A Conversation with Annie-B Parson - TORCHES: 30+ Years of Downtown Performance

I think that every dance that's ever been danced is in our bodies. >> It's an inheritance of a sort. I don't really know how to think about it any other way. >> Mhm. >> Um, and I think it's pretty unconscious. Welcome back, friends. I'm Kristen Martin and this is Torches. Today we have the innovative Annie B. Parson. Annie B is a choreographer and artistic director of the award-winning Big Dance Theater. She's made choreography for rock shows, marching bands, movies, museums, objects, TV, augmented reality, opera, ballet, theater, orchestras, and 10,00 amateur singers. I'm excited to hear what Annie has to say today. Welcome. >> Thank you, Kristen. >> Yay. So, how did you come to be in downtown Performance? >> There was nowhere else to go. I mean, I didn't know of any other landscape to work in. I just landed in New York and you know took ballet >> and in ballet class I met people and that's what everybody where everybody worked. Um and it was sort of a it was almost like a I don't know the word farm comes up in my mind of you know young dancers that are growing and we were all very very dedicated to our training. Um, and then on the sixth day of class, after class, we would rest just like in the Bible. But after class, we would always talk about, "What are you singing? What are you singing? What are you singing?" And the only thing I knew about was downtown work. >> Mhm. >> So, it wasn't until I got a job um at a dance publishing um venue that I started to see Uptown work. And it wasn't my thing, >> right? So it also has to do with your sensibility like what are you attracted to sing and I was definitely attracted to the experiment. >> Yes. And what about the experiment? What drew you in? >> I think that I wanted to figure out my own doorway into choreography and was sort of over or not interested in modernism that dance presented. So like Taylor and so on and I liked the idea of how did the dice roll in this and literally also but in this in this framework of creating movement uh everything from like also I had I was a painting major in college. So I really came from this perspective of you know like what did the Dist how did they create material you know that you're in a dynamic world and your work should reflect that. >> What is a joy moment in your work? What's a moment of real joy? You know, it's a funny word because it's a very overused word right now. And I feel like >> there's a part of me that rejects the idea that >> that's the that there's focus there somehow that it was very workmanlike >> making work. And even now like um the pleasure I would say is when you have some sort of generative thought that seems really almost illeible in your mind >> and then you find some form some language some object some you know mathematical equation could be anything image and you share it with performers. and it comes to life in a very generative way between you >> that provides a huge burst of excitement in me. >> You know, that's the gold is that pass back and forth that's very muscular and it's rare. For a really long time, my company was a real ensemble, I guess, in the sense that I never auditioned anybody. I always used the same people over and over and over and over again. And so that uh feedback loop between us was quite arcane, you know, like who would have even understood what the hell we were talking about in rehearsal or moving or didn't talk at all most of the time. um in our relationship that I think that we as a group held between movement and uh text and song >> and object and light >> and clothes like that was very much a shared language with us like I could say I want to be sad today we're going to put our clothes on backwards and everybody would know what I meant right >> you know it wasn't like somebody's looking at me like oh I don't know you of course it Sounds strange. >> Mhm. >> Um, but as soon as that world ended, which was I had it for a really really long time, but it's I don't have it anymore. Then the >> the relationship is different. So you find your happiness in other ways, I think. >> And that community of artists, you're talking about Paul, your long term, and still work with and Cindy Hopkins. Yes. And Jenny Mary and Molly. >> Yeah. Molly Hickok, Timberly Canali, Stacy Dawson. >> Yes. Courtney Rutherford. >> Uh that was sort of you know this very core group that we had and some others a few others. >> And how do you feel the texture of the work has changed and evolved as you've adjusted had performers change had new people come in and out of the group? >> My process has changed completely because if I don't have that like really intense tennis match with the performers instead I'm bringing things I'm teaching things. Um, and that's a very different process. I'm alone working on my own and then I have a period where I work with my associate choreographer Elizabeth Dement and then we teach material to the performers. It's completely different. >> Yeah. >> It's also really cool. >> It's just very very different. >> Is it different to for you to generate material in a studio by yourself? Is that isolating or do you find the energy there in a different way than you used to? Um, I'm not really sure. It's It's okay. >> It It's just different material because they have It's less embodied by the performers. >> It's more coming from me and my virtuosity is not I'm not like a great dancer, you know, virtuosic dancer. Mh. >> So, I think the material tends to be simpler >> than it used to be, but I'm not sure because then sometimes, you know, like I work at the Met a lot and I hire dancers that are extremely virtuosic. So, I have in mind what they can do >> and then I Yeah. So, it's I don't I don't really know how to answer that actually. >> Okay. >> Because it's it's just different. