A choreographer's creative process in real time
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0:00 - 0:02As you might imagine, I'm absolutely passionate
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0:02 - 0:04about dance. I'm passionate about making it,
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0:04 - 0:07about watching it, about encouraging others
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0:07 - 0:09to participate in it,
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0:09 - 0:11and I'm also really passionate about creativity.
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0:11 - 0:15Creativity for me is something that's absolutely critical,
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0:15 - 0:18and I think it's something that you can teach.
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0:18 - 0:20I think the technicities of creativity can be taught
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0:20 - 0:22and shared, and I think you can find out things
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0:22 - 0:24about your own personal physical signature,
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0:24 - 0:26your own cognitive habits, and use that as
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0:26 - 0:30a point of departure to misbehave beautifully.
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0:30 - 0:34I was born in the 1970s, and John Travolta was big
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0:34 - 0:37in those days: "Grease," "Saturday Night Fever,"
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0:37 - 0:39and he provided a fantastic kind of male role model for me
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0:39 - 0:42to start dancing. My parents were very up for me going.
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0:42 - 0:45They absolutely encouraged me to take risks, to go,
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0:45 - 0:49to try, to try. I had an opportunity, an access
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0:49 - 0:53to a local dance studio, and I had an enlightened teacher
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0:53 - 0:56who allowed me to make up my own and invent
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0:56 - 0:59my own dances, so what she did was let me make up
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0:59 - 1:02my own ballroom and Latin American dances to teach
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1:02 - 1:03to my peers.
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1:03 - 1:06And that was the very first time that I found an opportunity
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1:06 - 1:09to feel that I was able to express my own voice,
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1:09 - 1:12and that's what's fueled me, then, to become a choreographer.
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1:12 - 1:15I feel like I've got something to say and something to share.
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1:15 - 1:18And I guess what's interesting is, is that I am now obsessed
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1:18 - 1:20with the technology of the body.
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1:20 - 1:23I think it's the most technologically literate thing that we have,
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1:23 - 1:26and I'm absolutely obsessed with finding a way
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1:26 - 1:30of communicating ideas through the body to audiences
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1:30 - 1:32that might move them, touch them,
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1:32 - 1:35help them think differently about things.
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1:35 - 1:37So for me, choreography is very much a process
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1:37 - 1:41of physical thinking. It's very much in mind,
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1:41 - 1:44as well as in body, and it's a collaborative process.
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1:44 - 1:46It's something that I have to do with other people.
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1:46 - 1:49You know, it's a distributed cognitive process in a way.
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1:49 - 1:51I work often with designers and visual artists,
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1:51 - 1:54obviously dancers and other choreographers,
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1:54 - 1:58but also, more and more, with economists,
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1:58 - 2:03anthropologists, neuroscientists, cognitive scientists,
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2:03 - 2:05people really who come from very different domains of
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2:05 - 2:08expertise, where they bring their intelligence to bear
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2:08 - 2:11on a different kind of creative process.
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2:11 - 2:14What I thought we would do today a little bit is
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2:14 - 2:16explore this idea of physical thinking,
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2:16 - 2:18and we're all experts in physical thinking.
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2:18 - 2:19Yeah, you all have a body, right?
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2:19 - 2:22And we all know what that body is like in the real world,
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2:22 - 2:23so one of the aspects of physical thinking
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2:23 - 2:26that we think about a lot is this notion of proprioception,
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2:26 - 2:29the sense of my own body in the space in the real world.
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2:29 - 2:33So, we all understand what it feels like to know
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2:33 - 2:34where the ends of your fingers are
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2:34 - 2:36when you hold out your arms, yeah?
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2:36 - 2:39You absolutely know that when you're going to grab a cup,
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2:39 - 2:41or that cup moves and you have to renavigate it.
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2:41 - 2:43So we're experts in physical thinking already.
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2:43 - 2:45We just don't think about our bodies very much.
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2:45 - 2:48We only think about them when they go wrong, so, when
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2:48 - 2:50there's a broken arm, or when you have a heart attack,
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2:50 - 2:53then you become really very aware of your bodies.
