Guest host Jennifer Harge reflects on the enduring legacy of postmodern choreographer Bebe Miller, centering on a 2007 PillowTalk with dance scholar Suzanne Carbonneau.
About guest host: Jennifer Harge is a choreographer, performance artist, and educator. Her creative research conjures and theorizes Black worldmaking practices through intimate collaborations with the sacred, through ancestral lineages, experimental performance, and Black feminist thought. For over a decade, she has developed her work almost exclusively in Detroit, Michigan, critically engaging the interior, geographic, and spiritual worlds of Black life. Learn more at https://www.hargedancestories.com
Learn more about Bebe Miller at https://bebemillercompany.org/
Bebe Miller multi-media essay by Maura Keefe
https://danceinteractive.jacobspillow.org/themes-essays/women-in-dance/bebe-miller/
Bebe Miller Company: Landing Place 2007 video excerpt
https://danceinteractive.jacobspillow.org/bebe-miller-company/landing-place/
Bebe Miller Company: A Haven for Restless Angels of Mercy 1986 video excerpt
https://danceinteractive.jacobspillow.org/bebe-miller-company/a-haven-for-restless-angels-of-mercy/
[Music begins, composed by J.S. Bach, performed by Jess Meeker]
Norton Owen: Welcome to PillowVoices, a production of Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, with content drawn from the Pillow Archives and the arts community. I'm Norton Owen, the Pillow's Historian and Founding Director of Preservation, and it's my pleasure to introduce our host, the choreographer, performance artist, and educator Jennifer Harge. She will be our guide for this exploration of postmodern choreographer Bebe Miller. While Bebe has a long history of performing at Jacob's Pillow, starting as early as 1981 with Ralph Lemon, this episode centers on a 2007 PillowTalk with resident scholar Suzanne Carbonneau covering Bebe's early years of training, her decision to embrace a different company model, and the burning curiosities that have fueled her creative process all these years.
Jennifer Harge: My first time hearing the name Bebe Miller was in the early 2000s when I was an undergraduate dance major at the University of Michigan while she was on the dance faculty at Ohio State University. There was, and of course continues to be, a general disdain for everything Ohio State on that Ann Arbor campus, but I was secretly obsessing over and revering the OSU dance department from afar because of Bebe. Modern dance was my first and most studied language, training daily in a conservatory school beginning in the sixth grade.
And as a Black girl with deep Black Midwest roots, I couldn't always make sense of myself or feel I could fully claim myself within the form. And by the time I got to college and became engrossed with postmodern dance, it brought on complications in my body and my understanding of myself as a choreographer, and I was desperate to know I had Black dance kin.
I never reached out to Bebe. I never tried to change schools. For me, it was enough to know she existed. And her existence simply and profoundly let me know that I wasn't the first of anything, nor the only, which is hard to track when you're not in a major city center. And so I continued doing the only thing I understood how to do, which was to continue being a maker. Over 10 years later, in 2016, I was a guest choreographer with the Dayton Contemporary Dance Company's second company. The director, Shonna Hickman-Matlock, told me that my studio process reminded her of Bebe Miller's work with the company years earlier. I didn't ask her what she meant. Again, the notion was enough for me.
I've listened to this archival PillowTalk with Bebe that I'm about to share with you many times, trying to listen for what would be interesting or necessary to add to Bebe's precise, matter-of-fact, deeply curious ways of talking about her work.
The more I listened, the more I found that my job was to listen, and the listening became its own practice of attention, where her words and ideas jostled, opened, closed, and shifted something different in me each time. So I invite you to listen with me and pay attention to what emerges for you in the space between certainty and inquiry, settling and disrupting, emergence and craftsmanship.
Suzanne Carbonneau: We're very happy to be here today with choreographer Bebe Miller, who is going to talk to us, about the work she's presenting in the Doris Duke Studio Theatre this week called Landing Place. And in lieu of an introduction, actually, I thought we'd take you through your life.
Bebe Miller: Okay.
Suzanne Carbonneau: So, you grew up in New York, yes?
Bebe Miller: Brooklyn. Red Hook.
Suzanne Carbonneau: Yeah. And I read that someplace that you could dance before you could read.
Bebe Miller: You know, I used to say that-[Carbonneau: Oh]... as an intro, but everybody can dance before they can read. Okay. So it's not such a big deal.
Suzanne Carbonneau: Do you, do you remember your childhood impetus to dance?
