Wait--what are they doing?

Yesterday was the world premier for Renegade Dance Architects--a new company that my friend Ginger Jensen formed in the process of working on the piece that we performed, "Forgiveness, Not Permission." Ginger would probably say this better, but the company's mission is to bring dance back to the people. This piece literally eliminates the "fourth wall." We make direct eye contact with the audience, we are humans and dancers in our movement styles, we even have direct physical contact with the audience--when it's performed "Renegade"-style.

Yep--we performed in public spaces, with plenty of passersby (come see our show next week to understand that pun!).

Friday morning, 8 am. We met at the Bean/Cloud Gate in Millennium Park. Directly under the Bean, we did some plies and stretches with our reflections at every angle. On a grassy patch between the Bean and the Pritzker Pavilion, we held our first performance. Apparently, no one really goes to Millennium Park on a Friday morning! The security guards/park rangers and a few tourists who did not want to waste the day got a pretty good show.

With our entourage of 4 people following us, we walked a few blocks to Daley Plaza and set up in front of the Picasso. This location worked so magically for the piece.

I don't want to give away too many details--except that you can watch the dance on Facebook!--but we start as pedestrians. Just simple walking, all in different styles, in different paths. Other real pedestrians, on their way to work, had no idea that they were in the middle of a dance performance. Until we started moving our arms, torsos, pointing our toes, breaking into a grand jete...The sounds of the city were all around us, people sitting on benches were speechless, business types were very confused. It was impossible NOT to connect with our audience: they were a part of the dance.

This experience was a wonderful source of inspiration as a dancer and a choreographer. I'm reminded that we are not only dancing for ourselves, we are even more so dancing for an audience. For people. I have been discussing the lack of support for dance, how arts patrons would rather go to a play or a musical or even an art gallery. Audiences like what they can relate to. I'm starting to notice that most people just don't "get" dance. They either don't relate to moving your body as artistic expression, or they can't see what the choreographer was trying to express, or they just get tired of seeing the same thing over and over.

Sometimes you just have to shake things up a bit to get them to pay attention.
I think our public performance made people open their eyes. And hopefully they talked about it all day.