Beginning

Today is the first day of my very first CounterPULSE ARC residency. I’m excited and scared by what lies ahead.

I’ll be working with my Dandelion Dancetheater interdisciplinary ensemble on the next stage of a multi-year project exploring the ins and outs of competition. We began with a vision for creating a Reality TV program on experimental dance creation in collaboration with videographer Austin Forbord. Over the past year of initial experiments we have encountered a tremendous amount of emotional material around competition, hidden just beneath the surface of our personalities and relationships.

We thought we could examine competition in a completely objective and artistic manner and have found instead that we are each carrying all sorts of unresolved feelings and experiences that block clear seeing in this area.

We’ve decided to back off from creating an actual TV series right now in order to unpack all the ways that competition affects us and the work we do. We’re still interested in expanding our delivery packages for experimental dance and so will be posting regular blog entries and videos through this site as we create and perform. We’re also still interested in the ways that competition manifests in the world of Reality TV and so hope to develop online access through this blog for people to respond to, judge and vote on the particular dance competitions we develop along the way.

As I write, my excitement is overcoming any nervousness I’ve had about beginning and now I can’t wait to actually get into the studio next week.

Here’s some background on the project. We made this 5 minute Reality TV Test with Austin in January of 2010.

And we spent an intensive 2.5 weeks at the Baryshnikov Arts Center in NYC this past summer. During that residency we played with scoring each other, engaging in all sorts of small and large dance competitions and blogging about our experience throughout. You can check out those blog entries and videos in the August and September entries.

My intention is to use this residency at CounterPULSE to probe as deep as possible into the shadow side of competition. Why do I avoid outright competition whenever possible? Why are we so attached to winning and so averse to losing? Why do so many of us find our self worth in comparison to those around us? What happens if we bring the kind of “no holds barred” direct feedback employed in Reality TV contests to the world of experimental live performance? What energy and potential creativity is locked up in my competition neuroses and what will emerge if I expose that part of myself? What will happen to the relationships between our ensemble members when they are pitted against each other in high-pressure competitions?

All this and more will be revealed. Stay tuned…