Choreographic Practice

Ido’s Choreographic Practice breaks down “Theater Dance” into three core choreographic elements, and uses them as a framework for creating and navigating the Dance Element of the work. Working as a generative system, it can be fed with different inputs, which are transformed through tasks, protocols, and exercises into movement material. The resulting dance emerges across multiple scales, from the performer’s personal experience to the larger compositional architecture of the work.    

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Ido’s Choreographic Practice Is based on these 3 categories*:

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- Category 1: The Individual Physical Experience.

- Category 2: The Manifestation of the Physical Body (category 1) in Space.

- Category 3: The individual (category 1) manifests himself in space (category 2) meeting and relating with other individuals who are also also practicing 1 and 2.

 

 

This practice can be used solely as a tool for generating the physical structure of a dance work, which can then be situated within a pre-existing narrative, concept, or theatrical framework. Alternatively, it can function as a generative process through which narratives, ideas, musicalities, and theatrical concepts emerge directly from the physical practice itself, allowing meaning to arise from the choreography rather than being imposed upon it. 

Or anywhere between these two options.  

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This work, also arrives from a strong belief that the “art of choreography”, both stripped down from a the pre-existing narrative and concept of the piece, and when they are taken into consideration, they can be looked at almost as a “anthropological” practice. The belief that choreography is fundamentally a practice that understands human behavior, discovering how best to structure systems that organize human interaction. Within this seemingly simple yet profoundly complex task, lies everything: sublime beauty, Humanity, philosophical inquiry, and the recurring patterns that shape the way people move, relate, and exist together. 

 

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Category 1: The Individual Physical Experience

 

This category focuses on the performer’s physical experience. This is where the physical qualities that define the “dance” of the piece, and how it would be performed on a physical level, are developed. Led by the Choreographer, The movement language, physical vocabulary, and core motifs of the piece are developed through the exploration of these qualities and the material they generate. It serves as the foundation for the entire work, as the other two categories are built upon what is established here.

 

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Category 2: Manifesting the Physical Body (category 1) in Space

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Building upon the physical foundation established in Category 1, this category shifts the focus toward the relationship between the performer and space. Without abandoning category 1, attention is directed to how these qualities manifest through spatial organization, directionality, pathways, and special and physical patterns. Using verity of tools, tasks and games, the choreographer’s role here is to recognize and capitalize on the patterns that unfold through the meeting of the two. They can unfold by “accident”, by leading the individual through arbitrarily Tasks in space while the dancer is solely practicing category 1. Or by letting the dancer make decisions, as far as where he is in the space, and how he moves or been moved physical experience. 

Through that, movement unfolds in space, relationships between actions and locations begin to emerge, generating a sense of narrative. This narrative may be pre-determined or may arise organically through the encounter between the body, movement, and space.

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Category 3: The individual (category 1) manifests himself in space (category 2) meeting and relating with other individuals who are also also practicing 1 and 2

 

Category 3 explores how the individual physicality (Category 1), and the way it moves in space,(Category 2), meets and interact with those of other performers. Through a system of tasks, games, and structured exercises, individuals practicing Categories 1 and 2, are encountering one another, and begin to generate compositional relationships, patterns, and structures between themselves. These interactions become the building blocks of larger compositional elements. and ultimately, of the work itself at its largest scale. The role of the choreographer within this category, is to determine how these collective dynamics are utilized. While feeding information into the system, within the controlled environment of the rehearsal space, the choreographer can observe, identify, and than capitalize on the patterns that emerge through the apparent "randomness" of the exercises. These discoveries can then be shaped, organized, and choreographed into a more fixed composition.

Alternatively, the choreographer can also choose to preserve the generative nature of the system, and allow this category to remain active in performance. In this approach, the collective intelligence of the group, and the controlled randomness of the tasks continuously generate new relationships and compositional narratives. Creating a work that is constantly evolving and never exactly repeats itself, while still operating within the boundaries and framework of the piece.

 

And that is exactly where the artistry and mastery of the choreographer lies. Finding and navigating through all of the different possible routs in all the different categories. Deciding if to use it as generative tool to be situated into his own existing ideas and narratives, or allowing meaning to arise from the choreographic systems. And the way he delivers it as as a “fully packaged” work.