Moving sideways

Screenshot from the 2023 artEmotion

 "Night to Remember" (I had difficulty

remembering the choreography, sadly)...

Which is why I'm posting a screenshot

and not the video of the beautiful piece

choreographed by Rex Tilton. That's me,

on the far left, in front.

I got back from my annual favorite week of the year at the artEmotion adult summer intensive about two weeks ago, and I've been processing the reality of what it means to keep dancing as my body and mind age and respond to the practice differently. I had a pretty good week, body wise -- I went in without serious injuries or limitations beyond my usual persistent functional issues, though I was recovering from a really dire respiratory virus that had put me out of commission for about a week the week prior. Having signed up for the advanced level this year (I vacillate between Advanced and Advanced Intermediate from year to to year). Unlike some previous years, I was able to keep my achy hip and my troublesome right foot reasonably happy. 

Towards the end of the week, my low back really started to protest, but I just adapted to that and accepted that my arabesques were going to be at about 45 degrees. But I hated that. I have been hating my low arabesques for a while. They used to not be so low, I will think, so why should I accept this now? I'll come back to this in a moment, but first, the choreography thing.

Which is this: every year at this workshop, we have an original ensemble piece set on us by a professional choreographer. This year, our group worked with Jazz Kai Bynum, one of the Ballet West company dancers who has recently begun to have some success as a choreographer as well. She introduced the concept of the piece to us on the first day, framing it in relation to "In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated," by William Forsythe, which, if you have ever seen it, is a fantastically demanding piece; set to electronic music, it incorporates a series of classical ballet phrases that are repeated in various sequences, linked by non-classical movements that are at once deceptively casual-looking and physically demanding. Her piece similarly employed electronic music (so, a very high tempo), constant movement, complex patterning, and repeated sequences. 

The movement patterns were all really interesting, and I enjoyed learning them individually. The trouble for me came when we started putting them together, and also moving across the stage in very specific formations, and bringing them up to tempo. I was definitely struggling. I feel like I just don't have two skills that would have really let me dance, rather than just make an attempt to execute, her fantastic choreography. The first of these is just plain mental stamina, to hold a whole, 5-minute long set of sequences and variations in my brain and body. The other skill is shaking off the ballet class mentality and letting myself move in ways that fall outside the traditional vocabulary. I just feel very awkward at times, and when I watch other people executing the movements with fluidity and power, I get discouraged because I know I am not doing that. I'm just not very experienced when it comes to non-ballet forms of dance.

Immediately after the workshop, I found myself frequently googling things like "how to learn choreography faster," and "online contemporary ballet class" or "hip hop classes for adults near me." Also, "How to improve your arabesque." Just for funsies.

I like to set intentions in my practice as an adult dancer. Some years ago, it was getting on top of petit allegro -- still a work in progress, but I can absolutely say that by focusing on that above all else for about a year, I did make a big improvement. Over the past year, it has mostly been about pirouettes; and endless drilling and work on spotting and landings has in fact given me a pretty solid triple to the right en dehors and a more or less reliable double to the left. But these are very discrete skills. Something like "get better at learning choreo" is such a vague and vast ocean of things, it is harder to imagine how I get there.

Which is where moving sideways comes into play...

In Jazz's piece, when we travelled across the stage, instead of walking or running or doing any one of a hundred other more expected ways to get there, we moved sideways, doing repeated, traveling, plie-releves in second, arms en haut, with wrist flicks in a specific sequence. It felt sort of lame, but apparently it looked amazing, because the first time the whole ensemble (there were 18 of us) moved together using this unusual traveling step, we'd get applause every time. In retrospect, thinking about that metaphorically and in relation to my current frustrations with my limitations, I want to say that sometimes, sidling up to something really works better than taking the linear, straight-ahead approach. 

So, what does this mean for my desire to get better at learning choreography, to integrate different ways of moving into my dance practice, and yes, to get that arabesque back up to >90 degrees? Well, I guess what I'm saying is that given the particular constraints of aging, having a day job, having some chronic injuries, perhaps instead of charging right at these goals, I might have to approach them a bit crab-wise. Maybe I don't have time or opportunity to take a full year of hip-hop or jazz class, and certainly, I don't have much opportunity to learn choreography outside the relatively short enchainements of ballet class. But there's a world of YouTube videos out there, and it could be fun to get a group of friends together to meet the latest dance challenge online occasionally. And as for that arabesque... I plan to ask my Pilates teacher to help me sidle up to that.

I'll keep you posted, and maybe, eventually, put some before and after videos up here!

A professional shot of Jazz's piece this year (by Joshua White)
Anouk (L) and Piper (R) killing it, me, in the corps
sidling across the stage behind them in the middle (somewhat eleve)