Ep 14: Exploring the Creative Process with Karen Stokes

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Welcome to Dance Unscripted.
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I am your host, Amy Elizabeth.
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On this episode, we are joined by Karen Stokes.
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Karen holds a BFA in dance from Ohio State University and an MFA in choreography from the University of California, Los Angeles.
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She has sat as the artistic director of Karen Stokes Dance Tent since 1997 and was on faculty at Connecticut College and Kent State University before her 24-year career as the director of Dance and now Professor Emerita at the University of Houston.
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Karen is a repeat recipient of the Best Choreographer in Houston Award by the Houston Press and several additional awards, including Editor's Choice from Dance Magazine for her Dance Film Gallery Construction I, but most recently, Karen was named by Dancehorse Houston as the 2025 Spark Artistic Excellence Honoree, recognizing artistic excellence and significant impact in the Houston dance community.
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Karen's role as a dance maker has been inspiring the regional and international communities for almost three decades.
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I am looking forward to diving into the creative process and learning more about her work and her ability to grow alongside our communities and culture through the years.
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Karen, thank you so much for joining me today.
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Hey,
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thank you for having me, Amy Elizabeth.
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So you stated the creative process in and resilience as they are related to time also relate to your past and current work.
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Can you take a moment to unpack this and maybe start with the meaning or importance of time?
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You know, the first thing I think of compositionally with time is space and energy, because that's the triad of what we learn in dance composition.
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And it's sort of the triad of life, if you want to take it into a bigger context.
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But space, time, and energy are inseparable, but we separate them when we're working on them choreographically, even though we understand that we're focused on this area, but actually these other two areas are being immediately impacted by whatever our choices are.
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But more specifically for my choreography, the time element has appeared in such things like my interest in body rhythms.
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That's kind of really specific.
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I have been interested for a long time in how dancers just kind of spontaneously create rhythms in various ways on stage, intermersed with whatever musical compositions that are occurring.
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So that for me is really fun.
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I have a lot.
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I mean, I like to have fun in rehearsal.
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So creating rhythms, body rhythms is really kind of just a fun thing for me to do.
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So I enjoy doing that.
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I also think of time in terms of the overall arc of a piece, whether it's a short work or a long work.
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What is the pacing of the work?
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What's the ebb and flow of the work?
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What is the dynamic force of the work?
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And how does that connect to the other concepts of the work?
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And that becomes kind of a bigger structural idea of how you would want to work with time in your piece.
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And then on a life level, I really am interested in how to best utilize time in the creative process.
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And I'm really talking practically right now because in our world in the United States of dance making, we operate very much in a granting space.
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cycle in which we are having deadlines imposed upon us to produce a product.
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And that kind of imposition of external deadlines can help us to move our pace along.
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But I find also it works against us in terms of doing the deep dive in our creative process.
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So I've kind of systematically tried to work against that in my evening length projects.
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I'll produce a short work and then I'll spend two or three years kind of expanding something out into a larger evening length project and that allows me a lot of time since that's the current topic to do kind of really layering of the work on multiple levels and it allows me to edit and I think that is something that choreographers should be allowed to do.
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We shouldn't have to put up our first draft and sometimes we're forced because of some external deadline that we have.
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But in order for me to do that, I've sort of like have created a system in which at this point in life, I am still able to take my time before I put forward an evening length project.
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So that's really something that I think is important to think about for all of us in our work.
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Are we allowing the time that we need to do our best work and then the second the other thing I wanted to talk about that's relative to this topic of time is that I'm interested in looking at what's happening in the field now what's happening in the field temporary dance and of course what we're all doing frequently especially since COVID time is look at reels because they're just popping up right and left everywhere we go we're seeing reels of dance reels of dance and I think that is very impactful to also what I'm seeing on stage.
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And what I'm seeing on stage is a pacing often, a pacing of work that the movement vocabulary is extremely complex and taken on its own merit interesting.
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But the pace is relentless.
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Very much part of our time period, right?
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Like, because everything feels relentless in our society right now.
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Everything feels like we're just getting bombarded by information and And so I think what I've tried to do in my own life is recognize that that's happening on my personal level and recognize that it's happening in the field, what I'm seeing.
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And so how do then we as artists not just jump on the merry-go-round and fly around with that?
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How do we ground ourselves in the ability to take our time and to deliver works Mm-hmm.
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ourselves to have that.
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And it's hard.
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Absolutely.
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Absolutely.
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This thing is a demon, a freaking demon.
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Talk about a time sucker.
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Yes, absolutely.
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So I had two thoughts that came into mind when you were talking.
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And one was being in undergraduate composition class.
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And my professor telling me, you have 30 to 45 seconds to catch their attention.
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And if you don't catch, grab their attention in 30 to 45 seconds, you've lost them.
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whether it's a two minute piece, a 10 minute piece or 20 minute piece.
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Okay.
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The beginning is important.
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And now as a dance composition instructor, teacher facilitator, I am saying you have 15 to 20 seconds to catch your audience's attention or they've pulled out their phone.
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Even if you say the phones aren't allowed in the theater, it doesn't matter.
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And it's like, how do you conceptualize that as someone who is creating something?
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And we can't really define what it is that's going to capture the audience's attention, right?
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We're saying capture their attention.
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But I think that that speaks to what you're talking about as far as where we were to where we've come, our attention spans, our perception of time, and this encouragement of...
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I used to be able to...
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introduce a work.
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And now it feels as if I have to grab, then I can go back and then I can unravel and then start to take my time.
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So it's very interesting that you mentioned that.
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And then this idea of how we spend our time, like the relentlessness of the work itself and what that does to an audience.
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And Being able to take your time with a work.
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This idea, I haven't heard anybody say this, like why do we...
