Time transcripts of Mara1

[00:00:00.00]	Ok, my name is Mara Penrose,

[00:00:04.00]	and I'm here in the Dance Notation Bureau Extension office at Ohio State University

[00:00:12.00]	in the Department of Dance, talking to Rachael, 

[00:00:16.00]	and we share this office together because we're both

[00:00:20.00]	graduate students that are focusing on different aspects

[00:00:24.00]	of Labanotation and theory, directing from notation score. 

[00:00:31.00]	She's a PhD student, and I'm an MFA in my third year.

[00:00:36.00]	I also started learning Laban dance notation here at Ohio State as an undergrad student

[00:00:44.00]	and came back to study it more. 

[00:00:46.00]	(interviewer)  Could you tell me that first time you started to learn notation,

[00:00:52.00]	that was for a requirement or something you chose to do?

[00:00:56.00]	(Mara)  Requirement. [ laughing ] That was for a requirement.

[00:01:00.00]	The undergrads here have to take a mix of classes,

[00:01:04.00]	that... does it look ok with the volume?

[00:01:08.00]	And so, everyone goes into the notation classes, and I was quite resistant at first. 

[00:01:17.00]	Although, it was somewhat novel I thought it would be  sort of interesting, but I dread [ electronic noise ]

[00:01:24.00]	Ok cool. So... 

[00:01:25.00]	(interviewer)  Sorry about that. 

[00:01:26.00]	(Mara)  That's fine. Ok so yeah,

[00:01:28.00]	I took it because it was a requirement at first.  I took the first two courses in the series as a requirement. 

[00:01:33.00]	I really didn't do well the second time. I think I skipped a lot.

[00:01:36.00]	I, I didn't find it difficult, but I wasn't motivated either. 

[00:01:44.00]	(interviewer)  Not motivated in what sense?

[00:01:50.00]	(Mara)  I think just to show up to class with a busy schedule and a,

[00:01:56.00]	a sense that doing that doing notation class

[00:02:00.00]	was slow 

[00:02:04.00]	and plodding and tedious and not

[00:02:08.00]	somehow not related to being a rockstar dance  [ interviewer laughing ] performer that I wanted to be.

[00:02:14.00]	So...

[00:02:16.00]	Yeah. Just didn't, I think I just didn't want to go. I'm not sure what happened in that class,

[00:02:20.00]	but I'm pretty sure I just didn't show up or something. 

[00:02:22.00]	B+ is pretty bad in the dance department so. [ both laughing ] 

[00:02:28.00]	(interviewer)  So would you...

[00:02:32.00]	at that time would you consider yourself like as a,  were you like a good reader and writer of notation, or? 

[00:02:38.00]	(Mara)  Um... 

[00:02:39.00]	(Interviewer)  You said it wasn't difficult

[00:02:40.00]	(Mara)  It wasn't difficult. I'm told that...

[00:02:44.00]	that I picked things up quickly in those classes.

[00:02:48.00]	I would consider myself a...

[00:02:52.00]	I don't know what the word would be, but like a...

[00:02:56.00]	a beginning reader, a basic reader.

[00:03:00.00]	I... I had a sense of what the staff meant and what the direction symbols meant

[00:03:08.00]	[ tapping sound ] and we did motif and what all the motif symbols meant.

[00:03:13.00]	It all made sense. I just didn't,

[00:03:16.00]	I didn't connect to it personally in any at that time. 

[00:03:19.00]	Except, and I had, I had read music as a youngster and it seemed really related. 

[00:03:25.00]	It was like just, if you could just translate reading music concepts then you're fine. 

[00:03:30.50]	(interviewer)  And then becuase you but you came back to Ohio State... 

[00:03:33.25]	(Mara)  Uh-huh...

[00:03:36.00]	(interviewer)  when you were in... what, what made that change for you that you decided to come back to school 

[00:03:41.00]	and to continue studying notation. 

[00:03:44.00]	(Mara)  It was really clear when it became something interesting to me.

[00:03:49.00]	It was... I mean I...

[00:03:52.00]	ok... Well actually I'm not sure why I did this, but I know that I had an injury, 

[00:03:58.00]	and I had to, I had to take some time of from performing  and of technique classes for a quarter.

