Heaven: LoFi + Slowcore, part 1

A post show discussion on gchat between Kate Strathmann and Galen Treuer about Heaven. Coffee and a baguette were consumed.

• 10:48 AM kate: Good morning Galen
• galen: Good morning Kate
• 10:49 AM Let me begin by sharing something with you. It is from 1986 and comes up when you search Lo-Fi Dance.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1BZ6fCV2Ac

• 10:50 AM kate: This is Japanese.
• and kind of amazing.
• galen: Note the lights.
• 10:51 AM kate: yeah, kind of like some of the lights in Heaven
• galen: The 80’s lights that popped up towards the end?
• kate: and now we can use the title “when slowcore meets lo-fi”
• maybe we’re getting ahead of ourselves?
• galen: Yes we can. Heaven: when slowcore meets lo-fi
• 10:53 AM kate: I’m not really sure where to begin. I should say that I saw this piece in January at PS 122 in NYC.
• and you should probably explain Lo-Fi choreography.
• 10:54 AM galen: Or we could begin with when we first heard about this piece, what 2 years ago?
• People after the show were talking about how long this piece has been rumbling around in the Twin Cities dance communities consciousness.
• 10:55 AM kate: A long time; I think it’s great…there aren’t many opportunities for long rumination.
• galen: There aren’t, but it is also a struggle to do the planning, stay focused, and produce the show.
• 10:56 AM I felt that with My Father’s Bookshelf and that process was just over a year.
• kate: however- since I saw the piece in January, it got better.
• galen: A benefit of touring. I’m very excited for Morgan and crew to have multiple opportunities with this piece. Dance benefits from repetition (often not always)
• 10:58 AM kate: I agree. And also with the Dance and Music collaboration- this is definitely one of the most successful examples I have ever seen…and I can’t imagine that success given a short development period.
• but tell me more about LoFi choreography
• 11:01 AM galen: LoFi Choreography – a style of movement vocabulary employed by some contemporary choreographers notable for its pedestrian derivation, specificity of movement, and technical approach that refuses to be pretty and polished.
• There is a serious LoFi choreo crew in the Twin Cities.
• kate: and I think allowing for a breadth of dancer-types and movement.
• galen: Yes.
• 11:02 AM kate: One of the things I loved about Heaven was the number of different kinds of dancers, bodies, the gender ambiguity- and the duos
• 11:03 AM galen: It also seems to come with a focus on conceptual processes to function in the same space – something present in Heaven as well as the many bodies/genders/hair cuts.
• 11:04 AM kate: Fresh cuts!
• galen: Fresh and Clean!
• 11:05 AM kate: (is part of LoFi dance that we always end up talking about the hair?)
• (is that a Twin Cities thing?)
• galen: (Yes! or No!)
• (It’s a specificity of design thing!)
• 11:06 AM Hair is political
• kate: yes- and there was a lot of gender ambiguity in this piece
• and you know how society uses hair all the time to denote gender
• galen: Chris Schlichting’s hair was very short and conservative.
• 11:07 AM kate: except that he kind of had hipster bangs or something…
• galen: Elliott’s was amazing. I watched it a lot. I know others who did too.
• 11:08 AM kate: There was that gorgeous moment when Elliott Durko Lynch and Karen Sherman hit the back wall, and Elliott’s hair splayed out on the wall. I loved that.
• 11:09 AM galen: I loved the back wall. I was surprised by how hard it was. It looked soft and then BANG.
• 11:10 AM There was a very definite sense of a White Box.
• kate: the ripples were really striking though.
• but not a solid box- there was a lot of movement and fluidity I felt.
• 11:11 AM galen: Yes it was fluid but viscous.
• kate: viscous?
• 11:12 AM galen: It kind of flowed over me.
• kate: the whole piece?
• or the set?
• galen: The aesthetic definitely.
• 11:13 AM But it was also contained. It flowed but was in the space of the stage. I was an observer, a voyeur even.
• I felt this voyeurism that I’ve felt in churches as a non-believer.
• 11:14 AM kate: I was sitting in the first few rows, and felt really immersed at moments- it felt more intimate to me. But I agree with what you’re saying about churches and outsiders. Like you’re watching all this ritual and belief, but it’s a bit opaque.
