When Stories Talk to Stories: The Dialogue of Dance

Peter DiMuro

In an extended project like "Hallelujah," we have the opportunity to observe our own work at an intensive level. Through a grant from the Animating Democracy Initiative, we have sought to understand the role of civic dialogue in the Dance Exchange's work, and the ways in which we foster a free exchange about issues of importance among people with different backgrounds and perspectives. Our emphasis in "Hallelujah" was on intentionally creating dialogue, but engaging people in the subjects we had undertaken and observing where dialogue might emerge. It emerged constantly.

When we first visited the teen dance troupe of the Association for the Advancement of Hmong Women in Minneapolis, the young women performed their traditional dances in full costume. They then turned to us and said, "Show us your dances." We did. It was how we said hello to each other. It was a moment when dancers of very different practices and different career stages met on level ground. We went on to learn that our processes and our dance values were not dissimilar. Soon we would ask permission to combine elements of their form with elements of ours. And in that dialogue moment the partners had to keep the ground level so that we, the visiting artists, would not be stealing the image of a traditional dance just to put it in the store window.

Often it was our challenge to incorporate some of the many stories we heard. Sometimes we'd hear contradictory versions of the same history. "Colliding truths," Liz calls them. "Truth or Tale?" they asked in Houston. The conflict between stories is frequently where dramatic tension and civic interest lies: We don't want to create a false picture of harmony. But how to get the stories on stage in a way that could keep the most people engaged? We often sought the answer in layering. In our Wishing Shrine dance in Tucson, we heard multiple versions in multiple languages underpinned by multiple dance styles. At times like this, the dialogue was in the art, and the stories spoke to each other.

Then there was our dialogue with the audience. At nearly every site, whether our venue was a black box or a 2500-seat barn, we sought a way to break the theater's traditional fourth wall, to bring the audience into more direct contact with the performers. Sometimes this meant putting the performers in the audience, marching in procession down the aisles or straddling the seats. A recurring theme-character in some of the "Hallelujahs" has been a narrator of sorts who is like the audience's own eyes. These characters often find themselves among the folks in the audience, assuming a conversational tone, questioning, giving history. (At Bates, I even led the audience in a good cry, handing out Kleenex to everyone in the house). The character is part court jester, part instigator: If the audience was at any moment passive, the narrator guide would certainly cajole the audience into asking its own questions.

Not everything can be captured in the art. We still wonder what local participants might be saying as they carpool home from rehearsal, or how the experience of being in a "Hallelujah" might emerge in a conversation six months later. But we know the values that support good dialogue (trust, equality, specificity, good listening); we see some of the same values that people most often mention when talking about their experiences in "Hallelujah."

Article excerpted from "Hallelujah: The Extraordinary Essence in Ordinary Life," published by Liz Lerman Dance Exchange and the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center at Maryland on the occasion of their August 2002 co-production of ""Hallelujah/USA." Copies of this 32-page, full color publication are available for $10 each plus $3 shipping and handling, from Liz Lerman Dance Exchange, Attn: John Borstel, 7117 Maple Avenue, Takoma Park, Md. 20912.

Peter DiMuro is the associate artistic director of Liz Lerman Dance Exchange.

Original CAN/API publication: March 2003