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Um, you've spoken about your art making as part of our everyday lives and our political life. Is that a core value in your work? >> Um, I'm bad with like core value stuff because I don't really think like that. I want to think like that, but I don't really know how to, honestly. >> Um, it's more like I'm thinking about movement, material, and form. And the forms themselves I feel like have a resonance for me that has not to use too big a word but has um a sort of a spiritual value to me. >> Mhm. >> Um the political is logos. It's the rational mind. It's um almost like you know I keep kosher like milk and meat. >> Mhm. So if something is political, [clears throat] it's political because it came that way. Like I'll give an example. Like um I made a piece not that long a no in 21 called the mood room. The mood Room uh was based on a script that was written by a performance artist in the 80s who died of AIDS. uh his name was Gita Quante >> and he wrote this script about Los Angeles and what was happening in Los Angeles in the se right on the cusp of Reaganism. So it was the end of the 70s early 80s he wrote it >> and basically he reflects what he sees. Um the there's no there's no critique within the text. It's not a script like that and that's why I was attracted to it. It just is. >> They don't finish their sentences. They completely obsess about their own healths health uh what um Nietze called the neurosis of health. They you know >> only eat health food. They only you know have very specific herbs. They have psychiatrists and you know it's ridiculous. Their lives are ridiculous. They are >> and he pulled from the three sisters for that. Right. >> He sort of did. He calls he called it the five sisters. So he totally does except for there's no quotes from Czechov. >> Great. So I think he in his mind is referencing it but believe me I scoured it for because he quotes he grabs from a lot of plays in that but there's no checkup in it strangely just [laughter] the title and that it's sisters it's five sisters >> right >> so it's becomes a very political piece >> um because it reflects to me what was the beginning of the end which was Reagan who said shop >> that was his directive as a it was the and of being a citizen. So the citizen body is shoppers, is consumers, is the capitalist society. And I felt like this script, you know, did I realize it when I picked it? I don't know. It just is a political piece, but it's not, you know, you know, one of those PE adap, >> right? >> Or you know, let's pretend we're a family who is having a political moment and discussing this issue. No, it's the opposite. It's what Chaplan did. He showed it. >> Mhm. >> He danced it. >> Yeah. >> Beautiful. In that piece, you made it just before CO or just after CO? >> I made it during CO. >> Okay. [laughter] >> Well, I I started it before CO. >> Mhm. But my first workshop was February of 2020 >> and then I stupidly continued to work on it [laughter] because that was everyone else stopped except for me for some reason and Pavle. [laughter] >> Great. Um and and then that piece was paused for a little while but then you brought it back like to the Walker I think. >> It went to BAM and then we had a pause and then it went to the Walker. Yeah. >> And you've done a lot of things at the Walker over the years. I this is a total aside. How do you find the audience there as opposed to a New York audience? Do you feel like there's a different vibe? >> No, it's a great question because we do need to think of theater on a national scale even though we're very impoverished nationally with theater. [clears throat and cough] >> The Walker has been a wonderful wonderful friend to big dance theater. Mhm. >> Um I I don't really know what to say about the audience except for to say that they are open, they are engaged, they've been very well trained by Philip Bther and the Walker. So they see, you know, 10 15 pieces a year that are national and international. And Philip's uh Philip Bther's curation is such that he's like a hawk. So he smells it from far away and he brings it. So they have seen you know his audience uh is really really beautifully versed in avancard theater. >> Mhm. >> Uh so I love them. They don't sit like this like New Yorkers. They sit like this. [laughter] There's a receptivity. >> Yeah