Transcripts of hannah-kosstrin

(Hannah) Alright, I'm Hannah Kosstrin, visiting Assistant Professor of Dance at Reed College, PhD candidate at Ohio State University in dance studies. I teach dance studies and notation and writing. (interviewer)  Do you remember any of your first experiences with notation, or maybe what got you interested in dance notation? (Hannah)  Yeah, I do actually. My mom always talked about it. Right? Yeah. My, my mother was a phys ed major.  She has her masters degree in phys ed from Ohio State, and she did some summer programs through the DNB, and remembers a couple of names but assumes they don't know who she is... But... so she had done it, and modern dance was part of her phys ed requirements  because in those days modern dance was still part of what phys ed teachers taught.  So she learned notation, and then she told me about it as I was coming up dancing, and when I went to college it was something I was really excited to learn.  And so, I learned notation in college.  And I was really excited to learn it because I knew so much about it,  and it was such an important thing. And it was a lot more difficult than I was anticipating.  And... I mean it still is. Like, there's still a certain  amount of complexity that I really have to work on.  And I'm trying to remember sort of like where that break is  in terms of ease of just reading through a score,  and really having to like break down measure by measure and not kid myself, you know? And instead of looking at it and saying, "Oh I know what that is," but actually really  breaking down and reading it kind of phonetically... is something that I always have to keep in check with especially now that I'm teaching.  I can't just kind of glance at what we're doing for the day  and say, "Alright yeah, I know what that is." But I actually have to know what it is to go in.  Yeah, and it's interesting because notation is not something that really came easily to me, but I was just more interested in it as a tool, as a really important tool for dance, that I really wanted to know how to read it.  And I alway... I mean, in terms of reading it, I went directly to the staff. I didn't do motif until grad school. (interviewer)  Mmhmm.  (Hannah)  And I think for that reason motif was always really frustrating for me because I knew how to read on the staff, because I came to grad school already certified through the intermediate level, and motif seemed like an interesting generative thing,  but I wasn't interested in generating through it. I was much more interested in using notation as a documentary tool and in reading scores. At that point in my life. So it was hard for me to get less structured when I knew that ultimately the goal, or like it seemed like the curricular goal was to go from motif to structured, and I already knew the structured so it seemed kind of silly to go back  to do the motif at that point in time when I was 23. 

[ laughs ] When I thought I knew everything.  

[ interviewer laughing ] Hello world. Yeah, and I'm trying to think of something useful  about learning notation the first couple of times, and I... maybe it will come up. I really can't... It's like I... I remember the very first day when my teacher put the staff on the board. And it's interesting because when I went to teach notation this semester for the first time,  I was trying to remember what it was like the first time that I had been taught, and I was trying to remember that first day when I was in college. And it's one of actually the only days that I remember... specifically of class time. You know, of my teacher explaining how to draw the staff. And so then I went and gave a very similar lesson.  You know, like ten years later: how to draw the staff.  And wonderfully, like, messed up the... how to explain timing, which was terrible because my students are incredibly bright  and intelligent and very smart. Smarter than me most of the time. And I realized that I was explaining it wrong 

[ laughing ]  in the middle of it and I couldn't go back. 

[ laughing ] I couldn't take it back. And my students said, "Wait a minute." 

[ laughing ] I was just like, "I know, I know, we'll get there." You know because I just went through and like,  explained to them how to break down the beats, you know, between the beat and the syncopation,  and you know the 'and' and the '1 ee and uh.' And then I totally explained it wrong on the staff. That was awesome. 

[ laughing ] And poor one of them, did her homework wrong, I think because I... I corrected it, but then I just explained it wrong the first time.  And there's something so interesting with the first time that you learn  one of these skill sets that it's really hard to undo the bad stuff, which we see all the time in technique class. You know, unlearning bad habits.  But, even within something that is so immediate as language, especially with brains that are like sponges, that the first time you...  and they're so interest..they're so eager to learn it.  But the... and I'm the same way that the first time that I learn it,  it's like the groove was made. And it's really hard to, like... maybe we should turn on the video... it's really hard to like go back.  

