Dance

10 May, 2010

Original Synapse: Body Artist

2010-05-10T18:15:59-07:00By |Categories: CounterPULSE|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , |

Readymade Dance Theater Company's new piece was inspired by Don Delillo’s 2001 novel, The Body Artist. Director Zsolt Palcza listened it to by audiotape—a great one read by Laurie Anderson—while driving to Mexico one year. Her voice is mesmerizing; it puts one into a trancelike state, much like the 300 miles of carretera between Nogales and the Pacific Ocean. “He sat with the newspaper, stirring his coffee. It was his coffee and his cup. They shared the newspaper but it

16 Aug, 2010

The Chair in My Dance

2010-08-16T19:07:15-07:00By |Categories: CounterPULSE, Performing Diaspora, Sri Susilowati|Tags: , , , , , |

A Choreographical Investigation I am currently deep in the process of creating the piece to be performed in October. As I do this, I think about what my intentions are, what I want to convey, and what I use to embody (a good word for a choreographer) those intentions. Intentions exist on the level of creating and exploring themes, such as for this piece, the relationship between dancers and food. Intentions also exist on the level of wanting to create

14 Sep, 2010

Selling It

2010-09-14T10:38:57-07:00By |Categories: CounterPULSE, Performing Diaspora, Sri Susilowati|Tags: , , , , , |

Sometimes I'm asked what village I grew up in. The answer is a little village of (what is now) 7.4 million people. The idea that I grew up in a ghetto area in one of world's largest cities seems to shock many people. How can the art that I learned and practice be from that environment and not from one of rice fields, palm trees, and poor but happy villagers? The deep origins of my technique are not from the

10 Oct, 2010

Creation

2010-10-10T23:01:31-07:00By |Categories: CounterPULSE, Performing Diaspora, Sri Susilowati|Tags: , , , , |

Creating work means following feelings as far as one can as well as using accumulated technique to express those feelings.  There is an interaction between the feeling and technique, and each feeds the other.  Unless it is a set classical piece, learned technique may not match the feeling/meaning/expression that is desired.  So, one has to experiment.  For me, the starting point is in the classical training I received.  Because the expressive range is so rich, I feel that it is

9 Jan, 2011

The Best Laid Plans…

2016-03-18T22:19:57-07:00By |Categories: Artists in Residence, CounterPULSE, Dandelion Dancetheater, Video|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , |

A particularly challenging and fertile aspect of being a creator of experimental performance is that I often have to describe a project in detail many months or even years before I start on it. When working with 10 or more ensemble members and needing to plan out schedules and spaces that are accessible for dancing, instruments, wheelchairs, props, sets and more, I have to do a lot of advance planning. I joke often with my husband about how I have

9 Jan, 2011

Synchronicities

2016-03-18T22:19:45-07:00By |Categories: Artists in Residence, CounterPULSE, Dandelion Dancetheater, Video|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , |

One of my favorite things about the creative process is synchronicity. I follow intuition above all else in my art making and find myself continually rewarded by the ways that relationships I never could have dreamed up appear all of a sudden. Until recently I was planning on making a piece called Don't Suck! Cycle II as part of a four month residency at CounterPULSE in San Francisco. The recent deaths of my close friend Sharon and my grandmother moved

12 Jan, 2011

Public Showings

2016-03-18T22:19:33-07:00By |Categories: Artists in Residence, CounterPULSE, Dandelion Dancetheater|Tags: , , , , , , , , , |

We have our first work-in-progress showing for my CounterPULSE residency this coming Saturday, Jan. 15th. Even though we're still at the beginnings of our creation process, I'm very glad we have this showing to work towards. There are many reasons that I find public showings of performance works in progress useful. These include: --forcing us as artists to make some decisions about what we want to show --giving a deadline to a particular segment of our creation process --encouraging everyone

18 Jan, 2011

Injury as Teacher

2016-03-18T22:19:18-07:00By |Categories: Artists in Residence, CounterPULSE, Dandelion Dancetheater, Video|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , |

I'm often able to tell other people when they are injured how much every injury can be a teacher. When it's not me having to hold back from moving with physical abandon, I see the benefit of learning about our limitations and our vulnerability through our injuries. When I have an injury, my vision is a lot murkier and I have to wade through a lot of resistance before I come to some kind of acceptance of what happened and

12 Feb, 2011

Birthing Pains

2016-03-18T22:19:07-07:00By |Categories: Artists in Residence, CounterPULSE, Dandelion Dancetheater|Tags: , , , , , , , , , |

I see the creation of each art work as a kind of birth. There's both great connection and great pain in this process, and I often forget that the magnitude of how connecting a piece is directly relates to how painful its birth can be. Last week we tried out a structure for performing a lot of the most salient material we've been developing in our Friend project. It's a difficult feat to imagine how to collage together all the

12 Feb, 2011

Conditioning

2016-03-18T22:18:54-07:00By |Categories: Artists in Residence, CounterPULSE, Dandelion Dancetheater|Tags: , , , , , , |

I'm humbled to see how deep so much of my conditioning runs. I've been learning about and experimenting with inclusive dance techniques for almost a decade now. I'm continually looking for ways to make the ways I perform, think about, create and teach dance/theater inclusive of people with diverse mobilities. And still my conditioning asserts itself over and over. I fall back on how I learned to dance. Sometimes this is wonderful and provides a storehouse of movement approaches and

13 Feb, 2011

This One’s For Friendship

2016-03-18T22:18:42-07:00By |Categories: Artists in Residence, CounterPULSE, Dandelion Dancetheater|Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , |

One of the things that is shifting in me in response to the recent death of my friend Sharon Mussen is a re-prioritizing of friendship. I had a professor in grad school tell me once that I should never direct my friends in my projects--that the roles become too confusing. Even though I respect this professor very much, that advice somehow confirmed for me how much I operate from exactly the opposite view. I love creating experimental performance precisely because

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