Four-Year Check In

At a few rehearsals now, Alex has announced his belief that it takes four years to really know another person. This is not to say that you can't already be friends or that the getting-to-know-you process can't be absorbing and delightful, but, he says, it takes at least four years to really depend on someone because you know how they will act.

I am not so sure: sometimes I think it takes longer. I have known my wife Jen for about 15 years now and she still surprises me sometimes. But, then, changing situations drive personal change. Arguably, we never know anyone really because we always transform.

It occurs to me, however, that I have choreographed and directed Human Landscape Dance for four years. I wonder how well I know myself as a choreographer.

I know a few things. Touch is the basis of my style. I am never satisfied until my dancers are in contact. This leads to my second point, that my primary concern as a choreographer is relationships. I continually probe the way we love, hate, trick, please, annoy, attract, suffer each other, and how these connections constantly unfold to reveal different ways to relate. We are such a complicated species: always reinventing ourselves in--perhaps for--the eyes of others.

I am not dedicated to slow-tempo dancing, although this is a rich vein on which I focused at the beginning. More and more, fast movement enters my work now, perhaps because it was on the shelf so long. I am still rather mystified by the process of reaching new audiences. This is a great weakness for me as a director: I struggle to gather audiences. Sometimes I succeed and sometimes I don't. Sometimes the same strategies are successful in one instance and unsuccessful in another. I worry that I may never feel confident about this aspect of leadership.

I like our work. This is not as easy as it sounds. There are so many variables to align when constructing a dance that it takes me about a year to fashion a dance with which I'm satisfied. Then it often takes a year or two to mature on the dancers' bodies. There is nothing like a three-year-old dance: the dancers are as present as if they were making love! It takes a great deal of trouble, but I like our work.

I am not done yet. When I began Human Landscape Dance, I intended to work for three years, just to experience being a director. My life is so different now from when I started, mostly because of my 2-year-old daughter Maya. I now deeply relish choreography: it is one of the few things I do that is really for me.

Watch Human Landscape Dance's Philadelphia performance of Closet Dances and January Night at the Painted Bride Arts Center on Saturday May 29 at 7:30pm and Sunday May 30 at 3pm. The Philadelphia/Washington DC Exchange is a shared concert with Philadelphia gem Anne-Marie Mulgrew and Dancers Co.