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New way of looking at presenting new work.
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What I mean by that is I've never seen what I put on stage to be the first draft.
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I've also never seen it to be the final draft either because I don't feel that any, the work is done when I'm no longer interested in it or when it is satisfied all my curiosities.
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And so I have had a practice of creating a work and then reprocessing, redeveloping, but I've yet to look at it as this is my first draft piece.
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Can you speak a little bit more to that on how you look at that first draft?
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I try not to...
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present first drafts myself.
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I want to be pretty satisfied, whether it's a short work or a long work, with where it's at when I show it.
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So that's why I really allow myself the time for the deep dive.
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And I understand that the likelihood of me representing an evening-length work is very small.
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I had Nancy Wozni ask me after mapping glaciers if I was going to do that again and would I take it on the road or something like that.
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I said, you know, So after I've done a piece, I am interested in what the next piece is.
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It's the new work that challenges me.
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And I said, sure, I would love to do Mappy and Glaciers again, because I think it's a beautiful work and I'm proud of it.
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But, and guess what?
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I will do the work again if somebody throws me a huge chunk of change and I can hire a rehearsal director.
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You know, I'm happy to say, okay, here's my rehearsal director to let them say, the work and I'll come in and make sure it's on track.
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But what I am very interested personally in is the next work.
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And that puzzle is the challenge to be unpuzzled.
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It's the thing to unwind.
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And so it's very unusual for me to go back to work because I feel that even if it's a work I'm super proud of, that it will take so much time and energy, almost an equal amount of time and energy for me to reset it.
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It'll inevitably be some new dancers, you know, and redevelop that important sense of community that I build with the dancers I'm working with.
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So it's, again, if somebody were to watch this show and say, hey, let's give Karen Stokes a bunch of money to redo this show.
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Thank you.
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Thank you.
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We will use it and we will do it.
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But the reality for my own personal satisfaction is that I'm interested in something that's unsolvable for me.
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And that's how every piece starts.
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So by the time it's an evening length work, so you said you'll start with maybe a shorter work that you can then develop and grow upon as it builds into this evening length work.
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So by the time it becomes that evening length work, it sounds as if you've answered all the questions that you've had or you've processed out or the majority of them, there's a sense of satisfaction with where the work is by the time it makes it to that evening length work.
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Well, every evening length project or any project you do brings up new questions that could be investigated.
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So it's not an end of the questions.
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It's not an end of the experience in that regard.
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But it is, I look at the work as more or less being complete as it is.
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And the details that I might change are in such minutia that as to be meaningless, you know, in overall work.
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So, so yeah, I really try to turn the page.
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I've never had an urge like, I've had urges for pieces to be redone.
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I've had that, but not enough for me to spend the time, energy and resources to redo them.
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Yeah.
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So it's always the kind of confusion, the confusion of a new work interests me.
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So yeah, I rarely redo works.
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I sometimes I sometimes have done shows in which a single piece is brought back, a repertory piece, usually by the request of an external agency, but not by my own personal request.
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So in season one, we're taking a strong look at the word resilience and dance's role in encouraging and empowering our communities through this practice.
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So can you take a moment to define resilience and how it is relevant to the creative process?
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There's so many ways to think about this, but I think if you are a dance person that is surviving in the field of dance in the United States, you are a resilient person.
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That's kind of a full stop, right?
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You already are.
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So what I can tell you is how I've operated in order to do that.
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First of all, I want to talk about the concept of winning, the concept of winning in our society.
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There's really too much emphasis on winning because what does it really mean, this concept of winning?
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Does it make you a better human being?
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Does it foster curiosity and kindness?
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Does it exemplify who you are?
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Does an award, as much as they're nice to get, exemplify who you are?
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And honestly, who among any of us actually wins alone?
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You know, anything that you achieve is done because so many people helped you along the way.
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So it's always this community endeavor.
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to dancers, to tech crews, to former teachers, then yeah, winning is great because everybody wins together, right?
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But what I find, you know, and this goes to academia, which you're in, is that over the years that it's always been this way, but it seems to have gotten more so, there's this incredible need for students to win in terms of grades and in terms of every single thing.
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thing that they do.
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This is a moment, you know, where I want to make a case for failing.
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You know, and I mean that sincerely, because if you're in dance or if you're in life, if you're alive, you're going to fail.
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And you're going to fail probably more times than you succeed, certainly in dance.
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You're going to fail more times than you succeed.
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So what failure offers us is an opportunity for reflection and curiosity.
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You know, Sure.
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When you fail, you need to go through self-doubt.
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You need to go through sadness, grief.
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You need to go through anger.
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You know, how dare I fail or how dare that person fail me, right?
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You need to go through these phases and that's important to process, but process it quickly.
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Don't dwell in it.
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Don't put yourself in a cave about it.
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Just get out and start making work again.
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You know, and also, you know, having a sense of reflection on, did I fail because Right.
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And feeling defeatist about it is just a waste of time.
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But on the other hand, maybe you failed because you didn't reach the potential that you had hoped you'd reach.
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And that's worth investigating.
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That's worth trying to figure out, well, that's the question to ask.
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Where did I fail?
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If I failed, where did I fail?
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And what do I want to work on?
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So it becomes a process then that gives back to you, I think, in some ways more than the winning.
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And that, I think, is part of resilience.
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Mm-hmm.
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Mm-hmm.
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after they graduate and they're in kind of their lives, they're going to have multiple failures.
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And so, you know, in a way, If we don't give them some real hard feedback at times, we're not preparing them for the reality of what they're going to face when they get out.
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Yeah.
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As a professor, in my class, we talk about the idea of having a relationship with failure to the extent that we will give our failure a name.