Bebe Miller: My mother. A really wonderful mother, who, um, at that time had arthritis, and I was about three. And so she found, uh, a place that had adult classes. And since we had no babysitter kind of arrangement, children classes as well. It happened to be the Henry Street Settlement Playhouse. And yep, many people know that. Uh, and so it was the home of the Alwin Nikolais company. Uh, so Murray Louis was my teacher from when I was about three until I was about 12, and we still see each other.
Suzanne Carbonneau: Do you remember his classes?
Bebe Miller: Oh, yeah.
Suzanne Carbonneau: Yeah? Can you tell us about the, that experience?
Bebe Miller: Um, we did, uh, every Saturday it was, uh, Nikolais technique, uh, improvisation and composition. And we would do improv for things like, uh, I remember like an empty chocolate box. Um, you know, clouds, trees, lines, uh, volume, um, uh, spice rack. Uh, things like that. And it, it was great. And I thought everybody did that. I thought everyone, that's what dance was. Um, uh, completely abstract modern dance. Um, and so I... It, it was a second language. I mean, really. It-
Suzanne Carbonneau: Um, I, I don't know if I should say this, but I guess I will.
Bebe Miller: Okay.
Suzanne Carbonneau: Um, I remember I studied with Murray Louis af- uh, right after I graduated college, and I was afraid of him.
Bebe Miller: Oh, he called you doll? Did he call you doll?
Suzanne Carbonneau: He didn't call me doll.
Bebe Miller: Oh. Yeah, um, I was a favorite. You know, I was cute and three. Uh, so, um, but he could be... He had a temper, and also a way of saying, "That's good. That's not good. That's good. That's not good." And now that I'm a teacher, we know to kind of work around that language with-maybe there are other choices you could make, and things like that. But he didn't talk that way.
Suzanne Carbonneau: So your study of dancing was interrupted as a teenager. Is that right?
Bebe Miller: Well, at about 12-13, I decided I would stop, uh, and I gave up my piano lessons and dance lessons, and I thought- I will join my junior high school community in whatever they chose to do that was not dance. Um, and thinking, you know, that you're gonna be like everybody else and there is no everybody else. And so I stopped. Um, I started again in college, uh, doing some Balkan folk dancing, African dance, uh, finding, um, a Merce Cunningham master class in Cincinnati, Ohio. I was in school in Indiana. And, uh, got hooked again, but still didn't really think that that's what I was doing. I didn't call myself a professional until somewhere, you know, after a couple of years of actually doing it, after grad school. It, it's like, "Oh, this is my life. This is my career."
Suzanne Carbonneau: I never heard the Balkan folk dance.
Bebe Miller: Yeah, it was good. Yeah. Really. It's all those 11s that...I mean, I never count in choreography, but, or rarely. But, um, yeah, um, Mark Morris is not the only one.
Suzanne Carbonneau: Uh-huh.
Bebe Miller: Uh, and, uh, what was it about it? I, I don't know. There's, there's something... And I think I hit folk dancing at a time, this was, uh, early '70s, where there were a lot of young people at Columbia, and you were doing these really sweaty Israeli and Balkan dances, and it was like community, and it was sexy and, and, and live music sometimes. It was great. And, uh, uh, and it was movement. I, I think that's what was grabbing me. Yeah.
Suzanne Carbonneau: Um, so after grad school, you moved to New York. This must've been in the '70s, yes? Um-
Bebe Miller: Yeah, mid '70s.
Suzanne Carbonneau:...during the so-called dance boom. Um, what did you find in New York at that time when you got there?
Bebe Miller: Um, well- Uh, wow. I saw the last performance of The Grand Union. Um-
Suzanne Carbonneau: Maybe we should say who Grand Union- Uh ... is for people who don't know.
Bebe Miller: Uh, w- you know, one of the, out of the Judson movement, the beginning of postmodern dance, um, uh, kind of toward the end of it really. Uh, Douglas Dunn, uh, Trisha Brown, uh, David Gordon- [Carbonneau: Steve Paxton]... help me here. Steve Paxton, Barbara Dilley, uh, maybe Yvonne for a bit. No, or no. Yeah. Uh, Yvonne Rainer. And, uh, I, I went, I return- It, it's funny. Before grad school I was solid Nikolais modernist. Grad school came back a postmodernist, or kind of entered into that world and that, that's... I don't know exactly how to kinda articulate that shift, but, um, really became interested in, in people who were making choices that were more experimental, that I didn't understand why they were making those choices 'cause I feel like that's what has drawn me forward, uh, in general. Um, not trying to be a postmodernist, but just trying to ask questions. Yeah.
