REBECCA PAPPAS, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF DANCE

JUNIOR FACULTY CREATIVE ARTS ASPIRE APPLICATION

SPRING 2016

1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
I am seeking support for Windmill, a 30-minute modern dance constituted of hundreds of
crossings. The dancers in the piece move constantly forward towards the audience, and then
windmill around to the back of the stage to repeat their path. Its objective is to create a dance that
is both visually stunning, and that examines forward motion as a metaphor for history and
progress. My goal in creating Windmill is to expose audiences in the Midwest to the ways dance
can generate historical and intellectual ideas as well as serve as a form of entertainment. I see a
lack of this kind of serious dance work in the area and in this regard Windmills contribution is
significant. Windmill is the first new dance piece I have created since moving to the Midwest and it
represents artistic growth by bringing together interests I have in form, modes of public
performance, and dance as a means of examining the past. It will impact my career by allowing me
to grow my profile in this region sharing the piece in Muncie, Indianapolis, Chicago, and Detroit,
and other proximal towns. Windmill is a part of Parade2017, my ongoing creative inquiry into the
structure and meaning of parades.
2. DESCRIPTION OF PROJECT
I.

Nature, Scope and Design

Windmill is a dance project for the stage that uses constant forward motion as a metaphor for
progress. It is made up of hundreds of separate crossings from upstage to down, as dancers
windmill back on themselves and return over and over again. Drawing from the idea of parades as
a container for community identity, dancers in the work will slowly transform, becoming new people
each time they are glimpsed by the audience. The piece will last approximately 30 minutes and will
unspool to combine formalism - the hundreds of forward crossings - with an examination of
progress and the modern.
Windmill is an inquiry into parades themselves, and the way they serve as containers for
community meaning and identity. It is also an exchange with Parade(1917) a seminal dance

REBECCA PAPPAS, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF DANCE

JUNIOR FACULTY CREATIVE ARTS ASPIRE APPLICATION
SPRING 2016

created by the Ballet Russes. Parade(1917) was a collaboration between choreographer Leonide
Messine, composer Eric Satie, and visual artist Pablo Picasso set at a carnival and is about the
vulgarity of Americans. It is known for its elaborate costume designs, which obscured the bodies
beneath them, and the sound score, which, incorporated pedestrian sounds of progress such as
a typewriter. A hundred years later, I am eager to revisit this piece as its creation marked a seminal
moment in the birth of modernism. In creating Windmill I am inspired by aspects of this work
including its sound score and costumes.
II.

History of Idea

Windmill is one part of Parade2017, a larger investigation I am conducting into the nature and
function of parades as community event and public performance. This research began this summer
during my residency with Indy Convergence, an organization that serves as an incubator for artistic
projects. Here I made a short dance film in the Foundation Square neighborhood of Indianapolis
and began to sketch with composers and performers elements of Windmill. Later in the summer I
designed a series of processions for Spark: Monument Circle, a large-scale public art residency in
downtown Indianapolis. This high-profile residency was led by community arts organization, Big
Car, with support from the Andy Warhol Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. For
Spark I created A Noise Parade, A Five Senses Parade, A Shared Labor Parade, and A Soldiers
and Sailors Parade. Each of these interventions was both participatory and publicly engaged.
Through them I sought to understand aspects of parades, human motion, public space, and
memorials. While some, like Five Senses, were focused on designing unison spectacles, others,
like Soldiers and Sailors explored how memorial and history are marked in public space. During my
creative inquiry thus far I have observed that parades have a porous boundary between
participants and observers, they are absurd, and ephemeral. I take these insights into Windmill, a
version of the project designed to turn these insights into choreography for the stage.
III.

Plans for Dissemination

REBECCA PAPPAS, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF DANCE

JUNIOR FACULTY CREATIVE ARTS ASPIRE APPLICATION
SPRING 2016

I will use this piece as a springboard to grow relationships with performers, designers, and
presenters in the Midwest. In 2016-2017 the piece will be presented at venues in Muncie,
Indianapolis, Chicago, and Detroit.
3. GOALS, OBJECTIVES, AND SIGNIFICANCE
I.