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Give your failure what you feel is failure within yourself or that thing that you're trying to tangle with, if you will.
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It's your partner.
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This is your partner.
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Give them a name, give them an identity and form a relationship so that you have the opportunity to reflect.
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And it becomes almost like a friend who is giving you feedback versus the situation that is beating you down and pushing you down and weighing down on you.
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And you know that, what you're saying too, I think it takes a huge amount of self-confidence to get to a place where failure is your friend.
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Oh,
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absolutely.
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You have to go through failures and feel bad and feel self-doubt and all of those insecurities.
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Those are really important things to feel because what those things do is teach us humility.
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And I personally believe that humility is critical for my journey as an art maker.
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I really try to lean in to that aspect of art making and you learn that in some ways through not through success but through when things are difficult and you feel that you're not up to the measure of what other people are doing you start to compare yourself etc etc so it does take I mean for younger dancers you know there's no there's nothing bad about feeling bad.
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That is what we all do.
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And no matter where we are in our career, that happens regularly, you know, but what it does kind of build your character.
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Yeah.
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I mean, going back to what you said, this idea of you didn't reach the potential of this, of what you were trying to do, you didn't reach the potential of that moment.
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And then taking that time to say, but why, why didn't I reach that potential?
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Or why Why didn't I maximize this moment?
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That's where the investigation happens.
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And I think that that's the space where then forward motion can take place.
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If you can actually recognize why I was or was not able, whether it's identifying the factors that were in your control or out of your control, the ones that are in your control, understanding what they are, like that's the space for forward motion.
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That's the space to be able to move past, move through beyond whatever that current situation is.
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Absolutely.
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And I think, you know, with regards to this idea of humility, because there's a kind of second category there, which is strong opinions.
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Like, you know, I have very strong opinions and anybody that knows me well knows that.
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But of course, over time, my ability to parse that out better has occurred.
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And second And secondly, I think that you can have humility and also have strong opinions.
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Mm-hmm.
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Mm-hmm.
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for me?
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And then you start being really pragmatic about it.
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You know, it's not, as you know, the old telling your students, please don't tell me I like it or don't like it.
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You have to go beyond that, right?
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Yes.
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So that part of it is part of, okay, you have strong opinions, but you need to parse out which is a preference that you have from your own background and your own experiences and And which is something that the work is actually not living up to some potential.
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And why?
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And why?
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And that then becomes a very interesting process.
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It's much more interesting than being judgmental.
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Judgmental just feels bad.
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But having strong opinions and figuring out where it's coming from, that's another self-discovery moment.
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Yeah, I actually have a role now as facilitator of our student choreographic works.
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And it is a very fast process.
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We work in a hybrid style where they rehearse on their own and we come together as a group once a month.
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And we do showings and then feedback sessions where we start to talk and dialogue about the work.
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And I have leaned into Liz Lerman's critical response process to help give them a language for separating themselves from their opinions, being able to articulate themselves.
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But I still find myself as the facilitator.
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I'm watching a work and And I get two minutes to collect my thoughts on how I'm going to present my reflection on this individual's work.
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And it can be such a challenge sometimes within that finite amount of time to go through that full process of this is my opinion based on my aesthetic.
00:25:49.981 --> 00:26:08.090
clear with what their intention is and but i think it is that is the limitation of time that happens so quickly with each one of them but i do feel myself grappling with that and going through that process
00:26:10.273 --> 00:26:11.336
Yeah, it's super hard.
00:26:11.336 --> 00:26:16.022
I mean, it's the same challenge that we were talking about earlier in some regards, having enough time for your own work.
00:26:16.022 --> 00:26:20.009
Also have and for students to have enough time for their own work.
00:26:20.009 --> 00:26:25.859
And by nature is a very fast deadline period during a semester.
00:26:25.859 --> 00:26:30.267
So, you know, there are artificial constraints there.
00:26:30.267 --> 00:26:35.615
And, you know, every professor finds those moments difficult.
00:26:35.615 --> 00:26:41.339
And As always, we just do the best we can given the challenge that we're presented.
00:26:43.150 --> 00:26:43.230
Yeah.
00:26:43.521 --> 00:26:51.692
I hadn't actually, I mean, I want to say thank you for giving me the words to articulate that the way that I was able to because I didn't really know what that was in that moment.
00:26:51.692 --> 00:26:53.375
I wasn't able to articulate it that way.
00:26:53.375 --> 00:26:59.723
I would just get really frustrated with, I don't know what to say right now because it's not right.
00:26:59.723 --> 00:27:02.547
It doesn't feel like what I'm about to say doesn't feel right.
00:27:02.547 --> 00:27:05.590
It doesn't feel productive.
00:27:05.590 --> 00:27:09.997
It doesn't feel as if it's going to assist the process along the journey.
00:27:09.997 --> 00:27:13.040
But I hadn't actually thought about it that way.
00:27:13.953 --> 00:27:14.493
Yeah.
00:27:14.493 --> 00:27:27.826
And often we're looking at artists, very young artists who are really doing their initial stabs as in dance composition, in creating choreography.
00:27:27.826 --> 00:27:42.838
So a lot of latitude has to be given for that, you know, that they are just trying to figure out some basic fundamentals about dance making and they're very much caught up in their own culture of their age.
00:27:42.838 --> 00:27:43.920
Right.
00:27:43.920 --> 00:27:54.751
And so we're seeing a lot of regurgitation of that and how we gently, you know, encourage them to look for their own vision is, you know, part of the challenge, right?
00:27:54.751 --> 00:28:06.304
But often, you know, dancers will want students in the past have wanted to get feedback like on a minute of material, right?
00:28:06.304 --> 00:28:12.269
And sometimes I just have to tell them it's too soon to tell.
