Randee Paufve is a San Francisco Bay Area choreographer and director of Paufve Dance.
Randee and I have been working together since the end of July of 2020. We have actually known each other for a while but never had the chance to work together. Today, the 4th of September of 2020, we had an open rehearsal where eight people came to the park to watch, show their support, and give us feedback.
We had six rehearsals before sharing all the phrases and movement, and what I can say is that it was definitely a new experience…
Dancing outdoors in the hot afternoon sun in a park on a baseball field and having a limited number of people due to COVID-19 was, let’s say… different. However, it was nice and comforting to be able to interact with people you haven’t seen in months or that you haven’t taken class with in the studio in a while.
This work in progress began with Randee asking me several questions which I then answered through writing. From there we began to incorporate the answers into movement and small phrases, which we then combined to make one big section and one smaller section. We use two pieces of music, both coming from Brazil. The first one is “Ainda Bem” by Marisa Monte and the second one is “A Propósito” by Simone. Randee at first was unsure if she even wanted to use any music because we were outdoors with sounds occurring around us. So maybe that would’ve been enough. But we later agreed that we wanted to work with music especially because it’s Brazilian and we wanted to share something from a place where I come from. And I felt very connected to them especially “Ainda Bem”. To me, it made the piece more meaningful and powerful.
A wonderful commentary of the open rehearsal written by Jill Randall: Audience Notes: An Afternoon Outside with Paufve Dance.
Photos: Jill Randall