“I come into this space, watching my image fly around, and I almost ralphed,” Dito says.

“We called it the blender,” says Nichole Canuso, who, along with Lars Jan, conceived and will direct TAKES.

“And I had to be the sacrificial daiquiri,” says Dito, who will perform alongside Nichole in the dance duet.

Lucky for me, when I stepped into the cube—a four-walled space where the echoes of a room are set up, and where the walls are 10-foot by 20-foot scrims—I had just strolled down the street from the office to the Festival Hub. Nichole and Lars Jan, creators and directors of TAKES, invited me into the space, where, thankfully, I did not ralph. I did, however, experience the strange sensation of moving in reaction to slightly delayed video of my movement.

“I’m interested in having the audience step inside of the work,” says Nichole. “In a gallery [setting], you pay attention to how you move through the space.”

During the Festival, audience members have the opportunity to experience the box for themselves. (Reservations here—it’s free.) In its installation mode, Lars says that visitors will wear an iPod with a track that tells them what to do, creating a dance with two people at a time.

“It’s a mix of formal instruction of where to be and a playful interaction between you and the other person.”

But the box isn’t just for playtime, it’s for showtime too.
TAKES examines how we remember and use our past experiences, integrating live video projections of the dancers, at different delays, that force the characters to engage with and confront their past actions. As I photographed immediate past moments of myself projected when I was in the box, so Nichole and Dito will dance with each other, and with their film selves as well.

“The video in this piece is in real time,” Lars says. “Because all the video is live, it’s an extension of the choreography. You watch for angle, you also choreograph for these rectangles,” Lars says.

According to Lars, when working with live video projection, the choreography is about both the movement of bodies, and the movement of cameras. While the cameras in the box are fixed, the shots are not. Imagine that each bit of video is a rectangle floating in the box—a rectangle that outlines what’s projected on the scrim—and the placement of those rectangles determines not the broader physical movement associated with dance, but the smaller movements you associate with acting for film.

“You can be both big and abstract,” Nichole says. “But your finger and eyebrow can give a different message at the same moment. It taps into a way I want to perform. The puzzle of figuring out where you are in all three cameras kind of relaxed me.”

“It feels like giving a live performance and a filmic performance at the same time. I’m starting to learn how small you have to be,” says Dito, the man behind the sweeping gestures of Martha Graham Cracker.

When performing, Nichole says, “I’m looking at Dito, thinking about the flat plane and live bodies. I know the space well enough to know that I’m making [a specific] picture. I feel like I’m able to use that as another tool. I know when I’m disappearing from the camera. I can think about my live body framing the screen.”

“There are so many compositional possibilities,” Lars says. “You’re in this ebb and flow no matter what.”

During TAKES, the audience is encouraged to move about the performance space. Still, for people who settle in, the experience will be strong.

“You can see all four screens,” Nichole says, “so you don’t feel like you’re missing something.”

“There are so many levels in the video system,” Lars says. “Where you put your eyes in the space is another editing layer.”

“We made the show for the 10 to 15 percent of people who want to move around in it,” Lars says. “These are another layer. Once you see a bit you can project yourself to the spaces in the room. So you surround the piece instead of being inside it.”

TAKES, in the end, is about examining our memory and experience and the role we take in constructing them out of the bits and pieces—our own little film takes—of our lives.

“It puts editing in cold focus,” Nichole says. “We edit the things we say, do, and make.”

The piece was inspired by the Jorge Borges short story “The Garden of Forking Paths.”

“The images in the story remind me of what the show looks like. All the choices you’ve ever made would be floating around in space. I’m not trying to portray all of those visions. But what if each line [of choices] was just as equal? The editing highlights that.”

TAKES runs throughout the festival, Theater West at The Hub, 626 North 5th Street, Northern Liberties. Dates and times vary, $25 to $30. For details and tickets, click here.

–Nicholas Gilewicz

TAKES – 2minute trailer from Nichole Canuso on Vimeo.

For the Philly Fringe, Insectinside offers up a raw and volatile love story in a whirling fantasy insect realm. Presented by Grounded Aerial, it combines modern dance (ground) with uniquely rigged aerial elements (air) in equal parts with a cast of fifteen artists. The production incorporates silk artists, dancers, a stilt artist, actors, gymnastics, and bungee aerial, along with an original musical score. But if you are looking for a mini circus, then this is not the place. Rather, Insectinside is emotionally charged choreography amplified into the air.

Based in New York City, but with strong ties to the Philadelphia area,  Insectinside has been a huge success in both San Francisco and New York City.  While the cast is mainly from NYC, this Fringe presentation incorporates some Philly based performers as well.

