I was sick one day and my husband volunteered to take over the rehearsals for me. By the time the man got home, he had been beaten down to a pulp. He came into the bedroom and lay down next to me. “Tough day, dear? I asked. He sighed, “You have no idea how hard it is to spend your day talking to a bunch of people who don’t listen.” Welcome to my life.
With professional dancers, it isn’t so much that they aren’t listening (Well, some aren’t), it’s simply that they’re busy doing what they have to do to get the job done. Rehearsals are run, corrections are made and everyone works out their problems with whomever they’re dancing with. There are a lot of discussions on how to improve your interpretation or how to adjust your movement so everyone dances the same way – which sometimes makes for a pretty noisy work environment. I’m usually pretty comfortable with the chaos. For me it’s simply a matter of letting everyone do their job and then reining them in when it’s time to work together. What has always surprised me is the number of rehearsal masters who demand silence in the rehearsal hall. Obviously they have no time constraints on their work. Correcting one person at a time can take hours while if you let everyone work at the same time – do what they have to do – you can get the job done in a tenth of the time – AND because you’ve given the dancers the freedom to make their own decisions – they tend to work harder.
The most difficult part of rehearsing is cleaning up the group numbers. I learned long ago that you can put ten dancers in a room, learning the choreography straight from the horse’s mouth (the choreographer) and they will come up with at least six different variations. It’s not that they weren’t paying attention, but when you are transferring movement onto your own body, you tend to interpret the movement as it suits your own ability. My task as rehearsal director was to take all these variations and find compromises within the group that would allow them to function as one entity. It’s making a lot of small and tedious decisions. For example, do you kick on count one, or count one and a half, or on count two? Do the hips do a full circle or a half circle or three quarters of a circle? This may seem like small potatoes to you but in a group dance, it’s important. Different rehearsal directors clean different ways. Me? I would look for the moves that made the dancers look their best. I had (and have) absolutely no problem with changing any of the choreographer’s steps if they didn’t work for the group as a whole. As far as I’m concerned – if the dancers look bad, the choreographer looks bad. Now I do need to state that I have a very good eye for what makes dancers look good and most of the choreographers that I worked with have given me free rein when it came to adjust their work as I felt was needed. It’s nice to be appreciated.
Some rehearsal directors are adamant about doing the choreography EXACTLY as it was originally intended. This is a lost cause (see previous paragraph about ten people learning six different ways). Before the advent of cheap videos and DVDs, choreography was transferred to the next group three ways: Being taught by someone who had done it before (who would have interpreted the choreography to suit their own ability), By using one of the two dance notation forms (Benesh and Labanotation) where the choreography was written down following a dancer doing the work (again interpreting it to their own ability) OR by watching one of the rare films of dance where you are watching a dancer interpret the moves to their own ability. I worked with one rehearsal director who insisted that we copy exactly what the previous group had done – down to the smallest detail – using a video of their performance. OK – quick interjection – dance is not an exact science. It is a human expression – therefore flawed. No dance performance is alike. Each performance is a reflection of how the entire group is feeling at that particular time. Now I can speak with authority about this video we were learning off of because I was in it. It had been taken (without the dancers’ knowledge) during a very long and very boring tour. Morale in the company was at an all-time low. Endless nights, in endless theatres, doing the same show over and over and over – my husband Jacques and another one of the guys decided to shake things up. They rechoreographed a small section of one piece – changing it from a series of sultry walks to a hip swinging disco dance. It was the morale saving performance of the season – just what all of us needed to perk up. When I explained to the rehearsal director what had happened and what the real choreography was supposed to be – he shot me down. The video was right and I was wrong. Fine, whatever.
