Kinesthetic Connection and Audience Reflection: Historical Themes in Columbia, Manifest
Emily A. Hawk
Department of Theatre, Dance, and Film
TDF490: Independent Study
18 April 2016
Graduation date: May 7, 2016
Hawk 2
Using dance to present history is a challenge because it relies on an ephemeral art form to
preserve an historical moment. Still, the choreographer’s choices of how to arrange bodies in
space can have political subtext within the context of a work’s creation and performances. To
examine the relationship between dance and history, I choreographed Columbia, Manifest, a sitespecific dance performance in the galleries of the Phillips Museum of Art at Franklin & Marshall
College. I worked with other artists and art forms in the process to create a collaborative arts
presentation that explored the mythology of American exceptionalism. Throughout this process,
I discovered that dance performance and gallery spaces function well in tandem as they heighten
the kinesthetic engagement of the viewer, which primes him or her to engage in profound
reflection on the historical themes presented in the work.
Columbia, Manifest resulted from many years of brainstorming, several months of
analytical research, and many weeks of rehearsals with my cast of four dancers. Below, I will
reflect upon my personal experience of creating this piece, using my choreography journal as a
major source. For this reflection, I will use the same framework established by Lincoln Kirstein
that I used in my research paper, examining elements of plot, production, politics, audience
response, and precedent. Although this reflection may not cover every single influence on the
project or every choice I made throughout the process, I have selected the most central aspects of
creating Columbia, Manifest to consider as I reflect upon the relationship between dance and
history in a museum gallery setting.
Plot
Although Columbia, Manifest did not have an explicit narrative with characters, conflicts,
or resolutions, it had an intentional overarching theme. My intention was for the piece to use the
Hawk 3
history of the Columbia River and its dams as a metaphor for American expansion. As I
developed this metaphor, I grappled with the balance between conveying my theme clearly and
avoiding cliché references to Americana. Yet, I also sought to avoid such extreme abstraction
that viewers would not recognize the iconography as American. As I refined my intention for the
work, there were two particular factors that I considered: the nature of the historical theme I
would address, and the degree of influence that the Phillips Museum and “River Relations”
exhibit would have on that theme.
From my first imaginings of what my independent study would be, I knew that it would
engage with a subject of American history. I first toyed with potential topics for my senior
independent study in 2013, despite how distant the implementation of that project seemed at the
time. This was the year that I was first introduced to the work of Martha Graham by taking part
in F&M’s reconstruction of Celebration (1933) and attending the Graham Company’s summer
intensive. I recall being struck by the masterful presentation of American heritage in
Appalachian Spring (1944), which would later become one of the four case study pieces in my
research. For months, I daydreamed about the characters’ journeys and played Copland’s melody
in my head, reflecting on my first experience of dance and history in collaboration.
In the two years following my first viewing of Appalachian Spring, I kept a notebook of
potential topics for my independent study. Naturally, my affinity for this Graham classic pointed
me toward the mythology of manifest destiny. I also thought about Graham’s solo Frontier
(1935), and the rope featured in Isamu Noguchi’s set that stretched endlessly beyond the wings. I
was amazed by how this extended rope, a symbol of the West, implied infinite space even in the
confines of the proscenium stage. At this point, I imagined that dimensionality and spatial
arrangement would be a focus of my independent study.
Hawk 4
After performing in my second historical reconstruction at F&M, Marche Heroique
(1916) by Isadora Duncan, my interest returned to the cultural context of choreography. Thanks
to the lessons of our director Lori Belilove, I knew that this piece of Duncan’s choreography was
a politically charged call to action in World War I, and I realized that perhaps audiences in 2014
were seeing the piece as a century-old time capsule for that patriotic spirit. Duncan’s own words
brought me back to the mythology of manifest destiny: “I see America dancing, standing with
one foot poised on the highest point of the Rockies, her two hands stretched out from the Atlantic
to the Pacific, her fine head tossed to the sky, her forehead shining with a Crown of a million
stars.”1
In the spring semester of my junior year, knowing I wanted to combine dance and history
in my independent study, I decided that I would examine pieces with explicit historical themes
for the way in which they present the past to an audience. Spatiality still interested me, too,
which led to my decision to make a site-specific piece rather than hold a studio showing in the
Roschel Performing Arts Center. Having taken a course in the Phillips Museum of Art,2 I
considered the gallery space as a potential location for the performance component of my project
and cleared the idea with the museum’s staff. I was nervous about creating a site-specific piece
since I had no experience with site-specific choreography or performance, but resolved myself to
accept the challenge of rethinking the boundaries of performance space.
