Response to Comments on “Ethics of Dance and Tech Collaboration”

Thanks to Michael and DanceAdvantage for helping me clarify my thoughts on collaboration and technical aspects of dance.  It seems after some thought, I’m want to avoid criticizing collaboration itself–rather, I want to point out that “collaboration” may not be the best word for when a choreographer finds a tech person to make her ideas happen.

So, a moment of silence for the magic of synergy, please.  

As Michael wrote, “For me the beauty of collaboration is the synthesis, the generation of material for which neither individual involved could accomplish by themselves”.  I agree.  Thank you for clarifying.

Then, there’s the practical reasons that argue that a choreographer (say, me) might not want to do this alone.  As the Dance Advantage writer pointed out, dancers have such a time-intensive practice.  And really, learning a new language and set of skills (say Max MSP) takes quite a lot of time.    Thank you for pointing this out.  I don’t want to try to be so hardcore, to say that no dancer or artist should ever seek help from anyone else on anything.  And that may have seemed like the gist of my post.  As a verbal, kinesthetic learner I like to think that learning happens between people and have already sought plenty of assistance and done a lot of processing-through-discussion of this current project.

Also, there’s the importance of the physicality we bring to everything as dancers.  Our time-consuming daily practice so often becomes a spiritual and mental practice that is what we do, and in Neta Little’s words about her practice of improvisation, is how we “know what we know”.  I see what happens to people’s bodies when they sit at the computer all day, and it’s not pretty.  Well said, Michael, the body is so important, and so much what dance has to say in this whole technology dialogue.  However, I find it interesting to engage with the idea that my physicality and technique are also something I hide behind, to paraphrase Melanie Bales’ paraphrase of Tere O’Connor in The Body Eclectic .  (This is actually pretty sad if you were to see my technique).  

As usual, I think the set of opinions I’m presenting about collaboration come down to my individual values in art-making.  I’m for vulnerability, in that I would rather see a dancer fumbling with something new than doing another pat postmodern shoulder roll.   I’m for communication and translatability. Dance seems more powerful to me if its proponents can speak in more languages than their own technique.  Perhaps this is why personally I’m interested in Labanotation and in code and language.  Maybe I am just an insecure kid who wants to look smart more than I want anything.   And dancers are sometimes not considered smart, and occasionally whine about this.

On a more positive note, I will take this on:  I will try to find out if I can continue the daily practice, but refine my criteria for calling myself a dancer.  Is it a continually higher and more balanced arabesque line?  This might have to go, especially if it’s just a false coat I hide myself behind.  But possibly the arabesque line can stay, too, and the self-protectiveness can go.