Summer turns into Fall

Summer has turned into Fall and the next season for Jane Franklin Dance is well underway. Last weekend we performed at Art on Foot at the beautiful Harmon Hall. It was great to perform some of our beloved repertory, The Floor is Sticky and Train. It's also always wonderful to welcome new dancers into our midst. Joining the company this season are Adriana Soldana, Katie Tuebner and Melissa Talleda. Adriana and Melissa hail from the Baltimore area and Katie is a Virginia girl from Fredricksburg. They along with Amy are all thick in the rehearsal process with Jane for our fabulous Children's performance The Mouse of Amherst. We are excited to welcome our new members!

Below Melissa shares her thoughts and hopes for the coming season.

"I have been working with Jane Franklin Dance for a few months now. I started working with Jane on a couple of improvisations, and just this past weekend I performed with the company at the Art on Foot Festival. My experience thusfar has been completely positive! The company members come from different walks of life, and have valuable information to share in rehearsal and performance. As I work on projects, I am excited to learn more about Jane's process of creating new work with the company, as well as having the opportunity to perform with the company in the many communities and audiences Jane Franklin Dance reaches."

Photography by Paul Gillis

Wayles' Hello

Hello Blog-o-sphere. I have to confess that this is my very first Blog entry. I’ve been dancing with Jane Franklin Dance for a year and thoroughly enjoying the experience. I was immediately attracted to Jane’s work because of the commitment to excellence, collaboration and community. From regional touring to the downtown DC stage to informal local free performances, I’ve felt the same generous spirit of giving. It’s awesome to find a group of artists that reflects and responds to community.

I started an exciting new chapter in my work with Jane in June as the new Director of Operations. Now both in front of and behind the scenes, I work towards excellent dance in our region. Let me tell you, there is a lot of work to be done. Sometimes I get so carried away by the magic created on stage, I forget all the work required to make it happen. The necessary business of the arts is an important undertaking and I’m glad to be learning and assisting in this noble effort.

I’m also excited about some of our upcoming shows. One of my favorite things about Jane is the emphasis on collaboration. Working closely with other artists to create a rich and cohesive artistic product. It reminds me of the pivotal influence of Diaghilev at the Ballet Russes in the beginning of the 20th Century. He brought together story, set, music, costume and movement, all through the most innovative artists of his time, to create a production that was much more than the sum of the parts. Jane has this talent and I’m looking forward to this season’s collaborations, Freya Grand, Elizabeth Spires, Brad Linde and the Misfits Theatre Company to name a few.

Acting it out

Our recent collaboration for 2010 Source Festival "A Great (er) Depression" brought many comments about how the movement successfully supported what the character was feeling as well as saying.

“Jane – Loved the piece you put together with Matt and Brad. Everything worked so well together. I mentioned to Matt that the choreography really blended so well to create that effect that we were in his characters mind. The dancers on the table in front of him, as if he’s projecting his internal anguish. The dancers shaking hands and grinning behind him, as if he senses the rest of the world moving forward and succeeding reinforced the fact that his character continued to do deeper within himself. Loved also the incorporation of the file boxes. So much good stuff. Look forward to seeing more of your work.” – Dan O’Neil, 2010 Source Festival attendee

A critic (a dance professor at GMU) wrote that the movement was distracting because it was not "acted out." More weight was given to the written word, assuming that the words have higher priority, that the staging was absolutely not connected to the dialogue.
This brought up the questions: Why should text be primary? Can more than one thing happen on stage at a time?
These questions have already been answered in dance history - especially with post modern choreographers and with Merce Cunningham.
In a previous article in the same blog, there was a long article about how the dance community lacks internal support and nurture.
This might be a place to start; that dance writers and professionals acknowledge other work with an open mind; and write about the content of the work rather than personal preferences.

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")

Jane Franklin Dance Indistinct Boundaries 11.8.09

Next?

We are working on a project for Source Festival Artistic Blind Dates with Matt Ripa and Brad Linde. It's to be presented the week of June 21 with 3 performances that week. We have a web site where you can post employment issues/experiences about losing a job/not being able to find work: "congratulations you have been laid off."

Benefit event is coming up on May 16 where we hope to attract friends and supporters to contribute to the 2010-11 Season. The evening should be nice - at Arlington Arts Center. Admission includes a light supper, wine tasting, silent auction and performances both inside and outside. If you would like to come join us, tickets are on sale at http://www.janefranklin.com/; or if you can't come but would like to help we are grateful for donations of any size which can be made on our web site at the same address.

And now for the biggest news -- the family has a new dog, and 7 goslings hatched in the creek at Holmes Run Greenway in Alexandria - you can lean over a footbridge and see them. The nesting geese were watched by many, many people who pass over the bridge daily, as the nest was built on a tiny island right near the bridge; and managed somehow to not get washed away in the spring rains. The promise of spring...