Suzanne Carbonneau: Um, you danced with Nina Wiener and Dana Reitz.
Bebe Miller: Mm-hmm.
Suzanne Carbonneau: Um, and, um, you became known as a gifted improviser at that time. Um, and I'm interested in what attracted to you that way of performing. It seems like a kind of a terrifying thing to me, but-
Bebe Miller: Well, think back to age three. That's what I did. And I think re-meeting Dana, uh, kind of in the early '80s it was like, "Oh, I know this. I know how to do this." Mm-hmm. And so improvising still is something I, I will do more easily, uh, in performance than, than remember the steps. Still a little terrifying. Um, but I, yeah, I, I don't know. I mean, I think that, that improvisation is, um...God, why is that interesting? Uh, this is a moment of improvisation, isn't it?
Suzanne Carbonneau: Absolutely.
Bebe Miller: So are you terrified or...?
Suzanne Carbonneau: A little bit.
Bebe Miller: Okay.
Suzanne Carbonneau: Okay.
Bebe Miller: Back away from that. Um, um, yeah, there's a little terrifying kind of thing. You guys are terrifying, but…But, um, but it, it, it's, it's, it, like, like what we're doing. We're having a conversation. We, our minds wander. Um, it's interesting to kind of figure out where is the thread going. Um, uh, uh, what references can we bring in? Um, and, oh, you guys are looking like- Well, like this way, and I'm thinking there's something. I don't know, there's like attention, there's focus. Oh, we're focusing. It, it's interesting to live in that moment and then press against it perhaps. Well, I cho- I choreograph through improvising, if that, that's part of it. But I think, um...And maybe this has happened more, no, I think even when I was in the work more consistently, but definitely since I've moved out of much of the work, I like seeing it again or something about, and now redo that, and what exactly happened? Can we make that happen again? Because there's a formal instinct in that, a formalizing formalist or, uh, about having something that's repeatable. Uh, something that you can count on a structure to then deliver you what feels like a spontaneous moment.
Suzanne Carbonneau: Mm-hmm.
Bebe Miller: And I think choreography is, it's an interesting challenge to try to figure out what are those parameters, how much can we not know in advance, and then figure out What else to do there. That, um, I know that, um, probably about 10, 15 years, well, 12 years ago or so, I had another aha moment, I think, in, um, my career, say, um, where in working with the dancers, and this was a piece called Going to the Wall.
Suzanne Carbonneau: Mm.
Bebe Miller: So if we get to that, um, where it was a piece where we were looking at identity. Um, and we can come back to that.
Suzanne Carbonneau: Mm.
Bebe Miller: There's a lot to say. But, um, in making it, I, I, it, it seemed that I wanted us as a group to experience something and be changed from the beginning of the piece to the end. I wanted the audience to do the same thing, so that then the idea of building a structure that allowed that kind of, you know, evolution of self and, and spirit inside of a work is, is… It's like structuring improv, but it was all set. But y- you know what I mean? Structuring the impulse to, to look at somebody anew and, and count on that, but also count on how that happens.
Suzanne Carbonneau: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And we will get more to that. Okay. Um, so you started your company in 1985, and, um, what made you commit to a company? The idea of a company?
Bebe Miller: Oh, interesting. Um- A little background, say. Um, I was, would work with Nina Wiener and then Dana, and by about 1982, about fif- 25, uh, 25 years ago maybe that is, um, I thought that, uh, I wanted to do...I did some solo work, and I thought, "You know, I really would like somebody else there." So I asked the other waiters in the restaurant I was working with who danced, I said, "Oh, you wanna do some stuff?" And we did, and then we did another piece, and I thought, "Wouldn't it be nice to do something consistently with a group of people? So let's call it a company." And then it just so happened that there was enough momentum in the field in about the mid-'80s where calling it a company also happened at the same time that the National Performance Network happened, which is a linkage of, of alternative spaces nationwide, like Dance Theater Workshop, uh, On the Boards in Seattle, Dance Place in Washington, uh, where there was a place now to do this.
Suzanne Carbonneau: So you could move this work around the United States?
Bebe Miller: I could move it around. And we got an agent at the same time, and that's how it happened.
Suzanne Carbonneau: Um, you were the first American choreographer to go to South Africa after the end of apartheid. Um, what impact did that have on you?