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2:53 - 2:55But how is it that we can start to think about using
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2:55 - 2:58choreographic thinking, kinesthetic intelligence, to arm
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2:58 - 3:01the ways in which we think about things more generally?
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3:01 - 3:04What I thought I'd do is, I'd make a TED premiere.
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3:04 - 3:06I'm not sure if this is going to be good or not.
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3:06 - 3:08I'll just be doing it.
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3:08 - 3:10I thought what I'd do is, I'd use three versions
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3:10 - 3:12of physical thinking to make something.
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3:12 - 3:15I want to introduce you. This is Paolo. This is Catarina.
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3:15 - 3:18(Applause)
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3:18 - 3:20They have no idea what we're going to do.
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3:20 - 3:22So this is not the type of choreography where
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3:22 - 3:25I already have in mind what I'm going to make,
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3:25 - 3:27where I've fixed the routine in my head
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3:27 - 3:29and I'm just going to teach it to them,
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3:29 - 3:31and these so-called empty vessels are just going to learn it.
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3:31 - 3:34That's not the methodology at all that we work with.
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3:34 - 3:39But what's important about it is how it is that they're
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3:39 - 3:41grasping information, how they're taking information,
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3:41 - 3:43how they're using it, and how they're thinking with it.
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3:43 - 3:44I'm going to start really, really simply.
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3:44 - 3:47Usually, dance has a stimulus or stimuli, and I thought
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3:47 - 3:50I'd take something simple, TED logo, we can all see it,
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3:50 - 3:53it's quite easy to work with, and I'm going to do something
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3:53 - 3:55very simply, where you take one idea from a body,
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3:55 - 3:57and it happens to be my body, and translate that
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3:57 - 4:00into somebody else's body,
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4:00 - 4:03so it's a direct transfer, transformation of energy.
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4:03 - 4:06And I'm going to imagine this, you can do this too if you like,
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4:06 - 4:08that I'm going to just take the letter "T" and I'm going
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4:08 - 4:11to imagine it in mind, and I'm going to place that outside in
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4:11 - 4:15the real world. So I absolutely see a letter "T" in front of me.
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4:15 - 4:16Yeah? It's absolutely there.
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4:16 - 4:19I can absolutely walk around it when I see it, yeah?
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4:19 - 4:21It has a kind of a grammar. I know what I'm going to do
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4:21 - 4:24with it, and I can start to describe it, so I can describe it
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4:24 - 4:27very simply. I can describe it in my arms, right?
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4:27 - 4:30So all I did was take my hand and then I move my hand.
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4:30 - 4:32I can describe it, whoa, in my head, you know? Whoa.
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4:32 - 4:34Okay. I can do also my shoulder. Yeah?
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4:34 - 4:37It gives me something to do, something to work towards.
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4:37 - 4:39If I were to take that letter "T" and flatten it down
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4:39 - 4:42on the floor, here, maybe just off the floor,
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4:42 - 4:44all of a sudden I could do maybe something with my knee,
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4:44 - 4:46yeah? Whoa. So If I put the knee and the arms together,
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4:46 - 4:50I've got something physical, yeah? And I can start to build something.
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4:50 - 4:52So what I'm going to do just for one and a half minutes or so
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4:52 - 4:55is I'm going to take that concept, I'm going to make something,
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4:55 - 4:58and the dancers behind me are going to interpret it,
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4:58 - 4:59they're going to snapshot it, they're going to take
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4:59 - 5:02aspects of it, and it's almost like I'm offloading memory
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5:02 - 5:04and they're holding onto memory? Yeah?
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5:04 - 5:06And we'll see what we come up with.
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5:06 - 5:08So just have a little watch about how they're, how they're
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5:08 - 5:09accessing this and what they're doing,
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5:09 - 5:11and I'm just going to take this letter "T," the letter "E,"
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5:11 - 5:14and the letter "D," to make something. Okay. Here goes.
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5:14 - 5:18So I have to get myself in the zone. Right.
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5:32 - 5:35It's a bit of a cross of my arm.
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5:40 - 5:45So all I'm doing is exploring this space of "T"
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5:45 - 5:50and flashing through it with some action.
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5:50 - 5:53I'm not remembering what I'm doing.