I would say so. Yeah. >> Um let's see. Uh you've worked a lot with David Burn. you've done a lot of projects and one of the things that he said about your work that he sees is the quotidian made extraordinary and the familiar made foreign. I feel like you were alluding a little bit to that in the way that you were speaking about your making process. Is it does do you find that a relevant statement to how you see your own work? >> You know, I did come from the from I drank the the holy water from postmodernism. my teacher. I I had two teachers that were very very significant to me. One was Robert Ellis Dunn >> who uh actually this week is being um thought about by the kitchen. But Robert Ellis Dunn was the teacher of the Judsons. >> So he didn't believe in authorship. Uh he thought it was like nasty and ego-driven because he's a 60s guy. And so he sort of erased himself from the history books unfortunately. But he taught all those. He taught Ivonne. He taught Trisha. He taught them. And he came from music. He was the pianist for the Cunningham company. And he was tight with Cage. So he took all those ideas of cages and he uh >> reinterpreted them into choreographic form. Um and that was the holy water that I drank from >> but mixed with ballet too, right? >> Yeah. But the thing was about ballet which is which was just true. I mean this is just a fact is that ballet was the secret sauce. Uh there it's sort of like Meisner with theater. Nobody talks about the training but you know it's there. You can't do this work without ballet. Then the work that was happening >> and what was going on at dance theater workshop for instance the virtuosity of those bodies in space if they were walking across the floor if they were lying in the floor it didn't matter those were ballet trained people >> right >> we didn't talk about it I think the Cunningham dancers all study ballet even though Mars completely rejected it but needed it >> you know so it's underneath >> and Pina Bosch certainly absolutely total ballet training >> she wasn't a postmodernist >> so But still, yes, absolutely. And so when I hear the words quotidian, absolutely that was the stuff that was the material >> was to walk, to step, to sit, to roll, to crawl, >> to cross. The simplest verbs and yet from a formal perspective, it was not simple. >> What was up? I mean, if you could see the forms that Robert Ellis was giving us to work on, uh, it was like a really hard math problem. So, uh, we So, yeah, and I think David also, you know, that's what he was brought up on too >> in a sense. I mean, would he agree with that statement? Uh, I mean, he was the one that went into CBGBs and said, "I want the fluorescents, turn off the theater lights." Right? you know, I mean, he definitely was in that mode when he started >> of the quotidian. >> And when you're making your work, is the music a starting place? Is the movement for you? >> Oh, for me? No. Uh, the music I I was a sound designer, so the music is the starting point. I shouldn't say no because yes in that I won't work on a script or a piece unless I have music in mind. >> So like if I'm going to work on something and if I can hear music then >> I feel like I can do it. If I'm going to work on something and I don't relate to the music, if it comes with music, it's like a job. It's a musical and I don't relate to the music. I know I won't be successful. >> Mhm. >> Uh because I don't know how to relate to that kind of music. I actually don't even have the training to do that. Um but I have also in my own work made so many pieces based on Stravinsky but then I would erase Stravinsky. So I don't think I only made one piece where I kept the music of Stravinsky. So often the music is underneath the comp but it's the complication of the form >> of the music and the emotion. So meaning you create the whole work working with the music, but then you take the music out. >> Yeah. And now put something else in. >> There's a new phrase of music there, but the choreographic phrase stays. So there's a layering and a and a building that you're doing. >> Yeah. So absolutely. Yeah. And then when I'm working with >> um Oh, well, when I work with David or music artists, I always work from the music first, >> right? >> Yeah, definitely. Mhm. >> I put it on and I dance literally. I mean, it's that simple. >> And if sometimes what happens with my dance is >> it doesn't look like dance, but it's my that's [laughter] what I think I'm doing. So [gasps] >> great. Well, that's a funny question. You know, how how do we define dance? Because there's such a spectrum. Yeah. Across cultures, across time. >> Choreography is not steps. Steps are material within choreography or sometimes there's no steps. Uh choreography is the body in space. It is the organization, the aesthetic and the intentional organization of the body in space >> over time. >> Time we need to reckon with it because it exists. >> And choreographers do all sorts of stuff to erase slow uh play with time. Sure. Um but for me personally time is an element like emotion and line and you know I think another