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]]>We are grateful and amazed to see ever more expressiveness and sensitivity between the human dancers, and between humans and dolphins, as well as the increasing complexity and nuance in the exchanges of improvised movement. We hope the teaser above stokes interest in seeing more of what was happening in these extraordinary moments. The contributions of our supporters will make that possible.
This year, we were fortunate to be able to continue the development of our underwater dance work with human dancers Kathleen Fisher and Jillian Rutledge, as well as with the dolphin dancers. Our summer session with the Atlantic Spotted dolphins was memorable for the relationships we continue to forge with two mothers Tipless and HalfPec and their young daughters, Eclipse and Demi (the first two dolphins in the video above). We first met Eclipse and Demi as newborns in 2015, and since then, we have seen them becoming more interested and more capable of diving and interacting with us, as we are also gaining skills to dance with them. Of course, we also love seeing long-time friends like Scratchy. He’s getting older and has less time for us, but nonetheless makes regular appearances to say ‘hello’ (buzzing the camera at night in the video above). Our fall session in the Pacific Ocean was also very satisfying, particularly for the increasing richness and expressivity that we see in the dances amongst humans in the deeper waters there.
This year was particularly memorable for the premiere of “Dolphin Dreams,” produced with generous support from many of our supporters and the New York State Council on the Arts. We were very pleased for the recognition it received, winning Silver at the Our World Underwater competition in February. In October, we visited with our collaborators/advisors Howard and Michele Hall, when “Dolphin Dreams” screened as an official selection of the San Diego Undersea Film Expo. Please stay tuned for additional screenings.
Earlier this year, we enjoyed working with our first intern. In case you missed them, you can still read her “Ask Chloe” posts, where she answered readers’ questions about dolphins on our blog.
Over the summer, we participated in an invigorating retreat on improvisation hosted by Susan Sgorbati, Elena Demyanenko and Susie Ibarra at Bennington College. In the beautiful new Center for Art and Public Action building, we gathered with an intimate group of scientists, scholars and artists.. Participants offered observations and experiences from a wide range of disciplines including not only dance, film and music, but neuroscience, physics, and philosophy. Recognizing how improvisation can be such a profound and powerful antidote to the social and environmental ills of modern civilization renewed our motivation to continue investing in our project and sharing our work as widely as possible. We thank Susan and Elena for the invitation to the conference which is still energizing our thinking and learning.
Our most recent blog post celebrates a sweet and meaningful moment with Anna Halprin, with whom we had the chance to share our work this fall. We were very touched by the response of this venerable dance-maker and teacher, who – at 97! – continues to inspire dancers, choreographers and audiences to discover and rediscover the beauty of their authentic selves, and of the natural world to which we belong.
Facing the future, we are not without trepidations. It was a near miss for our Atlantic Spotted dolphin friends with hurricanes Irma and Maria this year – and it’s likely that destructive hurricanes will become more common as the oceans warm. In the Pacific, we have seen coral reefs dying, and struggling to come back. The priorities and policies of our own government hurtle us ever faster towards environmental crisis that threatens the oceans, and the wellbeing of marine and terrestrial creatures alike. We feel how precious is our time with wild dolphins and this opportunity to increase understanding about who they are. We hope it contributes to the shift in priorities on which their future and ours depends.
We welcome your support of our mission. Your donations will help us produce our next film and reach new audiences with the extraordinary images you see in the highlights from this past year.
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Many consider Anna Halprin (b. 1920) the pioneer of post-modern (downtown or contemporary) dance – the lineage of (terrestrial) dance with which we identify most. Since the 1930s, Anna has been making experimental dances that nurture collaboration through improvisation, encourage peace-making by bringing people of different races and ages together, and strengthen our connections to the natural world by dancing with and among trees, rocks, sand and ocean. Her teaching was profoundly influential for dance innovators of the 1970s and 1980s (such as Trisha Brown, Simone Forti and Yvonne Rainer), and through them, for the dancing and dance making we do today. To this day, Anna continues to teach classes and workshops that allow dancers to discover the value of their authentic, personal and ‘natural’ capabilities through exercises that cultivate kinesthetic awareness and inter-relatedness.
