Some performance notes from an evening of “Tocame!”

I was looking for some notes on the scores of Tócame! (a semi-interactive performance work) and found these stage notes from the 15 June performance.

I enjoyed reading them 12 years later.  Time flies.  I just leave them here as an interesting mystery…

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Notes to performers about 15 June performance…

First, important logistics…

• Two rehearsal/training times between now and then
  • Important –Saturday, 1pm to 4pm … rehearsal and going over notes, meet at Jordan and Jote’s
  • Optional – Friday, 1pm to 3pm … training in the park: lift mechanics, alignment,  and dynamic weight sharing
• Call on Saturday is at 6pm

June 15 feedback

Again, I thought it went really well, and I saw lots of really specific explorations, things that really had me watching, rapt and invested in following the unfolding process.  Some of them were really ‘gripping’, edge of the seat processes.  Good job!

Notes

• Biggest critical feedback: Avoid “reorienting freeze state”. These are those moments when you stop moving and look and wonder what are ‘they’ going to do, how should I respond.  That was happening too much. It was happening some on Grass Valley, but more last Saturday. Some of it is not your fault.  Fluorescent lights make zombies of us all.  Remember ‘you’ are not on stage, but the score is onstage.  If you find yourself in one of these moments, don’t wait to reorient and then go back into your score.  Go into your score and orient through it.
• Also, I think that a lot of the explorations had bleed over from the idea of ‘awkward’ dance. This manifested in a few ways, most notably through a kind of ‘conflicted’ body language and face grabbing as recurrent theme. Let’s try to do that a bit less, be clear about the states you are looking to explore and how they are different from the cultivated state of awkward.  Rather than being distracted by an emotional reaction and have that take over the exploration, have everything be a reminder to dive deeper into the nuance of the specific score.  Also, really work on the ‘palate cleansing’ between scores… leave behind energy and states from previous scores and avoid bleed over.  I think this also may have happened a bit from a desire to do something exciting or something novel.  I encourage you to let go of this need, as it can block more subtle dynamics.  It can be a little scary as a performer to allow subtle things to unfold… go there!
• Audience: If there was perhaps a bit too much audience interaction in Grass Valley, it was clearly too sparse and hesitant on June 15. The ones that happened were great, but too sparse. Let’s say at least 5 performer audience interactions in each slot.  6 or 7 is fine.  Also, be ready and there for the transition so it is sharper, rather than waiting to see if you need to go.  It would be great if 5 or 6 audience interactions were already going before the previous score had cleared the space.
• Slam dancing: In addition to receiving a really interesting back adjustment, I thought that the slam dancing went well. I was a little worried with so few people on stage at the beginning of the song, but it seemed to grow quickly and got people juiced.  Note, as soon as you hear the song coming on, move directly to the floor if you are not on it.  Set your drink down. Bring your conversations with you. If it starts more immediately, there is a little more space for a soft build, which will make it more fun as it gets more vigorous.  Was very fun picking the one woman up

off the floor who thought it a good idea to crawl through the space … the expression on her face as 6 pairs of hands went to suddenly grab her was priceless!

• Off-balance – these dances seemed to get locked into a certain kind of ‘stabilizing into each other with lots of weight’ interpretation of off-balance. Allow for nuance and subtle off-balance as well as subtle differences that generate movement, as in the Ouija dance, rather than just lock into each other.  Adaptive complex use of off balance.
• Deepening – very nice to watch. Give yourself permission to use more weight exchange, use this as warming up into proprioception and really physical dances that involve off balance, support, being supported, etc
• Themes – let’s talk about what this means on Saturday a bit more to get more specific.

Logistics for June 22, show

• Call is at 6pm. As soon as you enter the space, put your things in a hidey place and begin setting up the space.  Sooner we are prepped, the more we can prepare well, both individually and as a group, rather than having that be a rushed process.
• Audience stays outside until 8pm… Y’all warm up with CI. They will be drinking beer and watching a preview of Accidental Tourists until they come in.
• We will have better lights. The fluorescents sucked vitality out of everyone (glad we had a little color).   No Fluorescents next time.
• I will put a little bell at the beginning of intermission and the end of the second half, as a little closing signal.

