The Equus Projects, a NYC-based dance company, featuring both horses and dancers as principal performers, was founded by modern dancer, choreographer, and former Julliard professor, JoAnna Mendl Shaw in 1998.
For 25 years, Shaw has presented over 50 dances on a project basis for dancers and horses across the US, including Colorado State this October. Performances in round pens and paddocks, in pastures and fields have been called “incredibly poignant and uplifting,” by VENÜ Magazine.
Invited in 1998 by Mt. Holyoke College, Shaw’s alma mater, to create a site-specific performance on members of the Five College Dance Department, Shaw was inspired to include the Mt. Holyoke equestrian team. The experience of working with dancers and horses together was life changing. The give and take between human and horse, creating a movement dialogue of trust, became central to the company’s choreographic explorations. Out of this came what Shaw calls “Physical Listening,” a method of sensing and adapting to partners, whether human or horse.
Initially, “Physical Listening” was developed in the dance studio. Acutely sensing another’s movement intentions, shaping space between bodies, practicing forceful and gentle touch, exerting dominance, and allowing oneself to be led, were some of the explored skills influenced by horsemanship.
To develop a better understanding of horse temperament and herd instinct, the company required more expertise. The Parelli Natural Horsemanship equine system offered training comparable to dance. Behavior patterns, personalities, the fear and survival conditions of the horse are considered. With this, “Physical Listening” became more informed.
The Equus Projects does not own horses, nor do the dancers ride. They are on the ground with the horses. For choreographic purposes, horses learn movement sequences or ‘skill sets’, much as horses do in the circus. “Horses notice everything,” observes Shaw. Rather than dance choreography that has a beginning, middle and end, this choreography is performed in a nondetermined order. Otherwise, riderless horses will skip to the end, without performing the middle, and think they are finished. Back to the barn! Within the parameters of rigorous choreography, the resultant content is shaped by the dancers in the moment, in “horse time,” flexibly adapting with imagination to the personality of the horse. Rather than commands, as in the circus, the horses respond to playful engagement.
Equestrians and their horses are often included. For them, Shaw draws maps of riding patterns that they learn before introducing the choreography to the horses.
Un/Stable Landscape, choreographed in 2011 for the Bates Dance Festival, is described in Dance Teacher Magazine, “A group of dancers, clad in long, maroon dresses and armed with garden rakes, are scattered over a gentle hill. Suddenly, two white horses appear on the hilltop. The dancers stand stock still, as if frozen in time, as a man and woman carefully lead the majestic beasts around and among the motionless dancers in a twisting pattern. At the bottom of the hill, more dancers enter a horse pen, kicking up dirt and darting in front of and around three chestnut horses, close enough to touch their muzzles and swishing tails. Soon the dancers sprint in a circle, occasionally diving and sliding in the dirt, with the horses at a fast clip behind them. It’s a game both playful and perilous. One dancer stays on the ground, rolling, spiraling and twisting in the dirt, as the 1,500-pound equines gallop ever faster toward him. At the last second, the horses halt, just inches from crushing him beneath their hooves. It’s a dangerous, exhilarating and magical spectacle.”
Shaw teaches Dancing With Horses workshops in the Catskills that feature “Physical Listening,” this month and in November at choreographer Teresa Fellion’s Middlebrook Arts Research + Residency Center. Described as an interspecies dialogue led by Shaw, and trainer and musician Dan McCarthy of Catskill Natural Horse, humans will work with each other and with the horses, Bonnie, Duchess and Scoobie. No dance or horsemanship experience required. Shaw has taught “Physical Listening,” to all kinds of groups including medical students, therapists, strategic planners, and children.
I observed the final “Physical Listening” workshop directed by Shaw last summer where participants moved with quiet intelligence and sensitivity. The performance that evening was an engaging show of choreographic scores, and The Equus Projects films. This summer, performances, open to the public, are planned at the conclusion of each workshop.
Catherine Tharin danced with the Erick Hawkins Dance Company. She teaches dance studies and technique, is an independent dance and performance curator, choreographs, writes about dance for Side of Culture, and is a reviewer and editor for The Dance Enthusiast. She also writes for The Boston Globe. Catherine lives in Pine Plains, New York and New York City.
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