Choreographer Susan Rethorst just wants to stay home. I can relate. For Rethorst, the whirlwind of touring and teaching all over the world has made her appreciate the calm quiet of her living room. For me, there’s the less glamorous whirlwind of trying to keep up with the NY performance world. Now granted, from this description neither Rethorst nor I have a particularly tough life and the pressures and pleasures that pull us away from our respective homes don’t seem so bad. In fact, they’re not bad, but one does crave some down time.
Rethorst’s solution was to create a performance in her living room, which was then displaced to more traditional venues (Dance Theater Workshop last season and Danspace Project this weekend.) At a post-performance discussion last night, Rethorst commented on the escalating expense of creating performance in New York City and the increasing competition for studio space. After harboring some frustration that it would be nearly impossible for her to make this new work the way that she has been making works since the 1980s (ah, those mythical times), Rethorst asked the performers with whom she was working, “Can’t you all just come to my house to make this?”
I like the example she’s set: Stop complaining. Look at what you have. Start from there. Be honest. Take care of yourself.