Each character presented has a complex layering of insect aggression combined with human empathy. While subtly investigating the concept of individual and communal betterment, Insectinside catapults the audience into a whirlwind fantasyland of flying wasps, fireflies, and a towering praying mantis. As the characters interact, play with, and perform among the audience through out the performance, there is surprise and message moment by moment.

Directing this flying menagerie is Karen A. Fuhrman, a trained modern and ballet dancer with an M.A. from NYU. Now specializing in both ground and aerial choreography, she has performed with the renowned dance company Pilobolus, seen with 2007 Oscars Award Show, Ellen Degenerous, Oprah, and the Conan O’ Brian show.  Other credits include Cavalia by Cirque du Soleil, De La Guarda (off-Broadway NYC), and MOMIX
dance company.

With Grounded Aerial, Ms. Fuhrman’s choreography has appeared at Yerba Buena’s Art Festival (San Francisco), Microsoft’s worldwide Vista and Office Logo launch, benefits in Lake Tahoe, Limelight night club (NYC), Company y Company (Barcelona, Spain), Bidvest International Awards Ceremony (Johannesburg, South Africa), Skirball Theater (NYC opening for Neil Diamond), Spiderman II release party, the International Palace in Guatemala City, Usher (NYC Gala), Madeski, Martin, and Wood Concert (Hammerstein Ballroom,  NYC), as well as 19th century barns, post-modern cathedrals, and northern California beaches.

Ultimately, as the characters fly among and interact with the audience, what unfolds is a raw love story that will make you feel and think, and perhaps tug just a bit at your heart strings.

Insectinside
Grounded Aerial
Interdisciplinary, 60 minutes
Philly Fringe
September 10th & 11th  at 8:00pm
September 12th at 3:00pm and 7:00pm
Philadelphia School of Circus Arts, 5900A Greene Street
Information & Tickets: http://www.phillyfringe.org/details.cfm?id=14142

This is where the lost take charge.

Take a wall fourteen feet high and one hundred and twenty feet long and make it into a stage. This is the set for Sanctuary, a dance of intense movement, ritual, and mistaken assumptions about the past from celebrated choreographer and Festival favorite Brian Sanders. Sometime in the future, a group of people inhabit a blown out, old industrial architectural relic from the past. They have chosen this place as a safe-haven, looking to recreate something from the past that is missing from their lives: a previous, purer way of life—the ever-elusive sense of “the way things used to be.”

Sanders turns this wide visual expanse into an exquisitely choreographed mix of danger, force, and beauty, as his lost tribe brings to life a vision of what this place once was, with a new set of rules and rituals.

Brian Sanders’ JUNK is known for their ingenious use of found objects and clever inventions that bridge the gap between dance and physical theater. Sanders’ choreography blends traditional dance theater with an inventiveness and physicality.

Brian built his signature style by creating off-the-wall choreography with found objects and other discarded debris giving way to the troupe’s name, JUNK. “I like to find the dance inside these pieces of junk; something unique and unexpected that gives us [the audience] a new and inspiring look on life,” says Sanders. The troupe’s shows are an exhilarating feast of exciting physicality and creativity, elegantly served up with beauty and wit.

Junk maintains its home season in Philadelphia, PA as a headliner for the Live Arts Festival where the company’s inventive performances have sold out year after year.

BRIAN SANDERS
As a brother of three, growing up in Princeton, Brian’s reckless fun was easily channeled once he found his love for gymnastics and classical dance. Inspired by the inventiveness of shows like Bob Fosse’s Dancin’ and Pilobolus on Broadway in the 1970’s, Brian resolved to become a choreographer in his own right. At the time he was unaware that he would eventually sustain an extensive working relationship with one of the founding members of Pilobolus, Moses Pendleton of MOMIX.

After receiving his BFA from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Sanders founded Archetype Dance Company. He served as a performer/choreographer and self produced several evening-length works. He re-established the company in 1997 as JUNK and has since then performed regularly in Philadelphia and the surrounding area.

Simultaneous to the development of his solo projects, Sanders was performing both nationally and internationally with MOMIX and working as an assistant choreographer to Moses Pendleton. Several of the choreographic projects Sanders was involved with continue to be performed by MOMIX worldwide. His independent works premiered and met with critical acclaim in NYC at the Knitting Factory, the Joyce Theater, Context, and the Yard at Martha’s Vineyard. MOMIX soon commissioned four of these independent works, which have since been performed extensively worldwide.

