The Green Room: From the Horse's Mouth

I can honestly say that I had no idea what I was getting into, literally, physically, or artistically when I submitted my resume and headshot to the Ailey School for Nick Cave's HEARD NY. The Ailey School was looking for a few more dancers for a collaboration with Creative Time and MTA Arts for Transit, two companies whose work I was familiar with, and Nick Cave, an artist I had read about. An opportunity to dance in Grand Central Station sounded like a great addition to my collage of performance experiences, so I went for it.

At our first rehearsal we improvised across the room as William Gill, our jovial choreographer, decided who would be the horse heads and who would be the tails. Once in two groups, we were told to choose our partners. I approached a rosy-cheeked Ailey student, Molly Levy, to be my rear. "Sure!" she said gamely, and we spent the rest of rehearsal moving as one, Molly hinged forward at the hips, flat backed, holding my waist as I trotted us around the room. "What kind of horse are you gonna be?" asked William. He encouraged us to find a groove with our partners and to establish our identity among the herd. I imagined our horse leaping and bounding, a powerful little pony.

This was all well and good, until we put on our Soundsuits (Nick's name for the costumes) for the first time, the day before our premier. The Soundsuits were heavy, hot, and I could hardly see out of my mesh wire horse head. Molly informed me she could neither see nor hear in the rear. My plan of communicating verbally was out, as were all the impressive leaps I had imagined us doing. I could hardly walk in the thing! While I began to hyperventilate in my suit though, I noticed the other horses around me. They were stunning! They were magnificent! And for the most part, they were just standing around. The Soundsuits, when inhabited, came to life without the help of years of technical training. In the end, the most useful tools were the practice I've had with improvisation, and simply, stamina.

The following day, the crowds came. I had initially been under the impression that, like so many other site specific performances I've been a part of, passersby would do just that. But as we walked out to take our places for our first run, there were mobs waiting. My first thoughts were "are they giving away Book of Mormon tickets today? Is Obama at Grand Central?" and then I realized. They are here for US! They came back in droves for each of the fourteen shows.

As a dancer, I have noticed that people tend to back away from public performances and leave a nice safe barrier between the audience and the spectacle. Not here. The suspension of disbelief was incredible. The viewers saw us walk out into the hall as people, watched as we put on our raffia Soundsuits and connected heads to tails. And yet, once we were inside the horse, the horse is all they saw, and they wanted to touch the animals.

The little kids went totally nuts, which I expected. What I DID NOT expect was to see the faces of men and women, young and old, light up when we got into costume. To see a silver-haired woman struggle to reach her hand through the crowd to pet my horse nose, to hear grown men giggle with joy at the sight of my pony trotting towards them! The weight of the suit fell away quickly once I saw the reactions of our audience. Their energy was contagious and the character of my horse came from them. Everyday I felt I knew our horse more and more. I knew what we would do and how we would act in each situation, and Molly learned to feel out my cues so our movement was more fluid. I felt the audience needed a sweet, gentle horse, one who wandered over to them and stood there for a while. I let them pet me and pretend to feed me apples (this really happened on more than one occasion!). People were delighted when my horse stopped moving and laid down for a rest. It was the simple gestures that they seemed to love the most.

I loved being in the horse, being part of real magic taking place. Even out of the horse, Nick's team, Creative Time, MTA Arts for Transit, the whole group was so supportive and pumped for us, the performance high carried on throughout the day. Now that it's all over HEARD feels like it was just a dream. A really awesome dream, where magic exists in the most mundane circumstances and a girl gets to be a beautiful pony in a whimsical train station for a little while.