RESIDENS: Michael Jahoda – thoughts upon my return to Holland.

I am now back in Holland and knee-deep in the second phase of my project. As planned I am transposing my “Malmö material” to other dancers and creating a series of duets from that material. After a month working alone it is a delight to work with other dancers again. Delightful dancers they are as well, and one of them, Jac Carlsson, happens to be a Swede. (Keep your eyes open for him in the future…) Mid-March there will be some work-in-progress showings of this phase . The weeks I had in Malmo were an invaluable asset, which have allowed me to be very well prepared upon my return.

I want to thank everyone again for their kindness and support, and for offering me the opportunity to come for the month and explore. All of my hosts and their teams were extremely helpful, kind and inviting, and it was a pleasure to begin to get to know some of the dancers a little better through the classes and the workshop.

This was not my first time in Sweden – and I know it will not be my last. Over the years I have had the chance to enjoy a few different parts of the country -> Stockholm and the islands off the east coast, Gothenburg and a small island off the west coast, Harnösand, Linköping, and Malmö, and this time I got to spend an amazing week in the countryside outside of Rimforsa.

After three weeks of working alone I decided to head to a little cottage owned by Kerstin and Per Sjosward near Rimforsa.

Here is a link for the cottage – I had an amazing week there and I recommend it to everyone. Check out their site.
https://www.stugknuten.com/stugaeng.asp?stugid=7824

Research was not a part of my NY dance experience. Nor was improvisation for that matter. When I first came to Holland I was struck by the high value placed on research and the development of “new” movement and “new” performance concepts. My first real research period began here in Amsterdam with Pasi Granqvist in 2001. Phillip and the Phillip Project emerged from that research period which not only produced the seedlings for an ongoing project, and brought me here, but it broadened my perspective of dance, time, space, collaboration, and how I could use the body and dance making to explore other and larger (or smaller) questions.

I owe a great deal of gratitude to many many people who have supported my desire to explore new ideas and develop my own personal “voice”.

These include Granqvist Pasi for challenging my definition of dance, work method and goals, and Dans Ateliers Rotterdam and Dans Werkplaats Amsterdam for giving me my initial opportunities to begin to develop in another direction. Ot301 in Amsterdam and Green Street Studios in Boston as well as Boston University. In addition, there were many other ways, large and small, that people made my development possible.

Dealing with the topic of freedom as a point-of-departure, I often think of America and how it deals with that issue. Both with wide eyes and a big mouth.When I returned to live in America a few years ago it struck me as ironic that the country that prides itself so much on ingenuity, does not, as a culture, place a very high value on artistic development nor does it ADMIT how those developments effect and benefit society on various levels (whether that be economic or social). I must admit that as a product of that society I still become very uncomfortable when I try to define my value as a dancer or artist in a larger context.

That said, a number of important things have been proven in America that could/should bolster public support for the arts everywhere. And heighten my stance. Firstly – children who have arts education in primary school score higher in their academic courses and tend to go on to higher educational levels. They say this is due to their ability to problem-solve from an individual and creative point. These busy and successful youngsters also commit fewer crimes and save towns and cities money. Secondly – cities all across America use artists and Arts Institutes as an anchor for urban redevelopment and new economic development. City planners know that when you plunk artists into a shitty neighborhood they will make it more livable, safer and more attractive to redevelopment (think Soho/Williamsburg Brooklyn). Thirdly – and this I find fascinating – the City of New York receives $4.00 in tax revenue from tourists and visitors for every $1.00 they spend to subsidize the arts. (Is heavy duty investment in the Arts one way out of the current economic crisis??? hmmmmmm…)

I have always been a big advocate of research in the dance field and believe it is necessary for the development of the art form. And after my month in Malmo, I am more convinced than ever about not only the benefit and value of having that time, but the necessity of time if one wants to reach another level within their work.

I beat a loud drum for research and development, but I must add that I also think that at some point in the process, the fruit of that research should be visible, tangible. I hope to have the chance to show the piece in Malmo, and will let you all be the judge…. “was it worth it?” “does the amount of time and investment equal the result?” I hope so – and I believe it will.

There were a number of things I aimed to accomplish in my first phase and I managed to create 50 mini-solos, and a large block of new phrase material that will serve as the foundation and structure of the new piece, as well as the seedlings of new text material. I tried some singing too (which I am determined to have in the new piece), and found some new ways to loop and layer material.

These next 3 weeks I will still work without music. When I enter phase 3 of the project in 1/2 March I will begin to incorporate two musicians. I am very very much looking forward to that part of the process.

I will drop new information here as I can as things develop. So stay tuned.

Thank you all again.

All the best, with greetings,

Michael

ps – I just found out that I was nominated for Boston’s Best Dance Company 2009 for my improvisation group called the White Box Project. Hmmmm, maybe Boston isn’t so bad and dull after all.

