Gettin Jiggy With It (with Bridget Bose)

by This Wooden OMarch 23, 2020

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This week Daniel (@thedanielkemper) and Monty (@montgomerysutto) sit down with Rude Grooms’ Master of Movement Bridget Bose (@bridgetbose on Instagram). Bridget has choreographed dances, jigs, and creepy death movement pieces for all Rude Grooms productions. Listen to her talk about her journey from Colorado to New York, starting and running Guilty Pleasures Cabaret, and much more.

Topics include:

Rude Grooms’ Secret Shakespeare Hunt (possibly returning in 2020)
Performing at Lincoln Center with Bridget’s cabaret troupe, Guilty Pleasures
Dancing in a circus in the Middle East
Touring the world in a Bollywood dance company, and becoming a tourist attraction by rehearsing in Central Park
The happenstance creation of Guilty Pleasures in a tiny UWS bar
Defying expectations at The Duplex by making dance that functions in a non-traditional space
The power of appealing to the 11pm timeslot niche
How Guilty Pleasures alters shows from late-night to mainstage, from smaller venues to larger venues, and from 1.0 to 11.0 versions
Repurposing successful material to fit in different shows
Parallels between creating frequent cabaret content and the incredibly prolific rate of new plays in Shakespeare’s London
Keeping all of her creative work in notebooks and having an archive dating back to high school
The importance of overplanning and yet being able to throw it all out in the moment when none of it works for the bodies in the room
Cue Scripts and the power of muscle memory from writing down, going back to the beginning until you make no mistakes, or just repeating things over and over
The difficulty of dancing someone else’s choreography vs. what comes naturally to your own body
The importance of letting dancers write choreography down in the performer’s own vocabulary because there’s no standardized form of notation
How to navigate the balance choreographing for character and for an individual actor
Is there a point at which a piece is “done” for Guilty Pleasures?

Music is by Kara Arena, Master of Music for Rude Grooms. Share your thoughts and questions with us @thiswoodeno on Twitter and Instagram, email audio responses to thiswoodeno@rudegrooms.com, visit us on the web at thiswoodeno.com, like us at facebook.com/thiswoodenopod/, or support us on Patreon (patreon.com/rudegrooms) to join the conversation during livestream broadcasts of every episode.

This week’s shoutouts, recommendations, & further reading include: