TDC starts work on restaging 13

It’s official. I have now been in TDC long enough to be reconstructing a piece in which I was an originating dancer. YOWZERS!

This week, TDC starts work on restaging “13,” a 30-minute piece created and premiered four years ago during TDC’s 13^th season. It’s an interesting experience, to go back in time, watch work I created in a previous life, and try to understand the decisions made and inspirations used. It makes me reflect on the passage of time, and how, while four years may not seem like too long ago, it was actually a lifetime ago. I lived in a different home, I was not married, I had a different job, I moved differently, I lived differently. I was different. To watch myself dance from so long ago, I might as well be watching a total stranger. Fascinating!

Another difficult aspect of reconstructing work I had a hand in creating vs. reconstructing work I did NOT create is readjusting expectations of the experience. It can be very easy, when resetting previous work, to expect things to feel the same – lifts should feel the same, contact with other dancers should be the same, the timing should be the same, EVERYTHING SHOULD BE THE SAME!!!!

100% of the time however, it’s not. It’s impossible. For “13,” there are two returning original dancers. There is literally no way this piece will even remotely resemble its original version, as the dancers inhabiting the space are completely different people. Different bodies, different minds, different perceptions. Everything, and I mean, EVERYTHING IS DIFFERENT. Which is really hard. It can be so difficult to let go of those experiences, those sensations, those journeys. When a dancer feels a sense of ownership over the material of a work, it can be such a frustrating experience to let that go – but that is what we have to do. Otherwise, reconstructing work is the equivalent of pulling teeth. It sucks. 

So here we are. Starting a new journey I’ve travelled before. What keeps this fresh though is the fact that I am a new person, and this time around, this journey will resonate within me in completely new ways, leading to new movement invention, new partnerships, and new experiences.  This, in and of itself, is just one more of the many things that makes modern dance so engrossing and engaging, performance after performance, piece after piece, year after year. Even old work feels new, and old experiences become new journeys. 

Submitted by TDC Dancer Kaitlin Bishop on Wednesday, October 31, 2012.