>> That is beautiful. Welcome to Director's Cut. I'm Charles Monroe-Kane. Today we have the special privilege to talk about dance and dance on film. We're joined today by filmmaker Douglas Rosenberg and by world acclaimed dancer Li Chiao-Ping. Thank you very much both for joining us today. That was very beautiful. You are a dancer and have been your whole life. You are in dance, have been a dancer. Dance is your lives. Why? Why is dance important to you? For both of you, first I'll start with you, why have dedicated your life to dance? >> I actually probably have, it's going to be more accurate to say, dedicated my life, or part of my life anyway, to looking at dance, and to try and sort of be a witness to dance through the moving image. That may be more accurate. >> A witness to dance. Beautiful. And you, you're the dancer. Why? What happened? Why did you choose that for a whole life dedication? >> It kind of choose me. But, I mean, I was a attracted to it from an early start and I just always moved. I love to move and I connect to other people through movement. I feel that it's an important part of all of our lives. >> Now this film is called "Seven Solos." Tell me a little bit about what it's about. What is the genesis of the film that the you made. >> It's kind of a long story, but I'll try to make it short. Eleven, twelve years ago Chiao-Ping did a project called the "Women's Project" which was a project in which she commissioned six solos by six acclaimed-- >> Male. Male choreographers. >> Did I say woman? >> Uh-huh. >> Sorry. Six solos by six acclaimed male choreographers. It was the "Men's Project." I totally mixed it up. the "Men's Project." We made a documentary about that process and about that work. Shortly thereafter we were involved in a really awful auto accident. Chiao-Ping went through a long period of rehabilitation and retraining to be able to move again, dance again. Ten years later, eleven years later, she created this project, which is the "Women's Project," "Seven Solos," by seven acclaimed woman choreographers. And we made a documentary about that. In a sense, they're kind of bookend projects. >> Could you take me back, if you don't mind, to that time after the accident. You're a dancer. I had a professor who was an acclaimed violin player and broke his hand, and I just remember that experience for him. What was it like for you? You were told you weren't able to walk again. >> Yeah, it was a really terrible time. I mean it was a profound time for us. It was something, you know, to have something that you love so dearly that you identify with, that's, you know, your life's energy. Your purpose, sort of. To have that, sort of, taken away from you was really terrifying. I had kind of an identity crisis about what I would do. >> I can imagine. >> But then, it was a time of growth as well. A time to look at the art form for how one can connect to it at lots of different levels. Not just as a, sort of, virtuosic, very technical, young dancer. I could also see how it would benefit people, the community and children, and differently-abled movers. >> That's amazing. We're going to see another clip from the film and come back and talk more about this. So we'll see another clip real quick and we'll be right back. Here's another clip from "Seven Solos." >> I think all my dances are about the survival of the human spirit. No matter what the subject matter is, the underlying premise is always about survival. Somehow this energy is going to communicate, if an audience member can participate in it. I think this is what the beauty of dance is. It's about that physical energy that can connect with a human being watching this, and it's through that, through just that energy that you communicate about human values, about political events and problems. I do feel that the real power of art is to heal, to help us understand, you know, bring relevance to life. Yeah. It's kind of old fashioned but-- >> That's so beautiful. You know, as I watch that, and I think for both of you, as the dancer and the person capturing the dance, I watch that, I think, you were in a car accident and couldn't walk? Not only is it, like, not the inspiring thing, the hey, she's up and walking, but like she's dancing. Not just dancing but with a capital D, you know, really going for it. You were looking at it too. I was watching you watch it. I'll start with you. When you see yourself dance now after the accident, what do you think when you see yourself dance? >> Oh, that's a hard one. Because I still remember what it's like to move, I don't know, more perfectly. So it's hard for me to not see my flaws. But on the other hand, I also try to look beyond that and try to see the beauty that's there. Also to see beyond my own ego. That's an important part, because really I'm just an instrument for the choreographer, and in this case this was for June Watanabe. What was her vision? I try to be that instrument and express her vision. >> Now, you're the filmmaker and you have a very interesting role, right? I should add here, because I think maybe people don't know. If you don't mind me saying. You both are also married to each other. When your talking about "we" got in the accident, I wanted to make sure that people understood that. As the filmmaker, I know that's a unique experience to be behind that camera. When you see this now, knowing about the dancing before the accident and after. How do you view it? >> Well, you know, it's an extraordinary journey. People who make films, or who make art of any kind, I think, hopefully, bring part of their life to the work. If not, then it's kind of a different process. This particular project is very personal, long, long investment from on a lot of levels. I want to just point out while I'm thinking about it that June Watanabe, speaking of circles, June Watanabe was my dance teacher when I was in my early twenties. She was the person who was my first dance teacher and she was someone I ended up collaborating with making my first dance film works, with her, in California back in the early '80s. Coming full circle, she was one of the choreographers Chiao-Ping chose for this project at the end of June's career. >> I want to make sure people understand that the film is seven different choreographers, female choreographers, who wrote specific dances for you to kind of celebrate where you are now. Their very different. They are unique from each other. I was quite impressed. As I looked at them I was wondering. I couldn't help