Dancing the Goldberg Variations workshop
- a three-hour-per-day, open level workshop -
28.7.-1.8. in Vienna, at ImpulsTanz
!Registrations open from 16th of April!
Steve Paxton has improvised this work 1986-1991, and I've learnt about improvisation by watching a recording of him dancing, and then talking with him about it.
I've been practicing dancing them as a whole since 2010. My first official performance of the Goldberg Variations was in Oct 2010, at the Leopold Museum. My last one was last year.
Before it ever became a performance, it was first a practice. Of surviving an hour of improvising. Of not knowing what to do, but continuously observing what happens. Failing and forgiving. Having a willing, responsive, and soft body. Then practicing patience, as the movement comes.
It's a particular dance. Very naked, in the sense that there's this beautiful, repetitive music, that nevertheless always changes.. and then there's time. Lots of it. After fifteen minutes, when it seems you've already gone through everything you know about twice, you realize you have another three times as much to go till the end. What do you do then?
And then the next day, again.
And like that, for the last fifteen years. At first extremely often, now a bit less. But always present.
In the last years I've sometimes danced the duration of the Goldberg with others, in a variety of different constellations. After years or dancing them alone in the studio, or with/for a public in a performance setting, this is yet another level. We are the performers, the colleagues and support, all at the same time. As each is on their own journey, everyone also carries everyone else. The energies in the space do add up. It can be magical.
Talking about it is an important part. As it's the moment we also hear ourselves. When alone, I used to do it writing, or talking to the camera... but doing it in a group is pure luxury. And a starting point for the next...
If the above sounds like something that might interest you, consider joining. It might be the start of your journey.
Photo: Hans Schubert
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