I'm always fascinated by the creative process. What is it that compels an artist to paint, write, sing, dance, make music? What are the triggers and how does that person go about congering up the finished piece? I had the inspiration to put together a little choreography for Halloween recently and thought I would take you on my journey. Perhaps it will spark something in you and send you on your own creative quest.
Sometime during the summer Autumn LaVarta was djing at the 9:20 Special here in San Francisco and towards the end of the evening he played Fats Waller's version of Dem Bones. Fats calls it Dry Bones. I connected to it immediately. I went home that night and downloaded it and listened to it over and over again. I realized something in that song was reaching to me from my childhood. Luckily for me, Alabama in the 1960's wasn't up on current children's programming and what I got to see on TV were all of the terrific old cartoons from the 30's and 40's with their hand drawn images and great musical scores. There were The Little Rascals and Our Gang and Frances the Talking Mule and a healthy dose of Gene Autry too.
I realized that Dry Bones made me think of this performance in The Little Rascals.
That performance actually scared me so that's why I probably remembered it. It also made me think of this cartoon.
It's pretty scary too.
I always say, if it's scary then do it! Why not take my skeletons out of the closet and make them dance! I contacted some dance friends and told them my idea and asked them if they wanted to join me. I have to say I have some wonderful indulgent friends and 10 brave souls signed on to learn my danse macabre.
When I listen to certain music-and I never know when this is going to happen-I see vague dancing images in my head. Particular places in the music will jump up in my minds eye and dance. I can usually turn this off when I'm dancing with a partner but when it happens and I'm not occupied it can be rather fun. Dry Bones was one of those pieces of music and a good deal of the choreography jumped up for me that way. The opening moves, the joining of the arms and weaving side to side, the grapevines and the ring-around-the rosy for example. I also knew I wanted to put in a few "dance jokes". I think the "Thriller" dance is probably the most performed Halloween dance these days and I wanted to add a little nod to that. The Hand Jive just fit perfectly in that little section and the Macarena was a happy accident that came from desperation. That section of music would only "appear" dark to me. It turned out the Macarena fit the music perfectly and was one of the funnier bits in the choreography.
Practice space is hard to come by in San Francisco and expensive so my band of merry skeletons practiced in Golden Gate Park and on an empty playground near my apartment. Not having mirrors to work with had one big advantage-we all learned the movement through our bodies and less through our eyes. With only four meetings to learn the choreography it was crucial that we get it all down before or first performance at the 9:20 and not leaning on the mirrors as a way to check our movement turned out to be a good thing. Our masks also obscured our peripheral vision so watching our neighbor for dance cues wasn't possible.
Costumes had to be inexpensive. I wanted us to wear masks to make us unrecognizable and add some mystery, gloves to emphasize the hands and bones on our clothes. The masks and gloves were a quick click on the internet but the rest of the costume had to be just as quick and cheap. Painting bones on would take too long and would be permanent so I came up with the idea of using masking tape on the black clothes. We had a costume making day at my place and the costumes came out even better than I thought they would. Did I mention that my indulgent dance friends are also very creative?
Here's the finished product. I had a great time creating it but it would have never come to life without the help of Alan and Linda Lau, Eva Louie, Eva Chau, Louisa Song, Jennifer Tinonga, Letha Cox-Dolowitz, David Elhami, Gordon Dang, and "Ocean" Matt. I love you guys!
This performance was at San Francisco City College
This performance was at a fundraiser for the 24 hour Danceathon for Cancer Research in OC that some of the performers were raising money for.
Special thanks to the 9:20 Special, Cat's Corner, City College of SF, Lindy in the Park and the Mystery Dance for letting us perform!
Great job, Blondie, and thanks for sharing the process. For me, the key to the process (writing, in my case) is the total lack of distraction. Functionally, this means I write only when I'm injured or on vacation. Once I don't have the pesky logistical worries of the day taking up my subconscious, I just let things percolate. I'll often think of sentence structures, alliterations, etc. while I'm asleep. In terms of writing, I sit for exactly 1 -1.5 hours at a sitting, no distractions. Not even getting up to pace. I don't edit, at all. Once I've got a few days worth of work I can do that, and I immediately send it to an editor to make sure it doesn't make sense only to my tortured internal logic. Then I have another editor once the piece is finished.
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