Since Sanders’ success with MOMIX and JUNK, he has gone on to choreograph and perform nationally and internationally for dance, television, theatre, and video. In Italy Brian choreographed two nationally televised mini series and choreographed a touring show, NOGRAVITY, which performed as part of the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino.

Sander’s work has been presented locally by Live Arts/Philly Fringe, Garden State Dance Festival, the Equality Forum, The Annenberg Theatre for “Dance Celebration”, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Broadcasters’ Association Conference at the newly-constructed National Constitution Center and for youthful, urban audiences. Sanders has set works on different companies including MOMIX, Eleone Dance Theatre, Freespace Dance Company, Koresh Dance Company, and dancers of the Pennsylvania Ballet. Sanders contributes his choreography annually for the local benefit gala Shut Up & Dance.

Sanders received a Barrymore nomination in 2003 for his choreography in the Wilma Theater’s presentation of Big Love. Sanders currently serves on the Faculty at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, PA.

Sanctuary
Brian Sanders’ JUNK
Dance, 45 minutes
Live Arts Festival
Theater East at The Hub, 626 North 5th Street
Show Times & Tickets visit
http://www.pafringe.com/details.cfm?id=12746

Kishin Shinoyama Photograph

As a co-presentation with the Institute of Contemporary Art and International House Philly, Live Arts has organized a film series to showcase the work of Lucinda Childs and Philip Glass. The films provide insight into the creative processes, careers, and lives of these two influential artists. The series is being offered as part of our ongoing Festival Plus program in preparation for the performance of Lucinda Childs’ Dance in the Festival this September.

Lucinda Childs, a Patrick Bensard 2006 documentary about the postmodern choreographer, is an attempt to put four decades of dance in to roughly 50 or so minutes of film.

From the onset it is clear that Mr. Bensard, director of the Cinémathèque de la Danse in Paris, is one of the many true fans and admirers of Ms. Childs.

Childs began her career as a member of the Judson Church Group in New York in the 1960s, and her most famous choreographs reflect the strident modernism of that time. In 1976, Childs choreographed Robert Wilson’s seminal “opera”, Einstein on the Beach, with music by Philip Glass. This collaboration continued in 1979 with Dance, where Childs brought together Glass’s composition and video by artist Sol LeWitt. Dance is still considered one of the most beautiful pieces in modern dance, and it launched Childs to international fame.

On the European front Ms. Childs has enjoyed a completely different level of financial support, but more so admiration and even reverence as a “Grande Dame of American dance”. The same has not always held true here in the United States, where her work up until more recently has been rarely seen.

Ms. Childs ground-breaking choreography established her signature of severe minimalism.  At the time, Dance, was perceived by some as a sort of counter revolution against the Cunningham-Cage standard, in which dance and music were held as independent and unrelated elements.  Childs was in fact not revolting against the established Cunningham, with whom she had studied, but merely carving out her own path.

In France, this path led her to be widely recognized as a major talent of contemporary dance. Among her many awards, Lucinda Childs was appointed by the French Government to the rank of Commandeur dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2004.

But back to our movie! All of this background sets the tone for what appears on camera. Even at the age of 68, Ms. Childs is striking on camera, perhaps even more so now than in the footage shown of her earlier years.  Mr. Bensard takes every opportunity for close-ups to portray her classic beauty,  from walks on the beach at Martha’s Vineyard, where she lives, to Ms. Childs discussing her career or simply rehearsing dancers. All of this adds to the viewer’s sense of being in the presence of someone quite extraordinary.

While Mr. Bensard does an incredible job of capturing Ms. Child’s persona, the film is somewhat selective in outlining her career, perhaps limited by time or a need to simplify for audiences. Nevertheless, her training at Sarah Lawrence College, the influence of Merce Cunningham, the early Judson years, her first work with Wilson – Einstein on the Beach in 1976, as well as her early pieces for her own dancers are covered. Missing were snippets of her later career including  insights in to the formation of Ms. Childs’  company.

It should be noted that since 1992, Ms. Childs has worked extensively in the domain of opera, in Luc Bondy’s production of Richard Strauss’s Salome, which she choreographed for the Salzburg Festival, and in 1999, which was revived for La Scala in Milan in March, 2007. In addition, she choreographed Bondy’s production of Verdi’s Macbeth for the Scottish Opera and in 1995, and Peter Stein’s De Nederlandse Opera’s production of Moise Et Aron. That same year Ms. Childs directed her first opera, Mozart’s Zaide, for La Monnaie in Brussels.

