A MULTI-MEDIA PROJECT BY MAIA STAM
AUDITION PREPARATION
Going into my audition, I knew very little about the form that my piece would take, but knew that I wanted a large cast of dancers that were creative and kinesthetically intelligent. The largest group of dancers I had worked with prior to this project was eight, and I found that this number was manageable and workable in many ways, but somewhat limiting when it came to “casting characters” and keeping dancers in their given role throughout the piece. With more dancers, I could put limits and boundaries on certain characters for plot reasons without cutting off my movement possibilities for the piece as a whole. Because I ended up with only fifteen dancers in my audition, I had a difficult decision to make: do I cut my number of dancers down to ensure that all my dancers can perform at an equally high technical level, or do I keep the largest possible number of dancers to open up additional creative possibilities for myself and my dancers as my piece takes shape? I decided to go with the latter, and cast every dancer in the audition. Two dancers later backed out due to schedule conflicts.
My audition consisted of two sections: one in which the dancers learned and performed my movement, and one in which they improvised their own based upon my directions. This allowed me to see the dancers’ technical skill, creative innovation, and performance ability. My own phrase of choreography was short, but included the key elements of dance technique that I wished to assess: focus, strength, ability to move quickly, and changes in level and direction. I had the dancers learn the movement en masse, then perform in groups of four and three. After each group performed twice, I had a very good idea of who possessed the above skills. Most dancers in the audition excelled at two of the four skills. By doing an improvisation exercise after this section, I was able to see if the dancers were able to grasp the skills they lacked when performing my choreography when given the opportunity to move in a more organic way. I was pleased to see that they all did.
The improvisation, like many of the improvisations I created for this project, was derived from my observations of children in the rural villages of Ghana. I saw the children draw pictures in the sand, so I began the guided improvisation by directing my dancers to feel that the ground was sand, and to bend down and draw a mask in the sand. The dancers were given time to make sure that they studied their masks and knew every detail of them. They then were asked to “draw” their masks with different parts of their bodies and on different surfaces. Finally, the dancers were instructed to continue to use details of their masks to travel around the room. The specificity of the improvisation elicited an intense focus in the dancers that was a pleasure to watch, and many of them displayed skills in this slower-paced movement that they had lacked in the faster exercise. I was so inspired by the creativity and commitment of the dancers in this exercise that I cast the entire group on the spot.
Once my piece began to develop, I was pleased to have selected a large cast, and found little issue with the dancers’ differing technical abilities. With nearly a year to complete my work, I found that I had adequate time to experiment with many different forms and movement materials, and still coach the dancers to understand both the technical and narrative aspects of the piece. The piece ended up taking a more narrative form than I anticipated, and it was an incredible asset to have such a diverse cast of characters with which to work. When I did struggle to get a dancer to connect with the technical or emotional intent of the work, I found that having a large community of supporting dancers to use as examples and teachers helped me to re-integrate them into the work.