e whims

2011-01-06T09:05:00.000-08:00

e whims has changed sites

we are now at:

whimwhim.org/blog

for new posts and archives of old ones

come visit us there!

monster-society

2010-12-23T17:37:00.000-08:00

This summer while Olivier Wevers was choreographing Monster/Society, I was out of town, then still gone for Men in Dance when this duet for two men was first performed in early October by Andrew Bartee and Lucien Postlewaite.
It has been tantalizing and frustrating to get a grip on writing up a piece, having only seen still shots and heard general thematic descriptions.

Not until Vincent Michael Lopez came back to Seattle to learn one of the parts last week, was I able to see Society in the flesh.

The premise of the piece is quite simple. Society becomes a monster, when it disrupts love because it disapproves of the sexual disposition of two lovers.

There are some arresting images in this piece—
repeated hands in front of faces,

bodies curled, in unison but separated,

a slanted vignette of anguished rejection.

The real impact of Society, though, comes through the particulars of how it is danced.

Olivier is well-known (one might even say notorious) among his dancers for the precision he requires in carrying out the movements he has designed. But it’s not just steps, his exactitude in positioning.
It’s the manner in which he describes and demonstrates what is to be conveyed, utilizing his own long experience as a dancer and his gift for telling metaphors, often whimsical despite the somber subject of the work. “It's just like you’re baking a cake and your hands are covered with flour and sugar,” he might say, “and your pants are falling, so you pull them up like this—?” He makes a gesture with the sides of his hands at the hips, and you know exactly what he means. Or, “Once you’ve learned it, the tendency is to get ahead of the music, I'd like it to be exactly after it, so it's really grounded. Even when I say accelerate, it's heavy, like under water.”
Or "Try not to show Fall. Legs. It's falllegs, all in one movement."

The movements in Society are, as Lucien says “flowy.” There is nothing angular or abrupt in the relation of the two dancers. Any sharp changes of direction are brought on by forces outside themselves.

Vincent notes that in most pas de deux of a man and a woman, even in modern dance, “The male is almost always taking care of the female.” Their respective roles are determined by gender and dance convention as much as or more than by individual personality or circumstances. In Monster/Society, the two men are, in the nature of the choreography, equally tender and protective of each other.

In rehearsal, Olivier repeatedly emphasizes this point. “You are lifting each other up, he’s not helping you. Almost the less you partner him the better,” or "This looks as if you're surprised and a little afraid of him. It should be more of an embrace.."
Several sequences are done twice with the roles reversed in the second round.

In the rather gloomy conclusion of Jennifer Homas's marvelous new book, Apollo's Angels, A History of Ballet, she writes: "Uncertainty and doubt have crept in. Many of today's dancers, for example, have a revealing habit: they attack steps with apparent conviction—but then at the height of the step they shift or adjust, almost imperceptibly, as if they were not quite at ease with its statement. This is so commonplace that we hardly notice. But we should: these adjustments are a kind of fudging, a way of taking distance and not quite committing (literally) to a firm stand." I was much struck by these words because of how often I have observed Olivier say some variation on: "Try not to adjust the legs. Wherever they are, they're planted." And the dancers respond to the choreographer's subtlety and assurance. Their confidence grows. Movements become convincing and convinced...

And yet, despite the meticulousness of Olivier’s instructions,
I have been struck over and over this last week—watching both a recently completed video of Andrew and Lucien and live rehearsals of Andrew and Vincent in the two parts—by the two very different accounts given. The choreography has a transparency which allows the individuality of the dancers and the different physical dynamics between them to shine through.

The change of cast came about because, although he performed the role in October’s Men in Dance program, Lucien will dance the Relationship segment of Monster with Melody Herrera of Houston Ballet in next month’s premiere, as well as a major sequence in Annabelle Ochoa Lopez’s Cylindrical Shadows. I asked Andrew, who is the constant in both pairings for this piece, what it was like to switch partners in this particular piece. He says that, while he and Lucien are more or less similar in build and in training (the two are members of Pacific Northwest Ballet), Vincent is smaller and more compact of stature. He also dances for Donald Byrd’s Spectrum in Seattle and with Wideman/David Dance in South Carolina, both modern companies with a very different sensibility and approach to dance.

Eager to what he can learn from new works and styles, Andrew seems to find the process totally engrossing and works hard to get it right.

“Dance,” Vincent says, “is always intense,” and he brings his own passion and questing spirit, despite little experience with partnering, to the Monster/Society enterprise.

As a gay man, says Lucien, dancing in Society is “like coming home,” and of course, he confesses, he'd love to perform it again sometime.

But he also says, philosophically, “You’ve got to give everyone a turn.”
Just another example of the respect and consideration of the dancers for each other, and of Olivier for all of them, that continues to be a notable characteristic of this company. No prima donnas here.

Photos by La Vie Photography LaViePhoto.com
(Unfortunately there are no shots yet of Andrew and Vincent rehearsing, but the final round of full-cast rehearsals for the whole program is coming up in January.)

CONGRATULATIONS ON THE BIRTH, DECEMBER 22,

OF MAYA TO FOUNDING WHIM W'HIM MEMBER
KAORI NAKAMURA!!

monster-addiction

2010-12-11T12:01:00.000-08:00

It isn’t Nutcracker, that’s for sure.
And Kylie Lewallen (who is dancing in two 2010 productions of the holiday favorite) is no sugar plum fairy in this riveting, dark piece by Olivier Wevers.

Nor is her partner, Ty Alexander Cheng (a Nutcracker prince himself on occasion), any gallant cavalier here. Far from it.
In Addiction, the pair of them are haunted by a monster outside themselves.

I think that Olivier’s passion for bringing out the dramatic or emotional content of roles—for which as a dancer he’s long been known—is, along with his classical European training, essential to his choreography.

Nowhere is this clearer than in the three pas de deux (or duets as they tend to be called these days) in Monster, of which Addiction is the middle one. Olivier is a close scrutinizer of how ordinary people move, the way they telegraph their mental state with their physical bodies. And he has the tools, garnered from long training and stage experience, to embody his observations in his work. In setting a piece on his dancers, he pays extremely careful attention to the angle of a head, the expression of imploring fingers, the casual interactions of friends, or the tight formation of a group bound into a societal box.

Olivier seldom mentions anyone's facial expression in the course of rehearsal, though. It's as if that is the province of the individual dancers, who consistently say he encourages them to be themselves. He is very articulate in showing what he wants, as well as in explaining both its spirit and the precise gesture needed to convey it.
And these dancers are skilled enough at moving and carrying out instructions so that the nuances of expression appropriate to this person in this situation, however foreign or dire, follow naturally.

I keep being reminded of how I sometimes dream people into entirely apocryphal circumstances—yelling or being silly or sexy in a way I’ve never witnessed in waking life. How they act seems so real at the time, that I’m still angry or amused or half in love when I awake. Something similar seems to take place when Olivier choreographs. It’s as if his is the dreaming psyche, using a particular arrangement of positions and movements to invoke a situation or state of mind, and willing the dancers selves into it. They are then free to call on their own experience, or pure imagination, to behave as they really would if somehow transported there.

But what does one actually see in Monster/Addiction? How, via movement—as distinguished, if one can, from the expressions on the faces of the dancers, say, or the music, or what Olivier and Ty and Kylie have to say about it—does it communicate what it’s like to be lost to drugs?

Addiction unfolds on the ground and largely in a kind of zombie-like unison. The dancers never rise above their knees, except just before the end for him, and then it’s down again at once, in a tragic surrender to the force that’s killing them both. Classical ballet so often is, implicitly, in its very steps, designed to defy gravity. This piece is imbued with heaviness; weight is of its nature, and the couple cannot escape it.

A hand moves up across the face, over the nose (“not like wiping snot, it’s like snorting cocaine,” says Olivier, demonstrating). The jittery, repetitive moves of strung-out street people appear fleetingly here, not as realistic imitation but as suggestion, understated rather than flaunted, mere artifacts, by-products of what is happening to the bodies and souls of these two people. The weight of the dance conveys the strained, receding connection between them, alternately desperate and indifferent, until the chilling end of the piece.

There is almost no touching or emotional connection between this pair. In her role, Kylie says, only at a couple of small moments is she even aware of “this as an actual human being next to me.” The Ty character can’t reach out or even notice what is happening to his partner.

And yet, they must dance in complete sync, impelled in parallel by the same force that has them both in its grip. The tiny instances where their movements diverge are that much more raw and poignant.

Addiction is accompanied by relentless, drilling, buzzing, sawing sounds, like static in the brain that prevents the outside world from penetrating.
It is a painful piece, to dance and to watch.

Next up: Some thoughts on the dynamics of partnering...

Photographs by La Vie Photography:
laViePhoto.com
For tickets to Shadows, Raincoats and Monsters, January 14-16 at Intiman Theatre:
http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/138038

dancing-Kelly Ann Barton

2010-12-04T17:01:00.000-08:00

Kelly Ann Barton in person is small, pretty, sweet and a little shy- seeming. She surprises me with her off-stage presence, because onstage she is powerful, sometimes stern and even forbidding."

Dance Magazine, October 2009, says of Kelly Ann: "Her petite figure is at once zaftig and muscular. The earthy blend of power and sensitivity in her movement makes her utterly captivating—you can’t take your eyes off of her."
A lovely description and very accurate.
When I mention her strength as a dancer, she says she was always athletic, playing basketball and soccer as a kid, then hints at another kind of potency by adding,
"It's all very real to me. It comes from a very interior place."

Starting dance lessons at 5 in Portland, Oregon, Kelly Ann soon became "a studio kid," taking part in dance competitions. She attended Jefferson High, the Portland school for the performing arts and became part of the Jefferson Dancers. For four consecutive summers she danced with Northwest Dance Project, also in Portland, where she worked with several noted choreographers, including Donald Byrd, Director of Seattle's Spectrum Dance Theater. NWPD's Director, Sarah Slipper, a principal dancer at the Royal Winnipeg Ballet (where she danced with Olivier before he came to PNB), later turned to more contemporary work and in 2004 started NWPD, "as both a creative workshop for guest choreographers and an intensive training tool for promising young performers." Alumni have gone on "to work with well-established dance companies around the world."
Among these is Kelly Ann.

