Dance/USA conference

We 'performed' at the opening reception of Dance/USA as background to a cocktail party performing short dance structures aimed to fit in and around the space. We put ourselves in a place where people were not meant to watch (catering staff doesn't count) but were there to talk with one another. Still trying to figure out what to say about it. We didn't push to get ourselves seen. We didn't try to dance right within the people as they were waiting at the bar or waiting at the food tables. (instead we danced outside the building looking in) It's the tree in a forest question - if nobody heard the tree fall, did it happen? If nobody saw the dance was it a performance?

(photo left: event at Holmes Run Greenway in Alexandria. We expected passersby to stop and watch, or pedestrians to pass through the event, as the bikers did above, but we weren't expecting actual audience attendance.)
Discussions with dance administrators at SmartBar provided some things to think about "a company of all women comes off as avocational," "exposure comes with attention grabbing situation," "free performance is an investment in audience-building," and most of all, I just sometimes didn't know what question to ask. "this copy is well-written and thoughtful, but you really need to work on your 'elevator' speech. I didn't really understand what your group was about until I talked with you for ten minutes."

what is showing

Recently in May and June we have been showing pieces for informal panels for Forward 5 of Dance/MetroDC and for 2010 Source Festival "Artistic Blind Dates." It has been productive and insightful making me think differently about motivations, and thinking about how very significant additions to pieces, may come about as solutions that perhaps don't make sense - and you have a feeling they don't make sense but you go ahead anyway with something that is really not what you are trying to get at. How do I resolve the music "issue" when I don't have a composer, or a solution for making sound? How can I step back from what I'm doing when there is time pressure, difficulties with getting people together and not enough time to not worry about time? I don't have any answers to that, but these showings have been a very honest and meaningful way to have pieces viewed and have some sort of discussion about them. I can't help but think that pieces that have been 'finished' always need reinvigorating or that performers that have been doing the same role for a while, constantly need the sort of feedback that will keep them interested and invested rather than just going through the motions.
(above Peg Schaefer and son Eliot from "Married Girl")