New York: Ailey performance workshop
Translated from the French original — read it here.
New York, 24 August 2015
I signed up for a "performance workshop" at Alvin Ailey. The idea is to learn a choreography over 7 sessions of 2 hours, and then perform it in the theatre at the dance company's premises. Several workshops were on offer; I chose Sekou McMiller's (Afro-Latin jazz).
It really was a hugely enriching experience... First of all I got the chance to meet a lot of people — there were more than 20 of us taking part. The choreography was very well put together too. It's always impressive to see the amount of work that has to be got through, from the first sketch of the choreography to the finished thing. The choreographer needs enormous self-confidence: to reassure dancers who can sometimes be lost, to steer the ship, basically. Sekou handled his side of it masterfully. Only 14 hours to build a piece with dancers he mostly didn't know — I think that's enormous.
On the dancing itself, this was also a big experience for me, and I was genuinely challenged... There were times when Sekou would show us 8 by 7 bars only four times in a row and boom, you had to go with the music (and the music was fast :-S ).... All right, we had the following week to work off the video, but even so, he was already noting who was picking it up and who wasn't... Learning choreography quickly is a mental gymnastics; it's something you train, and the more you do it the better you get, but as for me, I've always needed time to work on steps after I've been shown them.... I had to concentrate hard :-D .
Most of the other dancers picked things up fast... There were of course regular students of Sekou's classes, who were used to his technique, but not only — some are simply strong, and I found the level high... Another thing I noticed with classes in New York: teachers often single out the ones who are getting it, asking them to dance alone so the others can see how it's done. So, when it isn't you... well, you can get a bit jealous lol :-D (I admit I was often the good student in my various salsa classes when I was starting out, and I always liked it :-D ). In any case, it motivates you... You generally apply yourself twice as hard afterwards, and I imagine that's the intended effect :-). All of that was good — being surrounded by that much talent inspired me a great deal.
So yes, at this kind of event, even though everyone paid the same fee, it isn't a land of hugs and rainbows; it's a bit "sink or swim", and everyone has that mentality, in the sense that nobody ever complained and everyone worked flat out.... No compromise was made on the quality demanded, or on the difficulty of the material — we all had to rise to it... Those who didn't got less dancing time (and/or) didn't find themselves in the front row, quite simply... Sekou, especially towards the end, sometimes struggled to hide his exasperation, but he always kept his calm, and I take my hat off to him for that too: you could feel clearly that we'd better raise our game, without him ever really needing to raise his voice... We were under insane pressure at the end and we were still working on details the morning of the show.
In the end we were all very happy :-) . It wasn't perfect, but broadly we enjoyed ourselves on stage. We performed twice, at 3pm and at 7pm, so by the second run we were a bit more relaxed... My one small regret is that we didn't get one or two more performances.