LOOKING AT DANCE: 8 CLASSES AT DANCE THEATER WORKSHOP
DIARY 3542
1/14/73
LOOKING AT DANCE 1
There are 14 people there, though it seems that Frances Alenikoff and Betty Carr are only auditing the class, and I don't recognize the Carla that got the course as a Christmas gift as the daughter of Lotte Edwards. Alice is there, as is one other guy who participates, a music composer who doesn't, a cute, open gal from Philly who commutes to each class, an older woman with a limp who can't participate; Vi, an older, stern woman; a couple of lithe young dancers who are all eagerness, and a few more who don't impress me. Marcia and Debbie talk for about three minutes, then ask us to evaluate their personal styles: I say that Debbie's more interested in the way she says things, while Marcia's more interested in shoving out the ideas no matter how they sound, and the gal from Philly gets caught between them talking about Debbie being "angular" and Marcia being "passive" because of the light blue sweater (which she says her mother bought for herself and gave to Marcia), and then finally we get into a simple pattern on the floor (after we each introduced ourselves, and many seemed, like me, more interested in ballet than modern dance, taking the course to SEE what makes some people like Merce Cunningham so much). The only point here seemed to be: look at what people DO, not at what we THINK they must be thinking, or what we THINK must be motivating them: not that it won't be TRUE, but that we should concentrate on what we SEE. Debbie points out the RHYTHMS involved in their talking, which John and I share when WE address an audience for Mattachine. The exercises: enter in a circle, stop, turn in place, move to center, move back, turn to wall, go to corner, return to entrance. Do it fast, then slow; alternating two groups. I point out that I can't compare two groups when I'm IN one of them, but they speak favorably about how my group "explodes" out of the center in the fast action, and how the other group seems to move very "fast" during their "slow" movements, which I agree with Debbie with, though Marcia doesn't seem to get the point at all: THEY surely disagree. I notice that some (like Frances, whom I hate) work quite ALONE ["I TRIED to get everyone to move fast!"], while others seem conscious of the group-effort. Marcia talks of LARGE movements by LOOKING far, which is nice, and too soon the class is over, because they have to get to performances, and another class has the floor, including the lovely body of the guy who lives in the workshop; lifts WEIGHTS!
DIARY 3550
1/20/73
LOOKING AT DANCE 2
Frances Alenikoff, the older woman, the musician, and a couple of other people aren't there, and we're down to 8: guy, me, Philly, pretty Frances the dancer, Vi, Alice, Betty Carr, and the oriental clog-walker. That's a much nicer class size. They tell us to explore the room and its shapes, to drape ourselves over the stacked risers, feel along the walls and furniture, use the pipes and corners and window ledges to experience shapes. I squeeze into the pipes, play with the door, straddle myself in the window opening, and then we're told to come back to the CENTER and do the same things WITHOUT the support of the props. I get all awkward around the pipes, and Debbie asks me to "follow" it and I fall to the floor. Then I straddle as in the window, and Marcia asks "Where can you go from there?" just as I was deciding there was NOTHING to do from there, and she points out the simple but startling difficulty of PROGRESS when you're being EQUALLY PULLED IN MANY DIRECTIONS. Huge insight!!! Marcia talks about "start-stop-start" movements and their awkwardness as compared with a SMOOTH movement. But I get uptight when they want us to use THEIR words in evaluating everyone's activities with the rocking chair (Betty Carr doesn't change when she almost goes over backward, Philly does a nice reciprocal engine effect; Vi is VERY controlled, Frances unimaginative; clog-girl feels sick, but PULLS it down onto her lap, guy struggles in vain, I try many tricks, none of which work.) but Alice says, brightly, "I WANT to learn their vocabulary." But it's like the Berlitz-type that I hate: don't DEFINE anything, just DO it and use the word and let the class PICK IT UP. They talk about clogger's WEIGHT being distributed differently in shoes, but don't SHOW us what to LOOK for to SEE that. They speak of the "flow" of motion as the "flow" of energy based on the "flow" of breath, talking about exercises, various choreographers, various kinds of movements. They speak of CURVED bodies, ANGULAR motions, and the kinds of STRAIGHT versus TWISTING movements, but without really DEFINING of DELIMITING anything, with the same fuzziness I disliked so much about Claude's class, but at least it's taught me to "ride with it." The insights ALONE are worth the price, and I talk to Alice about how she should RIDE with it. They tell us to work up a routine with a prop for next week, which I FORGET.
