Animal Interplay:

a tale of zoomorphic personal triumph

By Alice Shay

- Spread to be uploaded -

It all started with a table slip... Of course, I'm sure I'm not the only one who has fallen into weeks of adventure because of the allure of a little slip of paper with bad graphic design but some scintillating picture. As my eyes scoured a table at the Ratty during my search for the salt and pepper, they halted at the photo of a skinny and amazingly flexible dancer fellow. In light of the recent profusion of contorted body shots that have been plastered about campus, I wouldn't have noticed, but this fellow was particularly striking. His body had transformed into a strange creature. The photo was of Christopher Elam, the choreographer of the dance project I was about to embark upon. In the image from the table slip, for those of you who weren't mesmerized like I was, Chris was bent at the waist with taut legs with one arm curved upwards and the other one curled tight at his head. His body was reconfigured. His human body-ness was undone.

Several of my friends recall the slip when I mention I am involved in the project. One friend told me that she and her boyfriend had an argument over whether or not the table slip was for real. Another friend had been making fun of the slip, then translated it into a game of perverse animal charades. I, too, was skeptical at first. Yet I chose to go forth.

MARCH OF THE CONTORTED

Coming into the project, I had little experience with dance, other than the common uninhibited flailing that everyone enjoys on the weekends, but had been hoping to give modern dance a try for a while. My previous experiences had involved rolling around the floor with middle-aged ladies in what barely passed as a modern dance class. I was a little scared, but despite my fears, trotted on over to Ashamu for auditions. I had no piece prepared but figured if we had to present one I would just come up with a little improvisation. Some writhing, some jumping. you know, the run-of-the-mill avant-garde dance moves. Fortunately, my fears were for naught. We sat on the floor for a while and talked about how animals could help us understand more about ourselves as human beings and as the animals we forget we are. It still seemed a bit floofy. But I went along.

Our audition consisted of following Elam's movement's around the room. This involved leaning up to the edge of balance, stretching two parts of the body in other directions, pulling imaginary strings to activate various body parts. We also learned how to carry one another from our hips. Apparently anyone can make a shelf out of the very bottom of his or her back and support another person. Any size to any size. All of the weight just gets sent down your legs. This has proven quite fun outside of the dance practices as well. You should try it. Just curve your hips forward while arching your back and leaning over slightly. Now don't be scared. Person two hop onto the lower back shelf. Now just climb. We had contests to see who could get the highest on their partner.

After about two hours of grueling yet fun body contortion dance we met in a circle on the floor and talked about expectations. Then he said he wanted to meet with us individually to discuss our involvement. Would I make it? Was I true enough to the animal form? I waited till everyone else had completed their meeting then shyly walked up. "Alice, right?" Chris said. "Yeah." "So, should I come back tomorrow night to work with the group?" I asked sheepishly. "If you would like to come, I would love to have you," he responded. I was to be part of this fantastical effort!

INTERDISCIPLINARY/INTERSPECIES

As I was to find out later, Chris graduated from Brown in 1998 and then went to NYU's Tisch School for dance. He has also studied traditional dance forms in faraway places, such as Turkey, Cuba and Indonesia. I have seen a bit of contemporary dance; most of it ends up being too heavy on the concept and too light on the aesthetics. Yet Chris finds an incredible balance between beautiful and conceptually engaged movement.

Chris came to studying animals through an ongoing investigation of human movement and interaction. Dancers can learn from their earnestness of movement and how they negotiate with one another. The audience can see the performers making decisions. Inhabiting another creature's movement is a way to step outside of one's habits.

This project is co-sponsored by the Creative Arts Council and the Theatre, Speech and Dance department. It is an interdisciplinary project that combines academic and creative investigation. The Animal Interplay group has worked with John Emigh from the Theatre, Speech and Dance Department and Ruth Colwell from the Psychology Department. Professor Colwell specializes in animal behavior. Another component of the Animal Interplay workshop incorporates a video piece by Taimoor Siobhan.

REALIGNING BIOMECHANICS

This dance project seems to be about finding what is human from our interpretation of what is animal. One of our main points of investigation in this project is an understanding of intention. In most human action, we pause to accommodate our thinking. Several considerations come before each movement. What am I doing? What is the best way to do this? Who will see me? What will they think? Animals, on the other hand, act seemingly spontaneously. They spring forth from the slightest stimulus. This was one of the most fun yet most difficult parts of the workshop: breaking down and reconstructing our method of action. As penguins, our first animal model, we learned to move from the slightest stimulus. A conjured desire for that imaginary food on the ground. The allure of a nearby arm-wing to peck at. The warmth of a huddle of 'birds' over there. This process of eliminating second-thinking was fun during the first weeks, and once midterms rolled around, it was almost cathartic.

After we got down the penguin movements we moved onto our next subject: the white-cheeked gibbon. The gibbon movement is very springy. They jump up and bounce off every surface and dangling support their hands or feet can catch onto. The transition between these two animals was extreme and physiologically straining. The penguins were difficult in that the movements were very tight and measured. I ended up with a sore back after several practices. This was one of the most difficult and interesting parts of this project. As we modeled ourselves after the animals, we had to contend with simple physiological constraints. However closely I inspected the penguin's movements, my hips will never be a couple inches above my feet. My entire body shape will never be so bulbous. And my head will always be way too large.

And humans are no monkeys. Unlike the spry gibbons, our human arms are just too weak, our legs far too long, our torsos too unwieldy. But we tried nevertheless. Our bodies constrained us in starkly different from the penguin movement. Playing gibbon was also particularly enjoyable because the gibbons play in partners so we would climb all over one another. Now I'm no prude, but I'm also not used to laying my head in multiple people's crotches or rolling somersaults across the floor intertwined with two people. Or curling up in a pile of limbs and picking at each other's 'fur.' But we had learned to function with animal intention. We were no longer interacting as Brown students but rather as animal-dancers. Each stimulus was all it would take to begin movement. We had suspended our cognizance of each other's humanness. It has really expanded my touch-comfort. By the end of our first two-hour gibbon session we had all achieved a state of monkeyness where we were flying off of each other and the walls. And rolling forwards, backwards. Our centers of gravity had shifted such that we were no longer grounded to the floor like normal humans. Our feet and haunches were liberated! By the end of the first four day session we had realigned our biomechanics: we could transform into both penguins and gibbons at the flap of a wing or the smack of a paw.

Four weeks passed before our next session. The workshop was organized into four weekend intensives. Each of these weekends we would meet for three or four four-hour sessions. But as they were distributed throughout the semester, the second set of sessions fell directly amongst midterms. During this set of practices, Chris taught us a choreography that he had created using members of his company. The piece was beautiful. But tough. My character begins by leading the troupe of penguin-like insecty creatures that hop and stretch across the floor. But by the end of the piece, my character has relinquished leadership and been conquered by another one. This conquest involves another dancer climbing onto my back while I am folded over on the ground. This action is striking yet painful. After each session, I begged my roommate for a massage.

Over the course of the rest of the workshop, we developed a whole work of dance. The piece incorporates our penguins, our gibbons, human movement, and several permutations between. As Chris says, the piece exists as a petri dish that the audience can look into and watch unguarded interactions between the performers. Yet simultaneously there is a specificity and refinement to the movement. Beyond the piece itself, we have all come away with an expanded understanding of movement and interaction. In order to really see how you move and how you make decisions for movement and interaction with others, sometimes you have to first find your animal within—or apply one from without.

Alice Shay B'06 hopes that you will to see the final exhibition of this work on December 9 at 8 pm at Ashamu and check out Misnomer.org.

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