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5:53 - 5:56I'm just working on my task. My task is this "T."
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5:56 - 5:59Going to watch it from the side, whoa.
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6:01 - 6:03Strike moment.
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6:03 - 6:06That's it.
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6:08 - 6:12So we're starting to build a phrase.
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6:12 - 6:14So what they're doing, let's see, something like that,
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6:14 - 6:17so what they're doing is grasping aspects of that movement
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6:17 - 6:19and they're generating it into a phrase.
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6:19 - 6:21You can see the speed is extremely quick, yeah?
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6:21 - 6:24I'm not asking them to copy exactly.
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6:24 - 6:26They're using the information that they receive
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6:26 - 6:29to generate the beginnings of a phrase.
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6:29 - 6:31I can watch that and that can tell me something
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6:31 - 6:34about how it is that they're moving.
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6:34 - 6:37Yeah, they're super quick, right?
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6:37 - 6:41So I've taken this aspect of TED and translated it
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6:41 - 6:44into something that's physical.
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6:46 - 6:48Some dancers, when they're watching action,
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6:48 - 6:51take the overall shape, the arc of the movement,
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6:51 - 6:53the kinetic sense of the movement,
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6:53 - 6:54and use that for memory.
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6:54 - 6:57Some work very much in specific detail.
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6:57 - 7:00They start with small little units and build it up.
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7:00 - 7:03Okay, you've got something? One more thing.
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7:18 - 7:21So they're solving this problem for me,
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7:21 - 7:25having a little --
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7:25 - 7:27They're constructing that phrase.
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7:27 - 7:28They have something and they're going to hold on to it,
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7:28 - 7:30yeah? One way of making.
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7:30 - 7:33That's going to be my beginning in this world premiere.
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7:33 - 7:35Okay. From there I'm going to do a very different thing.
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7:35 - 7:37So basically I'm going to make a duet.
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7:37 - 7:41I want you to think about them as architectural objects,
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7:41 - 7:43so what they are, are just pure lines.
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7:43 - 7:46They're no longer people, just pure lines, and I'm going
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7:46 - 7:50to work with them almost as objects to think with, yeah?
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7:50 - 7:52So what I'm thinking about is taking
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7:52 - 7:56a few physical extensions from the body as I move, and
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7:56 - 7:59I move them, and I do that by suggesting things to them:
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7:59 - 8:02If, then; if, then. Okay, so here we go.
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8:02 - 8:03Just grab this arm.
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8:03 - 8:06Can you place that down into the floor?
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8:06 - 8:08Yeah, down to the floor. Can you go underneath?
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8:08 - 8:12Yeah. Cat, can you put leg over that side? Yeah.
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8:12 - 8:14Can you rotate?
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8:14 - 8:15Whoom, just go back to the beginning.
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8:15 - 8:21Here we go, ready? And ... bam, bake ... (clicks metronome)
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8:21 - 8:23Great. Okay, from there, you're both getting up.
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8:23 - 8:26You're both getting up. Here we go. Good, now? Them.
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8:26 - 8:28(Applause)
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8:28 - 8:31So from there, from there, we're both getting up,
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8:31 - 8:32we're both getting up, going in this direction,
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8:32 - 8:34going underneath. Whoa, whoa, underneath.
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8:34 - 8:38Whoa, underneath, whoo-um. Yeah? Underneath. Jump.
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8:38 - 8:42Underneath. Jump. Paolo, kick. Don't care where. Kick.
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8:42 - 8:46Kick, replace, change a leg. Kick, replace, change the leg.
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8:46 - 8:50Yeah? Okay? Cat, almost get his head. Almost get his head.
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8:50 - 8:54Whoaa. Just after it, maybe. Whoaa, whaaay, ooh.
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8:54 - 8:59Grab her waist, come up back into her first, whoom, spin,
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8:59 - 9:00turn her, whoo-aa. (Snaps) Great.
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9:00 - 9:03Okay, let's have a little go from the beginning of that.
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9:03 - 9:08Just, let me slow down here. Fancy having eight -- (Laughter)
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9:08 - 9:11Fancy having eight hours with me in a day.
