Cagliari, Sardinia: The dancers, Lenka, Cesere (technician), and I flew from Rome to the beautiful island of Sardinia, where we performed in the Autunno Festival di Danza at the Teatro la Vetreria. The dancers created and performed an installation one evening, then I shared an evening with another company, performing an excerpt of a work created by Jeanine Durning (in Italian!), I Am Stranger, and All The Stories You Have Been Telling Me, choreographed by Lenka Flory and Simone Sandroni.
The second part of All The Stories includes a video, a beautiful video of trains at the Terontola-Cortona stazione, made by Barbara Schroer. I have performed the first half of this solo as an independent work a number of times in the states and Mexico, but only at the premiere in Austin was I able to perform the entire work. The reason being that the format of the video is a bit complicated; rather than using the entire projection screen, the image is narrower than the stage and divided into two columns with a black curtain (cuinta nera) covering the center panel. It takes time, patience, and resources to set it up properly, and these things tend to be absent in festival situations. One of the best things about performing this work as a member of Deja Donne is that Lenka is charge, and technical difficulties are simply that – difficulties, not obstacles.
So we spent a day transforming the Sala Rubia into an intimate performance space, and dealing with the curtains, lights, and video projections. In addition to the train video in All The Stories, each solo has a location video that precedes it in performance. This is where we run into trouble. The location video IS the size of the screen, so when we hang the curtains to make the area more narrow, we lose image. Also, the center curtain must be out of the way during the location video, then flown in for the solo. And even though this is not actually my Italian tour of closets and bathrooms (thanks errin J), flying curtains in and out was not an option.
All I have to say is thank whatever god that there are still craftsmen in the world, people who know how to use their hands, that don’t use machines for everything, and don’t expect everything to automated. I think there may be an inverse relationship between problem solving abilities, and mechanization (Rusty and Chih Feng, I am NOT talking about you). When we did this piece in Austin, we had trouble getting the tech in the theater to agree to re-hang the curtains onto a track where we could easily slide them in and out. Here, Giorgio, with Emiliano, patiently hung the curtain, then rolled it until it was flush with the beam above the stage, and also rigged a string-pull so that I could release the curtain from back stage. Easy.
The performance itself was wonderful. I spoke my text from I Am Stranger in Italian without stumbling or throwing up and even got a few laughs. All The Stories went really well too – I am so excited to dance the work in its entirety. It is beautiful, rich, and thoughtful.
When I ask myself what kind of work I want to perform, it is this: work that is challenging, work that asks me to go beyond what I think I can do, work that demands that I am honest –not necessarily about who I am, but with an idea, a character, or an interpretation, work that obliges me, through physicality, to touch emotions within myself, work that requires me to grow as a dancer, an artist, and a person – in short, work that demands that I participate.
These two solos from my project are these kinds of works. This is what I get to do here. È vero.
