“Dancing is creating a sculpture that is visible only for a moment.”
EROL OZAN
Ballerina: Dayna Marshall.
Photograph by Christopher Peddecord.
Creating A Sculpture
BALLET
Using The Phones To Show The Dancers Their Bodies And Their Movement
Peter Quanz has created ballets for some of the world’s leading ballet companies. Here is part of an interesting interview on his work as a choreographer.
KM You make bold choices and continually seek out opportunities to collaborate – how have these different experiences informed your perspective as a choreographer?
PQ I am currently collaborating with Montréal Danse for the creation of a new piece. To spark the creative genesis of the piece, Artistic Director, Kathy Casey proposed a question to me – “How would you make a dance if you didn’t consider the audience?”. That flummoxed me, because for me, one of my hang ups is trying to gauge what an audience is going to relate to. But if you always try to make something an audience will like, soon you will end up only sitting in the audience with them.
We started out with an initial two week rehearsal period. We spent the better part of it figuring out different ways of connecting as a group of people, when I suddenly realized that what was most interesting about this collaboration was the bond that we had as a team. The idea became how to find a way to create a social connection with the audience: essentially, a “social experiment”.
We are now building a durational production where the whole audience is animated the whole time through technology. They will be using their phone and their signals will be turned on. We are playing with people’s connection to their phones. We are seeing the phone as an extension of their bodies, as an extension of themselves. We are playing with the idea of how we can be drawn together through this immediate technology while not getting so disconnected from ourselves physically that it ceases to be dance.
KM An interesting paradox.
PQ Oh it’s been fantastic! We are finding ways of using the phones to show us our bodies and our movement in ways you can’t see in a normal performance. We are using video that is taken live, utilizing different perspectives to see parts of an image; using the settings on the phone to both create light or diminish what you see in an image. This is how we build “community” in this performance; and we risk in being brought close together with an audience in an artistic relationship, which is very exciting.
No one on our team has ever done a project like this. We are learning how to define what is happening without over defining things, because this choreography is not about steps. One of our dancers coined the phrase “aesthetic of the situation”.
I’m interested in revealing how artists think in spontaneous ways, how they make choices based on their knowledge of movement and performance; I’m curious about dancers themselves being the vulnerable material from which our experience emerges.”
The work with dancers I have in Montréal requires a sensitivity to an ever shifting relational dynamic – between the artist, their relationships to technology and the structure we have all defined as a group. In contrast with that process, I’ve gone off to work with very classical ballet companies setting choreography that is highly determinate of the music and relates closely to architectural structures in movement, which of course has to be very precise.
Photograph by John Hall.
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Edgar Degas: The Supreme Painter Of The Ballet
In the late 1800s, the famous impressionist painter went often to the Paris Opéra Ballet to watch dancers and draw them, usually capturing the dancers in repose. Although he painted the female body in many other guises—as bathers, singers and even prostitutes, he returned again and again to the ballet. When you see his tutu clad dancers, now part of an expansive exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, you realize the fantasy and detail he poured into those paintings.
Dancers preparing for performance.
Frieze of Dancers, 1895.
Three ballet dancers, monotype, 1878-90.
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Top 3 Challenges As A Dancer
Want to be a dancer? Cara Marie Gary, Joffrey Ballet dancer, shares her 3 top challenges as a dancer.
1. Pain Management
Each morning I wake up refreshed, but often with minor aches and pains, and over the years, I’ve found some helpful remedies for this challenge. I often consult with my physical therapists about the pain I’m experiencing and they always offer specific strengthening exercises for weak areas that could be linked to the source of pain.
2. Personal vs. Professional Life
Although I’m passionate about dancing, I’m normally in the studio eight hours a day, five days a week, and I feel it’s important to focus on other interests and activities once work is completed for the day. To tackle this challenge, my roommate (also a dancer with The Joffrey Ballet) and I came up with some “house rules”.
First, we are intentional about limiting talk about work when we’re at home, and we also make sure to leave “work duties” at work – that means no bringing pointe shoes home to sew! Instead, we focus our attention on other aspects of our lives.
3. Adapting to Change
The beautiful thing about our art form is that it is constantly evolving, and dancers often have to learn to adapt to new choreography and styles as ballet and dance continue to push boundaries. It’s important to not be timid and learn to be bold when exploring new styles of movement. l try to watch and learn from fellow artists and apply corrections from ballet masters and choreographers, and I’ve found it always goes a long way to be polite and respectful to the people surrounding you as you learn together.
Photograph by Cheryl Mann.
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Bodies In Motion
In their video/installation Eskasizer, The choreographers and video artists Rosane Chamecki and Andrea Lerner (partnered as chameckilerner) have created an onscreen vision of female flesh that makes you think of desert sands rippled by wind. The tension between the material and how it has been made to appear is almost shocking, yet curiously calming.
The bodies of four women dancers between neck and knee are projected on four large screens that occupy the walls of the dark, bare, high-ceilinged Brooklyn gallery called The Boiler.
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The Ballet Lover’s Companion
Published in 2015, The Ballet Lover’s Companion by Zoë Anderson is a brief dance primer on ballet, with each of its eight chapters dedicated to distinct periods throughout ballet’s long history. In fewer than 350 pages, Anderson sifts through 140 ballets, analyzing their context by examining the social and political eras in which they were created. It’s an exciting (context: exciting for dance nerds like me) update to the slew of western dance history books available in that Anderson actually digs into the late 20th and early 21st century, perhaps replacing Susan Au’s 1988 stalwart on many dance majors’ bookshelves.
This is a fragment of The Ballet Lover’s Companion book review written by Lauren Warnecke, a freelance dance writer based in Chicago. Read the complete review here.
5 Steps To Developing A Mental Attitude For Success In Dance
1. Clarify your vision
When you activate your imagination and visualize your success, you’re onto one of the best-kept secrets of Olympic athletes and high-level sport coaches. Visualization is the first step to creating anything.
Take a moment to close your eyes and clarify your vision.
2. Create affirmations
To affirm something means to declare it’s true. Write your affirmations down and post them where you can see them the first thing and throughout the day.
3. Focus on your process
Keep your attention on what you are doing and nothing else. No distractions, no comparisons.
4. Positive thinking
Remember, the thoughts that flicker your mind will either be helpful or hurtful, so strive to keep your thoughts positive.
5. Let yourself shine
Instead of worrying, think instead about how you can fly, then spread your wings and go for it. Smile, have fun and be yourself.
Photograph by Ballerina Project.
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