Practice Through Repetition Plus Rehearsal:
Investigating An Alternative Choreographic Process Model

Statement of Intent

In this proposed project, I intend to investigate the use of "practice through repetition" in the choreographic process. While dance, like many other fields that require physical training, uses practice through repetition in technique class to develop physical adeptness and proficiency, this methodology has not been used for the purposes of accessing creative information. I plan to investigate how this model informs creative choices, movement development and contextual invention. My hope is that this new information will complement the existing body of knowledge that speaks of practice through repetition and its known contributions to the procurement of virtuosity and technical skill in live performance.

In music, sports, social dancing, gymnastics, martial arts, and an uncountable number of other fields that require a well-developed, measurable level of physical expertise, practice through repetition has understandably been the primary method for reaching maximal goals of proficiency, showmanship, artistry, accomplishment, and championship. Physically repeating an activity increases muscle memory, hand-eye coordination, physical fitness, efficiency, fine-tuned motor skills, neuromuscular connections, and a plethora of other skills that lead to high-quality performances and products. Anyone who has taken piano lessons, tried to learn the tango, or played a competitive sport has experienced first-hand what it means to practice musical scales, partnering maneuvers or play patterns repeatedly in order to become a better performer in that chosen activity. Hours and hours are devoted to simple physical tasks in order to graduate to the next level of accomplishment.

Moreover, outside of the arena of practice, repetition has transcended the purposes of training and has been used widely and studied deeply as a compositional device and/or performance technique. Pina Bausch regularly uses repetition in her dance theatre performances in order to transform ideas in front of the audience. Steve Reich and Philip Glass, two famous minimalist composers, have historically employed repetition as a way of slowly varying sound structures in their compositions. M.C. Escher used repetition combined with opposing color values to create optical illusions in his drawings. However, whether repetition has served the purpose of doggedly pursuing a set of physical skills or been used as a transformational device in finished pieces of art, there has been little research that relates to its effect on the essence of creative activity.

Through this project, I will engage in practice through repetition in the dance studio to inform a new and empirical inquiry into its potential impact on creative work in the field of contemporary dance. Traditionally, the choreographic process consists of rehearsals in which movement is created, taught, learned, manipulated, developed, forgotten, remembered, altered, and constructed into dance works. I am interested in breaking with tradition to explore what will happen if the process were more streamlined and concentrated. I plan to separate the learning, practicing and considering of movement material from traditional rehearsals in what I refer to as practice sessions. By repeating movement material particular to this project, these sessions will be used to gather information that will later be used in rehearsals. It will also serve as time for the dancers and me to become extremely comfortable and familiar with the material so that time in rehearsal does not have to be wasted trying to remember sequences or dynamic qualities, etc. The rehearsals will be used as crafting and building opportunities where the kinesthetic, choreographic, conceptual and developmental ideas garnered from the practice sessions will be brought to bear on the final work.

The immediate goal of this project is to find new ways to enhance my creative process. I am committed to shifting my perspective in order to challenge myself as an artist and after a decade of making dances according to what I was taught at the undergraduate level, I am aware that the traditional methodology no longer works for me. I am fascinated by the mechanics of movement that lead to creative choices and I want to apply my years of physical training and kinesthetic knowledge to this endeavor.

In the long-term, I want to contribute to the critical discourse that currently surrounds dance. However, rather than look through an existing theoretical lens, I would like to use the body and its connection to movement as my starting point in order to allow the conversation to come from within the field of dance. One area of discussion could be the revolutionizing of the vocabulary with which dance makers speak of their art and craft. Instead of using a vocabulary borrowed from music theory, I imagine a more desirable lexicon that is based on anatomic and kinesthetic information developing from this idea of "movement practice." Another discussion could take place around the fact that practice through repetition could provide independent choreographer/performer hybrids with a method by which they could be personal repositories of their repertoire. They could become expert practitioners of their own styles, processes and vocabularies rather than "paraphrasers" of what has come before them.

