The first challenge of creating All Good Men was to take a very complex 153 scene movie script, and adapt that for the theater. I reduced the number of characters and settings in order to achieve something that would be comprehensible in a stage setting. I removed about two thirds of the characters, and compressed plot development within scenes, creating – in the end – a 22 scene theater script that was our starting point. I loved the original script for its complexity, but in order to turn it into a successful dance theater production I needed to take out some of that complexity to allow room for the non-verbal communication (dance.)

My approach in staging the production was not to ask the dance to replace the theatrical scene, but to allow the dance/movement to augment the script. This video shows to scenes. In the first scene on this video we hear the main character discussing the day’s events with his wife. On the stage we see the characters being discussed, and witness their emotional/physical experience. In the second scene we see bodies stacking up behind the main character who, who we again hear speaking in the recording.

Hamiltonian Artists and Bettmann Dances co-presented the company for one night of performances on Thursday, October 29th, 2009. The company performed two sets of a new 30 minute multi-media installation performance titled ‘The Fun House’. Tickets for the 7 pm show were $5.00 Tickets for the 8pm show were $20, which included a post-performance reception with the artists.

The Fun House drew from All Good Men, Bettmann Dances’ recent dance-theater adaptation of a Dylan Thomas film-script.

The Examiner wrote about All Good Men that, “Bettmann has created a work of art that establishes his ability to mine gold out of our literary vaults and craft his discoveries into complex and beautiful pieces.”

Set to classical and contemporary music, and recorded speeches, The Fun House at Hamiltonian offered a vivid, street-level, non-narrative exploration of how we influence on another.

The Fun House was performed at the Hamiltonian Gallery, located at 1353 U St. NW, Washington, D.C., a dynamic new space in the heart of the growing Washington DC contemporary art district. The gallery focuses on innovative works by emerging and mid-career artists. In conjunction with Hamiltonian Artists, the gallery promotes new artists, aiding in their further development.

Thank you to the Sponsors of this performance:

• Flaxella: Bethesda’s Health Food Cafe and Coffee Bar

• Picasso Gallery on 17th St.

• Double R Productions

• Hamiltonian Artists

• Pabst Blue Ribbon

I picked up a Dylan Thomas film-script in a used bookstore in the fall of 2008, and was really grabbed by it. My work for All Good Men began with the development of that film script to use as the root for an evening of dance/theater. After reading everything I could by Dylan (LOC, yeah you know me) I started typing up the script. My task was to take a 150+ scene film-script and translate it into something that could work on a stage, with dance.

The Doctor and the Devils is centrally concerned with the interaction between a medical professor/doctor and a group of people who dug up bodies to sell to the doctor for use in dissection in the academy. All of the characters are very complex, and the language is wonderful. I needed to simplify the plot, cut characters, and cut scene locations to make it viable on a stage. In performance it was 23 scenes (including eighteen scenes to recorded script, and five scenes to music.) Part of the process was figuring out where the dances would occur, and why. Dance is a very in-efficient replacement for language, but for handling the ineffable, its far more efficient than words. The dances expand and personalize the issues raised by the text in a way that simple theater couldn’t. For me the core of the script is about our interaction on slippery moral slopes; how we all jostle and push each other up and down moral slopes.

To read more about All Good Men, click here.  To see another excerpt, click here.

The creation of the Kingdom was inspired by a CD of Corelli gamba sonatas that I picked up while on vacation. This dance used the first 3 (of 5) movements from the 4th Sonata. One of the lovely things about Baroque music is that one can find very expressive use of theme, development, and variation (within and between movements.)

This dance is about a place called The Kingdom. It’s where we all are when we’re with people we love. The only thing we know about The Kingdom is that it’s a temporary residence. Relationships end, and people grow old, or worse, they simply die. In this dance the characters play roles in each others stories. Compositionally, I created the piece from the dancers’ vocabulary, allowing the musical composition to influence the structure of the piece as whole.

To see another excerpt from The Kingdom, click here.