 

Final notes

• We ARE doing a show on July 6. I am making a new batch of mini-flyers for it and can get them to you as I see you.  I agree with Jordan to not promote the idea that there is a July 6 show until AFTER the June 22 show… let’s try to get more people there on the 22^nd.
• The tao is speaking to me and telling me to cancel the Sunday showing of Accidental Tourists. I’m going to do it instead in the future through house showings… just makes more sense.

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2^nd Round of Notes for June 15 performance 

So I wanted to write a few specific notes for specific people to work on.  Assume that whatever I say for everyone on the general notes applies for you.  Of course, I will change up some of the scores, so any feedback may not actually be relevant for the next two shows, but here goes, pretending for the moment that I am not changing anything.

 

Here are some specific notes…

Deepening – this is great.  Give yourself permission to go into what your body needs and what comes up even more.  That said, also really try to tune the audience out and give yourself a default of treating your partner as a physical environment, rather than person.  I say this because the presence of the audience is likely to highly trigger ‘social self’ mode.  One of the things that comes with this is a stabilizing into your own balance, rather than releasing into the structure of your partner.

Skin – Io and Natalia.  Great!  I enjoyed the seeming willingness to push social edges.  If you did it again, I would encourage thinking not just of interacting with your partner via your skin, but of BEING your skin, your skin as the center of your universe with everything else as functional support for your skin.  All of your skin as equanimous… equal attention to sensation and initiation from all of skin and awareness of all of skin of partner and connecting through all of skin to all of their body and structure.

Off-Balance – as mentioned, this got locked a lot into a mode of off balance with a LOT OF WEIGHT and stabilizing.  Allow for more play with nuance and surrender and adaptation through off-balance.  Use structure subtly through off-balance in a way that has a feeling of gliding in the joints, rather than compression.

Slow – Utam & Jordan.  This was interesting how you went for very light touch and separation and stillness. It was around here, that I started feeling how a lot of things were perhaps charged by the ‘awkward’ explorations … face touching, bodies held back.  It was quite interesting to watch, but if you did it again, I would encourage more continuous physical contact and weight sharing to go somewhere other.

Feel Your Body – was great, but a little hesitant coming out.  A few thoughts.  The biggest one is really think of what about their body and process with their body are you wanting them to experience.  The other… Megan is really quick on the draw to come out for audience interactions… GREAT!  Keep doing that.  Everyone else, try to beat her there.  Again, at least 5 next time.

Center Line – Megan and Kristen: this is a riveting score… the tension and conflict are really interesting to watch.  If you do it again a refinement of the score is that it is not about touching their center line, but placing a contact point/area on your partner through which you could give force.  Think ‘palm of your hand’ not fingertip.  Could also be the elbow, heal of hand, knuckles, back of wrist, but palm is best.  Also, watch the point just as you make contact.  You would often accelerate at this moment,  be clear and calm and don’t force this moment, even if not forcing it means that your partner is able to adapt and deflect.  This is really an exercise in noticing how you lose control of your body due to attachment and this acceleration is a loss of control.

Space – nice that you all stayed in some simple but different dynamics for a while. Ong slowing down was nice if you slow down more, you get to play with nuance more.  For everyone feel how the slow bits, the almost still bits can be places where some dynamic sensation is amplified and distilled. Brandon and Natalia, you fell into a classic dynamic of man engulfing woman.  I see this happen a lot in this as an exercise.  I will leave it up to you to ponder the heteronormative dynamics of this, but if you do it again, I would suggest challenging it, which might mean Natalia invading his space more and Brandon feeling the invasion of your space more and letting your partner move away.

Space and Light Touch – what happened was great, but again try to be there and going clearly before the others have cleared the space.

Intermission

Slam Dance – already talked about this

Muscle – I was in it so can’t really talk too much about it.

