Last night I went to Choreography Exposed at the Jennifer Muller studio. Now, for the sake of full disclosure,

my wife is in the company, so there may be some bias in what I am about to say… or not. But I’ll start by saying this event provided a model that the dance world should observe and follow.

Choreography Exposed was essentially a lecture demonstration designed for an audience (as opposed to a class for students). The audience was taken through the origins and foundations of the Muller Technique, and then given insight into the elements that combined to form Ms. Muller’s piece Island (2005), a work inspired by Roberto Dutesco’s photographs of wild horses on Sable Island.

Diplomatically speaking, Island is not my favorite piece, although I will be the first to admit that what I think about any given work shouldn’t be considered canon by anyone. Subjective opinions on dance are the realm of TenduTV’s dance advisory board. Perhaps the only relevance of my opinions was that I was essentially being educated about a dish, spoon by spoon, ingredient by ingredient, that I already had decided for whatever reason I did not like to eat. I was Mikey from the Life cereal ads.

But what has changed as a result of last night’s event was that now I am looking forward to seeing Island again. Ms. Muller did a simply enlightening job of walking the audience, through the storylines, the characters, and the movement elements that comprise the piece.  She was also joined by composer Marty Beller, who described his process and intentions in creating the music for the work, as well as Mr. Dutesco, who provided insight into the history of the horses of Sable Island, as well as his photographic work.

The dance world is always struggling with how to make the art form more accessible to new audiences. One woman with whom I was talking last night lamented the fact that when she brings people to performances, often times they say, “I liked it, but I just don’t get it,” and its easy to understand that frustration. It takes an fair bit of commitment for a run-of-the-mill audience member to gain the basic knowledge necessary to grasp or understand the art that they see on stage (with the possibly exclusive exception of The Nutcracker, coming soon to a thousand stages near you).

Yet, Ms. Muller managed, in the course of an hour and a half, to bring the audience’s level of understanding up to a point where they can approach the nuances of Island, and feel empowered to reach their own conclusions on the work. She created a foundation for repeat viewings of the work to be transformed from a redundant experience to an opportunity to be anticipated with eagerness.

Will my opinions change? Hard to say. What I do know is that the people who attended that event last night are now better audience members having had that experience, and that is something every dance company should appreciate.

Tagged with: audience , choreography exposed , development , jennifer muller