{"id":6908,"date":"2022-11-24T12:57:06","date_gmt":"2022-11-24T15:57:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/loie.com.ar\/?p=6908"},"modified":"2022-11-24T13:01:19","modified_gmt":"2022-11-24T16:01:19","slug":"composicion-de-uno-mismo-mi-senda-como-coreografa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/loie.com.ar\/en\/loie-11-2\/reflexiones\/composicion-de-uno-mismo-mi-senda-como-coreografa\/","title":{"rendered":"Self-Composition: My journey as a choreographer"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Discovering who you are takes time\u2026.
\nGetting the courage to share important ideas and stories takes time\u2026
\nAccepting that you have the need to share and express your ideas and emotions with others takes time to process\u2026
\nLearning the tools to be able to articulate your ideas takes time\u2026
\nGathering the energy and strength to make it happen takes time\u2026\u2026
\nExpressing yourself is not so easy\u2026<\/p>\n

The society you live in pushes you to produce, create, and make \u201cthings\u201d in order to be visible, to exist, but is up to us to know what to listen to. It takes focus to understand our own deep needs and desires to create.<\/p>\n

Writing this article for you, sharing my point of view with others is my duty and my pleasure!<\/p>\n

First steps and ideas<\/strong><\/p>\n\"\"<\/a>\n

 <\/p>\n

I choreographed my first piece when I was 11 years old. There were six dancers dancing on pointe to the music of Paul McCartney and it was 10 minutes long. From that point on I never stopped creating! At the moment, my repertory includes 15 full length shows, many commissioned works for TV, dance companies, theatrical productions, opera, and music videos, as well as 8 short dance films! Since 2006, I have presented 400 performances, and performed at 100 venues, presenting thought provoking and historically conscious dance-theater in NYC.<\/p>\n

Being a choreographer is a way of seeing life, an attitude, a way to both absorb and react to life. It\u2019s a way to express thoughts of one\u2019s inner world.For as long as I can remember, whether I was taking class, dancing for other companies, or teaching, my mind has always filtered movement through my composition-analytical eye.<\/p>\n

In 2000, I started teaching Dance Composition\/Choreography workshops in response to interest expressed by professors and teachers from schools near L\u2019Atelier in Bahia Blanca, Argentina. These educators and I formed a community that generously exchanged ideas, experiences, and knowledge. My courses attracted a diverse group of theater directors, visual artists, filmmakers, singers, teachers of ethnic dance, church choir directors, flamenco dancers, hip hop teachers, skaters, and ballet teachers. I love that my work allows me to embrace diversity because all those settings invariably provided a unique opportunity to grow.<\/p>\n

Pandemic and choreography<\/strong><\/p>\n

From 2020 to the present, I created and direct the Online Choreographic Mentorship Program; a unique program that offers a personally tailored opportunity for aspiring and professional choreographers.<\/p>\n

I offer monthly workshops where we explore different questions and topics relating to choreography. We also focus on development and experimentation with different techniques of Choreography, exploration and examination of the individual creative process, artistic brainstorming, feedback on previous choreography, advice on topics such as writing about your work, as well collaborating with another artists and designers.By exploring different choreographic methodologies (for live performances as well as for an online audience) the artists work on a new creation with their newly expanded creative toolbox.Giving people the tools to analyze, appreciate, look at, and see the delicate balance required of choreography is like handing them a knife and fork so they can eat a meal. For some, it\u2019s enough to give them permission to use their hands to eat!<\/p>\n

When I teach dance composition, I reorganize, reconsider, reconstruct, and rediscover my own tendencies, tastes, and the use of media. Who, what, where, why, and to whom, are the leading questions for my explorations.<\/p>\n

Form and content are in an inextricable relationship! Giving an idea, a thought, or an emotion a form in time and space is meticulous and soul-searching work.When I choreograph, I always think of Eugenio Barba and his theory of the four audiences. When he created his pieces, he imagined four people who together would form the perfect audience: \u201ca blind man, a deaf man, a child, and a critic.\u201d This helped him achieve both breadth and depth as a director.<\/p>\n

