Fuzzy and Flexible and Fun
I’m at the place in the process where I usually freak out. Past the planning phase, where everything is fuzzy and flexible and fun. Not yet to the nuts and bolts, where it’s more about polishing and tweaking. Nope, I’m in the ‘stare at the blinking cursor on the blank page’ phase.
What? Blinking cursors? Is this about writing or dancing?
Well, I hope it’s about both. I’m hosting Pairings this year, as I did last year. Most people don’t know what that means, and honestly, it took me a while to figure it out too. Yes, I’ll be up on the stage introducing the wines and dances, but I’ll also be doing a whole lot more. I’ll be keeping the silent auction going, keeping people engaged and entertained, keeping people connected to Motus and what this evening is really about (hint: it’s not inebriation. Not that there’s anything wrong with that). I also need to be educational, because I want every person who walks out of The White Rabbit Cabaret to feel like they have learned a few things: a few things about wine, a few things about dance, a few things about what an awesome organization Motus is and how much they deserve your support. That equals about six pages of carefully scripted (witty, charming) well-researched material.
The way I see it, I’m the mortar between the bricks of the performances. Mortar isn’t especially attractive or exciting, I know. So I really must go out and find a different outfit for every wine. I want it to be fresh and exciting every time I walk out on stage, so that Pairings is a complete evening of entertainment. Would you rather get your wine info from a guy in a suit or a lady in a sparkly gown? (Yeah, I thought so.)
But here’s what my job is really about: I’m going to show you an evening that is so fun, so satisfying, so mind-expanding that you won’t be able to stop yourself from falling in love with this little dance company. When I think about it that way, my job is easy. Motus is awfully easy to love.
-KTK
Katie Kasper founded Motus and served as its president until 2009.
She
The semester is wrapping up with my students at Anderson University and everyone is getting pumped for summer and graduation. It is hard to believe that I started on as modern dance faculty there in 2008. This will be the first year for me with graduating seniors that started with me as freshman. It’s a weird feeling…Anyway tech week has been crazy and I have been missing Motus class but here is an image of the hair and make up stylings for my new piece “She” premiered March 2012 at Anderson University, Indiana.
DS
Costume Creation
For Pairings this year, I have been assigned the task of creating choreography to a pairing of port wine (sponsored by Republic National Distributing Company) – a rich, sweet, and heavy wine – with pink salted carmels (sponsored by Litterally Divine Toffee & Truffles). I want to make sure that, in addition to creating movement, the entire visual reflects the dramatic qualities of both the wine and chocolate. And so, this year I am extending beyond choreography into costume design. These are photos of the costumes in progress. More pics of the final product soon!
-SQ
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I Can Hear the Bubbles
What do Prosecco (sponsored by Southern Wine and Spirits) and Cheese (sponsored by The Fresh Market) and a modern take on 60′s lounge music have in common? Well, for starters I can hear the bubbles in the stripped down drums and as I choreograph my newest work for Pairings, I am trying to evoke the lazy picnic in the park type of feeling that I find in the melody.
I must say, I think this has been my toughest challenge to date as a choreographer, and though I often feel that way at the beginning of a project, I currently find myself quite far outside my comfort zone. My natural tendencies in movement tend to be bigger and more assertive; but now I am trying to evoke a reposed sort of beauty. To my good fortune, my four lovely dancers are wonderful to work with, and embody this characteristic quite naturally.
We had a great first rehearsal on Friday. My dancers are willing to try all of my crazy ideas, and things are on the right track. But where to go next? It is a question that quite honestly keeps me up at night, as I close my eyes only to see the dance replay itself in my mind. Occasionally, I get a glimpse of where the piece should go, and relieved I prepare for sleep. But all too soon the excitement for what is to come, shakes me from my quiet state, and returns me to choreographer mode, watching the dance unfold again and again. Our next rehearsal is in a week, we’ll see what happens.