00:28:12.269 --> 00:28:18.997
It's too You know, you're going to have to give us some more material to kind of help guide you.
00:28:18.997 --> 00:28:22.580
But in the end, we're giving feedback on four minutes material.
00:28:22.580 --> 00:28:26.945
You know, so it's still a pretty short amount of time.
00:28:26.945 --> 00:28:39.219
But you can see enough of like kind of where they're going and eventually to kind of just put a few little structural comments or ask the right question.
00:28:39.219 --> 00:28:43.824
I mean, that's always like you said, you know, when you in your head can formulate a good question.
00:28:43.824 --> 00:28:47.347
to ask them, then they can pretty much solve the problem themselves.
00:28:49.210 --> 00:28:50.571
That's essentially the idea.
00:28:50.571 --> 00:28:50.612
I
00:28:50.951 --> 00:28:51.393
miss that.
00:28:51.393 --> 00:29:00.824
I miss that now that I'm retired that I don't have that engagement with students and an opportunity to kind of, you know, be in that process with them a little bit.
00:29:00.824 --> 00:29:02.465
That's hard but fun.
00:29:03.346 --> 00:29:04.127
Oh, it is so hard.
00:29:04.127 --> 00:29:05.068
They challenge me.
00:29:05.068 --> 00:29:07.592
They challenge me with their work.
00:29:07.592 --> 00:29:10.996
They challenge me with their thoughts and their ideas and their perceptions.
00:29:10.996 --> 00:29:11.635
And
00:29:13.761 --> 00:29:14.303
Totally.
00:29:14.584 --> 00:29:46.115
This last semester, I think the biggest topic was music and how we utilize music and identifying if there was, the conversation was, is there a generational gap between between how we see music, not only just how we use it as a companion with our movement, but how it influences our daily life.
00:29:46.115 --> 00:29:59.208
And one of the students has their headphones in at all times and basically has a soundtrack to their life playing from the time they wake up to the time they go to bed.
00:29:59.208 --> 00:30:03.030
And I thought, we didn't have headphones when I was growing up.
00:30:03.030 --> 00:30:04.112
I couldn't cancel.
00:30:04.112 --> 00:30:28.482
the world out and so it's you know it's not only just the music but it's the notifications and the constant dinging and ringing and these audible cues that are coming in and then how we relate that and so that was It was a very informative conversation to see them and where they are and what their approach is to the audio aspect of the dance.
00:30:28.482 --> 00:30:33.990
Some chose to completely take the music out.
00:30:33.990 --> 00:30:43.804
Some chose to put other audible sounds in because they were just tasked with, can we have this conversation together?
00:30:43.804 --> 00:30:47.828
Because I'm watching the dances and I'm going, what?
00:30:47.828 --> 00:31:00.183
I'm so taken out of this moment by what I'm hearing that I can't actually see what's happening and so the relationship between audio and visual and how that's used.
00:31:00.183 --> 00:31:03.086
It was just fascinating talking about the time.
00:31:03.086 --> 00:31:06.709
Again, referencing that idea of time, what's happening now.
00:31:06.729 --> 00:31:08.871
Yeah.
00:31:08.871 --> 00:31:13.295
Of course, there's always generational gaps.
00:31:13.295 --> 00:31:14.096
Always.
00:31:14.096 --> 00:31:15.997
No matter what time period it is.
00:31:15.997 --> 00:31:21.142
And now it's particularly salient because of technology Mm-hmm.
00:31:21.142 --> 00:31:59.042
And then, you know, second semester inching music back in, but forcing them to really, really narrow parameters of what they can do.
00:31:59.042 --> 00:32:04.588
And by giving narrow parameters, then that allows them to push back at me, right?
00:32:04.588 --> 00:32:06.770
They kind of are, well, can I, can I, can I?
00:32:06.770 --> 00:32:09.973
And then I'm like, yes, no, no, yes, no.
00:32:09.973 --> 00:32:15.599
And so it's this negotiation process between the faculty member and the student.
00:32:15.599 --> 00:32:16.621
And I think that's fine.
00:32:16.621 --> 00:32:29.694
I think they're learning like, Okay, maybe structure that I'm getting from Karen is actually expanding what I can do, rather than narrowing what I can do.
00:32:29.694 --> 00:32:31.837
And I think that's the result.
00:32:31.837 --> 00:32:46.874
Like, Amy, when you, you know, give that structure to your students, and they're pushing against you on it, or, you know, maybe not against you, but questioning it, then perfect, because you're giving them an edge to work from.
00:32:46.874 --> 00:32:56.584
And without that edge, they're just out there, you know, making up stuff for themselves without consideration of structure sometimes.
00:32:56.584 --> 00:33:00.709
So by giving them that edge and saying, yeah, well, these are the parameters right now.
00:33:00.709 --> 00:33:03.692
See if you can create something interesting with this box.
00:33:03.692 --> 00:33:08.396
And then maybe later on when you graduate, you can create stuff way outside the box.
00:33:08.396 --> 00:33:09.137
That's good.
00:33:09.137 --> 00:33:10.199
That's where you're going.
00:33:11.180 --> 00:33:11.559
Yeah.
00:33:11.559 --> 00:33:15.503
And it is a lot of like their questions are not my questions.
00:33:15.503 --> 00:33:20.549
So then they present those in that negotiation, then present Absolutely.
00:33:20.549 --> 00:33:22.171
So
00:33:23.011 --> 00:33:41.511
let's talk a little bit more
00:33:41.791 --> 00:33:49.780
about your specific work.
00:33:49.780 --> 00:34:07.200
So looking through a list of some of your past works, titles such as Mapping and Glaciers, which you mentioned earlier, Deep Sea Space, Drench, Tree People, The Recycle Club, Portables, these titles seem to direct a meaning to space and environment.