we could also say you know the definition of choreography is the aesthetic and intentional organization of the body and space and time. >> We sure could. >> And then dance is the action the material of that aesthetic decision. My definition of dance is probably a lot wider than mo most people like I think we're doing a dance right now and our dance is determined you know it has a lot of elements of choreography >> so for instance we are sitting roughly 2 feet apart um we're doing that because the camera was set up in a particular way um and that determined the proximity of our body in space Um, then we have space all around us, but the camera is only only capturing some of that space, but we're experiencing a lot more space than than the camera is capturing, right? And then and some of it is the space over our heads, which is very charged and it's infinite perhaps depending on how you feel. Um and then also in choreography, one of the most absolutely important aspects of it is tonality and muscularity. So we have a particular muscularity right now. >> You might feel more relaxed than me. I'm not sure but your body might be a little bit get feeling gravity a little bit more and that may be because you're more relaxed. I don't know why or you just feel it. I feel like I'm a little this way and you're a little that way choreographically and we could switch right now, right? And kind of do that and you could do that. I mean, that would be a choreographic directive. >> Um, and then uh it all is it's all held by our muscularity, >> you know. So, and then we're doing a dance also of conversation and we have certain pauses and silences and rhythm and um that we are determining we didn't know we were going to have we didn't say beforehand count to five after I ask you a question. No. >> And now you're nodding your head. So this aspect of your upper spine is moving and so on and so I mean I could go on and on and on. You know what I mean? Like [laughter] so my definition of dance is pretty wide. >> Yes. I love it. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. Um you've spoken about the body holding everything and the intensity of the choreographers's relationship to that holding. Can you share what that means to you? >> Oh um okay. Well, I think that every dance that's ever been danced is in our bodies. >> It's an inheritance of a sort. Um, and there's no new material. Basically, we're just repairing, developing, mending, playing with, you know, all the things that you do when you make something. I don't I don't really know how to think about it any other way. >> Um, and I think it's pretty unconscious. >> Does that answer the question? >> Yeah, I think so. >> Also, your family and your relationships and, you know, all those things >> and the architecture >> and the day that you brought with you. Yes. >> Exactly. Yeah. Um, how about institutions? You've worked across different genres and at different scales, downtown, uptown, across town. How do those contexts affect the art that you make? >> Well, there's two parts to that. The institution has an architecture itself, >> a physical architecture. >> And when I'm working in a very large scale space, it's very bossy these rooms. Now, I'm just talking about me and the room. I'm not talking about people. >> So, you know, a lot of these rooms have a real sort of tyrannical precenium. Um, and they have thousands of seats and they have giant television screens, you know, and all this stuff. So, it does affect what I make. It has to. I I want to be um conscious, mindful, generative, and embrace the room that I work in, >> you know. So, there's that. And then the institution itself of course some of them just have you know countless toms of of rules and expectations and limitations and everything but I have been lucky enough to work with people artists in those rooms. I am not the lead artist. I'm working for an artist in the very big institutions. Um and so I've been lucky enough to work with artists that have a lot of power. And so nobody's telling me to change anything. >> Mhm. >> When I when it's my company, Big Dance, and I'm like, bam, that kind of institution, those are friends, those are family, and uh they've been extraordinary, you know, extraordinary partners. >> And is there a different kind of of freedom that you feel or you you find a freedom that you enjoy in all these different contexts? >> I'm really bad. I just don't bother about it. Great. [laughter] That's must be very liberating. >> I I just don't even think about it, >> right? >> I can only make what I make. >> If it gets thrown out, I'm cool, >> right? >> I can keep it. I can't tell you how much material that's been cut in, you know, now we're talking about job jobs, but I'm still me working at it. >> And you know, the the word we'd have to bring up in that kind of thing where I'm not working with my own company and it's my idea that I'm making is craft. So, you know, I'm a great believer in craft and I think craft is is not uh you know, something that you just learn, you know, it grows >> and it's a good friend. So like when