As my junior year came to a close, I took comfort in the fact that I had established two
factors of my performance, but still felt uneasy about the unlimited number of choices those
factors presented for the practical development of the work. I knew that I would choreograph
1Isadora Duncan in The Vision of Modern Dance 2nd edition, eds. Jean Morrison Brown, Naomi
Mindlin, and Charles H. Woodford (Highstown, NJ: Princeton Book Company, Publishers,
1998), 8.
2
HIS376: Museum Mysteries, taught by Philip Zimmerman in Spring 2015.
Hawk 5
about American themes and present the piece in the gallery of an art museum, but I didn’t quite
know why I was doing that or what exactly I hoped to learn from the experience. That summer,
however, I took a trip that redirected and recharged my approach to the project.
My academic enrichment trip to Paris, Copenhagen, and London in the summer of 2015
marked my first time ever leaving the United States. It was my first time even leaving the
Eastern Time zone. The purpose of the trip was to see ballet performances and relate them to
each city’s ballet heritage, but I also visited art museums as a complementary element, another
forum in which these cities present their history to the public. While touring the museums, I was
struck by the various ways in which visitors interacted with the art: how near or far they stood
from it, how they walked through the museum, the angle from which they admired the works.
My intrigue for the body language I observed in the museums reaffirmed my decision to use the
Phillips Museum galleries for my performance.
However, I began to question my decision to reflect on American themes. Why did I feel
as though I had to incorporate American history into my project? Why was I even interested in
American history to begin with? I suddenly felt as though my lifelong passion for American
history only existed because I had never been exposed to any other environment than the eastern
coast of the United States. I found myself questioning the personal exceptionalism that the
United States held in my academic interests.
Upon returning to campus for the fall semester, I met with Phillips Museum staff to
discuss which exhibit would be up during the weekend of my performance. When the staff
member informed me that the exhibit would be a multi-media collaboration by Professor John
Holmgren and Nick Conbere featuring the Columbia River and its dams, the subject seemed too
serendipitous to be true. The exhibit was called “River Relations,” and approached “the dams as
Hawk 6
both cultural phenomena and as a metaphor for industrial scale intervention into nature.”3 I had
intended on using the Curriculum and Rothman Galleries no matter what the art on the walls
would be. I never imagined that it could relate to the subject of manifest destiny that I had been
considering, as the concept of manipulating nature corresponded to the pioneers’ takeover of the
Western territories. It seemed like a sign that I should return to my roots in American history for
this project.
However, I resisted fully embracing Holmgren and Conbere’s subject from “River
Relations” because I did not want to rely on the coincidence of our simultaneous presentations.
For that reason, I decided that I would simply use the broader idea of the Columbia River and its
dams as a metaphor for the history of American expansion. I knew that in both cases, man had
manipulated and attempted to control nature only to have to deal with the dangerous implications
of that interference. I wanted to explore the mythology of manifest destiny and American
exceptionalism through movement, bringing me back to my original vision with an outlook
ripened by personal experience.
Production
As I began planning the production, I made decisions about certain elements that alluded
to Americana without being too explicit. The production category covers a wide range of these
choices I had to make during the development of Columbia, Manifest. It encompasses core
elements of the work, such as the choreography and original score. It also includes the
collaborative relationships I had with other artists and art forms. Finally, it addresses the sitespecific nature of the piece and the process of moving the choreography from the dance studio to
3
John Holmgren and Nick Conbere, exhibit description posted in the Phillips Museum.
Hawk 7
the gallery space. Although perhaps at the exclusion of other production elements, I will focus
predominantly on these aspects because of their centrality to both my creative process and the
final version of the piece.
