Anne and Ricki

A Dance in the Red Zone: Ricki's Solo for Anne

Ricki asked me to meet her at the Frye Art Museum at 10:30, to begin the private, unpublicized part of my solo. She explained that we would be going for a walk and that I should close my eyes for this. With her arm around my waist and mine on her shoulder, she guided our steps as we walked side-by-side down the city sidewalks for about 15 minutes. I knew that our destination was the Central Library downtown, but, as we walked, I became pleasantly disoriented. I was content to listen to the noise of the traffic and feel the wind on my face as Ricki led the way.

I had written to Ricki, in response to the question "Driver or passenger?," that I loved being a passenger when I had a reliable driver. I assumed that my answer had inspired the exercise. This was not the first time, however, that Ricki had guided my movements: She had been my modern dance and ballet teacher for about a year, and I had spent more than a hundred hours moving under her guidance. Ricki knew a lot about me from watching me in the studio. I had also written to her at length about the important role dance played in my life. She had written back, observing that we both loved dance for its beauty and discipline. She expressed the wish to make a dance for me that was about dance itself and about something more.

When we arrived at the library, I opened my eyes. We entered and climbed the stairs to the Red Hall, where the official, publicized part of my solo would take place. Jody and Sacha were waiting for us there. The Red Hall, a small area of intersecting corridors with red walls, ceiling, and floor, feels womblike, despite its smooth, unadorned surfaces. Ricki slipped off her jacket and stood in the center of the space, beneath a down-light. She closed her eyes and performed an improvised solo for about 15 minutes, keeping her eyes closed the entire time. She moved gracefully, with ripples and rotations through her spine, exploratory foldings and unfoldings of her arms and legs, and simple balances and turns. At times, she turned her face toward the light overhead and seemed to bask in its radiance. Her performance was lovely and was especially impressive for being accomplished without the aid of sight. I kept thinking: How can she
dance so elegantly and so fearlessly with her eyes closed? Eventually, Ricki opened her eyes and bowed to me, and we embraced. Then we walked together back up the hill to the Frye.

Using the simplest of means, with no costumes, props, or music, Ricki created an experience that spoke to our relationship to each other and to what she knew about my relationship to the practice of dance. I can't say for certain what her intentions were, but here is part of what I took away from the experience.

Ricki knows that, despite a lack of natural ability, I am never happier than when I'm dancing. She also knows that I can be terribly self-critical when I feel I have not danced well in class, especially when I have made mistakes with my teachers watching. In our walk together, Ricki seemed to be saying, "It is my privilege to guide you in your movement, and it is safe to make yourself vulnerable in my presence."

That Ricki would dance for 15 minutes with her eyes closed, immediately after I had walked for 15 minutes with my eyes closed, could not have been a coincidence. I felt that she was saying to me, "One thing I am doing in this dance, Anne, is enacting you, or the kind of dancer you could be. No one else in the audience will make this connection, however, because no one else knows about our walk together earlier." For me, then, Ricki's dance became more than a public performance: It also became a kind of private demonstration or tutorial. One thing Ricki demonstrated was that suspending judgment and accepting risk is sometimes the right choice. I imagined her to be saying, "I don't know what my dance looks like, and I've chosen not to see whether you like it or not. I'm also willing to risk falling on my face here, because this is how I have decided to dance today." I interpreted this as Ricki's invitation to me to "dance like no one is watching": to tolerate more risk and be more accepting of my limitations and inevitable mistakes.

Ricki also demonstrated that beautiful movement is grounded more in integrity than in extreme virtuosity. I imagined her to be saying, "By dancing with my eyes closed, I'm putting limits on my technique. I can't do anything big or fancy today: I have to keep things smaller and simpler than usual. I'm confident, however, that if I move with presence and conviction, the results will be satisfying." In fact, the results were exquisite. As a dancer with modest abilities, I was glad to be reminded that a simple dance, performed without elaborate technique, can be quite beautiful.

Ricki performed my solo in the Central Library because I had written to her that it was one of my favorite places in Seattle. But the decision to perform in the Red Hall specifically was Ricki's. Why that particular space? My interpretation: The Red Hall is an intimate space, and Ricki's solo for me was based on intimate knowledge. Red is the color of passion, and Ricki and I are both passionate about dance. Red is also the color of danger, and Ricki understands that, for me, dancing involves emotional danger: specifically, the danger that elation will give way to despair when the discrepancy between my aspirations and my abilities feels too great. The space that Ricki chose seemed to symbolically acknowledge these emotional truths.

I am grateful to Ricki for the lovely, thoughtful solo she created for me and for her continuing guidance and companionship as I attempt to dance with presence, courage, and passion.

Anne


Dear Anne,

It has been such a pleasure to get to know you better through this process. I am thrilled with your response to the solo. You certainly understood my intentions, and also found meaning in the choices I made through instinct not logic, which feels like an especially successful artistic exchange.

Yes, driver and passenger. Trust. Feeling like we built trust in each other through our written exchanges before the solo. Wanting to continue that trajectory. A dear friend of mine once took me on a surprise walk with my eyes closed that I found to be ridiculously magical, and I was hoping that it might be for you as well. I appreciated feeling you start out nervous, growing more confident as we found our rhythm of leading and following. We had both moments of silence that felt extremely present, and conversation that felt deepened by the physical connection of the exercise.

Dancing with my eyes closed -- the other side of that trust. Risky for me because I am without a major technical and compositional tool, because I could not see your reaction, because I could not caretake the space or the bizarre social situation being created by dancing in a public space.

I chose the library because it was one of the favorite locations that you listed, and because it is a favorite spot of mine as well. The Red Hall is strange and delightful to me, and I picked it on instinct. I loved hearing what it meant to you.

I love that you observed the pureness of the dance, both parts. No costumes, props, or music. It is really important to me that an audience sees that I have chosen every element of my performance, from the big stuff like music and movement vocabulary, to little details of costuming like the appropriate undergarments to make the look exactly right. Because you are familiar with my work, and because of the conversations we have had about art and the world, I knew that you would know that not having these elements was also an intentional choice. I spent a long time figuring out how to be costume-less. I am so in love with the idea of using artifice to get to truth that I see everything I own as a sort of costume. Every time I get dressed I think about how my clothing evokes gender and decade and class and age. Those choices feel simultaneously revealing and like armor. I wanted this solo to be outside of that mode of art making. I wanted to be as "come as you are" as possible. It was very funny to me to be trying to construct a costume-less costume when I view the world as costumed! Leaving my chipped nail polish on and putting a hat over my wet hair were two decisions I made about my non-costume, that I trusted you to perceive as vulnerable and not lazy. It was a kind of performing that I don't usually do, intimate in a different way, and I was able to make that choice because of what you know about me and my work. I also chose not to use music because I wanted to have a certain kind of immediate intimacy. I ordinarily choose music for my work that manipulates the viewer into feeling a certain way, to set the emotional landscape for the dance to take place in. It felt right in this instance to perform without that support, to let the experience unfold without a pre-conceived soundtrack.

Thank you for inspiring me. Thank you for trusting me. Thank you for dancing with me.

Truly,
Ricki