Week #4+5: Supper Rehearsals “Look for the accident”

I’m noticing more and more how the movement and body language comes from stories of families breaking a part. There is a lot of moving with spirals and moving from the spine. I feel like all of the dancers have this clarity to fall back on while simultaneously being asked to communicate a story through their movement.  Silvana reinforced the kind of quality of movement that she was looking for by instructing the dancers to warm with an improvisation exercise. The exercise had a set intention of two body parts moving in two different directions. While doing the improvisation exercise, Silvana said “look for the accident”.  Later, in rehearsal she also said, “it doesn’t look like you’re connecting to each other, it looks like you’re stretching yourselves”. This meant that the dancers were focusing more on their individual body movement than the theme of the piece. As soon as Silvana gave that statement, the dancers turned their focus to the intention of the piece, which is about supporting each other.  It’s important for me to learn how to give necessary and clear corrections to dancers in the future when I am creating my own piece. Something else that I observed was that while the dancers where dancing separate from each other, it did not make as much of an impact as when they all came together and mover together. Silvana noticed this too and instructed the dancers to move closer together during one section. The difference seemed like a bunch of small bodies versus one big body. This also helped the dancers to be more connected. 

I am very inspired to make my own work after working with Silvana and her dance company. Watching the process was extremely influential to me as an artist. I’ve learned how to choreograph in the past, but I haven’t learned how to speak to dancers or how to affectively communicate a vision to both an audience and the dancers/artists that I am working with.  Now I have a better understanding of how to make my vision come to life. Most importantly, I now have the confidence to do so. I wouldn’t call Silvana my boss or someone who I was working for, but more of a teacher. I was constantly learning from her. She told her dancers, “You don’t have to act, that’s when it doesn’t work”. This is something that I will remember to tell dancers that I am working with. The natural way that the dancers acted while performing was compelling.