Let the form do the work

“Let the form do the work,” a friend said when he came to rehearsal. The moments that ring less true are those in which the dancers are trying to do too much of the work for the audience—moments where they are trying to layer theatricality on top of the movement, to impose a narrative. And so we are going back to material made from a place of feeling and trying to stylize it in the direction of formalism. Such fragile territory—the place between telling too much and not saying enough. Movement that is evocative but ambiguous. How do you get there? What is the relationship between container and contents?