[ scratching sound ] No that's ok. It's really hard to like go back over the groove and like, remake it.  So I'm finding that a lot of my own hangups about my own ability to read or even teach you know, they're all coming back up in teaching, ... And I'm st.. I'm still negotiating those things.  I'm trying to figure out. I mean, watching people try to learn to read Labanotation is a really interesting process, I think. I was... like, at... where I went to college, they called them supplemental instructors. There were like, they were kind of like TA's, but it was just a small liberal arts school  so there were no graduate students, but they had some students who had taken the class  in previous years... could be in the class and... so was that a class that I did that for? I seem to remember helping this one student...  Well, anyway. So... I think I was... Anyway, anyway. So, I remember working with this one student  who was really struggling, and it was a peer of mine. And just seeing... I remember as a, as an undergraduate who had sort of a handle on this, more of a handle on why this notation was important  and how it relates and less of a handle on how to read it well. Working with a peer who had to be in the class because  she had needed it for her major, and all she wanted to do was dance. It was really frustrating her. Like, I remember at that point, really... thinking about why we have this, and... what, what use... this has, especially to people who are not interested in it as a form but just, it's like something that they have to have. So, now I'm watching my own students, and... you know, there's always a range.  And it's really interesting to see who latches on to what,  and who doesn't even need to think about it, and who really needs to think about it. You know, who it makes sense for, and who different things make sense for, and how the connections are being made. And also, how this particular group of students are... seem to be... appreciating the literacy of the system. And the way that the system is a visual representation, you know,  kind of somewhere between concretely and abstractly, of movement. And so that has been... I mean, it hasn't been so long into the semester,  so I don't feel like I can make any real, concrete hurrahs or nays, I mean I always say. You know, you kind of have to wait until halfway  through the semester to really see what's going on.  But, it's been... it's been really interesting to see, to see the frustrations, and to see the lightbulbs, and to see them start to work out the puzzle.  Because for me that was always part of the fun of Labanotation.  Was to figure out the puzzle of how everything fits together. And then at a certain point, or a certain like fillage of the score with symbols, it stops being a puzzle and starts being challenge.  And sometimes the challenge is a good challenge,  and sometimes the challenge is just frustrating. And sometimes I feel really stupid because I can't figure out how things fit together. Or it's something that seems that it should be...  it should make a lot of sense and then it doesn't. Or it seems like it should be really simple, and then it's not. Or it seems like t should be really difficult and then it's really easy. So that's really interesting. But the thing... actually, most recently in thinking of notation as part of the larger language... is for me, I mean the way that I'm structuring this course  that I'm teaching is that the course is focused on st... It's really focused on style. It's not a notation course at all.  It's a combination of history and notation. So what I'm really interested in is talking about choreographer's styles, and... and what makes certain choreographers' work.  You know, what characteristics are certain choreographer's work, and using notation as one way to get inside of that and to see it in a different way. You know, as you can see in a musical score,  you know characteristics of composers works. You can really see it in a score in a way that sometimes  isn't so visible when you're watching movement on video or live, but you know, you can glance at a score and say, "Ah, there's a lot of arms in that dance," and or they're emphasized. Not usually arms, but maybe center of weight or... So I'm curious to see how this plays out cause it's too early yet in this particular semester to really see if this is going to work.  But I'm really curious to see how this knowledge  will play against viewing, describing, reading words, and see how reading symbols acts as an...  and like how this text will interact with the other texts because my students are very good  with texts. The school where I teach is really... very... good about going from the texts, and you know, text as broadly based, so I'm really curious to see how the text of the notation plays against the text of the dances and plays against the texts of just  the dance history books that we're reading.  So I have nothing conclusive for that, but there's a little narrative.  Yeah, do you have any other questions. (interviewer)  You mentioned the... between being a puzzle and being a challenge. (Hannah)  Mmhm. (interviewer) I was wondering if you remembered any particular dance that you were reading that felt like  it crossed over from that just being a puzzle into now it's a challenge.  (Hannah)   

[ whispering ] There have been many. Well, let's see. I think most recently... The stuff that been reading recently, has been a lot of Sokolow work, and... I was reading through the Kaddish score... and that... 

