Not Just Teaching, But Learning: Co-Creation with Pam Tanowitz

Everyone Keeps Me by Pam Tanowitz: Anna Rose O’Sullivan, Hannah Grennell and Beatriz Stix-Brunell. © Foteini Christofilopoulou, courtesy the Royal Opera House

‘It’s not just me teaching them. I’m learning from them.’
Pam Tanowitz

I recently attended a talk and rehearsal given by the inspiring New York choreographer Pam Tanowitz. She was creating a work with the Royal Ballet to mark the centenary of legendary American choreographer Merce Cunningham. 

With his clean lines and fast footwork Cunningham made dance that was independent of music, narrative or concept. He collaborated with artists, designers and musicians, and experimented with new technology. He also embraced the possibilities of chance: rehearsing pieces in segments that could be reconfigured just before the show in an order determined by rolling dice or flipping a coin. 

Like Cunningham Tanowitz begins by rehearsing without music. Like Cunningham no step is off limits. She also embraces chance. In a recent work the third movement became the first after it was mixed up on her computer.

Tanowitz explains that her approach is more about task than character; more about structure than story; more about movement than music.

In the piece Tanowitz has created with the Royal Ballet, ‘Everyone Keeps Me,’ dancers twist and turn, hop and spin, shake and judder, wave and salute. Their moves are elegant, but on the edge of awkward. Sequences are consciously dislocated and out of joint. Sometimes they dance together and sometimes alone. Sometimes they stare into each other’s eyes and sometimes they look away. Sometimes they lounge on the floor and regard the action from a distance. 

You may want to see in the dance the ebb and flow of human relationships, the erratic interaction of people’s fortunes. But Tanowitz insists that the meaning is in the movement.

‘The meaning is in the structure, the steps, the dance and the people. I want it to be viscerally compelling.’

Choreographer Pam Tanowitz Photo by Ted Hearne

Tanowitz usually works with her own company, with dancers who are articulate in her distinct grammar and way of working. When she choreographs with a new company, as here, she is keen to make use of the particular physicality and style of movement that fresh dancers bring.

‘The dancers’ personality and technique, the ballet history in their bodies.’

In rehearsing the material Tanowitz takes a phrase, then reverses it, manipulates it, and makes the dancers travel across the floor with it. She explores the many ways in which a sequence can evolve.

‘I like choices. I want to see all the options.’

Tanowitz characterises her process as conversation. They are talking dance.

‘It’s about who’s in the room with me. It’s a conversation between me, the dancers and the audience.’

In the commercial creative sector we could learn a good deal from Tanowitz - about embracing chance, non-sequiturs and abstraction. But I was particularly interested in what she teaches us about co-creation - something we discuss a good deal nowadays.

For Tanowitz co-creation inevitably entails a certain amount of letting go, of giving collaborators room to explore, to experiment, to express themselves. 

‘I’m not interested in micromanagement.’

She is opening herself up to her partners, to their characters and ideas, responding to their particular styles and ways of working. She is actively listening and being attentive, learning and being inspired. Her process is built on dialogue and trust. 

But by no means does Tanowitz concede authorial control. Far from it. Having investigated permutations and possibilities, she then edits, selects and makes choices. She adapts, arranges and assembles. 

Tanowitz reminds us that if we want great output, we need to think seriously about our input.

‘Process is my favourite part. The show is my least favourite.’

Tanowitz seems a smart, articulate, humble person, with a natural rapport with her dancers and a dry sense of humour. She ponders problems of movement like an architect poring over a complex set of plans.

‘I like solving logistical problems artistically.’

At one point in the rehearsal Tanowitz struggles to find the appropriate instruction for two dancers. She hesitates.

‘What’s the word I was looking for?’

The dancers resolve the puzzle intuitively with a new and different movement. Tanowitz turns away, satisfied.

‘Good. I didn’t need the word.’

'Time won't change you.
Money won't change you.
I haven't got the faintest idea.
Everything seems to be up in the air at this time.
I need something to change your mind.’