In watching Patrick Bensard’s documentary, capturing moments of Lucinda Childs in rehearsal with Mikhail Baryshnikov, and the Ballet de L’Opéra du Rhin in New York, London, and Paris;  not to mention the gamut of interviews with Mikhail Baryshnikov, Philip Glass, Anna Kisselgoff, Yvonne Rainer, Susan Sontag, and Robert Wilson, one is left simply wanting to know and see even more.  Mr. Bensard has hinted at the possibility of a sequel. For now, I simply look forward to seeing her work come to the stage in Philadelphia at the upcoming Live Arts Festival.

Dance
Lucinda Childs with music by Philip Glass and film by Sol LeWitt
September 10^th & 11^th at 8pm; September 12^th at 3pm
Live Arts Festival
Perelman Theater, Kimmel Center for the Performing, 260 South Broad Street
Tickets: $30 Tickets to Dance must be purchased through the Kimmel Center Box Office
Three masters of minimalism, choreographer Lucinda Childs, composer Philip Glass, and conceptual artist Sol LeWitt, collaborated to construct this seminal work of dance—one of the purest examples of interdisciplinary art-making ever created. An exploration of musical movement, rhythm, and harmony, Dance is a bold statement on the very nature of movement.

And be sure to catch the third and final installment in the film series…

Einstein on the Beach: The Changing Image of Opera (1985)
August 24th, 7:00 pm at the Live Arts Studio
919 N 5th St, Philadelphia
Directed by Mark Obenhaus
Introduction by Andrew Zitcer, Urban Planner and Arts Advocate
All film screenings are free and open to the public, but you need to RSVP to rsvp@livearts-fringe.org

To Learn More About Lucinda Childs visit:
http://lucindachilds.com

Flat Intersections culminates the work of four different artists (Briel Driscoll, Colleen McNally, Nikki Roberts, and Tess Stumpf) who are all working to emphasize one thing: exploration. They are exploring physical relationships of bodies, ignored questions, natural rhythms, and perceptions. Immersing themselves in such adventure undoubtedly has lead to new heights of understanding while further investigations surfaced. The work is daring, while satisfying curiosity.

Flat Intersections not only displays investigation through dance and physical movement, but also through other art media. Working alongside of such musicians as Jonathan Childs, Patrick Lamborn, and Bobby Szafranski, Flat Intersections displays the collaborative process as much of the music is also a live presentation. Working in the area of video, Steve Mewha joins the collaborative process. Shailer Kern-Carruth joins the team to contribute imaging genius through photography.

Flat Intersections will present their world premiere show September 3rd and 4th at 7:30pm at the Performance Garage on 15th and Brandywine Street in Philadelphia. For tickets, contact the Festival Box Office at (215) 413-1318 or visit www.livearts-fringe.org

Jonathan Childs can’t help but stare at the clouds while he bikes. It’s dangerous but as addictive as dark chocolate. He finds peace in the dinging of the car keys in the ignition, doors open, and a cool breeze.

Briel Driscoll, a current senior at Temple University, has been exploring the relationship of space, time, and energy through dance and choreography for as long as she can remember. In addition to dance she is currently training to be a Reiki Master, educating herself in Nutrition by exploring the philosophy of various diets, and biking frequently though the city. She cofounded a dance collective, Body Fields, with Nikki Roberts in 2010.
Shailer Kern-Carruth is attempting to be a dancer and choreographer and enjoys taking photographs along the way. In addition, she loves bicycling, poetry, and baking vegan sweets. She invites you to tell her your opinions on the world over coffee sometime.

Patrick Lamborn is a Philadelphia bassist, guitarist, and electronic artist, and is very excited to be sharing the stage with Briel Driscoll & Nikki Roberts in his Philly Fringe debut. Patrick performs regularly around the city with his group Son Step featuring Jon Coyle, Chris Coyle, and Matt Scorano and has been blessed to be able to work with other musicians including Chuck Treece, Glenn McLelland, Jarret Gilgore, Terell Stafford, Dick Oatts, Javon Jackson, Houston Person, Karryn Alison, and many more.

In Colleen McNally’s first Fringe Festival production, she is exploring ways to add elements such as natural sound makers, paper, and words to already present cognitive thoughts. In the fall of 2010 she will be graduating from Temple University with her Bachelor of Fine Arts.

Through life experiences and the studies of dance and philosophy, Nikki Roberts’ work has led her into the area of perceptions. Her recent studies have been focused on the “translation” and “transfer” of one perception or sensory experience into other parts of the mind and/or body. Cofounding Body Fields, a performance collective in early 2010 has provided her much opportunity to collaborate and meld her ideas into many others.

