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July 21, 2003
Peak
Students’ lives under the microscope Story and photos by Stephen Hui
enter the room to find Lori and her friend Melanie stretching. We’re in a dance studio — room 401 to be exact — in the portables housing the school for the contemporary arts at Simon Fraser University. Lori and Melanie are warming up because they’re going to perform some contact improvisation. “I grew up doing gymnastics,” Lori told me earlier as we strolled through the garden in the centre of the Academic Quadrangle. “I secretly want to be in the circus.” Now, the 24 year-old is studying dance and kinesiology, although her major is undeclared. Today, Lori and Melanie, a 22 year-old dance student from Burnaby, have invited me to watch them perform in preparation for a show in Courtenay the coming weekend. They warm up for 10 minutes, practising moves that could be variously described as falling, frolicking, stomping, elevating, carrying, spinning, and twisting. “I would describe it as attempting to relearn the way we use our bodies and put all of our senses through our skin — through our weight, through our bones — so that we’re continually being perceptive of what’s around us through not just our brains, but through our bodies,” Lori says of contact improv. “And in doing that you come up with creative possibilities.” Still practising, Lori puts her head
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in the small of Melanie’s back and lifts her up. Then Lori appears to roll Melanie on the hardwood floor with just her head. Simultaneously, their friend Shawn, a former Lab Rat who is now the Peak’s humour editor, furiously records their movements with willow charcoal on large slices of paper covering the floor. Looking at his work, I’m able to make out a hand and a leg within the mess of squiggly lines. “I like the idea of him being able to document the process so that there’s tangible evidence of a dance that’s happened when the dance happens and then disappears,” Lori comments. They leave the room to begin their rehearsal. Upon re-entry, Lori and Melanie diverge, then circle the canvas placed in the centre of the room. Their hands meet only to push off. Coming together again, they roll off each other. Repeatedly, one uses the other’s body parts as balance points. Their movements are organic and flowing — not at all out of step with the light drumming emanating from the room’s stereo. Five minutes later, Lori and Melanie pause, holding each other in their respective gazes, to conclude the performance. “I wasn’t impressed with that dance,” Lori declares quickly. “That’s the nature of improvisation,” Melanie chimes in. “Sometimes, like, amazing things happen and you’re like, ‘Oh, that was phenomenal!’”
They spend several minutes analysing their performance. “It feels so fluid,” Melanie remarks. “I feel like I’m going to fall, I’m gonna crash, it’s going to be this sad, like, painful, noisy thing. But then all of a sudden I’ll turn and get, like, on my back or Lori catches me and it’s, like, this fluid game.” “It’s a nice chance to interact with people on the level of giving and sharing and on developing trust between
two people, so that you can let yourself release and relax and know that somebody will catch you and know that you also have the power to help other people and to catch somebody else,” Lori elaborates. Lori has to catch a ferry to Nanaimo, so we exit the studio. As we wander out of the building, her and Melanie sing: “I’m leaving on a ferry. I don’t know when I’ll be back again. Oh, babe, I hate to go…”
Area of study: Undeclared. Home: Vancouver. Age: 24. Favourite tree: Big leaf maple (Acer macrophyllum). You can reach Lori at labrats@mail.peak.sfu.ca
What’s your favourite type of dance? “When somebody’s standing waiting for the bus and they’re, like, kind of hesitant to move, but they go sort of, like, ‘ooh,’ and they start to just wiggle — that’s the kind of dance I like to see.”