Four Stories by Betsy Miller. Filmed March 2009.
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Tags: cm2, Michael Wall, video
For Propel-her Dance Collective’s 2009 concert, The Balancing Act, we’ve turned our attention to a phenomena dominating the contemporary dance scene. For many choreographers in the U.S., a life-long career will exist in the category “emerging artist.” We are emerging artists, our peers are emerging artists, many of our mentors are emerging artists. So we ask ourselves, What is emerging art? Or more specifically, what defines the “success” of an artist? Where is the line between emerging and established, or are they the same? Questions such as these have fueled the development of The Balancing Act, as we selected an “emerging artist,” defined as some one who has yet to professionally present her choreography in New York city, as we were in residency at Connecticut College working with Lisa Race to choreograph a piece on us, an artist who has had a full and successful performance career and has been making her own work for years, who just graduated with an MFA from Hollins University, and ourselves, young women who have had their work produced in New York several times, but are sill at the beginning of our journey.
In our inquiry to examine the phenomenon of many choreographers’ life-long existance within the realm of “Emerging Artist,” we ask, what makes one NOT an emerging artist?
We’ve turned to The Gift, for a clue into the inner-workings of American culture’s handling of and relationship to art. Lewis Hyde names what many of us sub-consciously understand: art is a gift, not a commodity. In order for a gift to exist and live, there must be receivers, who are ready and willing to pass the gift on as well. A gift society understands the cycle and function of gift, and participates in the gift giving rituals without any thought of return, or desire for permanent ownership. The value of the gift is in its existence, and the relationships around it.
Turn to American culture, capitalist to its core, whose fundamental relationships are those of business — the buying and selling of commodities — and quite quickly it becomes clear why art forms such as dance, which is temporal and ethereal, have such a hard time surviving and finding support in our culture. Quite simply, dance as a form, is very hard to convert into a commodity.
Often when we dancers take a step outside of our arts community, one of the first questions that is put to us is, “So, what is success in the dance world? What’s the dream job? When are you considered a success?” In regards to the value system of America, often choreographers are deemed a success in mainstream culture when their art has become a commodity; when it is able to be marketed and sold. But, that has nothing to do with the artistic success of the work. Like any good small business, it is mostly the business model that determines its success, and the product, as long as it appeals to the general public, is almost secondary. Same can be true in dance, even though that model inherently undermines the fundamental premise of art — art is a gift.
Living in New York City, where consumerism is the main form of entertainment, a choreographer must turn these values upside down and define for oneself what “success” really is. If staying true to ones interests and following creative impulse, regardless of the product institutions are looking to sell means remaining in the vast pool of “emerging artists,” with “emerging artist” funding, then that might be a title we’re all proud to bear.
Our hope is that The Balancing Act will help to bring to light the assumptions on which these containers are based. To have faith in our gifts, as artists at any stage in our career, regardless of cultural approval.
–Maggie
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Tags: art, choreographer, commodity, consumerism, emerging artist, The Gift
The rehearsal process has officially begun for our collaborative pieces. I have to say, that it is a very interesting and different process that goes into a collaborative piece versus and individual piece– especially in this case when the collaborators are of the same facet (i.e. 2 dance choreographer vs. a dance choreographer with a composer or visual artist). So far, I definitely have noticed the amount of compromise that it takes to organize ourselves and our ideas. I also think its a great feeling to not always feel the pressure to have the solution to every question/problem- 2 minds can work together and ideas have a larger surface to bounce around between. I think it is rare to see this type of collaboration in the professional world- partly because I think its a challenge to work with someone this way. But I think that our administrative collaboration and improvisational work together will help our working relationship for this project. I am excited to see where this piece will end up….
-Amy
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Tags: collaborative
Domestic Flight
Below you can view footage of Propel-her’s 2007 show, Domestic Flight. All video shot by Joe Del Senno.
Excerpt of Dominion by Betsy Miller
Excerpt of Reproach/Re-approach by Maggie Bennett
Excerpt of This is your welcome. by Amy Tennant Adams
Excerpt of Glue by Ani Javian
Night Passage by Betsy Miller
Excerpt of Goddess Worship by Cara Liguori
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Tags: Amy, Ani, Betsy, Cara, Domestic Flight, excerpts, Joe Del Senno, Maggie, performance, video
Rehearsal Footage 2
Another clip of Kristen rehearsing her solo. All choreography in both clips shown came directly from Kristen’s own improvisation.
