The concept of this work came from working with dance choreographer Sarah Messenger, whom I met during a cross-collaborative course at NYU Tisch. Much of our early conversations about this piece and our class involved a lot of the impetus behind "having" and "getting" to navigate our increasingly complicated daily schedules. It felt that although our work was itself fun and exciting, sometimes it felt nothing more than just work. 

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We first began by finding a set of "every day gestures" ​that Sarah could then abstract. As Sarah worked to find ways to abstract something as simple as passing a subway turnstile, I began thinking of ways to musically reflect the feelings of doing things, but only just. Since our idea was about the way we perceive our tasks, I asked just about everyone to send me a play-by-play voice recording of their most stressful or busy day, then reorganized all the submissions into linear timeline and tossed in some fun sound samples to illustrate the narratives in the voices. Sarah then found ways to weave in and out of that soundscape, oscillating between loose theatrical motion and fully choreographed dance.

 

Spoken Word Collaborators: 

Peter Bement  |  Kristian de Leon  |  Hunter Goetz  |  Jeff Gumpertz  |  Lev Itsygin  |  Christian Kuhlman  |  Ryan Langford  |  Simon Li

Sarah Messenger  |  Ryan Nicholson  |  Jamie Trinajstich  |  Tia Tupuola  |  Edison Vilar  |  Jordan Wainright

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