[00:04:04.00]	And it was like, well what can I get done? 

[00:04:07.00]	And I took a dance writing class that I loved. 

[00:04:11.50]	The like, the one that Candace teaches now. 

[00:04:13.75]	(interviewer)  Like writing about dance, like criticism? 

[00:04:14.88]	(Mara)  Yeah it was aesthetics and criticism. 

[00:04:17.44]	I had this quarter of more like intellectual activity. 

[00:04:21.72]	So I took that and I took what I thought was the next class in the Laban series. 

[00:04:27.86]	So I just signed up for it, and I showed on the first day, and there were just four of us. 

[00:04:34.00]	It was two notation grad students and one other undergrad, and it was actually,

[00:04:40.00]	it was actually like at least one past where I was in the series. 

[00:04:42.00]	And I hadn't take notation for a while and when I sat down I wasn't tracking with even like,

[00:04:48.00]	I had forgotten like the difference between a diagonal

[00:04:52.00]	and a, and a, and a like.. 

[00:04:54.00]	(interviewer)  Forward? 

[00:04:55.00]	(Mara)  and a forward. Like a diagonal forward and a forward symbol. 

[00:04:57.00]	I kept mixing those up and probably holding my paper upside down, and... 

[00:05:00.50]	But it, I think that somehow like we had a slightly different structure for the undergrads then

[00:05:08.00]	and that was going to complete some series, 

[00:05:10.01]	and I was like oh, I can do fine at this so I'll take it. 

[00:05:13.00]	And so after the first day I said to Sheila, the teacher, 

[00:05:20.00]	"I think I made a mistake, and I'm not supposed to be in this class."

[00:05:26.00]	And she was really, really encouraging,

[00:05:28.00]	like, "No, no, no, you did fine. You did really well actually. I think you have  a aptitude for this, and you should just stay in the class, give it a try." 

[00:05:36.01]	And I was a little bit at a loss because, becuase of the injury thing, 

[00:05:41.01]	so I just figured what the heck, and stayed in. And...

[00:05:48.01]	I think I, I had the... I had... I think I had the elementary and intermediate books.

[00:05:53.01]	And this was advanced. Like, I had the books. I don't know what that means.

[00:05:56.01]	Do you use the intermediate book in 621 now? 

[00:05:59.01]	(interviewer)  I, I make them get that for the textbook.

[00:06:00.01]	(Mara)  Ok so yeah. So I would have had those, and so I spent a lot of time in advanced,

[00:06:06.00]	this time of taking advanced notation as an undergrad 

[00:06:09.01]	just combing back through all the books every time there was

[00:06:12.01]	advanced goes through certain topics but it was like we were doing,

[00:06:17.00]	I don't know, space measurement or something,  I would need to just go back through the basics. 

[00:06:24.01]	So, it must have happened sometime during that quarter that I just,

[00:06:28.01]	I remember these like very late nights trying to do a writing assignment

[00:06:32.01]	and having to just like look up, like how do you say this or how do you say this,

[00:06:36.01]	and having to write something.

[00:06:42.01]	And then moving on to the directing and having the same thing happen with the reading. 

[00:06:45.01]	Like having to be able to go in and say what a thing meant.

[00:06:48.01]	And um... and at the same time

[00:06:52.01]	during that year... 

[00:06:55.01]	Stacy Reischman was doing an existing rep of Senta Driver's "Resettings,"

[00:07:01.01]	and because I was in advanced I guess...

[00:07:04.01]	...like yeah... I guess that's why... 

[00:07:10.01]	somebody said you should give Mara some of this score too. 

[00:07:13.01]	She should learn some of it and set that on the people. Just give her a little section.

[00:07:17.01]	And it was way over my head, and I...

[00:07:20.01]	I came in and we like met a little before the rehearsal and...

[00:07:24.01]	and I was like, "Here's what I think it is." And I just totally  hadn't gotten it, but I had gotten a few ideas. 

[00:07:28.01]	And she was really encouraging. She was like, "Yeah, well, here's, here's. 

[00:07:33.01]	You almost had it, and let me just show you, this means that,  so how would, what would that be?" 