Tess Stumpf’s curiosity in movement explores the human condition. Her work’s inspirations not only involve her own experiences but actual past occurrences in the lives of her dancers. Tess hopes to touch her audience in a way most may perceive as uncomfortable and neurotic creating feelings most often choose to avoid.

Bobby Szafranski: Not the average cat. Finally graduated from Temple University with a Marketing degree. To quote his soul; music is an experience. Written only under perfect conditions, if one thing changes, it will be perfectly different. enjoy.

In Cuba, a professional dance or theater performance is cheaper than a can of soda. Alongside its renowned literacy and education programs, the Cuban government has built an intricate system to support the nation’s artists and to “culture” the Cuban public. Tickets to music, dance, and theater performances cost only a few pesos more than a movie, and opportunities to see art abound. Cubans consume art with about as much voracity as Americans do college basketball—they know the names and backgrounds of the performers, they understand the history and context of the work, and they avidly discuss the choices of the artists and the nuances of their execution.

Marianela Boán reminded me of this in our recent conversation about Decadere, her new work that will make its U.S. premiere at the 2010 Live Arts Festival. I’ve traveled to Cuba multiple times as a student and as a researcher, and what I mention above is not a part of Cuban life that outsiders know much about—censorship is by far the more common subject in the popular imagination when it comes to creative expression in Cuba.

The Ministry of Culture administers professional and educational institutions for Cuban artists and in so doing embodies the government’s firm commitment to supporting the arts (a novel concept in a country like the U.S.). But like all federal agencies in Cuba, it is partially driven by an ideology that is highly protective of the Cuban government and of the tenets of the Cuban revolution. In the 1970s, it was the Ministry of Culture that famously placed dozens of Cuban artists under police surveillance because of the critical nature of their work, and it is through the works of writers like Reinaldo Arenas (Before Night Falls) that many Americans have come to understand expression in Cuba. But this piece of history hardly completes the picture.

Marianela is among many Cubans artists who benefited from systemic and political reforms that took place in the mid-1990s. A re-structuring of the nation’s economy and a new era of leadership in the Ministry of Culture brought liberalized the state’s approach to cultural policy. With it came a generation of Cuban artists who have had the state’s full support for the creation of works that seriously critique culture and politics in Cuba and around the world.

So what does this have to do with Decadere? Perhaps not much—the piece is rooted in Marianela’s insights on what she has observed of American culture since coming from Cuba to the U.S. in 2003. Decadere contemplates some of the more regrettable hallmarks of contemporary American life—fast food, security cameras, and office culture&mash;and puts them into a larger hemispheric context using dance, text, movement that isn’t quite dance, and a whole lot of cameras.

We might expect a Cuban choreographer to make work about human relationships in Havana, or living under the surveillance of the state police, but this isn’t Decadere. Instead, Marianela presents a nuanced comparison of U.S. and Latin American culture that focuses on the workplace and the relationships that develop between people who work together. She also prods at human relationships with instruments of technology—particularly surveillance systems. She notes that there are surveillance systems “in most places in the U.S., and in Decadere as well.”

Decadere, she tells me, is ” . . . a piece that develops in a public space . . . that has been abandoned, and one in which the surveillance system and technology have outlived human activity.”

Self-sufficiency and survival seem to lie at the center of the piece–in the middle of the Decadere, Bethany Formica Bender performs Fast Food, a solo that Marianela created in Cuba in 1993. Formica anxiously begs for food from the people around her, only to end by sitting and eating her own fingers, one by one.

Marianela’s dancers, two Americans (Formica Bender and Scott McPheeters) and two Colombians (Marcelo Rueda and Carolina Carolina del Hierro), work together and separately, sometimes interacting, other times missing each other, attempting to interpret each others’ words and signals, sometimes succeeding and often failing. In this milieu, where in both art and in life, technology increasingly does the work of human beings, where we are left with the pieces that remain—like our own hands—Decadere provides us with a critique of our selves and the people around us.

Decadere runs September 15 through 18 at the Live Arts Studio, 919 North 5th Street, Northern Liberties. 8:00 pm, $25-$30.

–Nicholas Gilewicz

Photos by on Marianela Boán.

Of particular note to you, Fringe participants, are the promotional tools that Steve has set up for you. The Dance Calendar is the place where you should make sure your show is listed, and if you have a story or detailed press release, visit the The Dance Journal to submit details. His guide to how to promote your show is here.