00:34:07.200 --> 00:34:17.369
Can you talk a little bit to the scope and mission of these works and how they reflect your creative interest in messaging?
00:34:18.492 --> 00:34:30.605
Yeah, we Well, you know, I think I haven't really thought about my scope, my lexicon, if you will, of work as a whole in a long time, but not directly anyways, always indirectly.
00:34:30.605 --> 00:34:45.260
But if I were to just spontaneously say the scope or mission of my work is simply that my mission is to get in the studio with human beings and try to create a work.
00:34:45.260 --> 00:34:48.143
And so, you know, that's my mission.
00:34:48.143 --> 00:34:54.110
So that's a fundamental mission, but underneath that mission is how am I creating community?
00:34:54.110 --> 00:34:56.813
And how am I interacting with these human beings?
00:34:56.813 --> 00:34:58.213
How are they interacting with me?
00:34:58.213 --> 00:35:01.478
What's the environment of my rehearsal space?
00:35:01.478 --> 00:35:06.302
Where do I need to be super straightforward and direct about my needs?
00:35:06.302 --> 00:35:12.429
And where do I need to be permeable to allow something to happen that is organic?
00:35:12.429 --> 00:35:14.210
And how do I recognize that?
00:35:14.210 --> 00:35:18.735
So, you know, that is, that's, you know, the community part is really important.
00:35:18.735 --> 00:35:21.438
important in every single work that I do.
00:35:21.438 --> 00:35:23.320
It's thundering here.
00:35:23.320 --> 00:35:24.141
Did you hear that?
00:35:24.141 --> 00:35:24.782
I could hear it.
00:35:24.782 --> 00:35:25.003
Yeah.
00:35:25.003 --> 00:35:26.583
We're having some rain again.
00:35:26.583 --> 00:35:27.164
So that's good.
00:35:27.164 --> 00:35:27.905
My plants need it.
00:35:27.905 --> 00:35:44.963
But so that idea of how am I creating community in the microcosm of my rehearsal space and how am I creating community as it expands outward into wherever it's going into the larger community, that is always a thread in my work.
00:35:44.963 --> 00:35:56.896
And so anytime I do a work, I want the end result result to be that these dancers through whatever the structure of the piece is, are relaying community on some level.
00:35:56.896 --> 00:36:00.360
So that's an expression that I think continues on.
00:36:00.360 --> 00:36:05.985
I think, you know, Nancy Wozniak said some years back that, you know, place was very important to me.
00:36:05.985 --> 00:36:07.188
And I do think that's true.
00:36:07.188 --> 00:36:11.592
I often somehow place occurred in the work.
00:36:11.592 --> 00:36:16.657
And I kind of once I understand that in the process, I start to drill into that a little bit.
00:36:16.657 --> 00:36:25.347
But, you know, to talk about the the mission of each one of these pieces would take a tremendous amount of time, but they're fundamentally all very different.
00:36:25.347 --> 00:36:28.090
But I'll give some maybe little haikus about the pieces.
00:36:28.090 --> 00:36:45.027
Mapping and Glaciers was about human and geological boundaries and borders with an emphasis on the human impact of changing boundaries from environmental standpoints, how these boundaries are being changed by the melting of ice.
00:36:45.027 --> 00:36:53.077
But it touched on the whole idea of politicians being obsessed with boundaries, which seems to be ongoing relevance in our society.
00:36:53.077 --> 00:37:03.327
So that piece kind of went between these worlds of man-made maps, geology maps, and nature maps.
00:37:03.327 --> 00:37:04.068
Super fun.
00:37:04.068 --> 00:37:11.356
Deep sea space was Houston history from the standpoint of the Houston Ship Channel and NASA.
00:37:11.356 --> 00:37:12.938
So sea and space.
00:37:12.938 --> 00:37:15.260
And so a lot of research went into that.
00:37:15.260 --> 00:37:16.621
That was a huge project.
00:37:16.621 --> 00:37:28.494
It unfolded with a bunch of, bunch of site works like Sunset at White Oak Bayou, which was probably my most ambitious site work in Houston about Allen's Landing and the beginnings of Houston.
00:37:28.494 --> 00:37:39.505
And then at that same time, I unfolded some other site works like Drench and Tree People, which were commissioned by Discovery Green and happened in the Discovery Green Park.
00:37:39.505 --> 00:37:49.677
So with those, I was sort of given some tasks to create works, one in the water and one through an artistic installation that was in the trees of the park.
00:37:49.677 --> 00:37:51.418
So that's how those got defined.
00:37:51.418 --> 00:38:04.994
Recycle Club was just kind of, I was like, you know what, I'm just going to try to see if I can create a piece in which I recycle material, both choreographically, costume-wise, figuratively, music-wise, sets.
00:38:04.994 --> 00:38:12.561
And so kind of just everything mish-mashed together in this Recycle Club, kind of as a statement of environment as well.
00:38:12.561 --> 00:38:13.862
Are we recycling?
00:38:13.862 --> 00:38:15.545
How are we recycling?
00:38:15.545 --> 00:38:20.811
And that piece was really fun in the sense that I got to recycle a couple of dancers.
00:38:20.811 --> 00:38:24.635
My mom, who is a choreographer and dancer, came into the piece as a soloist.
00:38:24.635 --> 00:38:28.978
Roberta Stokes and also the wonderful Feral Died came in.
00:38:28.978 --> 00:38:32.202
So they had a moment on stage and they did an improvisation.
00:38:32.202 --> 00:38:34.425
It was fabulous, structured improvisation.
00:38:34.425 --> 00:38:35.907
So that was fun.
