Bates Dance Festival artists will ‘converse’ in an improvisational performance.
LEWISTON -Each summer, the Bates Dance Festival plays host to professional choreographers, dancers, composers and musicians from all over the world.
They perform, teach, discuss and support, and are, in turn, inspired by the diverse community of disciplines and opinions.
In the spirit of mutual sharing, many of them will come together Tuesday, Aug. 9, for an evening of improvisation, in a performance called “Moving in the Moment.”
Unpredictability will prevail because the performers will not make up dance steps in advance. They may stumble, startle, or divulge something of themselves as people and as artists that might not be seen in the more controlled environment of repertory or the classroom.
A recent planning meeting for the event was held, not in a rehearsal studio, but in the Bates cafeteria. Props, voice and costumes were all discussed as possible tools, to help remove the stress of coming up with movement out of thin air.
Gradually, the artists begin to think of ways they might like to contribute. Vincent Mantsoe from Soweto, South Africa, volunteers to participate, though he has never improvised in a group before.
African choreographer Gregory Maqoma has enjoyed accompanist Michael Wall’s work in class and wants to try dancing to his music on stage. Faustin Linyekula from the Republic of Congo suggests singing a song with Jessica Anthony of Jane Comfort and Company. Bebe Miller agrees to plunge in: “Just don’t lift me up over your head.”
Most feel comfortable starting the piece as a group in unison. Contact improvisation, moving while supporting someone else’s weight, will play a part. Someone suggests adding a basket of tennis balls to the mix at some point.
A loose script of what will happen begins to take shape. No dance steps are discussed. “Moving in the Moment” co-coordinator Olivier Besson instructs the performers: “If you want to do a duo or small group, check out some rehearsal space before next week.” Since some dancers have never met before, they will be allowed a rehearsal or two to at least get used to one another.
Many of the dancers have studied improvisation as a part of their dance education, using it as a tool for choreography, or an end in itself. Others will be attempting it for the first time.
But just as jazz musicians can jam because they are adept at playing their instruments, the dancers will pull from their vast movement vocabularies. Their bodies become their instruments, finely tuned. The additional attributes they must bring “to the moment” will be their attentiveness to what other dancers are doing, and their willingness to contribute to the group energy that will be created. Said Besson, “What interests me is to be fully alive, fully present.”
This confluence of different backgrounds will result in “a conversation in our language” of dance, said co-coordinator Ray Schwartz, who has been involved in the dance festival for five years. “It is an opportunity to engage diverse cultures in a nonviolent discourse.” Dancers express themselves through movement. They think in movement. And for an hour or so on Tuesday, the audience will get to eavesdrop on their conversation. And to find out what to do with a basket of tennis balls.
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