2006 was a crowded summer for her. Accepted at SUNY Purchase, she meant to start classes there in the fall, but had a chance to audition for Donald Byrd. Offered a place in the company, she put off college and is still at Spectrum, teaching as well as dancing. She is now also enrolled in the BFA program at Cornish College of the Arts in the Professional Dance Division.

Working with Donald "is a challenge in ways you'd never expect," she says. "His pieces are intelligent and emotionally and physically intense." She continues, "He pushes you until you are in the vulnerable place where you grow."

Kelly Ann finds Whim W’Him an interesting contrast to Spectrum. Olivier Wever’s “very distinct style and personality” brings out different elements of her as a dancer, she says.

“He is extremely clear and definite about details, and still lets you express your own personality.” She likes the playful, witty nature of his choreography and finds the atmosphere at Whim W’Him “very nurturing—the positive energy contagious.”

FRAGMENTS, a vibrant and quirky duet by Olivier, premiered at Spectrum in 2007 and was part of Whim W’Him’s first full program last January. Both a spoof and a loving, quite serious dance interpretation of Mozart vocal music, it started out as a dance for two women, one of them Kelly Ann (the other Hannah Lagerway, who danced last year in Whim W'Him's 3Seasons and is now in Germany at the Nuremberg Ballet).

The piece has had an interesting evolution. When Vincent Lopez, also a Spectrum dancer, was put into the second role, Kelly Ann says (perhaps a little wistfully?), “It became somewhat of different story for me. Some may see it as an exploration of gender roles.”

But she also is enthusiastic about how great it has been to dance with Vincent. They have become friendly and close in a way that probably wouldn’t have happened otherwise, she says. And she loves the playful quality of the piece, "the way we play off each other, especially at the start."

When I asked about the 13th Annual Dance Under the Stars Choreography Festival competition in Palm Desert last month, where FRAGMENTS won the Grand Prize, Kelly Ann laughed.
“It was a long and eventful 24 hours. We had an incredible time!”
Vincent was guesting in South Carolina. He arrived the day of the performance. The tech rehearsal was in a parking lot. The theater didn’t have the cues for the lighting—so crucial to FRAGMENTS—and Olivier ended up taking on the job of lighting director for the performance. “I was really nervous,” he admits. But the audience was wonderful, “so responsive and engaged from the very beginning,” says Kelly Ann. “And it’s great for Olivier’s work to get that recognition.”

Fans of Kelly Ann, Vincent, and FRAGMENTS will have another opportunity to see them in action at the A.W.A.R.D. (Artists With Audiences Responding to Dance) show at On the Boards, on the last weekend in January 2011:

whimwhim.org/performances2010/awardsshow.html

Photos courtesy of Spectrum Dance Theater:

spectrumdance.org/company/dancers-01.php

La Vie Photography:

LaViePhoto.com

and Kelly Ann Barton

rehearsing-this is not a raincoat

2010-12-01T21:46:00.000-08:00

The rehearsal on Monday is hard. It was a big Nutcracker weekend. Olivier and the dancers are tired.
After four intense hours, things even get slightly testy,
a rarity with this troupe.

Raincoat seems on the surface straightforward,
more in the whimsical line of Olivier's earlier works. But it's subtle, not simple to perform. The music though relentlessly metric is hard to get a grip on.

Ballet terms like "assemblé" or "soutenu" are seldom used.

Mostly it’s odd little words—“pancake” or “pickle" or "Chinese Water Torture.”

The lifts and partnering, for Chalnessa and Ty, are tricky,
the instructions—a tilt of the head, the way you hold your fingers—very precise.

Chalnessa, Sugarplum Fairy just the day before, looks exhausted.

Difficult too, I imagine, to learn nuances from a bare, artless (and heartless) video. It's just, as Chalnessa says, a skeleton.

Moving in exact synchrony is also a challenge for a group of highly distinct dancers. (Only Andrew is currently a corps de ballet member.)

Sometimes it’s tough to see what is being got at.
Toward the end, though, patterns begin to emerge: the contrast between silly, loose, aimless bits and rather stern, lockstep sequences in exact formation; the surfacing of individuality out of convention.

Like the original title of the Magritte painting that suggested the title of this piece, Raincoat is about La trahison des images, the treachery of images in our lives. We hide behind our images, our painted representations, our raincoats. The raincoats aren’t raincoats, though, or not merely. They are masks covering what we are underneath. Most people don’t like to go naked without their covering, without a protective hood. Because of the nature of the movement in Raincoat, alternating between free-wheeling whimsy and assertive conformity, this seems to me a piece about adolescents. Youth is a time of experiment, of trying on what it’s like to expose oneself, of living without a raincoat, of seeing one’s true self without a mask.

It’s not so simple as it seems in life or in dance. We are what we wear to some extent. Most people find it too difficult, the raincoat becomes part of them. But bit by bit, one or two decide that what they really are is an open, unguarded self.

Photos by LaVie Photography LaViePhoto.com

dancing-Andrew

2010-11-22T08:47:00.000-08:00

At first glance, Andrew Bartee looks like any lanky kid.

And then you see him move...

At barely twenty Andrew is the youngest of the Whimmers.
I was interested in what qualities led Olivier to choose him.

"He is smart, thoughtful and very mature for his age.

Wisdom is priceless for a dancer, it takes years to get it.

But he is light years ahead. Also, he is honest, sincere, dedicated and has a great sense of humor."

A bit mischievously, I asked Andrew why he imagined Olivier found him mature.

"It probably is impossible to say," he laughed.
He thought for a moment, then added,

“I guess I feel it. It’s very real to me. The air I breathe.

A gift—and that’s probably as much as you’ll get from me!”

The tone of his answer was itself revealing:

modest but not embarrassed,

self-assured but not self-important.
As he said in an interview with the Everett Herald:

"It's the music that takes me there. You are the physical representation of what is happening musically."

Andrew is a native of Everett, Washington.

He started dancing at 10, when a girl he knew suggested he try out for a Christmas Pageant.

The first ballet he ever saw was American Ballet Theatre's Giselle, that came to Seattle in 2003. His parents took him as a birthday present. His parents always have been supportive of his dancing "in every sense. They took my brothers to sports and me to ballet classes. It was never an issue. They made it work."

At first it was fun but not something he imagined he'd ever do for a living. Then at around 16, he started thinking, “I could do this forever—and would love to.”

Not long after, he began to get serious notice for his work.

In the summer of 2007 he traveled to Denmark, as the first recipient of the Flemming Halby Exchange with the Royal Danish Ballet School.

Copenhagen, says Andrew, "is a beautiful city that you can get around in easily by bike or bus." He lived in an apartment with a girl from school and saw the company perform in the beautiful new opera house, as well as the historic old one.

He took class with the very friendly company apprentices and got to know them well—"Their English was incredible."

In the course of his three weeks, he says,
"I got very sore legs, and I got very strong."

The teaching was really different. He took classes from Laura Alonzo, sister of Alicia Alonzo, long-time head of Ballet nacional de Cuba;
Eva Draw, from National Ballet of Canada; and of course the Bournonville classes at the core of the Royal Danish Ballet.

Andrew notes some similarity of Bournonville and Balanchine styles—both put emphasis on intricate legwork, but the Bournonville is slower; you need a lot of strength, while "the arms just stay—there's a simple, stylized upper body." He was quite taken with the long tradition of the Danish Royal Ballet. “You’re learning something ancient.”

For a dancer at the beginning of his career, Andrew has traveled a good deal in the line of work—in the Pacific Northwest, at Jacob's Pillow, and in the south of France.

The same year as Denmark,
he won a Princess Grace Award for dance and was flown to a gala in New York.

"It was the 20th anniversary, so it was quite a big production.

I met HRH Prince Ranier and Princess Caroline, and many other noteworthy people. I was the youngest recipient that year, but was not shied away from by the older, more accomplished artists. The greatest part of winning that award was that it made me feel like what I was working towards was worth my time and effort. The recognition from such a respected organization made me feel like someone believed in me. Someone knew that I could be great. Someone wanted me to keep working hard and make something of myself. All this happened around that time I was trying to decide whether dance would be a serious part of my future, so the timing couldn't have been more appreciated."

Back at home, he was accepted in 2008 as a Pacific Northwest Ballet apprentice and now is a member of the corps de ballet.

Whim W'Him adds a new dimension for Andrew. He has a lively curiosity about new forms of movement, different ways of dancing.

When asked if he has favorite roles or styles,

he says he is very open to trying a lot of things and being versatile. He doesn't really have favorites, though there are certainly exhilarating moments, like in Rubies.

“I like it all,” he says with his engaging grin.

And when asked what else he likes to do besides dance, he replies first, without hesitation: "Eat!"

Photos courtesy of:

La Vie Photography LaViePhoto.com

Royal Danish Ballet

Seattle Times

Everett Herald

Angela Sterling of Pacific Northwest Ballet

Annabelle redux

2010-11-01T06:11:00.000-07:00

In the week ending October 10, Annabelle Lopez Ochoa was in Seattle again, for the second set of rehearsals on the piece that Whim W’Him will premiere in January.
Recently I caught up with her via email from her home in Amsterdam, where she had just returned after "an intense week in Seattle and 3 crazy days in London with a jet lag from here to Tokyo."
I asked her how it was to pick up with Whim W'Him where she left off.

“It was great to be back in the studio with the ever so generous Whimmers.
We could get deeper into the material and also be more specific about it. We set the steps on the music, added and deleted steps. Unfortunately because of an injury of Chalnessa [Eames], we did spend a lot of time teaching Mara Vincent the part of Chal. Luckily Chal is already feeling better, but then the rehearsals were already finished. Melody [Herrera] had to leave on Wednesday, and Vincent [Lopez] had to rehearse with Spectrum every day, so our rehearsals started at 9am, so that Vincent could leave at 11;15. Lots of uninteresting details. but this pictures a little bit the past week with Whim W'him. Nevertheless we did get a lot of work done and the focus and input of the dancers was once again on level 100.”

"Have you decided on a title yet?" I wondered.

“I still feel the piece isn't completed yet.
And the title hasn't come to my mind either.
I never had such a hard time finding a title. I guess words sometimes diminish and/or box in the intensity and emotion that I would like the piece to convey.”

