FSU's Dr. Daniel Sack and Choreographic Fellow DD Dorvillier host panel discussion on "Performance as Research"

While at MANCC, Choreographic Fellow DD Dorvillier, composer Zeena Parkins, and performer Katerina Andreou, participated in a panel with FSU Assistant Professor in Theater Studies, Dr. Daniel Sack, in FSU’s Dodd Hall, to discuss the concept of "Performance as Research".  The spacious interior of the Werkmeister Reading Room provided a useful approximation of St. Mark’s Church in New York, where Dorvillier's work, Diary of an Image and A catalogue of steps will premiere.  By considering the significance of St. Mark’s Church, architecturally and as an historic cultural venue, Dorvillier hopes to capture the context, the space of St. Mark’s Church, Danspace's home, with the piece, and transpose it to other situations, to produce a flexible work that responds and accumulates new information, architectures, and histories along the way.

Dorvillier began by describing the project and inviting audience to look at examples of her organizational approach.  Dorvillier’s explanation of how she has categorized her past works  into fragments to be reassembled into the new work, lent context for her choreographic approach towards Diary of an Image and A catalogue of steps.  Augmenting the discussion, Andreou demonstrated some of the movement fragments, then repeated the movement units with different facings to indicate the infinite possibility of the catalogue.  Dr. Daniel Sack moderated the discussion, prompting Dorvillier to explore her approach to research. The question and answer segment revealed audience members both wrestling with and appreciating the manner in which Dorvillier is using the project to address embedded notions of choreography and how to consider past works with respect to dance’s ephemeral, performative nature.