August 9, 2008 - Voice of the City festival performance

Date: 8/9/08 Location: the firefighter's memorial park at Diversey/Kimball
Dancers: Mika, Megan, Larisa, Stacy, Maggie
Duration: 10 minutes
Soundtrack: Beethoven piano sonata

Improvisation around a structure, with the objective of a clear beggining, middle and end, and with the challenge of one injured dancer chairbound.

What I thought worked:

-I thought the playful energy of the piece was really approriate for the setting and the audience.
-I felt that the structure we set was clear and left us a lot of room to create spontaneously, but also shaped the experience nicely.
-I felt very aware of a great, sizzling creative energy between the dancers. We were there to have fun, and I think this was very clear to the spectators.
-The way the music turned out to contribute to the piece was a surprise, maybe an accident or maybe just kismet. That was fantastic. I felt like I was in a silent movie!

What could have been better:
-Personally, I felt really out of practice with improvised weight sharing work and would love to see this come back into our regular practice.
-I thought the things we clarified for ourselves (starting slowly, subtley, and building) were right on and I am pleased we seem to be growing so much in our ability to shape a work on the spot like this. Personally, I felt I got onto the stage and had trouble following through with the slow start and subtle energy. This is something I think I could develop in practice.
-The moments that were best, to me, were the ones when I felt most aware of where the other dancers were in space. I am also aware that at moments I felt lost from you and stuck on my own. I think working on the things I mentioned in the last point would help prevent that.

All in all, I thought this was a great time and I'm so glad we did it. I would love to do more of this kind of work, I think we are getting better and better at it. We were talking on the way over about time passing and the growing breadth of the shared experience we've had dancing together. I felt that energy informed this performance, and made it something more than just a thrown together improv.

Nice work, my friends.