REBEKAH WINDMILLER

 

John LeKay:  Can you tell me how you became a dancer and a performance artist?

 

Rebekah Windmiller: I made my first dance in my living room when I was about 12 years old. It was to a Barry Manilow song. More officially, I began studying dance in college when I was 19 years old. I was a music therapy major and took a dance class as a requirement. I had no technical ability but I loved choreographing. I dropped the music and took up dancing more fully.

 

JL:   In “Room Under the Roof”, the opening scene in your film shows you inside a bedroom, on your knees and watering a plant wearing a pink flamingo leotard and sneakers.   Your gestures bring to mind Zen Buddhist mindfulness and meditation exercises on simple things like washing dishes. Even the noise of picking up a plant pot and putting it down on the hard wood floor become intensified.

 

Was any of this initial sequence improvised or was it orchestrated?    Also how important is humor in your work?

 

RW:   My original intention for this dance was for it to begin in my garden which is just behind the house. This is how the plant is connected. In actuality, it was cumbersome for the audience to move from the back patio up to the theater/bedroom so I began alone in the garden while people were seated. I suppose it was a grounding preparation for me. Also, at this time, I had been spending a fair amount of time in my garden and the plants seemed to fit well into the feeling of being at home, doing what I do in ordinary life and allowing that to be seen within the frame of performance.

 

Much of the dance is improvised within a rehearsed structure and the opening sequence was not very set. During one performance more dirt spilled than I was prepared for and I remember having to quickly pull a t-shirt out of the drawer and clean up a mess. I remember worrying that it would get too pedestrian and mundane. I think I stayed with this kind of meditative quality, letting things be as they are -- so wiping dirt off the floor became just the thing that one does when dirt is spilled. No rush, no script to follow.  I've always believed that if I am fully present and involved in what I do on stage, it will usually be engaging to the audience. I suppose a lot of it has to do with timing as well.

 

I am always very pleased when people find my dances amusing or funny. I don't try to make them that way and perhaps that's why I like it so much when people laugh. It gives me a new perspective on what I am doing. When I am making a dance, I certainly find some moves or images light and comical, although I usually don't expect others to find the same. It's very reassuring to me to know that other people have similar senses of humor. In "Room Under the Roof" I am guessing that what strikes one as humorous has something also to do with recognition of life in its ordinariness as being funny.

 

JL:  What inspired the next set of sequences when you sit down in a meditative half lotus position and turn on the box fan next to you and adjust the speed?   The noise it produces sounds like a motorcycle being revved up. 

RW:  "Room Under the Roof" was conceived out of necessity. I was broke and wanted to put on a show. Rosanna Gamson, a choreographer friend, encouraged me to do the work I really wanted to, rather than trying to sell something to a theater so I thought it'd be fun to make a piece in my home. My husband put our bed on wheels so I could easily move it out of the way to rehearse but when it came down to it, the room was always a mess and I never felt like cleaning up before rehearsal. At this point I decided to work with what was already present in the room. This is how the fans, typewriter, alarm clock, etc. came to be part of the piece.

I think I sat in front of the fans because they were on the floor and I wanted to have them blowing directly on me. I began playing with the speed and sounds they made. I wasn't thinking of any particular meaning ... just sound and air speed.

Dancing in my bedroom gave me an opportunity to work with very small movements. That is another important element of this sequence. The audience could be no larger than 12 people at a time so I wanted to do things on a small scale, knowing it would be seen. In painting I always love very small works. I've often thought about making a dance that I would consider an equivalent of a small painting or drawing. It is difficult to make minute gestures on a stage so the setting in my room provided a great space for scaling it down.

 

JL:  Then you reach over on the floor and turn on the Bob Dylan song as the fan blows at you.  It looks a little like the Marilyn Monroe scene with the subway grate, but you are in a horizontal position and on your hands and knees.

After that you take some black earth out the plant pot sit on the bed and sprinkle the earth around your self in a circle. You look as if you have been contained by this boundary you have imposed on yourself. 

RW:  As I mentioned earlier, much of this dance is improvised. The rehearsal process was really agonizing. Every time I tried to make a movement sequence, I got completely stuck. I think it was a week before the show and I really didn't have much of a cohesive dance. I decided to take the disparate parts that I'd fooled around with and improvise with them in front of an audience. Eventually the piece became more set as I got more comfortable with it all.  The concentration and presence required when in front of an audience helped me to clarify what I was doing.  It was also a turning point for me in my work. I learned that the next step will come if I can really be there with what I am doing, not worrying about it.

 

The Dylan song, along with the other music came from the tunes I'd been listening to at the time.  And the fan blowing the skirt was not intended to be sexy but I think it comes across that way somewhat. It's funny because I think there is also an element of that in "Echoes of Mercy".  Unintentional sexiness? Sort of like unintentional humor? I guess what I am trying to say is that I like to pay attention to the fact that I am, in this case, crawling around on the floor with a flowy, sheer skirt. The fans can help play that up a bit....but also, this is not all the dance is. It is many things. I like to point out erotic feelings in the midst of other contexts because I think this is where they come up a lot for us.

