Journal Entry #5 by Bryan Saner

April 13, 2010

Natalia learns Persistence.

There is a dance in I Haven’t Gone There that we have named Persistence. Persistence comments on our attempt to stay the same. Shirley tells the story about the roots of this dance concerning refugee groups that when allowed to return to their homeland attempt to rebuild life as it was before the war. It’s also a comment on our persistent belief that war is necessary. It is also a comment on our current national conservatism; “We will stay this way.” As a culture we desire going back to what we know, back to traditional values or those ways of living that we believe were better. It thinks about how culture breaks down and how it builds. It asks if culture’s deterioration is inevitable.

Persistence is multidimensional. We can also be persistent about accepting or creating change. David, Sean and Dmitri each danced the pulsating rhythm that drives persistence. Those men have amicably left the company but the dance and rhythm of persistence is still in. Now Natalia sets the beat. Its persistent inclusion in the performance illustrates its own point. The dance stays and Natalia compliments the meaning by allowing it to progress and change with creativity. Natalia’s rendition of persistence asks if culture could be remodeled in order to be appropriate for the present moment.

The formal components of persistence are rhythm and repetition. The composition follows a disciplined regimen of pulses and dancing on the beat but it also respects and responds to deviations of the beat. This deviation creates a crack in the wall of tyrannical form. The emotional components of persistence are a mixture of blind obedience to the form and a nonconforming challenge to visionless despair. The critical maverick irregularity tenders hope and confidence.

We value ambiguity in performance and dance. We don’t agree. Some see the incongruities, unanswered questions and tangents as vehicles that take us to places we weren’t expecting to go. They thrill at arriving in the middle of uncharted territory. Others look to theater to provide more clues and clarity and point to a transformative new vision that has yet to be realized. Still others are expecting entertainment and the theater moment to be a creative (or [re]creative) event.

Theater creates space and time for these diverse expectations and cultural differences to be investigated in the spotlight. It’s a place where we can repeat ourselves. To act the known past and possible futures . . . to both embrace tradition and also practice transformative change in the same body