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Choreographer's Diary

by Leigh Witchel

Day 5 - Tuesday

(Before rehearsal - ancillary tasks)

I leave rehearsal each day at 5:30 p.m. to go to work until about midnight, but last night until 1:30 am. At that point I went food shopping (there was nothing in the apartment.) It can be an exhausting schedule, the first two hours of work are difficult because even on the simplest days one is mentally enervated. As time goes by I learn to reserve simple tasks at work for those
first few hours so that something can get done other than computer games. Food shopping, cleaning and simple maintenance of a normal life become even more important now, because they keep me in good spirits. As the rehearsal process goes on, they become harder and harder to keep up, so I try to prepare now, and have food on hand.

I wake up at 10:30 this morning to a call from Gia Kourlas, who writes for Time Out. She wants to come to rehearsal on Friday to write a feature and asks about photos. I say there are some in the press kit I sent her, and she replies with embarrassment, "You don't understand how busy I am." I want to tell her that in fact I do. Because I really do understand, I let it pass.
She wants a color action shot, which I don't have, and she says not to worry about it. After we hang up, I realize it would behoove me to worry about it. I call her back and ask her exactly what sort of picture she'd like and email a few photographer friends to see if one of them would like to shoot a rehearsal. I also realize I've overslept and was supposed to see a male dancer in class at 10:45. It's not happening and there's nothing to be done about it but call and apologize. I had a feeling that this would happen before I went to bed the night before. Not every task can get accomplished; not every moment is efficiently used.

I listen to the music for Horizon (Glenn Gould's piano
recording of Bach's Keyboard concerto No. 1 in D minor) a ballet I am reviving from 1993. I'm excited to be working with the music again; less excited to have to relearn the ballet. It's not in my body, this is why
choreographers forget ballets that dancers remember. Kinesthetic memory is very long lasting. What I remember when re-setting a work is what I originally asked for, not what it became after cleaning. So I have to re-teach myself the ballet as a dancer, in order to teach it. It will also be complicated to assign roles; none of the dancers I have is a perfect analog for any of the original cast. Either parts may be divided and shuffled or I may re-do some individual steps to better fit it to the present cast.

Rehearsal

Since we again have a partial cast (no Morgan) I work out of order, doing ideas as they occur to me. A transitional phrase on pizzicato music is first. To me, there are ideas that are the meat of the dance, and then sections that bridge or buttress these pillars. The pizzicato music, about 30 seconds long, introduced a new section and thematic material in the music. It conjured images of rushing forms, of anticipation, and I choreographed accordingly, making the phrase on Mary. I had left a gap of about twenty seconds in the music, a repeat of Frances' treacherous jumping phrase, and
rather bombastic music. I made a different jumping phrase on Adriana. I had her pose, then take two successively larger jumps to a rising phrase in the
music, and she did them, showing a crisp fifth position en haut, but that wasn't what I wanted. "You're giving me shapes. I want you to direct my attention upwards." She then produced the breathy abandon I wanted. The
passage of an idea from a picture in one's mind to a movement in someone else's body is not a direct route. One of the daily small pleasures of choreography is figuring out how to guide your dancers there, and seeing the results. We worked as a group on a segment about a minute later in the work, a sweeping trio that I envisioned rushing about as Morgan danced in another
corner. Again, I got to make a "dance-y" phrase full of grands ronds des jambes and attitudes en tournant. It's as viscerally satisfying an event for the choreographer as well as the audience, a beautiful, lushly danced phrase to beautiful music. The final section choreographed was to the same music that returns later, more fortissimo. I had gauged that this was again a point to insert a theatrical effect, the dancers swirl in then stop dead as the music reaches its climax and rushes past them. They each bow to their imaginary partner and shyly offer him their hands as they walk with him, averting their faces. At this point I choose not to do any more new material, preferring to wait until I have a full cast, and we spend the time reviewing old materials, primarily to allay Frances' doubts, and it's successful. She's much more comfortable after having the time to catch up and figure things out.

 

Day 6