Anticipated impact in the field

Windmill is significant because it draws a connection between community performance and

work for the stage, a connection that is unusual in the field of dance. While many choreographers
create site-specific and community engaged dance pieces, they are often left outside the theater
space and, sometimes, considered lesser than art made for the stage. Conversely choreography
for the stage may exist in a hermetic world, without acknowledging the manner in which the public
experiences performance. By using parades as the inspiration for Windmill, a joyous and nearly
universal experience, the piece will provide a bridge between public and professional performance.
It will use contemporary dance as a way to speak to a larger human experience of cultural and
historical progress.
The piece is also relevant because it contributes to the ongoing conversation modern dance
is having with its own past. As the field passes one hundred, many choreographers are making
works that explore issues of legacy and history. Windmill contributes in a unique way, using a
seminal dance piece from the birth of modernism as a means to explore the notion of progress. In
addition, Windmill, will contribute to the still very small independent dance community in
Indianapolis. There is a need for more work in the city that demonstrates how dance can generate
historical and intellectual ideas as well as serve as a form of entertainment.
II.

Anticipated scholarly outputs

The scholarly output from this grant will be Windmill a thirty-minute work for the stage. Funding
from the Aspire Grant Program will be used to support the dancers fees, design fees including

REBECCA PAPPAS, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF DANCE

JUNIOR FACULTY CREATIVE ARTS ASPIRE APPLICATION
SPRING 2016
lighting, costume, and set designers, rental of rehearsal space, travel costs associated with
performances, and a summer stipend as I develop the project.
III.

Impact on own creative agenda

Windmill furthers my ongoing interest in how bodies carry personal and social histories within
them. It makes the dancers conduits of community memory, allowing them to become many
people at many times over a succession of crossings. This furthers my research from previous
works including Monster (2009), which examined the corporeal legacy of the Holocaust and a
dance concerning itself with history and memory, a joyful ritual for forgetting.
4. EXTERNAL FUNDING PLANS
In spring of 2017 I will meet the one-year residency requirement necessary to apply to the
Individual Artists Program of the Indiana Arts Commission to support this work. As a
choreographer with a solid footing making dances in Indiana, and not just Los Angeles, I am more
likely to obtain this funding. I will apply to the National Performance Network (NPN) and National
Dance Project (NDP), which both provide touring support for previously created experimental
dance pieces.
5. TIMELINE
TIME

BENCHMARK

April 2016

Auditions in Indianapolis

May-July 2016

Weekly rehearsals of work in Indianapolis

May-August 2016

Build touring opportunities/presenter relationships

October 2016

Application for National Dance Project Touring Grant

November 2016

In-progress showing of work on campus

October-Dec 2016

Rehearsals of work in Indianapolis

Reach out to venues arrange shows

January 2017

Application for National Performance Network Grant

REBECCA PAPPAS, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF DANCE

JUNIOR FACULTY CREATIVE ARTS ASPIRE APPLICATION
SPRING 2016
March 2017

Indiana Arts Commission - Individual Artist Grants

February-April 2017

Performances of Windmill in Chicago at Links Hall, Detroit at

DIA, Indianapolis at IMA

6. MEANS OF DISSEMINATION
I will create this project with performers and artists in the Midwest and plan to present the
piece at Ball State in 2016, in Indianapolis, Chicago, and Detroit in 2017. Because of its links to
work by Picasso Windmill is appropriate for presentation by museums as these institutions often tie
their performance programming into visual artwork. I have been invited to participate in a show at
Links Hall in Chicago in 2017 and have also begun to cultivate relationships with presenters in
Indianapolis and Detroit including the Indianapolis Museum of Art and the Detroit Institute of the
Arts. I will present Windmill in these cities in Spring of 2017.