February 6th, 2012

This is a letter that I wrote to the Forsythe Company.

It pretty much sums it up.

Dear Forsythe Company,

I just wanted to write and say thank you so much for welcoming me into you world. Watching you all contribute to and make Stellentstellen together was a very life affirming experience.

I came here feeling depleted in many ways and on several different levels. I am returning to my life in New York with a renewed hunger, fresh curiosity and confidence to search for questions and answers through movement. Your dedication, creativity and courage are going to give me hope and inspiration for a long time to come.

It’s too much of a blanket statement just to say that you are all beautiful artists. Although that is true, here are some more words that I would use to describe what you each embody. I also believe that you all possess every one of these qualities but have tried to find a word that suits each of you:

Bill                         theWillForsysem            brave

Thom                        smellsForWithey            vortuoos

Cyril                        imprévisible

Esther                        facile

Katja                        быстро

Brigel                        likuid

Amancio            impecable

Josh                        tensile

David                        unadorned

Roberta            viscoso

Jone                         bihotz

Pari                        saftig

Yasu                        甘い

Liz                  lithe

Riley                  mercuric

Ander                  juguetón

Thierry            généreux

Freya                  intelligent

Patrick         positiv

I plan on returning to spend more time in your wonderful presence and continue to explore and learn.

I have a great big home in New York and want you to know that you are always welcome. This is not an empty offer. There is usually an extra bed and always a comfy couch on which to crash. It’s the least I can do to repay what you have given me.

If you ever wonder if it’s all worth it or if what you/we do truly matters, I want you to remember that you fed my soul. In my opinion you are the cream of the crop, the best of the best and above and beyond that, you seem to be really good people.

Thank you once again and please don’t hesitate to contact me if there’s anything I can ever do for you.

Peace and Love

Patrick

 Coming home.

February 5th, 2012

Today is the last day with The Forsythe Company. Although I will dearly miss this place I'm ready to go home.

I'll save the big re-cap for tomorrow.

Last night's show was really tight.

Whole in the Head was astounding. Thom, Bill and the dancers were as one. Since I know the root phrase and two of the second generation phrases I could see when they were truly improvising and when they were sticking to their phrase, respectively.

Two of the new dancers, Josh and Riley have brought a new element to Bill's work. Taking things into the air. Probably the most difficult thing to do, at least in my experience, without looking contrived or forced.

Paul Taylor would love these two guys. They have cat like reflexes and have a wonderful gift for making things clear and dynamic but not muscled or forced. That was always a challenge for me. How many times did Paul say to me, "You don't have to push to be effective."? They both remind me a bit of Michael Trusnovec.

Stellentstellen was also tighter. The transitions were clearer and the idea of framing seemed more natural and spontaneous. There's something about the piece that's very contemplative. I feel it could go on far longer. It's one of those pieces that one, as a viewer can really live in. Of course I'm much too close to it to be objective but after a couple of viewings I feel as though I've distanced myself a bit.

Freya seemed to think that Bill felt the timings could still be tightened up a bit so there may be changes before the curtain tonight.

You never know.

I leave tomorrow afternoon so today will just be about packing and doing a couple of things in the city before going to the Depot.

Class is in the evening so I will go and take one last time with them.

I have room in my luggage because I'm leaving three hard cover books and, of course, already delivered the two boxes of Cap n Crunch to Tony.

I do miss my kitties, family, friends, back yard and my sober fellows in NY. I'm looking forward to coming home.

February 4th, 2012

Last night was the premiere of Stellentstellen.

I love the piece. It's a departure for Bill and the company and i'm so happy to have been here to witness him take that leap.

The dancers had class at 11am today and then gathered for the notes from last night performance. This is , I guess, the moment where sometimes Bill scraps the entire piece and starts over and it can be a completely different piece. He didn't. He wanted to tighten up a couple of things musically and work on the ending.

My friend and ex-CorbinDances dancer Monica Gillette came to the show and stayed the night. She and one of Tony's roommates connecting on creating an environment based on shared resources for "freelance" groups. This is the way of the future and I'm bringing the conversation back to NY. In some ways we're struggling with this exact question but the environment in the states is usually this is mine and I worked for it, find your own. We need to think creatively about making this work together, and we will.

This trip has made me realize that this is just the beginning. We must get away from "branding", get away from having to sum up who we are in one sentence or less. I know that it's the accepted model for funding and marketing. Why? Who made that rule? It is my belief that this only contributes to the larger concept of the 1%. In my mind that is why so many talented people get crushed with "success". They have their sentence, their sound bite and that's what is expected of them and if they don't produce THAT then they lose audience, benefactors, funding, sponsors. Or will they? I'm not going to worry about that anymore. It's about asking questions. It's about finding a new way. It's just about making the work.

Let's accomplish this together.

Come on people now
smile on your brother
everybody get together
try to love one another right now


SERIOUSLY!

February 2nd, 2012

So things seem to be going really smoothly.
 

They ran the piece today and it was just about an hour. I love it.

