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Interview with choreographer Henning Rübsam (Gel '07 speaker)
Henning Rübsam knows about good experience from several angles: he's an accomplished choreographer, dancer, and writer. He's a longtime friend and supporter of Gel, and I've asked him to speak at Gel 2007 in April in New York about the experience of dance.
(Starting September 14, Rübsam's new class, "The Artistry of Dance: Watching Dance with Understanding and Joy", is open to the public - with registration - and is held at Juilliard in New York City: link to class)
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Q - What prompted you to create the class at Juilliard?
Often when I go to dance performances I hear people saying, "That was nice, but I didn't understand it." People don't feel confident to enjoy dance without reservation, just because they don't have a background in it. Dance isn't part of any curriculum in regular schooling. People know about literature, theater, music, but dance as an art form has been forgotten.
I want to teach people how to be comfortable and know what to look for at a dance performance, but also sometimes to just revel in the kinetic excitement. George Balanchine was asked once after a performance, "What's this about?" and he said, "It's about seventeen minutes."
I think dance is the most accessible art form, but we just have to be open to our body. It's body language. We all have it, but we have to trust it. No one can just pick up an instrument and play it, but we can all dance. Dance as an art form is more refined, but we can all move.
Since this generation is often divorced from their bodies, living in the virtual world, I hope that dance becomes more important exactly as a return to one's own roots.
Dance is important in people's lives [as opposed to] just working out and being fit like a soldier. We don't learn much about bodies just pumping up our muscles - we're not really sensitized to movement or other people. Dance is about sensitizing, being aware of one's body, and being able to share that awareness with another person. In the end, dance is about communication, and that's what I think is so beautiful about it.
Q - What about the experience of watching dance?
What I hope to achieve in my own performances is that an audience can go out skipping, that there is something that wants to make you move. When you see something that moves you - kinetically and emotionally - those are the most successful performances. If it makes me swoon, or makes me skip, or makes me roll along Broadway, I think those are the memorable performances that affect me kinetically, where that spark takes over.
I remember when I saw Merrill Ashley at New York City Ballet do the "spring" section of Jerome Robbins' "Four Seasons." I jumped out of my seat in the middle of the performance - I couldn't contain myself. I couldn't believe what she was doing - her energy was electrifying. When a dancer takes risks, even when they know they're secure technically - but it isn't enough to be secure - just teases it, just pushes it a little bit beyond... every time you raise a leg, it's about devouring space, propelling oneself across with great abandon. If that happens, there's nothing better.
A lot of dancers don't get there. They might have technique and they display that they have it, listening to the music and doing the movement. But some dancers have a musicality, a "dancicality" - they converse with the music. Sometimes a little ahead, sometimes behind, and they syncopate their movement in the tiniest ways. They're not with the music, but they are. It's a conversation with the music. That's wonderful if that happens.
Q - What's on for your dance company's fall season?
It's mostly going to be to new music. There will be one premiere, a song cycle by Berkeley-based composer Leslie Wildman. The title of the dance piece is "Merciless Beauty" - they're beautiful songs. We're also doing a new piece to music by Ricardo Llorca, whose music I've used several times, one of the finest contemporary composers today. The other finest composer is Beata Moon, and we're repeating last year's "Dinner is West."
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More about Gel 2007, where Henning will be speaking.
Henning's dance company: SENSEDANCE.
