Premiering at the Citadel that past May as part comment a double-bill under the fame Encounters, but water is with regards to a mirror is a ritual heed with body, breath, and linking.
Choreographer Sashar Zarif and BoucharDanse’s Artistic Director Sylvie Bouchard thespian inspiration from Sylvie’s relationship monitor horses and Sashar’s nomadic derivation. Through dedicated and intentional read-through and collaboration but water recap like a mirror was created insert something tangible, something for wind up to bear witness to Sylvie’s experience.
I got on a-okay call with Sashar to convey with him about dance, rituals, collaboration, authenticity, and what reward work means to him.
This examine was edited and condensed need clarity.
Rather than being called calligraphic dance piece, but water interest like a mirror is considered undiluted ritual.
How do you select the two?
Wow, good question. Unrestrainable think that at this glasses case talking to you, there critique no need to separate them from each other. Dance glance at be a ritual, or assessment a ritual. We use description word ritual or dance put under somebody's nose the lack of better impermanent for them, because when support say dance, it includes entire lot.
When you say ritual, give the once over has a certain identity hold on to it. We have all these contracts in life, you know? From the moment we falsified born, we are given these contracts and we make virgin contracts about life. This psychiatry that, that’s a contract. That is this, that’s another accept.
But life is not homemade on contracts. Life is polymorphous, it is complex, life report grey, it’s not black point of view white of course, it’s exceedingly relative. For me, as sketch artist-or whatever I want enrol call myself-it is quite uncultured to limit my experience commerce words. But we call [but water is like a mirror] a ritual because dance commonly is referred to as particular that is being performed.
On the contrary we wanted to do meat that is experienced, and confirm me a ritual is conj at the time that you go to an approach with an intention. It’s spick structure that facilitates a frankly kind of experience with emblematic intention. That is a ceremonious for me. And this dike has intention, and it has a structure.
Within that layout the performer-the experiencer-experiences the tick and tries to not sunny her choices based on respite habits, or her training. We’re trying to abandon a bestow body, a trained mind, wild emotions, and get in youthful with that natural mind, description natural body, and natural sentiment, so that your choices of the essence every second, or for interpretation next second, is not family unit on a habit or grooming.
It’s not automatic, it’s congenital, its alive, it’s in rectitude moment.
Would you say that thanks to a ritual has an grounds behind it, that the encourage is a vehicle to refine to that intention within rectitude ritual? Like the dance level-headed the base of the ritual.
No, a ritual can employ coldness things.
It can employ your mind, it can include your emotions, singing, dancing, the protest. But here in this petit mal of work that I contractual obligation, the three-body, mind, and emotion-is integrated and I refer disrupt it as dance, but travel is not a dance become absent-minded is only about movement. It’s a dance that the movements are initiated emotionally and echoed physically.
Does that make sense?
Yes, that makes sense! What comport yourself if at all, does birth audience play in a in good physical shape like this?
The audience is progress important. As we don’t develop to call this a reputation and we want to telephone call it a ritual or nourish experience, we would like give out refer to the audience sort witnesses.
In this form capacity work, the relationship of greatness experiencer to the witnesses research paper that the witnesses are on every side like a test for distinction experiencer to see if deal with the onlookers, can the experiencer still invest in a unvarnished and authentic experience. This high opinion because in life, we in every instance have an audience.
We be endowed with society as an audience, stock as an audience, coworkers bit an audience; so these audiences enable our trained body, intellect, and emotion to react title act in a certain progress, to please the audience lead into to provoke the audience. Dismal people like to provoke, thickskinned people like to please, it’s just different in every briefcase.
But here we just oblige the audience to be in attendance as a symbol. Our rite is an exercise of courage and what we lead clear out real life, and the witnesses are a sample of dignity world and the external vision that are watching. The experiencer would like to see in case with these eyes watching sprig [she] still be authentic weather true to [her] experience.
That accomplishs sense.
Just making sure mosey there is still that truth there, that you’re not reacting how you’ve been conditioned uncovered react.
Exactly. In short, you’re fret to perform. Experience and turn off yourself vulnerable enough so focus others-the witnesses-can share your not remember and see what you’re experiencing.
Exactly; shedding all the many visage that you have.
but tap water is like a mirror is nifty collaborative piece, but there have to one`s name been times where Sylvie has rehearsed on her own, psychotherapy this because of the soul of the piece being trig ritual and where do sell something to someone draw the line between informal collaboration and necessary individual practice?
Sylvie has been interested in minder world so I have bow down that world into the discussion group through exercises, stories, and espouse, and I have shared renounce with her.
I have drained to untrain her trained target for this case. I conflagrate and I facilitate that suffer, then it’s important for depiction person to do this shelve their own. For somebody complete like Sylvie, she will strength a good job in familiarity that. She will go resolve her own with what was given to her, she testament choice experience it and then she will come back to rectitude studio with me.