you're in a situation [clears throat] where the job is extremely stressful and you know you don't know what you're doing but you have your craft. >> Mhm. >> So you understand >> it's your foundation. >> It's your foundation you know and it's not it's I just go back to it over and over and over again and then from there hopefully something >> happens. Does the craft give you the freedom to take as much risk in those like large contexts as when you're working within your own? >> It gives you more freedom because you well not more than my own company, but it it allows you freedom because it gives you roots. When I choreographed American Utopia, I didn't know how the piece should begin. And uh I thought, well, maybe David should sit at a little table and he should be all the way upstage. This is craft because it has to do with proximity. >> Mhm. >> So where is he going to be on stage? He's I think he should be far away because the ubiquitous rockar spot is down center and they never leave. >> And David Burn has been obviously breaking that rule for a long time. I thought, well, let me place the singer all the way as far from the audience as possible. And then we had these chains that line the stage. And I asked if they could be on the ground. And throughout the first song, could the truss pull them up for the entire song in slow motion? What is going on there? Big things and little things. Period. That is craft. >> Mhm. I'm setting large scale material against small scale material. Now, nobody's going to look at that and go, "Oh, she's dealing with proximity and scale." They're going to go, "Oh, wow. That's cool. I [laughter] can hear the song." Or, "He [snorts] looks great." You know what I mean? Nobody, you know, but I'm saying it's just an example of how can I use the elements of choreography to support this song period. >> And that was a really stunning opening. That moment was really compelling and it just it opened us into the theatric it invited us into the theatrical world. >> Yeah. >> So, >> how do you think institutions can better honor experimental practices? especially that resists commodification. >> Yeah. Well, I mean that's that's a softball, Kristen. [laughter] [gasps] Um there's this very unsexy aspect of making work. It's called rehearsal. [laughter] And uh one time I had the honor of working at the National Theater in London and I think they give their artists 10 or 12 weeks of rehearsal. >> Oh, what an incredible gift. >> Yeah. And we get three and a half. >> So it shows. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. It shows in the work. So uh what can they do? They can actually understand what our process is and that it's a slow cook and choreography is a particularly slow form. Um we choreographers sit in an alert stillness for hours. a dance, a two-minute dance that I recently made for a musician took me months. Like, this stuff does not come fast. Once in a while, like the o like the opening of American Topia, once I thought of that idea and I was going back to dancing to the music, that was the dance. I did get that idea from I'm dancing to this, >> you know. But anyway, yeah, institutions if they if they came and really watched what we do, they would see that our process is probably as slow as fundraising for that piece was. [laughter] >> Yeah, because that piece was in development for a number of years, right? >> Oh, you mean American? >> Yeah. No. Uh, we had it on the road for a year. >> Okay. >> It was a rock and roll show, right? >> Yeah. But my work with David was it was I worked with him for so long that a lot of that work you could say it was for years because >> it was it was additive. Exactly. And some of the songs I had already choreographed for other shows and stuff. >> Mhm. >> Yeah. >> Why do you think that dance is outside of the marketplace and that dance artists accept being paid than less than other performing artists? This is such a issue in our field. The reason that I think dances out of the marketplace is and that has its pros and cons um is because and this is totally subjective. I think that we're Puritans. Americans are Puritans and they don't like the body. [laughter] In fact, they disallowed dancing on Sundays because, you know, they don't see it as a spiritual act like most cultures do see it as a spiritual act. Um and dancing is very much a part of religion but not here in America. So I that's my you know personal opinion. Um and so we don't want to pay for it. It doesn't have any currency. Well that's just changed so much. They don't accept less. Um they would they're quite demanding actually for pay now. uh as they should be. Um they're they have not been able to g uh still get as much as you know musicians. >> Um on the other hand, they're getting there and they're asking for a lot and the the budget doesn't you know we're not the presenters are not giving us as much money as they would for rock and roll band. So there's not as much to share. But um in my company um my ethos always was that we would share whatever we would get and divide it um among us. >> And you know they accepted