I like being a tree in your odd little forest

Tuesday Aug 31 I taught the Beginning Modern class for Variable Velocity. On Tuesday I was thinking about the class and that I wanted to use it to work on ideas and play around with material for Nipomo High School.

I know that I am interested in the idea of layers, levels, and as usual dynamic opposition. That led me to the idea of a forest and the layers of a natural forest with tall trees, bushes, grasses, critters, the wind, etc all working together to create this environment with so much life, energy and movement.

I am considering using this Zoe Keating song because I only get 3-4 mins to show a complete thought which is very difficult (think about taking gone with the wind and condensing it to a paragraph)

However as I started thinking about the movement I found myself very stuck... I had choreographers block. I couldn't shake it my body wouldn't flow, my mind wouldn't open, and for the life of me I couldn't visualize anything.

So I went for a walk, possibly the best thing I could do. I went out I found some trees, the wind was mighty that day and the sun was bright. I breathed the air and soaked in the sun and had this Balmorhea song on repeat on my ipod. I had found the music but not the story yet.

It took me almost 3 hours to bang out some semblance of a phrase... that frankly I'm not a huge fan of and I plan on scrapping 90% of it. There are bits of it that I like and lots that I don't but that is the nice part of setting the movement on these dancers before the Nipomo kids. If Mac, Caren and I can't make it work, then no one can.

So here is the phrase that consists of all forest things, starts with grass then trees and moves to wind and critters and those bushes and ends with a falling leaf.

take a look, tell me what you think, and look for a drastic change next tuesday!

VV Beginning combo 8-31-10 from Lauren Chertudi on Vimeo.

The dancers are rock stars working so hard to make this look and feel decent. I had no specific timing or counts and no real definite structure to movement quality.

VV Beginning Combo *dancers only* 8-31-10 from Lauren Chertudi on Vimeo.