Fitness and Picasso

After our trip to Houston, we had a bit of a break on Monday and Tuesday. We started back with TTI on Wednesday. Our guest teachers were Patton White and Kevin and Megan from FitWit. We learned a lot about the importance of teaching fitness to those who need it most, those who don't have a fitness program available to them. After our class Juana Farfan, our outreach coordinator, thought it would be a good idea for us to work out with the FitWit team the next morning. These are some of the photos from our class on Wednesday and the workout Thursday Morning. After a strenuous workout on Thursday, we reconnected with the Picasso black and white paintings, sculptures, and prints we saw in Houston. We began to explore Picasso's intentions, what he was trying to get across in his art. This led to further research about Picasso's life and art which carried over into Friday. We began to take those intentions of Picasso and translate them into movement. I am so excited to be working in this way and I can't wait to see what we come up with for our performance in April.

We have arrived at the Menil Collection in Houston ! We finally got here to Houston this morning and went straight to the amazing Menil Collection to walk and walk and discover and walk and discover.... and discover! The place is huge and just feels endless in a way. It is so curious how the skylight changes as the sun moves and the colors of the fluorescent lights change when people move in the space. We worked on establishing our pathways and finding clarity in it, and within that there were lots and lots of new discoveries... We finished the day with a few costume alterations. Super excited about tomorrow's experience at the Menil Collection at 5:30pm and 6:30pm :-))

Thriving Thursday

Walking, lifting, looking, releasing, noticing, falling, exchanging, completing, driving, and thriving. Today was full of action and adventure for our creative process in our Menil piece. Can't wait to try it all in the real space next week!

Monday Funday

Happy Monday! We've had quite an exciting day in and around the studio today! We started off Monday funday with an invigorating class with the amazing Sarah Hillmer, where we took ballet to another level. After catching our breath from a couple runs of grande allegro, we revisited some of our repertory from our guest choreographers Becky Valls and Amanda Miller. It is always refreshing when we get to revisit the work even when the choreographers can't be with us. After lunch, we explored our minimalist work for the Dan Flavin installation and took it outside to the square to experience the essences of our walks using the actual distance (which happens to be double the size of our studio!) Here are a couple pictures from our adventures!

A Field Trip to the Woods

Today we were surprised with a field trip. We packed up our things and, without knowing where we were heading, took off on a journey. We ended up at a beautiful park not too far from the studio. There we played and created all while enjoying a gorgeous day. We allowed that open space, the trees, the earth, the sky to inform us in our creative choices. We made dances inspired by our surroundings. We could have been out there all day, creating, dancing, and allowing the space to move us. There was so much there to inspire. Our trip helped us to understand and deepen our work within the Minimalist aesthetic. Within a space like that, the smallest movement, the simplest gesture takes on so much meaning. Everything is intensified by the beauty and size of the space itself. It was a great experience that I'm happy to have shared with the company. Our task is to now take that feeling, that importance, that beauty into the performance itself. Here are some photos taken throughout the day as we journeyed through the forest. We can't wait to share our experiences with you in the space that Dan Flavin designed at the Menil Collection.

Lunchtime in the Studio, Walking, and Dan Flavin

Today was Lunchtime in the Studio, which is always such a great experience. Lunchtime in the Studio is a time for sharing part of our creative process with the public and getting the audience's feedback. Today's Lunchtime in the Studio focused on the work we are creating for the Dan Flavin installation as a part of the Menil Collection in Houston. For those of you who don't know, Dan Flavin was involved in the Minimalist movement, so our process is focusing on how he created work with a Minimalist aesthetic. How does one go about exploring Minimalism? We started off with the basics, walking. Over the past week we have been examining walking, how we walk, why we walk, the mechanics of walking, etc. We've learned a lot and noticed a lot just by walking. It's almost meditative. It's not only meditative for us to walk in this way, it can be meditative for the audience as well. I was surprised by just how much the audience noticed as we walked across the space, what people gathered from such a simple, minimal movement. We are asking the audience to notice just as much as we have noticed. It's easy when there are no extraneous movements to distract you. As we continue to explore this work, I can't wait to see what other beauty will be made available to us in the minimal. We can't wait to share this work with you in Houston.

Food for Thought

In our work for our site specific piece to be performed in Houston, TX for the Dan Flavin Installment, we are given moments for stream-of-conscious writing to inspire and inform our decisions to create walking patterns.

Minimalist in movement maybe, but full of patterns that may cross, meet, and pass one another with strong purpose.

I leave a thought from each of our stream of consciousnesses to start your week:

"Why not let fate be a loyal dog that loves?" ~Josh

"The world is round and that round can roll if there is an impulse to make it roll, perhaps I am that impulse." ~Rose

"Ich rolle mich vor lachen." ~Stefanie

"Green grass is all that covers the Earth." ~Deedee

"It will roll like a cat warming itself by the fire, you are the fire." ~Derrick