Glue-free, and toothbrush in hand.

Thursday, October 3, 2013. This was my view as I crouched inside my box onstage during the dress rehearsal for Luminarium's most note-worthy performance to date: Opening for Time Lapse Dance at the Fine Arts Center Concert Hall in Amherst MA.

Let's rewind. In April, I received a call from an important and highly influential woman in my life, though this time she reached out to me not as my Indian dance guru, but as the Director of the Asian Arts and Culture Program at UMass Amherst's Fine Arts Center. 

A few performance proposals and one roadtrip later, Kim and I found ourselves standing on the same stage where (as students) we once saw Bill T. Jones, Alvin Ailey, Martha Graham Dance Company, MOMIX, Hubbard Street, the list goes on and on. And here we were, about to join the list. 

Fast forward to October when Luminarium presented Andromeda (Guerra, 2012), whisper, rumor, rot. (Holman, 2013), and Hush (Guerra, 2013) on the main stage, with my Quilt Vignettes film series (2013) playing in the lobby. This was our largest new audience to date; 600 viewers, only a handful of whom had seen us perform before. We also had the fortunate opportunity of performing alongside Jody Sperling's Time Lapse Dance from NYC, performing in the Loie Fuller style.

Time Lapse Dance, in concert with Luminarium Dance Company, 2013.
Fine Arts Center, Amherst MA. Photo: Jim Coleman

As we find ourselves performing in these increasingly high-profile venues, and in the company of such prominent choreographers, it feels strange to be so...at ease. Three years ago, Kim and I were learning important Dance Company 101 lessons like Don't spill toxic glue on the stage you're renting--you'll never get that hundred-dollar security deposit back! and When a prestigious college puts you up in a swanky hotel as note-worthy guest lecturers...at least ONE of you needs to remember to pack a toothbrush. Now, almost three years to the day after our opening performance debut, it was no big deal--No big deal to bring multiple set pieces, equipment, costumes, and nine dancers across state. No big deal to pull the short straw with an early, brief tech; we were on our game, and it all went smoothly. No big deal to warm up onstage alongside the feature company, chatting casually, and discovering overlaps with artistic friends and connections; we had earned our spot there as well.

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And perhaps that's why Kim and I found ourselves so determined to see one of the moose-crossing signs prove its worth on our long drive home in the dark that night. For once, in that whirlwind 24 hours, perhaps we were finally feeling a little unease--not because of the pressure from the prestige of the venue, but because of how smoothly everything had gone. Where was the tumultuous climax of taking that next step? (Where was our moose??)

Below are a few images taken during our tech rehearsal early in the morning--A religious experience for the Five College alums in our group, while admittedly a still-groggy one for the rest. Yet as our company continues to grow in leaps and bounds, it seems our sense of ease as we took this next big step was our moose...glue-free, and toothbrush in hand.

The beautiful UMass Fine Arts Center Concert Hall.
Kim lights us from the booth.
I play whack-a-mole inside my box onstage.

Teching for our performance with Time Lapse Dance.
UMass Fine Arts Center.
Luminarium Dance Company 2013.

Teching for our performance with Time Lapse Dance.
UMass Fine Arts Center.
Luminarium Dance Company 2013.

Elena Greenspan in tech rehearsal for Hush (Guerra, 2013).
Luminarium Dance Company, 2013.

Jennifer Roberts in tech rehearsal for Hush (Guerra, 2013).
Luminarium Dance Company, 2013.

The One I Keep: My thoughts in thousands

Similar to this weekend's events, this entry is right on the heels of the last. While Friday and Saturday brought 24 hours of loudness, fun, chaos, laughter, tapping, singing, shouting, and cheering, Sunday brought the waking stress of Luminarium's professional film shoot for The One I Keep (to debut at Luminarium's largest production of the year, Secrets & Motion: September 13, 14, and 15 at the Armory in Somerville MA). Yet to my surprise, the experience ended up being more successful than I could have asked for.

Jess Chang in The One I Keep, Film Still.
Merli V. Guerra, Luminarium 2013.

Three days later, the blisters on my right hand are finally fading away, having hand-cut over 1,600 pieces of paper to drop on my (poor) beautiful dancer Jess Chang over the course of 3 hours. Many sincere thanks go to both Jess (for her patience and masterful retrograding) and Kim, who spent the evening steadily dropping hundreds of pieces of paper from an old popcorn box in the upstairs mezzanine, only after jerry-rigging a MacGyver-style lighting setup for the shoot. Two music stands, clamp lights, and a shoelace later, we were good to go!

Jess Chang in The One I Keep, Film Still.
Merli V. Guerra, Luminarium 2013.

