Another Language Performing Arts Company

Elizabeth A. Miklavcic - Choreographic Works

What? - March 15, 1992

What? (1992)

Choreographer: Elizabeth A. Miklavcic
Music: Jimmy H. Miklavcic
Costuming: Elizabeth A. Miklavcic
Lighting: Jimmy H. Miklavcic
Dancers: Sarah Hudelson, Elizabeth A. Miklavcic
Location: Another Language Performance Studio, 345 West Pierpont Ave., Salt Lake City, Utah
Length: 8:27 minutes

Description
What? was originally choreographed by Elizabeth Miklavcic in 1984. It was a dance making a statement about communication. These two people try to communicate amongst themselves and the greater world. They are unable to be heard, and as the inability to communicate continues, the frustration results in more and more aggressive movement, until at the end of the dance they just break and stop trying.

The creative motivation behind What? stems from the choreographer’s personal experiences of being different. The dancers are responding to ordeals such as being stared at, as if the person staring is superior, as if they even have the right to be judgmental. The movement is saying, ”What Are You Looking At? Am I Bothering You? Are My Gestures Bothering You, My Clothes, My Hair, My Uniqueness, My Very Presence?"

Remember that 1984 was the height of the Punk movement and people were walking around with big, pink, purple, blue, and rainbow colored hair. They wore outlandish, attention grabbing clothing, because of that, they wanted people to look, and at the same time they thumbed their nose at people staring. Screw Judgement! Society, then as now, was trying to fit the upcoming generation into a box. Young people were fighting to resist and define themselves differently by breaking through a variety of barriers and that took the form of Punk.

The original costuming and makeup was, also, part of that time, with the crushed velour jumpsuits and bald heads. The jumpsuits remained for the 1992 performance, but was not possible to apply the skull caps. It just took too much time and both dancers were in other pieces in the concert. The solution was to heavily make-up the dancer’s faces and hair in white pancake to create the illusion of the hair, face, and neck being uniform.

Androgyny was a statement of the 1980’s as well, think David Bowie. There is a purposeful lack of gender identification to the characters in this dance. Returning to the choreographic motivation of trying to communicate, the lack of gender identifiers is an additional factor that makes communication difficult. The challenging movement combinations, the unusual gestures, and original electronic music by Jimmy Miklavcic all came together into a unique dance statement. Simultaneously alien, and, clearly of the time in which it was created.

This variation, danced by Sarah Hudelson and Elizabeth Miklavcic was staged for the 1992 Another Language In Concert performance. The concert was held on March 6-8 and 13-15 at the Another Language Studio located in downtown Salt Lake City, Utah at Artspace, 345 West Pierpont Avenue. It took a certain type of dancer to pull off this choreography and Elizabeth chose to work with Sarah, because she had the courage, skill, and physical strength to make the choreography her own.

What? A Choreographic Evolution DVD traces this dance from its inception in 1984 through its final performance in 1995. The project DVD is free to educators upon request and is also available in the Education-Interactive area of AnotherLanguage.org.