But later in the week she wrote to say that a title finally is chosen:

Cylindrical Shadows

When I inquired about the present state of the new music, Annabelle answered that the music was also not entirely completed, though the form and length of the piece were set. A few days later, she traveled to Belgium to finalize the music with the composer, David van Bouwel. She and he had been working a lot through the internet.

But once again, sometimes I don't seem to find the right words to explain the dance. That's why the dance exists. Because words fail to express everything."

I’ve been thinking about that a lot, as I usually do when attempting to write about dance. Of course there is a very deep and basic sense in which words cannot do what dance does. That is why we have dance, and why it moves us so. Yet speech, including speech by those who are making the dance, can sometimes add to it or give a different notion, allowing us to experience and/or understand it on more levels. That, at least, is my hope.

After Annabelle’s working visit with David, she was quite ecstatic about the results.

"I’m in love with the music. It's awesome, super, fabulous, fantastic. But most of all: it's exactly what I wanted!" she told Olivier and wrote me:

"The day and night with my composer in Belgium went really well. We worked from 6 pm until 5:30 am. And then again from 11 am to 4 pm. I basically slept on a couch in the sound studio. The music has a beautiful build up, culminating into strong arpeggios with Johann Sebastian Bach's Suite No. 2 as a red thread throughout the composition.It was too beautiful to cut it, so when I come back to Seattle I will have to create an extra 30 seconds in the boys' section.

I'm totally in love with the music and I constantly listen to it on my I-pod. I believe it's gonna inspire the dancers a lot! Voilà, this for the story of the music."

My last question to Annabelle was about how her conception of the piece has changed since she last rehearsed it.

“The concept of the piece is still the same: the piece is about life's continuous current with death that shall cease it for each one of us at a certain point. There' s nothing dramatic about it, just that the more we are attached to the deceased, the more intense the pain is. Ultimately we have to let go and move on forward into the continuous life current. And that's the beauty of life!”

Annabelle will return for the third round of rehearsals in the weeks before the January Whim W'Him show.
We can hardly wait!

Pictures are by La Vie Photography laviephoto.com
except the candle photo, "Flame," by Madelaine Cappuccio http://shadowsandhighlights.wordpress.com/tag/candle/

Next up: Olivier on Monsters, and the dancers' take on his new works...

out on a whim for real

2010-10-26T07:51:00.000-07:00

Fantastic energy—

so much laughter...

A sizzle that surpassed even last year's party!

Dramatic auction items...

Music, art, and bodily sustenance...

Dancing of course...

And some quiet moments, good conversations...

Annabelle there in spirit & images—the rest very much in person...

What else can I say?

Sometimes pictures are better than words!
(And these are by Kim and Adam Bamberg of La Vie Photography: laviephoto.com)

out on a whim

2010-10-20T19:49:00.000-07:00

You walk into a cavernous warehouse space. Huge, strong, dramatic carved-wood panels, obelisks, and metal sculptures with sweeping curves dominate the large space. Images of boats are everywhere...

The building at 1424 10^th Avenue was constructed in 1902 as a garlic processing plant. Garlic was hoisted on racks to dry in the upper reaches (like the flies of a theater), packed, and, as time went on,
sent by the Pike Street trolley down to the new Pike Place Market.
Later the building became a car repair garage, with floors of auto parts and grime everywhere.

It had been abandoned for several years when sculptor Steve Jensen found it, in the early 1980s. He climbed up the fire-escape and in through a broken window, and knew this was the place.

After 2 ½ years and a vast amount of work, the space from top to bottom was totally reconfigured and renovated. Ever since. it has been the studio, office, and home of Steve Jensen, and the abode more recently of his partner, personal and business, Vincent Lipe.

The ground floor still is a clearly working studio, a place where art is made by hand and torch and chisel. Even tonight, despite the overlay of auction items, the clink of glasses, and the hum of conversation from a hundred party-dressed Whim W’Him supporters, its working identity shows through.

Surreptitiously you glance into shadowy back rooms and wonder.
Where on earth are they going to serve food to this many people?
A narrow stairway leads to a sort of loft-mezzanine. Could it be up there?

Items are commented on and coveted—paintings, photographs, and clothing hand-crafted by Northwest artists; services and events. There is a flurry of last-minute bidding. Then part one of the second annual Out on a Whim is over. The silent auction closes.

The crowd moves toward the stairs and up. Where are we going? Past the mezzanine— nope, that’s just dim, cluttered offices. So where?

Up, up another flight, and a fabulous apartment opens out. Marble floors, white walls covered in extraordinary art.
You feel as if you’ve just stepped out of the cyclone-borne house into Oz or through the door into the secret garden.

You join in to taste the luscious delicacies concocted by Chef Willie Williamson. Soft music plays on a grand piano painted black and white in Steve Jensen’s characteristic whorls. Wine flows. Laughter and conversation bubble up among the guests.

A couple of hours pass like a moment, and suddenly everyone troops down those narrow stairs to find the studio below transformed once again, this time into a dance floor with a live DJ. Projected onto the walls is video—from the latest rehearsals—of powerful new works by Annabelle Lopez Ochoa and Olivier Wevers, slated for premiere in their entirety in January 2011 at Intiman Theater.

If you haven’t bought your ticket yet to this magical event, click here:

Whim W'Him http://mail.tmsmail.us/bin/display_msg?id=0F68B7D04CEB41F0321E083C2B214699C72357CDCFA9CD66

and do it now! You’ll kick yourself afterward if you don’t—this is an occasion not to be missed…

Watch for posts soon on—
•Steve Jensen and Vincent Lipe, with photos of the Out on a Whim auction party
•Annabelle Lopez Ochoa's latest rehearsals
•the progress of Olivier Wevers's Monster
•and more...

Annabelle-2

2010-07-15T19:57:00.000-07:00

"The first day is always hard.

The steps are an excuse," says Annabelle Lopez Ochoa,
who is choreographing the main work
of Whim W'Him's next full program.

Yet with time and maturity as a choreographer,

“you gain emotional intelligence
and skill in how to communicate.

Mistakes are welcome, maybe the best idea.

You let it happen,"
she says.

"It's all about the process.
Openness.

If you don't think about it, it becomes unique."

The group for this WhimW’Him program is small,

only 6 dancers—2 women and four men (Olivier may be one).

Total time is limited, and so rehearsal periods need to be long—
this June, when the work was begun,
in October, when it will be expanded,
in January 2011, before the show at Intiman Theatre.
One of the ensemble sections started quite simply,

when the dancers and Annabelle started to be exhausted
by the end of the afternoon.

“Let’s do an arm section,” she said,
and “good things came of it.

Now it’s perhaps going to be the center, the leitmotiv of the piece,

going from quite still and blank emotionally to much more expressive, even anguished.”

I love to watch Annabelle at work.

The section for “four boys,” for example—it’s like live billiard balls.

Each movement passes to another person, to a part of a body—

a hand goes to a cheek,

which pushes the head back,

so it comes in contact with a shoulder…

a whole series of transferred motions, like a Rube Goldberg contraption.

But billiard ball and machine metaphors are too mechanical.

This work is infused with a strong sense of interconnectedness,

complexity,

propulsion—

then interruption.

Things are clearly related,

yet as in life it’s sometimes not clear what they mean,

and they are liable—
in this piece about disturbance, disruptions—
to be stopped, arbitrarily, at any instant.

Annabelle repeatedly takes the place of one or the other dancers

to figure out and demonstrate the next move.

A bit ends in a "pigpile" on the floor.
Annabelle pauses for a moment, laughing and thinking,

then hops up and says,
"So, how can we make it so you don't have to..."

Despite the somberness of the theme,

there is a lot of laughter in the studio,

a good feeling among the dancers as Annabelle works, a lot of receptivity to her ideas.

Even when they had an hour off from working, dancers often stayed in the studio to watch.

Some of what she asks of them is quite unlike what they have attempted before.

Think of switching between the spine of a racehorse...

and that of a snake...

Annabelle started this new piece for WhimW’Him just with a trio and duet in mind.

Now it has grown to include:

•The trio—Olivier-Andrew Bartee-Chalnessa Eames (all from Pacific Northwest Ballet)

•The duet—Melody Herrera (Houston Ballet) and Lucien Postlethwaite (PNB)

•An ensemble of six—the above plus Vincent Lopez (no relation to Annabelle, of Spectrum Dance)

•A section for four men

•And a short duet for two women.

On the last day, says Olivier (I was out of town),

"She put everything together made all the transitions,

and there all of a sudden were 24 minutes."

Annabelle seems to me
a perfect match for Whim W'Him...

•She says, in the same spirit as Olivier, "The more I prepare, the more I get stuck."

Although they have strong ideas and intentions about a piece,
neither likes to over-prepare specifics before going into the studio.

The works of both are suffused with the spontaneity and particularity

of creating directly on/with the dancers.

•They use a wide variety of music, classical and otherwise.

•They employ classical technique (including pointe shoes)

along with very modern, unballetic positions and ways of moving.

•Expressive hands feature prominently in the work of both.

•A whimsical, humorous approach is evident

in Annabelle’s conversation and way of working,

as well as in her other works (if perhaps less so in this piece because of its theme).

And yet, in a program of Annabelle and Olivier pieces side-by-side,

two radically individual sensibilities will leap out,

to intrigue and absorb the eye,

the mind, and the heart.

Vive la France!

2010-07-09T09:19:00.000-07:00

And then there’s Bastille Day, July 14...

...celebrated this year, at The Triple Door in
Nightcap: L’Edition Francaise.
Billed as “Sophisticated entertainment
for Seattle’s Francophiles,”
it will be “a provocative evening of Francophilia
not to be missed.”

Three choreographers, among them Olivier Wevers, Artistic Director of WhimW’Him, will present “new dance and burlesque,” exploring “farce, manipulation, naïveté and alluring indifference in three individual short programs.”

Olivier’s piece features the sensational and sensuous queen of slinky, Kylie Lewallen:

and her inscrutable partner in crime,

known under the name of
Paris Original:

in an apache/Flamenco/tango number—
smoldering, comic, raunchy, and oddly touching...

