A dream of touch when touch is gone

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you

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i’m wondering if with this presentation

if there’s a way

to create something that at least

symbolically or physic visually and

physically

brings people on this journey to the

idea that

one of the moments of hope is that we

can be in contact again

have that most human of human

experiences

because i think quite frankly right now

to see

an embrace on something that’s made in

september

is almost a revolutionary act and so

one of the things i’m trying to think

about um practically

is how do we do that safely you know do

i have

two company members and is it possible

for me to work with university of

minnesota experts

and specialists to get the appropriate

testing

so that we can actually do this in a way

that doesn’t endanger them

how can we figure out ways to let you

guys

make art in a safe way so that it really

really needs to happen

and i think as carl and i have been

talking that the university of minnesota

is in a really unique position to help

make that happen

and you’ve got such a incredible

amazing director in carl who’s thinking

so coolly outside of the box that

i think we can do some really

interesting stuff together right now

we’re looking at is this idea

of a a period of self quarantining

right before an intensive and then a

test a testing rate before that

intensive

then the intensive would happen um

between october

um in the week leading up to october

13th september 13th sorry

and um but then we would be tested on

the friday

before the shoot day just to make sure

that everything was in good order

and then we go we would have one more

day of rehearsal on

saturday and then we’d be into the shoot

quarantined

in the italian 40 days no one’s looking

at doing a 40 day thing here so it’s

even

it’s almost the wrong term to use so i

think like social isolation

or or maybe like being smart

like super smart and super careful might

be even a better way of like phrasing it

so that you know your your i mean let’s

face it

you can’t go to social gatherings it’s

probably the single best thing to say

like you just for that five seven days

you just can’t get together with groups

of people you can’t go to a bar

you can’t do things you can’t go don’t

go to lake minnetonka to a

flotilla of speed boats you know i mean

it’s just like

anything that seems like if it strikes

you like ooh that seems kind of like a

risky

thing to do you can’t do that it’s you

know close proximity

a long period of time no one wearing

masks

i mean it just right it just sort of

intuitively makes sense like how people

are getting this you know for the most

part

would it be worth then um if we did do a

test also on tuesday

to wait until we got those results so

we’ve had two days together in the

studio working

and we just we just still haven’t done

the physical contact

part because there are a lot of things

that we want to do without physical

contact

and then after that test then we would

still have two to three days

in some ways i like the the arc of that

because it just gets us back together

finding our

connection as a community and in some

ways also has this sense of falling

towards touch

so we’ve done you know like the first

two and a half

days of intensive we’re about to start

getting into

touch and sharing weight and things like

that

what what do you see that protocol as

like you know

walk it walk us through it the pretty

simple protocol is just like mask off

wash your hands and dance so we’re in

the intensive period

and you’re still in this mindfulness

around self quarantining

we’re we we’re we’re looking at these

layers of testing which sounds like we

might even look

now at three layers of it but you know

at least two

um and this idea of

working on non-contact material in the

first couple

days and then moving towards the contact

material

when we go to the shoot itself

the big variable is now we’re bringing

in a camera crew

that that camera crew needs to be

thinking about self quarantining

as they enter the enter the time

everything that john has talked about

nothing changes except

now every time we film

there aren’t masks on unless masks are

being asked for

but if you’re not in the chute you’re

masked up if you’re not in the chute

you make sure before you enter a shoot a

shoot that you’re washing your hands

john um thank you um thank you so much

really try something that is distinctly

new i think it may have

said world is calm so we’re making a ted

film and that’s exciting

all right how did it feel to see the

actual dancers touching john

looking at

to see what our process has allowed us

to do

i mean to see a group of 10 people

catching one person falling out of

space you know without masks and gloves

really gets at what we’re trying to find

so they look

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yeah and it was so amazing on thursday

when we first started touching

there were literally three or four

people just spontaneously

um burst into tears and it was

you know it was it was just but yeah

it was a moment that just this emotional

pop

that just changed so imagine if theater

companies and dance companies and

orchestras

at least the smaller ensembles could

start to figure out a way of doing this

it’s huge and we need this i mean we as

non-artists

need you to be you know making your art

again and getting on stage and sharing

it with us on social media and other

other

venues

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you