To create the choreography for the work, I primarily relied upon two compositional tools
in tandem: improvisation and imagery. For the first section, which I started making in October
2015, I relied on imagery of the Columbia River to generate movements, thinking of the speeds,
shapes, and curves of the river. For inspiration, I went into the dance studio and read several
chapters from Richard White’s The Organic Machine, an environmental history of the Columbia
and its dams. I was particularly struck by one passage about energy:
I emphasize energy because energy is such a protean and useful concept. The flow of
the river is energy, so is the electricity that comes from the dams that block that flow.
Human labor is energy; so are the calories stored as fat by salmon for their journey
upstream. Seen one way, energy is an abstraction; seen another it is as concrete as
salmon, human bodies, and the Grand Coulee Dam.4
These words excited me. I sorted out my definitions of abstract and concrete energy
through improvisation. During this exercise I determined that, for me, the abstract was an
elongated movement or pause and the concrete was whatever movement released this suspension
and took the dancer through space. I continued by improvising and setting the movements until I
had four complete phrases, thinking about natural and unnatural forms of energy, and how that
energy could pause or flow like the river itself. The content of those original four phrases
repeated throughout the remainder of the work, and I manipulated elements of the movement
quality so that the choreography would seem familiar, yet somehow different to the attentive
viewer when it repeated.
4
Richard White, The Organic Machine (New York: Hill and Wang, 1995), ix.
Hawk 8
To do so, I relied on my knowledge of the Laban Movement Analysis (LMA) and
Labanotation system of describing movement that I had learned in a course at F&M.5 Created by
Rudolf von Laban, LMA “addresses qualitative changes of movement in space and time as well
as qualitative analysis of dynamic elements of movement expression.”6 The Labanotation
component of LMA features symbols that correspond to every body part and every basic action,
as well as how the movement is performed and in which spatial direction it travels. In my
choreography, I primarily considered the LMA effort qualities, described as “the mover’s
attitude toward investing energy in…flow, time, weight, and space,” or “an inroad to
expressivity.”7
I used these effort qualities – particularly flow and time – to inform how my
choreography changed throughout the piece. For example, to show the contrast between the
natural state of the Columbia River and its condition after it was dammed, I shifted the
movement from a quality of free flow and sustained time to bound flow and sudden time. In
other words, the movements in the beginning of the piece were full, relaxed, and fluid, but the
movements toward the end of the piece were sharp, staccato, and rigid. My intention was to
express how manipulation of the river’s flow transformed it into something more mechanized
and less natural. Having sketched the symbols for each effort quality in my choreographic notes,
I was able to effectively describe these dynamic shifts to my dancers in rehearsal. As the dancers
responded to these varying effort qualities in their movement, they also embodied my intention.
5
TDF220: Introduction to Movement Analysis, taught by Lynn Matluck Brooks in Fall 2014.
6“Intro to LMA,” NYU Movement Projects, accessed 17 April 2016,
https://movement.nyu.edu/projects/lma/intro.html
7
“Intro to LMA,” NYU Movement Projects, accessed 17 April 2016,
https://movement.nyu.edu/projects/lma/intro.html
Hawk 9
However carefully I considered and documented my choreography, the ultimate
production of Columbia, Manifest would not be possible without my various collaborations
across artistic mediums. The most in-depth collaboration was with Timar Shevlin, the musician
who composed the original score. But, I also feel as though I collaborated with John Holmgren
and Nick Conbere by relating my movement to their work in “River Relations,” as well as
collaborating with the architecture of the Rothman and Curriculum Galleries. Dance, music,
visual art, and architecture combined to present Columbia, Manifest as a collaborative arts
statement.
My collaboration with Timar was the first one that I initiated during my creative process,
and also the most extensive collaboration associated with this project. I had collaborated with
Timar twice before on dance and music projects,8 so I knew that we had a productive working
relationship and that our ideas meshed well. Neither of us had ever choreographed or composed a
piece of this length before, but we accepted the challenge together as collaborators. I trusted him
to create the music for a project of this magnitude and personal significance, and I am so
thankful that he could contribute his compositional skills to Columbia, Manifest.