[00:07:38.01]	And so it was like, I was totally the whole time like not getting things 

[00:07:42.01]	but I remember this thing of like being up late nights

[00:07:44.01]	and like pouring over the books and starting to...

[00:07:48.01]	like remember which page I went back to more and more and starting to,

[00:07:52.01]	I guess I just started to feel, I really enjoy how my brain was working or something. I felt... 

[00:07:58.01]	[ sighs ]I felt smart I guess. 

[00:08:00.01]	So I felt like... just, I was having fun in a really different way. 

[00:08:06.01]	And it, like it reminded me of math classes when I was younger, and... 

[00:08:11.01]	So it must have happened during like the first two quarters of this series of advanced notation 

[00:08:18.01]	that I got interested. 

[00:08:19.01]	(interviewer)  When you did that the advanced, did you go through and direct a piece from score?

[00:08:24.01]	(Mara)  Yeah, yean with a group. 

[00:08:25.01]	(interviewer)  And what piece was that? 

[00:08:27.01]	(Mara)  It was "Mini-Quilt" by... do you know? 

[00:08:31.51]	(interviewer)  I don't know. [ both laugh ] who it's by. Is that a... like a Sokolow... 

[00:08:32.76]	(Mara overlapping) It is not an important piece no.  (interviewer) or a Humphrey? 

[00:08:37.01]	(Mara)  No, no. [ laughing ] It's from the 70's. 

[00:08:40.01]	It's to... we picked it a lot becuase of the music cause it's to Irish folk music.

[00:08:44.01]	It had an intro that was improvised.

[00:08:48.01]	That was my section [ laughing ] to direct.

[00:08:52.01]	And it was... that was really my first real teaching experience, and it was teaching my peers.

[00:08:57.01]	I had taught some kids before I had come to college, but this was my first real teaching experience, 

[00:09:01.01]	and it was very nerve wracking to get in front of my peers and teach. 

[00:09:07.01]	And it, that was probably like the biggest learning experience out of it. Cause my little section of the notation,

[00:09:12.01]	I think I helped other people read theirs, but mine was...

[00:09:16.01]	it was a big long squiggle up the page [ both laugh ]

[00:09:20.01]	and there was some rolling and there was a people pile and see I directed.

[00:09:26.01]	And I, you asked originally how I decided how I to come back here and focus on notation? 

[00:09:30.01]	I still was never thinking during that whole year,

[00:09:32.01]	"This is going to be a focus of my life." I just,

[00:09:36.01]	it was a weird blip where it was like, somehow I got injured,

[00:09:40.01]	I got into it, and then I wanted to finish it out.

[00:09:44.01]	But it wasn't at all what I was going to do. But I... I had done it,

[00:09:48.01]	I realize that I had identifed this thing that I was kind good at and kind of really liked

[00:09:52.01]	and it was just this weird thing. And then that was that, and I wasn't injured anymore,

[00:09:56.01]	and I thought that if I was do anything it would be perform, choreograph,

[00:10:01.01]	and maybe focus on writing about dance  cause that was the other thing that I had gotten into. 

[00:10:06.01]	And so then I was out of school for a long time

[00:10:08.01]	and I would run into Sheila out around town sometimes, 

[00:10:15.01]	and she would say, "You should come back and do notation at OSU."

[00:10:20.01]	And I would just think, why would I want to do that? LIke it's fun but,

[00:10:24.01]	but...

[00:10:28.01]	why would I want to be one of those people? Or I don't know what it was.

[00:10:32.01]	But then I just started to think... about...

[00:10:38.01]	Why did I? I don't know.

[00:10:40.01]	I guess I started to realize that I was interested in history 

[00:10:43.01]	and that notation was a good access point for dance history.

[00:10:51.01]	And....some time in the seven years 

[00:10:56.51]	between grad and undergrad I just had this turn around where I was like, 

[00:10:59.01]	"Wow I could go back to school for notation." 

[00:11:02.51]	And I could get to do that fun kind of thinking process  all the time, and just decided to come back and do that. 

[00:11:08.01]	(interviewer)  Cool. [ clears throat ] 'Scuse me. 

