Side Note on Dunning’s Article (see below): Passing Down Dance

On another note regarding Dunning’s piece “Twisting and Chatting the Alvin Ailey Way,” Dunning is completely right when she writes that dances are handed down from older to younger performers.  I was really drawn to this idea when I first heard it– I like its traditional element, the concept of the hours logged in passing along an exact choreography, and the sort of old-world apprentice-sense of it.  One of my subjects Karin Baker, an older-generation tapper and a strong-minded traditionalist, has so far handed down some of her earliest tap routines– Ernest Carlos routines– to a young protege named Kathy Callahan.  

In fact, Karin’s last performance (which she refers to as her “Swan Song”) is a dance interpretation of this hand-me-down tradition.  In this performance, Karin dances with Kathy.  Karin performs a set of steps and Kathy imitates her.  The sets get more and more complicated, and overlap each other more and more, until Kathy and Karin are doing the routine together, their taps completely in unison.  The choroegraphy is great, and so is the sound of it. 

Karin was kind enough to loan me a DVD of this performance, and I’m working on ways to get it up on this blog.  So, hopefully, accompanying video to come.

Reporting A Conversation

An interesting article in the Sunday Times Arts section, “Twisting and Chatting the Ailey Way” by Jennifer Dunning, raises a few questions about storytelling, reporting, and the ways we employ different media forms.

In the article, Jennifer Dunning “covers” a sit-down conversation/interview between Matthew Rushing, a performer with the modern dance troupe Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater since 1992, and Judith Jamison, the troupe’s director. 

Dunning begins:

DANCES have traditionally been handed down from performer to performer, even since the invention of dance notation. But how do dancers learn about the mysterious culture of performing? Some of that can be soaked up in the daily work, but there is nothing quite like a lazily extended, spontaneous conversation with a veteran choreographer, dancer or company director.   

That last clause seems true enough.  But in that case, why are we reading a news feature about it?  What of the elements of conversation, in this instance: of a certain inflection, pauses for thought, laughter, sighing, all the rest?  Dunning attempts to recreate the scene of the talk for us, but ultimately falls short.  The article, in turn, is strange– it is merely all he-said-then-she-said, and the effect is distancing, almost uncomfortable.  We don’t know why Dunning was there.  And if the conversation was spontaneous, well, we don’t quite believe it from Dunning’s transcript.  How nice it would have been to hear actual voices.  To have an audio option!

I believe completely in the power and effect of carefully-wrought writing, and especially in narrative.   And I prefer good writing to good versions of all other media forms (audio, video, etc., whatever).  Had Dunning been interested in voice, had she made an attempt to convey through writing what couldn’t be conveyed through audio alone– something visually important, some small moment or almost imperceptible gesture (maybe too easily overlooked on video), than the writing might have been worth it.  But without, why not just have an audio bar?  Why not a video of these two people interacting? 

I think this example draws upon what I consider the major lesson of our course: that different stories call for different storytelling media, distinct forms.  And it’s the author/videographer/editor’s job to use the chosen form to its maximum capacity.  I’m not sure if this is something I’ve been able to accomplish in every exercise this semester, but it’s something I’m certainly more aware of than I have been before.     

Second Slideshow

Made in iMovie and uploaded to YouTube.  Embedded below:

 

 

Thanks!

Soundless Slideshow

Put together, mostly for practice, a silent (video) slideshow composed of photos of Karin Baker in movement. I’d like to play around a bit more with pacing– I wanted the movement to speed up to the end, but I couldn’t get the clips to play for less than one second each. Also in compressing the movie file for YouTube, the picture quality degraded quite a bit, which is unfortunate– though I don’t see any way to remedy that problem without money.

And of course once I have an audio complement, it will be easier to convey a clear narrative. See slideshow below …

The Age Issue

From a recent NYT article: Two years ago trumpeter Henry Nowak was fired from the American Ballet Theater Orchestra.  Nowak had been with the orchestra for 28 years; he was 74 years old.  Last Thursday he filed an age discrimination suit with the US District Court in Manhattan.  The complaint cites an unnamed conductor asking an orchestra member for tips on how to convince old orchestra members to retire, and said of them, according to the NYT article, “It’s time to go.”  Commission lawyer Judy Keenan claims that the commission has evidence of other similar cases in ABT Orchestra history (part of the reason, evidently, that this case was one of relatively few ageism complaints brought to suit over the past year; apparently only 50 out of 16, 548 complaints were accepted between October 2005 and September 2006). 

Nowak’s case puts a strange spin on the age issues already at play in the dance community. 

Suzie Jary of CTFD, Transitioned Dancer turned Counselor

Suzie Jary is a consultant for Career Transition for Dancers, a former CTFD counselor, and also a former CTFD client.  In 1986, after 14 years of professional dance and a long stint as a dancer in David Merrick’s production of 42nd Street, Jary first considered transitioning out of dance and into a new career.  Her transition was slow and somewhat hesitant.  It took seven years.

(Click below to access the rest of the post, and to read its recent addendum re my Feelings and Thoughts re movie-making…) 

Starter’s Info: Career Transition For Dancers

Career Transition for Dancers is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to assisting professional dancers in periods of transition– most notably, the inevitable transition out of professional dance and into additional schooling and second careers.  CTFD provides one-on-one counseling and several specialized support groups, as well as scholarships and grants of up to $2000 for eligible individuals. CTFD was founded in 1985 in response to an international dance-themed conference held London that year, a conference which significantly addressed the issue of “the dancer’s situation;” that is, that a dancer’s career will inevitably reach its end due to either age or injury, much earlier than most professionals in mainstream careers (or even various other performance careers) face retirement.  This situation leaves professional dancers in an awkward and uncertain position, as many eschew other types of formal training and education in order to wholly pursue–and succeed at–dance.

In its early stages the organization, motivated by the efforts of professional dancer Ann Barry who would act as its founding and executive director, existed as an off-shoot of the Actor’s Fund.  Eventually it grew large enough to sustain itself as a non-profit.  Much of its funding was found in the profits of the organization’s annual dance gala, which grew in scope and spectacle each year.  (This year’s gala, themed “Dance Rocks!“, will take place on October 29 at the New York City Center.)