Throughout the fall and spring semesters, Timar and I created the music and
choreography simultaneously. We met in person once, a meeting in which I described my
intention for the piece with him and the concept of Laban effort qualities. During that meeting,
he developed a rough sketch for the structure of his composition. From that point on, we were in
constant contact about the development of our respective component. He would send me short
clips of music to approve before he continued composing. I would record rehearsals and send
him the videos, and he would adjust the length of the music to match the movement cues. I gave
8
Celestial Bodies (2013) and land/Here (2014).
Hawk 10
him tremendous latitude in that regard, allowing him to choose how and when the movement and
music should correspond to each other throughout the piece.
The final versions of the choreography and composition mirrored each other in some
fundamental ways. One of these ways was quoting material from other artists to support the
intention of the piece. I used symbolic gestures drawn from iconic American moments in the
choreography, such as a peace sign and a salute. Timar quoted melodies from Woody Guthrie’s
songs about the construction of the Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River. Similarly, since
Timar knew about the Laban effort qualities I used, his music shifted from predominantly free to
bound flow as my choreography did. For example, the music began with calm and serene
minimalism, broken by a silence midway through the piece that represented the damming of the
river. From then on, the music took on a tense, industrialized tone, like the movement. Working
with Timar on this project was a rewarding collaboration that resulted in the ideal composition
for Columbia, Manifest.
Another collaborative element of this process was the relationship of my choreography to
the art in “River Relations.” Despite my resistance to relying heavily on the art, I was captivated
by the wall in the Curriculum Gallery that featured hundreds of small images printed on paper,
arranged in the shape of the Columbia River at the Bonneville Dam. I frequently went to the
museum and studied the images displayed on that wall, admiring it from different angles and
distances and taking notes on the icons I recognized. In my view, this wall seemed analogous to
my gesture phrase: a compilation of segmented symbols, somehow smoothed into a cohesive
whole. Because of this, I used this wall of “River Relations” as the backdrop for the introduction
of the gesture phrase.
Hawk 11
Since the dancing occurred in both the Curriculum and the Rothman Galleries, I also had
to consider John Holmgren’s exhibit “District of the Penguins” as a set surrounding my
choreography. Although I did not respond to individual works in “District of the Penguins” as I
did in “River Relations,” I learned that Holmgren’s overall intention for the exhibit could
complement the historical themes of my project. As he said, the combination of still life
photographs and archival journals of Antarctic travels served to explore how people record their
experiences, both in memory and in text.9 He was addressing the same questions of preservation
that guided the research portion of my project, and so I welcomed “District of the Penguins” as a
setting for the creative portion.
As I considered how to arrange the action throughout the space and which section of the
piece would be performed in which gallery, I collaborated with the architecture of the setting in
which Columbia, Manifest was performed. First, as simple as it seems, I had to consider the
shape of the floor. I have only ever performed on or choreographed for a rectangular proscenium
stage. Of course, the shape of the galleries presented practical challenges since our rehearsal
space in the Holmberg-Eichmann dance studio was rectangular and only half the length of the
Rothman Gallery. We placed a portable barre in the center of the floor to represent the wall
separating the Curriculum Gallery from the Rothman Gallery, but it was still difficult to ascertain
what the gallery environment would be like. With limited times to access the Phillips Museum,
we rehearsed solely in the dance studio until just three days before the performance. I was
nervous about the process of translating the material to the space it was created for, but the
dancers ultimately adapted brilliantly to their new environment during dress rehearsal.
9
Conversation with John Holmgren, 19 January 2016.
Hawk 12
But, I also had to consider the arrangement of the choreographic events within that
irregular shape. I needed to decide where each chapter of the piece would take place. To this end,
I took several trips by myself to the gallery space, standing in various locations throughout the
space to understand all possible perspectives, and imaging my choreography from 360 degrees of
vantage points. I worried that the audience would get too comfortable in the familiarity of the
square Curriculum gallery, and for the most part, I avoided any setup that would encourage a
theatre-in-the-round audience arrangement. The Rothman Gallery, by contrast, was long and
open except for several glass cases and moveable walls in its center. I chose to move two of the
glass cases due to their fragility and precarious positions in the dancers’ pathways, but kept all of
the movable walls in the space. Although these walls prevented a clear view from across the
gallery, I hoped that their presence would encourage the audience to make bolder choices in
positioning themselves to see the dancers.
