What’s New
Blending the Formal with the Spontaneous
Lynn discusses her experience working with a pop and lock dancer and a ballerina in the same studio:
“Mike’s used to freestyle and Kerry’s used to being told what to do. She is exploring taking liberties with timing and whether or not she should do something. I want her to go further and further into that area. I think Kerry’s curious about other ways of being on stage. A lot of ballet dancers aren’t given enough of an opportunity to explore. There are psychological confrontations in the rehearsal process, nihilistic exploration, violent, hyper-mobile body contortion choreography -- that’s something that’s almost wanted by ballet dancers, because freedom is a more challenging element.”
Still, the dance contains elements that Kerry and Lynn are familiar with seeing in ballet.
“Kerry’s the one controlling the structure. In that way it’s very traditional. I count on her to keep the form, but I count on Mike to really be present in the moment. In that way, he is learning a new way of choreography. And I really enjoy working with him, because on some level, he is as much the choreographer as I am.”
Lynn counts on both the dancers to feel through the material and be comfortable enough to suggest alterations, additions and omissions. She’s been playing with Kerry’s movement, crafting variations – now she wonders if she could do the same with Mike, a performer less likely to construct variations on themes or motifs in his material.
“I want to learn and create some variations of Mike’s stuff – it would be very inorganic for him. There is a whole direction of hip hop that is very choreographic and in unison, but that hasn’t been our focus. Sometimes I want to be able to grab a hold of the material and play with it myself. It just never seemed appropriate – what Mike does on his own seems better than what I can come up with at this point…”
Lynn’s crafted dances using different disciplines before, but never has it been so intimate a pairing.
“As I’ve approached street dancing and ballet and modern dance coming together, I’ve worked with a lot of people in the space. Not so in this piece. This is super intimate. There’s this weird, awkward intimacy about this dance. They aren’t just coexisting in the space, there’s a new element of exploration. There are two people here, as opposed to a more abstract connection among a larger group.”
Stay tuned to Brooklyn Ballet’s blog to meet Kerry and Mike and see what they’re gaining from this process and the obstacles they’ve encountered so far.
You Can't Hurry Love. Or Dance.
Lynn’s latest choreographic journey involves multiple dance disciplines and techniques for generating movement. Kalle Laar, her friend and co-conspirator in creating art, expresses his thoughts on how they started working on their current project:
“We bring together the different skills that we have -- dance, poetry, music, sound art -- and see what comes out of it. We decided to collaborate without necessarily having an idea for the piece. We just know we like to work together. At first, that’s enough, and we work without any clear direction. Direction evolves very quickly and we come to a few points of interest. Lynn’s interest in Baroque music, for example. The idea of game came up through sign language and thinking of signs used in sports – then we’re connecting this type of popularity with our project… These become reference points.”
Kalle is interested in the juxtaposition of old and new. He finds Lynn’s work with the duet engaging because of its seemingly inherent quest for the qualities shared between its multiple disciplines.
“What I liked from the very beginning was the idea of the very traditional represented by Baroque music or dancing en pointe with the very new. I like this clash -- not trying to clash these things but instead seeing what the common ground can be. Maybe we can come up with the common ground.”
Because Kalle works and lives in Munich and Lynn is making strides on the project here in Brooklyn, the collaborative process will be lengthy and happen in parts.
“We don’t want to do just another piece in the usual way -- make it and then it’s finished. We decided to conceive it as a process where we’re creating content in a year or longer; sending bits and pieces back and forth, whenever we can we get together.”
Kalle visited Brooklyn to attend the Mixed Movement session hosted at Brooklyn Ballet in mid-December and Lynn will be in Munich in mid-February. She wants to find a way to bring the duet with her to Germany, either by incorporating it in a performance by projection or some other type of showing. She plans to showcase her work in “Raw Barre,” Brooklyn Ballet’s first home season series of performances in April, but she’s not set on that showing being the project’s final phase. She suggests that this duet may grow in stages, referencing the late Merce Cunningham’s inclination to number things – Event 1, Event 2, etc. April’s performance may be World Premiere, Phase 1, indicating that it exists in time and place without it needing to be more than that.
Kalle agrees with this approach for this particular work. Lynn’s improvised solo at last September’s Mixed Movement was a complete dance on its own. The last few showings of the progressing duet were also complete in their own way.
“I have nothing against a finished product at the end,” Kalle says.
But this collaborative team doesn’t want to rush to a result and miss out on the magic of the process itself.
Inspiration in Improvisation
Last September, Lynn Parkerson attended a Mixed Movement event at St. Mark’s Church at the suggestion of some of her dancers. Swept away with the spirit of the evening’s dancing, Lynn found herself performing an improvised solo. Check it out here:
Inspired by the gestural movement and multiple dance genres that arose in her improvisation, Lynn and long-time collaborator Kalle Laar decided to join forces again to create a new dance. Kalle produces art in many mediums but primarily focuses on sound installations created by his husband and wife team "Art or Accident" based out of Munich, Germany.
Lynn and Kalle have collaborated on projects before -- one piece they conceived together was titled "Nervous," based on an epic poem written by a mutual friend Jeffrey Gustavson. The work featured three ballet dancers and a couple practicing contact improvisation while Gustavson sat in the middle of the stage. This work fed Kalle and Lynn's fascination with finding connections between different movement styles.
Lynn, in particular, is moved to create based on her discovery of these kinds of connections. She has been working with street dancers since 2005, investigating how the improvisatory practice of breakdance, pop and lock and other street styles can coincide with the more structured format of ballet. Her current work features popper Michael Fields and ballet dancer Kerry Shea. One of the discrepancies she’s found in choreographing using multiple mediums is the way in which her dancers generate movement.
Lynn has grown comfortable in the roles of director, teacher and choreographer, but recently rediscovered the virtues of performing. Finding it easy to slip back into the spotlight in the impulsive atmosphere of September's Mixed Movement, she remembered that the performance space can act as a location for creation.
The rehearsal studio is more foreign to the street performer than it is the ballerina, so to work with both types of artists, Lynn finds herself working against the norm to generate a work in a way that suits (and challenges!) each of her dancers' needs. Molding this duet both in rehearsals in the studio at Schermerhorn House, and more spontaneously, within public performance, Lynn is facing new obstacles and greeting new revelations with this project.
The choreography generated thus far was well-received at multiple showings last fall and continues to develop rapidly with the introduction of new ideas in music and sound-scores, cross-discipline dancing, performance quality and more.
So the performance space is becoming the place where the composition cements itself. A lot of detail gets sorted out in that tension involved in being in front of an audience. With only landmarks, not finished products, the dancers can let the audience in and let the moment lead to their next choices.
Tag along with Lynn, Kalle, Mike and Kerry as the work progresses from improvised solo to … well, who knows? Keep up with us at the Brooklyn Ballet blog!