DIARY 3558
1/21/73
LOOKING AT DANCE 3
Even Debbie's late, but eventually everyone gets there who was there last week, in addition to Carla, so the group is nine. But not everyone's brought in an item: Alice does her rolling pin; I do my briefcase, and though I'd PLANNED to put it on my head, squat over it like shitting, carry my foot and knee and elbow around in it, I get up, do an Art Bauman-like dash around it, balance it on my head, then do the manual of arms, and that's IT. Debbie remarks that everything was VERY controlled, VERY formal, with little that might cause me to lose my dignity, and I think that's ANOTHER telling remark. The guy has an elastic bandage that he swings with, except his left arm is stiff and rigid with tension; Frances brings an umbrella which she keeps symmetric, as she did with the pole last time, and that's about it. Debbie and Marcia think to sum up to this point: and it turns out that THEY looked at the class one as an exercise in SIZE and SCALE, and how it requires a different EFFORT to change these parameters. In the second class they investigated SHAPE which the bodies can get into, and how that's related to the effort, and I vaguely recall something about Effort-Shape, and it seems to fit together. Then they ask how many'd seen the Martin-Takei dance program, and Alice, me, Vi, the guy, and Frances had seen them, so we talked about that for a long time, much to the discomfiture of those who hadn't seen them. We talked about what we saw, what we saw LAST time, how much we missed by turning off the sounds so early, and I figured we were talking about lots that didn't MATTER at all, but Marcia said that she thought the WHOLE of the conversation was related to the class. Oh. Debbie went through a stance: look to side, draw hands up obliquely, put foot back, twist to grab ankle, rotate hands on ankle four times, look up, rise and wave bye-bye four times, which she did as affectless as possible, looking blank and wan while doing it. We had to do that for next class, and we agreed we'd all see Bill Dunas before next week's class and talk about it. Carla and I chatted, I said she could CALL me for assignments if she were out again, and I walked her to the subway. Not the best class, but also not the worst one.
DIARY 3562
Also 1/21/73
LOOKING AT DANCE 4
The class turns out to be smallest of all as we do our exercises in order as we sit around a semicircle: first Philly, who adapts a stiff dancer's movement and does everything 2-D "so it's easy to see" as Debbie rather bitchily puts it; Alice, who's solemn at the beginning and casual in her "Bye-Bye" at the end; Frances, who does it as an automaton would do it, her hand almost carrying her away at the end; Carla, who not only syncopates the four twists of the ankle, as Frances did, but also the wave at the end, to everyone's delight. Everyone seemed to like my tension-ridden caught-in-quicksand motif, and Carla delighted me by pointing out the activity that I did in the first half and what was "done TO me" in the second half, after I died. Surprised to find that I put up my OPPOSITE arm, but it DID feel good. Then the guy does one of the most multi-directioned, nonaligned, freeform action I've ever seen, and Debbie says "I'm SO glad we have nondancers in the class, a dancer wouldn't CONCEIVE of doing anything as complex as that." Then we start passing about a balloon, which I don't see the point of: Frances breaks the first one, and none of her movements are geared to the fragility of the balloon: she BATS it. I try blowing it and handing it back and forth, but Marcia shouts "No fair," and I say "Since when?" and she says "I just made the rule," which is nicely indicative of how they work to teach the class. No special summary here at midpoint, and there was so much striving for "the right word" that I got very uncomfortable, though it's quite CLEAR to me that I'm NOT seeing as much as they see, am not NEARLY as aware of changes in tempo and emphasis of the body as I'd thought, but the class is doing nothing to DEVELOP these things in me, though, of course, the first step has to BE to get me to realize that I'm seeing what I want to see, not what I don't CARE to see. She describes Graham as DELIBERATELY putting things off-symmetry, and Cunningham (Merce) as DELIBERATELY leading up to some grand classical stance, and then misdirecting it so that you ARE disappointed. YOU SEE WHAT YOU WANT TO SEE; DON'T SEE WHAT YOU DON'T WANT TO SEE would be the lesson of this class, and I GUESS it's a good one.