The final production collaboration I engaged with was my costume design, which I
developed with my mother, who is experienced in sewing. In designing the costumes, I knew I
wanted them to be red, white, and blue – the colors of the United States – but with a twist. So, I
chose a light blue fabric that could be seen as the color of the river’s water instead. It was as if
the white and blue American colors had bled together to result in this lighter shade. I decided
that the dancers would wear dresses so that the fabric could flow as an extension of their
movements. The dresses I made from this light blue fabric were accented with red lace and
sashes. So, although all the colors of Americana were there, they did not appear outright. This
approach of bending explicit iconography guided many of the smaller-level decisions I made
throughout the production process.
Hawk 13
Politics
Of my four case study pieces, I found that all of them contained some form of political
subtext in the context of their creation and premiere. Some choreographers made their political
opinion explicit, while others relied on audience reflection and consideration for the political
subtext to emerge. In creating Columbia, Manifest, I leaned toward the latter approach, and used
my piece to ask a question about American exceptionalism rather than make a statement about
my personal opinion on the topic.
I knew very early in my choreographic process that I wanted to use the piece to ask a
question of the audience about the mythology of manifest destiny. Including the word “Manifest”
in the title nudges the viewer toward that line of thinking. I wanted the viewer to question the
dominance of American ideals and develop his or her own answer to that question as it relates to
their personal experience of American mythology. I avoided making my personal opinion
explicit in the choreography and, in turn, directed the audience’s experience to their own
reflection on the subject. To this end, the Columbia River metaphor served my aims by allowing
me to indirectly explore the topic of westward expansion.
Certainly, I have my own opinion on the reality of American exceptionalism, having
taken a history course that examined this very subject.10 I do believe that the United States is
exceptional in some fundamental ways – specifically, its youth in relation to other Western
powers, its massive geographic size, and its diversity of ethnic backgrounds. Yet, in most
cultural respects, the United States is not unique among Western nations. It has dabbled in
colonialism, operates on Judeo-Christian ideology, and shares Western aesthetics. Even within
10
HIS236: U.S. Empire, taught by Louise Stevenson in Fall 2013.
Hawk 14
the context of dance history, the United States has forged its identity in relation to the standard of
European ballet – usually by modifying it or rebelling against it.
Yet, I resisted advertisement of my personal sentiment in Columbia, Manifest. Who was I
to question American dominance when the United States had monopolized my life experiences
and worldview until just nine months ago? Still, despite my hesitations, I ultimately realized that
even asking the audience to question the mythology was a political act in its own right. Inviting
the audience to verbally respond to the piece in a talkback session immediately following the
performance was an extension of that political action. This format implied that the audience’s
experience, not just my intention as choreographer, was valid. Considering these realities, I had
to accept that even without being explicit, my piece still had political subtext.
I also think that the setting of the piece in a gallery space had political implications by
toppling the accepted behavioral norms for human interaction with art. Usually, as I observed
during my travels in Europe, people wander through an art museum in silence and stand at a
distance from the works to admire them. In a concert dance setting, the distance is usually even
more severe as the audience sits stationary in rows, removed from the action of the proscenium
stage. It is a formal exchange, and the expected way to interact with art. By placing Columbia,
Manifest in a gallery space and circulating the four dancers throughout the gallery from the
beginning of the work, I challenged the audience to break those norms of museum and
performance etiquette. Although just the sheer presence of dance moving through an art gallery
challenged expectations, it required heightened attention from the dancers and elective
engagement from the audience. The site-specific nature of the work fostered a different form of
interaction between art and audience.
Hawk 15
Response
Throughout the entirety of my creative process, I took the audience into consideration. I
attempted to predict how they would move through the gallery space, I organized a talk back
structure to hear their responses, and I worried about directing their experience too forcefully by
being explicit in expressing my theme. However, despite these considerations, I could never have
fully prepared for the experience of having seventy living, breathing people watch my
choreography each night and watch them make choices about it in real-time. I was
simultaneously exhilarated and overwhelmed when I saw the people wander through the space in
search of an ideal view, and I was reminded of the body language from the art admirers in those
European museums that captured my attention last summer.
