Rehearsal videos posted

Hey All - Thursdays and Todays rehearsal videos are now posted. Just click the link to the right that says "rehearsal videos" and you will be magically e-transported.
Thank you for today!

Hindu Goddesses and the Virgin Mary

Yup. That's the name of the book: "Divine Mother, Blessed Mother: Hindu Goddesses and the Virgin Mary" written by a Jesuit priest. Written from a feminist and post modern lens. Very interesting stuff. A quote: "Goddesses do not fit in easily with the established theological categories of the Western traditions. Jews, Christians, and Muslims have for the most part portrayed God as male and as not-female, even when at times going on to assert that God is in truth beyond gender, particularly beyond gender as constituted by physical characteristics. We cannot help but notice that it is a Father who is beyond gender, not a Mother; it is a Father, beyond gender, who sends His Son, and not His daughter, into the world; that Son in turn takes birth as a human male and not a human female. The God who is beyond gender is still called "God" and not "Goddess". - Francis X. Clooney, SJ, Divine Mother, Blessed Mother: Hindu Goddesses and the Virgin Mary, Oxford University Press, 2005.

So here's another spin in our spider web of imagining different ways we could tell the story/make it our story. Mary bargains with God - "Okay. I'll do it. But I want a girl."

Choice

I was in Fieldwork last week, and there was a conversation concerning marriage. A man in the group said "The woman I choose..." My immediate thought was "why are you doing all the choosing? Doesn't the woman have a say in the matter?" It really offended me as a feminist...I had always thought of marriage as a mutual decision. As I am still thinking of the conversation a week later, my thoughts are now drifting to the annunciation...Mary was the "chosen" woman, but yet she didn't have a choice at all. Not being a religious person, I had never projected my feminist ideals into the story; I suppose Christianity wasn't important enough to me to really think about how it did or didn't fit into my life. I'm needing to think on this some more...try to reconcile it in my head...if it is reconcilable. How does Mary not having a right to choose affect the rest of humanity? The story was created around a patriarchal Greco-Roman society. We don't live in that world anymore...How is this story of Mary applicable today? Much of the Bible has been reinterpreted to fit the current beliefs of a society. Why has this particular story stayed the same?

April 15th rehearsal

Mary is on my mind constantly. I continue to think about her and the decisions that she made. These thoughts became clear when we were looking at the images of her in the paintings. The ones that stood out for me were Mary in the school dress with the angel at the door, Mary sitting on the bed with the angel of light, and Mary in the spaghetti-strapped dress playing with her hair. In these images, Mary is so young. I've always viewed Mary as really young when she receives that message from Gabriel. I don't know why. I think it has something to do with me, the fact that I am young, and the number of opportunities given to me to do something for great or grand for other people. It was also interesting to me how in most of those images Mary was thinking or reading and the angel was presenting her with something, like flowers. I felt like the images was continually about Mary receiving knowledge and Gabriel giving something beautiful and alive. I felt like the movement/music material that we made somehow reflected that giving/receiving images. It may look totally different from the outside. I hope we keep revisiting this material again and again. I also hope that we talk about Mary's lineage. I feel like we can gain something from that knowledge.

April 15 rehearsal

Just back from Italy and feeling a bit of longing for Roma and displacement in Atlanta.  Rehearsal was nice re-entry.  Thinking about seeing the Pieta in Rome at St. Peter's and the incredible human moment of grief and loss. Felt right to be using paintings as visual prompts to move after seeing so much art in Rome. And kept seeing arc and bridges in everything I looked at, or responded that way at least.  Also in talking about vacuum cleaner salesmen, keep thinking about kinetic art piece I saw many years ago- The Bridge of Sighs, drawing on the Venice bridge where one could hear the sighs of all the condemned who had crossed it on their way to prison.  Was done with vacuum cleaners suspended from the ceiling that went off one after the other... at least in my memory that was it.

today's rehearsal

We worked from some Annunciation paintings., I brought copies of paintings. Classic to contemporary. (WIll post links soon. ) Asked dancers to decide on Gabriel or Mary and then study the paintings for small details, visual details, sweeps of movement, that could be translated into movement phrases. Chip did the same assignment, except translating into musical ideas. THen, my favorite choreographic activity - borrowed and shopped from everyone's phrases and let the three solos and chip's music find a layering. From observing the layering, my outside eye combined with the dancer and musician internal stage eye - we began to compose an ensemble section for the work.

annunciation paintings and photos of door to door salesman

imagine it. need I say more?
a door opens, a salesman on the outside, the housewife on the threshold.
send me your images.
and stories.

tips for selling door to door

death of a salesman celluloid and angel confusion

I've been into the traveling (vacuum cleaner) salesman part of Gabriel's story today. Online I found "secrets for succesful door to door salesmanship". I imagined Gabriel studying those tips. One was - get your client to start saying "yes' to simple questions so that when you ask the big one, they are in the habit (rehearsal) of saying yes. Like: Would you like to buy this vacuum cleaner? Would you like to be the mother of the son of God?

I imagined Gabriel studying. Being confused about whether he was selling vacuum cleaners, or selling Mary a bill of goods. More spiritual crisis as he enters the human realm of consumerism.

