I’m really excited to read Tere O’Connor’s “blook” (blog +book). In the first installment he delves into a bunch of ideas that could blow people’s ways of thinking about dance-making wide open.
Start with this: "I no longer create my works in adherence to a good/bad paradigm. I have become very interested in seeing what the dances can become through a process of witnessing as opposed to employing choreographic technique of any sort.” The evolving dance is midwived rather than “crafted.” Repeatedly he writes about managing a cloud of unwieldy material, not linked in apparent ways, and remaining open to the frameworks that emerge. These come to him after hitting a dead end with initial ideas and suggest a much larger context for the work.
Miracles. Art magic.
Having seen so much dance at the American Dance Festival that followed the old paradigm: tell a story in a linear way, keep it punchy and display virtuosity, reading Tere is like opening the windows wide and looking out on lush space.
