Choosing The Music That Moves You - Brief Article

Dance Magazine, July, 2001 by Janet Weeks

WHEN JANICE LANCASTER LOCKED THE DOOR TO THE DEPARTMENT STORE DRESSING ROOM, SHE WAS EXPECTING TO GO HOME WITH NOTHING MORE THAN A NEW OUTFIT. BUT WHAT SHE FOUND WAS MUSIC. OVER THE STORE'S SOUND SYSTEM DRIFTED A TECHNO VERSION OF AN ELLA FITZGERALD SONG THAT CAPTURED HER IMAGINATION. "I KNEW RIGHT AWAY IT WAS perfect for a dance," says Lancaster, a senior modern dance major at the North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem.

Many young choreographers say there is no simple method or obvious place to look for that perfect piece of music. The best advice seems to be to keep your options and ears open.

Lancaster's classmate Camille Brown, for example, didn't have to look far to find her musical muse. She wanted to construct a solo to the strains of Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata." But she didn't want the movement to be gentle and dreamy. Her piece was about the vulnerable position dancers are often in. "Dancers are exposed," she says. "We're in leotards and tights, in front of an audience. You can't hide. You have to be comfortable with your arms, face, legs. The dance was about the struggle to accept that reality and yourself."

Brown had always loved "Moonlight Sonata." And its haunting melody seemed to convey her theme of striving against insecurity. But the music was so familiar and hypnotic, it was difficult to create the movement she wanted while listening to it. So she choreographed the entire dance to other music--sometimes to whatever was playing on the radio--and then worked out how to perform her quick, sharp, sometimes distorted, yet fluid movement to the sonata. The effect was dramatic. "Another reason the music was difficult to work with was because it is so well known," says Brown. "But I think the dance showed people that the music had another side."

Still, sometimes it helps to go outside your own tastes, says Jamie Philbert, the 20-year-old co-director of Echoes Dance Company in Manhattan. She works for a company that matches songwriters with groups that might record their work. The job exposes her to all types of music. "I used to only listen to jazz, R & B, blues--oldies mostly," says Philbert. But her broadened exposure helped when she was trying to find music for a piece she'll show this month at the Merce Cunningham Studio. A few months before the July 19 opening, she still hadn't found the right music for the final section of her dance called Passages, which deals with slavery. Finally, she came across the right song in a genre of music that she rarely listens to: "I found this hip-hop song that's perfect."

The best song may not always be one that makes you the most comfortable. "Don't always resort to what you like," advises Lindsay Davis, a senior modern dance major at the NCSA.

Davis says one of her most successful pieces was set to music she didn't even choose. "I was at a loss for new ideas," she says. "A classmate gave me a CD of Janis Joplin singing `Summertime' [a song from the Gershwin opera Porgy and Bess] and said she'd love to see me do something to it. I usually pick classical, elegant pieces. This was different."

She tried making a group piece that played off the cool 1960s vibe and the words, which speak of easy living. But the dance wasn't working. Finally, her teachers suggested that instead she try "Summertime" for a duet she was creating. "It was amazing! It worked perfectly," she says. In the duet, a male dancer patiently supports and catches a female dancer as she begins to fall. The woman reacts with anger to the man's constant interference. At the end of the dance, he sets her firmly upright and walks offstage. She stands for a moment and then begins to fall. The lights go out before she hits the floor.

Joplin struggled with drug and alcohol abuse and sexual problems and died at age 27. Her raspy, plaintive voice gave the movement incredible poignancy. Underneath the pretty lyrics there was desperation. "Her voice is powerful, scratchy--a real contrast to what she's saying," says Davis. "I finally realized that I had to listen to the sound of her voice rather than the words."

In contrast, 13-year-old Ryan Zermeno knew exactly the type of music he wanted for the piece he made for the annual Teen Choreographers' Showcase in Santa Barbara, California. The only trick was to find it. He wanted to combine the intricate footwork of flamenco with something less traditional. "I wanted it to be lively," he says. "In flamenco, the buleria is the fastest rhythm, so I just borrowed a bunch of CDs with bulerias and listened." He finally chose a modern arrangement. "Traditionally, the music was only guitar in beats of twelve," he explains, "but this one has percussion and it's in beats of six. It's freer." The music also has an Arabic sound that inspired Zermeno to create jazzy, almost break-dance-like arm movements to go with the traditional footwork.

BUT JUST BECAUSE YOU'VE found the ideal music, don't think that working with it won't be a challenge. Janice Lancaster, the NCSA senior who was inspired by dressing-room music, also became intrigued with a fast, funky-sounding CD by the New Orleans Klezmer Allstars. "I knew intuitively that the music was right," says Lancaster, "but to choreograph to it I had to understand its structure." That was difficult because the music was so complicated. So Lancaster used a technique of drawing music that she learned at school. She made a linear sketch, representing crescendos with uphill arcs and marking with big dots the places where the music dropped off. She also played the CD in a video-editing suite where she could see the sounds of different instruments represented in waves on the computer screen. "Seeing where the music was really layered showed me where the movement should be thick too," she says. Using her insights, Lancaster created a humorous piece for six energetic dancers called St. John's Wort that closed her school's Emerging Choreographers Concert 2001.