DIARY 3572
2/2/73
LOOKING AT DANCE 5
Me and Don and Jane from Philadelphia and Alice saw Bill Dunas, and they were talking about it as I sat down with them. Later DeFrescia and Carla joined us, but since they hadn't seen the performance, they couldn't participate. No one ever asked me what I thought of it at the start, so I couldn't give my comment (DIARY 3569). But Don started in some detail to describe the small variations in his walk, and while Marcia was going into a tirade against critics who thought he was putting people on "like John Cage carrying music to the extreme extreme of having 4 minutes and 23 second of silence, but we've BEEN THROUGH the people dancing without motion, and Bill Dunas is FAR beyond that." And, partly thanks to her "sanctioning" my thinking about what he did SERIOUSLY, it occurred to me with a blast that, as I mentioned to John, the changes were below my threshold of appreciation, but THAT JUST GAVE ME THE OPPORTUNITY TO LOWER MY THRESHOLD, which in fact was the PURPOSE of my taking a class in "Looking at Dance." From then on, Bill Dunas was someone entirely else. They mentioned the words, and Debbie insisted that "I went WITH him" was impossible, but Marcia said that there WAS inflection in her words. Then Debbie got into her confusion about the speaker speaking for HERSELF or for the dancer, making 2 men; 1 gal, or 1 gal, 2 men, and then she became VERY flustered when Alice said, "But that would make two guys hugging each other." Alice shocked by saying "I didn't know anyone like that," while I identified STRONGLY with the feeling of "Leaving the country" as they were doing. Debbie and I argued about the same/difference between being pushed AWAY by something you DIDN'T like vs. being DRAWN by something you DID like, equal impulses for me, different for her. Then they got into the POLITICAL background of Dunas, his changes of weight, the growing passivity AFTER Nixon's reelection, the respect Jeff Duncan had for him "before" he started these series, and I ALMOST felt that I wanted to SEE the next thing that he did, just to SEE what he WOULD do, where his emotions would take him next, and where he DID change from corners to curves, from full steps to small steps, how his weight changed, how the audience reacted, etc.
DIARY 3577
Also 2/2/73
LOOKING AT DANCE 6
Vi returned to class with the regulars: me and Don and Alice and Jane, with Carla and DeFrescia. We went into the center of the floor to work with weight again, passing the balloon around again with what I thought was a remarkable lack of lightness, though Don seemed to get into it more than anyone. Then Debbie wheeled out the box of books, and we passed that around, and the observation was made that the tensions were greater, the limbs were closer together, the movements more circumscribed, and that I was about the only one to actually get a SWING going when I was passing the box to someone else. Talked of the differences of BALANCING it equally over the body and holding it out to one side, though they seemed to make an INORDINATE point about the impossibility of "swinging" a balloon or "holding the books out at arms length." I don't see that that has much to do with dance. Then we passed around a bell, and people clapped their legs and arms and heads back and forth, concerned that there were THREE of them, and that all of the three had to be kept track of. I took off from there and moved some of them around the floor. Then they wanted us to swing our arms and see where it took us, and I seemed not capable of swinging without moving my shoulders back and forth, so Marcia suggested I sort of swing from the knees, and I found myself whirling around and around on the tender balls of my feet, feeling the pressures that must build up enormous calluses on dancers' feet. Then she told me to look UP and the effect was magical: looking OUT and UP my movement because liberated from the floor and QUITE free, and when we later did them individually, there was a remark about my strangeness, but Marcia hastened to assure them she told me I could do something different. We were assigned Diane McIntyre to see over the weekend, which I was pleased with, because I didn't really see too much advantage to watching the class swing around in their own untutored way, and was eager to get back to the revelations that something like talking about Dunas produced last time. But now the classes are 3/4 over, and I'm glad they are, because I'm losing patience with both Debbie's strange distance with me and Marcia's insistence of the use of the words SHE wants to hear, and her ungodly emphasis on WEIGHT for everything.