Bebe Miller: It was huge. Huge. Um, and, uh, oh, Tricia Pierson, who's right there, who was my manager at the time, and we all went.
Suzanne Carbonneau: Wave, Tricia.
Bebe Miller: Yeah. To, uh... I, I think that, um, you know, you might think, oh, there's an obvious thing as an African American going to South Africa, there is an impact. There's a less obvious thing just as an American going to what, going to South Africa or the idea of South Africa as it had been presented to us. And I think a, a large part of the trip was the kind of dispelling of the myth of who we think they are. And, um, I th- it w- it was huge. We, we, we had a, um, a workshop class in Soweto, and, um, a young man there, it just still gives me, me shivers, um, showed up in black, uh, tights and a white T-shirt, and the amount of effort it would've taken someone to come in that outfit, you know, classical Balanchine outfit, to a modern dance. What, he didn't know what we were gonna do, but it was dance for him, and it was new and effort. And I, you know, I was so grateful to be there and experience that.
Suzanne Carbonneau: Did any of that experience work into your choreography in any way?
Bebe Miller: Yes, literally and, and then not so. I mean, it, I, it worked into me, so I'm sure it's there. Um, we did a piece a couple of years after that called Yard Dance, and some of my journal writing was involved in that. Um, I'm, I'm not so good at ... And I don't know if work is necessarily for me to just say, "Here's my experience. Reflect." But, um, I'm interested in absorbing that. Of course, we all are, but something else is happening along the way. And often I, I think it's, it's making work is an opportunity, yes, to show you an experience, but also there are so many other tangential things that have come into my life or our lives that it's always an amalgam of many things, I think.
Suzanne Carbonneau: Um, so you mentioned, uh, being at Ohio State now, um, where you teach and, but you've, uh, over the years you've actually been a, I'll just say it, a guru actually I think to a lot of people. Um, students flock to study with you. And I'm, um, wondering, um, w- what do you, um, how would you describe your classes? What are you, what are you after in teaching?
Bebe Miller: Oh, guru. Well, hmm. Um, we sh- probably should ask them. I, I'm not sure. Um, um, I teach technique. Um, and I don't teach composition all that much even though that's really what I do. Um, but I, I think-
Suzanne Carbonneau: Do you see technique and composition as linked as you were describing Murray Louis having done with you?
Bebe Miller: Uh, in a different way, yeah. Um, our- the institutions I work in kind of s- do more about separating them than I might necessarily do. But, um, wow.
Suzanne Carbonneau: Let me ask it a different way. What do you get out of teaching?
Bebe Miller: Huh, okay. Um- Uh, technique was always really hard for me. I, it was not, like, I wasn't gifted. And, um, kind of the process of trying to f- of figuring out how my body works has also been like, "Guys, look at this. You can do this with your hip, and then if you flex here," it, it's more of the wonder of, of how that emanates rather than, "Okay, here's a form to kind of re- reproduce." So maybe it's that. I, I, I feel it's, it's kind of an e- wonderful to evolve and, and age in, in a body and just see like, "Well, well, now I understand what that meant," and, but, oh, the shoulder. Oh, yeah, and then so there's this range. And then if you put your psyche behind that, can you change your psyche with your shoulder? And I think that's why I teach.
Suzanne Carbonneau: So bec- it's more internalized it sounds like than shape-oriented, what you were describing, um, Murray Louis having done?
Bebe Miller: Hmm, not so fast on the Murray Louis in shape.
Suzanne Carbonneau: Okay.
Bebe Miller: Okay. 'Cause I mean, yeah, we did shapes, but we also, it was the spirit of a chocolate box, not necessarily like the shape.
Suzanne Carbonneau: So let's go back to going g- uh, uh, uh, Going to the Wall. Um, I, you know, watched your work really from the beginning, and to me, that piece was a major shift for you. That was 1998?
Bebe Miller: '98.
Suzanne Carbonneau: '98.
Bebe Miller: Mm-hmm.
Suzanne Carbonneau: And, um, you s- you, um, it seemed to be a major shift in your concerns as well as in your working process.
Bebe Miller: Sure.
Suzanne Carbonneau: Um, and, um, can you, can you describe that shift for us?
