Macumba Show Draft!

- 2019 -

Macumba

Most of October I was feeling pressure to have an idea of the materials that I would like to develop with my collaborators so that we can work more concretely rather than feeling like always just improvising and staying in exploration mode. This is a habit of mine which I'm used to, but as a leader of a group, I wanted to try setting structures earlier. It was difficult though given the sporadic and little time I had with the musicians and Alessandro.

Eventually at the end of the month I came up with a rough sketch of the show finally which included "scenes" or chunks of materials that we could concretely try.

A main challenge was that I had to "plug in" the others so that they know what they need to do to minimize confusions. Here is a the sketch laid out in cards.

Explanation of the Order:

I imagine the audience entering to me exercising very intensely...a strange mix of aerobic workout but mixed with choreography from Nijinsky...as if I'm training to do that role. I flex my muscles a lot getting stuck in them and in the rigid choreography of Nijinsky until I'm stuck and can't move out of my pose.

During this time at some point/timing, Raquel is playing the music score on the piano during which time I thaw out of the stillness to begin the actual choreography of Nijinsky. So it's a scene of formal music and iconic choreography. I would transition out of this by going into the Journey Walk when Nijinsky starts to walk in the forest to both the wooden nymphs.

I don't know the transitions, but Alessandro would enter the space as an interruption or just a random thing. He would start playing his Samba song and do his dance breakout...like a funny and strange interruption. I would get distracted by him and infected by him, and I would do the Gypsy Woman dance. Alessandro would bring in the giant fabric and I would get overwhelmed in dealing with the Parangolé, the way I used it in the 301...eventually I would finish and end up seated somewhere.

I would do the CHild Mic where I speak a child-like curiosity and wishes.

I don't know about Alessandro's transparent plastic canvases and how we work those, but we would be interacting.

Raquel would have her Dance Breakout moment. Then "Great BIg Gig In the Sky" from Pink Floyd would start to play, and Icaro would slowly enter chilled, spaced out and begin lip syncing to that vocalist...it would be funny and strange because it's a dance breakout but unexpectedly so (the way he did in rehearsal when we were seeing each other's dance breakout songs).

Still seated as a child, I would try to mimic Icaro's singing, and he would begin mouthing with me like a parent to a child. This would be his transition out and mine in. Raquel would match the piano from the recorded Pink FLoyd track so that it would fade out as only Raquel's piano continues. Then Icaro would join her, and they would take the music to their own sphere. I would begin dancing with them (hence 3some).

Somehow at the end this would escalate slowly until a climas of dance and music.