Sept. 10 Talk Back after 6:30 Show

Noemie Lafrance: So, we’ve had two shows last night that were in the context of a real gallery opening and there were drinks and a bar and lots of people and people didn’t know it was going to happen

And we’ve had 3 shows today that were more like buying a ticket and you come to see a show and you expect something and they are very different settings for this performance to happen and also the number of people in the performance have affected a lot what happened.

Our conclusion as of yesterday was what drove what we did this morning and we are going to change the piece based on what you guys are telling us and next week before the show we have a 3 hour rehearsal and make changes based on the feedback from today.

Our decision based on last night because it was a difficult to move audience and we realized after the first performance that if we weren’t more assertive about the spacer we needed then nobody was moving and it felt like we were losing and it was a contest between standing people not wanting to move and us wanting to get through, so we decided to bring that up and be more assertive and in the 2nd performance in the gallery it worked, now with an audience that is more aware and it feels almost to me, moving you around becomes too much of a burden and too obvious.

Yanira Castro: I should be completely transparent and say that I have a lot of questions because I am also a choreographer, but through the piece I was often thinking about audience agency and choice and the openness of that choice and obviously you can’t force me to do anything, like "get off the wall! get off the wall!"

But I may decide to not to get off the wall - so I had all these questions so the audience always has agency, you can always decide to not do what the dancers are asking you to do but I definitely felt that there is a feeling that you were choreographing the audience and I had a question about whether or not you were really wanting to be that specific about how the audience is placed or did you want it to have a more openness?

NL: I'd like to become two groups playing off each other so in a place, for that me that is very successful, is when we’re coming through in two lines, and then it becomes clear that we are choreographing the audience the places where it’s difficult when we are running in the circle and we want you to move this way so we can do this piece this piece and its like I want to occupy different parts of the space, and the L around the periphery of the space doesn’t work, well in my mind it doesn’t work if there’s people on the wall to go around, so yes I want to choreograph the audience and keep it open to whether or not people choose to participate. We were going further than what I initially wanted to do, you know telling people to get off the wall, we weren’t initially going to do that, but nothing was happening so in a way I’m introducing this idea of urgency, we just need to get this done, we just need to keep them off the wall, so it’s not aggressive, but urgent.

A: It didn’t feel aggressive but it did feel as if there was a right thing to do and it did feel and that if I didn’t then I wasn’t making a choice, and that was as my question about the agency so is it really about the relationship about me and the performer or just the performer telling me what to do and so I think the question about what the relationship between the audience and the performer is a really difficult want, because if you’re asking me to move and you’re not and they have a task then that task and that relationship becomes a focal point, I have to do this and you’re not letting me, I have to do this and you’re not letting me, when are you going to let me? Do I try 5 times and stop or keep doing it until you let me and how does that play out as an experience.

NL: We’ve had these conversations with the dancers, about perseverance. I said you have to continue doing these lines until the lines are formed. Someone said I don’t want to move, you have to tell the person you have to, but its just one place where were are in our process but that doesn’t mean it’s the answer

A: We were also curious about to what degree there was a tension in piece between well I can do anything and I want to or I think I’m supposed to or if the audience is in certain places on the edge where they want us to get in involved and move in a more spontaneous but is the piece giving them the space to do that, or is it closing down the opportunity to do that, and if you could be more specifically it would be more interesting are there spaces that open up for you the right amount?

A: He really took that freedom, and was really much a part of performance to me, it will always be the group and him, it’s our experience, to us he was equally part of the piece because of the choices he made and what would it be like if all of has attempted that

A: And would you want everyone to?

NL: It’s interesting because he asked me yesterday during the opening and said I hope I wasn’t disturbing your performance, and I said no, you can do whatever you want, everyone can do whatever they want and that was my reaction but I think it raises a good question, it would be interesting to se if everyone went and did their own thing, if our performance would even survive?

A: Right – what’s your choreographic control?

