Reflection: Post-Performance Thoughts from a Company Member

by Josh Rowe

In the week leading up to performances we did several run-throughs of our show for small invited audiences. After each show we had very blunt conversations with our audiences about the work. We asked questions, answered questions, and went through the work with a fine-tooth comb searching for moments that seemed dishonest or unclear. What I initially interpreted to merely be final dress rehearsals quickly gave way to a very productive workshop. Many of our audiences’ remarks were accounted for, responded to, and deeply, sincerely appreciated. And although our audience certainly had a few gripes that needed to be tended to, we were overwhelmed by how easily the conversation came, as if these friends had been acquainted with the work as long as we had. Then, during the week of performance, we were fortunate enough to conduct a few talk-backs—check in with our audience, answer questions, divulge various impetuses for the work. Throughout these conversations I was struck time and time again at how intimately our audience was engaging with our work. Each audience had a few people that would recite, verbatim, the ideas, emotions, questions that Kate brought to us in our first week of process. I suppose it’s my own bias or expectation that contemporary dance or experimental theatre often leaves an audience with an abundance of unanswered questions. I can’t tell you how many performances I’ve been to that feel like a half-hearted tour through a foggy, self-indulgent dream. It was so nice, so reaffirming to be apart of something that was actually communicating, without, I hope, being overtly literal or obvious. In this union of ideas, emotion, and movement, I feel we arrived at a widely accessible language.