Transcripts of Mara1

Ok, my name is Mara Penrose, and I'm here in the Dance Notation Bureau Extension office at Ohio State University in the Department of Dance, talking to Rachael, and we share this office together because we're both graduate students that are focusing on different aspects of Labanotation and theory, directing from notation score. She's a PhD student, and I'm an MFA in my third year. I also started learning Laban dance notation here at Ohio State as an undergrad student and came back to study it more. (interviewer)  Could you tell me that first time you started to learn notation, that was for a requirement or something you chose to do? (Mara)  Requirement. 

[ laughing ] That was for a requirement. The undergrads here have to take a mix of classes, that... does it look ok with the volume? And so, everyone goes into the notation classes, and I was quite resistant at first. Although, it was somewhat novel I thought it would be  sort of interesting, but I dread 

[ electronic noise ] Ok cool. So... (interviewer)  Sorry about that. (Mara)  That's fine. Ok so yeah, I took it because it was a requirement at first.  I took the first two courses in the series as a requirement. I really didn't do well the second time. I think I skipped a lot. I, I didn't find it difficult, but I wasn't motivated either. (interviewer)  Not motivated in what sense? (Mara)  I think just to show up to class with a busy schedule and a, a sense that doing that doing notation class was slow and plodding and tedious and not somehow not related to being a rockstar dance  

[ interviewer laughing ] performer that I wanted to be. So... Yeah. Just didn't, I think I just didn't want to go. I'm not sure what happened in that class, but I'm pretty sure I just didn't show up or something. B+ is pretty bad in the dance department so. 

[ both laughing ] (interviewer)  So would you... at that time would you consider yourself like as a,  were you like a good reader and writer of notation, or? (Mara)  Um... (Interviewer)  You said it wasn't difficult (Mara)  It wasn't difficult. I'm told that... that I picked things up quickly in those classes. I would consider myself a... I don't know what the word would be, but like a... a beginning reader, a basic reader. I... I had a sense of what the staff meant and what the direction symbols meant 

[ tapping sound ] and we did motif and what all the motif symbols meant. It all made sense. I just didn't, I didn't connect to it personally in any at that time. Except, and I had, I had read music as a youngster and it seemed really related. It was like just, if you could just translate reading music concepts then you're fine.  (interviewer)  And then becuase you but you came back to Ohio State... (Mara)  Uh-huh... (interviewer)  when you were in... what, what made that change for you that you decided to come back to school and to continue studying notation. (Mara)  It was really clear when it became something interesting to me. It was... I mean I... ok... Well actually I'm not sure why I did this, but I know that I had an injury, and I had to, I had to take some time of from performing  and of technique classes for a quarter. And it was like, well what can I get done? And I took a dance writing class that I loved. The like, the one that Candace teaches now. (interviewer)  Like writing about dance, like criticism? (Mara)  Yeah it was aesthetics and criticism. I had this quarter of more like intellectual activity. So I took that and I took what I thought was the next class in the Laban series. So I just signed up for it, and I showed on the first day, and there were just four of us. It was two notation grad students and one other undergrad, and it was actually, it was actually like at least one past where I was in the series. And I hadn't take notation for a while and when I sat down I wasn't tracking with even like, I had forgotten like the difference between a diagonal and a, and a, and a like.. (interviewer)  Forward? (Mara)  and a forward. Like a diagonal forward and a forward symbol. I kept mixing those up and probably holding my paper upside down, and... But it, I think that somehow like we had a slightly different structure for the undergrads then and that was going to complete some series, and I was like oh, I can do fine at this so I'll take it. And so after the first day I said to Sheila, the teacher, "I think I made a mistake, and I'm not supposed to be in this class." And she was really, really encouraging, 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." And I was a little bit at a loss because, becuase of the injury thing, so I just figured what the heck, and stayed in. And... I think I, I had the... I had... I think I had the elementary and intermediate books. And this was advanced. Like, I had the books. I don't know what that means. Do you use the intermediate book in 621 now? (interviewer)  I, I make them get that for the textbook. (Mara)  Ok so yeah. So I would have had those, and so I spent a lot of time in advanced, this time of taking advanced notation as an undergrad just combing back through all the books every time there was advanced goes through certain topics but it was like we were doing, I don't know, space measurement or something,  I would need to just go back through the basics. So, it must have happened sometime during that quarter that I just, I remember these like very late nights trying to do a writing assignment and having to just like look up, like how do you say this or how do you say this, and having to write something. And then moving on to the directing and having the same thing happen with the reading. Like having to be able to go in and say what a thing meant. And um... and at the same time during that year... Stacy Reischman was doing an existing rep of Senta Driver's "Resettings," and because I was in advanced I guess... ...like yeah... I guess that's why... somebody said you should give Mara some of this score too. She should learn some of it and set that on the people. Just give her a little section. And it was way over my head, and I... I came in and we like met a little before the rehearsal and... 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. And she was really encouraging. She was like, "Yeah, well, here's, here's. You almost had it, and let me just show you, this means that,  so how would, what would that be?" And so it was like, I was totally the whole time like not getting things but I remember this thing of like being up late nights and like pouring over the books and starting to... like remember which page I went back to more and more and starting to, I guess I just started to feel, I really enjoy how my brain was working or something. I felt... 