but think of an athlete. That's kind of what I relate to. Unfortunately I'm less artistic than I should be. I think about an athlete and some of the athletes, the best ones, aren't the ones who are really old, but certainly aren't the one who that are youngest and most "athletic." They're in the middle where they have the skills in their brains. Do you consider yourself a better dancer now? >> That's a great question. I think so. I think, you know, I can access more as an artist than I could as a twenty-something, you know. Certainly, I could do amazing things when I was 20. I could jump way higher, and do just a lot more tricks, but making art is not about that. There's so much more. So yeah, I think that in some ways I'm better. In some ways. >> That's interesting. We're going to see another clip and come back and talk more about your film. Another clip from "Seven Solos." >> Chiao-Ping and I went to grad school together at UCLA and when Chiao-Ping asked if I would work with her I was delighted to have a body so capable. I would have an idea and say, can you do something like this? She would do some great flip-type thing, you know, one arm balance over here. I was like, okay, yeah, can you do it a little bit like this? Great, that sounds good. Let's put that in. So it was definitely exciting for me to work with her skills. I do tend to bring in some humor into things. This piece on Chiao-Ping though isn't particularly humorous, the solo. >> Another clip from "Seven Solos." We were talking while that was going about possessing space. As I meet you here, or I talk to you in the hallways before you come in here, and then I see you there, and you were captured so well as a filmmaker. It was like you own-- that's your space. You seem bigger there. You look like you're 6'4" like a super hero. When you're in that space of dancing, I mean you're in that moment of filming it, are you in another space? Or is it work? >> No, you're right, I'm totally in a different space. In each dance I occupy a different space within each dance depending on what the choreographer has written, has decided. So that's, you know, the dance artist's job, is to try to inhabit that space, to bring it alive. >> That's interesting. The thing I'm very curious about, you have lighting and a camera. The camera is a thing, this entity that is large and your face is behind it. It's very robotic. You look at someone filming, the camera filming us right now. It's quite strange. And all these lights. You normally perform this in from of people. Sure, there are lights, but you're in front of people. You're performing it a camera. If you husband possess it, it doesn't matter. Is it different? Is the dance different? If you filmed her while she was performing in front of an audience, and if you where doing it for an audience, is it a different dance? >> That's a great question. That is the question that I've been thinking about and working with for my 20 years. >> So you much have a great answer then.
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>> I have an answer. You're right, the dance that is performed for a live audience is a different dance. The performer has a different sense of space and a different sense of their focus. Their focus is farther away. >> Sure, sure. >> Performing for the camera is a very different undertaking and it's a very different space also. The space is compressed, the space between the performer and the 'audience' as it were is five feet, ten feet maybe, at the most. So the energy is at a different level, the sensitivity to the space itself is at a different level. It's a very, very different thing. That's where something happens, when there's an acknowledgement of that special relationship between the camera and the movement. >> I can imagine, if I was a choreographer, and I had written something for you, and then you and a bunch of other people come in with a crew, I would think that would bother them. I would assume-- some of those choreographers seem kind of intense. I can imagine they would be annoyed. Like it was almost like an invasion of privacy. Did that come up? Or did that come up for you? Like, god, I'm really digging this and there's a camera here? Or you're like, no, I'm just doing my thing? >> You know, I think they were so unobtrusive and we really were so focused that I don't think we were that aware that they were there. >> I would say also that all the choreographers in that project have worked with media before. >> Yeah, I guess you would assume that now, right? >> Not everyone does. But they, yup, I'm know that all the choreographers in that work are savvy about media, so they had an understanding that not all choreographers do. But that question is a good one. >> The reason I asked because we are going to show another clip not from "Seven Solos" the film that we're talking about. There is one clip I want to show from another film of yours. This is something that you choreographed and you filmed that is meant to be only for a camera. >> I directed. I didn't choreograph. >> Okay, sorry. I don't know the difference. I'm learning all these things. It's made only for the camera, correct? >> Yeah. >> And not made for the stage, to be viewed. It seem like, when I watch it, it's different than the other things. Not good or better, but it's different. I'm going to show that clip so the audience can see the two. Then we'll come back and talk a little bit more about who the audience is at these events. This is called "Real Boy," right? It's a short clip from there and then we'll come back and talk about it. This is the clip from "Real Boy." >> Pi, pi, pi, Pinocchio. Real boy, real boy! Pi, pi, pi, Pinocchio. >> That looks totally different to me. I find it totally different. So for both of you, how is that different? If you know you're making something just for film or for performing in front of a studio audience, what's the difference for you? >> Well, in my mind, that was a piece made for camera, whereas the piece that Douglas did was more of a documentary style, where it was sort of looking at a project that I was creating. >> When you're dancing on stage for an audience, who are you dancing for at that moment? Are you trying to consider the individuals, the whole, yourself, some god I don't know about? I'm not trying to make it too deep, I just wandering, who is the person that you're focused on when you're out there. >> Um-- I guess it depends on the piece. Some work, like June's piece, that one there's sort of the