I have been wanting to do something with "Death of a Salesman". Today I had an image. To project the film of "Death of a Salesman" with Lee J. Cobb. Gabriel trying to interact with the celluloid image. The angel, unable to comprehend that "it's only a play, it's only a film". He feels the human pain and wants to ease it. The dance is between the celluliod actor and the incarnate angel. Raising the question of: who is in the body? who is embodied?Who is ephemeral in this moment? Who is the angel? Where does the suffering reside?

work in progress sharing at Virginia Tech, April 6

I performed a little “work in progress” for Ann Kilkelly (Thesis advisor) at Virginia Tech today. She invited a few people, so there were about six people to witness and discuss. The discussion opened lots of doors for me to see my way into new avenues for exploration, and current places that I can deepen. I was looking for general response, and an opportunity to have a discussion prompted by the work. To explore if the piece could prompt discussion – not just of the work, but of the concepts being played with in the work both content and aesthetically. I laid out three questions, and opened the door for additional discussion as well.

My questions were:
What gestural movements resonated, supplied an image (related or not to the content)?

Do you need to know “The Annunciation” to understand this commentary on the Annunciation?

What questions do you want to explore after seeing this piece? What personal question would you like me to ask you – that we might have in a coffee shop chat?

Following is an outline of the discussion/responses. Some were responses to my questions. Some were responses from the viewer’s own questions.

Gestural resonant: the deep “ahhhhh” at the beginning with the arms open. Resonant of a crucifixon and also some sort of silent scream to god. Also – the “computer” gesture, the silencing gesture, and the tripping over words.

The long section where there are no words – that begins with the pushing over of the lungs. – Felt like a camera directed to watch just where the hands were moving to next.

The alphabet falling – a stop in time. Suspended in time. Waiting for the “no”or for what that answer would be.

Discussion ensued about even though by the title I had set up the “no”, still in that moment time suspended and the answer was not apparent. Some wondered about that “no’ is just so ingrained as the wrong answer this confusion, doubt, becomes a strong moment. It is ordained that she must say ‘yes’ – confounds this moment. There actually is no option. It is ordained, she must say yes. One person said” even though I knew the title, I was still surprised when she said ‘no’”. There was discussion about whether I did have her say no, or not.

The piece suggests that angels can make mistakes.

Speech that won’t come out, speech that can’t get itself together.

Visuals: people felt very strongly about their visual image of the roof. One person said that it was especially the gesture and the image of the pebble kicked loose that nailed the image.

-It raised questions about gender and authority. The limitations of being in this world. Of choices, in small places.

Possible link to explore- in this current version Gabriel is a loveable, comic figure. What happens if he poses a threat? What makes her have to say yes or no to him? Why does he say “Fear not”?
What if Mary says no, but God says yes. Annunciation is a kind of rape. (I want to play with this in the moment where he is seeing his reflection in her eyes: what does he see?_)

Gabriel has performance anxiety.

If I go into the rest of the Hail Mary text, which invokes the rape imager – what happens?

What is Gabriel actually bringing?
Holy Spirit
Penetration

Looking at the role of Mary is intercessor. You can’t pray directly to God – you go through someone else. To the Father, you go through the Mother.
Maybe that’s a good question for a group: What is an intercessor? When are you an intercessor?

Maybe God is bad at expressing him/her/itself? Like the tradition of having someone else write your love letters.

“I could see the letters of the alphabet” spilling, jumping, making words. “I could see Gabriel stepping on them, tripping over them, picking up the ‘no’.

Which led me to – what if the no wasn’t really a no, but her just needing some time to think (Nicole’s comment from rehearsals) and Gabriel just didn’t leave any wait time.

“I was anticipating the large event of the ‘no’, and it isn’t there. It is almost a non-event. The events that seem to be larger are:
- Gabriel trying to find his words
- The alphabet spilling

In the work as it exists now, we don’t actually hear Gabriel ask the question.

We will understand the value of Mary’s no through Gabriel’s reaction. Off shoot – how was Gabriel to know that it had happened? (The conception)

“Made me think about Mary’s traditional response – a song of submission. Made me ask – how is this inside of me?”

What happens, when inspite of my disbelief – something amazing happens?

Where is eros? Does it exist? Is it absent?
Logos, the principle of the word – the thing that shuts her down. That makes rape rape.
What happens to Mary’s body? To the narrator’s body? In watching the phsycalitity, that which is more multiple than the words – what does it mean to desire in the world.


“Desire for me to tell more of the story” “Desire to hear a yes” “or hear a no. “
“In desiring to hear more of the story – I also knew exactly how that story should go as well. How I desired for that story to go.”
“maybe part of the eros is in the cooking which is to proceed the show?”

Response to the text messages during the show – if I reject them, its like mini refusals. A rehearsal of her refusals.

Erotic, orgasmic qualities of annunciation paintings. How they make pleasurable the act of being submissive.

The piece brings the luggage that everyone carries in regard to this material. The discussion has been interesting for me to learn about other people’s luggage.

My body, in textures and details does something in relation to the 2dimensionality of the story.

From my question about the coffee shop chat – question: How did you come to understand, how did come to learn this story?. Steve talked about basement Sunday school, the illustrations in the Sunday school book, “So when I see the performance, I get the tension of the visit, which is not in the bible story.”

Ann “The inescapabilty of the absence of faith”

“Mary was essentially whatever I brought to Mary” “that here the no was a non-event, and I desired a big no”

there is an edge of blasphemy. At what point does my telling become blasphemous? Is it the no? Is it the rape? What is the point of blasphemy? Who is the blasphemor? The artist? The audience who goes along with it? Mary’s voice?
Sometimes faith in faith itself can be blasphemous (Unitarians)

I talked about with the Susan Smith piece I didn’t want to exonerate her, but I wanted not the “why did she do it?” but the circumstances that lead women to bring their children to water’s edge.

What are some of the core ideas in the story?
Persuasion? Rejection? Impregnation?

What role do I play? What is my standpoint? Make it clear, or not.

What happens if the suggested gender of the angel Gabriel is female?