Choreographer Amanda Loulaki’s World Premiere of I AM SAYING GOODNIGHT took place in NYC’s intimate PS 122 performance space on October 13th-16th, 2010. A dance performance I had the pleasure of reviewing at the time (http://www.examiner.com/dance-in-new-york/amanda-loulaki-i-am-saying-goodnight), I am pleased to share with you some of Ms. Loulaki’s very own insights on her choreography and dance.
Loulaki’s company (http://www.amandaloulaki.com/) Short Mean Lady is what she refers to as a “project-oriented company.” Though she says, “every piece of mine is different, it always depends on the needs of the piece,” since 2004 she has been fortunate enough to work with the same performing artists, long time collaborators.
She is very process-oriented, and after my discussion with her, I really got a sense of the journey that comes with the thinking up of a specific idea/content, the creation, and performance. When starting a new piece, Loulaki says, “I spend a lot of time thinking in the studio. I work by myself and discover the movement quality…the quality of movement creates a way of thinking about what’s happening.”
In reference to her 2007 piece, Delirium or that taste in my mouth, presented at Danspace Project, she explains to me what turned out to be a 2-year-long process and dance exploration in order to create it:
My question then was ‘where does inspiration come from?...Is this possible – to not have inspiration?’ There were months of improvisation with the idea of moving from internal organs. I was recording the hours of improvisation and keeping the material that came after everyone had nothing left to say…in improvisation there’s a point where you hit zero, where there is nothing, you don’t know what to do – that is what I kept.
As we transition into her choreographic process for I AM SAYING GOODNIGHT, Loulaki shares the different approach she took:
For this piece I didn’t want to start from the internal places. I wanted to come from the outside.
I brought a book of movie stills to rehearsal and had everyone select their persona…I really like cinematography – there are delicate abstractions. I was interested to see how this could happen on stage, using the body.
This piece has been very, very, very challenging. When you start with a concept and it starts to get its own shape; there is a point where the piece gets a voice of its own.
My instruction at the beginning is ‘in your body you already have the memory of what will happen in the end…no one is innocent from the beginning. There are intense moments of pain throughout this piece…the characters are always in a state of emergency, re-experiencing it again and again.
Taking the audience into consideration, Loulaki says, “I like the audience having the freedom to create their own associations with the work…when I read poetry [for instance], I appreciate it when I can identify with moments and create the whole myself.”
I AM SAYING GOODNIGHT is currently being performed at PS 122’s COIL Winter Festival of Contemporary Performance on January 7th at 5:00pm, January 8th at 5:00pm and finally on January 11th at 7:30pm. Don’t miss your chance to experience this evocative, mystery of a world created in Amanda Loulaki’s newest piece and see what moments you identify with.
See http://www.ps122.org/performances/i_am_saying_goodnight.html for tickets and more information.
J. Thompson
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