I'm not one that thinks everything in art is or has to necessarily be "about" something. Of course I someone who enjoys ideas. Having said that, to me, this new piece Stellentstellen has to do with fitting in. The dancers are either framing each other in space or connected in these tangles or doing material based on these tangles. So it's just like life. We're all just trying to fit. It's almost always complicated and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't but it's a constant negotiation of trying to join or be a part of a framework, physical, societal, personal, psychological, metaphysical.

The piece may resonate with me on that level because that's the way I've always felt. Always trying to fit in. Not tortured, mostly enjoying life but always searching for the fit.

I do feel it's a departure for Bill. It's a very gentle piece. It has purely sublime moments. I couldn't believe it had been an hour. Thom's score is of course impeccably musical. I watched him playing this afternoon and his technique is so beautifully apparent in the way he approaches the keyboard. Like watching a concert pianist. No not LIKE watching a concert pianist, I'm watching in my opinion one of our greatest composers creating his score live with the piece.

Ah! That's what I wanted to tell you about. Today Bill and Freya moved up to the command center at the top of the risers to run Whole in the Head. Bill took the helm like a conductor/spaceship captain. From left to right viewing from behind up in the "bridge" to go with the spaceship theme, were :
THOM WILLEMS
JENNIFER WEEGER (Sound and Video Designer),
FREYA VASS-RHEE (Production and Dramaturgical Assistant)
Bill (at center on headset) 
TANJA RÜHL(Technical Production / Lighting Supervisor)
MARA BRINKER(Technical Assistant for sound and video) and
ULF NAUMANN(Technical Production / Lighting Supervisor)



OK so I've seen a lot of cool stuff in my life, Blue Oyster Cult in concert, The Aurora Borealis, Mischa rehearsing a solo just for me, bioluminescent beaches and ocean water, Seraphic Dialogue at State Theater, Junior Vasquez at Palladium, the list goes on but this was absolutely the coolest thing I've ever seen. The theater became one organism. Bill and the crew out front, the performers and tech backstage and on stage and the audience in the middle. THAT'S what it is about Bill's work. That's why I always feel like I'm not just witnessing but I'm a part of something. It's real, it's tangible and I never fully understood it before. It's a symphony of life that Bill is conducting. The amount of energetic focus and communication going on is mind blowing. But let me make perfectly clear that this is not, at least to me, coming off as any control or ego trip. Of course those things come into play but the ultimate goal here is the experience for the viewer. They take you on a ride baby. I really felt as if we had left Mother Earth and were swooping through space and time.
And remember.......I'M SOBER!
I've never had such a great high. And she's been pretty high.

We'll see what tomorrow and the premiere will bring but this day was one for the books. And it was just another normal day for The Forsythe Company. Why not make this a normal day at CorbinDances in my own way. That's what I truly want. To take us all on a ride to experience something together.

Fasten you seat belts.

January 31st, 2012

The one thing I'll definitely leave here with is that Bill got me hooked on Once Upon a Time. That new ABC series. I love it!
DAMN YOU BILL!
I still haven't turned on the TV but am watching it online.

New ballet teacher on Monday. Irene, a Russian, old school style. Took me right back to SAB. Tough but loving. I kinda dug revisiting that whole deal without the teenage angst. HARD class......

Katja came in very ill so Brigel had to learn and go into Whole. He is FAST. I mean I pride myself on being a quick study but he learned Katja's theme and then started layering systems on it and playing with the other dancers almost immediately. Very cool. Very impressive. Bill was tense at first but when he saw how fast Brigel was assuming into the fabric of Whole he relaxed.

The new piece Stellentstellen continues to come together.

Bill added a new element yesterday. He called it Naming the Abyss. David Hern sings this quasi country song he wrote and refers to a book that tells you how to do everything. In this case it's choreography.

He instructed David to stand on center and physicalize what the books voice would be and had dancers making "offerings" from down stage diagonals. It was really cool. The way David clicked into exactly what Bill meant and delivered. As soon as David began I got it.

From that point on the sequence of the piece remained relatively in tact and he started playing with more "framing"

At one point he had the entire company on stage just triangulating and framing each other. They did it for like a half hour and I could have watched it all night. Constantly taking cues from each other and moving at just the right time and at the right pace. Using time, texture and intent so beautifully.

It's really quite like Paul's posture studies like Epic but Bill is coming to it in his own way and with his own tools. I mean if you look at Bill's evolution as a choreographer from his very early Crankoesque ballets to Love Songs then what I call the hyperballets and tanztheater pieces to Isabelle's Dance to what he's doing now one can still see his own origins and yet it's come so far. I know some people want the "old" Bill but I'm so in love with this evolution. I think people like to have things just familiar enough so that they think they have some sort of ownership of it. Some proprietary claim. That's BS. Let artists grow and change and venture. Otherwise we'd all still be looking at Petipa and that's all. Just because someone might be going down a road that you don't understand or care for it doesn't make you look any less intelligent. We're not trying to make a fool out of you, we just want to see what's around the corner.

OK back to Once Upon a Time.

Later.

January 29th, 2012

Ah Sunday. I can't believe this is my last week here.

