Toolbox

Essence

Sidelight

ACTIVITY

Essence can be practiced as a labbing activity by just two dancers working on their own, or it can be conducted as a group activity. If you lead it as a group activity, demonstrate the process with a partner.

Work in pairs. As you begin, one dancer will take the role of originator, the other the role of essencer. The originator performs a dance lasting two to three minutes. This may be prepared in advance or improvised. If improvised, the originator may work from a predetermined theme or assignment (for instance, a dance about falling). In any case the improvisation should seek unity or structural integrity rather than present a freewheeling, unrelated series of movements.

Having observed the originator’s movement carefully, the essencer responds by performing a dance representing what was most compelling, communicative, and memorable about the dance she just saw, in other words, offering a first round toward determining an essence of the originator’s movement. This will be shorter than the original dance, often by about half.

The originator responds with an essenced version of the dance the essencer has performed. This is based on observation of the essencer’s dance, and is not an attempt by the originator to recreate or offer an essence of the original dance.

The dancers continue the process through one more cycle, until the originator has had three opportunities to dance and the essencer two. Together, originator and follower work together to agree on a final version of the dance, which they both learn can present to the group (if Essence is being practiced as a group exercise). The original dance of up to 3 minutes is now reduced to 20 to 30 seconds.

This final step can be conducted in two ways. The originator’s final iteration may be based strictly on the last version presented by the essencer; or the originator may choose to reintroduce selected elements from earlier versions that may have been “essenced out.”

APPLICATIONS

Essence is one way to advance the early stages of a choreographic project. In its simplest form it offers a way to progress from improvised material toward a stageworthy level of refinement. In addition it can be valuable help in generating variations on a theme (see footnotes). Whether or not advancing a choreographic process is the goal, Essence can offer varied benefits including building strategies for memory, helping dancers develop editing skills, and cultivating the ability to partner. In community and intergenerational projects, when dancers of different levels of skill or mobility are paired, Essencing can help to mediate between those levels. If you lead Essence as a group exercise and then ask for observations about any of these challenges, participants will usually share valuable insights about their discoveries.

FOOTNOTES

Warmups: While simple in concept, the process of Essence engages complex functions of memory, critical thinking, and the kinesthetic discipline of transferring movement from one body to another. Because of this, one or more warmups can be helpful in preparing for the exercise, particularly when it is conducted as a group exercise.

• Free mirroring: Begin by having the group move freely around the room. Invite them to experiment with levels, speed, engaging various parts of their bodies in the movement. Next invite the group to observe the movement around them, and ask dancers to alternate generating their own movement with copying movement that they see. As the warmup continues, ask everyone to “do the impossible,” that is, not to generate any original movement, only to copy the movements of others, with variations allowed (e.g.: you can can copy someone’s foot movements with your hands.)

• Partnered mirroring: After forming pairs, partners stand face to face. One leads, one follows, with the follower attempting to mirror all the movements of the leader as though they were separated by a plate-glass “mirror.” Do one round of this, keeping the focus in a front-to-front orientation. Switch roles and repeat. Then try moving in space more freely, changing facings from the frontal orientation, but still conscious of the plane of the imaginary mirror. Repeat. Finally, partners return to a fontal orientation, but now the followers allow a two or three-second delay, so they are no longer moving in unison with leaders.

Variation: A group can be assigned to work with an existing piece of choreography that can be performed solo. Each originator begins by presenting this same piece. The exercise proceeds as normal, and by the end each pair will have generated its own unique variation on the originating theme. These variations can be worked into the fabric of the developing choreographic work.

The Essencing process can be unnerving for some dancers, and those playing the originator role sometimes react by saying “No, that’s not what I meant at all.” Acknowledge at the outset that this reaction is common and encourage originators to forge ahead, basing their own movement response on what the see the essencer do, not on retaining the content of the original.