Bebe Miller: Yeah. Um, um, eh, l- uh, history. Let's just kind of go big before we go, um, smaller. Um, I think, and, and maybe this also ties in with, with Alwin Nikolais and Henry Street and South Africa, uh, and me growing up in the '50s, uh, and, and our culture's expectations of African Americans, uh, non-African Americans, like many of you guys, um, uh, who we are supposed to be and how does that show. Um, I think that, um, going back to being in, uh, uh, at Henry Street, going into the woods, into the projects, I've had a very eclectic kind of life, and it's the only one I have, and it's African American to me. Um, there, there's a... I have, as a choreographer, met up often with, well, what is the story that you should be saying, and how come it's not, doesn't look like Ailey? That's the short version of it. Well, um, at one point, uh, our company, um, who, which includes a lot of white people as well as Black people, um, we were on tour in, uh, California on program called, um, Black Choreographers Moving into the 21st Century, so this was back then. Um, and one of our dancers, Anthony, is white, uh, was saying by, uh, for hanging out in the dressing room, he says, "You know, this is the first time I've been a minority in the dressing room." And I thought, "Well, that's interesting," 'cause it happens to me all the time. Um, and it's not that I don't think anything of it, it's just, it happens to me all the time. Um, and so that was the beginning of Going to the Wall, of a way of almost looking at our company as a Benetton commercial. Uh, you know, we got gays, we got lesbians, we got, you know- us, and we got, you know, we have everybody. And, um, but what do we feel we need to leave outside of the door, outside of the studio door to get our work done? Can we include some of that? Do we know who believes in God? Um, uh, and so the process of making this piece, which was also the process of making a work that maybe allows the dancers to evolve in our presence, um, uh, brought out a new way of, of kind of finding information, uh, finding, um…If we look at how we touch, like who do we think we're really touching? And the- when we know more about them, does that touch change? And can an audience feel that? Um, so that's, yeah, that's what that piece was.
Suzanne Carbonneau: Mm-hmm. And, uh, the next dance you did, um, extended those concerns, it seems, Verge?
Bebe Miller: Uh, Verge, which probably was, I think, uh, in a way, Going to the Wall, I, I think was a much, was a really heartfelt piece. Verge was better at it.
Suzanne Carbonneau: Mm-hmm.
Bebe Miller: Um, somehow it, I got more objective maybe. I didn't try to remake it, but it just, oh, all those concerns were evident in a very different way. Um, it's always interesting, um, you know, to admit publicly that some of your works are better than others, and it's true. And I, I kinda like that, you know, that I can look back and say, "Oh, this doesn't work so well. I didn't quite have the skills to solve this problem in an earlier week, uh, work." And so, but it does, that's what we do. You know, some things you really are on.
Suzanne Carbonneau: Well, I think it's interesting that, um, 'cause I think we live that process with you as audience members too. You, you begin to show us something about this concern you have, and we begin to see how you're approaching it. And the next piece, you show us how to look deeper at it too-
Bebe Miller: Mm.
Suzanne Carbonneau:…I think.
Bebe Miller: Uh, mm-hmm.
Suzanne Carbonneau: Yeah.
Bebe Miller: Mm-hmm.
Jennifer Harge: I wanna pause here for a second and talk about what's coming up for me in the makings of Going to the Wall, and perhaps by extension, Verge. I want to contextualize the premise of this work through the lens of Black women's labor production, more specifically, the labor of transformation, meaning the work in art spaces that Black women often craft to aid in the transformation of a collective's capacity to see, to feel, and to know something more deeply about themselves and each other. This is care work and heavy work.
To reiterate, the questions animating Going to the Wall began after a white adult was placed in a particular minority position for the first time. From there, Bebe used her own deep knowledge of racialized aloneness as a methodology to build a choreographic process, essentially a controlled research environment where dancers had a place to make mistakes, to move awkwardly through ignorance, to perhaps testify. And to be witnessed across all of it by people they have known, have moved with, have sweat with across time.
This is grace work in the name of collective evolution. To build this type of container, enter it alongside everyone else, as she did, and hold its boundaries all at once, is something that is naturalized as Black women's work. It is expected, absorbed, and rarely named as labor. So I say it here to name the extraordinary offering Bebe gave to her company, and by extension, the dance world.
Bebe now takes us to her next work, Landing/Place, the piece she was showing at The Pillow during this PillowTalk. She begins talking about the origins of that work, which began during a trip she took to Eritrea in 1999. After, we'll hear her answer questions from the audience, where she extends her thoughts on her practice and talks about the next work after Landing Place.