[00:11:12.01]	You mentioned the criticism class and the writing about dance? 

[00:11:18.01]	(Mara)  Mmmhmm. 

[00:11:19.01]	(interviewer)  What besides besides like dance notation,

[00:11:24.01]	what other kind of reading and writing practices do you do you regularly? 

[00:11:29.01]	(Mara)  Like now? 

[00:11:32.01]	(interviewer)  Or that you're interested in, that you like to do. 

[00:11:34.01]	(Mara)  Mmmhmm. Well, ...then I was really into...

[00:11:43.01]	like critical writing about dance performance. 

[00:11:47.51]	Like seeing something and then writing really descriptive and analytical... 

[00:11:54.01]	writing that was really grounded in the dancing itself. 

[00:12:00.01]	And I'm just not that interested in that anymore. I still, I still use it all the time, but...

[00:12:04.01]	

[00:12:08.01]	it's not like a focus for me or anything. But I do...

[00:12:12.01]	I write a lot now about my own process with directing

[00:12:20.01]	and about my thoughts about the Laban framework in general, 

[00:12:26.01]	trying to make connections with things outside of it. 

[00:12:30.01]	So I write word, I write words. 

[00:12:34.01]	And I, I'd like keep a blog where I just like write  very informally whatever I'm thinking about, about that. 

[00:12:42.01]	Or about teaching dance. And then what reading practices? 

[00:12:48.01]	Besides notation? 

[00:12:51.01]	(interviwer)  Yeah.

[00:12:52.01]	

[00:12:56.01]	(Mara)  Well I'm interested in...

[00:13:00.01]	

[00:13:04.01]	reading all kinds of word writing that's... 

[00:13:08.01]	that's you know, helpful for whatever  I'm interested in the time. So basically, research. 

[00:13:16.01]	

[00:13:18.01]	And I like to read poetry as more of a personal centering thing.

[00:13:24.01]	Is that the kind of thing you're? 

[00:13:28.01]	(interviwer)  What I... I mean I don't want to tell you  what you should be interested in [ laughs ] 

[00:13:30.01]	(Mara)  Mmhmm...

[00:13:32.01]	Reading and writing practices. I'm also, I'm interested in scoring...

[00:13:37.01]	scoring action, like the way a notation score  scores action but with other with other kinds of scores. 

[00:13:48.01]	Like maps or verbal instructions. I'm interested in the Fluxus movement  and how they used verbal scores. 

[00:13:54.01]	(interviewer)  What's the Fluxus movement?

[00:13:56.01]	(Mara)  From what I understand it's a movement, 

[00:13:58.01]	and art movement from the 1960's that focused on performance and also, 

[00:14:03.01]	they also a big thing that they did were these objects. I know less about those.

[00:14:08.01]	These like boxes or something. But they did  a lot of events where they used written instructions.

[00:14:16.01]	And they're a lot of times really simple, playful, kind of absurd.

[00:14:20.01]	Some were things done out in public. Like nonchalantly  stick clothes pins all over everything for a while [ laughs ]. 

[00:14:26.01]	That would be a Fluxus event, and it's thought of as a performance.  And that would be delivered in the form of like a written score. 

[00:14:34.01]	Like um... like maybe in a book or given to someone or...

[00:14:40.01]	they would do things in theaters, but it would be sort of poking fun at the theater. Plays.

[00:14:46.01]	And sometimes the verbal scores were impossible to do. 

[00:14:48.01]	So, I'm trying to think of an example of one.

[00:14:53.01]	It would be like instructions that you,

[00:14:56.01]	that you couldn't complete, but you're still supposed to respond to that. 

[00:14:59.01]	(interviewer)  Have you made any sort of, these kinds of scores or like tried any out? 

[00:15:06.01]	(Mara)  Mmhmm. Yeah, I've tried out... 

[00:15:09.01]	I've tried out some with the as I'm working on  my MFA project with the group that I'm working with

[00:15:16.01]	where I'll give them little slips of paper with things to do.

[00:15:20.01]	One is something like...

[00:15:24.01]	...close your eyes...

[00:15:28.01]	as a group, it's a whole group of people, close your eyes...

[00:15:32.01]	move to a certain shape in the space in relationship to each other.

