Portions of Rock. Paper. Flock. are made anew each night by the dancers, with coaching from their choreographer. The piece blends a few processes, including a real-time creative process that we sometimes use in the development of new choreography. In this piece a heightened energy is set in the rehearsal studio as the dancers “perform” with my coaching, even though they don’t know what comes next. One of our goals is to relay clarity and ownership of our actions as we generate a progression of exceptional physical interactions.

What allows us as choreographers and dancers to identify and capture a poignant moment? In Rock. Paper. Flock. I aim to discover and shape some “aha” moments in front of you. I hope to let you see the work as I’m seeing it, at the moment I am discovering it, and then witness me enhance, or sometimes accidentally destroy, a rich interaction.

I often enter the studio with hours of prepared choreography, but ultimately this is just a starting point for what happens in the moments of seeing and articulating, as I shape the work in response to the delicate human energies in the room. The dance artists you see before you – their lives, their personalities – seep into the art, as do my own, such that in some ways, the art and the artists are inseparable. Rock. Paper. Flock. explores this explicitly.