Physics and graffiti have a way of inspiring people, especially when it comes to motion, art and choreographers.
Marianna Varviani, the artistic director of the dance company Selcouth, has created a dance theater performance exploring the intersection of street art with Newton’s third law of motion and how people’s actions leave their mark on the world.
“I was walking around LA and listening to a podcast about Newton’s laws of motion and how in physics, different particles are in relationship and connection to each other and how each movement that is created is a reaction to something else,” Varviani said.
“Humans are so interconnected, and our every action has an effect on someone else in a personal level, in a community level and in the national level. I thought that was a really interesting thing to explore, this power of possibility with each action.”
Her walks also brought her into contact with the physical beauty of Los Angeles from its natural wonder to the big concrete buildings and to the street art which she admires.
She was struck by some of the tags (i.e., the artist’s signature or logo) found throughout the cityscape. She explained that she had read somewhere that often when an artist tags a spot, it is because they want to share with the world that they were there, that they exist.
“In some shape or form, they leave a mark in the world and that’s how their existence is kind of underlined,” Varviani said.
“So, I came up with the idea about ‘Mark’ as a piece that looks into all the marks — meaning all the beliefs, the memories, the experiences, the knowledge — that we all carry within our bodies. Then I was thinking about our actions as instigators of different marks and what kind of marks we leave to each other and what kind of marks we want to leave behind in the world.”
That was the beginning of the project that is being performed Friday, Jan. 19, and Saturday, Jan. 20, at Highways, 1651 18th Street, Santa Monica.
Called “Mark,” it is a dance theater performance executed by Selcouth with original music by Yvonne Yifeng Yuan and a set design by Berfin Ataman. Varviani choreographed and co-created it with Tyler Law, Maya Peterson and Kai Toles.
Law and Peterson are the primary dancers in the piece, joined by Anna Simonova, Ariana Chavez, McKenzie Barkdull and Sophia Fan Lin.
Inherent in the art forms of dance and street art are their impermanence and how they exist for a moment before disappearing but in that time can change people and their perspectives on the world.
“Dance has a sense of ephemerality, so does street art, so do many performing arts,” Varviani said. “People experience them and then they leave whatever space with the memory of them and what it has done to them. These experiences in these moments can really shift something in people.”
The mark explored in the performance is less about a tangible mark, she explained, than the internal shift or way of interpreting the world.
“At the same time, it has the magic as a live performing art,” Varviani added. “It has the magic of creation, a communal experience because you’re in the theater with many other people experiencing something together.”
While Varviani said her method of choreographing always involves a great deal of collaboration with her dancers, that was especially important in a work about connections and how everyone’s actions affect others. The goal is to tell a story about individual and collective power, the limitations that people put on themselves and the solutions that they can find together.
The theme, she explained, is that our choices leave marks, setting whole series of actions into motion.
“The process is very collaborative,” Varviani said. “We use our imagination, we use our collective experiences, we build up our network, a world of information and inspiration that we create from.”
With “Mark” and her other works, Varviani said she tries to create a safe and accepting space for her collaborators to be who they are and express what they feel and can imagine. Together, she said, they worked on figuring out what each action — or in their case, movement — meant and what the results of it were.
“What kind of effect could it have, in both the body, the energy, the space and figuring out the different possibilities between two individuals or two groups and how the groups or the bodies can be affected by a slight change, whether it is a rhythm or a touch or a specific gesture,” Varviani said.
“By analyzing group and individual dynamics and thinking about the rehearsal process as a microcosm of the world, we have made different connections with what we see around us which is very interesting.”
It led them to incorporate LA culture and street dance vocabulary into the work. Varviani cited krumping and its predecessor, clowning, as dance forms created in Los Angeles that incorporate highly energetic and expressive movement. They are forms she practices and wove into this production.
“It is a wonderful way of expressing oneself,” Varviani said. “I get inspired by the practitioners and the sessions that I go to and the people because it plays with this raw energy. It’s very personal, connected energy that manifests in the body.”
Mariana Varviani, artistic director of the dance company Selcouth, explores the intersection of street art and Newton’s third law of motion.
The dancers in the show are not clown dancers, she said, but they have been in dialog with the form. Part of the rehearsal and creation process has been exploring how the form changes their bodies and their perceptions. Members of the cast are experienced in hip hop dancing, including popping and voguing. Each person’s history and journey through dance became a part of the show as they incorporated the styles that they were comfortable with and contributed their stories to the piece.
“Art could be going against a system or it could be in dialogue with a system,” Varviani said. “It was very important to incorporate different vocabulary.”
The creation process began with Varviani discussing with her collaborators what their influences were — their personal experiences, stories and any related information. From those conversations, Varviani gave them what she called creative tasks.
“Instead of me showing them how to move, I try to inspire them to create from their perspective and with whatever material they find,” Varviani said. “I start weaving each movement to the next and creating choreography by connecting all this information. It’s kind of magical because each person starts by giving different ideas and elements and as we continue the process together, everything starts to fit in, it kind of clicks. It’s like a puzzle.”
The same process was repeated with her musical collaborator, Yuan, the composer. They started with a conversation around the concept and then they drew upon the different musical or sound references that they had and started to experiment. Varviani provided Yuan with videos from rehearsals and then she came back with sounds that were tried out in the next rehearsal.
For “Mark,” the score incorporates city sounds and an eclectic mix of instruments. The beat and the rhythm were important in this piece, Varviani said, so there are sounds that create space and which have different densities and emotions.
“We’ve worked very closely together because in storytelling terms, the music and movement are so close together,” Varviani said.
Selcouth, which Varviani founded in 2016, creates projects that revolve around understanding, appreciation, respect and liberation, according to their mission statement. They want to bridge concert, street, commercial and academic cultures to connect with audiences of all backgrounds and ages.
“Mark” is the next project on their journey toward that mission, a mission that has the discovery of joy as an end goal. Varviani is eager for new people to experience this creation and to take the journey with them in exploring our interconnectedness.
“It’s an interesting piece that combines everyday gestures with dance,” Varviani said. “It’s quite dynamic, so hopefully the audience is going to feel excited. For those that haven’t been going to the theaters for dance performances much, it’s definitely a new experience because the movement vocabulary is unique.”