[ sighs ]I felt smart I guess. So I felt like... just, I was having fun in a really different way. And it, like it reminded me of math classes when I was younger, and... So it must have happened during like the first two quarters of this series of advanced notation that I got interested. (interviewer)  When you did that the advanced, did you go through and direct a piece from score? (Mara)  Yeah, yean with a group. (interviewer)  And what piece was that? (Mara)  It was "Mini-Quilt" by... do you know? (interviewer)  I don't know. 

[ both laugh ] who it's by. Is that a... like a Sokolow... (Mara overlapping) It is not an important piece no.  (interviewer) or a Humphrey? (Mara)  No, no. 

[ laughing ] It's from the 70's. It's to... we picked it a lot becuase of the music cause it's to Irish folk music. It had an intro that was improvised. That was my section 

[ laughing ] to direct. And it was... that was really my first real teaching experience, and it was teaching my peers. I had taught some kids before I had come to college, but this was my first real teaching experience, and it was very nerve wracking to get in front of my peers and teach. And it, that was probably like the biggest learning experience out of it. Cause my little section of the notation, I think I helped other people read theirs, but mine was... it was a big long squiggle up the page 

[ both laugh ] and there was some rolling and there was a people pile and see I directed. And I, you asked originally how I decided how I to come back here and focus on notation? I still was never thinking during that whole year, "This is going to be a focus of my life." I just, it was a weird blip where it was like, somehow I got injured, I got into it, and then I wanted to finish it out. But it wasn't at all what I was going to do. But I... I had done it, I realize that I had identifed this thing that I was kind good at and kind of really liked and it was just this weird thing. And then that was that, and I wasn't injured anymore, and I thought that if I was do anything it would be perform, choreograph, and maybe focus on writing about dance  cause that was the other thing that I had gotten into. And so then I was out of school for a long time and I would run into Sheila out around town sometimes, and she would say, "You should come back and do notation at OSU." And I would just think, why would I want to do that? LIke it's fun but, but... why would I want to be one of those people? Or I don't know what it was. But then I just started to think... about... Why did I? I don't know. I guess I started to realize that I was interested in history and that notation was a good access point for dance history. And....some time in the seven years between grad and undergrad I just had this turn around where I was like, "Wow I could go back to school for notation." And I could get to do that fun kind of thinking process  all the time, and just decided to come back and do that. (interviewer)  Cool. 

[ clears throat ] 'Scuse me. You mentioned the criticism class and the writing about dance? (Mara)  Mmmhmm. (interviewer)  What besides besides like dance notation, what other kind of reading and writing practices do you do you regularly? (Mara)  Like now? (interviewer)  Or that you're interested in, that you like to do. (Mara)  Mmmhmm. Well, ...then I was really into... like critical writing about dance performance. Like seeing something and then writing really descriptive and analytical... writing that was really grounded in the dancing itself. And I'm just not that interested in that anymore. I still, I still use it all the time, but... it's not like a focus for me or anything. But I do... I write a lot now about my own process with directing and about my thoughts about the Laban framework in general, trying to make connections with things outside of it. So I write word, I write words. And I, I'd like keep a blog where I just like write  very informally whatever I'm thinking about, about that. Or about teaching dance. And then what reading practices? Besides notation? (interviwer)  Yeah. (Mara)  Well I'm interested in... reading all kinds of word writing that's... that's you know, helpful for whatever  I'm interested in the time. So basically, research.  And I like to read poetry as more of a personal centering thing. Is that the kind of thing you're? (interviwer)  What I... I mean I don't want to tell you  what you should be interested in 

