May 03, 2005:  Rehearsals Continue

Good morning from the 2^nd floor Production Office!  Looking out my door into the upstairs lobby I can see for miles and miles…well, not really.  But I can see six rather enormous mushroom tops, a literal ton of blue rubber mulch, and boxes of supplies that include rope, multi-colored tissue paper, and steel gold mining pans.  Surely there is some dancing somewhere amongst all of this?

The answer is a resounding YES!  Our students are leaping, whirling, and moving through the studios with wonderful abandon under the direction of our talented choreographers and rehearsal assistants.  Since April we have logged at least 30 hours of rehearsal each week and by Opening Night on June 1^st nearly 650 hours will have been spent in our Santa Ana studios preparing for the Concert.

This week I’m pleased to offer some behind-the-scenes views from Choreographers Melanie Rios Glaser and Beth Burns on their rehearsal processes:

Melanie reporting from Germany:

Teri Olson, my rehearsal assistant to dreamChild just wrote to say that the mushrooms are back and better than ever.  This is good news as they had been returned to the shop for an adjustment. We had been rehearsing with them vigorously.  These are the inedible mushrooms intrepid reporter Ben Tusher has talked about in his production diaries.  They roll on stage and serve as platforms for our human puppets.  We’ve dubbed the largest one “the mother ship” and are working on better mushroom driving. I am back in Germany having left both pieces further

along but still unfinished (nervous). Rebecca and Teri who have been assisting me during the entire process are now directing the rehearsals.  They are probably solving traffic jams that I inadvertently created, figuring out what I meant by some of the choices, and making sure that the movement remains true to what I intended.  I imagine Rebecca with her methodic approach figuring out the logistical part of my choreography for almost 100 dancers in Mi Corazon

Canta!  We have worked together many times and she is endlessly patient with me as I put out some rough inventions and say: “I think this might work, I’ll let Rebecca fix it.”

Beth reporting from Santa Ana, on recreating Dancing Into One:

We’re at a turning point in the dance making, where just enough is emerging, that the dance’s own personality is starting to assert itself.  Rehearsals on Thursdays and Saturdays are FULL. 

Still, before we begin, we start in a circle, telling what energy we’re bringing (or not) to the rehearsal.  There’s more candor each time about feeling tired, stressed out, under pressure, or happy, the whole gamut.  Everyone gets heard and feelings acknowledged.  Then we sit completely still and quiet for a couple minutes.  It’s recuperative for whatever ails you.  The undistracted presence to each other in moments of collected intention invites a calmer presence into rehearsing together.

We’re just beginning to fold in the texts (creation myths, Deuteronomy, John’s 1st Epistle, the Koran, Rumi, Joseph Campbell, and Robert Duncan), some blue flakes – aka shredded, recycled tires – and the scaffolding, with the choreography.  A recent rehearsal was on the main stairs of our studio, in preparation for dancing on the scaffolding.  Onstage action – which of these elements does what, when – is now tracked through an Excel spreadsheet.

It’s risky.  Just how will all these elements work together?  This unknowing also makes it fun.  In one month, on opening night, we will have imagined more than we can now envision.  A new glimpse will be created through young dancers relating to: the dance, scenic design, costumes, lighting, and text, in a half-hour ‘Dancing Into One’. 

Each section of the dance is starting to show more of its own personality.  And in that process, by far the most fun is to see the dancers transforming choreography into very personal movements.  I love witnessing the individual choices, the delight in discovering how one’s own personality expresses in motion.