Suzanne Hurley
Sometimes, here in Melbourne, it feels as though the styles of improvisation are really quite polarised. Perhaps they are. Maybe there are more rooms for them to meet in than we realise. There is certainly room to move between them. I decided to write about my travels through what I might term "pure dance" improvisation into improvisation with a more theatrical bent. Being able to integrate the two has unearthed a refreshing, new outlook with which I approach my performance work.
By the time I arrived in New York (1988), I had already begun my journey into improvisation by attending classes led by Gaby Agis, in London. These classes were very loose in structure and I always felt like I had travelled a very long way once the class was over. They began very still, in a deep state of relaxation, on the floor. Movement came very gently to the body and to the mind, as though in a deep sleep which I think I may have been. As we fought against gravity with muscles so relaxed the skeleton could hardly form itself we gently, gently began to come out of the floor. My passion for floor work came from this time when the floor featured heavily as a tool for relaxation and so "relaxing into the floor" became second nature.
I had also attended Scott Clark's classes which began only slightly more actively with a Feldenkrais warm up but then suddenly jumped into quite technical phrase work which, although I loved, left me uncertain of my body's readiness for such demands. This mix of deep, body awareness and phrase work really appealed to me as a mover, if the transition could be less abrupt.
Once in New York, I attended a workshop with Randy Warshaw, which was similar to Gaby Agis's classes. It was the middle of winter, snowing outside, and we were tucked in this tiny, but warm studio, moving very slightly and deeply for many hours a day. We explored through improvised movement the body, the body parts, the body bits, the front body, the back body, the shadow body and other bodies too. This workshop was like a drug I needed to detox from when it was over and it has remained with me ever since.
The second form I became consumed by was Irene Hultman's class. It was the first technique style class I had ever done which did not rely on a traditional contemporary warm-up, but still got you very warm and ready to really move. I enjoyed how the warm up was led and not demonstrated, how it continually moved and how it addressed exercises for health as a valid option for warming up. Irene's classes and workshops often involved improvisation as a means of making material for choreography which I enjoyed so much I discovered a new interest in choreography.
I had never felt particularly passionate about choreographing and just thought I never would, but suddenly through improvisation I felt inspired. I was working with a small, multinational company at this time who collectively embraced Irene's warm up and as a group we began making work using improvisation as a tool to create new material. To become so creatively involved and self-directed in my performance work was so much more rewarding. Dance had opened up and become so much more.
In the summer of '91, I was one of twelve dancers and four choreographers who lived and worked on Martha's Vineyard on what is known as the Yard Residency. The finished works are performed on the island and in New York City. This was a remarkable experience that once again enabled me to carry on working with improvisation in this way. The two choreographers I was working with both used the improvisations generated in rehearsal as a means to creating their works. It seemed this method was quite commonplace in the United States.
Directly after this residency
I became angry that choreographers were not acknowledging dancers' input into
their "choreography". I was improvising for choreographers to take it and call
it their own. If a different person was involved in the improvisational process
with the choreographer it would create a very different work. So could they
call the work their own? Dancers were also rarely paid for their involvement.
I was working in this way with one such woman when she came in with new sparkly
red, false nails, a new hairstyle and two tickets for the Dalai Lama Conference.
At $200 a ticket I was not amused that I had used my last $1 on the subway to
get to her rehearsal. There was something so unjust about this state of affairs
that it really challenged my desire to continue dancing.
I left New York and arrived back in Australia in 1992 quite confused about what I wanted to do with dance. I received funding for a creative development into a dance-theatre work using improvisation techniques. This project was partly inspired by having seen Liz Lerman's company at Jacobs Pillow in the United States. I had become fascinated by the way she was working with a multi-generational group of essentially untrained dancers. She was presenting personalised material using text and I really welcomed it with great interest. I began to see how dance could become more accessible. The project however, although rich in ideas and creative energy, only blazened a deeper gulf of confusion as to what to do with a more theatrical form of improvisation within a dancer's framework. I needed some time to consider this.
I "rested" for two years until the summer of '95 when I began to attend Al Wunder's, Theatre of the Ordinary, performance workshops. My performance life was recreated gently, without concern for my previous anxieties. I was able to explore whatever I desired. I wanted to solo and I wasn't interested in doing it for anyone but me. I didn't want to be told what to do, I wanted to figure it out for myself, carve out a new direction. I wanted challenges, but I wanted to enjoy myself and I needed to feel like I was part of a community. The space that Al had created enabled me to do it all. He nurtured my development into character and he provided me with the space to rebel and revel in. I felt like my Alice was back in Wunderland!
Although the improvisational work to come out of Theatre of the Ordinary was vastly different to the earlier improv work I had done it fed a need in me to communicate somewhat more literally to an audience. I rarely use my verbal skills in performance, so it is not so much about narrating performance information, but possibly more animated information. Seeing "people" up there performing is as enjoyable to me as seeing the subtle beauty and skill of dancers who improvise. It somehow normalised performance in a way that as a dancer in a dancers world I felt I did not have access to. Having struggled with the accessibility of contemporary dance it is refreshing to have clear access to the movement emotion generates.
This work has been fundamental in enabling me to join the dots of my past and present performing lives and swing happily between an abstracted form of improvisation and the more characterful or "pedestrian" improvisation. Fuelled with a new passion about performance work, especially when it is improvised, I have found my old sense of enjoyment in some seemingly secret, new places.
Suzanne Hurley has been a professional dancer for 15 years working with the Nth Qld Ballet Company & Dance North before becoming an independant artist in Sydney, London, New York, and Massachussetts. Finally settling in Melbourne, Suzanne teaches Ease of Motion at Cecil St Studio, Fitzroy and explores improvisation mainly as a solo artist. She is a qualified Naturopath in private practice with an interest in working with performers. She can be contacted on +61 (0) 3 9380 1167.
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