Drawing the Surface of Dance: A Biography in Charts

Colorful mappings of choreographic ideas Soloing on the page, choreographer Annie-B Parson rethinks choreography as dance on paper. Parson draws her dances into new graphic structures calling attention to the visual facts of the materiality of each dance work she has made. These drawings serve as both maps of her pieces in the aftermath of performance, and a consideration of the elements of dance itself. Divided into three chapters, the book opens with diagrams of the objects in each of her pieces grouped into chart-structures. These charts reconsider her dances both from the perspective of the resonance of things, and for their abstract compositional properties. In chapter two, Parson delves into the choreographic mind, charting such ideas as an equality in the perception of objects and movement, and the poetics of a kinetic grammar. Charts of erasure, layering and language serve as dynamic and prismatic tools for dance making. Lastly, nodding to the history of chance operations in dance, Parson creates a generative card game of 52 compositional elements for artists of any medium to cut out and play as a method for creating new material. Within the duality of form and content, this book explores the meanings that form itself holds, and Parson's visual maps of choreographic ideas inspire new thinking around the shared elements underneath all art making.

About the Author :
ANNIE-B PARSON is a choreographer and artistic director of Big Dance Theater. Parson has also made choreography for rock shows, marching bands, symphonies, movies, museums, objects, augmented reality, and people: David Byrne, David Bowie, St. Vincent, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Wendy Whelan, Laurie Anderson, Nico Muhly, Jonathan Demme, and the Martha Graham Dance Co. SIOBHAN BURKE writes on dance for the New York Times and other publications. She teaches at Barnard College.

Review :
"I'm a long time fan of Annie-B's work. I see in it the quotidian made extraordinary... the familiar made foreign. This book doesn't tell you what that work looks and feels like--you sort of have to be there--but what it does is allow us inside a very creative person's head, which is like entering an alternative universe. The rules, the grammar, the connections are all new and surprising. Use this as an inspirational handbook."--David Byrne"Choreography--especially experimental choreography--is nearly impossible to describe before it happens or to capture once it's over. In this book, through drawings and charts and personalized text, Annie-B Parson somehow manages to do both."--David Lang "Annie-B invited me to the rehearsal of a solo piece she created for Wendy Whelan. I sat in a grey midtown studio and, at a certain part of the dance, watched one of the greatest dancers of our time move a pair of grandmotherly slippers, a few inches to the right. Something about this precise movement still lights me up. Breaks my heart. Fills me with questions and longing. Delights me in its absurdity. Of all the ways to move a body in space, through space, Annie-B creates the stage to have the most beautiful and beguiling ones be seen."--St. Vincent "What a joy it is to read this enchanting book of boundless imagination. Annie-B Parson, one of the great choreographers of our time, presents the curious reader with an intimate glimpse into a breathtaking, enigmatic world where a braid of hair, and even a stick are animated to reveal secrets about relationships, love, and the meaning of the universe. This book is much more than enthralling charts from past dance performances, but rather a gateway to the Marvelous- a realm where everything, every object, every intention, and every movement is imbued with radical, beautiful potential. I can't wait for everyone to discover this ravishing work!"--Lisa Yun Lee, Executive Director, National Public Housing Museum "After a dance is gone, what traces are left? For Annie-B Parson, her drawings, charts, and observations of motifs provide a rich afterlife. She has created hundreds of these two-dimensional forms that challenge the ephemerality of dance. They depict the most tangible part of her dances: the objects that float in and out of her enigmatic collaborations with playwright/director Paul Lazar. They are clues to Parson's fertile imagination. Gathered into Darwinian sets of sub-species, they take on an incantatory power."--Wendy Perron, author of Through the Eyes of a Dancer