Lisa shared with me a selection from Ann Bogart's Viewpoints, written by one of Ann's dramaturgs. It gives detail to how he works to create his dramaturgy for Ann's work. His process involves collecting lots and lots of visual imagery and creating interactive wall displays from which she directs her actors to gather their material for their characters. I think about how each of us works on our work. The environments we create in, the ways we create an environment to work in.
My colleague and amazing choreographer Nicole Livieratos keeps her studio pristine, except for one curious piece. A red wagon. An old iron garden table. That somehow figures into the work. Not actually, but in her thinking.
My studio walls get covered with writings, drawings, images, scraps of paper with quotes on them. And books, books, books everywhere. I actually don't write in the studio. Not very much anyway. I write at the kitchen table, much to the dismay of any attempts for an orderly dinner.
Ann Kilkelly, another great artist, keeps boxes catalogued and things go in the boxes. But the boxes contain all - no spillage.
Michael (one of our lab participants and long time colleague/friend) and I spent deep retreat time together looking at this question among many others, and he articulated the outdoors as his studio.
And of course - each of these spaces becomes a document of the artist's working process.
We have an opportunity to collectively build our creative process/environment. I remember one Choreo Lab when Joanna Haigood came to the Pillow to visit. She came to the studio, where our walls were covered with papers and drawings. She said, teasingly, "Uh oh. Lotta thinking going on in there."
We have an opportunity to be witness to how the transformation of the space documents our thinking process/creative process over the course of our eight days together. How can we learn to "read" these signs? How will this influence the work we create, as well as how the work we create influences the space?
