2006 – Ferocious Beauty: Genome

There were all kinds of moments in making Ferocious Beauty: Genome where the subjects (the scientists) changed the subject, or at least the approach to the dance. For example, I had no idea what I was going to do when I was invited into Dr. Laurel Appel’s fruit fly lab. I had dancer/performer Ted Johnson with me, though, and on a whim I asked him to put on some costumes materials so he could be Gregor Mendel – the items were wire-rimmed glasses, a monk’s robe, and a book. Dressed like that he walked into the lab with me and Dr. Appel looked up from her microscope and said, “Ah, Gregor! How nice to see you. Would you like to see what has happened to your field of genetics since you left us?” I laughed but then felt the profundity of the moment.

After that encounter I asked every geneticist we met what they would like to say to Gregor Mendel if given the chance. Their answers were wonderfully revealing, everything from “You were right, you essentially got it right,” to “I wish you had met Charles Darwin. If you two had crossed paths, you could have solved the whole thing one hundred years earlier” – and then that scientist began to cry. For me the choreographic process is always one of being open to influence, until I or the piece cannot stretch any further. Then it’s decision time.