O la la!
What more can I say?!
Come see for yourself:

http://www.thetripledoor.net/Calendar/Events/July-2010/Bastille-Day.aspx

All photos by La Vie Photography

Annabelle Lopez Ochoa-1

2010-07-06T21:33:00.000-07:00

Annabelle Lopez Ochoa

is warm, intense, precise.

Quick and brimming with energy in the studio,

she is a very physical, literally hands-on choreographer,

sometimes composing one knee-twist at a time,

sometimes proposing a whole sweep of movement.

Each of Annabelle's pieces has some autobiographical seed.

This one, for WhimW'Him's next program, grew from a moment on a crowded train in Holland, when she received a phone call:

a marvelous dancer, friend, and subject of her choreography,
had died, suddenly,

at 33 years old, apparently healthy and strong,
perhaps of a heart attack...

The small thread of that large event informs her piece for WhimW'Him in many ways.

This new work does not yet have a name,

though its title may include the phrase, “The endless continuity of…”

As Annabelle told me during the first week of rehearsals,

it will be a dance of strong feeling,

“but not emotional, weepy—more conceptual.”

There also is, “necessarily, a building up, not just an idea.”

She pauses, then smiles. “Also a bit of theatre.

The intuition of the phone
call—
what it did to me,
how it left me speechless—
will guide me."

Annabelle Lopez Ochoa, born in Belgium of Belgian/Colombian parents, has lived and worked in the Netherlands for 17 years.

She is highly regarded, the recipient of many awards and commissions,

but does not belong to any company.

“I am very happy being a freelance choreographer.

It gives me opportunities to meet new people and new cultures.

That, already, is a big source of inspiration,
that I wouldn't want to miss on.”

The genesis of Annabelle’s collaboration with WhimW’Him is unusual.

Company Director Olivier Wevers saw a piece she did in LA.

She wasn’t there at the time,
but he liked it very much and contacted her on Facebook.

She doesn’t usually accept people as Facebook friends unless she knows them,

but, among other things,
Olivier went to the same primary school in Belgium,

and her brother was in his year (though they didn’t know each other).

There was a connection.

One month later, they had decided to work together,

but still had never met in person until she stepped off the plane

early this summer in Seattle,

the Saturday before a Monday start of rehearsals.

Each workday for two weeks,

Annabelle made a video of the final run-through of the various sections,

then that evening reviewed the DVD and got ideas

about what to change or develop or scrap next day in the studio.

Two weeks of creative time with the dancers in June,
another week in October,

then final preparations before the premiere
in January 2011 at Seattle’s Intiman Theatre

(along with a new solo and duet by Olivier
plus a new piece by Mark Haim).

It’s an interrupted work-process, but allows for gestation and ripening between times.

For Annabelle, this WhimW’Him project is a very uncommon undertaking in one respect,

the first piece she has choreographed without knowing the music ahead of time.

The score is only now being written, is only partially completed.

Its Belgian composer, David Van Bouwel, “is in an early music band.

He has been very busy travelling this spring and summer.

He also just sold his house and is moving,

so things are going a bit slower than expected.”

Keep in mind that this whole project really just got underway in March.

For Annabelle, it is a wonderful, if scary challenge.

“Music can be a corset.

Without it,” she says, with her engaging grin,

“I am totally there—with my childish imagination.”

Since the music isn’t ready yet, during the June rehearsals

she worked against the background of a continuous loop of music

in the mood of the piece she is inventing,

“maybe even some of what will be used.”

The loop incorporates part of a soundscape of Van Bouwel,

some of the Beethoven Moonlight Sonata,

and the beautiful piano Adagio from the Bach Concerto in D Minor,

after Alessandro Marcello (BWV 974), as played by Glenn Gould.

This method of choreographing will need more specific requirements

than normally she would exact of the composer.

It also affects the dancers.

But for them, unlike in last winter’s 3Seasons,

where the choreography had been faithfully set to the Vivaldi score—

and they had to cope with surprise substitutions of Byron Au Yong’s

just-composed and exceedingly different music—

Annabelle’s sound loop has been present thoughout the process so far.

Along with learning the movements,

they have learned to modify the spirit of what they are doing

to fit whatever particular music is being played at the moment—

new or old, fast or slow, harsh and angular or gentle and smooth—

so that each musical/choreographic iteration adds a layer of what is possible.

In the next few days, look for more posts,

on Annabelle's piece,

rehearsal of a new Olivier work,

and *preparations for Bastille Day at the Triple Door...

*already up!

All photos by La Vie Photography,

except the first, from Annabelle's own website:

http://web.me.com/annabellelopezochoa/http___web.me.com_annabellelopezochoa/Welcome.html

A quick note...

2010-05-20T14:49:00.000-07:00

No, WhimW’Him hasn’t disappeared off the face of the earth,
just gone underground for a time...

After the huge outpouring of praise—and some lively controversy—surrounding the 3Seasons performances, followed by a crazy party put on in its honor by Subterfuge Seattle, the company has dispersed, for the time being, to other pursuits—Hannah Lagerway to dance in Portugal, the others to perform for Spectrum, Pacific Northwest Ballet, and other companies/projects in the Seattle area.

But in the meantime, Olivier, apart from dancing with PNB, has been working overtime,
along with board members, two interns and volunteers to create WhimW’Him's future...

Check back soon, plus on Facebook & Twitter, for exciting news on WhimW'Him's next projects.

If you're visiting this site for the first time, look at the Blog Archive for the story of making 3Seasons, along with some terrific pictures by La Vie Photography.

art, life, gender

2010-02-13T17:47:00.000-08:00

Some thoughts after reading a series posts about Whim W'Him's first program—by Donald Byrd on his Spectrum blog, Jen Graves on The Stranger's blog, SLOG, and Jeremy M. Barker on The SunBreak, as well as various other comments and responses.

Three loaded issues intersect here:

1) The relation of biography and art in 3Seasons.
Artists do not create ex nihilo. Life counts.
The role of Kaori Nakamura, Olivier Wevers's former wife, is central to 3Seasons. The woman in the battered tutu appears to stand for nature or the environment; or for what is good and true in humanity; or even, arguably, for women. So what, several people have asked, does it say about a choreographer when he casts his ex-wife in a role in which she is "humped" (Byrd's term) by his current (male) spouse and then, at the end of the piece—adding injury to insult—thrown in a garbage can after being smeared with blood?*

*[Couple of corrections. First, the "blood" smeared was intended to be earth. At dress rehearsal the night before opening, the available dirt material, "Texas red," was used the first time. On stage it looked red like blood, but Olivier found that interesting (blood of the earth?). Second: as noted and corrected by Barker online, the "rapist" was Jonathan Poretta, not Lucien Postlewaite, Olivier's husband.]

   Does it make a difference, to objections like these, that as a dancer Kaori was the clear choice in this role?—for her formidable technique and great dramatic power; her small stature; her brave, adventurous and willing spirit; her eagerness to try out new, difficult roles; her continued closeness to Olivier Wevers and understanding of what he was trying to convey.
       Or that likewise he has worked extensively with PNB's Jonathan Poretta and Lucien Postlewaite and knew what they could do and what choreographic demands he could make on them, as he had done for their danced dialogue in X Stasis?
         And what should one make of the fact that in all the conversations I had (for the Whim W'Him blog e-whims) with collaborators on this project, everyone—to a wo/man—commented on the rare level of camaraderie and mutual respect, the interest and willingness to learn from each other, that characterize this new dance venture? Observing many rehearsals, downtime interactions, and all three performances, I can only conclude they meant what they said.
The role of biography in art is not irrelevant. It's just very complicated...

2) Women in Whim W'Him director Olivier Wevers's choreography.
What does Olivier's use of pointe shoes signify? Since they surely do carry the freight of a couple of centuries of ethereal sprites, are they therefore incapable for all time of expressing anything else? Can they not ever be used in other, more earthbound ways?
Or would they have to be adopted equally by men and women in non-drag dance for them to be considered legitimate vehicles for artistic expression? Yet it would surely be naïve to assert that men and women properly must have interchangeable roles in dance (which is why, by the way, I think Olivier's response that it didn't make any difference whether FRAGMENTS was performed by 2 women or a man and a woman was rather facile, and in fact quite inaccurate. One casting choice isn't necessarily better or worse, but it surely does make a difference). The sex we are born with, however we choose to express it or amend it as adults, is one of our most basic characteristics. (The first question asked of new baby is "What is it?" and that means "What sex"?) It does make a difference, in life and in dance.
And how does Olivier approach women?

Does he put them in oversimplified pigeonholes, or fail to give them their due as complex beings or subject them to uniformly bad treatment in 3Seasons? in the OtB program? in his work as whole?
Can stereotypes ever be used to make a cogent point? Should women never be treated badly in dance even if they are in life? Should men? Does the ill treatment of a person or the scrutiny of a stereotype in a work of dance disqualify it as serious or legitimate art? Does art have a moral duty?

What are we to make of the 3 Seasons sequence known as "the kiss"? or the other couple's convoluted twistings on the floor at the same time? or the flirtatious romps of 3 men with 3 women? or Kaori's solos? Or, for that matter, how should we construe the 2 male-female or male-male duets in X Stasis? The convoluted FRAGMENTS duo?

As 3Seasons costume designer Michael Cepress remarks, there's a whole MA thesis on gender in the Whim WHim program at OtB...

3) Aesthetic judgment about 3Seasons
Many of the above questions will be answered differently depending on one's tastes and artistic/sexual/political orientation. But in the end, as several people have pointed out, we are dealing with a work of art. In the interest of judging it as such, it might be worthwhile looking again at the card handed out to audience members at the On the Boards A.W.A.R.D show last December. It contained some question to consider while watching the dance performances—before we get lost in the many possible social and ethical issues, we might reread them and take them into account in judging 3Seasons in and for itself as dance art:
•What was your first impression?
•Did the work have a clear vision/direction?
•Was the choreography engaging?
•Did the music/soundtrack support the dance?
•Did the choreographer use the space effectively?
•Was the movement original? (how do you define original?)
•Was the performance of the movement articulate?
[•along with a somewhat different question—Was it well executed?]
•Did the piece evoke or provoke any emotions in you?
•Was the work thought-provoking?
•When the performance ended, were you left wanting more?

The conversation continues...

composing—2

2010-01-31T19:26:00.000-08:00

And then there is the new music...