Bebe Miller: I was lucky enough to, uh, teach for three weeks in Asmara, the capital of Eritrea, um, and it was, it, uh, you know, deep travel is just transforming no matter where you go. And I, I- talk about teaching. Um, those of you who know about dance classes, say, you know, y- y- in a good dance class, you kind of, you know, at a certain point, you're going across the floor, and you have line to four, and everybody's kinda staying together, and that kind of stuff. Well, they didn't know. So-
Suzanne Carbonneau: You went to work with the folkloric company.
Bebe Miller: Yes. Yeah, kind of. And they're all in jeans and pumps and things. And, um, they're all lined up, 20 of them shoulder to shoulder, 'cause no one wants to be second. So I thought, "Okay. All right, let's go." So it, it, it kinda showed, for me, it just, it, it, like, why take that for granted? Why is that the way class should be? And, um, so many things in retrospect about our field. Um, one more story. Um, after I came back, I w- I needed to, uh, I was, uh, adjudicating, um, uh, a c- for a concert in DC, which means that I go and I look at a bunch of work, and I say, "That's good. That's not so good. Keep that one," da, da, da, da, da, da, and then they have a program. They take my word for it. Um, anyway, I, I came back after being immersed in this other way, and where, you know, their dances are about making tea, and so you see all the tea gestures. Like, you know, makes a lot of sense. So I go back, and th- there's arms, and there's a scarf that comes in, and there's a duet, and then they split up. This is back in DC. And I lost the code. I didn't know what I was looking at. I said, "This doesn't make any sense."
Suzanne Carbonneau: Because what you had been seeing in Eritrea was more narrative and more-
Bebe Miller: More specific and literal, and which, of course, is not very postmodern. Um, but I, it seemed a big crisis in my, in my perception of what, what counts, what's effective here. And, uh, realizing, Landing/Place is really not so much about being literal, but about being foreign and where you're in someone else's landscape, and you don't fit, basically. You move differently. And so the piece kind of takes off from there. It's not about Eritrea. It's not really about traveling. But it's about kinda tribes of perception. Tribes of perception, I guess.
Suzanne Carbonneau: Tribes of per- keep, keep going with that, tribes of perception.
Bebe Miller: Well, um, y- you, you're in, you realize that there's a group who understands something about how to be and how to perceive, and un- they understand the fables, and you don't. So that's part of what culture is. It's an ex, um, it's an expression of that way of thinking, and you kinda come at another one, come at it sideways, and you can't tell what's going on.
Suzanne Carbonneau: Um, the dancers in this work are extraordinary. The dancers you're working with, um, Angie Hauser, Kathleen Fisher, Kathleen Hermsdorf, um, Keith Thompson-
Bebe Miller: Daryl Jones
Suzanne Carbonneau: ...Daryl, yes. Okay. Um-
Bebe Miller: And Albert Mathias is our composer-
Suzanne Carbonneau: Right ...
Bebe Miller: …who's playing live.
Suzanne Carbonneau: Mm-hmm.
Bebe Miller: Yeah.
Suzanne Carbonneau: Um, and each of them is an artist in his or her own right. They're r- they're really mature, and their contributions seem to me the richer for that. They're, they seem to work, I think, in a very deep way here with you. Um, what are you looking for in dancers that you choose to work with?
Bebe Miller: Um, generally, uh, those whose personalities I can, I can see. Uh, it's not a mystery, y- y- you know. Um, uh, with any work group, we s- Not vessels waiting to be filled, but- Ah. No. No. Um, people that I can learn from really is, is who I, I'm looking for. And sometimes I, you know, I learn about their feet. It's like, "Oh, wow, how do they do that?" Uh, as well as their attentiveness. I mean, they all, they are extraordinary in very different ways. Uh, but I, I think that there's, their, their maturity comes from living, how they're, you, you see them change. You see them recognize each other and recognize you and, uh-
Suzanne Carbonneau: And, and what do they contribute to the actual process of making the work?
Bebe Miller: Very much, a lot. Uh, back to the improvisation element, uh, we, we, um, improvise. Uh, how can I s- say more about that? Um, there's a lot to talk about in making. There's a lot of, "Oh, that doesn't feel authentic." "Hmm, authentic in what way?" "Uh, well, what if it's not so authentic, but, uh, more form?" "Uh, no, but the form is too... I can't find myself in that." This kind of a dialogue back and forth. Um, they weren't in E- Eritrea with me, so a lot of it was like, you know, I had this feeling kind of when you're ugh, you know. And then, and they give me information back. So there is a constant dialogue, and they're very funny too. Uh, there's a lot of jokes going on. Um, but I... And so even if the jokes aren't, aren't what you see, um, I just came from a rehearsal, and I feel it was a gift. They, they, they dance fully. They danced fully for me because they dance fully for each other. So I think that's…well, that's what I got.