We recently had the opportunity to experience Anna’s class for ourselves. Over two hours we walked, skipped and danced, connecting with lively classmates of all ages. We stretched luxuriously and sensed our moving bodies deeply. We made drawings of our experiences and shared them with each other through words and movement. Throughout, Anna gave clear and simple prompts, directing and responding to the energy of the group with great compassion and generosity. Her attentiveness supported our curiosity in our personal and group explorations. I felt a true sense of integration, having experienced just one class. No wonder the group included students who had been dancing with Anna for over 40 years!
The opportunity to share our work with Anna came at the end of the class, when she invited new students to introduce ourselves to her. Before seeing our films, she wanted to know: Were we ever afraid of the dolphins? How long did we hold our breath? After a minute of watching, nodding her head she said, “They’re really dancing with you!”.
Thank you, Anna. We receive your words like a blessing.
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]]>This post introduces Dolphin Dance Project’s Ask Chloe campaign. Below is my original invitation for our audience to submit questions about dolphins. We received all kinds of questions about dolphins, and then I did the research to find some answers. In the process I learned an enormous and diverse amount of information about dolphin behavior. I also learned a bit about humans and how we think about other beings in our interconnected world. All the questions I received were beautiful for their curiosity and made me enjoy the process of imagining what life is like for another species. Below are the posts answering the questions I received.
Deciphering Dolphin Dialects
In this post, I cover three questions regarding dolphin communication that were submitted to our Ask Chloe blog series.
Shark!
In this second post of our Ask Chloe series, I talk about some interspecies relationships dolphins have with sharks and humans.
Deep Bonds
This third post in the Ask Chloe series gives us an overview of dolphin sexuality and the social dynamics of pod relationships.
Dolphins in Danger
This post in our Ask Chloe series takes a look at a more depressing reality of dolphin life--captivity and death caused by us humans.
Dolphins in the Anthropocene
This final installment of our Ask Chloe series considers perhaps the most pressing question for dolphins and the rest of us: how will we fare in the face of global warming?
More About Me:
I’m Chloe, a twenty-one year old studying dance at Bennington College, a beginning freediver, and most recently an intern for Dolphin Dance Project. Last year I began my freediving journey in the South Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific oceans. This winter, I decided to spend some time learning about how Dolphin Dance Project merges the skills of dance and freediving with an added bonus–wild dolphins!
My first order of business when I showed up for work with Chisa and Ben was to get introduced to a stack of books covering research about dolphins. I’ve already learned so much (dolphins are crazy)! And one goal for the next month is to expand my knowledge of dolphins, the important role they play in our oceans, and the threats they face.
If you’re interested in helping me with this process, I invite you to send any and all dolphin-related questions using the form below, and I will do my best to research and find answers for as many questions as I can. Keep an eye out for future blog posts from me as I respond to your submissions!
I like questions from children and from adults. Whether your question is silly or serious, about dolphin biology or cognition, or their ecology and our relationship to them – I encourage you to challenge me. Ask me for the facts about dolphins, but also don’t be afraid to ask more theoretical questions! Like, why should I care about dolphins in my everyday life as I ride the subway? What does the food I buy, prepare, and eat have to do with the health of dolphins? What is the biggest threat I pose to dolphins and why does it matter?
I’m eager to work through these tough questions and research current opinions in marine conservation. But more strictly fact-based questions are fun too (ask me how many decibels dolphins can reach with the clicking noises they make)!
I’m curious to hear your thoughts.
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]]>Multiple views splash across many screens simultaneously, giving a sense of the disorientation of being underwater. Human and dolphin dancers dive and swirl with such synchrony and harmony, it becomes difficult to tell them apart. In the final portraits of the dolphins’ faces, it is hard not to see as much individuality, emotion and personality as in a human face. As they disappear one by one, the answer to the question “Will you miss me when I’m gone?” is clear.
Fortunately, the dolphins with whom we work are not in danger of extinction, although they are threatened directly and indirectly by human activities. Many other species, including the Hector and Vaquita dolphins, are close to extinction. Their ocean homes are at risk, getting warmer and more acidic, filling up with plastic and other pollutants, becoming depleted of fish and other marine life – this is a threat to all species on the planet, including our own.