Rehearsals have been going late and I'm up early to do my morning pages so I haven't done the blog for a couple of days.


Friday Bill kept on going in the same direction. Weaving the opening opening sequence. They worked until 9:30pm. Then I went for dinner at Amancio's place. His boyfriend Jans made a delicious three course meal. An amuse bouch of scallops on fennel with a basil sauce, then cream of broccoli soup and then halibut cooked in foil with red potatoes and green beans. A friend of theirs named Renata was there and Christine Kono the ballet teacher. We had a fun conversation about how the Germans call what the rest of the world calls endive, chicoree and vice versa. She seemed to think that it was just American's who called endive, endive but it turns out that the Germans are the ones who are mistaken because Amancio and Christine pointed out that the Spanish and the French are with the Americans. It was a fun conversation. Renata was also under the impression that Americans call all types of mushrooms just mushrooms. That we don't differentiate between say, Crimini, Portabello, oyster, Shitake etc. but I put her right about that. Funny how we all have these misconceptions. Fir instance I've always thought that the Germans as a whole were sort of cool and rigid. That they didn't take peoples feelings into consideration so much but spending a month here I find that it's just the opposite. In my experience this trip the Germans that I have met are very considerate of how they make other people feel. At least the one's that I've come into contact here. Actually very sensitive people. Once again I'm making a generalization but it's a facet of the German psyche that I have either ignored or just have been blind to because it's pretty apparent everywhere.

Yesterday, Saturday, Bill first worked on Whole in the Head (I've been misspelling it) until lunch. I really like the piece.

Then he made a shift in the new piece. He got back to the tangles. The simplicity of the tangles. The piece which had become a little frenetic suddenly shifted into low gear and morphed into this very sublime contemplative work. If I were to walk into this sequence of this piece with no prior knowledge I wouldn't immediately recognize it as "Forsythe". Bravo for Bill and I mean BRAVE. He didn't say as much but people, including myself come to expect things from artists and if you shift and don't give them what they're expecting they may turn on you. Christine Kono and I were agreeing that the public and especially the critics want to see something just familiar enough so they don't feel stupid or something. Another huge lesson from Bill. Keep asking questions of yourself. Don't just do what it is "you do". The best thing about all of these lessons is that Bill isn't preaching to me or being pedantic in any way. He's teaching by true example. He is a natural born teacher and that is sometimes a rare thing in a choreographer. Many don't have any interest in teaching. I'm not just talking about dance or composition but about life. Paul Taylor, although he probably would deny it, is one of the best teachers I've ever known. The truly great one's are always asking questions. Often asking the same questions over and over digging ever deeper.


I'm starting to itch to come home and get started on the next piece. At the end of last week I was sad because I was half way through my stay but today I am looking forward to coming home.

January 26th Bockenheimer Depot

My calf felt better today so I took Christine's wonderful class up through adage in center. It felt good to move again. I know it had only been one day but as I said before the experience here has made me hungry to move again. I had truly thought that was all done. It just goes to show that one should never count oneself out. We create our own reality.

Today Bill really started to put together a "concrete" sequence.

He noticed me taking copious notes yesterday and asked me to help remember what he liked and where.

Even with this wonderful software that David Kearns has created called Piecemaker and the dramaturg, Freya, it's still hard to keep track.

I completely understand having been in the same position many times. And I don't have the pressure of having to make a piece by WILLIAM FORSYTHE. I can't imagine the weight of being a Paul Taylor or William Forsythe. Everybody waiting for you to blow their minds. Others waiting and wanting to see you fail. I'm glad he feels comfortable using me and I'm more than happy to be of service. Being at the front of the room can be a very lonely place even when you are working with people whom you dearly love and who love and want to support you. Quite a way of life that some are compelled to trudge through.

So they/we worked until 6:30 with a lunch break from 2ish to 3ish.

Bill worked on a duet with Brigel and Esther until lunch and then set to work on sequencing the piece. He found a sequence that seemed to be working for him up to a certain point and then they had an evening break from 6:30 to 7:30.

At 7:30 we were back and Bill shared a Youtube video called Quatre Fromage. Really sweet and funny. I recommend it. Watch the solo first then the quartet, and that's all I'll say. It was a good laugh.

Apres Quatre Fromage they ran what they had and Bill made some minor changes, all the while relying on Freya for cues as to what came next and giving me notes. Some were qualitative for the dancers and others were for him such as "work on this transition" or "option for an insert here".

By 9pm the dancers, who are so wonderful and earnest in their support had really had it. I could see their eyes glazing over. It was time to stop.

It was late coming home and I realized that I didn't have anything in the fridge to make for dinner but thankfully the mini market in the Ubahn station was open and I got some bratwurst and frozen french fries and had a typical German meal. It was yummy. I've been so good about being on salad since before Angel Reapers and the brats and fries were awesome. I haven't made frozen fries in the states in years. I wonder if they've become as good as these. They didn't used to be. Or maybe it's the same principle that makes me think that Coca Cola tastes better here. Ooh! Maybe I'll have a Coke tomorrow. Wow! It's come to Coca Cola being a big indulgence. You've come a long way baby!