00:38:35.907 --> 00:38:39.250
And then Portables was an evening of shorter works.
00:38:39.250 --> 00:38:43.614
I just had this idea of creating an evening of works that could be portable and they weren't.
00:38:43.614 --> 00:38:49.340
When a title fails, like, you know, I had, okay, they're all going to be small cast.
00:38:49.340 --> 00:38:54.184
They're going to be easy to tour and no, no big props, all that kind of stuff, right?
00:38:54.184 --> 00:38:55.525
Self-task.
00:38:55.525 --> 00:38:59.228
And then almost towards the very beginning, I was like, okay, we have eight dancers.
00:38:59.228 --> 00:39:00.309
Let me double cast it.
00:39:00.309 --> 00:39:02.431
And then immediately the piece was eight dancers.
00:39:02.431 --> 00:39:04.054
Almost immediately.
00:39:04.054 --> 00:39:04.773
You know what I mean?
00:39:04.773 --> 00:39:05.894
I was like, okay, forget it.
00:39:05.894 --> 00:39:14.101
This is going to be, it's better as eight dancers, you know, because I have no, I have no concept on how to use understudies.
00:39:14.101 --> 00:39:16.885
If they're in the space, I put them in the piece.
00:39:16.885 --> 00:39:20.291
I just, This part of like the community building, right?
00:39:20.291 --> 00:39:23.114
You just like, no, no, you can't stay over there.
00:39:23.114 --> 00:39:23.574
Come in here.
00:39:23.574 --> 00:39:24.856
Let's get you going, you know?
00:39:24.856 --> 00:39:26.436
And the next thing you know, right?
00:39:26.436 --> 00:39:26.757
Yeah.
00:39:26.757 --> 00:39:29.820
We don't, portables is not portables anymore, but it is.
00:39:29.820 --> 00:39:35.565
So, you know, that's how process can kind of, you know, bite you in the butt sometimes, but it was, it was a fun show.
00:39:35.565 --> 00:39:36.626
So no regrets.
00:39:36.626 --> 00:39:41.090
So, but yeah, that's kind of answer on those particular works.
00:39:41.690 --> 00:39:41.929
Yeah.
00:39:41.929 --> 00:39:52.902
So you had used the word creative research and that is kind of a subtopic and really it's my personal interest right now is how do we define creative research?
00:39:52.902 --> 00:39:57.164
And what that looks like in our process.
00:39:57.164 --> 00:40:01.068
And what is the conclusion if there is one?
00:40:01.068 --> 00:40:08.614
Most like a traditional research study has some sort of nice little package wrapped up conclusion.
00:40:08.614 --> 00:40:15.199
But I question that idea when it comes to creative research.
00:40:15.199 --> 00:40:19.182
But I'm interested, you know, you mentioned that Deep Space had a lot of research in it.
00:40:19.182 --> 00:40:22.385
What forms, like what did that look like?
00:40:24.447 --> 00:40:24.527
Yeah.
00:40:24.527 --> 00:40:24.829
Yeah.
00:40:24.829 --> 00:40:33.547
I mean, it's like there's two circles and they overlap, you know, because on one circle you have academic research, right?
00:40:33.547 --> 00:40:36.873
And in deep sea space, when I mentioned that...
00:40:36.873 --> 00:40:55.186
There was a lot of boots on ground research going out into the ship channel, talking to ship channel pilots and talking to a NASA astronaut and interviewing them and using that text as prologues for the piece.
00:40:55.186 --> 00:40:56.929
There was library work.
00:40:56.929 --> 00:41:05.215
So those are all things that are kind of within the lexicon of academic research and ultimately publishable if you wanted to write it there, right?
00:41:05.215 --> 00:41:11.581
And then there's that process, you know, you could put that somehow inside some kind of publishable format.
00:41:11.581 --> 00:41:19.349
But then there's the part that is the, and this part of creative research, I think, is still being unpacked.
00:41:19.349 --> 00:41:39.811
And by a lot of people who are incredibly intellectual in the dance field, who are really kind of parsing it out with interesting terminology and how to think about research in dimensional ways, like, you know, three-dimensional research, and it's not just this linear process.
00:41:39.811 --> 00:41:41.693
So I'm not going to talk about it in that way.
00:41:41.693 --> 00:41:48.239
I'm going to kind of talk about it just more as what we have always done, which is an embodied process of research.
00:41:48.239 --> 00:41:57.467
So the only way we can get to our result is through taking our tools and working with them in a space, whatever that space is.
00:41:57.467 --> 00:41:58.427
It could be outside.
00:41:58.427 --> 00:42:00.489
It could be anywhere, really, you know.
00:42:00.489 --> 00:42:06.655
But taking these human tools and kind of working with them through movement in a space.
00:42:06.655 --> 00:42:09.597
And that is our, see, something really big.
00:42:09.597 --> 00:42:13.632
was just said because the thunder came out.
00:42:13.632 --> 00:42:14.434
Highlight that moment.
00:42:14.434 --> 00:42:50.047
That whole thing about what we do as an embodied practice in the studio varies artist to artist, but I think there's also a lot of similarities artist to artist because we are working on finding something that is nonverbal through our physicality and our connection with one another and through space-time energy in a space with human bodies.
00:42:50.047 --> 00:42:57.554
That is less easy to quantify in the way that academic research is easy to quantify.
00:42:57.554 --> 00:43:05.724
But it is worth, I think, talking about, and not necessarily quantifying, but...
00:43:05.724 --> 00:43:21.023
demonstrating the value of embodied research within the lexicon of dance making and talking about it because other people don't see it that way.
00:43:21.023 --> 00:43:24.068
And that's important.
