DANCE PIONEER MEGAN MINTURN NAVIGATES A PANDEMIC

Megan Minturn is a colleague who has pioneered in what I have called the "otherness" of contemporary dance, a choreographer with courage and originality who uncovers the overlooked and ignored to become an advocate for those who have created something special, but no longer have a voice, or perhaps never did. 
 
I first became aware of Megan when with my colleague, Tom Beyer, we began to explore interactive distance collaboration that included simultaneous performance and improvisation between different locations. We used the internet to recruit dancers to take part in this collaborative improvisation. Megan responded and also recruited dancers to participate. Right from the first, these interactive collaborations were successful, and I was struck by Megan's openness and ability to creatively adjust within whatever parameters emerged to structure the moment. Everything was done within the span of a day from rehearsing to create materials in interacting with music, visual imagery, and movement to the moment of connecting to and responding to performers, technicians, and artists at other sites. Eventually, production planning to develop a theme and scenes was done through Internet over a few weeks with exchanges and connections to explore distance improvisation, collaboration, and coordination.

In my final years at NYU, we revived a course created for me in 1969 to introduce new technologies to Music Education which was called EXPANDED MUSIC: Its Impact on Music Education. We explored the works of artists that were performing at The Electric Circus. The course ran for about five years until I became so involved in creating new programs for the department. Then around 2010, we revived the course simply as EXPANDED MUSIC. Music became an entree to all the arts and technology---starting with music and expanding to include all the arts and technology. Because I noticed that musicians often did not seem comfortable in their bodies as they performed, I thought we should begin with movement and movement improvisation... (Expanded Movement as it were). I thought of Megan and asked if she would be willing to collaborate with me in the course, and the outcome was the creation of many memorable moments in the Provincetown Playhouse that were then applied in interactive productions with different locations, including Norway, Argentina, Ireland and others in NYU BlackBox Theatre and NYU LoeweTheatre.

Scenes from Minturn's Monopoly: The Landlord's Game (photo by Jeff Schultz Photography)

As Megan's career has unfolded, she has developed a process of collaborating with her dancers in creating new works that address cultural issues, such as Monopoly: The Landlord's Game, inspired by Lizzie Magie, who was the original creator of the game and obtained a patent in 1903 as The Landlord's Game that was intended to teach Henry George's of political economy applied to everyday economics. However, the game was circulated informally to many people, who kept changing and adding rules. Elizabeth's creation was co-opted by Charles Darrow in 1935, who with Parker Brothers also secured a patent for Monopoly. Parker Brothers purchased Elizabeth's patent for $500. She insisted that her game be published as she created it with no changes, so Parker Brothers continued to publish The Landlord's Game and Monopoly, but Elizabeth received no royalties or credit for Monopoly. Megan's use of this material uses the game pieces of Monopoly and an imagined space of the game board, and with creative and imaginative twists, explores the injustices of our current "game board rules"---as well as celebrating the creative brilliance of the game's originator, Elizabeth Magie.

As New York entered Lockdown for the COVID-19, I started checking with creative artists as to how the lockdown has affected their process and creative work. In Megan's words, here is how she is pursuing new collaborative work with her colleagues:

A recent NYTimes cover page commemorated the almost 100,000 lives lost in the United States due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  It listed the names and short phrases from the obituaries of 1,000 people, or 1% of the people who have passed away from the virus. With so much communal grief and loss, mourning is not only appropriate, but I believe it is needed.  Much has been written about the stages of grief, including that they do not occur in linear steps.  The pandemic has impacted us in different manners and to different extremes, on different days.  I attended a memorial on zoom for someone lost to the virus; a performance I had been preparing for over the course of two years was cancelled; I am attempting to teach dance virtually and miss the community of my students.  These types of loss are of different magnitudes; the loss of life is paramount.  The feeling of artistic loss, nevertheless, leaves an impact.  Fortunately, a community with whom I have collaborated continues to redefine and explore the possibilities of our work.

Tagged is a project that brings together artists from multiple disciplines to create an experience in totality.  Music, dance, and the visual arts converge in a shared conversation. The formal process began in 2019, though some of the conversations, choreographic phrases, and imaginings began much earlier. Our two performances in 2019 were at the Stand4 Gallery in Brooklyn.  We used both outdoor and indoor space, a formal gallery room, a hallway, and a nook.  The importance of these physical areas appears all the more pertinent during a pandemic in which space has been restricted, shifted, and due to being confined in it, stretched.  The dance and music during the actual performances were largely improvisational, yet the structure created through our shared, in-person dialogue allowed for this creative space.  It also created an organic path for us to follow as a collective. 

Much of this process was predicated upon our physical presence and connection with one another. 

 What felt previously like a singular process has now turned to processes.  We meet on Zoom calls, send one another choreographed moments via video, and work to build together. Yet I, personally, have struggled in my process without the synergy of our in-person dialogue, movement, and the co-creation of a vision. To get a pulse on this impression that the pandemic is affecting us differently, I asked my collaborators about how their work has been affected.  

Evan Joseph, the composer, has continued his work at home.  Due to the nature of his work, he is able to create and compose from home.  His collaborations with this project and those with filmmakers have continued.  He discussed how his work has largely remained consistent with that prior to the pandemic, though he has stints where he is more creative than others. Similarly, David Gitt found that his practice has kept him productive during this environment, partly as a means of staying sane.  Most of his works are not shared in inside spaces.  He hopes more visual artists willrespond to the pandemic by being more open to reclaiming spaces other than gallery and museum spaces.  Kelli Chapman, a dancer, discussed the difficulty of moving and creating at home.  She described how she associates the space of “home” with relaxation, cooking, and rest. Michelle Applebaum correspondingly described how she continues her exercise and yoga practices, but her dance practice was difficult to maintain during the first month of quarantine.  After this first month, though, she entered more into her creative brain and found ways to dance throughout the pandemic.  Personally, I struggle with dancing in my apartment.  While I am fortunate to have space to move, my floors are old and creaky.  My neighbors living on the floor below me complain about my walking, much less my dancing. 

While our processes have been affected differently, we are exploring possibilities for further collaboration and construction.  We continue to build through sharing materials online.  Dance phrases are being added upon by sending video sections of our work and creating based on what is shared.  We are also exploring the creation of a film with visual art being activated by musicians and dancers in the setting of Gowanus, Brooklyn.  We will create this following social distancing guidelines.  Without question, one of the most satisfying aspects of this project is the community of artists that is formed.  Together we share a process, but also our lives in the arts, with its difficulties and beauty.