 

JL:   Did you make the small figurative paintings that you pinned on the wall and is there any particular significance to pinning them on the bedroom wall  during certain times throughout the performance?

 

RW:  So, the little paintings. I think I was looking at them as a marker point in time, a way to separate the sections for myself. You probably can't tell from the video but they are pictures of a fan, dresser drawers, a bed, etc. (not painted very well I might add). Later when I re-made the piece for a performance at the Kitchen, I made large,full body sized paintings of different figures. As I unrolled each painting, it built the backdrop for the dance. If I did the piece over again, I think I'd go back to the images of the objects in the dance, rather than human figures. It just makes more sense. The figure adds a tone or emotional quality that I didn't like so much. And, I'd probably work with a painter instead of doing it myself. Sometimes it gets lonely being a soloist.

JL:  There is something about this piece that is totally unexpected.  I'm  not certain but I think its the use of the Iris De Ment liturgical country music.  The first track is up-tempo and inspirational, the second slower and much more forlorn. There's a sense of gravity and enlightened resignation in the third track of the music and your use of the dance floor.   Once again I see a kind of disparity, between your soulful and sensual dancing that works beautifully. 

 

The bluish lighting, the black evening dress and barefooted dancing also emphasizes this feeling. It has a mysterious and a lonely atmosphere, like that of an empty church dance. What was it about this music that made you want to use it in this piece and how do you usually go about making these musical decisions?

RW:  This dance is the newest piece of mine so it's a bit harder for me to talk about.  It's also the first time I've choreographed to a piece of music.  I've always tried to stay away from recorded music and either have a score commissioned or create sound myself onstage. Out of money and ideas for sound, I decided to give music a try. The Iris Dement songs were so moving and beautiful. I was unsure if I could choreograph to them with integrity.
 

I guess I should back up a step and tell you how the dance started. I began choreographing without the music, not even intending to use music. The choreographic structure was based on 6's and chance forms. It was quite simple. I wrote the numbers 1 - 6 on small scraps of paper using them as the direction for different segments of the dance. In the first portion, I used my body to create different points of support. This means that I would "draw" a number which told me how many points of my body should be on the floor as a support. For example, a "3" could be 2 feet and 1 hand on the floor of a head, an elbow and a knee. I did this for  1-6. The next segment was based on number of movements....a "2" meant 2 distinct movements, etc. Another portion the numbers were used to represent seconds.

So, I went on like this for awhile, knowing in the back of my mind that I would have to deal with the sound issue sooner or later. Basically, as I said earlier, I was in a corner and luckily, Iris Dement got me out!
 

I worked with the music by keeping the "6's" and modifying the timing to suit the rhythms and words of the songs. Then when I ran out of "6's" I just went forward and fell back to them when I needed.

The songs inspired and moved me on different levels.  For me personally, they are, as you described "enlightened resignation". I was raised in a Christian family and my life has taken me in different directions that have not always been easy for my family.  When I heard this music, the songs were familiar. I grew up singing them in church every Sunday, often with a sense of dread so to be able to choreograph and dance with these spiritual songs...and in a playful, thoughtful and tender way...was a reconciliation with my past.

From another perspective, these hymns are sung in such a way that they transcend the specifics of Christianity for me. Even though she says "Jesus" and "sins" and "heaven"...the feelings of human longing for love and redemption, that we all experience,  are ever present. I think I tried to bring this out in my dance. I wanted a broad range of emotional atmospheres to be allowed...despair, whimsy, mockery, repentance, hope, joy, fear....What do you mean about the disparity between the soulfulness and sensuality?

JL:   I am not exactly sure what it is, but I sense it's a paradoxical conscious disconnect  between these two elements. A kind of psychological detachment.   I think much contemporary dancing is sensual by nature.  I think you have a way of contrasting this sensuality with a kind of meta physicality.  A sense of awareness that you exude about yourself and what you are doing.  It is as if you are observing these two elements as well as partaking in them. 

I sensed this in "Room Under the Roof" as well. "Give or Take" is different somehow.   I would like to ask you about that next.  I know I have the timing wrong.  I should have asked you about that after "Room Under the Roof".

What inspired your use of mathematics and numerical based dance sequences in "give or take"?

RW: First, it is helpful to hear your thoughts about this paradoxical disconnect you sense in the work.  Since I am in it, I am aware of something but it's difficult to articulate. I do have a sense of watching/observing yet being fully in it at the same time. Perhaps it is the point where one loses oneself in the dance yet remains keenly aware...maybe this is why I perform. When I have an audience, I am forced into a state of heightened awareness throughout my body. Also a sense of giving up control since only the moment counts when one is on stage. There are no second chances.

