Saturday October 21, 2011 - Kokyat and I have spent many happy hours at Battery Dance over the past couple of years, watching one of our favorite choreographers, Lydia Johnson, at work with her wonderful troupe of dancers. We've been privy to Lydia's creative process in a way that few non-dancers ever have the opportunity to experience: really seeing how ideas become art.
Click on these images to enlarge:
We hadn't seen Lydia (except for a brief hello at the Y last week) since her performances this past Spring. Today after we trekked up the endless stairway to the studio we found her and her three lovely dancers - Laura DiOrio, Lisa Iannacito McBride and Jessica Sand - working on a new piece to music of Osvaldo Golijov. Lydia always makes such great musical choices, that's one of the reasons I so enjoy her work. Even when she goes for something pop-oriented, she always goes for the best.
The Golijov selections she is working with are so appealing in terms of rhythms, textures and instrumentation. She apologized before the girls started dancing, saying that "it's all very sketchy at the moment" but of course it seemed far beyond that to me: a very appealing trio with a feeling of sisterly rituals.
One section made me think of a lullabye as the girls gently rocked one another. In a more animated passage, to which Lydia says she will eventually add a couple more dancers, the girls rushed with urgent quietude in a circle, pausing to dip and sway.
A lift was being worked on, and the girls patiently tried various methods of getting the look that Lydia wanted. The lift was to flow into...
...a swoon, so the mechanics had to be just right.
The girls ran the three sections that Lydia has developed so far repeatedly, comparing notes and making suggestions to one another between 'takes'. In this way the dance evolves; between the music, the vision and the dancers, this promises to be one of my favorite Lydia Johnson works.
Here are a few more of Kokyat's images from this wonderfully peaceful and uplifting studio session:
Laura Di Orio
Kokyat took a group photo at the end of the rehearsal; of course, he isn't in it.
Some of Kokyat's Leica black-and-whites from today's rehearsal will be found here.