In the spring of 2023 I was an exchange student at the Institut del Teatre in Barcelona, in the dance department, where I studied dance interpretation and choreography. The studies include a repertoire period every year, in which the students are divided into groups to rehearse works by different choreographers. The last three weeks of the academic year are given over to intensive repertoire rehearsals, and the works are presented in the school’s shared Mostra de repertoris.
My own group worked on Sasha Waltz’s In C. The piece was taught by Lorena Justribó and Aladino Rivera, dancers of the Sasha Waltz & Guests company. The rehearsal period ended in the repertoire performance held at the Teatre Ovidi Montllor on 16 June 2023 (Institut del Teatre, 2023).
In C
Choreography: Sasha Waltz
Rehearsal direction: Lorena Justribó and Aladino Rivera
Music: Terry Riley
Dancers: Sigurd Bolstad, Juan José Camargo, Candela Salazar, Alina Sokulska, Mar Garcia, Virgínia Martín, Minna Tikkanen and Gaia Pellegrini
For copyright reasons no photographs or video could be taken of our performance. Instead of a recording of our own evening, here is the Sasha Waltz & Guests trailer for In C.
In C stayed with me as something particularly meaningful, because it changed the way I think about the relationship between improvisation and choreographic precision. I had worked with improvisation for a long time in dance and in circus, but in In C the improvisation was built inside very precisely defined movement material.
My earlier relationship with improvisation
In my earlier dance studies, improvisation had often been connected to listening to the impulses of my own body and mind. At the Sukset ristiin Susirajalla dance camp, in Elina Pirinen’s teaching, we worked for example with the idea of “minne minnuu viiään”, where I am taken. In my own experience this meant following a bodily or inner impulse and staying curious about where the movement might lead.
Pirinen has described her improvisation work through the concept of instant choreography. In her working, attention is directed to anatomy and to studying the situations that arise in the body (Pirinen, 2016). The relationship can also be built with the other dancers, so the work can be bodily and relational at the same time.
This thinking has points of contact with the Authentic Movement tradition developed by Mary Starks Whitehouse. In Whitehouse’s work the mover follows an inner impulse and lets the movement develop from it. Behind the method lies Jung’s thinking on active imagination, in which experience is given the chance to take form through movement (Pallaro, 1999; Payne, 2023). Pirinen’s working and Authentic Movement are separate practices, but in both of them listening to a bodily impulse holds an important place.
Improvisation was part of my training in circus as well. At Turku Arts Academy, improvisation in aerial acrobatics could be built around the interpretation of music. In Cyr wheel training, in Juho Sarno’s classes, improvisation was instead connected to exploring the possibilities of the apparatus even before learning a wide technical vocabulary.
In those experiences improvisation already involved, besides my own body, a relationship with music, with an apparatus and with other dancers. In C brought an entirely new emphasis alongside this: extreme choreographic precision.
53 movements and a shared system of play
Sasha Waltz’s In C is based on the work of the same name composed by Terry Riley in 1964. Riley’s composition consists of 53 short musical figures, which are played in the same order. Each musician, however, decides how long to stay with one figure before moving on to the next. Material defined this precisely produces a slightly different whole in every performance (Carl, 2009).
Waltz built the dance piece around the same principle. In C consists of 53 choreographic figures, which are used as material for structured improvisation. Sasha Waltz & Guests describe In C as a choreographic system in which precise structure and improvisation work side by side (Sasha Waltz & Guests, 2021).
The precision of the figures does not mean, however, that every choreography is treated in the same way. In the material taught to us, it was possible to make different choices inside some of the figures. A single movement or choreographic fragment could be left looping for a while, and in some sections the material could also be done backwards. In some figures the dancer could change direction, while in others the path of the movement was more strictly set.
The spatial structure varied from one figure to another as well. Part of the material worked in several directions, so the dancer could direct the movement for example towards the audience or away from it. Other choreographies were built on a particular diagonal. Not every figure allowed such choices. The freedom of the improvisation was therefore slightly different in each section and depended on the rules of that figure.
This is what makes the idea of a game especially apt. The dancer does not only decide when to move on to the next material. They also have to know the possibilities and the limits of each figure. In one place the game offers many spatial options, while in another the task calls for a very precise route.
Choreographic precision as the ground for improvisation
In In C improvisation is built on precisely defined material. The dancer has to know both the movements and the rules of play attached to each figure. After that, the real-time choices can concern timing, repetition or spatial direction, according to what that section allows.
