I dreamed last night that someone was asking me about the chorus being still and I was saying “Yes, of course, erfroren (frozen), they can become that as well..” but the fact is, it’s been awhile since I’ve worked with those concepts. Gestaffelt (staggered) seems to emerge as easily as not…but frozen is tough.  The work does tend to encourage a kind of lassitude of constant movement. Finding stillness is a good key.

Sometimes your dreams tell you exactly what you should be focusing on.

I made the German actors do all kinds of choral improv / imitation exercises but without the freedom of being able to unleash it over the whole piece, it was boring to them. Also, since Helma (who was mostly who they imitated) was blocked so exactly herself, they were imitating something totally fixed.

The chorus work is only truly generative if both the imitated and the imitators are free to follow their impulses.

Trying to remember those terms I had:

zusammen (together)

gestaffelt (staggered)

erfroren (frozen)

And there was one for the mini-choruses, the monsters – Paare – Gruppen – I don’t remember.