00:43:24.068 --> 00:43:44.438
That's a part of our advocacy for what we do as dance makers, as dancers, and how this process with your dancers who are extremely well-researched human beings in the form of dance, right?
00:43:44.438 --> 00:43:46.201
They are our books.
00:43:46.201 --> 00:43:50.005
They are so full of information in movement.
00:43:50.005 --> 00:44:00.298
And we use that information to cross-pollinate our ideas with their skills into a format that is a production.
00:44:00.298 --> 00:44:04.425
And that process is a form of creative research.
00:44:04.425 --> 00:44:12.465
So that's how I kind of think that all these kind of intellectual discussions about creative research are very important.
00:44:12.465 --> 00:44:14.226
And I think people should publish about that.
00:44:14.226 --> 00:44:17.829
Not me, but other people.
00:44:17.849 --> 00:44:20.972
Well, and that's part of it is trying to find the language.
00:44:20.972 --> 00:44:25.956
I mean, I'm really curious about this right now because I've always called it creative research.
00:44:25.956 --> 00:44:36.065
And it actually is the spark, the genesis of this podcast was I was on another podcast and I kept using creative research.
00:44:36.065 --> 00:44:37.126
She was asking me about my work.
00:44:37.126 --> 00:44:42.552
And, you of research and kind of describing, you know, what that was.
00:44:42.552 --> 00:44:48.516
And she stopped the interview and she's like, wait a minute, you keep using this word research and I've never heard of it.
00:44:48.516 --> 00:44:50.177
What are you talking about?
00:44:50.177 --> 00:44:50.277
Yeah.
00:44:50.277 --> 00:44:51.659
Like, can you define that?
00:44:51.659 --> 00:44:59.505
And I didn't have the language and I'm still investigating what that is.
00:44:59.505 --> 00:45:07.652
But at one point I did have someone say, I encourage you to use the word activity versus research.
00:45:07.652 --> 00:45:13.275
because it more clearly defines what it is that you're doing.
00:45:13.275 --> 00:45:14.679
And I thought, but does it?
00:45:15.802 --> 00:45:21.038
Yeah, I think it's a slippery slope because I think when somebody says creative activity...
00:45:21.038 --> 00:45:29.702
That could be a game that you're playing with kids in a space, right?
00:45:29.702 --> 00:45:31.403
It's a creative activity, right?
00:45:31.403 --> 00:45:36.389
It is not a choreographic process in the same way, right?
00:45:36.389 --> 00:45:45.036
In research, we're kind of using academic terminology and people can have struggle with that, but I think that's okay for them to struggle with it.
00:45:45.036 --> 00:45:48.079
You know, go ahead, you struggle with it.
00:45:48.079 --> 00:45:49.960
Meanwhile, over here, that's what we're doing.
00:45:49.960 --> 00:46:01.112
The research is researching with my dancers and This process with all the elements that I'm bringing in and all the elements they're bringing in to come to a product.
00:46:01.112 --> 00:46:23.835
And that process, because we deal with movement, makes people shut down sometimes with the term research.
00:46:23.835 --> 00:46:24.456
like that.
00:46:24.456 --> 00:46:33.253
So when people talk about all of the different kinds of interdisciplinary fields that we have right now, which is great.
00:46:33.253 --> 00:46:41.527
However, another big statement coming.
00:46:41.527 --> 00:46:51.637
However, making, dance making with dancers in a space, whatever that space is, is interdisciplinary.
00:46:51.637 --> 00:47:01.485
You know, because you have, like I have four dancers right now, I have five sources of material coming in together.
00:47:01.485 --> 00:47:03.166
They're informing me.
00:47:03.166 --> 00:47:04.327
I'm informing them.
00:47:04.327 --> 00:47:39.960
Mostly I'm informing them in a lot of ways, but no matter how much you are directing the movement vocabulary, because I don't use a lot of improvisation in my work they are constantly shifting the work because of their skill base you know so I don't know you know I think research actually needs to be something that we kind of hold on to a little bit you know it's a way particularly in academia because academia you know is challenged by dance
00:47:42.369 --> 00:47:45.572
I think more than academia is challenged by dance.
00:47:45.572 --> 00:47:57.463
And I think it's a universal challenge and negotiation that goes all the way back in our history as to why we feel this way and how it...
00:47:58.403 --> 00:48:00.585
I think particularly in the United States of America.
00:48:01.065 --> 00:48:01.246
Oh, yeah.
00:48:01.847 --> 00:48:08.413
I think there are other cultures that have been better at integrating dance into the fabric of their cultural existence.
00:48:08.413 --> 00:48:08.693
Yes.
00:48:08.693 --> 00:48:13.300
But particularly here, it's been a challenge It is challenging.
00:48:13.300 --> 00:48:17.538
But yeah, I think also...
00:48:17.538 --> 00:48:21.422
We want to be respected.
00:48:21.422 --> 00:48:34.333
And if you are saying that this box is the only kind of research possible, dancers are famous for busting out boxes.
00:48:34.333 --> 00:48:36.835
You know, we're like, no, no.
00:48:36.835 --> 00:48:41.159
Research has a lot of different possibilities within it.
00:48:41.159 --> 00:48:43.521
This is another aspect of research.
00:48:43.521 --> 00:48:46.003
So it's difficult though.
00:48:46.003 --> 00:48:51.349
I welcome to hear in the future when you write your paper Send me a copy.
00:48:51.851 --> 00:48:53.492
If I ever get around to it.
00:48:53.492 --> 00:48:56.538
Because I'm still just grappling with all of it.
00:48:56.538 --> 00:49:00.384
And it's interesting you say like dancers and busting out of the box.
00:49:00.384 --> 00:49:06.853
And that leads my stream of consciousness to this idea of innovation.