Sam Petersson (dancer): If everyone did as well as you did then no problem

A: I thought he was part of the piece until

NL: No no he just came this time

A: He was inspired to dance

Warren: I’m an audience participant

A: But it does raise that question – where can you move your audience and where can’t you move your audience? And how does that desire affect it?

A: It’s so tricky because when you go to a dance performance you’re set in a role, I’m the audience, you’re the dancer and when you try to push the boundaries, like here, yes you feel like interacting but it’s a constricting space – 4 walls, I’m the audience, so I feel like there’s always a tension and it’s not so easy to erase the lines, and I’m not a dancer, and no matter how I move, this is what I find interesting, because no matter how we all move, through movement I am reminded that I am not a dancer (laughter)

A: But experience and awkward, like okkk quick quick I’m not gracious or flexible but I thought that was interesting. 2 things quickly: Really Became aware of sound tricky in this space, but also came to my mind that perceiving this space and your ears and what you hear struck me this time for me and my protection I felt a tension all the time like we were forced to move. And people lining up against a wall – it’s how you execute people and kill people and ending the show with corpses, I couldn’t help but see corpses, like okay are they killing people?
And we are always being forced and then we’re all lined up against the wall – what is going on here? The space is constricted. Yes, you have a blue sky but we can’t get up there

NL: Interesting you say this – it’s the first time we succeed with moving people with the wave, it didn’t happen any of the other times and last night it wasn’t happening at all but I also mention between the shows I mentioned to one of the dancers – no no no this is not the army, think more like a kindergarten or friendly but lots of change and drill

A: Interesting take as well, because I’m here with Warren and he was kind of doing the opposite of what they were doing and in a provoking way but my natural tendency, my natural tendency is to do the same thing as everyone else and not to stand out, and so I was wondering do you want people to do the same thing almost as a directive follow us or are you expecting people to really do something else?

NL: We didn’t think of it – originally we wanted people to do what we were doing

A: Like follow the leader?

NL: Well yes and no actually, there’s moments like coming through the lines - we want to use the spatial rearrangement where we’re coming in and creating holes and you come in and we make lines out of you and so some things are audience vs. dancers and sometimes we merge, but it’s more like the audience is the canvas and he was being the paint over the canvas over the canvas. There was the audience canvas and then the dancer canvas and then him.

A: I feel as if this whole thing is just a big experiment in group psychology – more direction move parts inspired the most oppositional reactions from certain individuals (laughter) – the parts with the wall, well this is obviously where the next thing is and so it’s interesting finding the finesse of the audience is supposed to do and what invites them and it’s not going to be 100% no matter

NL: And this isn’t what its going to be in the end I’m playing with structure and we put a lot of ideas on the table and how we created this piece and then we ordered them
It’s about the atmosphere that would let you be and creative and inspired to participate, dancer or not – if you can do it or not - so that’s why I’m trying to use simple dancer vocabulary
I’m also thinking about the blog we created to use your feedback and transcribe it and posts from scholar authors – I’m thinking about putting more instructions of there this game works this way and etc and then

A: I came here to see a show and be part of a show and found it entrancing I was disappointed at the end, if I can say so. What am I supposed to do, what is the right thing to do, and then I realized that there is no right thing to do and I expected the actors, the performance to be more to be more taken as part of the show, more interaction from me and them because if we destroy the barrier, or wall then I can be a spectator again and so I can stay here and see people performing because in the moment I start to be an actor as well and I expected something to happen but if you have to let the interaction pass over me in a straight line and I’m in the middle you have to find a way to remove me because in the but to for more interaction, I expected more and more but it didn’t come, I’m not disappointed I’m very happy, but it’s not personally

NL: We’re not taking this personally, even though that’s always really a lie (laughter)

A: I’m forced to be so straight because of the language barrier – the idea is there so I apologize.
There was an escalation of things moving and going up, but how could we do that?

A: Times where you felt there was intensity and a desire to be a part of it, did you join in?

