![]() It may feel anachronistic or paradoxical to what we’re working on but maybe it can be fit in. He just conveyed, I like this and I’m thinking about this. Everything I made for David since has included some version of that. ![]() One of the moves was that they stuck their arms out, hit their shoulders twice, and then hit their shoulder twice again. It was very isolated and strange dancing, and it had no organic relationship to anything that was happening. It was three Japanese dudes who break into dance material at random times. He sent me this cult Japanese movie from the ’70s. My favorite thing was the very first text he ever sent me for work, which was actually for the Eno show. He’ll go, This stuff interests me, let’s try to fit it in. He doesn’t go, Let’s try that for this song. ![]() Or he was biking in the Rockaways and saw something interesting. He was in India and he saw this traditional Indian theater and sent me photos. What is the shape of this song? What’s going to happen? Is it conceptual? David would throw me ideas, too. What’s your process for thinking up concepts for each song? ![]() It’s cool to be with someone who cares that much about the world. He’s really one of the great citizen artists of our time. He looks at everything with very precise observations, and Broadway was the same way. His process is extremely rewarding to be a part of. I feel like I’m working with this extraordinary artist who’s figuring things out in real time. Not just watching, but experiencing it, because it affects everything that I’m doing. I like watching how David constructs things. I’ve worked with him for so long that I can literally get in his body. It’s got a minimalist aesthetic but it’s somehow very warm. We both felt that everyone had to have bare feet, too, because of the dancing. They wear gray suits, everyone being untethered, and we’re in a white box with a white floor. But with this show, the ideas David first presented me with have not changed. Often when I work with directors, or when I’m directing myself, what you think at the beginning often changes. It was an amazing creation for this piece. How specific was David about the choreography he wanted? That first time hearing something is where I get most of my ideas. If you hear it so much, sometimes you can shut down to what you’re hearing. Hearing the material fresh and experiencing it for the first time is really important. He would send me songs and I would work wherever I was - hotels, my bedroom, wherever I was. That’s an example of a song where the idea came right away of what I wanted to do. I had this idea that maybe we could stop in the middle of the song. I thought the flatness of the statement coupled with the overuse of drum machines was hilarious. The first song I heard was “Dance Like This.” I thought it was so genius and witty. I was in London for work and he sent me some demos from the album in anticipation of the tour. How did that lead you to American Utopia? I choreographed two songs for that show, and then he asked me to make a few more. You know how it is! But when he did his Brian Eno tour a few years ago, he asked me and a few other choreographers to do work for him. I later properly met him through this friend, and we didn’t see each other again for ten years. We had a mutual friend who brought him to see my work in a church basement in the East Village. It was a really long time ago, I think in the ’90s. What was your first meeting with David like?
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