Date: Fri 23-Jan-1998

Publication: Bee

Author: CURT

Quick Words:

schools-Pilobolus

Full Text:

Learning About Improvisation And Creativity

(with cuts)

BY MICHELE HOGAN

Do you love to dance?

Students at Hawley School do after watching the dancers in Pilobolus

improvise, play and fluidly swing and swirl each other every imaginable way on

stage.

Rebecca Stenn and Adam Battelstein, dancers, seemed so close, and so in-tune

with each other, that it was natural for a student to ask if they were

married.

Rebecca responded, "We are not married, but we get asked that question every

day.

"Our instruments are our bodies. These are our instruments. You know if you

played the saxophone, you would play it then put it down. That's how our

bodies are. That's how we can work closely together, yet not have a romantic

relationship."

Adam continued, without missing a beat, "We dance with other partners. It's

like going to the office. It's like trading saxophones for us, sort of."

Rebecca and Adam traded "saxophones" a lot that morning, as they invited

groups of volunteers to dance with them on stage and got the whole audience

participating in an improvisation. After the show they continued with

improvisation workshops for the students.

One of the short plays the pair performed was about a relationship. It began

with Adam oppressing Rebecca, who then grew to gain her freedom. The story

ended with the pair seemingly content to be close together.

Rebecca asked the students about the relationship, then about the scenery they

had imagined around them on the bare stage. Students said that it took place

in "a jungle," "a field," "the rain forest" and "the moon."

Rebecca told the students that "in improvisation, every answer is a right

answer."

She said, "The way you see the piece tells you about yourself. As actors, we

love that!"

The next short performance, Solo of the Empty Suitor , featured Adam trying to

meet up with Rebecca.

Adam lost both Rebecca and his hat, but seemed to care more about trying to

get his hat back than the girl.

Students described the actor as feeling "frustrated," "frightened," and

"embarrassed."

One student suggested that maybe his hat was so important because he needed it

badly to cover his hair!

Another student asked Rebecca if she was a millionaire. She said that the

answer is an, "emphatic no. We are not movie stars. We do shows for live

audiences here and in Europe and Asia."

Adam and Rebecca seemed to enjoy the give-and-take with live audiences almost

as much as they seemed to enjoy responding to each other in dance.

Each dancer led improvisation workshops for small groups of students.

Students quickly became a part of the fun as they mimicked squeezing by

someone, doing a double take, or simply walking stiffly or strangely, while a

partner mirrored them.

"When it's really working well," Rebecca said, "you lose track of who is the

leader and who is the follower."

Following a strange mistake of another kind led Adam just where he is today.

In high school Adam was an athlete, and a few times an actor, but never a

dancer. When he went to college he never signed up to take dance class, but

somehow it got onto his schedule. Reluctantly, he went.

Adam said, "Dancing was such a natural combination of athletics and acting, I

loved it!"

And he has been a dancer ever since.