-Betsy
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Tags: Betsy, process, rehearsal, video
dancing with philip
I made this video last week. It contains excerpts of a simple improv with music by Philip Glass overlayed. – Betsy
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Tags: Betsy, improv, technology, video
Rehearsal Footage
This is a brief clip of OSU dancer Kristen Jeppsen rehearsing my work-in-progress. The piece is a quartet for women and is based on memory. Music by Michael Wall. – Betsy
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Tags: Michael Wall, process, rehearsal, video
Yesterday, Ani and I visited two New York community centers to talk about bringing Propel-her’s “Group Solo Project (GSP)” to their constituents. GSP is Propel-her’s premiere arts-education, outreach progam. The idea behind the workshop is to enable participants to connect with dance as an art form and as a tool for self-expression, creative decision-making, and peer communication. The overarching goal of the workshop is to promote collaboration instead of competition by exposing participants to Propel-her’s own collaborative model.
Jackie Rousseau and Antonio Caprellan of Hudson Guild Community Works along with Adia Wilson and Basyah Prabhu at Harlem Children Zone’s TRUCE Arts & Media were eager to partner with Propel-her in bringing GSP to their young girls’ groups.
Currently, Ani, Amy, Maggie and I are in Stage 2 of planning GSP. Stage 1 involved each of us developing a choreographic solo based on a female issue of personal importance. Now that the solos are complete, the four of us have started coming together in collaborative rehearsals to create a brief group dance comprised of material from each of our solos. This dance will be performed at GSP workshops to demonstrate the ability to achieve a shared goal through compromise, communication and collaboration. Our collaborative rehearsals will continue through January 2009 and we will also use the time together to further develop our goals and methodology for teaching/implementing the workshops.
Joe Del Senno, a New York City freelance videographer, is graciously videoing our rehearsals and will eventually provide Propel-her with a concise, edited video that reveals our collaborative process and Group Solo Project goals. We will post the video as soon as its available and we hope to use it to reach out to other community centers, schools, camps and youth groups in the future. Further information about GSP can be found on www.propelherdance.com by clicking on the News & Press link.
We are so excited about this endeavor. More than anything, we were inspired by the enthusiasm of our prospective partners and we cannot wait to get started.
Cara Liguori, co-founder, Propel-her Dance Collective
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Tags: Cara, collaborative, community, education, girls, Group Solo Project, Joe, outreach, workshop
This winter, Propel-her choreographers will embark on a new exploration in choreographic process, extending our use of the collaborative model into the artistic realm. Propel-her members will work in tandem to create two new works, to be debuted in May 2009. One of these works will be a long-distance collaboration with Propel-her choreographer Betsy Miller, who is currently in the graduate program at Ohio State University. Here’s what Betsy has to say about the potential for long-distance collaborations:
“One of the great things about making work now is the plethora of technology available to us. Technological innovation allows not only for more possibility in mixed-media presentation, (i.e. video projection during a live dance piece) but also helps artists who may be separated geographically come together in a creative medium. Possibilities exist for video-conferencing between artists, ‘virtual rehearsals,’ with a choreographer in one place intereacting with dancers in another location, and even the real-time presentation of an off-site performance through streaming video. Basically, the limits of our imaginations our the only limits.”
Check back frequently to see where collaboration and technology intersect in the making of our new works.
Photos: Amelia Montgomery
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Tags: collaboration, process, technology
The spectrum of emerging art
Exactly what constitutes “emerging art” is a hotly contested subject in the world of dance as well as other artistic endeavor. In May 2009, Propel-her Dance Collective will present an evening of new choreography by female choreographers who represent three definitions of emerging artist. Through the range of artists presented, Propel-her aims to engage the dance-going public in a dialogue about the concept of “emerging art,” to offer creative opportunities to females working in the field and to further its efforts in approaching dance through an innovative collaborative model.
The project will consist of three components:
The Collective will commission a new work by Lisa Race, a mid-career artist best known for her work with the David Dorfman Dance Company and Race Dance. Four Collective members will work with Race to create the new piece while in residency at Connecticut College in New London, Connecticut in January 2009.
The Collective will also produce a short work by a young female choreographer. She will be chosen through an open application process and will receive full publicity and production at no cost. We will produce a promising artist with no history of being presented, so as to provide a much-needed stepping-stone for further opportunities for that artist and to introduce audiences to one of the fresh faces of our field.
The third and principal component of the show will consist of two pieces choreographed by Propel-her Dance Collective members. For the first time, the Collective will use its collaborative model as a basis for creation of the works. Although Collective members have a shared lineage in training, their creative works represent the range of aesthetics present in today’s modern dance culture: from introspection to physicality, from classicism to abstraction, and from subtlety to spectacle. Our aim in this process is to explore decentralized aesthetics in the creative product. You can read more about our working process in our next post!
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Tags: aesthetic, collaboration, collaborative, emerge, emerging, support
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