Why choose dance as your language, the medium with which to express and shape your life? My aim is to wake the creative impulse in others.Like an artisan, with each choreographic endeavor, I refine my ability to explore ideas through movement and examine how to communicate. When I choreograph, I declare my views on a particular topic. Some ideas need to shout, some whisper, and some require a clear, firm voice. As I build a choreographic repertory, I continually solidify and purify my choreographic style.<\/p>\n

Transmitting my ideas as a choreographer is a delicate process. Precision, clarity of ideas, and effective synthesis help the dancers grasp my work and find the focus of their creative and interpretive search. Sometimes I need to be sincere and tell them \u201cI am confused, I am lost in my own creative process! Help me find Ariadne\u2019s golden thread and get back to safety!\u201d<\/p>\n

The Form<\/strong><\/p>\n\"\"<\/a>\n

 <\/p>\n

As a dancer, I am a technician.\u00a0I trained with Russian and Cuban Ballet dancers in my early years. Mastering the technical aspect of Ballet gave me the structure to face the unknown choreographic adventures I would confront much later on. I love teaching Anatomy and Barre a Terre to offer dancers an understanding of how their body works as an instrument for their expression.<\/p>\n

At the beginning of my creative life, sometimes I just went with my intuition and ignored all the technical aspects. My composition teacher told me that choreographing 100% by intuition was a weakness, and urged me to keep studying. It\u2019s good advice I\u2019m happy to pass along.<\/p>\n

Later I became obsessed with technicality, phrases of movement, and the exploration of the kinesphere, in order of be inventive with\u00a0my movements. I explored and designed in the physical spaces where I planned to show my creation, but my pieces turned out to be sterile, mechanical, and life-less. Until I abandoned this overly technical approach, my pieces were boring.<\/p>\n

Now, after so many years, I\u2019ve fully embodied the technical aspects and I can let go and follow my intuition again. I\u2019ve come full circle, and by trusting my gut, my pieces are alive, sustained my technique!<\/p>\n

The Content<\/strong><\/p>\n

Each choreography that I create is driven by the exploration of a theme, but also involves mastering or solving a technical \u201cproblem\u201d in choreography.Let\u2019s take a look at some recent shows and identify some themes and problems.<\/p>\n

In the most recent piece that premiered this year (2022), La noche que dejaste de actuar<\/em> (The night that you stopped acting<\/em>), I explored how to be autobiographical, specifically investigating the push\/pull relationship between music, lyrics, and movement. Additionally, each night of the run I was playing with verbal and non-verbal communication, and Improvisation vs. Set Choreography.In my solo show No more beautiful dances<\/em> (2018), I was focused on two aspects: the body as a container and the body as a tool.I used two cameras projecting live video feeds above me to capture my movements from different angles, offering the audience a trio of my body performing from three different perspectives. For me, technology is like a magnifying glass, and I decided I wanted the magnifying glass from above and from below.<\/p>\n

In Pursuit of Happiness<\/em> (2014), I was interested in the problem of Text and Dance relationships. I alsoexploredhow memory and spirituality shape identity. In Pachamama: Mother World<\/em> (2013), I pushed myself to investigate the thin line between Ritual and Performance. I tried to reconnect with the primal impulses that underlie ritual, juxtaposing intellect and instinct. In Sangre & Arena<\/em> (2012), I explored Imagination, moving away from the presentational side of dance and reconnecting with the primal impulses of art.The Grass is Always Greener<\/em> (2011) was a show where I dealt with the past, present, and future understanding of immigration from the point of view of an immigrant in the USA. I wanted to uncover the historical context and explore the difference between Form and Content.The Corral<\/em> (2009) was a vehicle for me to fully investigate the principle Emotion creates Motion \/ Motion creates Emotion<\/em>, and create broad stereotypical characters.The black box theater allows me to shatter preconceived ideas about life, and lead the audience in momentarily transcending awareness of our present condition.<\/p>\n