For days leading up to the shoot, friends and family would respond to my stress of falling paper with "So you just need to cut up recycled printed paper?" Unfortunately for my hands, brain, and the environment at large, I am far too meticulous an artist to let that pass. The purpose of this work was to create a film symbolizing the secrets we share versus the few we keep. In every relationship we embark on—be it friend, lover, family member, or mentor—there is always one thought we keep to ourselves. We may utter thousands of words in confidence to a friend, only to stop ourselves from admitting that one last thought...the one we keep.

Jess Chang in The One I Keep, Film Still.
Merli V. Guerra, Luminarium 2013.

In creating this work, it was thus very important to me to make each piece of paper meaningful. After months of preparation, it wasn't until the day of the shoot that I suddenly realized the perfect way to create exactly this effect. This blog, as you likely know, serves as my online journal. It is a treasure trove of thoughts, ponderings, ambitions, fears, and well...secrets, voiced aloud. By compiling text from my recent entries, printing these words on thousands of cut pieces of paper, and letting them cascade around Jess during the shoot, the film became a literal outpouring of the thoughts I set free into the world.

Mixed into the hundreds of paper are a few secrets I haven't spoken to anyone—the last of which, Jess will ultimately keep in the film. These few unshared secrets flutter by the camera, swept up in the turbulence of all the rest, the same way they dart through one's mind before being tucked back into place.

"ATS Rentals"
Jess Chang in The One I Keep, Film Still.
Merli V. Guerra, Luminarium 2013.

"look up"
Jess Chang in The One I Keep, Film Still.
Merli V. Guerra, Luminarium 2013.

Truthfully, it was eerily exciting to see snippets of my thoughts land around Jess's shoulders, hands, and feet. It was like hearing short clips of an old recording—seeing familiar words that vaguely ring a bell for their context, but not quite enough to recall the specific event. There were also some interestingly synchronous moments. In one frame I plan to use, the words "ATS Rentals" sit on Jess's hand (the same people we rented these very cameras from, and a note clearly appearing from an old blog entry months earlier when we did a similar shoot); in another, Jess's eye is covered by a piece of paper that delicately landed on a single strand of hair, with the words "look up." It has become almost a fun game of I Spy as I sift through the footage, and more importantly, the tiny paper notes fluttering across my screen feel genuine.

Jess Chang in The One I Keep, Film Still.
Merli V. Guerra, Luminarium 2013.

So as I continue to work on this film, I can at least feel confident in its artistic merit. No recycled paper here... Instead, thousands of little thoughts—mostly told, a few yet to be discovered.

"The One I Keep" will debut at Luminarium's largest show of the year, SECRETS & MOTION, September 13, 14, and 15 at the Armory in Somerville MA. Tickets and more information on the production are available here.

A Euphoric Exhaustion: Luminarium's 2013 ChoreoFest

Over the past week, the number of artistic adventures racing through my life has been hilariously disproportionate to the rest of the month. My new issue of Art New England magazine was completed last Tuesday, Luminarium's annual 24-Hour ChoreoFest kept me awake Friday through Saturday, our professional film shoot for my new film The One I Keep took up Sunday, and this Tuesday brought the rare opportunity to reconnect with Nataraj Dancers in Western Mass for a wonderful class and repertory session. It's one of those times when I look back over the past 8 days and am reminded of the power of artistic creativity to produce so much energy and adrenaline needed to make it through. It's exhausting, but it's a euphoric exhaustion.

CHOREOFEST

While last year's ChoreoFest left me dead tired, a little beaten down, and ultimately coming-to one day later while driving through Pennsylvania's Amish countryside, this year's ChoreoFest left me with boundless energy, electric excitement, and got me all the way home before falling asleep mid-burrito. So many of this year's first-time participants referred to the event as an opportunity to both push and learn more about their personal limits, and I can honestly it has done the same for me, having now hosted it with Kim for the second year. Things I've learned about myself: I do not enjoy choreographing overnight with a deadline looming (unlike my incredible co-director), and I cannot survive the event on one hour's sleep. But! I now know that I love being ChoreoFest's videographer and technical troubleshooter. Having the opportunity to spend quality time in each studio as a fly on the wall (a very tech-savvy, high-end camera-toting fly), and countless hours conversing with the other choreographers in the building, was as engaging as it was purposeful. Days later, I found myself knee deep in footage, and loving every minute of it. So many creative and joyful moments caught on film...now condensed into a few short minutes and some beautiful photos.

Above all else, ChoreoFest continues to foster new friendships between Luminarium and the other participating companies, with personal friendships forming in tandem. And possibly the most important tip I've learned in the last two years: A three-hour nap is plenty to get me through this all-night event...but the only way to get it is to squirrel myself away and hide from my ever-too-eager-to-wake-me-up co-director!

To hear other participants' thoughts, visit Luminarium's blog to read the 24-hour entry created during this year's ChoreoFest.