The relationship of the audience to the art was certainly the factor that distinguished
Columbia, Manifest from any of my case study pieces or any piece I’ve previously
choreographed. As I have mentioned, having the audience move among the dancers defied the
expected norms of both performance viewing and museum-going. When I watched the video of
the piece and saw audience members descending the stairs into the gallery space, it seemed as
though viewers entered this new viewing environment with a range of emotions. Some were
hesitant and unsure while others were confident and curious. Soon, the audience members
realized that the nature of this performance demanded their active participation. They had to
move through the space if they wanted to see the dancers.
In reviewing the comments made by audience members during the talk back session, I
did not find the explicit reflections on American mythology that I expected and tried to set up
with my prompting questions. Instead, most of the comments focused on each individual’s
experience as a viewer in the work, such as the frustration of not being able to see everything or
Hawk 16
the excitement of being so close to the dancers as they performed. I wondered if perhaps I had
presented too many stimuli for the audience to take in and synthesize, or if the newness of
viewing environment for many audience members overpowered any context that emerged from
the work.
Even though the audience focused more on their experience than their interpretations, I
still perceived in some comments an understanding of information that related to my intended
theme. As one viewer described her experience, she noted a shift from free to bound flow in her
choices of where to stand because her ability to view the action became more limited as the piece
progressed. Her kinesthetic experience as a member of the audience paralleled the quality of the
choreography that the dancers embodied. Another viewer discussed how her experience
reminded her of mapping and traversing the landscape. This sensation corresponded to the
images of westward expansion and navigation of the frontier that guided my choreography. I
could still draw out reflections on my historical question even if they were not the primary focus
of audience responses.
From the nature of the feedback, I conclude that because the audience physically moved
along with the action of the piece, a deeper kinesthetic connection developed between the
viewers and the performers. In turn, the audience experienced a heightened attention to the piece
because of that kinesthetic connection. As one viewer said, he felt as if he was exploring the
river itself, and appreciated the ability to flow along with the dancers through the space. I predict
that, if he had seen the same piece on a proscenium stage, he would feel as if he were watching
the river go by rather than placing himself within the action. The deep kinesthetic connection
made possible by the site-specific setting therefore opened new possibilities for an engaged
audience experience.
Hawk 17
Yet, other viewers found their physical involvement in the piece somewhat frustrating
because they could not see every moment of the action. As one viewer pointed out, he realized
this dynamic early on in the piece and had to accept that fact before allowing himself to be
recruited into the viewing process. Others felt tense that they might be standing in the pathway of
a dancer and impede the action of the piece. There was a general sense of anxiety about breaking
the norms of museum behavior in order to watch this piece.
To summarize the majors themes I heard in audience feedback, I would highlight one
specific response that I received, prefaced by “I’m not a dancer, so take this for what it is.” This
individual found the frustration of his blocked view to be a refreshingly “egalitarian” experience:
he was on the same level, literally and figuratively, as the dancers, and both had to navigate their
positioning within the same spatial limits. He also found it “democratic,” as he and the other
audience members not only had a choice in where to stand, but an obligation to make that choice
if they wanted to see the dancers. Rich responses such as this one supported my theory that the
deepened kinesthetic connection corresponded to heightened attention to the work. They also
demonstrate that within the comments on viewer experience were embedded American themes
that addressed my intention for the work. The kinesthetic experience of the work therefore
allowed for profound historical reflections and questions from audience members.
Precedent
As I mentioned before, my participation in historical reconstructions such as Celebration
and Marche Heroique set a precedent for me to think about dance as a reflection of history. My
Hawk 18
previous choreographic works11 had also primed me to consider historical perspectives as I
generated and arranged movement. In this way, my personal experience as a performer and
choreographer influenced Columbia, Manifest. But, I was also influenced by the extensive
research I undertook in the fall semester. I found elements of my case study pieces surfacing in
my choreography, my approach, and my collaborations during the creation of the piece.
Graham’s Appalachian Spring shaped the thematic direction of my piece by inspiring me
to think about the American frontier and westward expansion. But, her collaboration with Aaron
Copland also served as a model for Timar and me. We approached our collaboration similarly,
with simultaneous creation of music and dance and constant correspondence between us. I also
thought of “River Relations” as analogous to Isamu Noguchi’s set, as a complement to the
intention of the choreography. As I arranged the movement in the space, the relationship of
Graham’s choreography to Noguchi’s set reminded me to be mindful of how I considered the
artworks in “River Relations.”