For each 3Seasons performance, one Vivaldi season is dropped and the corresponding section of Byron Au Yong's just minted suite of the same name is substituted.

The new composition is difficult and strange to ears accustomed to Vivaldi, especially for dancers who had learned Olivier's choreography, which is so very connected to the Vivaldi score. On first hearing, the dancers found it "different," "unnerving," "jangly," "weird," "not to my taste."
It bothered them.
The new composition has same number of measures, the same tempos as the Vivaldi, but they said, "I can't hear it," "it doesn't make sense," "I don't recognize it."
All were game to try, though!

And in whatever season Byron's version is substituted, the lighting, like the dance, also follows patterns established for Vivaldi. As lighting designer Michael Mazzola observed, "the new music recontextualizes things in a very jarring way. It is hard."

It was hard, too, for the musicians to get in sync with the dancers.

—even including Jimmy, the dancer/sometime musician ...

The challenge remained considerable for all three performances, because the dancers had very little exposure to any of the new music ahead. Rehearsals with Byron's score were few and brief, and it wasn't known until shortly before a show which season would be substituted. The same challenge faced Jill Hanson, stage manager in charge of lighting cues.

But sometimes, unexpectedly, Byron's composition took on a certain manic or sneaky, skewed relation to Vivaldi, so that in a peculiar way it fit, even elucidated the original.

On opening night (Friday), "Autumn" was danced to the new music. Because that season begins with a jaunty sextet of three women and three men, Byron's rollicking soundscape— which had an old-fashioned amusement park feel to it, with toy piano and a pronounced tune and rhythm—established a mood of cheerful, good-natured, even innocent fun.

But on Saturday "Summer" was substituted instead. In Olivier's interpretation, summer is the heaviest month. The sultry, hot atmosphere of the season (at least in some parts of the world) infected the choreography. This is the sequence that begins with Kaori (perhaps representing humanity or the earth or nature?) laboriously dragging objects attached to her by ropes across the stage...

..and ends
with the "rape" scene.

Byron's harsh, jagged music created a grim, despairing mood, so that when Vivaldi returned in "Autumn" and the three couples flirted and cavorted, their moves now appeared artificial, cynical, soulless. And the final moments of "Winter" felt tragic. At least to me.

But why do any of this? The Vivaldi music, although so familiar one almost has trouble hearing it sometimes, is undeniably beautiful, finely crafted, full of contrasts and wonderful melody. What is the point in throwing it off balance, tossing it away?

The question brings us to the very core of 3Seasons. Surely more now than in any other time of our lives—because of global weather changes and our greater awareness of other parts of the planet with different climates—we experience the seasons as much less predictable or automatically comprehensible/stereotypical than they used to be.

The point, Olivier's central idea with this piece, and Byron's too, is to take us, through the dancers, beyond our comfort zone, beyond the beautiful music we have grown up with and become overly accustomed to. In this era, because of its incredible electronic connections, there is virtually no such thing as isolation any more, even if we wish for it. We can't help but be impinged on by catastrophes like Haiti's earthquake—or styles halfway across the globe.

In fiction these days, there is a suspicion of any story that has too happy an ending. The same is often true in other arts. In a certain odd way, I think, by introducing at the outset the knowledge that the known is going to be disrupted, Olivier somehow gives us permission to enjoy the elegant and ordered music.

Not that he has, by any means, made merely pretty dances. A great deal of this work is enigmatic, harsh, off-kilter. By suiting it so perfectly to the Vivaldi score, harsh themes are rendered comprehensible, in a way even beautiful. But if you add to that another layer of uncertainty, a musical landscape with the same temporal shape but an altogether different feel, everyone—the viewer, like everyone involved in making the performance—has to start again from scratch, an exercise that might make us delight in returning to the original Vivaldi or thrill to an unexpected, realigning jolt.

As for the dancers, the new music affected their relations in performance. I overheard one (Jonathan?) speak of hearing the footfalls of another entering behind him, and using that as his cue.
Ty said, "we look to each other more, listen to the flow of breathing." Several mentioned how they needed to pay more than usual attention. One remarked that "we have to depend on each other." For lack of the usual aural prompts, the dancers have to reconnect, in new ways, with each other, with the live music, with the audience.

Perhaps we, as viewers, have to do the same...

lighting

2010-01-30T16:02:00.000-08:00

Michael Mazzola

is a master of light.
He is hesitant to talk about how he uses "photons to evoke feelings both emotional and physical—which then perhaps these might be articulated into intellectual constructs—but as it’s so transitory, nailing it down seems so difficult."

Difficult but far from impossible.

The lighting designer deals with space and time, especially in dance. Michael talks about liking to architect a space with lighting, so that it coincides with the physical action of dance and becomes mysterious, enchanting, bold—consonant with whatever mood the piece needs to invoke. The lighting for Whim W'Him's first show began, he says, with interchanges with Olivier and information about the space in which the piece would take place. From these two separate piles of information, he constructed a box of tools.

Light follows the choreographic impulse. This whole show is danced on a white floor. Michael and Olivier agreed without saying that the brightness of white floor and cyclorama can almost be too much for audience connection, but it allows for wide range and subtle play of mood:

X stasis begins in white, clean, clear, almost brittle light, to reflect (literally and figuratively) the choreography. Through the next three duets, the texture of background and floor lighting changes. Color is introduced. Relationships become less reserved, more complex, perhaps more equivocal, until at the end a thudding heartbeat pulses through music dance and the blood red of costumes and light explode in 'Cardiac Arrest'...

In FRAGMENTS the backdrop is dark. Color resides mainly on the two dancers' wonderful skirts—one in blues, one in yellow—which fly up, swirl, waft down, caught in mid-air by light. And then there is the riveting solo, where Vincent sheds skirt and artifice and dances, through slow, revelatory contortions, body stripped, spirit bared and burnished by the light...

3Seasons, says Michael, "had a tight vocabulary, particularly a way to push in a slightly literal sense of weather—and what weather can evoke, both emotionally and intellectually."

The use of white light, from cold to warm.

Texture on the cyclo.

Interior vs exterior space.

In one solo 3Seasons, again of Vincent, he is lifted by other dancers and set on a new path several times. The stage transforms into darkness, but he follows a path of light in his triangular trajectory across downstage (audience) left to right, upstage, diagonally downstage and again across. The first time he moves straight across it is into the light; on his return, in the same direction, the light is behind him. The interesting thing about facts like these is that, perhaps more than any other single element of the show, lighting adds a crucial layer of mood, of which the audience is often only unconsciously aware.

In the penultimate bit before the "dirty hands" sequence when Kaori ends up in the garbage can, the skin of Jim, the hoarder, glistens with gold and lavender light. This was not anything that Michael had ever done before. Olivier helped him find what was needed by saying, "I need mystery, it's the most beautiful piece of music." There is also a very nice transitional moment where the company walks stage right to stage left. They go slowly. It takes a whole minute. The light and music gets stormy then glows on the bodies of the dancers. "That passage of time is exquisite," says Michael. "I can feel it in my eyeballs."

But marvelous as the still photos are in capturing dancers' individuality and moments of the dance, they are frustrating because they cannot show passage of time...

Although a recording (Joshua Bell) of the Vivaldi score was used in these shows—for all three seasons where Byron Au Yong's compositions weren't performed—one aspect is always live. Or rather, although there is software that can lock in the sequence of lighting cues, there is much more to it.

"It is easy to be off by less than 1/2 half a second and not achieve the desired result, even though a lighting computer is being used—accurate to 1/100 of a second, says Michael Mazzola. “No matter how wonderful each cue is, the lighting is dependent upon the stage manager to execute the calling of the cues such that they are placed at the optimum possible location in time, so the lighting state and the movement/music coincide” to produce the precise desired meaning.

“It’s still a very human action driving the cueing.”

An example: in the segment known to the dancers as "the kiss," Kylie and Ty move sinuously around the stage their lips pursed toward each other but barely not touching, the movement of the rest of their bodies informed and informed by their lips. Before this sequence, Ty leaves Kylie and strides diagonally downstage, she pursues him. A spotlight goes on when she gets there, but the real moment for the lighting cue is when he turns toward her. In these slight but significant instances, when the stage manager places light in exact relation to the music and movement, the layers of lighting build up and lead to...magic.

timing/performing

2010-01-23T09:11:00.000-08:00

The question of time—how there never seemed to be enough of it—was brought up by many of the collaborators on 3Seasons, Olivier as well. Since all the dancers were busy with many other commitments, it was a constant struggle to get them in one place long enough not just to learn steps and sequences of movement—which are often very odd, unexpected, and hard to do—but to practice them together, to Olivier's exacting standards. The curious versions of Baroque dresses some of the dancers wear, strange props, and the tension of the whole new musical aspect of the piece (see future e whims posts), along with the usual jitters of opening night added to a company premiere, all added to the usual pre-performance stress.

I thought rehearsals had shown what the dancers really could do.

But lighting adds magic, and the energy on stage before an audience was phenomenal.

The real thing was...The Real Thing!

•The scintillating X stasis, with its 5 duets (one of them a funny and oddly affecting pas de deux of Chalnessa with a dressmaker's dummy), whose final movement is not called "Cardiac Arrest" for nothing.

•FRAGMENTS, which combines a blaze of bravura dancing, a heart-rending and soul-baring solo, and a triple spoof on opera, ballet, and gender stereotypes, all to some of Mozart's best beloved vocal music—so beloved it needs to be reimagined to really be heard.

And then

the premiere of 3Seasons, a tribute to the strength of this budding company, the dedication and professionalism of its co-creators. Despite crammed rehearsal schedules, many-layered relations between WhimW'Him members, and a shoestring budget, the company has shown a high level of mutual understanding, and an unusual ability to pull together a complex, highly physical program with panache, finish, and a level of civility/ camaraderie one would normally expect only with much more rehearsal and/or a far longer time dancing together.