00:49:06.853 --> 00:49:11.360
And that takes you back to this idea that research is discovery.
00:49:11.360 --> 00:49:15.005
Research is the process of getting...
00:49:15.005 --> 00:49:18.657
it is a part of this idea of innovation and.
00:49:20.018 --> 00:49:20.257
Yeah.
00:49:20.639 --> 00:49:21.418
Illumination.
00:49:22.119 --> 00:49:22.539
Yes.
00:49:22.539 --> 00:49:31.588
Of illumination, having a product at the end, you know, having coming to that resolved moment where the research is presented.
00:49:31.588 --> 00:49:33.230
That's our production, you know?
00:49:33.530 --> 00:49:33.769
Yes.
00:49:33.769 --> 00:49:34.451
Yes.
00:49:34.451 --> 00:49:37.773
Thank you for helping me to find language again.
00:49:37.773 --> 00:49:42.577
Once again, you're helping me to find language, to find the words.
00:49:42.577 --> 00:49:47.762
It's some of these things feel, like they're just an innate knowing, right?
00:49:47.762 --> 00:49:51.085
We've been talking on this podcast about the body is knowledge.
00:49:51.085 --> 00:49:54.230
And so some of these things, they just live inside of us.
00:49:54.230 --> 00:49:55.791
We have an understanding of it.
00:49:55.791 --> 00:50:02.277
And then the fight for me oftentimes is how I articulate that.
00:50:02.277 --> 00:50:07.143
It is a sensing and intuitive knowingness.
00:50:07.143 --> 00:50:14.891
And then how do I take that and make it into something verbal or representational that is outside of myself?
00:50:14.891 --> 00:50:18.556
And so There's the pouring in and then there's the pouring out.
00:50:18.556 --> 00:50:24.282
And that transition of finding the language for that or finding the process for that can be a challenge for me.
00:50:24.282 --> 00:50:28.565
And so thank you for helping me to discover that language.
00:50:28.565 --> 00:50:29.646
I really appreciate it.
00:50:30.467 --> 00:50:32.190
Well, it's a challenge for everyone.
00:50:32.190 --> 00:50:34.291
And you're discovering it on your own.
00:50:34.291 --> 00:50:35.614
So thank you.
00:50:36.675 --> 00:50:37.596
Thank you.
00:50:37.596 --> 00:50:42.061
So Karen, thank you so much for bringing your experience to our audience.
00:50:42.061 --> 00:50:44.903
It has been an absolute pleasure to get to know you.
00:50:44.903 --> 00:50:46.385
your work more directly.
00:50:46.385 --> 00:50:49.811
I've been watching your work for almost 20 years now.
00:50:49.811 --> 00:50:55.237
Thank you for everything that you're bringing to the community.
00:50:55.237 --> 00:50:58.882
The Artist Excellence Award is well-deserved.
00:50:58.882 --> 00:51:05.612
I hope that you feel the pouring in of your community that you've been pouring into for so many years.
00:51:05.612 --> 00:51:12.561
One final task is This is our rapid round, put you in the hot seat.
00:51:12.561 --> 00:51:22.952
So these are the two sentences that are the thread line for season one and helping us to remember our focus and our intention for the season.
00:51:22.952 --> 00:51:28.980
So if I can ask you please to complete these sentences as rapidly as you choose.
00:51:28.980 --> 00:51:31.382
So number one, resilience is...
00:51:32.483 --> 00:51:33.304
Beginning again.
00:51:33.344 --> 00:51:33.405
Yes.
00:51:33.405 --> 00:51:38.568
Dance has taught me.
00:51:38.568 --> 00:51:41.907
I love that.
00:51:41.907 --> 00:51:44.610
Yes.
00:51:44.610 --> 00:51:45.711
Thank you.
00:51:45.711 --> 00:51:47.094
Thank you.
00:51:47.094 --> 00:51:47.373
Thank you.
00:51:47.373 --> 00:51:49.237
Thank you, Karen, so much for joining us today.
00:51:49.237 --> 00:51:49.496
Thank you so
00:51:49.516 --> 00:51:49.597
much.
00:51:49.597 --> 00:51:51.659
We didn't get to impermanence, though.
00:51:51.719 --> 00:51:52.882
We didn't.
00:51:52.882 --> 00:51:56.827
That's the joy of being unscripted.
00:51:56.867 --> 00:51:59.731
All right.
00:51:59.731 --> 00:52:07.460
Listen, hey, for doing this, it's really wonderful that you took the initiative to do this and that you're going to present these.
00:52:07.460 --> 00:52:08.422
So keep me in the loop.
00:52:09.184 --> 00:52:10.025
Absolutely.
00:52:10.025 --> 00:52:10.885
Absolutely.
00:52:10.885 --> 00:52:15.507
Thank you for joining me for what felt like a personal masterclass.
00:52:15.507 --> 00:52:19.974
I learned so much from Karen and her knowledge as a creator and educator.
00:52:19.974 --> 00:52:22.918
Let us know your top takeaways in the comments.
00:52:22.918 --> 00:52:27.344
You can find more about Karen at karenstokesdance.org.
00:52:27.344 --> 00:52:31.710
Be sure to click the subscribe button and share with a friend or colleague.
00:52:31.710 --> 00:52:35.597
Leave us a review on Spotify for a chance to win Dance Unscripted merch.
00:52:35.597 --> 00:52:41.494
You could have chosen any platform and you chose dance and you chose us.
00:52:41.494 --> 00:52:44.422
And for that, we are incredibly thankful.
00:52:44.422 --> 00:52:50.735
We are also thankful for the Lamar University Center for Resiliency for making season one possible.
00:52:50.735 --> 00:52:54.101
Dance Unscripted is presented by Aimed Dance.