Suzanne Carbonneau: I, uh, the other thing I love about, uh, work, looking at this group of people is the, um, the idea of ensemble-
Bebe Miller: Hmm...
Suzanne Carbonneau: uh, for me. It's very different from the idea of an ensemble, say, in a Balanchine piece where we're really looking at a kind of- serenade.
Bebe Miller: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Suzanne Carbonneau: And unison and the way that, um, everybody looks like everybody else. And, and this is a very different sense of dancing together-
Bebe Miller: Mm-hmm
Suzanne Carbonneau: ...I think.
Bebe Miller: Yeah. Yeah, I think so. Um, maybe there's a shift from unison to uniform, so that maybe it's not about being exactly the same, but kind of in the spirit of counts as a linkage. Um. Mm-hmm.
Suzanne Carbonneau: And you mentioned Albert Mathias as part of this process too. He's the composer.
Bebe Miller: Mm-hmm.
Suzanne Carbonneau: He performs live in concert, but I, I understand that he was there through the whole process.
Bebe Miller: Pretty much.
Suzanne Carbonneau: Uh-huh.
Bebe Miller: Uh, the first couple of residencies we didn't have him, but he showed up.
Suzanne Carbonneau: So what, what is... I, I take it that's an unusual-
Bebe Miller: For me...
Suzanne Carbonneau: situation. I've never done that before. Uh-huh. And what, uh, uh, what is to be gained from that, having the composer there through the entire process?
Bebe Miller: Uh. Well, I don't have to bring the CDs. That's a lot of it. Let me tell you, every time, you know, I pack up, I'm like, "Do you have the CDs?" I don't need the CDs. I got Albert. Um, um-
Suzanne Carbonneau: Did, did it, did it...Was it, the, was the music he produced different for you because of his presence there? Do you think?
Bebe Miller: I think so, because I think, you know, he came with his chops. You know, he's kind of a rock and roll guy, and then I could like calm that down a little bit and, and so it, it was just trying to figure out our language. And in so doing, figuring out, oh, this is where the piece is going. And then he would hit on these little tiny bits of sound and, um, where, uh, he, you know, he'd put in these, um, the kind of a, um, I think it was a karate class, like you [makes a sound] know, these, this-
Suzanne Carbonneau: He, he, he works… Why don't you explain what kind of music he does too?
Bebe Miller: Ah. Albert plays, um, a Mac. As well as a lap steel guitar and kind of a drum machine. So he is there, uh, you know, kinda you'll see him kind of calling up different files or fol- I don't know what he d- I don't know how it works. But, um, and then he s-
Suzanne Carbonneau: So he's sampling sounds.
Bebe Miller: He's, he ha- Yeah, he's already sampled them, and he, he's kind of put them together and, as well as these really lovely guitar licks. So, um, it's kind of extraordinary, and it's a new way, and so far it has never crashed. But, um, yeah, it's very cool.
Suzanne Carbonneau: Mm-hmm. Um, so, um, he plays live. Is he improvising at all while, as you perform?
Bebe Miller: I ummm like a musician playing live.
Suzanne Carbonneau: Mm-hmm.
Bebe Miller: Uh, and like a dancer dancing live. Pretty much we are, or everything is set, but there are moments where it's, it'll sound a little different. I mean, that's kind of the fun of it, I think. I don't know what I intended really to make, but the making, the, the final product is really just a record of these kinds of things we thought about and tried. Um, and then finding a form for that at the end.
Suzanne Carbonneau: Um, we have some time for a few questions if, uh, you wanna get into the conversation here with Bebe. I'll repeat the questions so everybody can hear. Um, the question is, um, uh, she's asking Bebe to, um, elaborate on her idea of being a dancer moving versus being a person moving.