Some pieces need constant cleaning. Why? Several reasons but mainly because of cast changes OR because the physical abilities of the individuals in the group are ascending or descending at different rates. The movements that made one group look good – didn’t necessarily work for another. Cleaning is difficult on the cast. Adjusting moves so the cast is cohesive means somebody in the room has to change what they’ve been doing. Unfortunately, the longer you’ve been doing it one way, the more your body has gotten accustomed to it and the harder it is to consciously break your habit and do something different. We had one piece that needed a major cleaning every single year and every year the entire company would get into a fight about it. Why? Because people need to be right. My husband was one of these. I have seen entire rehearsals digress into shouting matches over who is right and who is wrong. I had my own solution for this little problem. I’m the boss, you’re not and I’m changing it. See how simple that is? No one is right and no one is wrong. We’d get into these rehearsals and I would say, “OK people, this is how I want it from now on.” Someone would glare at me and ask, “Are you changing it?” I would glare back and answer through my teeth, “Yes, I’m changing it.” Soon a chorus of “She’s changing it again” would ring throughout the room. After shouting at the top of their lungs, everyone would settle down and get to work. See – no problem?
Having been a rehearsal assistant, a rehearsal director, a teacher, an artistic director, a choreographer – I’m not real big on having to repeat myself – especially when it comes to working with professionals. I give a correction once – twice if I have to – but don’t push it. The same thing when it comes to teaching choreography. I can understand physical problems, where it takes a bit of time for the choreography to sink into your muscles, but stupidity is something else. The company hired a really talented young dancer. My job was to get her into the show as quickly as possible. I taught her one section on Monday. On Tuesday she forgot everything so I taught it to her again. On Wednesday – same story. On Thursday – she still had no idea of what she was supposed to do. I took her into the director’s office and explained to both of them that she was pretty much useless. What good is talent if you haven’t the brains to use it? As far as I was concerned, there was no way this kid was going to be ready to go out on the next tour that was to start in a week. The director agreed but decided to give the kid another chance. She was put on probation. That meant that she would be left behind while we did the first tour and when we returned, she would be given another chance to fit in. The dancer was angry – really angry. As we left the office, she pulled me aside and demanded to know why I had done that to her. “Look kid,” I said, “This company runs on a tight schedule. We have short rehearsal periods and long tours. Anyone who can’t keep up is useless to everyone. If you can’t hold your own, somebody else has to pick up the slack. Trust me – we’re all carrying a heavy enough show without having to dance your parts too.” “You are a total bitch,” she said, “I can dance circles around most of the dancers.” We glared at each other. “I don’t think you can pull your act together,” I said. “Watch me!” she shot back. When the company returned from the tour, the kid was brought back into rehearsals. She learned everything quickly and she retained it. Later she told me that the only thing that motivated her to work harder was her hatred of me. Well – whatever works for you.
I was teaching a group of adolescents in one of the pre-professional schools. Nice kids – eager, hard working but with one really annoying habit. They liked to ask questions. A lot of questions. Really stupid questions. For example, I would say “Point your foot” and a few seconds later, a kid would shoot their hand into the air and ask, “Do you want me to point my foot?” After a couple of weeks, my patience had run out. I stopped the class and looked at their eager faces. “Tell me something. Why do you always ask so many questions?” “All of our teachers like us to ask questions,” piped up one little cherub. “Why?” I asked. “It shows them that we are paying attention,” she answered. OK – well I could see that – but it still didn’t solve my problem. “Look guys, I don’t mind questions. I do however mind stupid questions. I hope you all are incredibly wealthy.” They looked at me in confusion. “If you’ve got the money and can afford me and I would like to point out that I am expensive, I will gladly follow you around for the rest of your lives and tell you what to do. If not – you’d better learn how to figure it out for yourselves.” They understood my point. It took a little time to break the question habit. Someone would ask a stupid question and I would stare at them without speaking. “That was a stupid question, right?” I’d nod. After a while, I didn’t have to do a thing. They started to police themselves. Someone would ask a question and I would hear somebody else tell them that it was a stupid question. They were the smartest group of kids that I ever worked with. Not only were the stupid questions gone, but they developed problem solving to a point where they didn’t need me to tell them a lot of things that even the professionals ask for.