MB
Cheese and Popcorn
Mmm…Popcorn. It’s usually a carefree snack that I enjoy while watching a movie, talking or playing games with friends and family or the treat that I tend to pick up when I’m at the airport. While I had no movement created, several weeks ago I thought that I had a fairly clear route that I was heading with the music and choreography. For Pairings, my piece will be paired with chardonnay (sponsored by Republic National Distributing) and popcorn (sponsored by Just Pop In!). While normally this would be an awesome combination, until today, I was desperately looking for a deeper connection to link these two treats to my movement or music. I was frantically searching for “popcorn” music or coming up with ideas that are more elaborate than I think I can pull off at the moment. It’s been several years since I’ve attempted any choreography so I’m trying to remind myself to keep it simple. Simple, relaxed and fun as popcorn and chardonnay should be. Today, I find myself returning to one of the songs that I was originally drawn to. Despite the fact that my first rehearsal is this week- I’m still wavering on my music choice. If nothing else, this song seems to have taken me out of my “normal” movement comfort zone. I’m hoping to create an entertaining, light piece without making it too “cheesy.” However, when it comes to popcorn I find the more cheese the better.
-JT
The Journey
When I really stop to think about it, I realize that dance is constantly taking me on a journey, or even multiple journeys at times. I am blessed to be a part of Jan Need’s piece, and as I reflected back on yesterday’s rehearsal, I was struck by how much the emotion in her work mirrored the many emotions of my past. Jan spoke candidly to us about her battle with fibromyalgia and how she realized that the effect it had on her body slowly spread to her heart and then her soul. I think this is a story that every dancer who has experienced severe injury can relate to on some level. For me it brings back memories of the chronic back injury that I inherited from an unfortunate car accident when I was eighteen. It took me almost completely out of the dance studio for two full years, as well as a six month relapse once I had entered the dance major at IU.
Did you know that psychological studies show that serious dancers begin to associate being a dancer as part of their identity? It’s true, and because of that, when a dancer loses her ability to dance for a given time, she also begins to lose part of herself. It is a trial that makes one redefine who she is and how she counts in the world. It is a journey I am very familiar with and I see this in Jan like I saw it in myself. I am saddened by the way life can take something so wonderful from a person. But I don’t want you to think that’s the end of the story, because Jan is clearly a lovely, caring person who is dedicated to her family and passionate about making her story come alive in dance. It reminds me that we all have stories to tell, both good and bad. Some of them we wear on our sleeves for everyone to see. Others we bury deep because they’re just too difficult to tell, at least for now. I am forever grateful that dance gives me the outlet to tell those stories, to live the emotions, and to experience them in a way that I can open my heart to an audience while still feeling empowered and safe. It often even pushes me to experience stories and emotions I haven’t encountered before.
Sometimes I forget that dance embodies the themes of my life. Honestly it embodies me (there’s that identity thing coming out). It stirs up my passion but brings calm to my soul. It pushes me further beyond my limits than I believed was possible, but keeps me safe from the ugliness in the world. In it, I am only me: no judgment, no expectations, nothing fake. I can be one with the movement of my body and express everything and nothing all at once. Dance is the metaphor for my life, and I am absolutely blessed to continue to experience it.
> MM
Passage
“Passage”
This is the title of my piece. The first three of six sections will be performed on Friday, April 6th during First Friday at the Indy Indie Artist Colony. Inpsiration for the piece is drawn from personal struggles with fibromyalgia and degenterative disc disease. The first three sections focus on my coming to grips with my illness and losing the dream of a dance career as my health continued to decline. The piece demonstrates the depth of pain a person can suffer from starting with the body, then the heart and finally progressing to the soul.
We are down to three rehearsals before performance time. The dancers and myself have a good vibe that is conducive to getting a lot of choreography taught quickly. I am struggling with how to finish the piece and hoping that I “see the light” soon. I want to find the right movement that conveys a closing thought, but leaves a continuum for when I choreograph the final three sections.
Our biggest struggle has been counting or not counting the music. I have found myself refusing to copy the music or even acknowledge it, which of course is tons of fun for the dancers and myself. Last Saturday was our first rehearsal in the space and we were excited to learn we have more space than we expected. The costumes are almost finalized. With a week and a half to go things are still scattered but will soon pull together. I am relaxed and going with the flow, or so goes my daily mantra.