George Balanchine’s Agon provided me with inspiration for my movement vocabulary.
Balanchine relied on a classical ballet vocabulary and infused it with modern twists such as
parallel positions and turned-in legs. Since I am predominantly trained in ballet, I am inclined
toward a ballet aesthetic in my choreography. My more recent training in modern dance at F&M
has manifested in twists on the classical movements similar to Balanchine’s modifications, but
my choreography is still rooted firmly in the ballet technique. In this way, I see my work as
being similar to Balanchine’s as it relates to movement vocabulary.
Conversely, I see Balanchine’s Stars and Stripes as a contrast to my approach regarding
production elements. Stars and Stripes was over-the-top and flashy in its display of Americana in
11
land/Here (2014), a collaboration with Timar Shevlin based upon imagery of the Statue of
Liberty and Emma Lazarus’s poem “The New Colossus.”
Hawk 19
movement, music, costuming, and set. It was intended to be a crowd-pleaser, and did so by
capitalizing upon easily recognizable patriotic symbols. I sought to be subtle in placing
American iconography within these elements of Columbia, Manifest. I was not intending to
create a crowd-pleasing piece, but rather a crowd-stimulating piece that encouraged engagement
with the iconography beyond the superficial recognition of them. As such, I often thought of
Stars and Stripes as an example to avoid as a developed my work.
West Side Story by Jerome Robbins also had a minimal influence on Columbia, Manifest
because it dealt with elements of characterization that I wanted to avoid in my piece. In West
Side Story, costumes and stylized movements set up the conflict of the plot and defined the
relationships among the characters. In Columbia, Manifest, I avoided developing a clear
narrative in favor of exploring an overarching theme. So, I dressed all of my dancers identically
and drew their choreography from the same improvisational sources. Had they been dressed
differently or moved differently like the characters in West Side Story, perhaps an untended
narrative would have emerged between the characters, masking the themes of American
mythology and history of the Columbia River that I hoped to present instead.
Anna Sokolow’s Rooms had perhaps the greatest influence on Columbia, Manifest by
shaping my general approach to the topic of my piece. After watching excerpts of Rooms and
reading about its development, I was captivated by the idea of asking the audience a question and
inviting them to respond. It seemed like a mature choice that would require me to be intentional
and sensitive about every choreographic decision I made. I predicted that taking such an
approach would demand a higher level of attention and engagement from the viewers and
stimulate their cognitive synthesis of production elements.
Hawk 20
As I crafted the piece with the intention of asking a question, I was again inspired by
Sokolow’s internal structure of Rooms and allowed it to shape the structure of Columbia,
Manifest. Rooms was divided into subsections, each with its own premise, setting, and subtitle.
Columbia, Manifest was divided the same way. For example, the opening section of my piece,
“Pauses and Flow,” acclimated the audience to the unfamiliar viewing environment of the gallery
space. The trio, titled “Borderline,” explored the dimensionality of the choreography and the
limits of each dancer’s kinesphere. “Columbia,” the duet, considered both the triumphant and the
shameful connotations of its name. Sokolow’s work guided me in developing this structure and
approach to a piece of such great length.
Although I have always done a small amount of research before choreographing, I had
never preceded my creative process with such deep analytical research as I did for Columbia,
Manifest. In doing so, I set a new precedent for myself by letting academic research shape my
creative process. Still, I was often concerned that these two components of my project were too
divergent to ever find a connection. I feared that adding the site-specific element to my
production was too extreme of a variable for me to consider effectively.
Once I saw the final performance of Columbia, Manifest, complete with an audience and
finally set in the gallery space where I had imagined it, I realized that the connection between the
two components would be audience engagement and response. The way in which the audience
interacted with the piece marked the major difference between a traditional concert dance
arrangement and my site-specific setting. Therefore, examining audience response to the piece
was a rich opportunity from which to draw conclusions from the creative process in comparison
to my prior research.