Bebe Miller: Um, on, in several ways. Um, I, but mostly I think it's a, it's, I'm curious about the, the kind of attentiveness in each of those. Um, as a dancer, of course, there's a lot of training about the nature of gesture, the, the kind of the kinetics of the body in action, um, and the presentation of that. And sometimes the presentation of that becomes, overrides what you actually might be seeing and curious about, which turns you into the person. So, well, there's more to it than that, but I, I'm, um, I think- One of the things that I talk about, uh, with, with the dancers is kind of, uh, person time and then dancer time and how sometimes, okay, and now time for the transition and next thought, boom. And when you're a person, I don't know, this takes more time or there's a different kind of time in between thought and conclusion of an action as opposed to, ooh, the grace of it and the smoothing out of the, the hard bumps sort of. And so there's, there's infor- there's, there's kinetic information to figure out. Ooh, and is that because of how he was thinking about it or because I was looking at it that way or, or what? So
Suzanne Carbonneau: You're, you're describing, um, what you do as, I mean, it makes me think of a scientist in a lab. You're, you're engaging in movement research, and you are doing aesthetic research.
Bebe Miller: I guess so. Yeah.
Suzanne Carbonneau: Yeah.
Bebe Miller: Can I just talk a little bit about the next piece or...? Yeah. Okay. It's called Necessary Beauty. Um, uh, it'll premiere in a year, and we'll do it-
Suzanne Carbonneau: And this is the piece you'll be working on here-
Bebe Miller: Yes...
Suzanne Carbonneau: in September.
Bebe Miller: Yes. Yeah. And we'll do it here in, I think, summer of '09. Um, or no, of '08. No, '09, yeah. Okay. Um, and I was driving, uh, home from something, and I was lost in the, you know, difficult thought problem [makes a sound], and this flock of birds seemed to just take off in time to the music and the windshield wipers, and I, and, and I solved the problem, and it was like, duh. And we've had that, and I thought, "Oh, that's..." It was a beautiful moment. It was like an artful three-dimensional moment, and my response was, "I wanna make that again," not just live in it, but what, what's that confluence of event and perception that make those necessary in our lives and that they are beautiful? Not to make that moment, but I wanna make that sense of happening again. So that's my formalist, uh, kind of like, "Oh, can I do that again?" And does it... Is there ever an again? And then, you know, then the questions start coming up, less about the birds but more about finding, you know, what is a kind of moment in time that seems to answer for a second. Uh, and, and now I'm, I'm kind of moving toward...I'm interested in film. I'm interested in, like, kind of making things on, on a flat surface. Um, and the legacy part, oh, man. I just don't know.
Jennifer Harge: In meditating on Bebe Miller's legacy, I found myself coming to my body. Earlier in the PillowTalk, which is not included in this episode, she talks briefly about somatic training in relation to form, asking, "What is the internal logic that produces an action?"
My organs got activated by the question So in the legacy of Bebe Miller, I tended to that curiosity, to be with my body's impulses, sensations, and the subtle negotiations through which movement comes into being. To close, here is an abridged record of that exploration, A Coda.
Right now I'm really mindful of the sticky parts and the tacky parts of my body are slippery rather, and the saliva in particular which is making me wanna expand my mouth and twist my mouth. Seeing how far I can stretch the skin around my mouth. How I can press against it in different directions, either my jaw kind of pressing towards my ear or my chin pressing down towards my chest. The questions are so really present in my back and maybe like more specifically in my intestines. There's a lot of kind of squirming feeling which is producing this circular motion in my torso, which is going up into my lungs and into my scapula and my kidneys. And so that kind of, um intertwining feeling between the organs of my torso is offering me this really luscious undulation in the torso and up to my neck, and then rotating around the shoulders. And my attention is returning to my mouth, my jaw, the bottom row of my teeth. And they're shifting side to side and the jaw is kinda going front and back. Noticing my impulse was to make it kinda jagged, and I stopped because I wasn't interested in that and realizing that I can make a choice to stop doing that. And then my mouth goes like it's kind of wandering open. I was just sending my head back. And our mouth is starting to close and the jaws are kind of slowly bouncing again, opening, closing, and bouncing. It's slowing down into a quiet, more restful place.
[Music begins, composed and performed by Jess Meeker]
Norton Owen: That's it for this episode of PillowVoices. Thank you for joining us today. On behalf of Jacob's Pillow, we look forward to sharing more dance with you through the films, essays, and podcasts at danceinteractive.jacobspillow.org and of course, through live experiences during our festival and throughout the year. Special thanks to the National Endowment for the Arts for helping launch this podcast series. Please subscribe to PillowVoices wherever you get your podcasts and visit us again soon, either online or on site.