• But then I think the music is really significant.
• 11:15 AM because often I have had the experience where music brings me in, moves me, breaks down the voyeur wall when I feel like an outsider
• 11:16 AM And when Allan first was singing in the “Bandage section” I got shivers.
• galen: I was sitting further back (row M) and felt outside and living in judgement. But the music pulled me in.
• kate: I mean the “Inside your body” singing part.
• 11:17 AM galen: Before that section when they all faced us singing and lowering their arms I was totally IN. It was a ritual that addressed me directly.
• I could have sat in that silence for 10 mintues.
• 11:20 AM kate: I think for me that shifted the piece- where I started to really have an emotional reaction. I felt very emotional both times I’ve seen it in the end- which also surprised me because it felt sort of distant in the beginning.
• galen: You saw in at PS122 in January?
• 11:21 AM kate: Yes.
• And they didn’t have the full-on white set
• and that space is really small and intimate
• galen: I’d like to have seen it in a more intimate space, but the full on set seemed essential to me.
• 11:22 AM It reinforced the costumes and the lighting – shades of white with texture (except the 80’s lights that popped up for a few minutes).
• kate: I agree. I’m interested though: I’ve seen it really close-up both times, and it felt intimate to me…but I don’t feel like I got the “big picture” that you might have experienced.
• I really didn’t like those eighties lights.
• 11:23 AM I found them jarring.
• and they pulled me out of the piece
• galen: I really liked them at first then started thinking of this light show I saw at Sea World when I was 8.
• kate: Exactly- pulled you away
• galen: So I agree.
• But Big Picture.
• 11:24 AM I enjoyed my focus during the piece. I felt present with it for the most part. The clarity of the scenes was exquisite.
• 11:25 AM During some of the transitions I would drop out though.
• 11:26 AM kate: And the detail- there was exquisite detail…in the sounds, the set, the costumes. I loved that Mimi Parker did needle point for part of the piece.
• galen: I loved the detail – including the felt invitation cards Morgan handed out for the show.
• 11:27 AM Little white felt business cards with “heaven” embroidered on them.
• kate: I’m going to keep mine.
• in a memory box.
• galen: Who are you Joseph Cornell?
• 11:28 AM me: Anyway…
• galen: (maybe we should cut that exchange)
• kate: What about the movement and the dancers?
• 11:29 AM galen: Well the movement was LoFi, really seemed to typify. It felt familiar but different from what I am used to from Ms. Thorson.
• A little more contained.
• Less virtuosity.
• The pairing were very interesting.
• 11:30 AM kate: I loved watching both Max and Justin together, and then Karen and Elliott together.
• 11:31 AM galen: Yes I agree. I also liked the solos that were created for Hannah and Elliott (when he sang into the light).
• kate: (I loved that solo)
• galen: The constant pairing allowed the solos to pop out – isolation in a group.
• kate: But I think the juxtopositions really made me pay attention to bodies
• Corporeality
• 11:32 AM So much of this piece is about ethereal concepts…intangibles.
• but the pairings and much of the movement felt earthbound.
• galen: Last night after the show, someone talked to me about how Morgan’s movement is extreme in its sensuality.
• 11:33 AM The pairs led me to compare bodies.
• kate: Karen has so much tightly wound energy- and Elliott seems so sensual
• I had a lot of thoughts about passion, and containing passion
• 11:34 AM galen: Elliott looked a little wild at times.
• Like making out?
• Physical passion?
• Religious passion?
• 11:36 AM kate: well both- I think a lot of religious structures are about containing and directing passion…and there are a lot of religions that take passion and channel it into moments of religious ecstasy- speaking in tongues, or whirling dervishes, etc…
• Jessica had a solo at the end that seemed to be about ecstasy and losing oneself in a fervor.
• 11:39 AM galen: Yes. I saw that. Hannah’s twitching brought me there too.
• kate: Oh! now you have to go to rehearsal and I have to go to yoga…but there’s so much to say.  So we’ll have to chat more later…there’s so much, this is good- having too much to talk about art.