Up soon:
•a profile of Michael Mazzola and his lighting wizardry
•what changing the music in one of the sections did to 3Seasons on successive nights
•a conversation with costume designer Michael Cepress
•Kim and Adam Bamberg on their new-found talent for photographing dance
•updates with more pictures plus information about the dancers and their current projects...

reacting

2010-01-17T11:15:00.000-08:00

Three performances by Whim W'Him, then I went immediately out of town and have spent three days caring for a baby. Intriguing to compare a four month old, barely able to grasp a toy dangled in front of her and get it in her mouth, to the incredible body control of the strong, adept dancers I've been watching these past few weeks. What a long way she has to go! But then she does one of her full-body smiles, and I think what a long way dance has to go...

Whim W'Him and its first production—reviews, in print and online, run the gamut from fulsome praise by Rosie Gaynor in The Financial Times and Stephen Church's encomium in the Seattle Times to the muttering of Anne Lawrence on the On The Boards blog and growls of Jen Graves of The Stranger. More recent posts by Marci Silman and Sandi Kurtz on artdish, along with the SunBreak comments of Jeremy M. Barker, are more nuanced.

It fascinates, and to some sense discourages me, how even now—close to a century after the inception of modern dance—there is still such hostility between two "camps."
An article on dancehelp.com describes well the genesis of this disconnect:

Hanya Holm, 1929

"The artists of modern dance have been known to pride their selves on taking the polar opposite road than of ballet. Ballet is the story of organization, symmetrical movement, traditions of companies, theatres as well as individuals. Modern dance on the other hand, is almost entirely the story of the personalities, spirits, quirks and hearts of individual dancers who devise their own philosophies, and set their own unique styles....
Modern Dance began in America early in the 20th century when the predecessors of the artists we know today, began their own rebellions against both the formality of ballet and the predictability of popular show dancing of the period. Their techniques and styles were very different; what they had in common was dissatisfaction with the options then available to dancers and the ultimate goal of conveying to their audiences a sense of inner and outer reality – an aim that still inspires modern dancers today."

In the past few decades cross-fertilization has improved the technique and physical range of contemporary dance, while ballet has incorporated some of the greater expressivity and flexibility of modern. But still much is to be gained by openness in both directions.

What draws me to Whim W'Him is a serious (and humorous) dedication to exploring both worlds, without prejudice or foregone conclusions. Among other things, Olivier Wevers's investigates hands, arms, upper bodies, faces in motion; he combines earthbound movement and the pointe shoes usually associated with airiness and the attempt to conquer space; and he tweaks the boundaries of gender, truly "conveying to [his] audiences a sense of inner and outer reality. To my mind and taste—and admittedly it is to a large degree a matter of taste—one can say something exciting and new without being "cutting edge" to the point of leaving the audience bleeding.

dancing—Lucien

2010-01-16T12:32:00.000-08:00

Lucien Postlewaite

is an elegant classical dancer,
the epitome of clarity in motion.

I asked him what his role is in the process—aside from dancing and being Olivier's spouse. "To tie up any loose strings," he replied, "and to be a second set of eyes." Especially in tech week, when Olivier often has been involved in questions of lighting, costumes, or Byron's new music, Lucien has acted as a sort of "energy co-ordinator."

Originally Olivier was going to choreograph a particular solo for Lucien and send it by Skype to him in New York, where he was dancing just after the new year with a group from Pacific Northwest Ballet at the Joyce Theater. But there never was enough time. It was finally completed Thursday, after company class at PNB. What had made things more is the fact that PNB rehearsals for The Sleeping Beauty, where he will dance the prince were also going on simultaneously. That's an awful lot of role switching to undergo in the course of a day or a week, even for a strong and versatile dancer.

We haven't actually had much time to talk with travel and all his intense activity, so more of Lucien's ideas later.

For now, let a few photos do the talking...

dancing—Jonathan

2010-01-16T11:26:00.000-08:00

Jonathan Poretta

was also another one of those who encouraged Olivier to branch out on his own.

Jonathan projects a tremendous intensity in his dancing.
He's fast and athletic and full of the joy of movement.

From the beginning Jonathan was excited to work with new and different artists. It's challenging and difficult, he says, because you have the same work methods as the dancers you're used to working with. And it's a matter of style, too. "With ballet dancers, you can fall into place—we all start in the corps, where you have in common that you are all trying to be exactly together. With modern dancers, it's more individual from the get-go, the more individual the better."

From unfamiliar dancers, "You can learn a lot," he says. "We watch each other." He calls it "a great group, all so talented." Jonathan likes the idea of what the dancers and Olivier call "the connection section," as a metaphor. They curl and sway and wind among each other in a chain, each different and distinct, but all connected to each other.

Like some of the others, Jonathan says he wishes there was more rehearsal time. For him, there was even less of it back in June because he was going back east to teach at the Pennsylvania Youth Ballet. "It never really freaks me out, though," he says, and I get the impression he loves the challenge of it all.

Jonathan, too, emphasizes how specific Olivier is as a choreographer—"He's the most, or one of the most ever—to the point where I want to smack him sometime!"

But it's also obvious, from how he takes up Olivier's suggestions/corrections and incorporates them enthusiastically, that Jonathan rises to the bait and revels in that very precision.

For more of Jonathan's professional bio:

http://www.whimwhim.org

Second photo from the top from Pacific Northwest Ballet

dancing—Chalnessa

2010-01-16T09:38:00.000-08:00

Chalnessa Eames

is a wonderful, quirky dancer, who takes to Olivier's style like a bird to air.

She's one of those friends of his who urged him to start a company of his own.
Not just for his sake, either, but because it's wonderful to have time to work in a studio with someone, she says,to be the tool of a choreographer who is in the process of creating a work.

Olivier, says Chalnessa, has drive, want, passion. He's not just a choreographer. "You have to encourage that." At the start, back in June, she adds, it was lots of work. Intense. At least mostly. Fun too.

Everyone had to be on 110%.

"I love everyone he's gotten together for this show. We work incredibly well together, though it hasn't always been consistent because of time."

Chalnessa, like other dancers, comments on the enormous attention Olivier pays to detail.
"It helps that we're such good friends," she says, "because I want to kill him half the time the says....and then a while later I'll see, dammit, you were right." He knows what he wants.

Many choreographers these days are just putting a series of steps: "Lots of time it's just a class to music. Olivier has a real, distinct style. There's whimsy, but it's not cute. You need a strong person to carry his choreography." And many dancers are great technicians, but in a mold, without well-developed characters of their own.

Chalnessa makes an interesting point when she says that Olivier is very precise about the movements he wants made, but he doesn't impose how you should feel. "He doesn't spend a lot of time outlining a character." In the "get the boys section," for example, where she and Hannah and Kylie are egging on three of the men. You could hardly get three more different woman.
"But as long as you have your feet and hands, etc. in the right place, you can fill in the steps with who you are."
And Chalnessa loves to invent a character.

Sometimes for that reason she finds Balanchine hard, for example in Agon (although, as I know from watching her for years, she dances even the most un-quirky classics beautifully).

There hasn't been enough time as everybody would have liked for 3Seasons, especially working with the new music—one of Chalnessa's sections was finished just two days ago.

The upcoming performances, she said Thursday before the dress rehearsal, are "exciting and terrifying," mostly because of the new music. After the dress Chalnessa said, "Five days ago, I didn't know if we were going to be able to bring this thing off..." Then she added with an incandescent smile, "But now I know we will."

And last night they did.

dancing—Vincent

2010-01-14T17:04:00.000-08:00

Vincent Lopez

started taking dance classes on a bet, or dare.
An uncle, back from a visit to Spain, came bringing gifts—a shawl, a fan, a comb—but
not to him.
Instead he, like Vincent's mother a flamenco dancer, promised his nephew to teach him flamenco, if you dance a year of ballet."
"And here I am," says Vincent.

Flamenco rhythms have been ingrained in Vincent from birth. He was aslo already a gymnast (part of what explains the extraordinary and fluid control of his solo in FRAGMENTS). "I was a jock little child—soccer, baseball, basketball—a very physical child. Being active was what I wanted to do."

Ballet class was hard, to do all these difficult movements, with music, and also to express oneself at the same time. But it was a challenge that kept him interested. In the summer of 2005, while he was enrolled in the American Ballet Theatre intensive summer program and beginning to feel hemmed in by a diet of entirely classical music, Vince heard about a dance class taught by former ABT soloist, Sandra Brown, at Complexions. It was contemporary dance, "a whole other way of moving, a different kind of aesthetic, a way of filling my body to its fullest."

For about a year and a half, Vincent has been with Spectrum Dance Theater. Olivier saw him dance there and in other programs around town.

Vince finds WhimW'Him a special company. It makes use of "the energy that each of us holds." The experience has been "fun and productive." The dancers work really well together and complement each other.

"No one would want not to work as hard as someone else."
And he repeats, "It's special..."

For more on Vincent's professional bio,
see http://www.whimwhim.org

rehearsing-3

2010-01-14T10:56:00.000-08:00

On the home stretch (an old but always serviceable phrase!).
Last night, again, the dancers rehearsed from mid-afternoon to late evening.
The tech crew had been going for multiple hours.
A long day, but a lot got done. A lot was going on too, 3:30—10:30:
•Refinement of the choreography and the particulars of its execution—sometimes 3 or 4 different bits being gone over at once by small groups of dancers, soloists, Olivier...

•Tech rehearsal, including runthroughs of sections with Michael Mazzola's dazzling lighting

•Practice for the first time with certain props, including a large garbage can, which plays a surprising role in 'Winter'
•Arrival of Olivier's parents and his teacher from Belgium, straight from the airport
•Costume tryouts to see how they work in action—modifications for safety or aesthetics

•Lighting cues for the new music

Last night Olivier said he was feeling less stretched and stressed out than the day before.
As when you are cleaning out a room or office, I thought, and are at the stage where everything is strewn all over the place with no apparent order—you doubt your sanity in ever having undertaken this project and despair of finishing.
Then suddenly, it starts to come together.
You can see the shape of what it will be, and, though there's still a lot to do, bunches of things will no doubt go wrong, you know it's going to happen.

That's the stage of WhimW'Him now.
Tonight is dress rehearsal, before a bit of an audience.
Coming down to the wire, and excitement is in the air!

dancing—Kylie

2010-01-13T14:21:00.000-08:00

Kylie Lewallen
is a happy woman,

and she has the wit to recognize it.
She is also a beautiful and sensual dancer.

