Values:

My story is defined by four personal values/eras of my life and are broken down into four sections defined by his music. The first is finding my voice and authenticity, the second is struggling to find support from the community, the third is struggling with personal relationships, and the last is preserving through it all and emerging as myself. Many of Michael Jackson’s songs represent these ideas, so I do feel it is necessary to have the work centered around his music. Here’s a grouping list of songs based on values.

Voice and Authenticity: Thriller, Smooth Criminal, Beat It, Off the Wall and Billie Jean

Lack of Support/Community: Bad, They Don’t Really Care About Us, Leave Me Alone, Scream, Unbreakable

Relationships: Dirty Diana, Dangerous, You Rock My World, In the Closet, Remember the Time

Perseverance: Man In the Mirror, Love Never Felt So Good, This Is It

The Metaphysical in Choreography

The choreography will contain this MJ-esque quality, influenced by the partnership of Motown and street dance, as a blanket influence of the work and relevant in the fusion sections and the style specific sections. The fusion sections will combine primarily contemporary moves with influence of other styles. The sections that are style specific will have been notably rooted in that style with a somewhat contemporary influence on them. This creates this contemporary/MJ-esque framework and relationship in the choreography.

The plot is summarized as virtually MJ is existing in his own world, I come into it and become influenced wanting to imitate him, but he guides me to find my voice, one that still has his influences. The idea of him is the orchestrator in the dance, but I am the orchestrator in the choreography. I am changing the style of his works, adding my own non-MJ choreographic approaches and elements, relating personal narratives to ideas of his songs, and telling all of this while having costumes and music that feel like MJ. It poses this almost insane idea of who really is MJ, who really is Kyler Durrence, and are they synonymous? The audience might not get or maybe they will, maybe they’ll think they just watched an MJ production, or maybe they’ll think the found a new undecipherable story existing because of MJ. I’m okay with leaving the audience perplexed, I just hope they’re entertained.

Choreographic + Staging Elements

• Fusion of styles in contemporary framework

• Example: The You Rock My World section which will be presented in class on Wednesday has this MJ feel but fuses together legs and turns from jazz technique, abstract contemporary shapes, the rhythm and groove from hip-hop, and intricacy/speed/dynamics as general elects of my work regardless of style.

• Why: I am currently working on the fusion of stylistic elements into a contemporary framework in my piece “Rhapsody” for DA! and wanted to include that approach

• Sections of codified styles

• Example: The usage of different styles is to add new meaning to the classic songs and looks and shows their adaptability. This is not concurrent to the idea MJ himself in Smooth Criminal as it was never a tap piece for him. But by making it a tap piece, it plays into the metaphysical where he is my guide that shapes me in the dance, and I as the choreographer am reinterpreting and adding my choreographic interpretation to his work.

• Why: I’ve previously experimented with placing sections of different codified styles in the work I choreographed titled “My Humps” and wanted to further flesh it out.

• Props/Costumes/Spectacle

• I think the costumes help further cement the look and image of MJ, even with my story being told. I also had a lot of his costumes growing up and would love to see iterations of them on the stage.

• I also wanted the piece to feel as a spectacle, while telling a personal intimate story, creating a unique relational dynamic

• After being influenced by Jim Cooney’s usage of Burlesque as creating a dance that used props as theatrical elements and existed under a similar style and narrative framework, I wanted to incorporate elements of that in my work. This partially why I want the work to feel grand.

• General Tools

• GaGa will be used as an improvisational technique for creating movement in the studio to his music.

• Motown and Street Style: as a relationship that forms the MJ-esque feel.

• Intricacy/Polyrhythm/Dynamics/Abstract/Speed as core choreographic concepts within any piece I create.

Why MJ?/Why this Idea?

I want to use Michael Jackson’s discography as a guide that shapes my life. I feel that his iconic looks and key movement influences are also important in not only engaging the audience in something they might already know and relate to but were literally the sparking influence of my career. The piece is not another Broadway or cirque Michael Jackson piece but it’s one that tells my story. It looks like a representation of him at times, me at times, but it’s both. 

I sometimes feel as if I am MJ, not in the level of talent or significance, but on a more personal-life level. I am someone with grand visions, someone who has had rumors about him and been ridiculed, someone who questions authority and calls out what he doesn’t like. This shows the personal life connectivity between me and MJ. I also feel his music represents some other parts of me, as he has songs of failed and lustful relationships with women which weren’t conducive to his life but portrayed in his music. However, they are relative to mine.This is a frequently asked question?

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