Firm Footage

Jumatatu Poe's audio/visual obsession keeps his dancers on their toes.

by Bruce Walsh

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Published: Jan 12, 2011

SMILE, YOU'RE ON CANDID CAMERA: Temple grad Jumatatu Poe digitally records as much data as he can for Flatland, a piece he's spent the last two years developing.

Neal Santos

In stocking feet, Jumatatu Poe sits onstage with his BlackBerry laying just a few inches from his right hand. At least two cameras are rolling during this audience talkback for this late November preview of Flatland, at the Performance Garage in Fairmount, but Poe's phone is likely recording audio all the same. He likes to switch the recorder on at important moments — or any moment, for that matter.

A question about dialogue in the piece comes from the audience.

"Actually, I've been thinking about bringing a screenwriter into the process to help craft some of the language," he says, but then notices that the dancers sitting just behind him are trying to get his attention. He slaps himself on the head and grins: "Playwright! Of course I meant playwright," he says, shaking his phone in frustration. "I guess I can't help but think digitally."

Five minutes later the audience is divided into small groups for further discussion. Dancers — still flush from performance — prod them for thoughts on Flatland. A cameraman makes his way around the space, pointing the lens at people as they nervously attempt to interpret what they've just seen.

"This is modern dance," someone says. "I thought the whole point was that we're not supposed to get it." But these patrons have clearly never met Poe. He's a choreographer who desperately wants to be on the same wavelength as his audience. And he compulsively records as many of their reactions as he can — digitally.

At the corner of the stage, Shannon Murphy leads a group of audience members that includes former Urban Bush Women dancer Theresa Shockley and local actress Sarah Sanford. Murphy is attempting to record the conversation with her phone. It isn't quite working. She interrupts Shockley twice to restart the device. When she interrupts a third time, Sanford gently places a hand on the young woman's wrist, saying softly, "Let's just try to live in the moment for now."

Poe started dancing at Swarthmore College. Since then he's completed an M.F.A. in dance at Temple University, and has performed with just about every contemporary company in town, including Leah Stein, Kate Watson-Wallace, Zane Booker, Charles Anderson and Group Motion. At 28, Poe has certainly paid his dues. Along with Murphy and Shavon Norris, he directs idiosynCrazy Productions, a group he founded two years ago in hopes of launching a career as a choreographer.

So far, so good.

Poe has spent the last two years developing Flatland, most recently with the help of a $20,000 Pew/Dance Advance grant. Roughly speaking, the piece is a 70-minute expression of his obsession with social media and communication technology.

In Flatland we find expressive bodies constrained — sometimes literally tied down — to a two-dimensional plane. Characters arise from the frenzied movements of the group, only to dehumanize themselves, often comically so. But a series of fluid duets laces through the absurdity, reminding us of a tenderness obscured, but never truly rubbed out. The dance is a manic collage of styles — from elegant, modern floor work to improvisational dialogue and raw, guttural movements.

"There are just so many things happening at one time. There's constantly a new aesthetic rising to the surface, just as another is falling into the background," says local choreographer Makoto Hirano, who was part of a feedback panel that advised Poe during Flatland's early stages. "It's clearly an ensemble piece, being led by [Poe], and that's what links these vignettes together for me. I see his voice throughout."

"I think specialization in one technique is less important for [dancers] now. I like to try to figure out what it takes to do everything," says Poe. "And, yeah, there's something really arrogant about that. All of these styles require rigorous attention to detail. But that's what I'm after, that shift from one to the next — a total gravity shift."

That means a lot of homework for Flatland 's 11 performers. Recordings of almost every rehearsal are uploaded onto blip.tv, where dancers can meticulously review their own movements.

"I had no idea what I was getting into," says dancer Gabrielle Revlock. "The first thing we did was the opening sequence, which was pretty abstract. It was absolutely pure dance. Everything had to do with these complex counts. No one else was on my same count, so I used the video a lot to get my specific thing down."

Poe is constantly incorporating video into every aspect of the process. He often videotapes himself giving notes. He even set up a "confession camera" during rehearsals, so dancers could purge their innermost frustrations, a la MTV's The Real World.

Revlock wasn't having it: "That was not gonna happen. No way. If have something I want to say about the process, I'll say it to his face. But he kept pushing it! 'There's a confession camera over there!' I mean, what am I supposed to say?"

Hirano is the only person at the 700 Club without a drink. He looks a bit out of place amongst the rowdy happy-hour crowd, as he discusses Flatland with a detached tone, something like an HVAC repairman inspecting duct work.

But then the twentysomething choreographer leans back against the wall. He bunches up his mouth tightly as he thinks, then wonders aloud, "Right now [Poe] is collecting all of this data — like tons of it. And I'm not sure what he's doing with it. I feel like he's hoarding it — like he's got this basement full of data, and sometimes I wonder, what is it that he wants to learn from all of it?"

Five blocks away, Poe finishes a rehearsal with three Flatland dancers in a freezing-cold converted warehouse. The dancers mark through a two-minute segment repeatedly, as Poe shifts the camera around the room to capture different perspectives. Eventually he packs the camera and tripod into a duffel bag, then straps a book bag (containing yet another digital video camera) onto his back.

"Sure. I know. It's a big paradox," he says between sips of coffee at a nearby café. "I know I'm reflected in Flatland — the way I'm consumed by media. I know that. But I don't see it as I'm saying, 'This is what's wrong with the world.' I see it just like, 'These are the things that happen in our lives.'"

But why record so much of the audience? At the workshop performances, every audience member had to sign a waiver allowing Poe and company to tape them.

"I want my work to inspire conversation, so I want to know what those conversations are," he explains. "It's not like we're recording the audience to make sure they understand what we're saying. I just want to see everything that's there — the stuff that lives in our bodies and comes out onstage. I want to see that from fresh eyes, and I want to hear about it from as many perspectives as possible."

"I think making artwork can be therapeutic," says Revlock. "It's a way to keep yourself in check with issues you may be struggling with."

Then she pauses for a moment and adds, "It's one thing to identify the problem, but it's another thing to be able to fix it, right?"

(editorial@citypaper.net)

Flatland, Sat., Jan. 15, 8 p.m., $25, Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts, 3680 Walnut St., 215-898-3900, annenbergcenter.org.

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