Eric Dahlinger - I'm Fine Blog
Creating dance… There is something both so exciting and scary when someone lets you create choreography with very little boundaries. When creating dance for kids in a studio the boundaries include, the kids abilities, is it recreation or competitive, how many kids have signed up, and what dance style the class is. In Musical theatre the boundaries include how capable are the actors, what story is the number telling in the greater musical, and the influences that have gone into the composing of the music. Being limitless (almost) in choreography is hard because the boundaries often help us find our starting point.
While trying to begin this project I thought to myself “what will be the first perimeter around this dance”. I thought about what I wanted to explore, what I wanted to say, so I boiled it down my “boundaries” to these 4 major points.
Inspired by my struggles in school with dyslexia but finding escape through dance and art
Exploring theme and variation within the context of choreography and video
Exploring video as a new medium for me and how editing can increase the beauty and interest on choreography and solo works for camera
The mixing and blending of styles of dance — taking from both the jazz/lyrical and the hip hop world to create a final dance that will be entertaining and impactful
Also while picking music, as a singer (I am trained in voice) I find it hard to disconnect to from the emotion in a singers voice, however I didn’t want the work to have a boundary of telling the lyrics story. So I chose a Korean song to maintain the passion that I feel while dancing to someone’s voice while letting the audience create their narrative of what the piece means to them… also I just love BTS so I had to use a song by them.
While watching my art, I choose to believe audience interoperation over artist intention. If you as the viewer take something completely different away from my dance… that is awesome, you are right in your understanding, dance to me is much more abstract then say… novel writing. And that beautifully lets its viewers take whatever they want from it. My inspirations and exploration do not have to be what the dance is about but merely a jumping off point or a box for me to play in, aka my self-imposed boundaries.
Prospects: an evening of dance and discussion presents
I’m Fine
Choreographed by Eric Dahlinger
Thursday, March 25th 2021
8PM
Hosted on ZOOM
$20 General Admission | $40 Pay it Forward | PWYC
Get tickets here!