Dedicated to the creative process, mvworks will use this blog to document our process and will provide our audiences with an inside look into how we create, edit, and finish our pieces.
On the cover, capital c Cover…
Yes, it is small photo at the very bottom of the page directing you further inside the paper. Yes, it is actually about a film about dance, and not just dance, The Paris Opera Ballet. And yes, the article features a very large photograph of a dancer in complicated lift with an upside down split, but still the visibility.
At first glance I know walking patterns are not that interesting, but the other day I caught myself stepping, turning, and shifting and immediately a vision of a group of dancers suddenly meeting in a tight unison phrase popped into my head and stuck. Once the unison is visible, duets and trios would pop out here and there creating layers, tension, and counterpoint. All this amidst a simple stepping rhythm. For now, I’ve latched on to this idea and I’m hoping it doesn’t fade away. Something this simple could clearly articulate the individuals becoming a mass. Trying to break away. And getting sucked back in.
Every dance is created upon a set of basic principles. This new process will based on the following:
1. The power of the individual
2. The danger of the mass
3. Creating an extensive movement vocabulary for each dancer and for them as a whole
4. Layers of choreography to show a slow but distinct build of community
5. A small dancer to audience ratio (as close to one on one as possible, but not oppressive, or forced)
6. The use of a long rectangular space
7. The use of found music and composed music
These are the things I see in my mind, the ideas I keep returning to over, and over again. The core of the movement vocabulary is still a bit vague, but I have visions full bodied movement, arms, legs, torsos all working to reach their full length.
That’s it for now! More soon….
It’s funny how the little things make the big things official.
Today I bought three new moleskine notebooks and a wallet explicitly for the company. These small things are the beginning of our next work. YAY! I am so excited to start putting what’s in my head on paper. Not only does the act of documenting my thoughts make them official it also makes room for new ideas.
First on paper will notes on what makes movement authentic, and ideas on how I can find my dancers authentic movement without asking them choreograph for themselves. This is crucial to our next process. I’m thinking that its core the dance will about how individuals have a tendency to conform. How unpopular philosophies are unpopular because most people don’t want to admit they believe in them. Or maybe more to the point, that people just don’t want to be alone, and to protect that, they become more like the people around them.
Of course now that I’ve written these ideas down in a public arena the dance will end up being about kittens! So don’t hold me to it.
More soon.
As …within us. follow up continues, I have begun thinking about what comes next. I continue to be intrigued by audience and performer proximity, and how these roles somehow make the necessary diameter of personal space larger. With this in mind, I’m considering a less invasive approach but with an increased audience to performer ratio. What happens if every audience member has a their own “soloist”? Someone that they get to know briefly. Do they become more invested in that dancers performance?
In addition to this idea I’ve been thinking about creating a broader movement vocabulary with less tension. As someone who trained classically for over 20 years, I think I had to abandon technical movement to find my own voice. I’m not sure that I am competely ready to dive back into technically driven work – I still feel that I can find a more honest expression in a less polished movement style – but I do want to start developing a broader range of phrase work. The floor phrase in …within us. I think was sucessful in this, now I just have to find/create 50 more minutes of that kind of movement.
mvworks, sans Maria Parshina, met last night to watch the video footage of …within us. documented by Peter Richards.
Watching the footage was surreal. Peter did a great job capturing the tension, the mystery and the violence. Clips from the footage are soon to come.
“Sprenger’s …within us. is a thrilling work, a thoroughly involving hour that leaves the talented dancers and the brave audience feeling energized and alive.” - This Week in New York
“Ms. Sprenger demands attention and gets it…”
- Gia Kourlas, The New York Times
“Forget the fourth wall; this dance rocks you hard, sometimes comforts you with a touch, never lets you off the hook. You look but rarely from the privilege and luxury of distance. It sent a chill up my spine. I’m still rattled by it.” – Eva Yaa Asantewaa, InfiniteBody Blog
By Yi-Chun Wu
Brain McCormick writes about …within us. in Gay City News
“Megan Sprenger’s new work puts the audience within.”
“Set in a 360-degree environment with audience members integrated among the performers, …within us. subverts the convention of viewer as voyeur by breaking spatial boundaries and invading personal space. Drawing on the archetypes of aggressor, inflicted, watcher, and fighter, the work examines the physical and emotional instincts that lay at the core of human conflict.”
