Author: Dr. Timony

Much like the work in Principles of Uncertainty, chaos over time becomes pattern. That is just the way it is. Years ago, my wife and I had one of those inexpensive sound spa units in our bedroom. The allure of napping by a babbling brook. You know. Like you used to do? Well. I came home early with a headache. Punched up the sound spa. After a minute or so, the loops in the sounds became rhythmic. Obvious. Explicit. Annoying. Trash can. Even the most random events. There is so much less chaos than you think.

I notice patterns. It’s really at the core of what I do. If I were to consider my own (capital E) Expertise, I might say that it is pattern recognition. I know it sounds like something obvious. Simple. Apparently not. Anyway. I find so much of Miller Rothlein’s work as reflective. Not always of the directors. A persona. A characterized event. A wish. A life encountered or speculated.

Self Portrait was commissioned by the Philadelphia Museum of Art and premiered in 2008. The work had some of its roots in the work of Frida Kahlo but each component was fitted, adapted, and joined to the history of Amanda Miller. Tracing the roles, travels, injuries, and loss across a timeline Miller found touchpoints. Solitary moments.

As a teacher with decades (a fact, not braggadocio) I am familiar with teaching subjects that are personally challenging. I remember wondering how personal this piece was to the directors as the student were developing their own works. The parallel process used by the company had been so effective. How would the students research and reflect, plan, develop, and interact with the content. Building their own self portrait. Amanda and Tobin watching them struggle in a similar way to their own developing work, in a similar way to Kahlo’s own developed work; history taking them farther back and finding those same pains. Different verbs. Different nouns. Names changed to confuse the innocent.

Sixth and seventh graders blending media to create a language that represented their lives. Completing the work and hiding their small movements that explain just a bit of themselves. Wondering if anyone will notice. Wondering if anyone will understand. Hoping that it is never mentioned.

Brave lonely movement before the whole world.

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Uncertainty. That is an excellent word to describe the research inspired by particle accelerators. Particles. Fast particles. 50 drummers. 25 dancers. 2 video artists. Chaos? Maybe. Until you start to see the patterns emerge. The relationships evolve. Suddenly a tragic story or exciting invitation. Audience members at the public performance were compelled, almost spiritually, to leap into the fray. We sat in the center. Another educator and I. It was a spectacle. Rhythmic. Terrifying. Cultish. Moving.

When Amanda and Tobin returned from Fermilab they were filled with stories. Mostly they talked about the noise. And the scientists who really connected to them as artists. They were asked to write an article for the Fermilab quarterly. They were invited back. Physicists became their friends here and afar. Entanglement. Relationships at any distance. Physicists near and physicists far. They were drawn, compelled even, to leap into the fray. The performance left a lasting scar. Not so much a wound as a surgery. A healing. There was little informal talk of it. Like a strange relationship.

The students understood the concepts and anticipated their influence on movement. They enjoyed near and long distance manipulation. Entanglement. It seemed a theme for the year and it persists. Students who started in the program many years ago are connected. They are tall. Wonderful near-adults. City kids. Tough. Until they see Tobin and Amanda. Busted. See their souls? Expressive and wanting to express. Friendship does not begin to explain it. Open. Wonderful. Artists. What’s been shared on the marley is the confession that we move and we dance because we need to tell the story without words. There is nothing to say that could not be better said with a turn, a reach. Deliberate look to the horizon, the ceiling. A hand. A noise made because of movement. Not accidental but impossible to replicate without that effort.

Like that audience member who was driven by the movement and drums and joined the dance. The students took that invitation to express themselves newly. One more language.

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When students begin to take ownership of creativity, they change. Our students began finding ways to spend more time in the studio. They talked about how they were creative, what they struggled with. Girls talked about bodies. Thin. Tall. Big. Fat. Amanda took such great care of them through this. She saw each dancer–always called them “dancers” never kids or students–as an individual filled with beauty and movement. They came to see that as well.

They started to concern themselves with their performances. So they started concerning themselves with each other. They took care of each other and developed new responsibilities. New senses of self.

Their first performance as part of the company was scheduled for the week of the school’s Spring Concert. That meant that the stage was up. In the big venue. With lots of seats–and lots of people. Having performed on that stage many times I can tell you that it is a big space, it will swallow you whole. It demands a certain performer. Particular confidence. Bravado.

When the students took the stage, they were present. They took command. Tunnel vision. They had that audience.

The piece, according to the MiRo process, was a parallel process that the company used as they developed work. Students explored ideas, researched, completed movement exercise and exploration–the same ones that the company members completed. They wrote notes on the chalkboards of the studio. They wore their socks floppy. To say it was parallel process is misleading. They were members of the company and they prepared as such.

The work of the students was pervasive. It seeped into the work of the company, and why wouldn’t it? When Pitch Black had its premiere at Altria with outrageous score by JakobTV for saxophone quartet and boombox, the students were in the audience and, if you looked, they were on stage as well. On panels. On stage. On bodies. Projected, being thrown, from 100 feet away at the rear of the room. Our front row special guests–on a late night in Manhattan after hustling down the glowing streets of Times Square–watching MiRo perform while video projections bent, stretched, waved and laughed–the same students looking back at them from panels on stage.

They were there. We were there. It was moving. It was tragic.
Why had it taken so long? Aside from that, it was joyous. We were alive.

Ms. Amanda, Mr. Tobin? When’s the next rehearsal?

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