DIARY 3593
Also 2/2/73
LOOKING AT DANCE 7
The steady six are the only ones there: me, Don, Alice, Jane, DeFrescia, and Carla, though Joan Schwartz joins a bit later. Marcia's not there, so we can't talk about Dianne McIntyre yet, and Debbie's into sending us into the center of the floor in groups of three, giving us something to do, and letting the other three guess what the "theme" or "commonality" of the movements are. She starts my group off with testing actions (she really wants the word TESTING there, too, which adds import to Jeff's "Space Test.") I tap for a hollow place in the floor, Alice looks around for a comfortable place to rest, Don is told to sit in the stool without looking at it. Since the others aren't tuned into the word "test," it takes awhile for Debbie to be satisfied, and she almost writhes in frustration. Then Jane (who insists on doing things at a DIFFERENT pace) and Joan and DeFrescia (Carla arrives late) go through a simple canon, which we can see easily: reach down, reach up, walk, though Debbie feared we might see only TWO motions with an inessential "nothing" between. They then do the canon strictly, in a square, at the same time, then off-beat, like "Row, Row, Row," and it's pleasant to watch, and I come up with the, for me, potent observation that "You can tell when someone makes a mistake!" Meaning it's very controlled, and when someone LOSES control it's obvious as it NEVER is during an improvisation. Then another group does something quite complex: twisting their legs up off the floor, bumping together near the wall, patting the far wall, and NO one comes up with the verbalization "they're restricted to the use of their legs THERE, to their torsos THERE, and to their arms THERE." I predict to myself that next she's going to have them form a design on the floor, but she doesn't, just has us repeat everything THREE times: DeFrescia makes it complicated by merely fanning her fingers quickly; Alice does little push-ups against the walls, and I do three sit-ups, which Debbie says something about "making sure you have a fixed starting and ending point," which reinforces my thoughts that I didn't have those. Next class is the last class, and for my patience with their word-cutting, it's for the best.
DIARY 3600
Also 2/2/73
LOOKING AT DANCE 8
We sit around talking about Dianne McIntyre for a long time, and DeFrescia insists that she's a black dancer, and Marcia says she is, too, because of the continuous use of energy she employs, and I just say that her bare feet against the floor are the ONLY things that would distinguish her black troop against a background in which they were seen only in SILHOUETTE from a white troop, but she insists that THAT is based on how they use their weight, and that old bugaboo, the flow of energy. Then we sum up the class, talking about the energy required to do various things, the shapes the body takes, the tensions and the flows, and finally, in the last ten minutes, they say we should move in a free improvisation, saying in a somewhat liberating manner that this will be the last time we relate as a group: and it's a trip! We start into the center of the floor, and Alice starts spinning slightly, so I start spinning, making like a binary star with her and then Jane comes into the picture---the loners? Then everyone's taking off around the floor and the action gets rather frenetic, touching and dancing, almost, together. I don't feel into it so I sit on the floor, and instantly Jane comes over and takes me by the hands, starts swaying back and forth, and finally I'm on my feet and still amplifying the motion, and at last we're ROCKETING back and forth in balletic leaps: as I put it: "Our klutzinesses match!" Then she takes Don into a circle, then Alice tries to get into the circle and it breaks down, I back up two steps, into the middle of an architectural wonder of bodies in arches with people going in and out, and it's a marvelous feeling of togetherness. I retreat to the wall to rest and Alice, smirking, joins me, as does Betty Carr. Soon all of us are lined up on the wall, playing move-around, and Betty and I are BOUNCING off each other, batting back and forth, and finally we exhaust each other and I, not she, steps away from the wall and lets her have it, and we talk about it, everyone very pleased by it, particularly Marcia and Debbie, who say nice things about never having seen anything so nice, and that's a marvelous end to the series of eight "Looking at Dance" classes at DTW.