[ laughs ] (Mara)  Mmhmm... Reading and writing practices. I'm also, I'm interested in scoring... scoring action, like the way a notation score  scores action but with other with other kinds of scores. Like maps or verbal instructions. I'm interested in the Fluxus movement  and how they used verbal scores. (interviewer)  What's the Fluxus movement? (Mara)  From what I understand it's a movement, and art movement from the 1960's that focused on performance and also, they also a big thing that they did were these objects. I know less about those. These like boxes or something. But they did  a lot of events where they used written instructions. And they're a lot of times really simple, playful, kind of absurd. Some were things done out in public. Like nonchalantly  stick clothes pins all over everything for a while 

[ laughs ]. 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. Like um... like maybe in a book or given to someone or... they would do things in theaters, but it would be sort of poking fun at the theater. Plays. And sometimes the verbal scores were impossible to do. So, I'm trying to think of an example of one. It would be like instructions that you, that you couldn't complete, but you're still supposed to respond to that. (interviewer)  Have you made any sort of, these kinds of scores or like tried any out? (Mara)  Mmhmm. Yeah, I've tried out... I've tried out some with the as I'm working on  my MFA project with the group that I'm working with where I'll give them little slips of paper with things to do. One is something like... ...close your eyes... as a group, it's a whole group of people, close your eyes... move to a certain shape in the space in relationship to each other. You can only move when your eyes are closed... You can open your eyes when you stop, and then... try to make this shape ultimately. Like we did one where we tried to make the shpae of a 'g'. And then the performance is over when we made the shape. And I've also made scores that are... That one's... That one is possible to do. It's... (interviewer)  Mmhmm. (Mara) So it's not like the verbal instructions are impossible. But I've made notation scores that are impossible to perform too,  which is something really interested in. (interviewer)  Tell, tell me about one of those (Mara)  Like what it actually? (interviewer)  Like what is this? An impossible notation score and how you've been using them. (Mara)  Ok. 

[ sniffs ] One impossible notation score that I did, I just tried to... So yeah, I went with the idea of making impossible instructions with notation symbols, and I realized that there were certain tactics you could use to do that. It could either be physically impossible, like it could say... support on a part of the body that you can't support on like your pinkies, or something. Or it could... or it could say... like, by putting... by putting a body part in a column where it doesn't go to me that meant... like put your head on your el... put your head... put, move your head by moving your elbow, so it's more of an imaginative instruction and it ends of being imagery. Like, put your head where your elbow is and your elbow  where you head is, and you would just do that by drawing those in the columns where they would usually, the other would usually be. Or things that are... syntactically impossible, like breaking the step-gesture rule would be the best... the best... I don't know, example of that. So... Doing one thing right from another thing that  you couldn't physically do and then trying to perform it. So that the idea is that 

[ clears throat ] you read that score and then you... How you embody it, there's some space between,  which I think there always is, but just making it bigger.  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. And I had, I gave that to some students as an assignment and one did a thing where she... she put... she put... 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. Like, oh yeah. She wrote a plie, and she wrote some symbol  that seemed to say, "go up while you were doing down." So when I first looked at it I was like, "Woah, wait, what? Why'd you do that?" And then as I read through the whole thing I realized she had just made a simpe plie sequence and that she was working with these images  that teachers give that are like contrasting things. So, I could see how it could be used pedagogically, I could use it more generatively. And one other thing that I've done, that I haven't really used other than teaching notation is  notating non-human movmement on the notation staff,  which is kind grounded in the body, so using kinetic sculpture. I think everything we used was a kinetic sculpture, and trying to somehow map that onto the staff. And that was more just for playing, for them to play with notation.  I'm not sure what, how that could be applied otherwise, but it just got them thinking about... I guess how... We were doing motif and how it's organized. And also just being able to think of notation as open. 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.