G. Materia Prima, 1984
Permanent URI for this collection
When I came back to Bennington College to teach Improvisation, I began to explore what I was interested in with my students. These students were Chivas Sandage, DD Dorvillier, Jon Kinzel, Bill Engstrand, Andrea Kane, Hope Clark, Andrew Grossman and others. They were amazing improvisers and we began to explore different patterns and structures that appeared after we improvised together. I had the desire to form a professional group of dancers and to perform improvisation. Lionel Popkin, Hope Clark, Maureen Ellenhorn, Jon Kinzel and myself came together and we formed Materia Prima. Lionel was on the faculty at Temple University and we decided to have our first performance there.
Looking back at the video so many years later, some of the work is really beautiful, powerful and inspiring. We had very loose structures, but every dancer brought such interesting movement material to the group. At this time, Penny Campbell and I were performing together, separate from my explorations and Peter Schmitz was joining us. I learned so much about improvisation working and performing with them. I was also developing more and more ideas that would result in the Emergent Improvisation practice, but this was the very beginning of that work. Other dancers that really influenced me in this work were Agnes Benoit, Emmanuelle Loustanou, Eva Karczag and later on when the work came into full vision with the ensembles that engaged in the research and went on tour were Cori Olinghouse, Katie Martin, Nicole Daunic, Jaamil Olawale Kosoko, Keith Thompson, Lionel Popkin, Zornitsa Stoyanova, Lydia Chrisman, Finn Murphy, Niko Tsocanos, Joe Poulson, Paul Matteson. Katie Martin worked with me very closely forming the whole concept of Emergent Improvisation along with the innovative composer, performer and musician Jake Meginsky who created an amazing ensemble of musicians that went on tour with us. My two collaborators and former students on our book “Emergent Improvisation: Where Dance Meets Science on Spontaneous Composition”: Marie Lynn Haas and Emily Climer identified many parts of this practice and came up with their own form, “The Recall Form”. Lisa Nelson and I have been soul friends forever, and I thank her for all of her support, conversations and editing since we were in our twenties to the present day.
Looking back at the video so many years later, some of the work is really beautiful, powerful and inspiring. We had very loose structures, but every dancer brought such interesting movement material to the group. At this time, Penny Campbell and I were performing together, separate from my explorations and Peter Schmitz was joining us. I learned so much about improvisation working and performing with them. I was also developing more and more ideas that would result in the Emergent Improvisation practice, but this was the very beginning of that work. Other dancers that really influenced me in this work were Agnes Benoit, Emmanuelle Loustanou, Eva Karczag and later on when the work came into full vision with the ensembles that engaged in the research and went on tour were Cori Olinghouse, Katie Martin, Nicole Daunic, Jaamil Olawale Kosoko, Keith Thompson, Lionel Popkin, Zornitsa Stoyanova, Lydia Chrisman, Finn Murphy, Niko Tsocanos, Joe Poulson, Paul Matteson. Katie Martin worked with me very closely forming the whole concept of Emergent Improvisation along with the innovative composer, performer and musician Jake Meginsky who created an amazing ensemble of musicians that went on tour with us. My two collaborators and former students on our book “Emergent Improvisation: Where Dance Meets Science on Spontaneous Composition”: Marie Lynn Haas and Emily Climer identified many parts of this practice and came up with their own form, “The Recall Form”. Lisa Nelson and I have been soul friends forever, and I thank her for all of her support, conversations and editing since we were in our twenties to the present day.