But that’s not all—he also produces work. For ten years, he ran Music and Motion Dance, which he’s reinvented this year as MM2 modern dance. MM2 is dedicated to creating opportunities for college-aged dancers not only to perform, but also to develop their choreography and promote new works.

For 2010 Philly Fringe, MM2 offers Emergence, a suite of twelve works from young dancer/choreographers Liz Lyle, Cathrynne Grace Reynolds, Jenna Faye, Kristen Davies, Jessica Bryan, Angela Littlefield and Stephanie King. And, for the first time, he’s taking his project beyond Philly—out to the Upper Darby Performing Arts Center. From Steve:

“Ultimately what these young choreographers have created is an intriguing range of flavors. For example, in the piece Post-Emergence, Lyle explores patterns that create contact between elements, while incorporating some quirky gems. Her counterpart, Cathrynne Grace Reynolds takes on the concept of Pre-Emergence in an attempt to emerge from pandemonium by finding calm within chaos. In Re-Emergence, Jenna Faye Eugenides incorporates original, live music by Daniel Ison, to tackle the issue of global responsibility, where following ‘the flock’ may actually be a contributing problem.”

You can keep up with the evolution of Emergence at the show blog, or, follow the links below for tickets!

Emergence will be performed three times on September 11, at 2:30 pm, 4:30 pm, and 7:30 pm. Upper Darby Performing Arts Center, 601 Lansdowne Avenue, Upper Darby. $15. For tickets, click here.

–Nicholas Gilewicz

Photo by Steve Weisz.

Byron, who first saw Headlong’s work in their 2005 piece Hotel Pool has an intimate connection to the company outside of the documentary—his wife, Christina Zani, dances with them. He was shooting video for a workshop of theirs with Tere when the choreographer made the suggestion that David, Andrew, and Amy “un-braid and then re-braid” their process. They would radically move away from collaboration and instead pursue their own separate strains of choreographic research for a few months, eventually bringing ideas from the resulting three pieces together to form More Byron, who teaches screenwriting and film production at Temple and UArts, was intrigued by the idea and approached Headlong about making a documentary on the experiment.

“In many ways they’re like a family . . . I wanted to look at how organizations/institutions/structure can lift you up to accomplish your goals, but at the same time constrain you and limit what’s possible,” says Byron. “My interest in this comes from my love of family melodrama, I guess.”

The artists say that it was strange but liberating to put their structure on hiatus for the piece.

“When you’re discussing things with other people a little grain or kernel of an idea doesn’t sound significant when you say it aloud. But if you just follow an impulse, eventually it would lead to something I could explain,” says Andrew.

“Sometimes David would mischievously poke his head into the studio and we’d all scream,” says Amy of keeping her work secret. “It was sort of fun, like parents wrapping Christmas presents for their children.”

“It made the whole thing much more vulnerable and personal and great,” Andrew adds. It also made him wary of accepting Byron’s offer.

“I was against it,” says Andrew. “I was definitely like, ‘Guys I think this is a terrible idea. Especially at a moment when we’re going to be vulnerable to each other and our processes and our own artistic concerns, we’re gonna have this 24-hour cameraman?’” he remembers asking. “That’s a disaster.”

But after what the three agree was an intense discussion, Amy, David and Byron convinced Andrew to invite said 24-hour cameraman into the studio. “They felt pretty strongly about it,” says Andrew, “and that’s what you do in a collaboration.”

David says that their fundamental trust in Byron was vital. “We only wanted to be able to say yes if we could let him do whatever he wanted.”

And he wanted to do everything. Each choreographer had 40 to 50 hours of rehearsal, from September when they started rehearsing to April 4th when they presented their work to one another. Then they began the re-braiding process with a weeklong retreat at Silo, an artist residency space on a farm in the Lehigh Valley. There were also creative meetings, budget meetings, meetings with Live Arts, and even “secret rehearsals,” where the choreographers and dancers (and of course Byron) got together after dinner and wine for creative time without the pressure of a formal rehearsal. Byron filmed all of it.

“If I was just there for some rehearsals, I would’ve missed the epiphanal moments, the moments where they figure out what the dance means to them,” he says. Though fewer artistically epiphanal moments happened during administrative meetings, Byron says he considered those to be equally important to a portrayal of the process. “They had kind of a budget crisis during this project. It was a recession and a lot of places cut down on their funding—I couldn’t miss those meetings.”

“He’s just an incredibly hard worker,” says David of Byron. “At the end of the process we’d be calling rehearsals or creative meetings at the last minute with no warning and he’d be like, ‘I’m gonna be there.’”

