Last week I posted a survey about what your expectations are of any art performance.  I gave three options to complete the thought, “I feel most satisfied when…:

I experience something (visually, emotionally, aurally) meaningful and I walk away confident I understand what the artist is trying to tell me.

I experience something (visually, emotionally, aurally) meaningful, and I’m left curious if it’s what the artists intended me to feel. I am satisfied when I can bounce my impressions off the artists and hear their perspectives.

I experience something (visually, emotionally, aurally) meaningful and I walk away content with my own way of experiencing what was put before me. I’m not compelled to know the artist’s intentions.

The bold answer won by a slight margin over the third.  The first option failed miserably.  But I suppose those of you who answered, as fans of Frame, are probably not going to choose the first option.  If I had a sample size that spanned the state, or the country I think option one would probably have had a larger voice.  Thank you for taking the survey, it’s always fun to hear back from readers.

At the Dance Magazine awards this past fall, Ohad Naharin (Batsheva, Graham, Bejart, etc. etc. etc.)  gave this advice to critics.  I think there is a lot to take from these words as an artist, audience member, choreographer, and human.
• Go see dance shows that you don’t have to write about.

• Don’t let a point of reference prevent you from having a moment of a fresh new experience.

• Connect to physical pleasures of life.

• Remember that there are always people in the audience who are at least as smart as you are (and it says here, “especially if you are from England”).

• Never, never, write during the show, unless it is the likes of a fashion show, mime show, ice skating or a beauty contest.

• You don’t have to understand the work you are watching. The creator most likely doesn’t care to be understood; he/she just wants to be loved.

• Remember, if you can describe what you are watching you are probably watching bad choreography.

• If you didn’t change your mind lately, you are probably wrong (again it says, “especially if you are from England”).

• Dance yourself a few minutes every day, until you sweat and/or you are experiencing a burning sensation some where in your flesh.

• Watch stuff with your eyes going out of focus; you will see more and miss less.

• While watching a dance, don’t look for national, geographic connotations. Anyway it’s almost never there.

Which of these stands out to you?  Do you disagree?  Agree?

Congratulations to Charles Halka, winner of the Frame Dance Productions Composition Competition. His work Por la Fuerza las Tierras has been selected to be featured in Frame’s spring show, CONTEXT.

Charles Halka’s compositions have been performed in the United States, Mexico, Russia, and Lithuania. As a 2008-09 U.S. Fulbright grantee, he spent a year in Vilnius, Lithuania researching Lithuanian music and writing an opera in collaboration with director and librettist Marija Simona Simulynaite. The opera, Julius, received its premiere in 2010 in Vilnius, and a choral excerpt from the opera was chosen recently for performance at the ISCM World Music Days 2012 in Belgium. In March of 2011, Round and Round, based on a work by the great American music patron Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge, was premiered at the Coolidge Auditorium of the Library of Congress. He is the 2011-12 Artist-in-Residence at the Foundation for Modern Music (Houston).

Charles has studied at conservatories in the United States, Russia, and Lithuania and holds degrees in both piano and composition from the Peabody Conservatory. He is now completing coursework towards a Doctor of Musical Arts at the Shepherd School of Music.

We welcome him to the Frame Dance Family and look forward to the big reveal this Spring!

Welcome baby Eliot Noam Cohen!

Second baby in a year for the Framers! You saw her perform in Mortar, Sylphs Wrote less than a year ago. And here’s her sweet baby boy now.

We love dancing mammas!

The review got me thinking about the question I asked in the last post. This is clearly not a flawlessly written question. I hope that it’s generally clear what I’m asking, and I’d love to get your response. It’s a little tongue-in-cheek, but for blunt and choppy discourse, I figure it might give me a little insight. I’ll share the responses at the end of the week.

Thank you Art Attack for coming to our show on Friday! Here is the review from the Houston Press. Ahhh, the feeling of being perplexed. Do you like it? Do you avoid it? To be honest, as the director, I am currently perplexed with the piece myself. And that’s because I’m still making the work. In fact, I’m in the very beginning stage– my favorite stage. Neil Ellis Orts, who you might remember from Framing Bodies: LOVE ME, wrote this, “I smile at the perplexed response of the writer. what perplexes her about modern dance is what excites me . . .” What excites me is being perplexed by the piece I’m making. I admit that it’s a different thing for an audience member.

As an audience member of any art work, are you searching for something to define? Something to understand and grasp? Or do you squish around in the bizarre, non-linear, and relish and unknown?

I’d love to know. Maybe I’ll set up a little survey and we can bubble our answers.

It has arrived, the very first Photobooth installation.  We begin at 8pm at The Photobooth on Montrose tonight.  We have four of these planned for this winter/spring, each brings us closer to our final performance.  But the fun thing is that each one will be a new piece.  New music, new scores, more fully developed choreography.  I’ve been calling it a study on process or progress.  I’ve started with the exoskeleton of the piece, and right now there are a lot of variables within that skeleton.  Lots of nooks and crannies for the dancers to play in.  And what happens at the Photobooth informs what choices we make for the next one.  And so on; and so forth.  Dancers are performance-oriented creatures, and I’ve found with my superb dancers, that sometimes it takes a performance environment to really get out honestly how our bodies react to material/choreography/directives.  There’s a pressure of performance that peaks our alertness, our silent communication with each other, and our honestly and intent.  This is certainly not true with all dancers.  This is what makes the Framers unique.  These dancers are such strong performers, artists, and are “bold reactionists” in the work I create.  Its our way of collaborating in the process.  I choose dancers based on their individual voice as well as their ability to give to fellow dancers in a performance.  I like to create a world on the stage, and I need for it to be alive.  Just ask them if they’ve ever performed the same piece the same way.  Boring.  To me.