The Boxes Piece: Expanding "Tactile Memories"

Just a few short hours ago, I had an intense, yet inspiring, conversation with a fellow artist about the power of tactility; specifically, in relation to memory.

As I create new material for tomorrow's rehearsal of my Boxes Piece, I believe I will weave this tactility into my work. So much of this piece revolves around loved ones we have lost, and the words we hope to carry to them, that it seems clear to me now (thanks to this earlier conversation) that the piece should at times involve the beginning. That moment when we learn we've lost what we have lost.

Some tactile moments I hope to pull from within the boundless chapters of my own memory:

• Losing a friend to pancreatic cancer in middle school. I first remember hearing a rumor of his death in the hallway: Harsh concrete. Next, when I learned for certain, I crawled inside the footwell of my teacher's desk: Cold metal, slowly warming with my prolonged presence.
• An earlier memory... Losing my elementary school nurse, with whom I was extremely close (Yes, I was that kid.), also to pancreatic cancer. Learning the news in my parents' living room: Rough carpet on skin.
• An even earlier memory... Wanting to see my great-grandmother just one last time before she passed. I was barely 3, but I have this strange, faded memory: Wriggly against a plastic car seat in the dark; a warm light outside.
• In college... The hospitalization (leading to the soon-followed passing) of a dear old neighbor. I'd just won three awards at the Five College Film Festival, so work with me here, but at the point of hearing the news, I was standing on my bed, which was littered in my $89 prize money mostly in fives and ones: Somewhat grungy, crumpled dollar bills against clean, smooth sheets.
• Most recent... Losing a dance partner. This memory is so fresh that it's easy to remember most of my actions. I read the news on my computer screen; I paced my wooden floor hoping my friend would pick up; I sat on my bed while talking to him on the phone for a long, long time. But oddly enough, the tactile memory I have is the actual act of crying: Sticky face; burning, salty lips.

These five (or six) tactile memories come to me the most clearly, though I certainly have many more losses beyond these five. Yet for now, I think I'll begin by feeding these physical memories into my work. After all, that is the beauty of expression through movement, through motion, through dance.

For only the wind to read

Background:

It's time again to ask myself, Why. What is it I'm trying to "say," to express, to feel, to breathe, to disclose, to open, to reflect upon, to smooth, to soothe through this piece?

As Luminarium begins its vigorous rehearsal process for Secrets & Motion, I find myself no longer interested in earlier versions of my choreographic thoughts--versions that once seemed so seamless and clear in my mind back in November have gradually faded, morphed, transformed, and now, in their new state, require flight. How do I go from the churning to the running to the leap--that ultimate release and letting go, as my piece takes me along for the ride?

So here I am on a Sunday afternoon, forcing myself to physically type out the answer to my most basic question: What thoughts am I grappling with in my group piece? After all, this project is centered around the merging of movement, light, and text. Perhaps a little writing exercise will do the trick!

Musings ("The Boxes Piece"):

In speaking with someone close to me last night, I found myself chattering "I love water; I love candles; I love lanterns; I love cemeteries!" so it's no wonder that events like the Forest Hills Lantern Festival (held on the water in the beautiful Forest Hills Cemetery, and with whom I'm in the beginning phases of forging a collaboration with for this project) would strike a chord with me artistically.

Forest Hills Lantern Festival 2010
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But in respect to this piece and the Secrets & Motion Project as a whole, I am drawn to this Japanese-inspired water lantern imagery for a completely different set of reasons: I love the concept of writing one's thoughts on paper and setting them afloat on the water (a literal "secret in motion"), and that by doing so, these thoughts take on a life of their own--following their own little adventures, as they wind their way across the water. Alternatively, I am equally taken with the communicative nature of the festival--quenching our need to pass on a message to those no longer in our lives, or at the very least, sending those messages out into the world for only the wind to read.

It seems fitting, then, that my other Secrets & Motion piece (my film) is so focused on the concept of the secrets that we keep, while this piece is now so clearly heading me down the path of the secrets we wish we'd spoken sooner. What would I tell him now, if I could, if I saw him. What would I want her to know, if she could hear me, and could listen.

It's a force that drives all of us at moments--these feelings and thoughts we wish we could share, and upon finding that outlet, offer us a beautiful balance and release... Perhaps this is why I have paired each of my five dancers with another (who, in rehearsals, I've referred to as "shadows"). Perhaps this piece is seeking balance through giving these secrets a voice.

And having typed this all out without pause, allowing my brain to speak quickly and without stopping to reflect, I am feeling much more balanced, myself, as I head into rehearsal #2. I can only hope these thoughts have equally struck a chord with my readers as well, as I hope to create a new work that can find a home for all viewers in its mission to connect.