Guest Artist: Bad Boys Redux – a feminist choreographer learns to love the male ego

After recently reviewing the premiere of my dance trio lunar rouge Alex Ferguson, of Plank Magazine, wanted to know more about my working process. We chatted on the phone for awhile, Alex posing interesting questions, me attempting to respond with some clarity. He then emailed requesting an article from me on any subject I cared to write about. After some deliberation — you know, which topic, what style, how long, why bother, I came up with the following.

Alex and I go way back and have worked on several projects together, both in dance and theatre. In 1997 we worked on Bad Boys, an interdisciplinary piece, as we called this kind of collaboration back then, with myself as choreographer/director, dancer Harvey Mellor and spoken word poetry trio AWOL Love Vibe, of which Alex was a member. I don’t often work with male performers, rarely with poets, and I like to stay away from performers who are original creators in their own right. These four artists were all of those things.

I guess at this point you might be wondering why I would embark on a project destined for obvious difficulty, perhaps failure. (Side bar: The review in our esteemed national newspaper The Globe and Mail applauded Bad Boys for its cutting edge effort, while bemoaning its muddled form.)

I didn’t have an easy answer to that question, so writing this article became an interesting journey into remembrance and analysis. Giving myself permission to jot down stream of consciousness memories and thoughts in hopes of arriving at a point of understanding, it didn’t take long to figure a few things out. I had decided to develop Bad Boys for one overriding set of reasons, which has been a major driving force throughout most of my creative life. I went for it because I was certain my aesthetic would be opened up beyond its usual range. I knew that I wouldn’t be able to rely on old familiar habits and patterns, many of which had served me well up to that point. I went for it because doing so would require me to test out new approaches and discover other useful techniques in the creative process. I was certain that my directorial skills would be challenged by the performers at every turn. (I was right on that one!) I also went for it because I hoped that it would be inspiring to hang out professionally with four clever, quick-witted, sexy fellows. (Right on that account as well!)

Put more than two articulate artists in one room working towards a common goal and sparks will fly. The personalities in the Bad Boys studio made for a brimming stew of testosterone, brilliance and humour, coupled with a spicy dose of healthy ego.

The three spoken word poets (which included Kedrick James and John Sobol) loved to improvise, were masterful at it. They were funky as well as terribly educated, reminding me of early 20th century escapees from Eton. They also possessed some physical chops, having fun putting gesture and movement to their words, sometimes with my input and sometimes without.

Harvey Meller, the Bad Boys dancer, was a well established choreographer, known for his wit and charm, less appreciated as a dancer. He’s an overly tall, elegantly gloomphy sort who came to the game late in life (having studied to be a lawyer), and whose movement style was the antithesis to mine. He possesses a booming voice and a quick mind, both of which he shared with little inhibition.

I can hold my own quite well with male banter and light hearted competition — the unending thrust and parry of intellect and physicality that these four men possessed. The poets were riffing in the studio as well as writing at home. Harvey was also improvising physically in response to their constantly changing poetry, while I was choreographing.

The thematic material hadn’t been decided upon before entering the studio so it was evolving while we worked. I would often see and hear things that I liked, including my own choreography and dramaturgical ideas, but there seemed to exist a persistent reluctance to say, “Yes, this will work, so let’s move on.” I felt that decisions had to be made and cemented, quite early on, in order to further develop the piece’s content as well its style and rhythm.

I possess pretty good studio management skills, having produced numerous pieces for years on little money and less time. Mind you, because I always worked in brief, intense periods (due to funding constraints), I wasn’t accustomed to indulging much in what I would label “a playful process. I remember feeling out of my element, overwhelmed by the quantity of ideas, impressed with their confidence and cowed by my conflicting desire to both please and take charge. It confirmed that I had good artistic instincts but not the craft to flesh them out fully or the assurance to direct with a firmer hand.

In short, I was struggling to discover and deliver my own directorial voice, to believe in my own point of view, its value and intelligence. I found myself backing away when it was necessary for me not to, pushing forward when more exploration was probably warranted

A subtle power struggle ensued. None of us won, yet no one really lost. A stalemate, I guess you could call it. Too much material generated or too little? You would probably get five differing responses to that question. From my perspective, the intention and clarity of the piece suffered because we never quite hit the sweet spot.

The creative process is a delicate balance between ‘hanging onto’ while ‘letting go of’, which, when cooking, is magic. Believe me when I say that many of us don’t feel the magic often, but it sure makes the challenges of inventing really fantastic when we do.

Years later, I can’t say with illuminating clarity how my art making was influenced by the making and performance of Bad Boys but I know, deep down, that it was.

The answer to the earlier question, “Why did I do Bad Boy’s,” is this: For me, the act of delving into the unknown, the unfamiliar, the unpracticed, forces me to try to be honest, as in authentic and faithful. (I don’t always succeed. In fact, there have been several occasions where I forgot those values, replacing them with material ones and surprise, surprise, both the creative process and artistic outcome were….. lessened.)

I would look forward to this kind of wonky opportunity again. I like to think my skills have grown and been refined since 1997. I believe I would approach things differently now as a director. But, and this is the crux of the matter, I would still be treading unknown water, sinking into a pit of confusion, relying on instinct and prayer combined with artistic knowledge and experience. I would still be pushed to my limits, even though those boundaries have expanded. I would still have to call upon inner resources of courage and unattachment. I would also have to act with a more self-assured presence. It is a combination of those feelings and impulses that keeps me connected to something greater than myself, greater than the project, greater than public success.

My belief? If I wish to remain a positive force in the creative zeitgeist, then each time I enter the studio, it is incumbent upon me to act from a foundation of humility and curiosity and courage. I believe that without these attributes, I would be doing nothing more than wanking — you know, going about my business for the wrong reasons, reasons like boredom, complacency, praise, adulation, fame and fortune (well that’s a bit of a stretch). In the old days, such motivation and behaviours would have been labeled self-idolatry. Today it’s called Reality TV.

If creators, whatever our medium, don’t keep it honest and brave, rich in the act of questioning while sticking to our guns, if we aren’t driven by intellectual inquisitiveness and spiritual expression, then are we really artists? There are those who would argue that if the final product works, then nothing else really matters. Not for me. I would feel like a disembodied sleepwalker floating around in dangerous and disconnected waters. I would feel fake.

At this point I would like to point out that I believe that these values alone are not enough. Without imbedding one’s vision in an ever evolving, finely-honed craft, the artist is still a wanker.

So bring the bad boys!

Here is the caveat. Having said the above, I would be lying if I didn’t admit that producing a winning piece can create a kind of temporary amnesia around all of this. Ah, success – the lobotomy in one’s search for truth.

Chick Snipper works as an independent choreographer, director, teacher and mentor with artists and companies in both the dance and theatre communities. She recently retired as Artistic Director of DSB having created over 60 dance and interdisciplinary projects, some of which toured across Canada. In 2004 she received the Inaugural Isadora Award for Excellence in Choreography for her trio slab. She has also directed award winning documentary films for History Television and an award winning short performance film for Bravo! Her most recent dance commission was lunar rouge for The Tomorrow Collective, which premiered at the 2008 Dancing on the Edge 20 year anniversary. Chick teaches at Studio 58, Western Canada’s elite theatre training school.