The new year traditionally begins with the ball dropping in Times Square. This year, we can imagine charismatic dolphin faces appearing across the bright-as-day billboards. How might that change our resolutions? The more we cherish our deep and timeless connection to the ocean and to the other creatures with whom we share the planet, the more committed we will be to discovering and doing whatever is required to make sure that their faces do not disappear.
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]]>Radiohead’s #RHVignette competition inspired us to work with a beautifully textured score, to reach new viewers, and to experiment in a more graphically creative way with the connections between dancing in the studio and underwater.
The competition offers a chance to be promoted by Radiohead on their website, and perhaps to make a video for a future song. If you like our submission, please share it with friends on Facebook or Twitter.
Below is the alternative, widescreen version:
The film features Kathleen Fisher and Chisa Hidaka, with cinematography by Benjamin Harley. Produced and Directed by Chisa and Ben, it is set to an instrumental version of ‘Daydeaming’, from Radiohead’s new album ‘A Moon Shaped Pool’. The film is dedicated to one of our most generous supporters, who is full of so much love she can embrace both Radiohead and Dolphin Dance Project with room to spare. Special thanks to Jillian Rutledge, Yuki Kusachi, and Kayoko Sawamura for their tremendous contribution to the development of this work.
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]]>“Angle of Refraction” was an experiment to see if we could produce a live event that offers an immersive experience, just as we do for our film audiences. Our intent was also to share with the local community the work we do (without dolphins) to train and prepare for our on-camera improvisations with wild dolphins. It was a kind of ‘thank you’ to the humans who are always so welcoming to us, and who are so attentive to making this location a safe place for the dolphins.
An audience of snorkelers watched “Angle of Refraction” from the surface. For 20 minutes, the dancers (Kathleen Fisher, Chisa Hidaka, Yuki Kusachi, Jillian Rutledge and Kayoko Sawamura) repeatedly dove down 30 feet or more, spiraling, arcing and dancing our way up the water column in duets, trios and finally a quintet.
And there was also a dolphin audience that gathered as the performance progressed, repeatedly passing by as if to check out what was going on. Their unexpected appearance was a delightful surprise. I wonder what they thought of the event?
Johanna, who was in the (human) audience for “Angle of Refraction” observes in the video that dancers were ‘blending in with Nature’ and that through them she was able to feel ‘so connected’. That’s exactly what we hope for our audiences. Instead of showing humans standing uniquely separate (and above) all other creatures, we embrace the possibility of being an integral part of our ecosystem as we dance in the ocean’s depths. The angle of refraction refers to the shift in perspective that Johanna experienced and that we wish to convey to all of our audiences.
In 2014, we returned our focus to developing our dance on film.
In our recent films, the camera actively participates in the movement, so the audience also feels the sensuous, fluid motion of an underwater dance. In this example there is an attentiveness to the camera work, just like the ‘physical listening’ the dancers use to discover the spirals and arcs we do to compliment those of our dance partners. This is how we use the ‘magic’ of film to bring the experience of dancing in the ocean, of relaxing the separation between what is human and what is ‘natural’, to distant audiences.
Isadora Duncan said, “You were once wild here. Don’t let them tame you.” And the call to be more ‘wild’ or more ‘natural’ has remained a strong thread in the works of modern and contemporary choreographers in America to this day. We feel privileged to extend this lineage into the ocean, dancing in the deep.
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See “Amongst”
at American Dance Festival, Movies by Movers
Friday, July 8 at 7 pm, The Shed Jazz Club, Durham, NC
and
at the Triskelion Arts Dance Film Feastival
Thursday, July 14, at 7 pm, Triskelion Arts, Brooklyn, NY
“Amongst” draws the audience ever deeper into the world of wild dolphins and features extreme performances of grace in the deep waters of the open ocean by talented dolphin dancers Yuki Kusachi and Kayoko Sawamura. Set to Po-Chun Wang’s mashup of gamelan and spoken word (excerpted from “Rice Combo“), “Amongst” delivers an immersive experience of a radically different environment and culture. Watching in 3D and surrounded by wild dolphins chattering, squawking, swirling and dancing in ways familiar and unfamiliar, you will discover the glorious disorientation of losing yourself in the dolphins’ world.