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9:11 - 9:16So, maybe too much. So, here we go, ready, and -- (Clicks metronome)
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9:16 - 9:23(Clicks metronome)
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9:23 - 9:26Nice, good job. Yeah? Okay. (Applause)
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9:26 - 9:29Okay, not bad. (Applause) A little bit more?
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9:29 - 9:32Yeah. Just a little bit more, here we go, from that place.
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9:32 - 9:35Separate. Face the front. Separate. Face the front.
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9:35 - 9:37Imagine that there's a circle in front of you, yeah?
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9:37 - 9:42Avoid it. Avoid it. Whoom. Kick it out of the way.
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9:42 - 9:46Kick it out of the way. Throw it into the audience. Whoom.
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9:46 - 9:47Throw it into the audience again.
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9:47 - 9:49We've got mental architecture, we're sharing it,
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9:49 - 9:51therefore solving a problem. They're enacting it.
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9:51 - 9:53Let me just see that a little bit. Ready, and go.
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9:53 - 9:57(Clicks metronome)
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9:57 - 9:59Okay, brilliant. Okay, here we go. From the beginning,
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9:59 - 10:02can we do our phrases first? And then that.
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10:02 - 10:04And we're going to build something now, organize it,
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10:04 - 10:05the phrases. Here we go. Nice and slow?
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10:05 - 10:09Ready and go ... um. (Clicks metronome)
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10:09 - 10:13(Clicks metronome)
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10:13 - 10:17The duet starts. (Clicks metronome)
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10:17 - 10:30(Clicks metronome)
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10:30 - 10:33So yeah, okay, good. Okay, nice, very nice. (Applause)
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10:33 - 10:35So good. So -- (Applause)
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10:35 - 10:38Okay. So that was -- (Applause)
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10:38 - 10:40Well done. (Applause)
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10:40 - 10:42That was the second way of working.
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10:42 - 10:44The first one, body-to-body transfer, yeah,
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10:44 - 10:47with an outside mental architecture that I work with
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10:47 - 10:49that they hold memory with for me.
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10:49 - 10:51The second one, which is using them as objects to think
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10:51 - 10:53with their architectural objects, I do a series of
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10:53 - 10:56provocations, I say, "If this happens, then that.
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10:56 - 10:58If this, if that happens -- " I've got lots of methods like that,
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10:58 - 11:00but it's very, very quick, and this is a third method.
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11:00 - 11:03They're starting it already, and this is a task-based method,
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11:03 - 11:05where they have the autonomy to make
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11:05 - 11:07all of the decisions for themselves.
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11:07 - 11:08So I'd like us just to do, we're going to do a little
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11:08 - 11:11mental dance, a little, in this little one minute,
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11:11 - 11:13so what I'd love you to do is imagine,
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11:13 - 11:15you can do this with your eyes closed, or open, and if you
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11:15 - 11:18don't want to do it you can watch them, it's up to you.
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11:18 - 11:22Just for a second, think about that word "TED" in front of
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11:22 - 11:25you, so it's in mind, and it's there right in front of your mind.
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11:25 - 11:27What I'd like you to do is transplant that outside
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11:27 - 11:31into the real world, so just imagine that word "TED"
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11:31 - 11:33in the real world.
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11:33 - 11:36What I'd like you to do what that is take an aspect of it.
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11:36 - 11:39I'm going to zone in on the "E," and I'm going to
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11:39 - 11:42scale that "E" so it's absolutely massive,
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11:42 - 11:44so I'm scaling that "E" so it's absolutely massive,
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11:44 - 11:46and then I'm going to give it dimensionality.
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11:46 - 11:48I'm going to think about it in 3D space. So now,
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11:48 - 11:50instead of it just being a letter that's in front of me,
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11:50 - 11:53it's a space that my body can go inside of.
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11:53 - 11:56I now decide where I'm going to be in that space,
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11:56 - 12:00so I'm down on this small part of the bottom rib
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12:00 - 12:03of the letter "E," and I'm thinking about it, and I'm imagining
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12:03 - 12:07this space that's really high and above. If I asked you to
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12:07 - 12:10reach out — you don't have to literally do it, but in mind —
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12:10 - 12:13reach out to the top of the "E," where would you reach?
