work-in-progress feedback

Today we had an informal work-in-progress showing at the ODC Dance Commons, where we regularly rehearse. We are now about 1/3 of the way through the process of creating "The Improbable Reign," which is a crucial moment to check in with some outside eyes. There is still time to make dramatic changes, and scratch ideas that aren't working. I assembled some of the highlights of the feedback session below, in no particular order. These are not direct quotes. I'm paraphrasing. To those of you who made it and shared your thoughts, you know who you are, and I thank you dearly. Your feedback is extremely valuable. Video excerpts from the showing are coming soon!!!

• Main question: How does this piece focus on Norton?
• In the first half, I'm following a narrative, but I lose that narrative in the 2nd half, right after the scarf scene.
• Some of the "screams" are working, and others are not.
• How to use words to describe what's happening. Good to get background on characters, but better to rely on movement to explain who they are.
• Background info about each character was cool but confusing: what about them is interesting to the world of the piece? Where is each character going?
• Did these characters exist all in the same place-time in history, or is this a fictional encounter? Seems important to stress the "what-if" factor, so that the fictional aspects are distinguished from the historical.
• Choreography emerges like a "hyperbolic insertion" into "cinematic" tableaus... can you go further with the hyperbole? In the scarf scene, for example?
• There are circular aspects to the piece, like a kind of stirring up
• The use of toes and fingers stood out. The dancers have very articulate digits!
• We want to know more about Murietta.
• We forget that the piece is about Norton, but the focus comes back to him at the end. Full circle.
• A section of the audience will be familiar with these characters, and others will not. How to cater to both at the same time? For example, the reference to Isadora's death? Need to say how she died? We want to complement what people already know and not be didactic... but at the same time we need to get those less familiar with San Francisco's history on the same page.
• Andrew can be more "regal."
• Perhaps Marina's character can be more tense, as a contrast to the others.
• Face-making portrait (intro) can have bigger angles so we know who to focus on.
  

preparing for the work-in-progress showing

For the work-in-progress showing, we managed to put everything we have been working on into one long sequence, so that the material could be seen as a complete piece.

For the most part, up until now we have mostly been focusing on character development and individual moments/ interactions. But in the last few rehearsals I've tried to combine these moments into scenes... like a filing system of sorts. Most of these scenes remain as unfinished sketches until I decide which ones are worth keeping. In order to decide which scene sketches to keep I arrange them into a sequence. From this draft of a sequence (which I put together using a combination of intuition and "chance operation" techniques) I see what kind of narrative emerges. I want to allow a narrative to "emerge"... rather than "impose" a structure from the outside.

In the hours leading up to the showing, we arranged the scenes and moments into one long sequence that could serve as a first draft (see pic above). First drafts help me see what's not working and cut, cut, cut. I am a big fan of editing... and in general don't think that choreographers do this enough. Cutting is harder said than done, because it's so easy to get attached to moments that you love... but like a bad tangent in an essay, they only hurt the piece as a whole. Sometimes it's hard to differentiate between liking something because you're attached to it, and liking something because it works, but this seems to get easier with each piece that I make.

photo shoot with andrea flores

All photographs above by Andrea Flores amflores23@gmail.com
Costumes by Cori Crowley cori.crowley@gmail.com

Recreating Isadora Duncan

Even though our approach to Isadora is a more abstract one, we thought it might be useful to study some Isadora-type choreography. I was inspired by this video on youtube:

taking out the trash

happy accident

Christine barking at Andrew. This is one of my favorite accident moments. I call it an accident, even though I instructed Christine to do what she's doing. More like a surprise moment, because I hadn't planned to try it beforehand. A spontaneous decision inspired by how the dancers were interpreting my instructions. I don't know where it will go in the piece, or if it even has a place, but there's something so beautiful in it.

In working with Andrew, Christine, Marina, Julie and Phoenicia, I am fascinated by the intersection between who they are in real life and who they are in their characters. This is at the core of what I am interested in. We spend all this time channeling this other character, when really what we are bringing out are specific aspects of ourselves. In researching the character we find what is meaningful to us, what we can identify with, and then we take that material and figure out ways to express it physically.

Catch-Phrase Technique

Phoenicia and Kat show a catch phrase generated collaboratively for Phoenicia's character, Isadora Duncan. The catch phrase technique is when one person "the catcher" observes the other person improvise until they see something that he or she is attracted to, and after saying "stop" aloud, the catcher must repeat the movement back to them as best they can. The improviser then re-learns the movement as translated through the catcher's body. The roles reverse and back and forth, stringing the movements together one after the other. I learned a version of this technique from Susan Marshall during a residency at the Atlantic Center for the Arts.

