Looks like Jason beat me to posting about the first rehearsal but I’m going to post this anyway.

I feel like we say this over and over, but the process is really collaborative. Swan starts by teaching us a phrase sometimes making adjustments as soon as he sees it on us. He doesn’t usually give counts but allows us to translate the phrase into our own bodies. After watching us do it, he uses the variations and changes that each person’s body adds to enrich the movement.

We’re working on a phrase with the group posed in that top photo. I think it might be near the beginning of the installation. We’re all walking forward slowly and little things happen. Just small, subtle movements so you don’t really know what’s going on. It could be kind of a mystical beginning to the piece but it could also go anywhere. That’s one of the great parts in creating new work; there are still so many possibilities.

Take for instance my character in Glassy Essence. I know the Swan and Francois have not finalized the story for the characters yet, but in my own mind I like to think of my character as a kind of angel. The ‘Bubble’ could be like a cloud… maybe? It works for me. I’ve always wanted to sit on a cloud. ;-)

I feel pretty good about rehearsal. We’ve been working on different parts of the installation leading up to this; the photo shoots, the flying, the costumes, but it’s great to finally start putting it all together.

-Jessica

Photo: Jubal Battisti

This kind of flying with a harness is different from the kind of hanging stuff that we’ve done with Swan before. He has had us hanging and swinging around on walls, but it’s so different without the wall to push off from. Now that you’re in the middle of the room, once you launch off the ground you can’t really control where you go and how you turn. You just do the best you can to create interesting movement while you’re bouncing off another person.

We use two different kinds of harnesses. Jason and I are in the single line type. You have a lot more freedom but almost no control. Jon is wearing the kind with two lines in the part where he is just hanging there. With that one you can flip upside down, kind of head-over-heals, unlike the single harness. Actually, that’s a lie; I always seem find a way to go upside down in either one.

Swan wanted us to be human, vulnerable and exploring. But once you launch off the ground a lot happens that you just can’t control. But I think it’s like anything in art; you can’t go into it focused on creating something beautiful. If you do, you’ll spend the whole time self-critiquing. You have to just let what happens happen and be true to your intention in the moment. You just have to trust yourself and the choreographer.

-Jessica