[Music] you [Music] scenario isn't a really interesting piece because well of course the costume design and the movement itself [Music] senarios very complex because Merce was working with the computer software program life-forms and now it's called dance forms Merce was responsible for creating the movement in the computer program so he wouldn't manipulate the arms or head or legs and create positions himself we as dancers never really saw the computer he worked the phrases out on his own and then he would come into the studio with sometimes the arms notated on one page and the legs
notated on another page and the torso movements notated on another page we would learn the feet first and the torso and then the arms would be added I think that it's harder to learn that way but but probably easier for Merce to teacher it was our responsibility to put the movement together in a way that made sense and was continuous and not robotic he would often ask us to do something that sounded quite impossible and we would try he knowing that it was quite impossible and in the attempt come up with something that had not
been tried ever before see never before many dancers think of unison in a very different way than the dancers who have danced with Merce - Merce observed animals in nature so similar to a flock of birds our school of fish he actually appreciated when his dancers were not dancing in typical unison meaning everything exactly done at the same time so that the movement would look more like animals in the natural world than dancers actually trying so hard to be in unison [Music] there's a section toward the end of the piece glamorous called the tango and
when he was teaching it to us we all learned the same phrases so to us it seemed unison but then he called individual couples into the room separately so we only knew how he changed the phrase specifically for us so every step that was similar had a slightly different version for each couple and it was very very clearly intentionally just a little different for each person so there's a massive amount of detail six minutes of a dance took up half of a notebook worth of notes a lot of choreographers would take that amount of detail
and make about seven or eight even in length works with it it's just one example of how incredibly rich verses work is in detail Rekha Kubo who is the head of comme des Garcons the fashion house who designed the costumes wanted the space to look kind of like her gallery spaces she actually wanted a white room with no entrances and exits and Murr said well that's absolutely impossible the dancers have to and turn leave the space so she conceded and there are two downstage entrances and exits and to upstage the costumes are based on her
fashion designs from the runway from that season in a couple of the costumes she put in some obstacles to doing the work some looked like pregnancy bumps fanny packs also shapes in the front of the body and there was something about that having this this look like navigating curving over with this thing over you or trying to move really fast when you have a skirt that's cutting you off at the knees partnering was challenging because sometimes you had two bumps heading toward one another oh and I think actually I had a laundress I think I
cheated at one point I really did I just needed to move I just I hiked it up where can I say whenever he invited somebody to be part of his process either with visual art or the musical score Merce really allowed them to choose whatever it was that they felt would contribute most to the experience and so while these costumes were challenging for us to dance in he really honored her sense of creativity and contribution in the collaboration there was something about wearing those costumes and all the costume changes that elevated the whole sense of
energy about it I think they were just a joy to dance in and we loved feeling like we were on runway [Music]
