the water processing plant dance

We decided to find a site outside in which to slowly develop a piece. The intention was to work with a space in which we could over time invite other dancers, musicians and audience to join in our weekly ritual of activating a particular space. I really was excited to work with transistor park it has so many quarky qualities and textures that I thought would lend nicely to a site relative exploration. We spent a lovely evening there brainstorming and jumping like dogs. Ophra agreed that this park would be a nice place to work. The evening of our first offical improvistation the park was closed. We arrived after the police said they just received order to chain lock it. Budget cuts probably? What a pity, where to go? Other parks in the area were locked as well. So after some tooling about on the bike and a flower petal ritual, in a round about way we decided to work in a construction site. The road was once the only way into the waterfront area at north 7th street. It was were the prostitutes waited for their johns, were artists climbed through the hole in the fence to be by the water and practice their instruments, where people that had nowhere else to go set up card board houses. The park at that time was over grown with burt out cars and different spots of industrial debris. Now the park is landscaped and maintained and hosts bands on a big stage regularly. This road separates the park from several newly constructed glass towers. The road itself is is under construction. At the end of the road is a water processing plant. The subway runs below it, the rumble is felt when standing on it. The road is in its own state of transformation. Transformation, a theme Ophra and I are often touching on in our discussions about dance and performance. Our first night of working there we felt the space as harsh of an environment it appeared felt very welcoming. Ater about an hour of running and jumping about a security gaurd appeeared and asked how long we had been there and what were we doing there. "Our exersices, we like to dance" He look from Ophra to me and back to Ophra and a few more words were exchanged something as he looked at Ophra about magic and then, "O.K. No problem, in Shala". So began several weeks of improvistions at site. We would bring fruit and chocolate for the security guard and he would wish us well. Our site brought up many questions for us because we had orignially intended to work somewhere public where we could invite people, and we ended up working at a space we felt luck if the two of us made it in. We had inteded also to work with a space that was more fixed and theat the dance could build upon its foundation. Instead each week that we returned to the water processing plant road we would be presented with a new environment- situation, it was constantly changing. But we kept going, curious what this new situation, outside of our intentions would lead us too. It was such a rare raw spectacular space to walk away from. Eventually the concerts and construction took over and our security guard friend could longer nod his head and touch his heart as we entered. The impovistation ran its course. What did we find....? A couple of very interesting themes to explore and some funny character with inus that the space helped draw out of the nooks and crannies of our bodies. For me the theme manifestation could not be ignored, for Ophra it was transition. Life is filled with manifestations and transitions. It became interesting to explore specific images and narratives that can arise from these more broad concepts. It was a dance with someone in which you are listening to the space and to them but doing your own thing but finding openings where interaction could happen with out necessarily physically touching the other. For me it was beautiful practice.