An extremely impulsive person, she says, she got to Seattle on impulse. She'd been thinking of venturing out into new territory, when she met Ty Cheng at a photo shoot in LA, when she was on leave because of back injuries.
Ty's tales of Seattle, an interesting, artsy city with the amazing Spectrum Dance Theater, intrigued her.

So did he.
They met in October and by January she had packed up the car and moved.

It was hard to leave her whole family in LA,
but she's never regretted the change.
"It felt right."

In Seattle, Kylie helped out in the studio in exchange for class at Spectrum for the season. When a dancer sprained a foot and had to back out of a tour to Florida, Kylie was chosen to replace her. It was a kind of one-the-road audition. She fell in love with the intensity of Spectrum, the way you get pushed beyond what you ever thought possible.

Kylie sings too, and at one point took a year off dance to pursue it,
but decided she wasn't really ready. So back to dancing.
"Go for it!" she thought. "Dance won't last for ever."

And the experience helps her singing, which she hasn't given up.

"I'm so happy up here," she exclaims about Seattle. "Spectrum and Olivier's company—it's a dream, completely fulfilling. Olivier is an amazing director, and everyone is excited for this collaboration. The atmosphere so positive. There's no melodrama, nothing but fun.
I hope we can give some of that to the audience. "

Asked about the disparate backgrounds of the WhimW'Him dancers, Kylie says, "The dancers are all of high caliber in their own field. We feed on each other—the details in the steps, how they are approached. Everyone is open minded." There are also connections. Dance is a smallish world. Different circles come together.

Kylie trained in pointe shoes, though not a lot. She has done Nutcracker performances in LA, some in honor of her ballet teacher from when she was 8, who had passed away. But the relevé that Donald Byrd uses continually in his work, has given her very strong ankles, which helps a lot.

For more of Kylie's professional bio,
go to http://www.whimwhim.org

dancing—Ty

2010-01-12T13:35:00.000-08:00

Ty Alexander Cheng

...is a fitting member of this company.
He started dancing on a whim.

He was sitting in a science class, when a friend suggested he go along as moral support to a high school drill team tryout.
He went, tried out himself, and found he liked and was good at it.
Next, his math teacher, a principal ballet dancer with Pacific Festival, saw him and suggested he audition for the Nutcracker. Before that he'd never seen a ballet. Even the posters on the wall were new to him. He knew nothing about barres, marley floors, tights, dance belts—"I've got to wear what?"

Before long, Ty was looking into opportunities for concert dance rather than competition.
After stints with various companies in NYC and the NW, Ty met Donald Byrd, whom he greatly admired. "Come up to Seattle," Byrd said, "when you're ready to do some real dancing."

Ty did, and he's been four years with Spectrum.

It was hard at first, "to dance with such intention."
Technique is important just as a tool, on the way to dance, and Donald Byrd is so specific. "You have plenty of freedom for intepretation and your own personality, but it must fit his intention."

Ty finds Olivier's way of working similar.
"The choreography is precise, but with room for quirkiness. Humanness."
Ty notes Olivier's love for details: "I need to see every finger of that hand."

It's as if your body is an orchestra, where one instrument is featured while the others surround and support it. "You need to know what pard of you body is being accented." A sizzling section of 3Seasons—performed by Ty with Kylie Lewallen, his partner in life and dance—is a perfect illustration. A sinuous moveable kiss, lips the center and focus, propels the two dancers around the stage, evoking applause at rehearsal.

As a dancer, Ty used to focus on strength, stamina, and a kind of ferocity.

"Now it's about how to move in space and what's at stake." There's less posturing, more "being in the now— like an actor who knows his character will be killed in the next act, but who has to stay present in the moment, without signaling ahead." He loves working with experienced dancers like Donald and Olivier. The challenge is to work, like a good mixing/mastering engineer (which is one of Ty's other skills), to bring out the intention of the choreographer, not to add extra, to work as an ensemble.

Ty admires Olivier's courage in starting the company. There are lots of strong personalities in WhimW'Him. "Every person has to be humble. They are. It's a great atmosphere."

Second photo down from Spectrum

dancing—Jim

2010-01-11T15:29:00.000-08:00

Jim Kent

is an independent dancer

and an independent man.

He dances for several companies, but doesn't invent or conceive of himself inside of any one institutional structure.

In his life, both precarious and free, he thinks about balance, not just in his dancing, but between the various aspects of his life: dance—modern, but with a good deal of training in ballet; music—principally piano, also violin; and the supplementary work needed to bring in enough money to live, as a waiter, a piano player for ballet classes and various other jobs..

WhimW'Him's 3Seasons is an unusual experience for Jim. He generally collaborates with a choreographer or company, such as Scott/Powell Performance, to develop a piece gradually over months, whereas this work is, for scheduling reasons, being created in bursts of intense concentration for many hours at a time on a relatively small number of days.

Jim enjoys interacting with new dancers he may have seen perform, but has never worked with before. Seeing them not on stage, but in a rehearsal hall "in nothing but booty shorts," gives you a different perspective. The company of dancers that is creating WhimW'Him has a joyful dynamic says Jim, despite the different styles and backgrounds. Like other dancers he was a little nervous at the beginning, but they have forged a strong and cohesive group.

Jim loves learning new choreography, having new material to chew on. He is good at mimicking—"a natural sponge"...

...usually, that is. But when working with someone new like Olivier, it always takes a while "to grasp what is desired." Past projects of Jim's have had the luxury of process and time. "In this case, I've had to amp up my listening and observation strategies " to work in the shorter time frame.
"I don't want to sound like it was just easy and I picked it up like nothing. It was definitely new and foreign. I enjoy that part of learning new things. It's different, it's the challenging. And there's the draw."

In a group, Jim can be reticent—seeming quite serious, restrained, even shy. In younger years it might have bothered him, being in a way, the odd man out. But on the rehearsal floor he leads off with assurance and pizazz, and can project a quirky off-beat sensibility or terrific earnest, deadpan humor...

For more of Jim's professional bio, www.whimwhim.org

The second photo down, by Marc von Borstel, was found on http://valadancewear.com/blog/whim-whim-part-four.html

For Jim's professional bio:
http://www.whimwhim.org/company/jim-kent/index.html

dancing—Kaori

2010-01-09T23:47:00.000-08:00

Kaori Nakamura

...is intense,

whether she is dancing, eating, sewing on elastic, talking, watching others. She is small but so concentrated, her energy could easily fill someone twice her size.

A marvelous technician, she is pure, elegant, strong

Kaori has strong opinions too—likes, dislikes, and things that make her laugh...

She can be playful...

...or tragic

Not a big talker about her art, at least with people she doesn't know well, she embodies an astonishing range of danced characters, from classical Aurora in Sleeping Beauty or Odette/Odile in Swan Lake, through the childish, slightly bratty early Juliette of Maillot's Roméo et Juliette or the flirtatious wife of the French diplomat in The Merry Widow.

A deeply classical dancer, Kaori is nonetheless curious and willing to try most anything.

It fascinates and impresses her how modern dancers can curve their spines, how different from what she was trained to do. "They move so—" she demonstrates, "very hard for me..."

"...we learn each other."

Her favorite part of 3Seasons is Summer with Lucien and Jonathan, the section she wanted most to dance, even before the choreographic process was started

http://www.whimwhim.org/company/kaori-nakamura/index.html
for Kaori's bio...

dancing—Hannah

2010-01-07T13:39:00.000-08:00

Hannah Lagerway

Former Spectrum principal dancer,
rehearsal director,

and a choreographer herself,

Hannah has a compact body
and wonderful, strong arms,
expressive and sinewy.

She exudes humor
and meets the world
in an engagingly straightforward way.

At this moment in her life she is most passionate about learning and challenging herself as an artist. She is now embarked on a new adventure involving only dance. "Only dance" includes traveling, however, and she is now working in Portugal, with Daniel Cardoso's Lisbon-based Quorum Ballet. She was ready for a change, but the job offer came like an explosion when Cardoso contacted her last June. A replacement was needed for a show the coming weekend. From earlier contacts he thought Hannah would be the one who could do it, and he needed an answer "in an hour." A pretty wrenching decision, but she took the opportunity. It's been an aesthetic catalyst, she says, if also emotionally and physically taxing appears. She is meeting the challenge with new energy and her usual verve.

So how does that work—dancing both in Portugal and with Whim W'Him in Seattle?
Olivier, it seems, asked her for a week's rehearsal in June. "You learn fast," he said, and the duet with Lucien was created then. At the new year, Hannah emailed me from New York (where she had gone to dance a few performances with the Wideman/Davis Dance Company) about rejoining Whim W'Him for the last few weeks of rehearsal before the premiere of 3Seasons and then returning immediately to Portugal.
She said she was scared because of new work coming up right away in Lisbon, and delighted with her experience back in Seattle: "I was pretty nervous to come back again to rehearsals here. I'm very inspired by this group of people, so I felt like I had a lot to prove to myself and the company. Coming back has been so much fun, because everything else in my life has changed, so I can experience the choreography differently than before."

I asked Hannah what it was like working with pointe shoes in 3Seasons. She replied,

"It's been many years since I've had pointe shoes on consistently for performances. So, there is a particular challenge to feel like I am not compromising my 'grounded' or 'modern' understanding of movement while wearing them. On the other hand, it's very liberating to be doing floor work with them because there are so many more possibilities."

On working with Olivier she, like most of the other dancers, mentions his precision, and adds, "I'm so thankful for that—the clarity of what he wants—and he is still open to spontaneity and serendipity for there to be a natural evolution." She teases him some about his exactness: "Oh, I wasn't paying attention to my pinky. Thank you!" But she also responds to how, in the details of what he wants and doesn't, there is so much "room for me to be me."

Hannah points out that there is an enormous amount of respect and playfulness in this company. "I look forward to rehearsals," she says. "That's a huge difference from some of my other experiences. After giving so many sacrifices to dance, to go into rehearsals and simply enjoy dancing is pretty amazing."

for Hannah's bio...

http://www.whimwhim.org/company/hannah-lagerway/index.html

composing—Byron-1

2010-01-07T13:37:00.000-08:00

Words about music without sound are like words about dance without photos.
Before reading about composer Byron Au Yong,
you might like to listen to samples of his work at: HearByron.com

Byron is a bridge,

an arch,

a vault,

between old and new music,

West and East,

artifice and nature,

music and soundscape.

