Michigan and Gestures.

Michigan and Gestures.

As part of our residency with the Residential College of Arts and Humanities at Michigan State University, Lunge Dance Collective was able to start the choreographic process for our 2012 New Creation. The New Creation is an expansion of an existing LDC work called "You'll Never Be Alone". After I created "You'll Never Be Alone", with assistant choreographer Channing Cooke,  we started to notice how similar the work was to a silent film. With such animated music and clear development of distinct characters, the dance resembled more and more the qualities of silent film.

As we started choreographing base phrases, I decided to make a set of gestures that would help us create a language and a clear way to communicate without being vocal. A technique I picked up while working with Cherice Barton, I found that it was such a great way to start developing movement with a clear character quality. I plan to take this movement and pair it with our base phrases to create a multi-deminsional type of movement. 

Here is a video of Makenzie Dustman working on our gesture work. I decided to have her do the gestures as fast as possible. I find that because the gestures are trying to communicate and are also syncopated with choreographed facial expressions and intentions, that the increased speed creates a schizophrenic type movement that I really am appealed to.

During the MSU residency we were able to create a 30 min. work in progress version of the planned 75 min. finished product. The showing of the work in progress was last thursday on April 12th at Fairchild Theater on the MSU campus. Many of the MSU students, faculty, and staff showed up to support our showing that was paired with current LDC repertory, "Prowl", and a special guest performance of local dance company Happendance run by Diane Newman. Thank you to Lauren Harris, Diane Newman, Beth Post, and all of MSU for your incredible hospitality, working environment, and passion for progressing the integration of the arts with everyday academic education. 

Stay tuned for more details on the 2012 New Creation.

~ Billy

Conner Bormann, Jessie Hartley, Billy Bell, and Makenzie Dustman during "Prowl" at the Fairchild Theater at MSU.