Toby MacNutt of the Vermont Artists’ Space Grant: Three Weeks Left!

Applications for the Vermont Artists’ Space Grant are welcome at any time and reviewed on a regular basis. This grant include six hours of creation time per week for 10 weeks at the Flynn and an opportunity for an informal public showing of the new work in either of the two FlynnArts studios or in FlynnSpace.To apply for yours, click here.

Happy New Year!

We’ve taken the last two weeks off in the studio for holiday travel, and as I have injured my shoulder (drat). But even when I’m not in the studio, my brain is filled with choreography. I ponder it during many waking moments and it has begun to infiltrate my dreams…

Outside the studio, I watch and re-watch videos from previous rehearsals, making notes to improve set sections, and scheming how to integrate newer elements. I do a lot of sketching about shapes of particular sections and how each piece as a whole will move around the stage, and how parts will transition into each other. I keep running to-do lists. I listen to more music than I would ever have thought necessary, still trying to find the perfect pieces here and there—all but one are set. I run pieces in my head, over and over, thinking about what ways will be best to teach, improve, and set the material with my dancers. All of this mental exercise has let me get a lot done even without my dancers; add in a little solo studio time to physically shape a few components, and we’re running ahead of schedule. I’m confident enough in the pieces created so far that I feel able to add—at this last minute!—another, an adaptation of a solo I made last summer into a duet. I’ll be setting it on two dancers: Marly, and a dancer I met through a Flynn Arts class this fall, Christine Holt. We’ll only have a handful of rehearsals in which to do so, but I’m confident these ladies are up to the challenge. This addition has the extra benefit of rounding out the choreographic experience: I am already making for myself, co-creating with dancers, and making and teaching for a duet, and now will also be adapting and setting pre-made choreography for other dancers. I’ll be interested to see how not only the shapes but also the feeling of the piece changes in its transition away from my body and into a pair of different bodies. In keeping with the theme of relationship exploration in one, two, I’ll work to draw out those feelings and differences to the best of my ability.

It’s hard to believe there are only three weeks left! While we’re making good time, there is still much to be done, and I will have to be efficient in scheduling and leading rehearsals. I’m also squeezing in physical therapy appointments, as I really, really do need this shoulder to get this work done. Fingers crossed.