But it's not as though he hovers indecisively between.

Rather he partakes of each and brings with him sensibilities, ideas and techniques from the other.

A perfect match for 3Seasons.

The setup: At the start of each 3Seasons show, one Vivaldi season will be chosen, randomly, to be dropped. In its stead, the dancers will perform what Olivier has choreographed for that season to a live performance of Byron's corresponding movement, adapting as they dance to the spirit of his new composition.

Recently Byron talked to me about his work for 3Seasons.
He began composing in measures, with time signatures, 3/4, 4/4, 12/8 time. His limit was the Vivaldi score of The Four Seasons, as performed by Joshua Bell in the recording that will be used in 3Seasons. The structure of 3Seasons called for Byron to compose music of the same duration as the Vivaldi, not just generally for each season, but to match the intervals within each movement and the many changes of tempo and mood, so that dancers who had learned on the Vivaldi score could perform to Byron's musical composition.

These were the foundations. For himself, Byron says, to continue experimenting over time it's more intriguing to have the form to start with. It requires, I think, a great deal of discipline and imagination to find freedom, originality, and the expression of a radically different sensibility from Vivaldi's within his parameters of musical time.

And originality there is in Byron's work, in ample measure. Instrumentation to start with. Vivaldi (writing in the early 18th century) heard and used natural sounds, sounds of the country—birds, a cuckoo, trills—but Olivier and Byron have been thinking more of urban sounds, while Byron has been working in a 21st century awsthetic of noise and attention to texture and sound.
So for 3Seasons, Byron's musicians make use of:
   •the violin and cello Vivaldi used, though not in the same way—pressing with the bow down on the strings, so that instead of a pure tone, an acoustically distorted sound comes out
   •an out of tune toy piano—its action off, keys that stick; challenging, but distinctive, one of a kind
   •percussion—high heels
   •water
   •electronic sounds.
He says his musicians are "a lovely trio, enthusiaastic and willing to try new things—
noisier, nastier sounds, but finding a beauty in these harsher sounds."

In the course of composing this music, Byron has attained a much greater understanding and appreciation of Vivaldi, and an enormous admiration for him. Vivaldi was a very smart craftsperson. As an adept of the Baroque style, he was not so measured and symmetrical as a composer of the Classical period like Haydn.
"Vivaldi," Byron says, "is more organic, like some odd animal breathing. It's good to get in there and think what it has become in all these intervening years.

Over the centuries, Vivaldi's The Seasons have not just been interpreted hundreds of times, but even been rewritten by musicians and composers from near-contemporaries of his to 20th century heavy metal.
Why?
"Vivaldi is a ring tone now, but he has lasted because of his structural integrity." Byron says. He himself always been a formalist, with a strong interest in the structural aspect of music, and he sees a certain architectural essence to Vivaldi as why he lasts. In this project Byron has delighted in being able to get deeply into the structure of Vivaldi's music, while creating something altogether his own. "I am scared," he says, "and also confident, about the fact that there is no [apparent] trace of Vivaldi" in this new work.

So, what happened when the dancers first time they put movement designed for Vivaldi to with this entirely different musical composition? Watch for another post soon on Byron's reactions to the dancers and theirs to his sounds.

Byron Au Yong's CDs:

Kidnapping Water: Bottled Operas
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/byronauyong

BreathPlay
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/baycyb

or go to:
http://www.cdbaby.com/all/hearbyron

Color photos, Byron Au Yong
Black & white photo by La Vie

Visit our website at: http://www.whimwhim.org
And follow WhimW'Him on Facebook and Twitter

rehearsing-2

2010-01-03T15:19:00.000-08:00

Major choreographic work was done in June, but a lot was only sketched in.

Details were missing, connections unclear.

Some things worked brilliantly.

Others didn't—dancers didn't like them, Olivier couldn't get them right.

A lot more work was essential.

In December (2009) the dancers came together again,

to remember and reconstruct.

to add to what was learned in June,

to work on solos,

pas de deux,

ensembles.

After the first run-through, the second run-through, and the first tastes of Byron Au Yong's new music, things are coming together.

The company is excited—and exciting.

But a dancer's life is often peripatetic. Five of the nine left for New York and temporary dance engagements in the first days of the new year.

Rehearsals continue for those still in town and the others as they trickle back, but it will be January 11 before everyone reassembles—five days to opening night...

from then on it's flat out work!

Visit our website at: http://www.whimwhim.org

And follow WhimW'Him on Facebook and Twitter

rehearsing-1

2010-01-03T09:54:00.000-08:00

Creation of 3Seasons started back in June 2009.

As Olivier told On the Boards Artistic Director Lane Czaplinski, on the first day of rehearsal, dancers from Spectrum stood on one side of the room, PNB dancers on the other, independent dancer Jim Kent at the back. [Hear their conversation at: http://luxmedia.vo.llnwd.net/o10/clients/otb/20091201_wevers.mp3]

In the beginning, no one knew what to expect.

Olivier deliberately mixed the dancers up.
It was hard,
but they all were skilled,

versatile,
and willing to experiment.

Dancing, watching, asking questions,

they learned from each other

and became a cohesive group.

Bit by bit dance and dancers came together.

After the first rehearsal, Olivier emailed me (alas I was far away):

"It was wonderful to be on the stage at On the Boards. It is a wonderful space and just knowing that it is the same location as the performances is comforting.

"The dancers that I'm working with are so wonderful. Dedicated, professional and so f#$^&ing talented (excuse my French). Oh, and they are fun too.

"I love and want humor in the process. I don't take myself too seriously and being able to have that lightness of spirit, but with the full commitment to excellence is a treat.

"My kind of work environment!

"Worked on the opening solo that will be repeated in the last movement of the work. Started one way, and after two hours changed most of it, but I am happy now. My floor pas de deux is getting there...it is starting to look the way I am hoping for. Happy with some of the impossible contorsions (sorry dancers).

"Also started working on Jimmy's solo. The theme is about hoarding objects, and always wanting more (materialistic) and thinking we own it all. It will be more comedic than I thought.

"It was nice to see the dancers from different companies watching each other and appreciate each other's work. Comments like 'wow,he can move so well!...'look at that gorgeous...'

"Satisfying!

"Preparing myself for the day when I'll be frustrated and un-happy with my work. We never know when that happens.

"Is it when I am more tired? I just have to be ready to accept it, and move on, not dwell."

Visit our website at: http://www.whimwhim.org

And follow WhimW'Him on Facebook and Twitter

designing—Michael Cepress

2010-01-02T07:24:00.000-08:00

Michael Cepress’s grandfather was a watchmaker, and he makes clothes as if they were fine watches. He specializes in witty, dazzling detail, and surprising use of subtle color. His verve, panache, and real innovation light up the so-often stuffy arena of high-end menswear. A designer trained in classic clothing design and tailoring, his theatrical flare was fostered by a stretch of work with Seattle Opera.

Michael’s design ethic is a perfect match for 3Seasons,
with its combination of precise classical attention to detail and crazy new takes on about every aspect of moving the body across or along or above the floor.

An exhibit of Michael's called RRRIPP!! Paper Fashion,
caught Olivier's eye:

a collar, in paper...

...a costume, in felt.

What more would he come up with?
Baroque dresses constructed of surprising materials...

...foil-gilded derby hats...

...birdcage headdresses.

Whatever else, it was to be a true rethinking of costume design—a thinking carefully about again—that draws on conventions and well-established visual pleasures, but scours them of every ounce of boredom, pretension or staidness.

No automatic pilots here!

Toward the end of the process
of making 3Seasons costumes,
I spoke with Michael again, and ask him what had been
the special challenges and pleasures of this project.
First challenges—
Coming to terms with the different shapes of women's bodies;
employing new materials;
making garments that can stand up to the ferocious wear of dancers-in-motion and that needed, for the sake of serving the choreographic vision, to be dirtied, stretched, used in extreme conditions.
Then the pleasures—
which came from learning, putting known skills to use in creating something new; and from the working ensemble, each part of the enterprise feeding on the others with a rare degree of subtlety in communication between the co-creators.

...see more of Michael Cepress's work at michaelcepress.com

and follow his blog at http://www.michaelcepress.blogspot.com

Photos in this post supplied by Michael Cepress and La Vie Photography

Visit our website at: http://www.whimwhim.org

And follow WhimW'Him on Facebook and Twitter

beginnings—Olivier

2009-12-30T09:10:00.000-08:00

At last, the WhimW'Him blog is up and running!

Format not elegant, but it will do the job for now.

Didn't realize how easy it was to start something like this—

sometimes division of labor makes more problems than it solves.

So, countdown to showtime.

17 days, including today and opening night.

What to say to welcome the launch of WhimW'Him?

Something new ±each day to highlight the company's premiere.

Begin at the beginning with WhimW'Him's inventor/choreographer Olivier Wevers.

In Olivier's work it's the hands I notice first, and arms...

Clutching,
cupping,
flat against someone's face...

Tender, sinister, classical, crazy, elusive...

arms and hands in Olivier's work echo and express his belief in technique as only a tool.

And his desire to use these tools not just to make formal patterns, or to perfect poses, but to say something, to move viewers, to change their feelings/ ideas/ perceptions.

Some time ago, when I scarcely knew Olivier, a character in a novel I was writing—a dancer-choreographer—said to a reporter of a piece he was creating:

"I am drawn to times of transition. Those moments in each of our individual stories, when one condition mutates into another—growing up, falling in love, being initiated into the trials of adulthood, aging, death—the grand or minute adjustments of balance we learn to make. In dance too I am searching out points of transformation. When heaviness in our bodies gives way to a sense of contravening gravity, or vice versa. When rest turns to motion. When stillness becomes sound. Or the clumsiness of a student grows into the grace of a dancer."

Like that fictional dance, 3Seasons is about metamorphosis. More specifically (unlike my concocted piece), the first major work to be performed by WhimW'Him will explore how we humans change the world, how it transforms us, and the relation of our actions to the cycle of the seasons.

Stay tuned here for more on WhimWhim and the co-creators of 3Seasons...

For Olivier's bio and much more about the company,
visit our website at: http://www.whimwhim.org

And follow WhimW'Him on Facebook and Twitter