space out there. You know? It's not necessarily a person, but there's sort of a sense of something out in that direction. Verses, maybe like Elizabeth Streb's piece, where it's really just between me and the board. You know? There's not an outside space really. It's just this space that's on stage. >> That's interesting. You and I were talking on the way in here about Public Television, PBS and how there's not much arts, not as much as there used to be. Why do you think that is, and why do you think this "Seven Solos," this film that we're talking about, why do you think that isn't as accessible maybe as it would have been, say, 20 years ago? It's not going to be on PBS. There's really not much of a broadcast venues for it. Obviously, it's going to be on here. I wondering why you think that and what do you think the problem with that is. >> Well, boy. I was in art school in the '80s when, I don't know if people ever remember this or know about it, but when the NEA went through a big uproar and the NEA actually de-funded four very well-known performance artists. That was a big change in the art world and in the world of media particularly. Ever since then there's been less and less what we maybe used to call experimental work available to mass culture. The public television stations started pulling back from edgy or from work that was possible offensive to some people. In general, people who were in charge of distributing culture started pulling back, pulling back, pulling back in order to not loose their funding, not upset the status quo, and essentially to stay in business, I guess. In a way. >> You made other things in public television, right? Is it something you feel someone can do for a living, or do you have another venue because you just can't do it? >> I have maybe kind of a different view of it then a lot of people. I never really wanted to depend on one particular part of my art-making for my living. I teach, I make films, I make objects, I work with performance. I do a lot of different things. So I have more of a kind of holistic approach to what I do. I think making a living anymore in media, if you're making work that is at all experimental is pretty difficult. >> So diversify your portfolio. We're going to show another clip. We'll go back to "Seven Solos." We've got another clip from "Seven Solos." If I can be as bold as to say, my favorite, then we'll come back and about it. Here's another clip from "Seven Solos." >> I don't think about risk or danger really. What I'm trying to do is go to the zones in time and space that I have been to before. And I'm trying to kind of slice into those phenomena in a way that will provide a condition of turbulence on some level. Which certainly includes risk and danger. Part of the agreement is you walk into a room and you agree to get hurt, otherwise you're going to be being careful. What are the options? You're either going to decide, it's okay to get hurt, or you're going to be careful. And if you're being careful I don't think movement is the right field for you.
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I mean, Chiao-Ping was also the perfect person to make a dance on. I got this idea for "Board" and I really liked it. I don't make solos really, and I wanted to come up with an idea that I really liked. I did, and she was perfect. I think a lot of the issue of great dancing has to do with the "how" of it. How do you execute that move, in what manner? That's where the stuff of dance and of watching movement really comes alive.
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>> That is absolutely fantastic. I was saying, I watched that four times. Rewound it. There's more of it. There's the dancing. There's something that the choreographer said at some point later. She says, about being careful. She said a good dancer is not careful. If you're careful you're not a good dancer. I think I know what she means, of a superficial level, but what does she mean in relation to this dance? If you're careful you're not a good dancer. >> You have to take challenges. You have to take risks. >> What she actually says is there's an agreement when you walk into a dance studio which is that you're gonna get hurt. If you're not willing to get hurt then you really have no business being-- >> And, you know, I mean, I take that notion both, sort of, physically and emotionally. In this case probably physically more, but it could be that your need to be able to be vulnerable and go to certain places that might be uncomfortable. >> How it means to be a parent, right? Gotten open up to being hurt. >> Well, it does. I agree. In any kind of artist I think that is accurate. If you're not going to be vulnerable then you're going to make a different kind of work. You were asking earlier about where did all the experimental work go. It's hard to make experimental work and put it out in public now, in the climate that we live in. It's going to come back kind of hard sometime. >> Safety in many different levels. Just to end here, we go back to you two being married and making art together. When you go home at the end of the day, how do you separate putting spaghetti on the table for the kids after you've worked all day. How are you able to separate your art from your life. Or do you not? >> Not so much. Our life is pretty-- What's the word? >>It's enmeshed. You know? There's very little separation between life and art. >> Good! That's great. Why separate them, right? Art's important. >> Yeah, it's just hard to separate things. >> It's amazing to me, I think about the accident. I go back the that and think about that and where this art is now. Was the accident necessary to get you to the point of such beauty? It's hard to believe. >> Well, I think, I guess what I would say is that, you know, life is necessary and sometimes it's rough. >> Sometimes it's rough Well, thank you very much. I'm so excited that you live here, because now I know when I hear about it or see a poster, I'm going. I'm very, very, very excited. Thank you both very much. >>
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Thank you. >> And thank you all for watching Director's Cut. For more information on "Seven Solos" please go to our website at wpt.org and click on "Director's Cut." I'm your host Charles Monroe-Kane. Check the gate. >> So this is just one night only, right? This whole thing? >> Uh-huh. >> Okay, so you'd better lay down right now. You'd better lay down.
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