Nurturing – ditto

Emotion/Physics, Textures – Daniel & Kevin, was really fun and interesting to watch.  I really liked that you were able to get into some very physics based explorations with use of structure coming out of the emotional places, rather than getting locked into a kind of separation of “your and my space” that can happen with the social.  This said, if you did it again, I would note the emotional range that you went into was of a more ‘charged’ variety mostly.  Even if you are coming from an adrenal space in the moment before can you go for more subtle, tender, or nuanced places… more sophisticatedly provocative.  Also, think about provoking yourself even more than you provoke your partner.

Awkward – These were all very fun to watch.  One thing though is that since there were a lot of amped explorations earlier, the difference of this score was perhaps a bit lost.  A note Io, you often go for the ‘intense eye contact’ exploration. It’s cool and also good because it is a familiar intensity for you.  What are some other directions you might go or what if you went with this, but engaged in more dynamic meaty weight exchange during it, or let the necessities of physics take precedence, pulling you out of it in moments, but keeping the intention to keep returning to this place (so that you have this exploration, but it does not restrain you and stabilize you against other things)

Ribs – This was nice and clear.  I would just encourage you to take a breath or two more before you begin if you do it again, and also to allow the sequencing through the ribs to go just a bit further, and to then play from these places with a wider range of more specific places in the ribs… give yourself a bit more space to allow the flow and allow 10% more subtle articulation.  How is your ongoing breathing a part of the movement?  I think this last question would be a big one.

Synchronicity – this got a bit combative and was coming a lot from the place of personality, identity as a social human.  Let go of this.  Allow your mind and actions to be flowing faster than is possible for your social self to keep up or be constructed, even if your partner goes into the social.  You should not have time for your mind to be fully present with your partner as person.  More immediate than that!

Psychological Off-balance with audience – again.  Come in quicker than Megan.  That means everyone else faster, not Megan slower.  Be decisive and immediate, even if the decision is to be still.

Joints — Ong and Brandon, it was great to see you stay with the joint exploration, stay in the mode for a good long while.  My encouragement if you did it again would be for you to give yourself permission to let things unfold further, which largely means letting things go further through your range of motion, particularly in spinal twisting and back arch, but also in your pelvic crease, extension and flexion.  You were loose within a certain range, but then both of you kept yourself guarded against going outside of this range… let yourself go a little further through your range. Partially, this means letting yourself be looser and more pliable, allowing the passive sequencing of motion through your joints.

Themes – these were great explorations, clearly different from each other.  The point of this one is to get specific, so just keep doing that and feel free to be repetitive and to just amplify and  deepen one specific dynamic.  Think theme and variation, keeping working with a specific theme with slight variations, returning to previous variations.

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Every evening of the show, the order and arrangement of scores changed as well as who was assigned to do which ones with whom.  Here is the score table from the 15 June  show…

	Audience	Center Duet	Duet 1	Duet 2	Duet 3	Duet 4	Duet 5
Deepening	x		Brandon & Daniel	Jordan & Kristen	Jote & Kevin	Megan & Natalia	Utam & Io
Skin	x	Io & Natalia
Off-Balance	x		Daniel & Jordan	Kristen & Brandon	Jote & Utam
Slow	x	Utam & Jordan
Feel Your Body	Audience
Center Line	x	Megan & Kristen
Space	x		Ong & Utam	Natalia & Brandon	Kevin & Io
Space and Light Touch	Audience
Intermission	x	x	x	x	x	x
Slam Dance	Audience
Muscle	Audience
Nurturing	Audience
Emotion/Physics, Textures	x	Daniel & Kevin
Awkward	x		Daniel & Natalia	Kristen & Io	Brandon & Megan
Ribs	x	Jordan & Jote
Synchronicity	x		Brandon & Jordan	Megan & Natalia	Utam & Kevin
Psychological Off-balance	Audience
Joints	x	Ong & Brandon
Themes	x		Utam & Jote	Daniel & Io	Kevin & Kristen