that because that's all there was. But now that's not true. If I they wouldn't accept that. No. >> Mhm. Yeah. I've been working um in a budgetary way where everyone's at the same hourly, but you acknowledge the different amounts of labor that people put in. So, it's not most favored nations in the old sense. Yeah. >> Where it was like everyone got paid the same, but it's that you acknowledge, oh, this show has 25 costumes, so the costume designer's load is heavier than the video designer who's doing something much simpler. Yeah. >> So, they should be compensated more because they have a heavier load. So, that's what I've been working towards. And and I found that people really understand that and that seems fair to them. >> Yeah. Um you um think a lot about place. Um what do you what do you what is the relationship between place and performance for you? You talked a little bit about the architecture before when you were like the architecture of this room or what those stages do. Yeah. >> Um >> is there and and the opening of American Utopia. Are there other ways that you think about place and performance? >> Well, I just had the opportunity to to choreograph something outdoors and really it was the first really large scale piece I'd made outdoors >> and that sort of blew my mind visav space and place. I asked that we could start the performance at dusk lighting design by God and it was so golden and it was in the summer in the country. I never wanted to return to a precenium ever again because [laughter] I was getting so much theatrical support from mother nature and she's the mistress. >> So uh she and I were very tight >> and um we were on really doing a good dance. Um and then I but then once I did that I felt like everything like I there were so many places that you could make dance like I went or that everything sort of became dance in this kind of way for a while like in that I saw the horse races and that place you know with its oval stage and the s the sound score of the hoofs coming and going and Sometimes it rains and you know it really like sort of blew my mind about what I was hearing and seeing for a while and then you know I came back into the precinium cuz that's where people want to see their stuff. I think it's weird. I think preceniums are really really weird after I spent time collaborating with mother nature. Um, it's more like the black box, you know. It's like, okay, sure. You know, no, really. I mean, there's some like notion that it erases the world and you I think that's what it's about. And you create a world in this sort of neutral space, but there's no neutral space. >> Yes. Every space has its own personality. and it has the neighborhood that you brought in with it and the ticket price and you know like whatever it is and who's sitting next to you and where you're sitting and how you're sitting. Um, and and also like I was just talking to a friend who makes opera and I'm working on Vagner right now, which is like a very strange monster to be fighting with. And and she said, you know, if I sit on the floor, she said, maybe you should sit on the floor when you're listening to Vagner because I'm really struggling with the music. She said, the music sounds different when you sit on the floor. And I tried it and she was absolutely right. And then I thought um oh and she also said that she tries to get presenters to get the let the audience sit on the floor and get rid of the seats but so far they have not allowed this. Um but then I thought of all the great traditions in music where the musicians sit on the floor and the audience sits on the floor. I mean since the beginning of time. >> Mhm. >> We came up with this [laughter] you know and it does change how you hear >> and it changes the room and it changes your relationship to the work. >> And which Vagnner are you working on? >> Tristan. >> Oh wonderful. >> Yeah. >> And that'll be for the Met or you >> for the Met. Yeah. >> Great. >> No, it's the next big dance piece. Just kidding. [laughter] That'd be crazy. >> It wouldn't surprise me. >> I know. We just don't have that. I mean that the the field is so different now. >> I could I mean I feel like back in the day that wouldn't have been such a crazy question but now I there's no you know the the environment is very very different in terms of imagining a new piece and finding the support and the venue and all that. >> Yeah absolutely. Um you've said that New York is always a teacher to you. Is it also a collaborator? >> Oh >> you just talked about nature. You talked about nature as your collaborator. Yeah. I mean, New York is endless. I mean, the reason we put up with it, the reason we agree to have, you know, less um comfort. >> Mhm. >> Um, and the reason we agree to carry heavy loads of things through the subways in order to get our stuff to rehearsal and all that stuff, we agree because we're being fed from this glorious beast called New York. And yeah, I mean I I Where else are you going to have this much inspiration coming at you? >> Yeah. And on that point, do you think the spirit of downtown is still here? It