Nothing Good Gets Away: A Reflection on Practice
Groundwork Dance Festival, a collaboration between Untellable Movement Theatre and Cameo, led by myself and Andrea Duff, just wrapped up.
As part of the performance series, I chose to share my Responsive Ensemble Framework (REF), a formalization of a way of working that has been evolving over nearly 20 years. The title of the piece was “Nothing Good Gets Away”, taken from Steinbeck’s letter to his son.
This past year, I’ve been focused on articulating my practice. Naming it and clarifying it. Understanding what it actually is, and so it felt right to share REF.
Just this morning, I went looking for a video reference and came across a piece from 14 years ago.
I recognized it immediately. That’s a piece based on handshakes. Handshakes are the cornerstone of REF.
Nothing good gets away.
Needs Must
For me, ensemble building has always been a practice grounded in necessity.
Dance takes time and money. Much of my career has required me to work within the constraints of short rehearsal periods, limited funding, and shifting conditions.
So I learned how to build quickly. I learned how to establish immediate trust and shared vocabulary.
Nothing Good Gets Away for Groundwork
For Nothing Good Gets Away, we began with REF’s standard warm ups (handshakes included) and moved to Steinbeck’s text.
And then I asked three questions:
Where does this resonate in your body?
What do you know to be true intellectually?
Where do you feel resistance, something you push against?
These became our points of departure.
The group worked within a shared task, but when resonance, intellect, or resistance surfaced, the movement shifted.
Because I’ve been working with these performers for years there is a shorthand between us. The piece came together in two and a half hours.
What I’m recognizing now is that is because of practice.
Trusting that the work you’ve done doesn’t disappear. It accumulates and sharpens. It reveals itself when you need it.
Nothing good gets away.