Finally, I would like to assume that this methodology of practice through repetition could inform pedagogical approaches to undergraduate performance and choreographic education. "Practice" could become a way for dance students to find personally authentic movement patterns through improvisation rather than simply adopting classroom movement as vocabulary for their works. It could transport performance coaching from the end of the choreographic process and place it within the process. Because embodiment would be done at such a rigorous degree through repetition, issues of enacting or enlivening a movement or series of movements would become second nature to the practitioner/performer.

As a dance instructor and future composition teacher I am completely invested in discovering new ways to keep the curriculum that surrounds dance making current and viable for the student who pursues a career in the field. I believe that while traditional approaches to creating dance should be upheld, learned and celebrated, they can not be the only approaches housed in the academic canon. In my estimation, it is most important that in a field of ever-changing developments, the practicing artist/professor must continue to pursue new paradigms of information and I hope that this project will continue my efforts to that end.

Project Design - Procedure and Methodology

In order to investigate "repetition" in the creative process of making dances I will choreograph one new work. This work will be presented in a shared concert with Kathryn Padberg. Currently, we are planning to present this concert in Studio 3 in Sullivant Hall on The Ohio State University campus in the Winter Quarter of 2006.

For this project, each of the dancers and I will practice designated core movement material for thirty minutes, three times a week. We will take notes and journal about physical sensations, movement dynamics, perceived changes in the material, desire to alter material, conceptual ideas, and anything else that we feel is pertinent to this research at the end of each practice session. I plan on having Martin P. Gooden, Ph.D., a local social psychologist, assist me in designing questions about the process that will help us concentrate our journal time effectively upon the experience of practice so that I can compile qualitative as well as quantitative information throughout the process.

In conjunction with our practice sessions, we will meet for an hour and a half, twice a week for what will be considered traditional rehearsals. During this time we will concentrate on crafting the work within a particular conceptual construct by implementing ideas that are generated in our practice sessions. I plan on beginning this process in the Spring of 2005. I also plan on videotaping all of my practice sessions and collecting weekly rehearsal footage to use for research and archival purposes.

I plan on using existing recorded music, but I have entertained the idea of having a new score written for the project. At the very least, if I cannot have a score composed specifically for the work, I would like to use something already composed by someone who is currently working in the Columbus area. It is also possible that I will use recorded transcripts of journal entries created during the practice sessions.

As far as the performance space is concerned, I am highly motivated to transform the Studio 3 space. One idea that I have is to project video footage of people shopping in front of the journal wall at Barnes and Nobles and actually having real journals placed in several places where there would be projected ones. The cast would interact with the real journals and the recorded shoppers in some way. The reason for this idea is that I am considering journaling as part of the practice method and am also curious about the fact that people will spend so much time looking and feeling and buying decorative books filled with empty pages.

Another space transforming notion is one in which pillows made of fabric of different shades of blue cover the entire floor, including where the audience would sit. The reason for this is that I am thinking of possibly doing a piece about the color blue. This is an attractive idea to me partially for its cliché value ("Move like you are the color blue") and partially because my brother's name is Blue. I am interested in the conflict between the concept of the color blue and its history as a color and the concept that Blue can be a real person with his own history. A third conceptual idea that I am seriously considering for the project is gender identity and stereotypes that exist within relationships. None of this is remotely concrete in my mind, but I am currently inspired by these topics.

Project Design - Resources and Data

Thus far it is has been very difficult to find existing literature or scholarly discourse that relates the concept of "practice" in the creative process. As a result, I will be using information on repetition, practice, and rehearsal as they exist in relation to other artforms. I am also considering using research related to practice or repetition in the physical activities of yoga, tennis, basketball and martial arts as a way to shed light on this new approach to finding range, variation and change in movement. I am also finding related ideas in the areas of neuroscience and motor development.

One of my main goals is to interview several choreographers, Susan Rethorst, Stephen Petronio and Miguel Gutierrez, because I have either read or heard that their processes involve some semblance of repetition or practice. This summer I plan on attending Bearnstow where Susan Rethorst teaches and I want to interview her about her "dailiness." I want to know if Stephen Petronio's dancers still repeat phrasework for weeks and weeks before they commence crafting rehearsals and if they do, why? Finally, I saw a duet of Miquel Gutierrez's several years ago, and I am curious to know if "practicing" movement had anything to do with the nearly flawless development of the repeated phrases in the work.

