[published in OnStage Blog on May 2nd, 2017]
At
the rehearsal of Grand Rounds at La
Mama, Tamar Rogoff, the creator of this experimental dance piece, is wearing a
black blouse resembling scrubs. It seems appropriate in the context of the
show, which takes place in the 50s and tells a story of a 10-year-old, who is
fascinated with novels about the nurse Cherry Ames. Played by the young actress,
Cadence Rotarius, the heroine spies on
her family at night, witnessing violence, tenderness and frustration.
photo by Asya Danilova
Tamar
Rogoff casted an ensemble of performers with different professional and
physical backgrounds: the grandmother (Cynthia
Gilbertson) is a fragile 70-yer-old with Parkinson’s, the grandfather (Glen
Heroy) is a 250-pound clown, the
brother (Morgan Sullivan) is a transgender actor, the mother (Emily Pope) and
the father (Jake Szczypek) are professional dancers.
La Mama’s Ellen Stewart Theatre is divided into two
spaces: “home” and “hospital”. For
the first act of the show, the audience sits around three beds and gets to
watch the family members up close. The child’s kind and curious gaze dictates
the mood of the melancholic yet humorous Grand Rounds. As death joins the family portrait and the hospital
staff fills it out, we are happy that the 10-year-old is our guide. Through the
prism of her imagination and affection for her family, even the most difficult
topics look bearable.
A
grandmother of four, Rogoff has spunk and an insatiable curiosity like young
protagonist of Grand Rounds. Three
decades of choreographing for both professional ensembles and people who never performed,
helped in developing a unique approach to the dance, backed up with Rogoff’s
interest in medicine. I sat down with Tamar to talk about her newest
production, Grand Rounds.
Tamar Rogoff (in the middle) photo by Asya Danilova
- Where
did the inspiration for the Grand Rounds come from?
- There
was an image of a ten-year-old girl with a doctor’s bag, and that is definitely
autobiographical. My father was a doctor and he used to take me with him when
he went on rounds and I would carry his doctor’s bag. I would feel very special
in the hospital. I was entering kind of a fantasy world.
At
that time I was reading these girl stories about Cherry Ames, who was a nurse.
My father used to introduce me to the nurses in the hospital and say: “Oh, I’d
like you to meet Cherry Ames”, he would make a big joke about this.
So
this was one part. And then, I worked on a documentary Enter The Faun, about a man with cerebral paulsy.
I was invited to Washington to show the film and met a group of palliative care
doctors, those are doctors who take care of people who are dying. And I
couldn’t quite understand how these scientific geniuses were interested in
dying people.
In Grand Rounds there is a hospital in the
back and the family home in the front. There is a death in this piece. And one
understands what a death would feel like in the hospital setting and what the death
would feel like if someone were at home. It kind of asks the question of what’s
a good way to die. Which, in our culture, is very unexamined; it’s kind of just
a taboo subject. It’s almost like people don’t expect to die when it’s the one
thing we know for sure, that we all gonna do.
There
is just a lack of understanding, preparedness. People often die in the
hospitals and they are very drugged and they are alone. And it doesn’t need to
be that way. Sometimes it does but sometimes people could be at home. So taking
death out the realm of medicine and bringing it in, when you can, and let it be
an event of the family.
photo by Asya Danilova
- You seem to be
fascinated with doctors since you include them in a lot of your work.
- There
is a layer of reality in my work. Peter
Selwyn, playing the doctor, is a real doctor. I like the idea that a
doctor would step out of his role of authority and be at a place where he is
doing something he doesn’t know. I cast a doctor and then I cast a woman who
recently was a patient in a very serious kind of way. And a caregiver who is
her actual daughter is playing a nurse.
I
chose to do a piece about nurses though, not doctors; the girl wants to be a
nurse. In a way I feel that nursing is a kind of unappreciated profession. Nurses
know so much more than they are credited for. A nurse knows the person who is
sick and a doctor knows the illness. So I wanted to work with a person who
knows another person.
I
was always drawn to medicine from my early days. Even the way I choreograph is
scientific. The initiation of movements always comes out of an anatomical
source. Sometimes it’s a place in the body and sometimes it’s a space in the
body, and sometimes it’s even an unknown place, like the back of the neck, the
clavicles.
- What was your approach to casting?
- I
audition and I almost always end up picking the person who requires the most
work. But somehow it attracts me because I want to do the work that would bring
somebody to the stage. And this body scripting that I do with the anatomy. If I
give it at the audition, I can see who seriously will consider that kind of
almost scientific approach.
What
is less interesting to me now, 15 dancers who are in their 30s and in perfect
shape. When you say: “Raise your leg”, everybody raises it exactly the same.
How is that interesting? If I say: “Raise your leg” in my group, I get 12
different ways of lifting your leg, that’s more interesting to me.
I
was choreographing in Russia and asked: “Why they don’t write dancers’ bios in
the program?” And they were like: “Well, there is three lines: I joined the
academy when I was 8 and here I am.” With that said, it is totally beautiful,
Russian Ballet but it’s just not what I am interested in. I am interested in
the context of choreography, not choreography for itself. I am interested in
juxtaposition.
I
love working with dancers. I love the skill. I like them to be in the piece.
But I don’t like it to be just them. There is a lot of vulnerability in my
piece. You can feel it. I like the vulnerability, and polished dancers, they
hide that. You don’t see the vulnerability - you see expertise.
I am
rehearsing everybody very hard, it’s not like there is anything sloppy at all.
It’s very specific, very clear. I am trying for something; it’s not that it’s
an amateurish thing. I like to see people who are brought to a very high level
of awareness from where we start to where we see them. And we see them using
that awareness.
When
I choreograph for somebody I do want to fall in love with them because it is
such an intimate thing for me. And there is an enormous respect for bodies that
I have. I just think that the body can heal and I am always learning from it.
That kind of fuels me. I do choreograph out of love. That is it.
_________
“Grand Rounds” lighting design is by Joe Levasseur, sound design by
Steven Brush, dramaturgy by Janice Paran, and the set and costume design by
Joanne Howard. The cast includes Cynthia Gilbertson, Glen Heroy, Nitzan Mager,
Emily Pope, Cadence Rotarius, Peter Selwyn, Aurelia Suchilt, Berenice Suchilt,
Morgan Sullivan, and Jake Szczypek.
“Grand Rounds” runs through May 14th at Ellen Stewart
Theatre | 66 E 4th Street; 2nd Floor. Performances are Wednesday to Saturday at
7PM; Sunday at 4PM.
$25
Adult Tickets; $20 Students/Seniors; Limited $10 Tickets.
70
Minutes
For tickets and more information visit:
lamama.org/grand_rounds
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