What makes me unique as a choreographer is that I don’t prepare or pre-process anything. Sometimes it gets me into trouble, but I like to interact with the people I work with. Together we discover whether the movement fits who they are or feels inspired – not by the way I envisioned it, but by the way I see it happening in real time.
This is how I’ve been working since 2009 when I came to New York City. My husband and I recently moved to New Jersey, but the apartment I lived in for 10 years in Brooklyn’s South Slope, which is now my office, is off the F line. I’m very lucky with that train; it always takes me where I need to go. I like the Smith-Ninth Streets stop because the platform is above ground and has great views of the skyline and the Statue of Liberty. I see the sun rise through that station in the morning and set in the evening.
Nowadays there are monitors that tell you when the subway is coming, but then you never knew when it would arrive. That time can be incredibly painful or wonderfully spiritual, and I use it to center myself before entering the room with performers. I think about the scenes we’re working on that day, and the cues I could give the performers to elicit exciting and adventurous physical responses. When I’m on the platform, I look at people. I study how they behave and how they interact with others, which becomes the basis for how I create: My choreography is behavior with the volume turned up and executed to perfection.
One thing I’ve noticed is that a lot of people listen to music on the subway. Everyone plays what inspires or excites them, with their own individual experiences. This became the idea behind the song “Inner White Girl” in Michael R. Jackson’s [new Broadway] musical, “A Strange Loop.” The main character is a strange black man named Usher, who ponders how much of… [the musician] The spirit of Liz Phair is inside him. While the performance could have included any number of lifts, jumps, and spins, what really matters is what bubbles up in Usher and how that’s reflected in his fingertips, his thighs, his shoulders. That’s why it’s quite restrained.
Choreography is about how people come together and why they fall apart, and the platform is such a beautiful metaphor for that. For me, being an artist is like a translator – translating behavior into movement, movement into choreography, choreography into stories. There is a whole world that is asking and waiting to be mined and celebrated, and it is my job to bring that to the people.
This interview has been edited and abridged.