I created Voi Che Sapete for Erin Mahoney as part of the Blackbird Dance Company’s 2nd evening-length concert. Founded in 2001 with Jack Bettin, the Blackbird Dance Company (Robert Bettmann, Artistic Director) existed for just two years.

This solo was a partner to a ballet solo made the prior year for Jonathan Jordan. That solo – set to Dawn Upshaw’s recording of Purcell’s ‘I Attempt From Love’s Sickness to Fly’ – showcased the extrordinary facility of Mr. Jordan. It failed to make expressive use of his vocabulary, however, and with Voi Che Sapete I attempted to create something that worked both kinesthetically and emotively. My failure with the Purcell was in part through creating too simplistic of a representation for the dancer to fill. Both dances treat the issue of love.

I completed all but the center section of this piece before my first rehearsal with Erin. It benefits from the adaptations that we made in setting it, and also from the center section that she shaped strongly. This performance occurred at the Jack Guidone Theater in Washington, D.C. Thanks to a grant from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, and private and in-kind donations (the dancers were not paid), we were able to tour this to New York (DNA), and Boston (Dance Complex) in July 2003.

What Every Dancer Needs to Know was created in 2007 in collaboration with Jen Stimmel. We started out making a different dance, but we struggled to find our focus, and vocabulary. Due to time constraints we abandoned the original intent and adapted our work into this piece.

Making this version I was thinking about teaching. Jen and I struggled in part because we are different from one another. She has many strengths as a dancer that I don’t have. How much do I expect her to “speak my language”?

it seems that most teachers tell you what you need to know. That’s part of the role: they set the curriculum. But do we all need the same thing? Sure, you are more marketable with certain strengths. Do we all have the same best road toward those strengths? I’m not certain that I was able to actually capture what I was after, but I hope we got a little bit of it. This is only a three minute dance. There’s only so much you can really look for in three minutes.

I really enjoyed working with Jen, and am pleased with the dance we were able to create. Thank you to Joy of Motion for including me in their Choreographer’s Showcase.

This is a dance I made on my old company’s first show. This is a performance from the 2nd – and last – show. The dancer is one of my very dear friends. We have danced contact improvisation together since 1994. This was the first time we danced ‘technical dance’ together.

My brother introduced my to Joan Armatrading, and I always loved this song. I know it’s not a fantastically dynamic dance, but I really like it. Maybe cause I see Nancy in it (but also I hope cause it’s a nice dance.)

The creation of the Kingdom was inspired by a CD of Corelli gamba sonatas that I picked up while on vacation. This dance used the first 3 (of 5) movements from the 4th Sonata. One of the lovely things about Baroque music is that one can find very expressive use of theme, development, and variation (within and between movements.)

This dance is about a place called The Kingdom. It’s where we all are when we’re with people we love. The only thing we know about The Kingdom is that it’s a temporary residence. Relationships end, and people grow old, or worse, they simply die. In this dance the characters play roles in each others stories. Compositionally, I created the piece from the dancers’ vocabulary, allowing the musical composition to influence the structure of the piece as whole.

Click here to see the opening excerpt from the dance.

This is the opening excerpt from the first dance that I ever made. Searching for Buddhakaya is based on the concept of Buddhakaya as described by Thich Naht Hahn in the book “Being Peace.” The cast of this dance – made my junior year in college – included four buddhists and four people who had never danced before.

We created the vocubalary collaboratively and worked to develop performance expression by pursuing ‘full expression’ and ‘full embodiment’. In order to get people into that full place we played a lot of games in rehearsal, including freeze tag and ‘go to court’. We also wrestled each other. Our rehearsal space had mats and we would match up and wrestle. Sounds like an odd way to prepare for a dance, but this remains one of my favorite experiences as a choreographer, and one of my favorite pieces. I pieced together the score (with the help of a TIMARA major in the conservatory) from a number of sources, including a recording by Joey Baron, the Gyutto Monks Tibetan Choir, Peter Gabriel’s Passions sources sountrack, and others. The sound in the recording is pretty low – it’s an older recording.