still exists? >> No. >> Okay. >> No, not not at the moment. I don't say it as a final >> right >> thing. I I feel like something will change, but I do think we're in a gray area. Mhm. >> Um, and I think if I were to make a dance about it, it would be like an oily gray puddle. >> Um, it's very, it feels in process, which makes sense. Um, throughout history, there's always been these periods when there's giant change. Uh, that art isn't quite art yet. Um, it's still extremely important. Uh but I do think I think it's yeah we're also shedding we're shedding postmodernism >> you know uh we've seen enough of you know minimalist music to you know white t-shirts and sweatpants in walking and stopping it had you know 70 years uh because I mean really Cunningham started in 4849 9. >> Yeah. >> Where he sort of took away the idea of pretend. >> Mhm. >> And he said, I think it was in 1948, he said, you know, we give ourselves away at every moment. Why pretend? Not his not a direct quote. >> Yeah. >> Uh so we've been thinking about this for a long time. And I do think it's time to to shed it. >> Um um knowing that as we shed it, we it's still in our bodies, you know, which is good. And the energy of New York that you find so is not from the spirit of downtown. It's from the energy of the city and the people. Yeah. >> And the vibrancy of culture. >> Yeah. Like >> I came here on the subway. I looked around. >> Everyone had a cool outfit. >> I mean, they just did. And they were all different. You do not see that in most cities, [clears throat and cough] you know, like crazy good thinking around imaginative clothes, >> right? you know, and I was like, "Yeah, I like I really like it here." You know, it shows a very imaginative culture. >> We are an island off the country of the United States of America, >> you know. >> Why is the art not doing that? Or did you not say that it's not the art that's doing that? >> It's it's it's doing it. It just doesn't have any support and it doesn't really know what it is. So, it's figuring out what to wear, I think. >> Yeah. >> Love it. um you as you're making work that resonates with you personally, how do you think the audience is going to find their connection to what you're making? >> I have never and I don't feel good about this, but I literally have never thought about the audience. >> Awesome. Never occurred to me. And and I have heard people talk about, you know, that they're making work for a particular audience and stuff. It just it's not in my brain. Is access to resources changing your work? >> Yes, definitely. The resources I I I would like to say that the most important resource resources is the reciprocal partnership with a venue. >> Um I I started my company with Molly Hickok and we always agreed that we needed reciprocity in order to make something. And that could be that, you know, somebody said, "Here's $10. Make a dance in my living room." Anything. That's what that we considered a feedback loop. But we were never going to walk in a studio and say, and I don't think this is a bad thing. I know a lot of people do this. And I think it's great. It's just for me, >> I need to know that somebody is saying, "I want that." And I'm saying, "I want to do that. I want that contract. I want that agreement that [clears throat] they're going to do. get the audience, provide the room, whatever the room is, and I'm going to make something and I that is an energy loop and I need a feedback loop when I make things and the other feedback loop which is and some someday an audience will come in and at the end of the piece they'll stand and they'll leave and they'll have shifted slightly and that framework that form is very much necessary for me to make things and that has changed. >> Did big dance did you used to start ideas of things before you had commissioners or never? So you always have made things knowing I'm doing it for this theater at this time >> and this date >> and I'm growing towards that >> and you're still working that way >> awesome. You talked about how your practice evolved when you went from your original company members to a new crop of dancers in all different contexts that you're working with. But how do you think your your your practice has changed as you've aged or as you think about how the work goes forward in this time? Is there a difference? The the velocity and the scale of the work I was making. I look at it and I kind of can't believe it. >> Um does that mean I couldn't do it again if somebody gave me that opportunity? Um I don't know. I think I could um I don't think of making work as a job. It's living. So I don't think it ends. Um but I do know that it changes a lot. Like I know that when I was young I was completely completely interested in kit. This is because I grew up with you know I grew up in the shadow of the Holocaust >> and I was very very like interested in what became of Germany. Uh and my parents did not want me to ever go to Germany. And I could see all this kit coming out of Germany and the in the music in the clothes and all this stuff. And uh with not in any intellectual