A: Yes

A: From my wife to me I said yes let’s do it I felt this kind of energy and without the interaction I felt pushed back.

A: There was this section where I though you guys wanted us to do what you guys were doing, like the jumping jacks but then I thought ohh, noo you guys have to go longer for me to really commit to okay fine I’ll do them because you have to get past a performance tendency to not want to perform

W: When I was participating when there was no interaction or reaction or stimulus I felt totally free to do whatever I wanted to when I was encountered or invited I found myself more closed down, but I had to work through the closed but it was this is what you need to do

A: The comment – if it had gone on longer – if maybe an invitation would have convinced you to do it earlier?

A: I knew exactly what you had wanted from me, but I didn’t want to give it to you. And I did it because I know you’re going to stop so, but how did you know I feel it in the structure.

NL: I mean she’s a choreographer she knows a lot of stuff. (laughter)

A: Haha, I just mean, it felt like okay you’re not going to take me there or wait something about that and it’s fearful you’re afraid and so you don’t want to be first person to say ookkkkaay I’m not one of you but I’m going to do it, but all you need is one person and then everyone would start

D: What were the moments where you felt had the entry way?

A: Sitting down, I felt like doing it

A: I think that had to do with the touch – that was actually what I wanted more of was those tiny moments of intimacy, that really do succeed in breaking the wall because the rest of the time it feel interrupted.

A: Yeah I felt some of those moments of intimacy, but I made direct eye contact with several performers so I got an intimate feeling from a few of them so it made me want to participate at moments but then there were moments where I didn’t want to move, like I know you want me to move, you’re running right for me, but I’m not going to move, but I think that’s part of my personality, I think for everyone there’s parts that are like okay I’ll do jumping jack or sit on the floor but also nope I’m not going to do that, run me over. (laughter) I liked that there was tension of wanting to and not wanting to

A: Every time I got somewhere where I thought okay this where is where I’m going to stand watch the piece, I had to move, and so I felt like everyone was participating whether you knew it or not and you had to make that decision and there was a moment where I thought you were a dancer, because he was writing and he was staggered, but you couldn’t tell who wasn’t and was,

A: Till later on

A: My one disappointment was that finally I could tell

A: A plant –

NL: I’ve done that a lot to put plants in my other work…and it works beautifully

A: But it also feels like a cheat

NL: But it works because it breaks the ice, because it works because of what you said if I see other people doing it then I’ll do it, but I’m trying to not do that with this one to not do that because we could reveal the number of more slowly…show 5, then 6, 7 10 because there’s 18 total but right away we go to it, because we were dealing with different sections and we had to decide what order to put them in and how are we going to work that out

A: I began to accept to forget about the long time about who was a performance – that produced a feeling of equality between, in the social space, what did that entail? since whatever you did was, by the audiences accord and interpretation, permissible – you didn’t violate anyone’s sensibility or rightness or permissibility and that must have testified to some comment sense of sociability and to me that speaks to a quite a specific set of symmetry and so I was wondering if your piece credible o the assumption that the audience and the performers agreed on this basic sense of affinity and what would happen if it took place with a public with your dancers, seemed to me as quite homogenous based on their appearances, take it into a place of non-affinity

NL: The dance, they would be doing something less unisons, more individual and more different

W: Agora was like that

A: The performance today there was a 2year old, and I couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to be doing this piece with a bunch of 2 year olds in the audience. He was less inhibited and he danced because it provoked this very innocent sense of our body and our need to move it and all this imitation and basic human things – my personal moment And so it does raise the question of the context, who the audience is whether it’s a 2.5 year old or a different neighborhood or different whether the sighting of the white box that has a sort of prison like feel, maybe it’s the sky and the walls, and the proportions of this space and pushing at those possible association the abstract or task space moments and direction

It’s also who the performers are, in response to what you’re saying, they all look like dancers,

NL: Yeah it would be great if I had older people

A: What if they’re not dancers? Because that does create oh they’re dancers and were not, and even if you are a dancer you feel a bit standoffish.

