Nina Milanovski - Creative Process Blog
uncoupling is a work about two women who meet, fall in love and break up. However, beyond this simple logline and the piece as it exists on stage there is a rich world where the dancers and I collaborate in the studio. We discuss the micro-moments, the quick glances and the long pauses that cultivate two specific characters and how they shape each other. As we continue to massage the work, we contemplate our own mistakes and shortcomings within relationships and how those dynamics could play out should they go unchecked. In this way, it almost feels as though the work has nudged us towards introspection, perhaps pushing us to reflect upon our past, our choices and how we relate to others.
I can speak for myself and say that this work has followed me through many major life events. As I track its progress I see my own personal growth and change mirrored within it. As I grew more confident as a choreographer I started taking bolder risks with the work. I remember as per the recommendation of an outside eye, I decided to play with the order of the piece and instead of having it start at the beginning of the dancers’ relationship, I gave the audience a sneak peak of the end. I used to say this work was about two friends - I was desperate to create a work that I felt represented within even if I felt the need to lie about its premise. I needed to see it before I knew I could be it - representation matters and sometimes you need to do it for yourself.
This session in the studio feels strange because although this work is in progress it’s almost not. Just a few final tweaks here and there, giving myself space to explore a couple more ideas and questions before I move onto thinking about the technical elements of the work and how to present it. As much as my heart hurts to consider my time in the studio with this work closing, I’m happy to have this last opportunity to be in progress, playing with having the audience on three sides and adding final touches onto a work I feel so proud of I would get it tattooed on my body (the dancers and I plan to get a tattoo post PROSPECTS to celebrate).
This work has held space for the dancers and I to exist as queer women. When out in the world we have all struggled with being perceived as straight thanks to our boyfriends (much love to Liam, Alex and Sam). In the four years we have been in the studio together we have gone through the relationship gambit in our own personal lives: break ups, make ups, big fights, minor gripes, new romances, growing pains, and big questions.
I look forward to being in the studio to answer a final question, when are we done? Life imitates art and vice versa so of course this is a question the dancers and I tackle in this work. When is it the final fight? What is the last straw? Who needs to be the one to walk away? That is the issue
with the characters in this work - they can’t bear to face that there is a last anything. They want to continue the same cycle of break up and make up forever and ever in perpetuity no matter the pain and damage caused, which is mirrored in the cyclical pattern of the work. I want to learn from these characters we created, inspired by our own shortcomings and weaknesses, to learn to call it quits once it's over, to let go and move on once the time comes. I sat down with the dancers, Victoria Gubiani and Paige Sayles to discuss this process and how closure feels over a couple of glasses of wine:
NM: What are your first memories of this process?
PS: Well obviously, Choreographic Marathon.
NM: But do you remember the very first part of the process at York?
PS: Yes! We actually talked about this recently and how neither of us knew who our partner would be.
VG: You kept it secret from us.
NM: Well I think I kept it secret because I didn’t know who it was going to be.
VG: I think it was me you were uncertain about, and Josh Murphy told you about me, I think that’s the story.
PS: I remember Josh telling me afterwards that you had thought of working with me in some capacity and then Nina was like, “I just don’t know who to partner her with.” and then Josh was like, “What about Victoria?”
NM: Was that your first time working closely together?
VG: One-on-one, totally.
PS: We worked together in larger groups… and obviously we were close friends but I also would say we got super close once Victoria graduated from York.
VG: We got really close the summer I broke up with my partner at the time for the first time.
PS: And that was the summer we started working on uncoupling. And I was going through a break-up too.
NM: How was it working on uncoupling while going through a real life uncoupling?
VG: I think the reason why we do this so well together is because before the Choreographic Marathon, we’d had this sort of comforting and supportive experience during our break-ups. So I think that experience was really drawn into uncoupling because we already had some sort of support, and then we just had to physicalize it.
PS: I think there’s also something to say that all three of us have been very vocally queer but not always being seen as queer because we have been in heteronormative relationships. And so this was sort of like an outlet almost.
VG: Yeah exactly, the piece isn’t about being queer. The piece is just about a relationship, and that’s transferable and that’s relative.
NM: I really want to ask you about your characters within the work because I feel like in television and film there are so many examples of someone playing a heightened version of themselves and I feel like that’s what we do in uncoupling. Could you expand upon the characters you play within the work?
VG: My character is based on a lot of experiences but also fears I have when it comes to being a partner. I would never want to be like my character…
NM: But what are the qualities?
VG: Clingy, needy, over-caring to a fault where you’re not letting somebody be their independent self and not listening to them. Because I look at myself in a relationship and I think I’m a really good listener and I think I’m so caring and I love that quality .
PS: But in reality, you’re also independent.
VG: But that’s interesting because in the piece I don’t view myself as independent, I view my character as somebody who needs to go off and prove that I can still be myself. But I don’t view it as a choice to be independent. I truly just feel like uncoupling is my fear of who I could be as a partner.
PS: I feel very dependable, but I also feel very malleable, like I take on Victoria’s qualities because I want to relate to her more, very perforated and impressionable. And it’s not genuine, I do it to impress you. So I’m not necessarily being myself but when I do show you who I really am, it doesn’t feel like it’s enough. I’m bad at saying no and setting boundaries and it just gets to the point where it explodes. And then I feel like, how could you not see that? How could you not know the real me?
NM: I want to move toward my next vein of questioning - we are in a phase of the creative process that is so different than the last. Our last phase of creation was in residency with Good Women Collective in Edmonton which was a highly productive phase of development so obviously this feels so different. How has this phase of creation felt for you both?
PS: It’s been a recalling experience and less discovery. We know who we are in this and who our characters are within the universe so it’s like a recalling of what the important moments are. Especially the timing because, yes, some things are to the music but most timing in the work is felt emotionally.
VG: I feel like we’ve been applying all the work we did in the residency and performing all the hard work we did. It’s incredibly rewarding to do it again.
NM: Has there been any surprises coming back to the work?
VG: I’m just surprised I can still do it! It’s a hefty piece.
PS: It’s always two things, I think to myself, “Holy fuck this feels amazing” but also “Holy fuck this is hard”.
NM: Now that we’re at this phase of the work, I’ve been thinking a lot about closure and how we’re closing the door on the discovery part of this process. I’m really interested to hear your thoughts about closure with this work.
VG: After Edmonton the work has matured so much and I think we were able to hone in on what was needed. The purposefulness of the piece has been solidified. I don’t feel the need - especially for the characters - to stretch it out any more.
PS: If anything, if we were to stretch it out it would be about who these people are separately, like what’s their backstory. But to me now in the piece that’s superfluous. So I think that choreographically, it has been set up that you see the build in the romantic relationship.
VG: It’s not about us really, and who we are as individuals. It's about our uncoupling.
PS: Exactly, it’s not about who we were before, it’s not about who we were after. It’s the fact that we existed before and we will exist after and it’s about what happens between these seasons of love.
NM: What does closure mean to you with this work?
VG: Closure specifically with this piece is satisfying. I think the piece is ready to be shown to people.
PS: I think there is an arc to us as characters and us together, I think closure means knowing where we came from and knowing where we’re going.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
editing by Sam Calderon (@calderonsamc) video courtesy of Patricia Allison and random acts of dance