The Place of Dance. Andrea Olsen

DAY 22 Dancing with LightLight makes things happen. 169To Do: Lighting Board 171To Dance: Four Lighting Possibilities 172To Write and Do: Light Your Dance with a Designer 172Seven Questions to Ask Yourself 173Studio Notes: Kathy Couch 174DAY 23 From Studio to StagePerformance week is a time to focus. 177To Do: Saying Your Name 178To Dance: Rehearsal Coaching 178To Write and Speak: Elevator Pitch 178Studio Notes: Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen 179DAY 24 PerformingPerformance invokes transformation. 181To Do: Tuning Stillness and Moving Warm-up 184To Dance: Thresholds 185To Write: What’s Your Relationship to Performance? 185Studio Notes: Susan Prins 186Being Seen, Being Moved: Authentic Movement and Performance, Part II 187PART 4LIVING DAY 25 Healthy DancingThe nervous system governs our actions and reactions. 193To Do: Imagining the Cortex 198Central Nervous System 198To Dance: Dancing through the Nervous System, Part I 199To Write: What’s Healthy Dancing to You? 200Studio Notes: Stuart Singer 201DAY 26 Healing DancingDancing and dance making create agency. 203To Do: Embodying the Four Layers of the Nervous System 206To Dance: Dancing through the Nervous System, Part II 207To Write: Reflecting on Writing 207Studio Notes: Paul Matteson 208DAY 27 Teaching DancingTeaching is learning. 211To Do: Heel Foot and Ankle Foot 212To Dance: Extending Your Range 213To Write: Teaching Dancing 214Six Composing Basics 214Reviewing Ten Landmarks for Efficient Movement 215Studio Notes: David Dorfman 218DAY 28 Dance and YogaDance and yoga are longtime partners. 219To Do: Articulating Eight Horizontal Diaphragms 222To Dance: Preparations for Sun Salutation 223To Do and Write: Savasana 224Studio Notes: Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen 225DAY 29 Nature and CreativityBody is Earth. 227To Do: Place Map 230To Dance: BE-ING Score 230To Write: An Experience in Nature 230Studio Notes: Andrea Olsen, Art Making and the Environment 231DAY 30 Concerning the SpiritualDance is embodied spirit. 235To Do: Three Contemplative Practices 237To Dance: Sacred Space 238To Write: A Sense of the Sacred 238Studio Notes: Janet Adler 239DAY 31 Personal ProjectCreate your own chapter. 241Acknowledgments 243Notes 247Selected Bibliography 253Publication Credits 255Subject Index 257Art Index 265

Preface

      Caryn McHose and Andrea Olsen Amphitheater at Epidaurus, Greece

       Photograph © Sophia Diamantopoulou

       Speak the truth as you experience it; someone else can speak his or her truth.

      —Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen

      Dance is a place I go to know myself and the world experientially and intellectually. The creative process offers a forum in which to pose questions and investigate possibilities. I chose dance for graduate school, over my two other loves, history and biology, because dance encompasses this broad terrain. The creative process was the link.

      In my writing and choreography, I often jump, assuming connections between things that might not be apparent. Edge zones bump up against each other, creating areas of heightened possibility, like the terrain between forest and field. The bane of some readers looking for continuity, these sometimes surprising juxtapositions encourage nonlinear and recursive thinking. Distinct disciplines and art forms overlap, and material cycles back on itself, offering both vitality and unity.

      Modern dance making, at least since Martha Graham, has been a serious endeavor. The inner and outer lives of the dancer are under investigation. This is my lineage, seeking movement experiences where personal inquiry and ecstasy meet. Somatic practice (trusting the intrinsic intelligence of the body) and the desire for art making (the impulse to shake up habits while giving form to emerging impulses) are in conversation. Responsibility and resilience are inherent. We are embedded in larger systems, remembering our place in the larger order of things.

      Writing is consistently present in my life. I remember, at age six, standing by my childhood desk and promising myself I would write—and not let schooling confuse me. I was a “good student” but not bookish. Often the title rather than the content was my jumping-off point for making dances, paintings, or stories. On the other hand, I’m reminded daily as I write that a trail of books has shaped my life: Homer’s The Odyssey, Wassily Kandinsky’s Concerning the Spiritual in Art, and Mabel Todd’s The Thinking Body at critical moments have shifted how I perceive the process of art making. With the embodied memory of those changes, this book offers a collection of possibilities for creative connections.

      The author’s voice in this text is mine, a view of contemporary dance through the lens of one life. As indicated by her byline on the cover and title page, colleague Caryn McHose offered much vision and time to this book. Indeed, many parts would simply not have existed without our three decades of intense collaboration. Ideas from co-teaching and shared explorations suffuse the work. My desire is thus to claim Caryn as an essential colleague and to acknowledge her work, even though I must