[ humming ] No actually, that was pretty much...  I was able to get through... I'm trying to think... I was recently reading that Lucinda Childs snippet that... I mean that... That one is interesting cause initially, I mean you look at it, and it's essentially, it looks like you're just kind of walking forward  and back for eight measure... for eight... for four measures, and then there's a pathway,  but because of the way that... there's half... there's these little pivots and then you're turning on the pathway,  and then it become... it becomes much more complicated.  Although that one continued to be a fun puzzle.  That one didn't quite get to be challen... like a challenge. I'm trying to think of wh... like a score that I just got so frustrated with... 

[ thinking sound ]  Yeah... and... and I think some of it too is the length of time  that I sit with the score to try to figure it out. Or when something just isn't clicking. (interviewer)  What do you mean by clicking? (Hannah)  Yeah, like figuring out, what, like the difference between reading the m... like reading the movement from the score and performing the movement. Cause like I remember when I did Directing from Score,  like years ago, I had to read the part of this... I don't remember what the character's name was, but it was in "Going" by Marion Scott, and it was this part of like a caterpillar or something.  And it was... it was just so weird.  Not weird, the movement looked on the, on the page. It was really hard to figure out because... What ended up happening was that it was this sort of earthworm creature that, kind of looked through its hands as if its hands were  like little shades that is was peering through, and its elbows were next to each other, and then you know, it had its hands, like its hands were kind of framing its brow, you know it was like peering through.  Meanwhile this, this character is like on its belly and is sort of inching into the space. And I had no idea what I was doing, where it was supposed to be, and then I brought... I remember bringing it into the studio, and I remember  that Sheila was helping coach us through it, and I was just like, "Oh, ok." So I wasn't so far off from what it actually was, but I had a hard time putting all of those little pieces together into the bigger thing. So sometimes... so that is like that point 

[ hands tapping ]  and it depends on how much patience I have, I think, as to whether the puzzle becomes a challenge or not.  Yeah, I think it's actually more of a patience thing, I think now that I think about it.  So there have been some things that I have like worked to get through, and then it's sort of... it, it has become sort of like, "Ok I spent an hour on this measure." You know, how much do I want to spend on... but it's really interesting too because I was watching my students  the other day, and you know we're in like the second day of class, and we're working through just like a Limon triplet, and you know I was... I was telling them  how they don't have to gingerly step into every step that they can really move through it.  And when we think about Limon, we think about swing, and we think about resiliency,  and we think about undercurve, and all those things.  And how a lot of that in these older scores are understood. And it was so liberating for them to be able to dance across the floor, you know?  Instead of just sort of stepping gingerly through these, like... "Ohp! And now I step... I go... Low, low high... low, high, low." You know. That they could actually kind of dance through it.  So that too to me is kind of where the... like the puzzle and the challenge meet. It's like, ok, I know what the... I know what the score is telling me to do  movement-wise, but how do I actually translate that into dance?  Because once upon a time this was a dance.  It wasn't just these stilted symbols that are kind of  packed together in this tiny little space, but... you know they do exist as this larger sort of movement entity.... Which you can say, I think you can say a similar thing for a music score. Like there are people that play, and you can tell they're just kind of banging out the notes,  as opposed to really being... as opposed to really playing. ... Yeah. Did that answer your question?  (interviewer)  Yes.  (Hannah)  Oh, ok. 

[ laughing ] (interviewer)  Alright, thank you very much.  (Hannah) You're welcome. Thank you. 

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