This short 3D film premiered as part of our program, “So Close 3D: Dance with Wild Dolphins” in December 2014 in NYC, and was awarded “Best Live Action Film in 3D Theater Session” at the Stereoscopic Displays and Applications XXVII conference in San Francisco in February, 2016. “Amongst” has also screened at the Topanga Film Festival, LA 3D Movie Fest, Dance Films Association Annual Holiday Party, BCN Sports Film Festival, and the New York Japan Cinefest.
The Dolphin Dance Project is looking for partners to help us bring “Amongst” and the entire “So Close 3D: Dance with Wild Dolphins” program of live dance, 2D and 3D films to communities around the United States and beyond. Please let us know if you are interested, so we can bring you “as close as being there”.
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]]>Recently, we submitted a brief documentary profile of our work to the Focus Forward film competition, a Vimeo-sponsored initiative to promote the people and ideas that promise a “quantum leap to human progress through innovation”.
“All of a sudden, you realize there are these persons in the ocean.” Founder and choreographer Chisa Hidaka describes how amazing it is that wild dolphins are able to collaborate in these improvised dances, conversing with us through movement and showing us their tremendous intellectual capacities, curiosity, and generosity. She also explains that just by watching, the audience is able to experience a profound moment of intimacy and mutual understanding with another species. As one student relates, after attending one of our lecture presentations, “our traditional perceptions of the dolphin-human divide are just completely … gone.”
Although the film was not selected as a finalist, and will not be one of the films that is being screened this week at the Sundance Film Festival, we are confident that this work is “making a difference to help sow the seeds for a brighter tomorrow.”
The documentary uses excerpts from our upcoming short film, “Dolphin Dreams”. To learn more about the project, our past and future films, please visit http://dolphin-dance.org.
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]]>Jalapeño and her mom, Notcho, are part of a group of Atlantic Spotted dolphins who have been instrumental to the development of my choreographic approach. Although this pod lives far from shore, they initiated a relationship with a few scientists and naturalists more than 30 years ago; and humans and dolphins continue to deepen this relationship today. I have returned for yearly rehearsals with these dolphins, who first inspired the initiation of the Dolphin Dance Project. As you see in the video, both humans and dolphins continue to learn about how we can dance together.
The triple loop you see in the video is new for Jalapeño this year … it is also rather new for me. You haven’t seen such sustained interactions before partly because of the breath hold training that was required for me to achieve them. Jalapeño, on the other hand, has had to develop the coordination for and interest in sustaining an interaction with a human. Doing three loops together is an example of how, through years of observing each other and working together, we are developing a movement ‘‘language” that humans and dolphins can share to express our mutual interest in playing and making dance together.
Doing multiple loops with humans is clearly not a stereotyped reaction; not all dolphins engage us in this way, even when we are dancing and playing together. Jalapeño had to learn how to do this … most likely from following along with her mother the previous year. This is consistent with the scientific research of Richard Connor and others that have reported on wild dolphins learning specialized behaviors from their mothers. I wonder what new skills Jalapeño will have learned next year?
Jalapeño’s mother, Notcho, was a youngster, about 4 years old – and with just a few spots – when she first met humans in the 1970s. Decades later, and now a mature mother with many, many spots, she brings her daughter to meet her human friends. It was a great privilege to be introduced to Jalapeño last year… incredibly heartwarming to see her growing up this year … and a joy to imagine how things may progress in the future.
Among the first humans Notcho met was Hardy Jones. A journalist and film-maker so dedicated to cetaceans he is known as ‘the Dolphin Defender’. We are very fortunate to have Hardy as a new advisor to our project. You can read more about Hardy’s discovery of Notcho’s pod – and much more about protecting dolphins – in his new book, “The Voice of the Dolphins”. (We recommend it.)
We endorse the work of Hardy Jones’ BlueVoice and other organizations that endeavor to protect dolphins and whales. Families like Notcho and Jalapeno’s are ripped apart when dolphins are hunted, killed as bycatch in fishing gear, or captured for aquariums. We hope that the attention our films bring to these amazing creatures inspires respect and protection for all wild dolphins and their habitats. To learn more about the threats that dolphins face and how to mitigate them, please visit our Protecting Dolphins page.
Thank you for your support of the Dolphin Dance Project.
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