Accordingly, Byron ended up with about 250 total hours of footage. Though he usually uses static cameras to set up frames in his work, the necessity of tracking the dancers and the inability to predict what would happen in the studio forced him to throw the storyboard out the window and shoot the entire film himself using a handheld camera. “The form follows the content,” he says.

Having Byron in the studio turned out to be less invasive than predicted. In fact, says Andrew, “he was very successful in that he made himself a very calm, simple presence.” He says that he had to actually adjust to not having a camera around after Byron finished filming. The artists very rarely asked for something to be “off the record,” and David says the only real instances where he had to ask Byron to turn off the camera was when they spending time with one another outside of rehearsal. “Byron would try and get the camera out and I’d be like, ‘Dude, just hang out!’”

Only once did Byron have to make a difficult choice whether or not to film. One day in rehearsal his wife Christina suddenly fell to the ground. As the other dancers gathered around her, Byron was unsure what to do but kept the camera rolling. Unbeknownst to him, Christina had badly injured her Achilles tendon.

“If I would’ve interrupted, it would’ve made things more complicated or difficult. I had spent a whole 250 hours observing, and the other dancers were people who know their bodies and know what to do. I felt it was important to be on the outside of things,” Byron reflects. He says that in documentary there can be a lot of anxiety, but that he disagrees with filmmakers who stand there filming something and narrate over it, “I feel awful filming this.”

“Don’t film something if you don’t feel good about it,” he says. So he filmed for another 10 minutes until Christina started to cry, “then I put my hand on her and had to shut off the camera because I started to cry.” But he excused himself, got himself together, and then came back and started filming again. The only rehearsal Byron ever missed was the next day, when Christina had surgery. In typical Headlong fashion, Christina’s injury was integrated into the piece, with her performing from a wheelchair and in an orthopedic boot.

That episode translates to a scene in the film that Brian says is “upsetting, surreal, but also sweet,” and it parallels a scene of healing in More that the Broad Street Review called “the emotional focal point of the piece.”

This sense of self-consciousness and integration of the process in the piece—even when that includes injury—is central to Headlong’s work. They’ve long thrown open their doors for First Friday sessions of works-in-progress, but the three agree that this is the first time an outside force has tried to really capture their artistic process.
“I’ve seen lots of dance films that focus on ballets and how much the ballet dancers sweat and how hard it is,” says David. “That’s not what’s really going on in a dance studio, at least not the kind of dance we make.”

Byron agrees, but addresses the challenges of communication that on film. “If a dancer looked like they were having a hard time with something, I would film them not because I wanted to show ‘Oh, this is hard for them,’ but because I see them thinking and that’s interesting to me.” That doesn’t mean that the choreographers are exactly excited to see those hard moments on the big screen.

Amy looks forward to seeing footage of the dancers, “who are all just genius in this piece”, but admits that it’s hard not to be self-critical when you see yourself on TV. Andrew agrees,

“My first thought is if it’s really interesting and fascinating from your point of view, it’s because it’s gonna be excruciating for me.” He and David both said they’d rather watch it by themselves, preferably with mixed drinks.

David says, though, that the possibility of capturing the “body-to-body communication” that happens between dancers in rehearsal on film ” feels more significant than ‘Do I look fat?’ or ‘Do I sound stupid?’ or ‘Are people gonna look at me and think ‘That’s a dumb idea’?”

“There’s this transmission of information that ricochets around the room. It’s this kind of questioning and exploring and it’s intimate and it’s physical—it’s amazing. If Byron can represent that then the film has the potential to be a real gift to the world.”

No One Else Could Love You More will be shown on September 13th at IHouse’s Ibrahim Theater, 3701 Chestnut Street, University City. 8:00 pm, $8.

–Ellen Freeman

Daniele’s artistic vision has changed since then. Her piece Kaidan, which will be performed at the Live Arts Festival in 8 (eight choreographers / eight new works), is an interactive dance installation that draws on Japanese horror movies and the ancient tradition of hyakumonogatari kaidankai, or “the telling of 100 ghost stories.”

“I feel like there’re a lot of people who just watch “So You Think You Can Dance” and Broadway plays—they’re interested in being entertained. And they’re the kind of people that go a lot of carnivals and amusement parks,” she says. Daniele’s not one to turn up her nose at a good haunted house, but in creating Kaidan she hoped to combine that enjoyment of thrill-seeking and an “appreciation of something that’s beautiful or grotesque or thought-provoking, to bridge the gap between the elitist, ‘high art’ people and the thrill seekers.”