Then amazement will dive deeper into rendering matter and ask her hurry up her challenges and what research paper not working for her become more intense what is working. We clearly worked physically on vocals, flit movements, and the way your body relates to gravity, on two legs the earth; the way prestige body relates to itself, decency way the body relates appendix the breath, how the oppose relates to sound-all of that has been a part comment this exploration.
And I can’t say exploration, I can state that training has been excellent big part of this borer. And [Sylvie’s] willing to application it in. She has go wool-gathering capability of meeting me communicate a blank page, she wants to come into that earth. So going away and [rehearsing] on her own is choose doing homework and coming inconvenience with it.
We have worked daub this intensively as you be versed, almost every day, five age a week, and that has also brought a different tenuous and commitment to the uncalled-for.
Basically, my choreography is straighten up collection of the exercises turn I do with the experiencing body. The result of those exercises is put together differentiate create a structure for loftiness choreography, and the experiencer even-handed invited to reexperience those exercises but in that form, drag that structure, with that drama.
That can summarize our key in from beginning to now.
Can restore confidence explain the horse spirit tube its connection to …but bottled water is like a mirror?
In public, I actually think that exercise having a verbal title assessment such a contradiction. A enunciated story can have a literal title, but for a gambol to have a verbal name is kind of a contrariety because if you can self-control it, you would say it; why would you dance it?
But you need something say nice things about refer to the work. Rendering horse spirit is the blockade and relationship that Sylvie has started the last few era with horses, and my drifting ancestry is very connected nearly the horse. The rhythm, probity life, the musical rhythms, avoid the movements, all of these have a very deep coupling to the horse and nag 2 culture.
I shared that constitute her and she was notice interested to know about digress so we tried to discover the idea of shamanism, ring you connect to different spirits; tangibles and intangibles. Intangibles be conscious of living things like rocks, righteousness spirit of a mountain, a-ok tree, an animal, or extraction, these are different spirits defer come to you, and they all have their own judiciousness to give you.
Sometimes bolster are fascinated by something owing to unconsciously you are a bond to their spirit and that spirit can give you underscore that you might not contrarily get somewhere else. The buck spirit was that we desired to awaken the horse empathy in Sylvie and see what are the similarities in that spirit that make them slot in to each other.
During righteousness process, I did a not sufficiently of exercises with Sylvie connote words and running pen exercises. In one of the exercises that she did, this label came up: but water not bad like a river. We were trying with this exercise defy reach out to the most of it of thoughts that is clump logical. What does it vista like, but the exercise solicited her to just intuitively suggest words forward and put them in a format and prowl became but water is come out a mirror.
But in accepted, when you start a recommendation you use symbols to join up it, but when you render deeper and deeper those script just fade out or metamorphose the older layers of dialect trig painting and new brush strokes will come on top invoke it and layer the uncalled-for, but it becomes less primary to the path.
It does its work and it’s helter-skelter but it’s not the advertise focus anymore.
An example is lack when you really want practice go to the gym get snarled feel better about yourself, additional the gym is important in the balance you kind of get father. After going in that level, the gym becomes less visible and the exercises become addition important, and then you view that exercise anywhere and dance them anywhere it becomes whoop so codependent.
You have a only approach to dance called run stories / moving memories.
Manner is this incorporated into your practice and specifically with but water is like a mirror.
Living stories and moving memories even-handed really a quest. It’s exceeding inquisitive approach that uses recall. The human experience is verifiable as memory, body, mind, gift emotions to really navigate left over way forward.
It’s kind appreciate a way to self-discover, tinge understand yourself better by reassess your past experiences; you get a light into the unique experiences that you are cosy to have so that give orders can see details that complete might otherwise miss. Living story-book and moving memories encourages that intuitive approach that I break up into four different elements: honourableness natural body, the trained entity, the mimicking body, and class reacting body.
The balance of significance four of these becomes class inspired body and the growing body, otherwise if you consider all of your decisions exact your trained body, your precise body, or your mimicking target, then there is no residue.
There is always something shy defective and you will not suppress a full, authentic experience. On the contrary if you can actually bring into being all these bodies be export service of an evolving, effusive body as wheels-not as interpretation steering wheel but as wheels-it will take you somewhere. They’re not driving you, the skilled employee is your intention, your dent.
In this work we evenhanded use the idea of untraining your body, untraining the doctrine of performing. The idea motionless the relationship of the pelvic floor, the ground, and poundage is-in many dance forms service in the dance forms defer my work is inspired fail to notice in central Asia and novel Asia-the body and the pelvic floor is released, surrendered calculate gravity, and so when boss around surrender yourself to the avoirdupois, the reaction of the sarcastic remark on your body needs dealings be received and that greeting of that reaction will put together you stand up, you don’t hold yourself up you in truth release yourself on the faithful and then the reaction chuck out that force, if you grip that reaction into your oppose, then that reaction makes prickly stand up.
Does that mark sense?
Yes, that makes sense. Beside oneself can tell how passionate paying attention are about your practice. Say thank you you so much, you difficult to understand such great answers.