NL: I think that would be great.

A: Even some of the audience members look like dancers…

NL: Maybe I should recruit a couple of people for each show, maybe some people want to be in the next show?

W: Yeah, I know you do.

NL: Any other?

A: I just want to echo the, couple of people mentioned, I shared the feeling when I felt like everyone wanted me to do something I distinctly wanted to do the opposite. I just did.

NL: Yeah there are a lot of people like you (laughter)

A: When you got us to move back at the wave part, I was thinking that there was a part where some of the performers were among us… or maybe you were?

NL: Yes, half of the performers were among you when you were moving back.

And that – I remember on this side we know were’re supposed to be moving back because they’re (the dancers) moving back, and maybe that side isn’t going to get it quite yet becaue I don’t see any dancers over there. And so if you want us to do something maybe having a couple of the dancers model it, it

NL: Yeah that helps

A: That made me be like okay that’s what I should do

A: Is that participatory if it’s about modeling or is that the notion of participating and interaction

NL: Certainly it’s one of them that I’m interested in…

A: So if you want us to do specific thigns and then you get us to do thoise specific things is the task

NL: But the idea is interesting where the moment because we want you to do this and you can see that then you’re like no, we don’t want to do that and that foer me is the idea , oh I have to make a decision on whether or not I should do it but you’re also aware that there are two groups and you have to decide what group, and so it’s making kind of a war between the two groups, and that’s what I was bringing up with the dancers uyesterday
I said you have to win, they can win, there’re not sdoing anything but standing but you have to win this contest but its interesting tjhat it provookles this idea that they want to also win, and that’s interactive

A: It feels like they’re playing eachother – dancers vs audience audience vs dancers and makes the audience actually think and participatory and the idea that you can say I don’t want to do that or I do want to jump up and down, that conversation si really what is most imporatn and the conversation of playing the game an d the game between the audience and the perfmoer

A: And you can’t ever really force ther audience to do something, and that’s why it is live performance you know if someone doesn’t want to do it then that show is that show

A: I feel like I theatre that’s a problem that there are seats and people can shut off and that’s why I like work that challenges the audience to participate becausr they shouldn’t shut off

A: I agree

A: You said you realized this was like a war, I prefer to speak about an interaction a theologic interaction, in lingustical interactions, you can speak voer someone with your body with your languyar and the order can be silent or response and this is the point some were responding to you and forcing another interaction , I am here and interacting and negating the interaction and I like this idea and when I say I expected to be more into the show, I mean more interaction like bodies and music. And it’s interesting because after the show I can go on and speak in my language, but when I come in here and enter the space I now who is the dance and audience and so I discover who is the actor and audience and everything just collapses because it destroys this idea

A: That’s an idea in theater and if you want to break that 4th wall so badly, if you want them to come and get you and participate.

(laughter)

A: When that happens and they come to you, then you don’t want it…

A: But you’re reaching that threshold

D: People have talked about the space itself like a holocaust camp, or something

A: I was exaggerating but yeah…

D: I see where you’re coming from but I think the parts that felt most inviting were touch and intense eye contact, but in the rehearsal process here is an opportunity for the complete opposite where it it’s a privileged space where you have the chance to look into a complete strangers eyes for an extended period of time, and maybe it’s how you create that space and so instead of being in a prison - I’m in a gallery and I am art, I am living art in a gallery with you, so the complete opposite

A: What if the performers wore there normal street clothes, the way we do…

NL: Well that’s what they’re wearing… (laughter)

A: The shoes give it away… maybe if they wore cocktail dress?

NL: I know it’s a lot for running and things, I know, It’s tough to get the best of those few things because some of them are wearing dresses and more casual. We tried to get away from dancer/rehearsal clothes. I told them, ‘dress the way you would dress if you were going to an opening’ but their still dancers going to an opening (laughter) – they have dancer fashion.

Well thank you so much for all you’re fantastic feedback.