Hurricane Relief Benefit at Dance Place

Last Sunday, September 18, Daniel Burkholder and I performed a short duo (again) as part of a Hurricane relief benefit event. This is the third time in the last three months that we've done this piece. So far, the "piece" consists of the following determined elements:

1. Daniel and I are both on stage.
2. We perform for 5 to 7 minutes.
3. I play the guitar.

We've got to make up the rest on the spot.

Back in July, Daniel had the great idea of dancing his way over to me and grabbing at the guitar while I'm playing. This worked really nicely, so it happened again when we performed in August. During our tech rehearsal this time, I felt like it was becoming a kind of "schtick" and I wanted to know there was some artistic reason why we were wrestling over the guitar. Daniel's a smart one. He made the piece more about the fact that we're both in the space and interacting with each other – physically, not just in relation between sound and movement. Now that means that my whole body is fair game and not on stage simply to play music, but movement is part of the show too… so this time during the performance we interacted closely, I had to move around quite a bit to avoid certain gestures – for example, Daniel would thrust his arms out just above or below the neck of the guitar so I had to respond in some way. At one point he picked up my leg, and so on… Now I'm hoping we'll find time (and rehearsal space) to work on this further. Of course, I'm totally reluctant to become a movement-based performer (it's enough to try and fool an audience into thinking I can play the guitar!) but I do think if we're going to take this idea further it's going to take some rehearsal.

And by the way, Daniel and I are happy to share that we have a new website for our new joint venture: Improv Arts, Inc.