thirteen ways

I wrote previously about 8bb’s workshop with New York choreographer Susan Marshall last November. During this intense 2-day period, we rushed to come to some agreement about a basic concept and block some movements for The Only Moving Thing, a collaboration between 8bb, Susan and the Bang on a Can composers (David Lang, Julie Wolfe, Michael Gordon).

Last week, after our whirlwind New York visit, we had a second workshop period with Susan, comprising three 12-hour-plus days of work. These again were very intense and productive sessions, during which emotions were close to the surface, tempers occasionally frayed and the atmosphere was often filled with anxiety.

It was a theatrical hothouse.

The concept, which in November felt piecemeal and improvised, began to gell into a satisfying whole this time around. I lost a lot of my skepticism, and now freely admit that the work has a compelling dramatic shape. The Only Moving Thing has musical as well as theatrical contrast, but also an “arc”, thanks to recurring visual metaphors and musical elements that tie the evening together.

Susan works a lot with “task-oriented” movement. Here is an excerpt from an interview I conducted with her last week:

Working with eighth blackbird was very similar to working with my company in New York. My work is often task-oriented, even if it is a complex, dance-oriented action. “Task-oriented movement” in the dance world is a type of movement vocabulary in which performers have the intention of accomplishing a task. Sometimes the task can be very pedestrian, sometimes it might be something that only the performers are aware of; but it is what engages their minds and motivation.

While meeting with him last week, Rinde Eckert talked about the difficulty of working with actors who consciously “act”. Rinde gave this example: To generate a comic moment, he gave the actors very specific tasks to do (”move your head to the right; count to three; move your head to the left”), but found that when actors realized the moment was funny, they tried to “play funny”, abandoning the specific task, ruining the timing, and rendering the moment humorless.

When freed from our instruments (which can be very helpful, in that they give us useful tasks to complete), there is a great temptation for us in 8bb to “act” while doing non-musical tasks on stage. On several occasions Susan instructed us to “just do”, rather than “overthink” our movements. In November, when I went about one of my appointed theatrical tasks - struggling to clean a sand-covered table with my hands - I made artistic swirling motions, always tying each motion to some event in the music. After Susan’s direct instruction to ignore the music and ignore my impulse to create something “artistic”, I reluctantly cleared the table, spring-cleaning style: fast, efficiently, without fuss.

Following last week’s workshop period, the Harris Theater kindly presented an invite-only, VIP “works in progress”-style studio performance at our Ravenswood digs. After a stressful three days, this was a great way to show ourselves how much we had actually achieved; the experience was positive.

Below, the gang being grilled about motivation and metaphor by the attendees during a post-WIP talkback. L to R: the Alb, the Mac, the Phot, the Kap, the Duv, Julie Wolfe (who jetted in for the day, representing the three composers) and Susan Marshall; oh, and the sand, which is very much a character in this work.

Our rapt audience:

Below, Team Only Moving Thing. L to R: the Phot, the Kap, the Mac, the Duv, the Aussie, Julie Wolfe, Susan Marshall, Ryan Ingebritsen (our fabulous sound bloke) and the Alb.