Some of the figures are also demanding technically and in terms of coordination. Learning the material thoroughly frees attention for observing the group and the space. Improvisation therefore happens at the same time inside the choreographic material and in the relationships between the dancers.
Millard (2016) examines similar work through score-based improvisation. A score defines a frame for the action, within which the performer makes real-time decisions. The same limitation can produce a large number of different possibilities. In In C the score is exceptionally detailed, since the dancers have 53 defined figures at their disposal together with a system of rules that governs their use.
It is precisely the difference between the rules that makes the system interesting. The amount of improvisation is not constant throughout the piece. Some figures allow more unpicking of the material and more spatial solutions, while in others the choreographic form guides the dancer’s action more closely.
Space and collective observation
Space is a central part of the choreographic system in In C. The dancer has to take into account where the others are and what kind of structures their movement forms. In some figures it is possible to build shared formations, so that one dancer’s solution offers another the chance to join the same structure.
In this way a choreographic form can arise from the combined decisions of several dancers. One dancer begins a figure, another joins it and a third completes the structure that is taking shape. The result can look carefully composed, even though its final form was not decided in advance.
Himberg and colleagues (2018) use the term kinaesthetic togetherness in their study of collective dance improvisation. It describes a bodily being together in which the dancers’ action organises itself in relation to the movement of the others. A shared structure can form without a single central leader.
Łucznik and May (2021) have in turn examined the relationship between individual and group flow in collaborative dance improvisation. Their research underlines the interaction between the action of a single dancer and the process at the level of the group. This offers a useful perspective on In C as well, where a single dancer uses defined material as part of a constantly changing collective situation.
Terry Riley’s In C as the ground of the choreography
Terry Riley’s In C is one of the central early works of American minimalism. The composition is built from 53 short musical modules, through which the performers move independently inside a shared order (Carl, 2009).
The musicians can repeat individual figures for different lengths of time. New rhythmic and harmonic combinations keep arising in the piece, even though the material in use stays the same. Carl (2009) examines this as an open form, in which shared rules combine with the performers’ decisions.
The piece also includes a repeating high C pulse, which works as a shared point of reference in time. Waltz has compared the pulse to a heartbeat and described Riley’s composition as the starting point for the structure of the dance piece (Waltz, 2023).
In Waltz’s choreography the same principle becomes visible. The dancers can be at different points of the series of 53 figures at the same time, exactly as different musicians in Riley’s composition can be at different points of the musical material. The connection between the music and the choreography therefore rests on a shared structural idea: set material combined with individual timing.
Waltz has described the dancers in In C as a second orchestra (Waltz, 2023). The comparison underlines how the performers observe one another. The musicians listen to their own part in relation to the whole the others produce, and the dancers build the choreographic whole in the same way in relation to the movement of the others.
A structure born during the pandemic
In C came about in 2021, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Sasha Waltz & Guests developed the piece in a situation where the work of dance companies was shaped by practices of physical distance. Waltz developed 53 choreographic figures with ten dancers, and the figures were also documented as video tutorials. In this way the material could be rehearsed and later passed on to new groups of performers (Sasha Waltz & Guests, 2021).
The structure of the piece made it possible for the dancers to act in relation to one another without continuous physical contact. At the same time it grew into a choreographic system in which the autonomy of the individual dancer and collective action are linked to each other.
The 2023 repertoire period at the Institut del Teatre was one example of how transferable the piece is. Lorena Justribó and Aladino Rivera taught the choreographic material to a new group of dancers, who worked from the same 53 figures and the same system of rules (Institut del Teatre, 2023).
Improvisation as a game
In C affected my own understanding of improvisation above all because in it improvisation and precise choreography are woven together. In my earlier experiences I had worked through bodily impulses and through the possibilities offered by music and apparatus. In In C improvisation was built on material that had already been choreographed in detail.
The openness of the piece lies largely in the relationships between the movements and in the options each figure allows. Sometimes the dancer can break up the choreographic material, stay repeating a small part of it or change direction. In another place the rules guide the movement along a precise spatial route. Improvisation arises in this way from a constant alternation of freedom and limitation.
The idea of a game helps to describe this structure. Shared rules define a field of action, but the exact course of events is not known in advance. The player has to know the rules well enough to understand what kind of choices are possible in this particular moment.
What stayed with me from In C above all is the thought that improvisation can also be built on extremely precise choreographic knowledge. When the material and its rules are well known, attention can turn to timing, to space and to the relationships forming between the dancers. Improvisation then happens inside a structure rather than in its absence.
Sources
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