[00:15:36.01]	You can only move when your eyes are closed...

[00:15:40.01]	You can open your eyes when you stop, and then...

[00:15:44.01]	try to make this shape ultimately. Like we did one where we tried to make the shpae of a 'g'. 

[00:15:50.01]	And then the performance is over when we made the shape. 

[00:15:53.01]	And I've also made scores that are... That one's...

[00:15:56.01]	That one is possible to do. It's... 

[00:15:58.01]	(interviewer)  Mmhmm. 

[00:15:59.01]	(Mara) So it's not like the verbal instructions are impossible.

[00:16:01.01]	But I've made notation scores that are impossible to perform too,  which is something really interested in. 

[00:16:07.01]	(interviewer)  Tell, tell me about one of those

[00:16:09.01]	(Mara)  Like what it actually? 

[00:16:11.51]	(interviewer)  Like what is this? An impossible notation score and how you've been using them.

[00:16:16.01]	(Mara)  Ok. [ sniffs ]

[00:16:20.01]	One impossible notation score that I did, I just tried to...

[00:16:27.01]	So yeah, I went with the idea of making impossible instructions with notation symbols, 

[00:16:31.01]	and I realized that there were certain tactics you could use to do that. 

[00:16:35.51]	It could either be physically impossible, like it could say...

[00:16:40.01]	support on a part of the body that you can't support on like your pinkies, or something.

[00:16:45.01]	Or it could... or it could say... like, by putting...

[00:16:52.01]	by putting a body part in a column where it doesn't go to me that meant...

[00:16:56.01]	like put your head on your el... put your head...

[00:17:00.01]	put, move your head by moving your elbow, so it's more of an imaginative instruction

[00:17:04.01]	and it ends of being imagery. 

[00:17:08.01]	Like, put your head where your elbow is and your elbow  where you head is, and you would just do that

[00:17:12.01]	by drawing those in the columns where they would usually, the other would usually be.

[00:17:16.01]	Or things that are...

[00:17:20.01]	syntactically impossible, like breaking the step-gesture rule would be the best... the best...

[00:17:28.01]	I don't know, example of that. So...

[00:17:32.01]	Doing one thing right from another thing that  you couldn't physically do and then trying to perform it.

[00:17:36.01]	So that the idea is that [ clears throat ] you read that score and then you... 

[00:17:43.01]	How you embody it, there's some space between,  which I think there always is, but just making it bigger. 

[00:17:49.01]	There's some between what you read and what you do because you have,  the rule is you still have to come up with a solution for it. 

[00:17:58.01]	And I had, I gave that to some students as an assignment and one did a thing where she... 

[00:18:04.01]	she put... she put... 

[00:18:10.01]	I forget how it was but she re-arranged how she used the staff so that she was writing about the images that you feel when you're doing, that often are given in ballet class. 

[00:18:20.01]	Like, oh yeah. She wrote a plie, and she wrote some symbol  that seemed to say, "go up while you were doing down." 

[00:18:27.01]	So when I first looked at it I was like, "Woah, wait, what? Why'd you do that?" 

[00:18:31.51]	And then as I read through the whole thing I realized she had just made a simpe plie sequence

[00:18:37.01]	and that she was working with these images  that teachers give that are like contrasting things. 

[00:18:44.01]	So, I could see how it could be used pedagogically, 

[00:18:48.01]	I could use it more generatively. And one other thing that I've done, 

[00:18:52.01]	that I haven't really used other than teaching notation is  notating non-human movmement on the notation staff, 

[00:19:00.01]	which is kind grounded in the body, so using kinetic sculpture.

[00:19:08.01]	I think everything we used was a kinetic sculpture,

[00:19:12.01]	and trying to somehow map that onto the staff. 

[00:19:16.01]	And that was more just for playing, for them to play with notation. 

[00:19:20.01]	I'm not sure what, how that could be applied otherwise, but it just got them thinking about...

[00:19:24.01]	I guess how... We were doing motif and how it's organized. 

[00:19:29.01]	And also just being able to think of notation as open. 

[00:19:33.01]	That was more my agenda for that, was being able to of it  as an open system that you can play with and generate things with.