In my short dance films, I am interested in resolving the difficulties of adapting, extracting and seeing choreographic material transform from 3D to 2D. I ask myself: How do we read dance now, with the current shift to on-screen performance? What is performance for you now during the pandemic?<\/p>\n

The curiosity for learning and experimenting with materials, bodies, and ideas is the central core for each choreographic adventure. The process is more important than the result. The motivation for a long career is impelled both by reflecting on years past, as well as the hunger to continue working, to continue experimenting.<\/p>\n

I am<\/strong><\/p>\n

I believe that Dance is a union and communion with ourselves, with others and with the environment.
\nPresence is consciousness.
\nMy art goes hand in hand with love.
\nI am curious about how we create ourselves with integrity, connecting mind, body and spirit.<\/p>\n

I am:
\nIn between the cultures of South America, Europe, and the USA.
\nIn between the disciplines of Dance and Theater.
\nIn between ritual and spectacle.
\nIn between personal and political.
\nIn between macrocosms and microcosms.<\/p>\n

Dance is my primary mode of personal expression, my obsession, how I make my living, and where I find joy. I have strong opinions about dance that often contradict what is popular, and I enjoy explaining my position to people who are interested and engaged in dance.
\nMy own work is intimate, audacious, and historically\/socially conscious.<\/p>\n

Dance informs the audience about the role of the individual in society, and makes the audience experience, feel, think and emote.<\/p>\n

These are my favorite quotes about trying to define what is Dance, Choreography, and the Art of making dance:<\/p>\n

As Doris Humphrey says in her book The Art of Making Dances<\/em>: \u201cThe aspiring choreographer must be an extrovert and a shrewd observer of physical and emotion conduct… Honesty is essential. What do I believe in? What do I want to say?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDance as a Metaphor of Thought\u201d in Dance as a Metaphor of Thought<\/em>, AlainBadiou.<\/p>\n

\u201cChoreography is just a frame, a structure, a language where much more than dance is inscribed\u201d, Jerome Bel (quoted inJen Joy,\u00a0The Choreographic<\/em>).<\/p>\n

\u201cApparatus of Capture\u201d,Andre Lepecki (Choreography as Apparatus of Capture<\/em>).<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat does choreography- as a concept, as practice – offer in this particular moment of cultural crisis? Perhaps Choreography invites rethinking of orientation in relationship to space, to language, to composition, to articulation and to ethics.To engage choreographically is to position oneself in relation to another.\u201d (The Choreographic<\/em>, Jen Joy).<\/p>\n

\u201cChoreography and dance are often proposed as causally related. Choreography is the means and dance the end, or as the American choreographer Doris Humphrey suggested, choreography is the art of making dances, and the other way around, dance is made of, or the result of choreography. Dance and choreography confirm each other, without need of external input. Perhaps what dance and choreography needs most of all is not a house but a divorce.\u201d,Post-dance, An advocacy<\/em>, Marten Spangberg.<\/p>\n

For me,Art is a political act.
\nDance is discipline and revolt.
\nMy body is my country.
\nChoreography is agency.<\/p>\n

In order to create you need Courage. The word \u201ccourage\u201d comes from a Latin root word meaning \u201cof the heart.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the book Courage to Create<\/em> (1975), by Rollo May, he talked about different kinds of courage: Physical Courage, Moral Courage, Social Courage, and Creative Courage.May calls our attention to the tension between conviction and doubt as the foundation of the highest form of courage. The creative individual balances conviction and doubt. Here are some of his quotes:\u00bbCreativity arises out of the tension between spontaneity and limitations, the latter (like the river banks) forcing the spontaneity into the various forms which are essential to the work of art or poem.\u00bb; \u00abIf you do not express your own original ideas, if you do not listen to your own being, you will have betrayed yourself. Also, you will have betrayed your community in failing to make your contribution.\u00bb<\/p>\n

For me, art is about celebration and criticism of socio-political and cultural barriers. It is a ceremony of awareness.
\nCourage reveals intimacy.<\/p>\n

I invite to frame your own impulses of freedom by choreographing!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n

*Photos by Todd Carroll<\/p>\n

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