Christine as Frederick Coombs

Christine Bonansea experiments here with the moves and grooves of Frederick Willie Coombs, the phrenologist turned George Washington impersonator, and a contemporary of Norton's. A lot of great movement came out of the improvisation with the umbrella. Coombs kind of became a perverse, yet comical old man. There's soome regal posing going on, infused with sexy club dancing. Coombs is clown-like and plays to the audience.

Marina as Joaquin Murieta

Marina Fukushima plays Joaquin Murieta, the famous Mexican bandit of the Gold Rush Period. This is a "catch phrase" that we generated based on themes related to the character. With Joaquin we are thinking about pride, numbness, mystery, but also an open sympathetic side. The music is a song called "Third Uncle" by Brian Eno. We cleaned the first part of this phrase, while the 2nd part is still raw.

Julie as Lillie Coit

Julie Sheetz plays Lillie Hitchcock Coit. This is a word-phrase.

who was emperor norton?

Joshua Abraham Norton (c. 1819^[2] – January 8, 1880), the self-proclaimed His Imperial Majesty Emperor Norton I, was a celebrated citizen of San Francisco, California, who in 1859 proclaimed himself "Emperor of these United States"^[3] and "Protector of Mexico."^[4] Born in London, Norton spent most of his early life in South Africa. He emigrated to San Francisco in 1849 after receiving a bequest of $40,000 from his father's estate. Norton initially made a living as a businessman, but he lost his fortune investing in Peruvian rice.^[5]

After losing a lawsuit in which he tried to void his rice contract, Norton left San Francisco. He returned a few years later, apparently mentally unbalanced, claiming to be the emperor of the United States.^[6] Although he had no political power, and his influence extended only so far as he was humored by those around him, he was treated deferentially in San Francisco, and currency issued in his name was honored in the establishments he frequented.

Though he was considered insane, or at least highly eccentric,^[7] the citizens of San Francisco celebrated his regal presence and his proclamations, most famously, his "order" that the United States Congress be dissolved by force (which Congress and the U.S. Army ignored) and his numerous decrees calling for a bridge and a tunnel to be built across San Francisco Bay.^[8] On January 8, 1880, Norton collapsed at a street corner, and died before he could be given medical treatment. The following day, nearly 30,000 people packed the streets of San Francisco to pay homage to Norton.^[9] Norton's legacy has been immortalized in the literature of writers Mark Twain and Robert Louis Stevenson, who based characters on him. In December 2004, a resolution was made to name the San Francisco – Oakland Bay Bridge in honor of Norton, but the idea did not progress further.^[10]

(text courtesy of wikipedia)

Andrew as Emperor Norton

Another approach to generating movement based on the characters was related to word brainstorming. For each character we brainstormed verbs, nouns, and adjectives as a group. Each person would then come up with one static pose for each word, which became a phrase by linking these poses together. This is a phrase that Andrew made based on the following words: homeless, aristocratic, write, lose, conquer, emancipate, low.

Phoenicia as Isadora Duncan

We began the process of making this piece by doing character improvisations. Here is Phoenicia Pettyjohn as Isadora Duncan, improvising to the music of Yo La Tengo. I like this approach because it allows the performer to take a raw and impulsive approach to embodying the character. As I discussed with Phoenicia beforehand, we aren't looking for a literal representation of Isadora, or in the case of the mother of modern dance, recreating her style of dancing. Instead we want a contemporary re-interpretation, an approach that would allow us to take Isadora's open spirit and apply it to new movement.

about this blog

"The Improbable Reign of Norton the First, Emperor of the United States" is a 40-minute dance theater piece about Emperor Norton, a famous San Francisco eccentric who in 1859 declared himself "Emperor of the United States." An ODC Theater commission, "The Improbable Reign" is choreographed by Catherine Galasso, and will premiere at ODC Theater, San Francisco, on May 9-10, 2009.

This blog serves as both a record of the creation process of "The Improbable Reign," as well as a collection of reference material for everyone involved in the project.

You can follow our progress, and even contribute to the making of the piece by leaving us feedback on this blog or by making an online donation. Even if you're not in San Francisco, you may check back after the performances to view video of the finished piece on this very blog.

For more information, visit the links at the top of this page.

SUPPORT THIS DANCE

Like always, our work would not be possible without the generous donations from friends like you. Your donations will help to cover costume costs, rehearsal expenses, and artist fees for the development of our newest work, The Improbable Reign of Norton I, Emperor of the United States. No donation is too small and all donations will make a major difference in our ability to afford these expenses. Catherine Galasso is fiscally sponsored by ODC Theater in San Francisco, which means that if you donate to us through ODC, you will receive a tax-deduction.

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