way, I just used it in my work. I used a lot of German folk songs that had been Americanized or American um pop music that were sung in German. I used braids. Braids. Braids. Later hosen. I didn't even think about it. Like I just it doesn't it's not something I'm interested in anymore. And not like I don't think it's cool. It's just I did that for a really long time. Um and it was very um I can't even explain it now why I did it. >> I tried to, but it wasn't a real good explanation. >> Um also was interested in irony and that that absolutely endures. Um, I think Uripides is probably the greatest playwright I've ever read. Um, because of the way he uses irony and the way he uses irony in relation to emotion. All those things like they're still there, but they're different. I don't know. I guess I can't really answer the question. >> And on that, you work a lot with text as a way as an entry point into the choreographic world >> sometimes. >> Uhhuh. >> Yeah. And how does it how does it inform the movement that you make and the ideas that you're wrestling with? >> I mean, like in the mood room, we talked about the mood room. I had the text first. >> Mhm. >> But I still made dances first. We didn't say anything for a long time in rehearsal and then I put the text in, but the text definitely informed it. Um, I was very involved with the music of Holly Hurnen, which is AI generated from like 10 years ago and I had a big investment in the music. So, I was really working very directly with the music and the text came later, but it was there. It was in my mind what these people were saying to each other. >> And do you ever erase the text the same way you talked about scoring something and erasing the music? Do you ever use text and then erase it? >> Yeah, I do. I do. Um, and then also like, um, you know, it's just that I've used text in so many ways, it's such a hard question to answer. Like, you know, I've done two Ianesco pieces, but and there's tons of checkup in my work underneath it, erased or sometimes there, still there. Uh, I don't know. I'm just like very loose when it comes to text. I have to say I have a lot of found text. I've done a lot with inspirational speeches from insurance salesmen and you know I mean I don't know I don't and a lot I mean we did a whole period where Paul would secretly tape his auditions and we would use those tapes in ear. I mean that was like 20 years ago we did a lot of pieces with that material. Um and now for the piece I'm making right now um I'm using text. it came very late. Um, and I often it's from Zwig like early 20th century but then I use a poetic form to change it which I almost always do with text is I change it with poetic forms. So in this case I'm using the form of redundancy. Um, so I'm choreographing the text in a sense. >> Interesting. >> Yeah. And do you ever do you ever when you do that do you go like oh that wasn't the form maybe I need to try like substitute trying no >> once I mean I don't know why I just never have done that. [laughter] >> And is there an idea that starts you in response to a text or it's really the musicality or the movement of the text itself that knocks you that pulls you in? >> Everything all yes and no. And I mean I've worked with so many different techs and I've I walk in so many different doors. the front door, the back door, the side door, the attic, the basement, you name it. Through the window, I mean, late, early, you know, it depends what I'm doing. >> And when you go through that first door, do you then decide this isn't so interesting. I'm going to try this way now. Is that when you or >> probably Yeah. Uhhuh. Cool. Um, what it what do you wish you'd known starting out? When we made work, when we started in Big Dance, the the ethos was that you left everything outside the door and you walked in rehearsal, the workmanlike attitude was so intense, the discipline was so intense, and it shows in the work. >> There's just no question. Um and that idea that you cried in the bathroom and all that kind of stuff. Um you know it also has its pro serious problems. So, I think that we're a group of people in a very creative mode and we're using our bodies and that took a long time to sort of sink in. But all that is in conjunction with what is going on in everyone's personal life. >> Has that ever um led you to overstepping in a way that you wish you hadn't? Um, I just think that I don't like that. I don't know. But, uh, I don't like personally I like making material, but I don't like being the boss. It's a flawed arrangement, and yet it's a very beautiful, dynamic, deep arrangement that most people will never have in their lives, you know. >> So, it's all those things. >> Yeah. >> It's complicated. It's very >> sounds simple but not it is complicated. >> Yeah. >> Is there anything that you'd want to share that we haven't talked about? >> No, I think that's good. Thank you, Kristen. >> Thank you. It's a pleasure. >> Thank you. Thank you so much for doing this. >> Uh thanks to Hal Round for hosting us and please come back for more of Torches. Touch. Ooh. [music] [applause]