RESIDENS: Michael Jahoda – where I am…

Friday, 29 January, 2010

Part of my residency here in Malmo includes a “living blogg” which has been interpreted here on the site with a combination of information, images, interviews and questions like “what if heaven was…?” (More questions will come next week).

As I come to the end of my third week of my residency here in Malmo I wanted to share a little about what I have been busy with and also write a little bit about my experience here thus far.

Firstly, I want to say that it is such a privilege to be a guest here and have this time to work and research. My hosts have been extremely welcoming, gracious, supportive, helpful and kind. I cannot say enough good words about that aspect of my experience.

When I arrived in Malmo three weeks ago I had a very concrete plan and a specific list of things I wanted to accomplish.

My aim was to develop new movement and voice material to serve as the basis of Episode 18 – “What if heaven was an eternal discotheque trapped in perpetual springtime”? This piece is the 18th chapter in a potentially endless series of  inter-related multi-media installation and performances pieces that I have been working on since 2001. These pieces are centered around Phillip – a fictitious character and the leitmotif of the project.

My residency here will be followed by another 4 weeks in Rotterdam where I will transpose what I create here into duets. I will then have another 4 weeks in Amsterdam to integrate 2 live musicians and finish the piece.

For the last performance piece in the series titled Episode 15 – Just listening, seeing, smelling, tasting, feeling, thinking, going, meeting, being, laughing, screaming, giggling, moaning, dreaming, wondering and remembering to remember….” I created a somewhat biographical piece that traced Phillip’s entire journey and serves as an introduction to the character and his story for those people that have never seen any of the prior Episodes.

At the end of Episode 15 I decided to kill Phillip and send him to heaven – a place I have always wondered about (I had nine years of Catholic primary school). And that is where I begin here in Malmo. Asking questions about heaven, and how I can transpose Phillip’s journey to heaven.

I wanted to create all new movement, text and sound material for the new piece, but I also want traces of Phillip’s past to be evident throughout the piece. My aim is to bring the character into a new realm and give him the chance of a fresh start, but at the same time I want him to remain who he is and has always been.

To accomplish this duality I decided to create the new vocabulary from words and phrases extracted from the main text material of Episode 15. This text chronicled various aspects of each Episode in the series (including the temperature and smell of the venue, descriptions of  the multi-media elements, movement themes, decor elements, audience placement and behavior, Phillip’s questions, etc.) in a poetic, story telling manor. The rhythm and structure of the text was written in a way that illustrates how the Episodes grew, how Phillip’s story developed and how each new Episode was built upon key aspects of the prior Episodes. Various themes have returned again and again and again from Episode to Episode in different ways and in different media combinations.

At this point in my process I have created 50 mini-solos from key words extracted from that text. I have also developed a l-o-n-g detailed movement sequence that echoes the structure of the text (meaning that I have created movement themes for each aspect of the text, and layer, repeat and introduce new movement themes similarly to how they unfold in the text.)

The movement material I have created thus far is “rough”, “raw” material. It is meant only to serve as a foundation for the development of the piece and in the end will be torn to shreds and manipulated by a number of schemes such as repetition, accumulation, etc. What I showed in the platform last week was a simple stringing together of some of that movement.

When I finished these basic phrases I realized that they had a very jittery, nervous, hectic quality to them. Not what I was intending at all. Not very free nor heavenly…. Nonetheless  – they do contain Phillip’s essence. So that is my food to grow on and my material to work from.

So now begins the next phase in the process / and the fun part.

The original text and project description remain my main-point-of-departure, but as of yesterday, I began letting go of the sacredness of the new movement material and have started improvising, crashing phrases together and applying textures, structures, themes and schemes.

I am happy that I began my process here within such a narrow framework. That was a first for me. It really helped me to stay focused. I wouldn’t say it was fun, but it was very fruitful. That said, it is a good feeling to let go of those constraints and re-enter the unknown. Good to return to the underlying topics of freedom and heaven, and return to the texture of springtime and the joy of a disco.

The results so far have been interesting and I begin to fall in love with this character and this story all over again. By falling in love, I mean that I once again smile at, and dream about the character and the story. And I am once again eager to share his story.

Next week I will be in a little cottage in Rimforsa and will spend my time writing new text (and taking long walks in what I hope will be snow covered woodlands). The following week I will be back in the studio working at Skanes Danstheater. I will continue to shatter and weave the material and experiment. I will also begin to work from the comments people post on the blogg in answer to my posted questions. Please feel free to share your comments.

I am very much looking forward to seeing how this part of my process unfolds.

Michael

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RESIDENS: Michael Jahoda – choreographer

Heaven

As a way of incorporating aspects of my time in Malmo into my new work -  I would like to propose a series of questions to the reader/viewer.

My research here in Malmo has been centered on developing new movement material based on text material that I extracted from prior Episodes in this series of pieces. You can read more about the Phillip project here. In my final week of residence, which will take place at Skånes Dans Teater from 8-12 February I would like to work from your comments to the question below. I will add more questions from time to time.

Thank you for your participation.
Michael

My first question:

What if heaven was…?

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