unmapping unmapped

Since my last post regarding "unmapped" I've spent a week in the Bay Area attending and teaching at the West Coast Contact Improvisation Festival (www.wccif.com), which was wonderful! I was doing Contact Improvisation from 9:30am until almost 1am every day. Exhilarating and exhausting!

But, now I've gotten back and Jonathan and I have had two rehearsals and are moving along. On one of my many hour-ed flights across the country I realized that what Jonathan and I have been doing is mapping our territory. What I mean is, that in our exploration to expand out existing roles, to break down our assumptions about who we are as performers, we've been creating another kind of map. Yes, an expanded map, but a map, never the less. And it seems to me that now is the time to throw that aside and truly step into the unknown with each run of the work. It is as if we have been exploring the territory that we will inhibit and creating a map of possibilities - now we know the territory enough so we can throw away the map and deepen our exploration. Additionally, Jonathan that the idea that we should start each performance in our traditional roles (he playing guitar and me dancing), to give the audience a reference point for when we venture out into the new possibilities. He agreed with me, I agreed with him. So, now we are starting in our new roles and then.... we'll see what happens each time.

The one thing that we haven't changed is that we are still going to have a word, or phrase, or photo to serve as a starting point for each performance. Since it will point our way through the performance - influencing our movement, sound and interaction choices - we are calling it our "compass". That then means that we are starting each performance only knowing what our compass is and that we start in our traditional roles. The rest is left to the improvisational moment.