It's been almost a month since our performance at the Clocktower Gallery in the Bronx. We haven't rehearsed since. Time's been flying, so on the one hand, it doesn't feel like it's been so long. On the other hand, as I start to think about it, it feels like forever since we've been in rehearsal! Especially, I think, because the rehearsal process that we've developed - the explorations, and questions, and trial and error over a luxurious amount of time - is so different from the "ok, this is what we're gonna do in front of the audience" sort of mindset that goes into preparing for a performance.
I've been trying to book one -on-one rehearsals with each of the dancers before we get together as a group. I haven't really put a lot of thought into why doing that feels so crucial to the process, but I know that it feels important. I'm really looking forward to those times - two hours of talking and dancing with one friend at a time, communicating questions and ideas through the body, developing a vocabulary, and a syntax, and a particular kind of intimacy . . . it's like a coffee date for the body!
I guess that's why I don't feel compelled to find studio space alone for myself - the whole communal aspect, the "coffee date" part couldn't possibly translate. I mean, how often do you go on a coffee date by yourself? =>As soon as I started typing that thought I realized that what I'm saying is somewhat false; I'm on a coffee date by myself right now! Maybe I should book some space for myself by myself.
I wonder what it will be like to go back into the material after an entire month. I have so many questions about context and image . . . it's been such an open process - in that it's an open field, without the mandate to "say" something or fulfill a particular kind of structure. But now, as I start to feel the need to organize, it's scary! If I make the kinds of decisions that will lead to structure or "content," will I lose that openness? I keep trying to remind myself that no decisions in this process are irreversible, but that just making the decisions will help me see something, so that I can decide whether that something is interesting to me or not. But if I don't see something other than the very open, somewhat nebulous rehearsing, I can't make value based decisions at all. The problem, I guess, is that there is SO MUCH that is interesting. How do I say no?
