Falling Behind

About "Falling Behind."

This dance is about aging. It specifically refers to my experience as a new father. In my infant daughter, Maya, I not only see a reflection of myself, but also a new person with her own desires and powers. As I look to the future, I see myself diminishing, Maya growing. In childhood is written our own mortality. My idea is to represent through movement my conflicting emotions of fear and hope for the growth of my child and myself.

The performers represent different aspects of this journey. They will follow a straight pathway: the linear progression of age. There are three dancers. One dancer is carried, representing infancy. Her body swaddles her partner’s while her partner walks the line, gradually aging. His pathway is marked by a third dancer. She draws figures on the ground in chalk, another emblem of childhood. The third dancer represents a youth. As she grows, she continues to draw, applying the chalk to the body of her father. She is learning from his experience. Soon, however, their movement patterns conflict. She establishes her own identity. The dance metaphorically follows the passing of a single day.

March 18, 2008

Falling Behind

This piece is coming to mean more about maps: following a trail. In the beginning, Alex (Dad) and April (baby Maya) follow the trail left by Jenn (older Maya). They follow her lead. In this portion, their relationship changes. April is completely supported at first, carried, never touching the floor. The following section explores competing tensions: Alex swaddles April, defining clear, cautious boundaries. April tests these boundaries more and more, pulling away from that safe embrace.

Now, April exits the path, becoming a satellite of Jenn and Alex. This ghostly Maya, following the action, but unable to take part in it, is Jenn's past, her former self, which haunts her the way my past haunts me. All of that baggage persists--my days as a fat little kid, an overwhelming desire to be liked--no matter how often I reinvent myself. April follows the map, too, that map which Jenn draws upon Alex. For Jenn and Alex, this is a period of reconnection, a period I project on Maya's teenage years, in which she will briefly reestablish a rapport, relying on the support of the known as she negotiates a complicated transformation to an adult sense of herself. I experienced a period like this during high school, spending long hours with my dad discussing life and art. This changes, too. As the tempo speeds up, Alex evades the stroke of the chalk. He refuses to define her boundaries, forcing Jenn to establish her own.

At this point, April reenters the path. She is flung about (assisted by Alex) by the stable end of the chalk. This is Jenn's reconsideration of her childhood, her first attempt to redefine who she is by changing her point of view on who she was. There is something too substantial about her former self, however. It resists being rewritten. The body moves, but the chalk remains in place, at the heart; the map is not redrawn.

Finally, Jenn gives up. She draws a straight line on the sidewalk, separating herself from her past. Alex and April cannot cross this line. Jenn turns and walks ahead. Alex and April remain, however, though more distant. Jenn looks back, still connected in spite of herself.

Malcolm Shute