“From Me to You” Choreography by R. Masseo Davis

(Robert) Masseo Davis
May/ 9/ 2008
Seth Parker
Process Paper

“From Me to You” Choreography by R. Masseo Davis

In the beginning there was no title, no steps, just a desire to talk about people. Perhaps it was my lack of filming, and my obtuse amount of time dancing that made me desire to try my hand at choreography. There was an opportunity with the Umass Dance departments, Emerging Choreographers Series (ECS), that gave undergraduate students to choreograph a piece assuming that they were not seniors for they had their own concert where they were required to choreograph.
In my extensive experience of dealing with BFA dance students, not only here but prior to my own college years, I’ve come to recognize a trend in student choreography. Many times students tend to either over think their concept/ theme, make extreme claims that they cannot really substantiate, or try ridiculously hard to be “innovative” and create some pretentious work that nobody in the audience could ever understand. I didn’t want to fall into that trap, I merely wanted to paint a picture, and say that this feels nice. I didn’t want to choreograph any show stopping, jump out of your seat, masterpiece, just a humble, intimate little scenario of tenderness.
Ultimately, my piece was about “the morning after”, and two people who learn to find comfort with one another. As a man myself, I am aware of the stereotype that claims that men are dogs; and I have seen the situations were the couple has their night of passion, and then the guy leaves in the middle of the night. I switched the roles, where the man is emotionally attached and the woman tries to leave him. The dance is to “Where Are My Panties?” by Andre 3000 and “Take Off Your Cool” by Andre 3000 featuring Nora Jones.
In the beginning my cast consisted of two friends of mine from the dance department, Megan Brown, and Jeffery Labbe. They had known about this idea I’ve had for about a year prior to official casting. The problems started to arrive when official casting time came. Jeffery was cast in two other duets, and I couldn’t do anything about it. I decided to cut Jeff from my cast so to not possibly look like I was copying other people, and because I didn’t want people to miss out on the choreography and get caught up on the fact that Jeff was in all the duets. Thusly my options were to either cast myself in the piece, or find someone else. This was an interesting situation because I would have loved to have been cast in the dance that I eventually choreographed, but I never would be, based on the kind of mover I am. Anyways casting myself was out of the question, because it was my first choreographic experience and I needed to see it, to really make corrections.
The other men in the dance department, in a sense aren’t really men on stage. Yes they do consider themselves homosexuals, and their feminine traits are visible when they perform. This is not intended to be a low blow towards those men in the dance department, nor against the gay community. I merely feel there is something powerful about seeing a man dance, next to a woman, and I craved that contrast for my piece. Eventually I built up the courage to ask Thomas Vacanti, who is the Ballet Professor for the University of Massachusetts. He too considers himself to be a homosexual, however you would never know onstage. He eventually agreed, and he was a perfect match.
Having Thomas on my cast list was a problem in disuse however, not because he was hard to work with but it really put pressure on me to put together something that I was proud of. The challenge when Thomas joined the ranks became choreographing a dance that overshadowed the fact that I had convinced a Professor to dance for me. I wanted people to love the dance and the message not the cast. I defiantly wanted my audience to enjoy the performance of the steps by my cast but not the cast alone with or without the choreography.
Thomas and Megan prior to this dance solely had a student-professor relationship and I still wanted to paint a picture about how at times “the morning after” feels nice. I really just threw them into their roles rehearsal one. I choreographed the whole thing in two hours. I made my dancers incredibly embarrassed immediately and we all got over it quickly and the process went smoothly.
I knew this had the potential to be really awkward, so I made sure I had my thoughts in order every time I went into the studio. I took inspiration form not only the way that I discovered my dancers moved, but from works of other great choreographers. I watched lots of Twalia Tharp, Roland Petite, Olivia Davis, Jiri Kylian, and Gene Kelly. This set the sage for a really mature romance between two adults. Thomas’s presents made Megan seem older and more mature, and not the other way around, that was a nice surprise.
While I did finish the choreography for the dance in two hours on the first rehearsal, I then proceeded to change steps and arrangement for the duration of our time together in the studio. Eventually I found myself changing chucks of the dance every time we met. I could have done this forever; fortunately for my dancers Showtime came up and I had to just stop and be content with what I had accomplished and rehearse that for the performance.
I came up with the dances title just before show time. I had been thinking about what I wanted my program notes to say. I wanted to give my sincerest thanks to the department, and signify that my dance was a gift from me to them, as my minuscule attempt at giving back to the dance world from which I have taken so much. Then it hit me, “From Me to You” it could have multiple purposes. It stood as a narrative implication as well as a message from me the choreographer to the audience.
In the end of it all I had a mixed review from the spectators of my dance. It has been called “Beautiful” “inappropriate, in the best way” Sexual” “intelligent”. Audience members have said “Way to make to most inappropriate dance ever.” And “ That was beautiful I want to see more of your work.” I guess given the extremely contrasting views on my dance I can conclude that the work did find it’s humble little place in the program. It was not necessarily something to be remembered forever but it had its own special moment.