“I grew up in this cultural vacuum,” she explains, “and I always had this desire to appreciate the aesthetics of things, view art, and question art.” Her flair for the alternative—she choreographed a dance solo to a Metallica song in 8th grade—landed her at UArts in 1993, where she majored in modern dance. After graduating she fell out of the dance world for a bit, “because I worked at a bar,” she says. Then in the 2003 Live Arts Festival she saw German dance company Cie. Felix Ruckert perform their piece Deluxe Joy Pilot.

“It blew my mind. I thought it was the coolest thing ever,” says Daniele. She approached Felix after the show and they talked all night and exchanged e-mails. Eventually he invited her to do a residency with his company and audition for his show, which she performed in Berlin in 2005. She says that until working with Felix, the dances she made fell under the “traditional” category.

“With [Felix] I learned a skill set that was completely unique and new to me, which is interactive dance theater,” she explains. “Literally moving and manipulating physically members of the public, which was a really difficult thing to do.” Her past work with improvisational companies and the fact that she’d always felt inspired by film brought her to a place where she was less interested in making staged works, but instead works that felt more like installations. “I don’t want the audience to feel removed, I want them to feel this”—she holds a hand in front of her nose—”close.”

In Daniele’s style of interactive dance, audience members become part of the performance as they are moved by the “real” dancers. Performing this way can be a challenge for even seasoned dancers, and for that reason Daniele held auditions for the first time for this piece.

“There are some people who are brilliant movers and even brilliant improvisers who have a really hard time with this,” she explains. “Some of it I think is intuitive.” She leads her dancers through exercises that start with feeling their own bodies and focusing on sensation, like what pulling on the skin feels like, a big squeeze versus a little squeeze, tapping versus a caress. “You can’t as the guider expect anything from the person you’re manipulating. You can’t have an agenda, like ‘I’m going to lift their arm.’” says Daniele. “Your experience is completely irrelevant, which is very different from contact improv. The public’s experience is the only thing that important . . . it’s an egoless activity.”

Because of the logistics of sharing a bill (Daniele’s piece will be performed with Jaamil Olawale Kosoko’s Or Maybe My Mother was an American Chameleon?), Kaidan will look a different at Live Arts than when it will be performed again, on Halloween weekend at The Fidget Space in Fishtown. For the reprise performance Daniele imagines that the piece will have gone through a metamorphosis to feel more like an interactive installation or a haunted house than a traditional dance piece.

Daniele has been working with dramaturge Katherine Cooper (another first for her) to research five archetypal characters from Japanese folkloric ghost stories to feature in Kaidan, and five designers are creating kinetic sculptures which the dancers will wear in the performance to represent each character. After seeing Dreams by Akira Kirosawa, Daniele was inspired by the ritual of everyday Japanese life. “Everything is so particular and controlled and specific—I find it really beautiful. It lends itself so well to performance.”

In the original 17th century Japanese ritual of hyakumonogatari kaidankai, one lantern would be extinguished with each ghost story until “by the end of the night it’s dark and you’re really scared,” explains Daniele. She’ll play with this spooky image in the piece, but the interactive element of the dance might be what’s really unsettling to audience members. Just like at the circus when the clowns take a member of the audience to be a target for the knife-thrower, Daniele says that the empathy one feels when watching performers intensifies when they see them moving another audience member who they can identify with: “It can be frightening.”

“Forever, throughout history people have enjoyed being frightened,” she says. “People used to think entertainment was watching other people be executed.” Maybe in her next piece Daniel will execute an audience member.

–Ellen Freeman

Photos by Josh McIlvain.

Rain Ross Dance and Stone Depot Dance Lab will premiere, at the Philly Fringe,  Absence/Presence, a dance performance showcasing truly physical movement.

Choreographers Eleanor Goudie-Averill and Rain Ross explore political and historical subjects including social activism, identity vs. what we project to society, and technology and its affect on communication.

The desire for contact and connection interplay in these dance works, which include Ross’ Fresh Hell, a scintillating portrait of Dorothy Parker, and Goudie-Averill’s moving and personal new quartet, Convictions.  This is a show for the dance lover as well as those who appreciate a pure energetic performance experience.

The show also features new music by Dan Roeder and NYC-based composer Caleb Engstrom and dancers Marie Brown, Lindsay Browning, Beau Hancock, Valerie Ifill, Kate Jordan, Scott McPheeters, Lauren Putty, and Edward Rice.

In creating dance, both Goudie-Averill and Ross value physicality, movement invention, honesty, subtlety, and accessibility for the general audience. With their shared aesthetic principles, this promises to be an exciting performance.