Q&A with Forsythe Staging Artist Ayman Aaron Harper

Q&A with Ayman Aaron Harper, Forsythe Staging Artist and founding member of Hubbard Street 2 Tell us about your first visit to Chicago.

I finished school a year early and came to Chicago for the first time at the end of 1996. I was performing in the city and decided to visit the Lou Conte Dance Studio, to take a class, which Julie Nakagawa Böttcher watched. She asked me, “What’s going on with you? What’s your story? How old are you?” and she called [Hubbard Street founder] Lou Conte. The two of them were in the process of starting a trainee program here — which became what we know now as Hubbard Street 2 — they invited me to join, and I did.

There were just four of us and we took a lot of classes, in addition to work-study tasks like cleaning studio mirrors, [Laughs] and we did a lot of outreach with students, here in Chicago, which was quite an awesome experience, actually. It’s been great, being back here, to see how that program has developed. How many dancers are in Hubbard Street 2 now?

Six, plus two HS2 Apprentices.

I think that’s wonderful, and some of them have been present in our rehearsals for this Forsythe program, and the work they’re doing is fantastic.

Hubbard Street 2 Dancer Elliot Hammans, main company member Jesse Bechard, and Staging Artist Ayman Aaron Harper rehearse One Flat Thing, reproduced by William Forsythe. Photo by Todd Rosenberg.

hubbardstreetdance.com

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When did you begin working with Forsythe?

I joined his company in 2001, when it was still Ballett Frankfurt, and stayed for three years until The Forsythe Company began, at which point we went from something like 38 dancers, down to 14. It was a strange time.

We’re fortunate to have Forsythe himself, as well as quite a few of his colleagues, here in Chicago to stage this program. Can you explain who has been working on what?

Sure, so, the original cast of N.N.N.N. in 2002 was Cyril Baldy and Amancio Gonzalez, who are both here, plus Georg Reischl and Ander Zabala. I was in a second cast, performing Cyril’s role, with two other men and one woman. And then we have another former Hubbard Street dancer here, Mario Zambrano, helping with One Flat Thing, reproduced, which Cyril and Amancio also danced, so I’ve brought all three of them in to help me with that piece, since it’s quite a…complicated monster. [Laughs] Thomas McManus, who’s an original cast member for Quintett, was here before and he’s returned to work on restaging that piece. And then of course Bill is overseeing everything.

What was the first step of the staging process?

We started by workshopping some of the ideas in these pieces with the dancers, giving them improvisational tasks, just to get a sense of who these characters we had in the room were, which qualities they were bringing to the table, so to speak, which ideas they were connecting to, how they had situated themselves in their bodies, and how they were responding to the work.

What did you notice?

Everyone was super engaged — I really could feel how excited everyone was to begin work on this program, which was great energy to walk into, this sense of their eagerness to dig right in. I noticed that they were great working as a team, and how much they wanted to experience these things together. These dancers are very aware of themselves, not just individually, but as a group. Their skill at unison — which is so…innate: We’ve almost had to work against that, in order to serve what these pieces require. Anyone’s movement material is absolutely interdependent with everyone else’s, just not in that particular way of unison. Each role carries a lot of individual responsibility. Bill used to say, “You should see yourself as a conductor as well as part of the orchestra.”

What unique challenges or rewards are presented by staging Forsythe’s work?

In the teaching stage, I would say, those come from encouraging an environment in which everyone can take a proactive stance toward learning the work, so that in the learning, it has as much as possible that feel of creating — of creation — as opposed to the dancers feeling like their roles are to think, “I go here, and then I go there, and then I do that.

That’s my role.” In a piece like One Flat Thing, reproduced, the dancers have to take initiative in order to set the right tone for the work and, unfortunately, a lot of dancers get used to just being told what to do. Rather than being “choreographically motivated,” you might say, work like this really has to be functional.

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Fall Series 2015

How does one succeed in creating that environment?

So, One Flat Thing, reproduced was inspired in part by the Robert Scott expeditions [to the South Pole] and I think particularly the question of whether they were a failure, or a success. This is a strong theme in the work, along with the theme, simply, of doing work; it was made during a time when Bill was really starting to name, to define, his methods of improvisation. The tables, it was suggested at one point, could be thought of as icebergs, as in, “Your approach to every decision puts you between life and death. Where exactly you put your hand is important, because, if it’s half an inch too far to the left, or to the right, that means failure, and failure means death.” Which generates a real sense of urgency, of accuracy, of precision. At one point we were asked to imagine our legs being frostbitten, which demanded we take much more weight into our upper bodies, and really push against these tables — these “icebergs” — with our hands and arms, which takes a lot of strength. The tables are obstacles, and so challenging to work with. Your tables are fantastic, actually — their edges are much softer, much rounder. We just got all sorts of bruises and little injuries from our tables, which had incredibly sharp edges. [Laughs] It was a rite of passage.

How different does it feel to be a dancer inside “the world of N.N.N.N.,” versus One Flat Thing, reproduced?

I should first clarify that I was not part of the process of creating N.N.N.N. as Amancio and Cyril were. In fact, I might have been back here at Hubbard Street, choreographing for Hubbard Street 2; I jumped into that quartet after I got back to Germany. That piece, which is more of a study, is so, so challenging in that you’re working directly with the weight of your limbs, as well as the weight of the limbs of the other dancers, in both active and passive ways, which you are asked to switch on and off, constantly. In one moment you have to give your weight to another dancer, let them feel it and manipulate it — let them literally move your body for you — and then be the leader, be the active person, bringing manipulation to someone else. Sometimes you’re doing both simultaneously, with different parts of the body, which can get your brain all kinds of tangled up. [Laughs] In order for N.N.N.N. to work, you really have to conceive of yourself as an instrument, making movement and making sound; for me, the experience came close at times to synesthesia, actually. It’s not really an aesthetic piece. Ideally you’re not “showing” anything. It’s more experiential, about doing things authentically, so that those experiences can be seen for what they are.

Which of those roles comes more naturally to you? Conductor-manipulator, or being the person who’s acted upon?

Oh, conductor-manipulator, for sure. [Laughs] It was very challenging to find the true mechanics of release, relaxation, and swing.

Hubbard Street alumnus Mario Zambrano, foreground, rehearses One Flat Thing, reproduced by William Forsythe with, from left, Ayman Aaron Harper, Hubbard Street 2 Dancer Adrienne Lipson, and main company member Alice Klock. Photo by Todd Rosenberg. hubbardstreetdance.com

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