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12:13 - 12:15If you reach with your finger, where would it be?
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12:15 - 12:17If you reach with your elbow, where would it be?
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12:17 - 12:21If I already then said about that space that you're in,
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12:21 - 12:24let's infuse it with the color red, what does that do
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12:24 - 12:26to the body? If I then said to you, what happens if
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12:26 - 12:30that whole wall on the side of "E" collapses and you have to
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12:30 - 12:32use your weight to put it back up,
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12:32 - 12:34what would you be able to do with it?
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12:34 - 12:36So this is a mental picture, I'm describing a mental,
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12:36 - 12:40vivid picture that enables dancers to make choices
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12:40 - 12:42for themselves about what to make.
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12:42 - 12:44Okay, you can open your eyes if you had them closed.
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12:44 - 12:45So the dancers have been working on them.
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12:45 - 12:47So just keep working on them for a little second.
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12:47 - 12:50So they've been working on those mental architectures in the here.
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12:50 - 12:52I know, I think we should keep them as a surprise.
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12:52 - 12:55So here goes, world premiere dance. Yeah? Here we go.
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12:55 - 12:59TED dance. Okay. Here it comes. I'm going to organize it quickly.
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12:59 - 13:02So, you're going to do the first solo that we made,
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13:02 - 13:05yeah blah blah blah blah, we go into the duet, yeah,
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13:05 - 13:08blah blah blah blah. The next solo, blah blah blah blah,
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13:08 - 13:12yeah, and both at the same time, you do the last solutions.
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13:12 - 13:15Okay? Okay. Ladies and gentlemen, world premiere,
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13:15 - 13:17TED dance, three versions of physical thinking. (Applause)
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13:17 - 13:20Well, clap afterwards, let's see if it's any good, yeah? (Laughter)
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13:20 - 13:23So yeah, let's clap -- yeah, let's clap afterwards.
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13:23 - 13:25Here we go. Catarina, big moment, here we go, one.
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13:25 - 13:50(Clicks metronome)
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13:50 - 13:55Here it comes, Cat. (Clicks metronome)
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13:55 - 14:00Paolo, go. (Clicks metronome) Last you solo.
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14:00 - 14:03The one you made. (Clicks metronome)
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14:03 - 14:15(Clicks metronome)
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14:15 - 14:17Well done. Okay, good. Super. So --
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14:17 - 14:19(Applause)
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14:19 - 14:21So -- (Applause)
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14:21 - 14:23Thank you. (Applause)
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14:23 - 14:32So -- three versions. (Applause) Oh. (Laughs)
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14:32 - 14:35(Applause) Three versions of physical thinking, yeah?
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14:35 - 14:38Three versions of physical thinking. I'm hoping that today,
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14:38 - 14:39what you're going to do is go away and make a dance
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14:39 - 14:41for yourself, and if not that,
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14:41 - 14:44at least misbehave more beautifully, more often.
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14:44 - 14:46Thank you very much. (Applause)
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14:46 - 14:51Thank you. Thank you. (Applause)
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14:51 - 14:53Here we go. (Applause)
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14:53 - 14:57(Applause)
- Title:
- A choreographer's creative process in real time
- Speaker:
- Wayne McGregor
- Description:
-
We all use our body on a daily basis, and yet few of us think about our physicality the way Wayne McGregor does. He demonstrates how a choreographer communicates ideas to an audience, working with two dancers to build phrases of dance, live and unscripted, on the TEDGlobal stage.
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDTalks
- Duration:
- 15:18
Morton Bast edited English subtitles for A choreographer's creative process in real time | ||
Morton Bast edited English subtitles for A choreographer's creative process in real time | ||
Morton Bast edited English subtitles for A choreographer's creative process in real time | ||
Morton Bast edited English subtitles for A choreographer's creative process in real time | ||
Thu-Huong Ha approved English subtitles for A choreographer's creative process in real time | ||
Thu-Huong Ha edited English subtitles for A choreographer's creative process in real time | ||
Thu-Huong Ha edited English subtitles for A choreographer's creative process in real time | ||
Morton Bast accepted English subtitles for A choreographer's creative process in real time |