Another subject I will be researching is the genre of mimimalist music composition. I feel like the nature of this music is inherently linked to the study of creative endeavor through repetition. I plan on using Steve Reich's and Phillip Glass' methods of composing music as a substantial area of investigation for this project.

Lastly, I have recently begun taking piano lessons, and next quarter, I will be taking an Alexander Technique class. I have intentionally taken on these personal projects as a way to broaden my physical and intellectual inquiry into what it means to practice in several different arenas. I suspect that these activities and satellite research endeavors will provide information related to my project.

Qualifications

I have been making dances since the age of sixteen. While pursuing my undergraduate degree in dance I co-founded Flexure Performance Group so that my peers and myself would have a vehicle for making and presenting work outside of academic structure and grading systems. I co-produced, choreographed and performed in all of the concerts and when I returned to my Alma Mater in 2000, the students there were continuing to produce "Flexure type" independent concerts.

Upon receiving a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance from The University of Southern Mississippi in 1994, I moved to Dallas, TX where I danced professionally with Dancers Unlimited Repertory Company. While in Dallas I co-founded GroundLevel Dance Company for which I created and performed in nearly 30 works. I also held an adjunct faculty position at Brookhaven Community College for three years. While there, besides teaching all levels of ballet, modern and jazz, I created a new work on my students every semester. Since 1996 my work has been commissioned in Texas by Plano Repertory Theatre, CURVE, Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing Arts, Contemporary Dance Fort Worth, Dancers Unlimited, and Sunset High School.

From Dallas, I moved to New York, NY where I danced for Skip Costa CORE/Movement Research and presented several pieces at the Bridge for Dance in their Uptown Performance Series. While in New York, Amiti Perry and I founded DIP/dance in person, a pick-up dance company. We choreographed four works together and produced an independent, evening-length concert at The Bridge for Dance. Two of our pieces, Sideshow and Two Arms: Full Circle, were commissioned as a part of an evening-length concert of my work by Of Moving Colors Productions in Baton Rouge, LA.
Before coming to graduate school I taught modern dance technique and choreographed for the Annual Spring Dance Concert at The Louisiana State University for a full year. I was also a visiting modern dance instructor at The Dancer's Workshop, Home of the Baton Rouge Ballet Theatre, in Baton Rouge, LA during the 2002-2003 academic year. In 2003, I was a featured performer and choreographer on the Louisiana Public Broadcasting television show ARTWORKS.

Currently, I am a second-year graduate student in the Department of Dance at The Ohio State University where I am pursuing the degree of Master of Fine Arts in Choreography. I am a Teaching Assistant in the dance department and I currently teach major-level modern technique and all levels of modern, jazz and ballet in the Elective Dance Program. I currently serve as the Dance Delegate to the OSU Council of Graduate Students, as well as mentor undergraduate students through the OSU Dance Department Freshmen Mentoring Program and advise undergraduate choreographic projects.

While at OSU I have performed in works by faculty members Susan Hadley and Victoria Uris, and graduate students Chad Hall, Blake Beckham, Michael Estanich and Jean Haluska. I have presented two collaborative works with Amiti Perry, Clock on the 2004 OSU Winter Dance Concert and Sideshow on a self-produced concert, First Perch. In February 2005, I choreographed a piece to a historical marimba score, Ritmica #5 by Amadeo Roldan. This piece was built for the Drums Downtown Concert, a collaboration between the OSU Dance Department and the OSU Percussion Ensemble, in Columbus, OH.

Most recently, I choreographed a solo for Michael Estanich entitled Claude. It premiered at the OSU 2004 Rough Cuts Concert and was selected for the East Central Regional ACDFA Gala Concert that was held at Bowling Green State University in March 2005. I am also currently involved in making a new duet for an undergraduate senior project and a solo for a fellow graduate student and friend, Ama Codjoe.

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