Jan
Update:
Only two rehearsals to go now. The third section, which we finished last
Sunday, is mentally challenging the dancers. I have faith they will get the
phrasing, but the order of things is giving them quite a headache. I did
figure out how to finish the piece. It was right there in front of me the
whole time. I just needed to simplify it. I am not wanting to change
anything else in the piece, but I will never say never 
=
Jan
Sword-fighting with Inspiration
Uh oh, I am inspired. That is a double edged sword for me. Often when I get excited about a concept or piece before it has taken shape I get into trouble. I have music in mind, props and a kick ass idea but no actual movement yet. Sometimes this kind of inspiration comes back to bite me because I get stuck on the original motivation but when I get into the studio it may not work and I have trouble letting it go. Instead of letting it morph into what it is, I try to mold it and shape it into what I want it to be and somehow it never lives up to my expectations and I end up disappointed. Back to the exciting part though… in my mind there are long strands of jewels, 2 mannequins, 2 beautiful dancers, 2 pedestals and 1 big idea…
En Garde!
(To be continued, I hope.)
~Heidi Keller Phillips
Why We Dance
In February, “IN” returned to the stage as a part of Fort Wayne Dance Collective’s Choreographers Laboratory. This was by far our most stressful and challenging show, with Katelin injured, and Jenny and Heidi learning whole pieces in just 2 days. Katelin, despite not being able to perform, joined us in Fort Wayne to help teach her parts. She brought not only her intimate knowledge of the movement, but her energy and passion as well, and I guess this brings me to the first of the many reasons why we dance. There is an amazing camaraderie among dancers at Motus. We rely on each other for safety and support both physical and emotional. We are in each other’s personal space with out apologies. We are open and vulnerable to each other’s comments and suggestions as we strive to achieve to the greatest of our abilities as both dancers and choreographers, and we in turn are conscientious of the impact of our words and we utter them with thoughtfulness and respect. It’s how more of the world should work frankly.
By dress rehearsal, on Friday evening, we’d only had a few hours of rehearsal time and the newly learned pieces were a bit rough. We were relieved only because we knew we would have several hours on Saturday before the show, and as we stood around talking and laughing at how far we had yet to go we were humbled by the comments we began to hear from some of the other dancers. For those of you who haven’t seen “IN.,” it is a show about inclusion and exclusion, and while it takes us to some very dark places, there is redemption and love and support in the end. It is a show that moves people, and I will always remember the words of a young girl, also a dancer, probably middle school aged, who walked up to a group of us with tears in her eyes to say how much she’d loved the piece, and how we had taught her “the meaning of dance.” Which brings me to another reason why we dance. We dance to communicate viscerally in a way we can’t with words alone. We bring life and breath to images that makes them that much more raw and gripping, at least that is our aim. I must stop here to say that while this is something as an artist we all long to achieve, it is not necessarily something we know we will be able to do successfully, and that is where the feeling of humbleness comes in. It is an amazing feeling to know that you’ve been able to affect some one so deeply. Later we learned that she was not the only one moved to tears that night.
After 3 intense hours in the studio on Saturday, the shows went well on both Saturday and Sunday, and we heard more lovely comments and feedback for our work. This is now the third time we’ve performed this piece, now shortened to 35 minutes from the original hour long production. As with anything, the more you do it, the more you become accustomed to it. The excitement of newness is gone, but this piece is special and enduring, something we may have forgotten were it not for the openness of the community at Fort Wayne.
MB
Motus @ Cocktails for Canines
Motus was asked to perform during Saturday’s Cocktails for Canines fundraiser for the local animal rescue and welfare organization, Mended Hearts Indy. We performed works by Debra Silveus and Heidi Keller Phillips in the auditorium of the Indiana War Memorial. Motus also donated a class package to the silent auction, so we are looking forward to seeing a new face in our studio. This is a win-win for two nonprofit organizations: Motus gets exposure to a new audience and experience performing in a new setting. Mended Hearts gets modern dance for their event. Indianapolis chalks up another modern dance performance in an unconventional venue.
I know Nichole, co-founder of Mended Heats, because I adopted a rescued dog last spring. Chance was emaciated and homeless, and walked up to the people who run the Great Pyrenees rescue when they were walking their dogs. They took him in, and he met Nichole at last year’s Mutt Strut where she offered to provide free obedience classes for Chance once he was adopted. Offering free group obedience classes for adoptive pets and pet parents is just one of the great services Mended Hearts provides to educate the Indianapolis community about responsible pet ownership. To learn more about Mended Hearts Indy, visit www.mendedheartsindy.org.
Do you volunteer for a local nonprofit organization? Are you looking for entertainment for an upcoming event? We obviously love performing, as long as a large enough and sturdy, danceable surface can be provided. Write to info@motusdance.com and we may be able to work something out.
-KR
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