Wendy Rogers, Dance Worker

Thank you all for this incredible honor to visit and be part of your conversation about dance-making. I can't think of anything I like better than making dances, except maybe hanging out with dancers and talking about making dances. I want to thank Lisa Kraus for driving me around–we invaded four dance studios with great pleasure, just to look in on what people are doing. I thank all the dancers who let us look in on their process for their generosity. It was really stimulating for me to see so many different versions of "the work," and that was great. "The work" keeps changing.

"The work." That's what we used to talk about in the seventies, "the work"; it was all about "the work." When I think of "the work", I think of dancing with Sara Rudner. What a glorious few years that was! We gave our whole lives to "the work" and hours and hours in the studio thinking of the hardest things we could do and then trying them out. Compensation for performances was rare; mostly it was hours in the studio. (Later I came to realize what a luxury that was–to have hours in the studio.)

One particular project I want to remember and start this conversation with is Sara's five-hour dance. In the spring of 1975 Sara, Risa Jaroslow, Wendy Perron, and I trained all season long, day after day, building up our stamina, building material, so that we could dance for five hours straight. Her agenda was not to choreograph; she just wanted people to come in directly on the dancing, for us to share with the viewers something that we as dancers were experiencing and loving. She didn't want to mediate–she didn't want to make a beginning and an ending. She wanted what we were doing to be "dancing on view" (which is what she named the piece). People would just come and go and map their own beginnings and endings to what they saw. This was the concept that started us out; and then we made all different kinds of material.