will never know what it is like to be persecuted or subject of racism, I just never will. Am I guilty? No. Do I believe that I have a responsibility as an artist to take in art and performance that is outside of my personal radar of understanding? Totally. I love art because it gives me such opportunity to experience first-hand the pluralism of this community, state and country.
A few more words about the piece itself. I loved the multi-disciplinary telling of the story and ideas. Video, spoken word, dance (obv), even scenes! I was so excited not only to see dance broken out from its conventions, but to see and hear artists practice multiple disciplines within one evening? That is to be celebrated, as is using art to address real-life issues. Ones that an audience, black or white, should given serious mind and consideration to. Thank you ladies and gents for your strong wills and beautiful words and dances. Yes! You have another fan!
Yours,
Ben
Comment by Benjamin McGinley — 7/18/2008 @ 5:00 pm
I apologize, I accidentally posted this as a comment, rather than a blog post! Sorry!
Yours,
Ben
Comment by Benjamin McGinley — 7/18/2008 @ 5:01 pm
I’m glad this is provoking discussion. Maia and Ellena’s piece may draw from a specific experience different than my own, I think the articulation of the piece can connect to all, especially given it’s intensity and clarity.
I wrote some about in my blog (where I occasionally comment on live arts and roller derby).
Comment by Scotty Reynolds — 7/19/2008 @ 11:30 am
OOOPSSS..
my blog is http://www.scottycruz.wordpress.com
I think these is a lot to discuss given the turn over at the Southern as well…
Comment by Scotty Reynolds — 7/19/2008 @ 11:32 am
I have this video of Grease 2 that I taped off TV when I was in Kindergarten and is garnished with these commercials, a perfect time capsule of 80’s good clean and glamorous fun, at least as it was seen to my 6 year old eyes. Robin Leach by a airplane in a Pepsi ad, the Big Red “kiss a little longer” campaign, The Fruit of the Loom men in fruit costumes, Ladies jumping for shiny Toyotas. I don’t have much of a thesis here, but Chris’s piece really took me there, in a way that I very much enjoy. Along with an incredible troupe of some of the people I like to watch the very most. I did miss a few moments that got cut after earlier showings of this piece, chunks that to had helped hold me in a ride with the piece a bit more, perhaps.
Maia and Ellena, also after seeing a bit in progress, I quite appreciated the move towards a more casual place that the piece had taken on since last I saw it, the slightly under-volume remarks to one another and the blending between segments. I left this piece wanting to hang out more and talk in a structure-less, more personable fashion with these artists. In response to the comments about inclusion, I remember Maia mentioning before hand that everyone has a foundation and she is speaking from here own personal trajectory (a paraphrase), a thought that I appreciate, and also one that for me didn’t surface while watching the piece, but did after some digestion. While in the theater, in a roomful of people that identify in endlessly different ways I thought much about how different it would be to see this piece in another setting. I’d love to see it again in smaller, crowded, loud, room really close to the performers. Maybe a bit more physical proximity in lieu of cultural/racial proximity for me. Yet Chris’ piece, sitting in the back row of a formal theater, seemed appropriately distanced to the cool content I read from his work.
This is not so much a response to Maggie’s post, but a chunk of my thoughts, and I’m sorry. This is my first blog experience, and I tried my best.
Mostly, I would plainly like to thank these artists, who have made thoughtful work for me to watch.
Comment by Anna Marie Shogren — 7/19/2008 @ 1:26 pm
I have to touch on Maggie's honesty in seeing these two pieces as if they were made for different audiences. The span of difference between the pieces naturally made it feel that way. While viewing love things, I found myself wondering what African-based individuals were thinking of it and vice versa. Did it open people up to what they don't usually see, or did it close them off to difference even more?
In my opinion, The Foundation, etc. felt like a piece made for an audience common to the Southern. If one knows aspects of the African Diaspora and hip-hop culture, most was predictable. The music was familiar, the dancing familiar, the subject matter and aesthetics of spoken text familiar. But it felt like a reach aimed to one like Benjamin above, stating, "I am white and cannot and will never know what it is like to be persecuted or subject of racism."
This show was a way for what is common in this culture to be expressed to those who know little of this culture, and honestly, who would most likely not get out to see it in a show of its own. It's a way to shed light on what it's like to come from generations of racially motivated oppression, which is up to us to understand. Saying I'm white and cannot understand is in other words saying that white people can play no role in ending racism and gives little justice in viewing work of this sort. (in my humble opinion, of course)
Comment by Jill Foster — 7/24/2008 @ 12:50 pm
These two pieces did have very different genealogies, but the difference isn't all about ethnicity or race. Another divide is between the academy and the studio–between the artists who create with an eye to critical commentary and those who put all their effort into communicating what they have to say. In performance and in visual art, current academic strictures seem to amount to a ban on content; after all the fragmenting, the requirement to be allusive and hermetic, there’s not a lot that’s going to get through. The academy is really good at devising straitjackets for artists, which is why some of us avoid it altogether.
Or another way of putting it: there's the performance tradition that goes back to entertainment for bored courtiers (ballet at the court of Louis XIV) and then there's the tradition that's rooted in folk/community life. One is not more sophisticated than the other. "love things" seemed very abstract and deliberately stripped-down; when I think back on it almost a week later, what I remember is pictures. When I think back on "The Foundation et cetera" I remember entire sequences of scenes, and I could follow the thematic line through dance, song, dramatic dialogue, and visual design; this piece used a remarkable richness of means to meditate on a strong central theme: generations and the struggle for social change. The stage design for "love things" was monochrome (pink and white predominated). "The Foundation et cetera" used every color in the spectrum (I counted). Each of the two pieces was esthetically unified--but the artists' aims were clearly very different. One was about dance; the other used dance as one of many means to tell a story.
I attended the performance on Friday night and “The Foundation et cetera” received a standing ovation and the majority of questions in the question & answer afterward. The questions began with the technical and ended with a discussion of “what to do now” about the questions of community life raised in the piece. Looking at the web based reviews afterward, lots of commentators seem more interested in "love things," because it focused very specifically on technique and vocabulary, and gives critics and dance scholars something to chew over. Clearly, there were (and are) two different audiences.
Comment by Annette Kavanaugh — 7/24/2008 @ 8:19 pm
Sitting on a pink ribbon, watching Chris’s piece, I flashed back to my days of The Little Mermaid and My little Ponies, pre-teen slumber parties and the little girls section of department stores jumped out at me in the movement, costume and feeling. I agree with Maggie, there was a curious feeling in the room at the close of the piece. I saw a youthful, feminine qualities juxtaposed with a mature, sexual tension. It was like watching a roomful of girls hit puberty. The precise and crude nature of the choreography kept me bouncing between gracefulness and awkwardness, different stages of growing up and out of your pink turtleneck. The dancer’s focus kept changing between mocking, serious, playful, lusty, bored and gentle, so at the end perhaps I had just relived a long past temper tantrum, melo dramatic argument, encounter with a bit of puppy love. I wonder what place or state of being Chris wanted to create in the piece, not only on the stage but also in the audience’s minds
what and wherever it was, it was lovely and disturbing
Comment by Cara Krippner — 7/25/2008 @ 11:03 am