Having the opportunity to watch and learn about the process that John Jasperse goes through to choreograph his pieces was one of the most enlightening dance experiences that I have ever had. I thought that the two men featured were beautiful dancers and even though all three of them were very similar on the surface, as John mentioned towards the beginning of the rehearsal, as they danced they took on different personas that I think brought them together and differentiated them at the same time. The movement qualities that they were able to accomplish were very different and their ability to change those qualities to match with what John wanted was very impressive to me. One of the greatest characteristics that a dancer can have, in my opinion, is to be able to change the dynamic of how they move. Anyone can move their limbs around and maybe execute choreography technically correct but it’s the feeling that a dancer puts into his or her movements that makes them a dancer.
It was so interesting to see how professional choreographers face some of the same problems that people with less experience face when trying to create something. While listening to John explain how he created a whole process, somewhat like a puzzle, to attempt to ensure that he created movement that was unlike himself, I realized how much that related to more generalized things in life. Writers often struggle with trying to move away from their comfortable writing styles, composers and musical artists struggle with trying to create a new type of sound, one unlike the things they’ve done in the past, and painters or other types of visual artists often reach a point where all of their work starts to look the same. Listening to John speak made me really think about the possibility that maybe it isn’t possible, when trying to be creative, to make something not characteristic of yourself.
If art is supposed to be a representation of some type of essence that comes from within the artist, how could it be anything different from what you usually do? After John went through his whole process, if he creates something that is no type of representation of himself, I’m not sure is that could really be called his work of art as opposed to a work of chance. And if somehow through the whole process he did manage to present himself in the choreography, then would the end product look any different from what he has done in the past? In life you learn more about yourself and what you can do everyday but sometimes without some form of inspiration it’s hard to stop the fall into a comfortable and monotonous lifestyle and I believe that the same thing could happen in dance. I would be really interested to see how this new piece John is choreographing differs from his past work.
All in all I think seeing John’s rehearsal was a very valuable experience for our class. Being that many of the students in our class are artists, whether they are dancers, composers or musicians I think that observing the rehearsal rather than the performance provided us with an understanding of the creative process that we wouldn’t have otherwise gotten. In a way, it’s like we got to be shown multiple performances as we saw each run through change and develop and its amazing to imagine all of the work that leads up to a performance that takes up only a fraction of the time that is spent preparing for it.
-Yasmin