So, numbers in "Give or Take". This piece came about because I was sick of what I was doing, trying to make something and hating it all. I think I was pretty stuck in my work and at a turning point as well. There is a part of me that wants to remain true to my love of structure and formalism, while I long to be expressive. That is not to say that formal works aren't "expressive"...they are. This word "expression" can be tricky. We usually associate it with emotion and maybe this what I am saying. In my work, I've always hinted at or suggested emotion but refrained for making it a predominant element. It is ironic that the very restraint I maintain adds a real emotional tone to much of the choreography.

 

So, in "Give or Take" I think I really indulged the formalist part of myself. And since I was so stuck in what to do, I need the repetition and the numbers to guide me. By allowing the form to move me, I was free to just dance and not agonize over the steps. It was very fun making this piece.

I think, in the end, the Iris Dement songs eventually served the same structural purpose but produced a very different result. It's also significant for me that "Give or Take" came right before "Echoes of Mercy".  I needed to allow the choreography to be completely structural and "free" of intentional emotional content. (I think of Cage and Cunningham saying, "the emotions are in the audience").  I suppose it satisfied me enough formally to open up a space for the next work to emerge. Ultimately, I want to utilize both aspects of myself because this is the most truthful work I can make. At one point in my work I was always trying to make a "truthful" gesture. Perhaps that's getting a bit microscopic but I think it points to an underlying integrity in how I approach dancing. Since the dance is made up of many movements, each one has to be true to itself as well as true to the context of the dance in which it appears.

JL:  In "Give or Take" I also get this sense that you are showing us, the audience ,how we sometimes fall into automatic pilot mode in the way we walk, move, act and unconsciously mirror or imitate others' behavior in a kind of kinetic, non-verbal communicative dance.  Something about what you do reminds me of Gurdief exercises that are designed to snap people out of automatic pilot.  It  is your obvious heightened sense of awareness that has this effect.  

For example, there is a scene in "Twin Peaks" by David Lynch when a man begins having a nervous breakdown and starts crying on the dance floor, holding his head and viscerally shaking. Then other people on the dance floor begin imitating his gestures like some kind of nervous break down Macarena. 

Do you see what you do as being anti-narrative in a sense ?
 

RW:  "Give or Take" is an unusual dance for me. First, the tape you are watching is a work-in-progress. I did not have sufficient time to work with Linda, the other dancer. As we got into it, I discovered that this piece is a structured improv and we needed more time to fine tune our sensitivities to each other and the pacing of the dance. I saw a lot of possibilities but feel they are not fulfilled yet. It can take a great deal of time to get to know someone's sense of rhythm, timing and dynamic edge in dance and we just didn't have enough time. Also, this piece is missing a score. I would like to have a score commissioned for the work by next spring.

I do see my work as non-narrative and non-linear. I like your phrase: anti-narrative. It reminds me of Yvonne Rainer and her Manifesto.  As for the next step in my work, I think I would like to continue working with music since it was so fun the first time. I'd also like to work with more people yet keep a sense of intimacy. It has always been hard for me to work with others because of this quality we've been talking about -- a sort of detachment yet full engagement. Also, I'm not sure if it reads on the tape but there is a definite comment on the movement that is mostly seen in my face. People have said it seems that one can see I have a thoughtful intention or comment on what I am doing without being dramatic in an imposing sense. Naturally, it's very difficult to teach this to someone else. I think "Give or Take" lends itself to others more readily because it focuses on the steps rather than an underlying non linear narrative or statement, which is not quite the right way to describe it.

 

What seemed to happen for me was a rebellion against an automatic, familiar and predictable dance. It's funny because "Give or Take" certainly can become predictable, in fact, it is set up in that way...I suppose that was the challenge for me: to take the predictable and transform it. somehow. Because the dance is so repetitious, I tried to make each repeated step it's own entity and to have it's own value, not necessarily in the context of the steps before and after it. Perhaps that is what is so different about this dance as compared to the other two.

"Give or Take" can be seen as a closer look at our habits of repetition although not in a "poking fun at" sense. I had to dance with a heightened attention and awareness in the work so it did not become boring. It reminds me of meditation. How just sitting there can be completely boring and quite uncomfortable yet if one looks at each moment, each passing thought, which ultimately is all repetition, one can be open to change. This is how I tried to approach "Give or Take".  Each step, each moment had to be new even though I had, in some cases, done that simple movement 30 times. Even the most basic step forward. Very pedestrian. And in that sense, the work is definitely anti-narrative. Even though the 37 steps have their own "story",  each step stands alone. I prefer to think of it as the story of the steps rather than the story of the person dancing the steps.

JL:   Where do you think your dance will go next?

RW: Christopher Caines, a choreographer friend is choosing a piece of music for me...he loved what I did to Iris Dement and wants me to continue with music.  He has been a great help to keep me going when I feel lost so he offered to select the music, which I loved because I'm always willing to take some decision-making burden off my shoulders. Also, there is a possibility of working with a composer and re-working "Give or Take".  I'd like to do that.  And finally, all this work will hopefully be presented next spring. I am working with a theater in Brooklyn towards having a full evening of my work, something that has been waiting in the wings since my twins were born 8 years ago!.