Site Specific and the High Line

I admire choreographers. Really, I do. They create this piece and then show it to audiences not knowing what kind of reaction will come.  I find this terrifying.  Choreography is such an intimate and vulnerable act.

This semester, I’m taking my first choreography class in years.  As nervous as I was, I’m really enjoying it.  For our first big project, our professors, Tom Pearson and Zach Morris, assigned a site specific study.  We were to go visit the High Line park in Chelsea and construct a 3-5 minute work somewhere in the space.

At first, I was pretty intimidated.  Upon arrival, however, my fear subsided.  I found that I was so inspired by my site, that it made the process of creating movement much easier.  The focal point of my spot was the Statue of Liberty.  People flocked to see her in all her glory and posed for pictures next to the water.

Seeing people taking photos made me notice the Hudson River.  It was really windy that day and the waves had this really interesting quality.  Sharp, yet delicate, while flowing seamlessly from one dynamic to the next.  I liked the idea of embodying these waves.  After thinking about the water, I began to consider breath.  People gasping for it or breathing mechanically while swimming.  I knew that the contrasting motions of the waves and breathing patterns would be the central themes of my work.

I decided to build a study using three dancers: Gwen Petry, Bethany Miller, and Emily Petry.  In it, I built smooth  movement that had abrupt points, similar to the quality of the undulating waves.  I ended up changing the location of my site because my original place went under construction.  At first, I was really concerned about finding a new spot that would also make my influences clear, but it ended up working out perfectly.  I asked the audience to stand above the dancers (taking a bird’s eye view of the piece) and I think it worked very nicely.

Overall, I liked working on site.  I found it both challenging and exciting at the same time.  Dealing with people was very interesting.  They wouldn’t really move, so the dancers had to find ways to work around them.  It was also loud, hard to focus, and you had to remember to check the weather before rehearsing.  But the pros of working on site far out way the cons.  It gets you thinking in new ways since you have to consider the environment, its limitations, and how best for you to intrude the area.  Like Tom said, dancing in an unfamiliar space is like dancing with a new partner for the first time.  It takes practice and you have to figure out together what is possible.

Here’s a video of my untitled study.  The dancers from left to right are Gwen Petry, Bethany Miller, and Emily Petry.

 

 

 

 

 

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