Learning choreography

(Second of 2 parts)

The closest word to choreography at the Webster’s Family Dictionary is chorea which reads, "A nervous disease characterized by involuntary spasms of muscular contraction. Gk. choreia, dance." That made me laugh.

In this age dance seems to be exactly that. Spasms. I watch contemporary movement and begin to wonder why dancers bother to take class at all. Those pedestrian gestures can be done by anyone. Even a jeepney driver can give you the same results. Whatever happened to good old dancing?

If you’re really avant-garde, hey, don’t let a dancer do those technical arabesques and pirouettes with the correct line. It has to be these chop-chop tics and seizures that are so in and new. Make them look depressed. Make the women look like men and men, women. No wonder few go to the ballet anymore. The dancers ache to show off their technique but the choreographers ache to show off their angst. Sadly, this angst cannot be learned in school. If it’s done to a particular body no other body can move in the same way. So dances die with the next generation.

Choreographers that come from the performing arts have no problem creating movement. Many dancers become that after retirement. It’s not necessary to think much. The body is so well-equipped to move creating becomes effortless, second nature.

But instinct never suffices. National Artist Salvador Bernal once told me, "You can’t depend on inspiration alone. Inspiration doesn’t come all the time. What if you’re not inspired? What do you do? You go back to your craft."

In terms of craft, I don’t see many courses in choreography around. Lack of formal study produces works that don’t make sense. There’s usually no focus on the vital beginnings, middles and ends. No thought on climaxes and resolutions, character development, structure, sensitivity to musical structure.

Just movement, movement, movement, the result of which is a masturbation of some sort. The audience suffers the indulgence of a dancer who believes earnestly that he’s choreographing.

A single arm gesture can become a two-hour show when its quality, rhythm or size is perhaps reversed. Yet people are afraid of repetition, theme and variation, motif and development. But which choreographer thinks of these things anymore, I wonder. Come to think of it I never did in my heyday. Guilty.

As I wrote last week, the NCCA dance committee tasked me to author modules for a workshop in creative movement which we hope to give all over the country. Staring at my notes I couldn’t go on without rifling through answers to disturbing questions I often ask myself.

The neo-Filipino choreographer. Is there anyone out there? Where is he coming from? What is his inspirations, exposures, skills? What kind of works is he producing?

The Filipino dancer. What, really, is a Filipino dancer? Is there a future for him? Can dance be a career in the Philippines? Why are we losing him to foreign countries and companies? How can we inspire the youth to enter the field of dance?

Dance in our society. Is there an au-dience for dance? Why is there a surge of street festivals all over? What is dance doing worldwide for the Filipinos and the nation?

There is a shortage of contemporary choreographers and professional dancers right now. There is also a torrent of seasoned artists heading towards the training and evaluation of talents for Japan. I, myself, am a testing officer eyeing thousands of young people tackle ballet and jazz for a crack at those Japanese lounge gold mines. We are being assessed by individuals from the recruitment industry who know nothing about what we have done nor who we are. So we have talent managers deciding if important people like CCP artistic directors are qualified enough to evaluate their talents for Japan. But this is another long and interesting story I will have to write about in a separate article.

Noontime television shows off sexy female dancers grinding their hips and becoming famous for it. It seems that we are going to be a nation of Japayuki and Sex Bomb dancers and choreographers. I’m not saying sensual is immoral, unless those sexy dancers continue to strip down to their undergarment and call it art. I’m just asking, should all legitimate theater artists go there? Or are they to become extinct because of the country’s financial dilemma?

Many Asian countries hire Filipino singers and dancers to perform in their theaters and bars. No doubt the reason is we are oozing with talent. They have the money to pay our artists who fly in to perform with a breath of life so exceptional yet cheap. Because their own artists have no soul we sort of lend them ours.

But back home art is becoming cold. People don’t think anymore and the soul has gone frigid. Gone are the days when we used to do art… sorry, for art’s sake. The passion is gone and it’s getting to be – for money – everywhere. I hate the word "racket" because it means soulessness.

So, like our sad senators who give their sad performances we do our songs and dances to grandstand. Gimmick here, shock there. Don’t even think. Just get a reaction and be talked about. Or, do it for money and, quickly. Art is such a cheap commodity even our politicians sing and dance. And politics is so cheap even artists can make national laws.

When I was in New York in my 20s, my sister took me to a loft theater dance performance. I gaped at the choreography. It was a masterpiece, the most beautiful work I’ve ever seen in my life. After the show I was told the choreographer was not a dancer, not really a choreographer, not even an artist. He was a mathematician. But could a mathematical equation create such ravishing steps? Did he get those from his calculations? I should’ve paid more attention to my math teacher.

It took me all these years to figure out how the guy choreographed so masterfully. The answer comes close to Einstein’s theory of relativity: E=mc2. Was it the inertia of the body compelling it to take a certain path through a space which is warped and curved in the vacinity of a large mass of matter? Of course not. He just sat in his room and gave his art a lot of sincere and dedicated thought.