Mo & Co is Back on the Move!

Woah! An exclamation is the only fitting way I can think of to begin this post. It has been quite awhile since this blog has been updated, and a lot has been going on in Mordine & Company Dance Theater. Without sounding too businesslike, my objectives for this post are: 1.) To inform readers about the goings-on of the company as a whole 2.) To introduce myself and give some insight into a dancer’s perspective on the process.

The biggest shift in the company has been its composition—Shirley is working with an entirely new cast of characters. Have you met the new dancers yet? I suggest you check out our “Company Bios” page to learn about Melissa Pillarella, Katie Jean Dahlaw, Stacy (DeMorrow) Miller, Danielle Gilmore, Mary Kate Sickel, and myself, Simone Baechle.

Since the beginning of October, we’ve been creating material for our April 14 collaboration with Natya Dance Theater. This one-night-only event will take place at the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts in Skokie, and will be performed by a cast of 6 Natya dancers and 6 Mo & Co Dancers. Our December 4 event “Fete Champagne” will give the audience a glimpse of the company’s movement sketches in progress.

The main themes of our collaboration (from my perspective, at least) are: marginality, resistance, and immigration/transmigration. What if you can’t find a place to call home in a new and confusing landscape? How does it feel to be denied a voice, an opportunity, a chance to interact? How do you react to being excluded from the majority? Wisely, Shirley has chosen to have the dancers physically respond to these topics as individuals, rather than try to create some sort of overblown, generalized opus about cultural experiences (as less seasoned choreographers might do). In our discussions as a company, we realized that our myriad backgrounds—as second generation Americans or as children profoundly removed from our immigrant descendants, as women who live near or far from our parents, as bold trailblazers or gentle coax-ers of change—would contribute to a much denser narrative than anything that someone could “set” on us.

I cannot speak to how Shirley’s inspirations for this collaboration may evolve. However, I can shed some light on process as I have come to understand it, and I can share the jumble of thematically relevant ideas that have crossed my consciousness: the young Indian immigrant protagonists in Jhumpa Lahiri’s short stories, a radio story I heard on NPR about a lack of any IDs/government records for many impoverished individuals in the southeast US (this article on voter IDs illustrates a tangential issue), my personal experiences working for a company that was male-dominated, the poetry of Yeats and T.S. Eliot (wasn’t WWI truly the catalyst for the next 100 years of universal cultural turmoil?). These are just a smattering of images that I have begun to draw upon as a movement artist.

I’d like to conclude this blog post with a recollection that is more personal and concrete than the aforementioned jumble. As first 7 or so summers of my life, my parents and I would visit Hopi, Zuni, and Navajo reservations. My family’s trek via minivan from NJ to the southwest seemed to be a meditation on these ancient people’s pre-Columbian journey via landbridge from Eurasia to the Americas. Whereas my parents and I did not have strong ties to our German/Irish heritage, these pilgrimages gave me an invaluable sense of scope about the rich anthropology of our country.

While I don’t remember a lot of details about these trips, I do have a lot of visceral memories of how the warm, dry desert air felt on my skin as a reclined on the minivan’s back seat; how the trees in Bryce Canyon smelled like a heavenly mixture of vanilla, pine, and cedar; and how the earthen pueblos were punctuated with doors of bright turquoise (which is still my favorite color to this day). At one point, my family and I were invited to watch a Hopi homecoming ceremony. One of the dancers, whirling with an otherworldly speed, slowly slowed down and separated herself from the circle. She reverently swayed to the drumbeat as she moved toward me. To my astonishment, she presented me with a corn maiden Kachina doll. The rich movement that I witnessed during this ritual and the generous spirit of these people has been an influencing factor in my decision to become a dancer. I look forward to drawing upon more memories like this as Mo & Co continues its movement exploration.

If you can't wait til April (and why should you?!?), then join us on December 4^th at Fete Champagne for a sneak peek- 5pm at Architectural Artifacts in Ravenswood. Make sure to RSVP to marketing@mordine.org- the event is FREE and features champagne and small bites.

Peace, Love, and Plies,

Simone Baechle