tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-59988542011-04-21T12:06:11.499-07:00Decoy Among the SwansA running account of teaching the Trisha Brown dance "Glacial Decoy" to the Paris Opera Ballet in the period November 12 to December 18, 2003Lisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07457195307892012206noreply@blogger.comBlogger151100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5998854.post-1104669376573147732005-01-02T04:34:00.000-08:002005-04-15T10:07:20.786-07:00Back to the SwansIn Paris again just now I received an email out of the blue from a dancing colleague who came across this weblog…So people are still finding their way to it!In the interest of bringing the historical record up to date I’m posting excerpts from letters to Diane Madden and Steve Paxton about getting Glacial Decoy back up to speed a year after our initial work there, and also a bit Lisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07457195307892012206noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5998854.post-1073075159744543972004-01-02T12:25:00.000-08:002005-04-15T10:06:06.410-07:00With time and distance, I see that the process of teaching Glacial Decoy to the Paris Opera Ballet was an emotional seesaw. I was convinced at some moments that this could be the most elegant and satisfying Decoy that ever was and at others that the task was hopeless, that the dancers would never be able in such a short time to understand a totally new use of weight and manner of comportment. We Lisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07457195307892012206noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5998854.post-1072038456132435702003-12-21T12:27:00.000-08:002004-05-03T03:08:38.046-07:00Here is a post written aboard US Air flight 27 to Philadelphia on the sunny day after the premiere. The dancers acquitted themselves beautifully. There is something that has happened with ALL the dances on the program which is ineffable, not easy to describe. In dress rehearsal there is a full house and plenty of excitement but also a bank of photographers clicking in unison at all the photogenicLisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07457195307892012206noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5998854.post-1071563129565843222003-12-16T00:25:00.000-08:002004-04-20T07:13:25.436-07:00It’s early Sunday morning, the square outside the hotel has gradually filled this week with tents and small cabins, all housing a festive Christmas fair. Now empty, the sparrows make some of the only noise, that and the-ever-at-work street cleaners. Today’s sky is surprisingly blue with fast moving clouds. An inviting day.
Now as I begin to think of wrapping up this project, I realize that the Lisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07457195307892012206noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5998854.post-1071307981969531982003-12-13T01:33:00.000-08:002003-12-16T00:33:01.493-08:00I will confess to considerable fear around the point of Diane’s return to the U.S. a week ago. She had brought such encyclopedic knowledge of the piece and such facility with transmitting it, I wondered how I could possible take back the mantle of responsibility. I also had a long list of things to correct from our final debriefing. In all my anxiety was sufficient that I found myself tossing andLisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07457195307892012206noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5998854.post-1070796725377499552003-12-07T03:32:00.000-08:002003-12-07T03:46:17.860-08:00Diane returns to the US tomorrow so we have a debriefing today, outlining what further is to be done. It's clear that Trisha doesn't keep in mind all the details of each of her works (how could she?). That means more of the responsibility for having it just right is on me than I anticipated. That was scary when the realization dawned. But the piece was looking not so very far from where we want Lisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07457195307892012206noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5998854.post-1070693695668850532003-12-05T22:54:00.000-08:002003-12-07T03:26:25.440-08:00I am starting to feel like Hemingway who said he couldn’t write about Paris while in Paris. He wrote “A Moveable Feast”, a journal of his Paris life, back in the U.S. We are so in the midst of the process that gaining the distance to write accurately needs time. So here is a diversion:
Contents of My Little Orange Notebook (in order):
Notes on the Opera building: “lyres of Orpheus, Eagles of Lisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07457195307892012206noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5998854.post-1070088596520547722003-11-28T22:49:00.000-08:002003-12-07T03:34:13.276-08:00The dancers described it as “de vagues”- the waves - the ups and downs of a process. After ebullience we have much more discouragement on all sides, more overload, more frustration. Habitual ways of punching out movement or holding tight resurface, even after repeatedly combing through with corrections and reminders. Diane remarked that there is a kind of folly to the project – we are trying to Lisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07457195307892012206noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5998854.post-1069835420011485822003-11-26T00:30:00.000-08:002003-12-07T03:36:34.743-08:00Phase Two started with the introduction of Diane Madden into the mix. In the first session we began as usual with a series of stretches and easy actions that work the necessary components and awarenesses for the work (sequencing, yielding weight, clear parallel, falling, separation and mobility of parts and use of breath). Then we looked at where the quartet is now, with an eye to determining theLisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07457195307892012206noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5998854.post-1069489111484510802003-11-22T00:18:00.000-08:002003-12-07T03:48:20.703-08:00At the end of rehearsal on Day Eight the dancers are grumpy, not knowing how casting will go. They are afraid that some of them will end up just as understudies, not performing for sure and I haven’t gotten straight answers about that from the powers that be. So it makes things a little tenser than I’d like. Still, we finished learning the quartet today and some of the material we started Lisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07457195307892012206noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5998854.post-1069228704156409912003-11-18T23:58:00.000-08:002003-12-07T03:50:41.826-08:00We made a deal. The dancers asked me if I was a gourmand. I told them I love delicious things. They suggested that we finish rehearsal early one day and go for pastries at le Printemps where there’s a branch of Laduree, a very fine “patissier” I promised that when they learn the whole quartet we’ll do just that. They were playfully eager to learn a lot after that, walking around imitating havingLisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07457195307892012206noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5998854.post-1069056848374860062003-11-17T00:14:00.000-08:002003-12-07T03:51:59.780-08:00On Day Four we were given a large space for a change, as several other dances weren’t rehearsing. The two very large studios under the main cupola of l’Opera are named for Nureyev, who directed the Opera Ballet from 1983-89 and continued working with them until his death in 1993, and Serge Lifar, the famed Diaghilev dancer and director of the ballet for nearly 3 decades. Every studio is named Lisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07457195307892012206noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5998854.post-1068883671988945352003-11-15T00:07:00.000-08:002003-12-07T03:54:41.543-08:00I have found a new and perfect use of the raked stage! Start uphill and roll down. At the beginning of the two separate work sessions and the end of the day we are working specifically with weight, imagery, articulation and sensation. Rolling is great training in sequencing, yielding through all parts of the body to gravity, and articulating all parts individually or in concert. How often are Lisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07457195307892012206noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5998854.post-1068795325587590342003-11-13T23:35:00.000-08:002003-12-07T03:56:37.180-08:00Day One: I am picturing the dancers of the Paris Opera Ballet after seeing seven of them hard at work for 5 hours for the first time. Their attention is complete. Their intention to master the movement challenges is unquestioned. They have enormous discipline. And extraordinary grace. At the same time “Decoy Among the Swans” is a fitting title for this writing not just because that’s literally Lisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07457195307892012206noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5998854.post-1068310371194351252003-11-08T08:52:00.000-08:002003-12-07T03:59:27.553-08:00Working in the Trisha Brown Dance Company studio is like going to an empowered space. The architecture is a fitting reflection of the work taking place there. A light, large realm of possibility, the materials are chosen with great care – cement-looking fiberglass sheets in the bathrooms with shiny hardware attaching them, slabs of beautiful wood simply suspended from the walls as seating, high Lisahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07457195307892012206noreply@blogger.com