Carrie Stern talks with choreographer Wally Cardona, about his work, Really Real, which is being presented later this month at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

It began as a way of controlling the only constant environment in a life filled with dance touring—the theater. As a soloist, Cardona was aware that each environment affected his work, and the work changed the environment. “It was an exciting conversation.” But when he added other dancers in 2001 he needed to figure out how to impart his innate understanding of spatial adaptation. He realized he “wanted a controlled environment,” a structure, a constant framework for the dancing.

The “ah-ha” moment came in the form of blue floor tape. Laying tape on the floor “created a space-in-a-space.” No matter where the company danced “there was spatial constancy within the inconstancy of changing architecture.” Three-dimensional elements followed—100s of black four-by-fours, crumpled butcher paper, large sheets of particleboard—300 objects were moved in a single piece. It “became clear that the objects were as relevant as the dancers, integral partners within the piece moving as much as a dancer moves.” Dancers and materials became collaborators requiring dancers to develop “a deep understanding of the materials and how they react” in order to perform their tasks and navigate their environment safely. In turn, the object’s sometimes-unpredictable movement qualities lent an element of surprise to the performance structure.

Experimenting with materials led Cardona to develop a creative structure focused on trial and error. Today, he uses those techniques for experiments built around the relationships of human bodies. Cardona gives instructions—“I say, ‘start doing this, you’ll hear me talk, just keep going.’ I don’t make what the outcome should be clear. I put them in the space, get them going—‘here’s some ideas, words, frameworks’—people move within it; I see how they respond, then offer a new direction or perspective. It’s like throwing a lot of objects into an experiment and seeing how they react. I’m aware it’s not an experience most people have had before. I respond to what I’m looking at.”

Cardona calls his new work, Really, Real, his “people piece.” In an email he wrote “It’s the changeability, inconsistency and warmth a person provides that interests me here. Both what can be known and [what can] never [be] fully understood. And what more complex of an object exists than the individual?”

Really Real

Wally Cardona/WC4+

Choreographed and directed by Wally Cardona

Original music by Phil Kline

Lighting design by Roderick Murray

Live music performed by Brooklyn Youth Chorus

BAM Harvey Theater, Nov 17, 19–21, 2009

For more information, go to www.bam.org.

Carrie Stern is a dance writer and teaching artist living in Brooklyn, New York