Hawk 21
Conclusion
Columbia, Manifest was not just a site-specific dance performance; throughout my
creative process, it evolved into a collaborative arts statement that will guide my future
endeavors as a choreographer and dance historian. It drew upon influences from both my
collaborative relationships and my research to explore how the combination of dance and
museums can raise an historical question and present it to an audience. Throughout the process, I
learned that this combination of dance and museums functions well to engage the audience with
an historical question because it challenges the normal behavior of interacting with art in a
dynamic way.
The somewhat unorthodox setting of dance in a gallery space added an element of
unpredictability for the dancers, the audience, and for me as the choreographer. For the dancers,
it was difficult to anticipate how they would adapt to a new environment while adjusting in the
moment to the positioning of the audience members in their pathways. For the audience, there
was a combination of excitement and uncertainty as they awaited the next development in the
piece or the next transition through the space. For me, I had to place my complete trust in the
dancers and in the audience as the piece began, stepping back and allowing them to engage in a
dialogue about American exceptionalism. While this happens in any performance, the sense of
surrender was heightened because I could actually see the audience physically maneuvering the
space and responding to the work.
In hindsight, I wonder if my intention to ask a question about American exceptionalism
truly came across in the performance of Columbia, Manifest. I question how the piece will be
remembered in relation to that intention. Was it truly an artistic exploration of American themes,
or was it simply an experience that joined other artists in breaking the norms of concert dance
Hawk 22
and museum etiquette? I realize that I opened myself up to that possibility by not being explicit
in my statement and inviting the audience to articulate their own individual response to the work,
and I must accept the reality that my intention might have been overshadowed by other
production elements.
Still, even though audience response primarily focused on the experience of viewing the
performance, their feedback also drew out reflections on my intended themes. From listening to
the individual experiences of audience members, I discovered content within my work that I
could have never predicted. For example, one viewer saw a distinct parallel between the four
explorers featured in “District of the Penguins” and the four dancers. Although I didn’t plan this
connection, the comment still demonstrated an understanding of the themes of American
exploration that I had intended for the work.
In light of the diversity of responses I received, I have concluded that asking a question
of the audience is the best approach to use in linking research with a choreographic statement. It
allows for new questions and associations to arise among the audience members rather than
imposing a meaning upon them, which would limit the range of responses that the piece could
elicit. In doing so, and giving the audience some autonomy in determining the meaning of the
work, I was exposed to new ideas about Columbia, Manifest that I had never considered in my
creative process. I learned an incredible amount about how history is perceived through dance by
listening to the individual experiences of my audience members, and this feedback became the
richest source of material for me to reflect on the project.
To continue this research, I would examine how the piece evolves across subsequent
performances and if it takes on a new meaning when viewed in a new context. To this end, I
could set the piece in a gallery space as well as on a proscenium stage and gather feedback from
Hawk 23
audience members in both settings. Or, I could set the piece in a gallery space with a different set
of artworks and see how the piece collaborates with a new visual art component. I could also
make internal changes to the work, such as casting different dancers or dressing them in different
costumes, to see how the perception of the work is altered. All of these developments would
enable me to more deeply understand the nature of audience reaction and kinesthetic engagement
with historical themes in dance.
Through both the research and creative portions of my process, I have concluded that
dance and museums do complement each other not only by presenting an historical theme or
question, but also by inviting the audience to feel the experience on a kinesthetic level. As a
dancer and a historian, the opportunity to create Columbia, Manifest and receive such rich
feedback from the many people who attended excited me to continue my investigation of this
topic. I feel encouraged to create similar projects in the future, choreographing for gallery spaces
and once again collaborating with music, art, and architecture. With this project completed and
the incredible insight I gained from the process, I will keep asking questions of my audience and
of myself as I continue to combine dance performance and historical research.
Hawk 24
Works Cited
Brown, Jean Morrison, Naomi Mindlin, and Charles H. Woodford, eds. The Vision of Modern
Dance 2nd edition. Highstown, NJ: Princeton Book Company, Publishers, 1998.
“Intro to LMA,” NYU Movement Projects. Accessed 17 April 2016.
https://movement.nyu.edu/projects/lma/intro.html\
White, Richard. The Organic Machine. New York: Hill and Wang, 1995.