Collaborating Long-Distance via Modern Technology

(Updated blog from original blog posting of Long-Distance Dancing Collaborations)

Last year I watched a short documentary on Israeli choreographer Netta Yerulshalmy on her experiences with creating her evening length work, “Devouring Devouring” via long- distance dancing. The idea that this work was developed in two cities, NYC and Tel Aviv, mostly via video exchange, completely fascinated me! In fact, this concept was so fascinating to me that I wanted to take on the challenge of working this way myself. But, I was unsure of how to get started, as well as to whom I was going to collaborate with via long-distance. So, I tucked that idea into my, as they say, “back pocket”, with the hope that one day I would have the chance to explore working with a long-distance collaborator myself.

Another factor that drew me into working in this unusual way was that I felt creating something long-distance naturally enabled the work to have elements of carefully crafted material along with elements of chance, which makes for a great combination. In fact, due to the very nature of working long-distance, there is some things movement wise that can get a bit lost in translation or interpreted differently. Consequently, material that is translated and being reconstructed on the other side can have an element of chance to it. Merce Cunningham, through the development of his Chance Dance, explored the idea of dances being created in a nontraditional way, which allowed for work to be created that may have never been arrived at if using a more traditional way of working or collaborating. For me, I felt working long-distance also allowed for something to be created that might not have been created otherwise.

Working long-distance also opens up the opportunity to work with someone who lives in a different city than you while remaining on a budget, making it a practical solution for a struggling artist to create work. Let’s face it; money is usually an issue with most struggling artists. If you don’t have a lot of extra money to spare, or funding from a grant, and want to skip the headache of the stressful crowd fundraising programs out there, then working long-distance can be a real solution.

Of course, there are downfalls to working this way. For instance, my long-distance Miami based collaborative partner Katie Wiegman and I, have had our fair share of technical issues ranging from camera failure, to problems uploading and downloading footage, to creative blocks, to interpreting movement from a video, to more personal issues of viewing oneself on camera in a non-judgmental way. You also spend a lot of time in the studio by yourself creating which can be a stumbling block in itself. Sometimes it’s easier to be creative and get those juices flowing when you have someone else in the studio sharing with you in real time. Managing your time well as to properly respond in the exchanging of footage is also essential in working this way. However, Katie and I have managed to push through these obstacles and have been exchanging footage for the last few months in creation of a solo collaboration titled “Adrift”.

So how did I choose Katie as my long-distance collaborative partner? While living, teaching, and dancing in South Florida last year, I initially met Katie Wiegman at a Kota Yamazaki master class at the Miami Light Project in Miami. Then, I ran into her again at a Kyle Abraham workshop, and yet again at a GaGa inspired master class by Lazaro Godoy at Inkub8 in Miami. I was always so impressed by her unique movement quality and spirit. From there we struck up a casual friendship and had talked about possibly creating work together, but never got the opportunity to do so before I moved out of the state. So, I got the idea of working long-distance creating a solo on her and sent an email inquiring if she would be interested. She was completely on board with this project from the start and the rest as they say, is history.

So how does it work? Well, to begin I had an overall concept for the work I wanted to create and explained that concept in great detail to Katie. Then, Katie and I started recording ourselves doing some improvisational movement, with the basic concept of the piece in mind, and sent it to each other. From that point on we would bounce video footage back and forth simply responding to each other’s improvisational sessions. It worked much the same as it would if you were taking an improvisation class with someone in person, using one another for movement inspiration. After these first few exchanges, when I felt the movement started to take shape along with the overall concept, I started to pick out what I felt worked and began to actually construct the beginning section of the solo. I would film myself doing this and then would send that footage to Katie to learn. However, I always explained to Katie that what she saw in the videos were completely open to her own interpretation. She was given the freedom to change whatever she felt needed changing, or add anything she felt was lacking. I wanted her to be able to bring herself to the work both as a dance artist and as a human. Because of the nature of how we were working on this project, it was important to me that Katie really brought herself into the work and not just be an automaton regurgitating movement I sent her via video. In order to be realistic on stage, I knew she needed to have a personal attachment to the overall feelings behind the solo. To help with this we exchanged a ton of lengthy emails, pre-recorded video talks, phone conversations, and most recently a Skype date. We decided to Skype so that we could work out a few things in real time and actually be able to see visually what we were trying to explain conceptually.

Adrift has recently been accepted to be performed at the Tempe Center for the Arts in Tempe, AZ as part of the Genesis Dance Project hosted by Desert Dance Theatre, January 10-11th 2014. Katie and I are ecstatic to showcase what we have been able to accomplish long-distance.

-Artistic Director, Crystal Lewis