Talking Heads, ‘Mind’ (D Byrne / J Harrison)

No 255

Dance Lessons

Asphodel Meadows, choreographed by Liam Scarlett

I attended a talk by the top Royal Ballet choreographer and dancer, Liam Scarlett. He is only 26, but he has already choreographed two exceptional ballets for the main stage at Covent Garden. And he still finds time to dance in the company.

Scarlett was discussing how he approached creating his 2011 work, Asphodel Meadows, around a particular piece of music, Poulenc’s Double Piano Concerto. One could be intimidated, he said, by the scale and complexity of the Concerto. Where to start? How to break into the task? Whereas with narrative ballet there is a natural sequencing to follow, with an abstract work there is no obvious entry point. He explained that his own process was first to identify the ‘epicentre’ of the music, its emotional core. He knew that if he could just design the pas de deux around a particular romantic passage in the second movement, everything else would follow. Having got to the emotional heart of the music, he could work outwards to the rest of the piece.

I am often in meetings nowadays when a Client demands an idea that is media neutral, that extends across every channel, region, product and form of engagement. All the colours, in all the sizes.  Such a panoramic demand can be rather intimidating. And I have found that telling the Creative Department we need to cover the walls with ideas is not entirely helpful.

I suspect that, following Scarlett’s lead, the key to cracking this kind of challenge is not to consider it in its totality or in the abstract. Ideas tend to be born in the specific. The key is to find the epicentre of the task, to find its emotional heart.

In the old days, of course, one could assume that the epicentre of any campaign was TV. The answer’s telly, what’s the question? But engagement is no longer so simple and one of the arts of the modern strategist is to provide focus, to set priorities, to isolate the heart of the matter. Do we start with a particular audience, a particular task, a particular medium? Will the visual identity unlock everything? Should we work up from the product or down from the vision? Because even a solution experienced in parallel may have to be arrived at in sequence.

Lauren Cuthbertson in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

I am no expert, but I love ballet. I love the combination of art and athleticism, grace and danger. I love the unexplained relationships, the wordless ideas. And I confess I find its transcendent beauty somewhat soothing at the end of a day discussing brand pyramids, lost mojos and ideation.

Ballet has also made me consider my own approach to work. I recently heard the fantastic Devonian dancer, Lauren Cuthbertson, explain how she rose to the top of her profession. The interviewer asked if she always knew she would be a ballerina. Oh, yes, she said, and despite her sunny demeanour, a steely determination was audible in her voice. She once came to a career crossroads at ballet school when she was challenged over her application in class. She decided that every night after rehearsal she would replay the whole class in her head. She would lie awake in bed retracing every pirouette, every plie, every jete. So she would return to class the next day, having rehearsed the piece twice over. Inevitably her progress accelerated. And Cuthbertson continues to rehearse in her head, every day, everywhere. When she walks to the tube, eats her supper and relaxes in the evening, she is also pacing the stage at Covent Garden, leaping, vaulting, careering. She is always at work.

I hesitate when applying this thought to our own discipline. I have prized my own ability to compartmentalise work, to leave it behind at the end of the day. I encourage others to forget, to live a life beyond advertising. Because a richer life out of work enables a richer contribution in work. And Lord knows we have enough problems with stress in the office without encouraging people to take work home with them.

But it’s also true that I have solved the knottiest problems relaxing at home. Whilst the content of one’s dreams may, for the most part, be meaningless drivel or the output of some primal displacement process, I have occasionally woken up in the middle of the night with a clarity that has eluded me in the day. The brain seems sometimes to leap further and faster when it is unconstrained by conscious thought and a computer screen.

So I have reached a compromise. I endeavour to leave the tedious work worries in the office. The people problems, the deadline demands, the fracas with the photocopier. But I also try to take the more interesting strategic challenges home. Because I suspect our unfocused, unconscious brains may be our most valuable assets.

First published: BBH Labs 15/06/12

No. 14

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