Joanne Leighton specifically requires that her dance piece, 9000 Steps, be staged at either sunrise or dusk. This is thematically appropriate and contributes an additional layer of meaning to the piece. The choreography of 9000 Steps is largely based on circular movement. The first twenty minutes of the performance involves the dancers walking in two large circles around the stage, made of salt so that the audience can clearly distinguish two imprinted circular paths. The two circles intersect at one point in the center of the stage but otherwise remain unimpeded entities. Later, this circularity continues at both the group and the individual level. At one point, all the dancers join arms and dance together in a circle; later, two partners rotate each other; lastly, the movements of the individual dancer are circular because the spins and arm movements around their own bodies create a sense of self-rotation. The circularity of the performance is reminiscent of planetary motion: the dancers themselves rotate and revolve around others, while the individuals dance circularly within the larger orbiting framework. The performance is 65 minutes in length and the movement of the sun across the sky is clearly perceptible, forcing an awareness of the cosmic framework of the piece.
Dancers in a circle
This cosmic framework is an extended metaphor for human relationships. The piece is titled 9000 Steps and largely focuses on walking—the paths that the dancers leave behind in the salt represent their life paths. These paths cross, touch, and miss each other. Sometimes two dancers, or the group as a whole, walk alongside one another, but never for an extended period of time. Occasionally the dancers brush by one another without acknowledgment, but sometimes there is a fleeting, inquisitive glance. Never do the dancers collide. Just like planets that orbit for millennia, the dancers must continue on their predicted trajectories, collision not being an option.
The piece explores themes of loneliness and companionship. Like a planet slowly orbiting through space, we oftentimes feel alone in our orbit and estranged from others. We feel confined to our fixed paths and wistfully watch others pass by us. However, the performance also has strong messages about connectedness and community. The influence we exert on other people is shown through gravity and momentum, physical concepts that are manifested through the choreography. Sometimes the gravity of one (or many) dancers would pull another dancer in, and sometimes one dancer would have to run to escape the gravity of others. At one point in the performance, when the entire company was walking side-by-side, one of the dancers abruptly broke away and sprinted across the stage. This shows the amount of energy and personal momentum needed to escape the pull of many; in group situations, it is easy to stick to a crowd but takes much more personal initiative and fortitude to break away from the larger group.
In the partner dances, the ideas of gravity and momentum were fully evident because both partners clearly influenced the movements of the other. Sometimes one partner would push and the other would bend. Other times, the velocity of both dancers would increase such that they would break apart. One of the more poignant moments of the performance was when two dancers came together in ever tightening circles until they were rotating slowly around one other, eyes locked on their partner. Their mutual motion almost came to a standstill until they accelerated with the music. Soon their intertwined paths gradually parted, their intimate moment quickly fading into a relic of the past.
Dancers almost coming to a standstill
Steve Reich’s “Drumming” and the use of phasing was an indispensable component of the performance. 9000 Steps is about humans coming together and breaking apart, about “precision and chaos” (as quoted from the program). Every dancer walks their own path, at their own pace. Depending on the paces of two dancers walking in circles, sometimes the dancers’ paths would intersect and sometimes it would entirely miss the other. Sometimes they would intersect several times, or once, or not at all—just like our encounters with others in real life. There are people orbiting near us that we completely miss in our lifetimes and others whom we stumble across in our life trajectories several times. “Drumming” also exemplifies momentum and interconnectedness. Although different percussive lines go in and out of phase with one another, together they represent an integrated rhythm—one musical line without the other would not have the same effect. Momentum is evident in the lines that accelerate and retard together. It shows that these separate musical parts do not go in and out of phase because they simply march to their own beat; rather, they act as one unit and influence each other within a larger musical framework. Each individual percussive line seems arbitrary and haphazard on its own, but together form a cohesive picture, much like the dancers who also go in and out of phase but represent a larger cosmic system.
Ultimately, 9000 Steps is a performance about the human experience and human connectedness. The cosmic framework of the piece forces us to think beyond ourselves. The sun slowly inching its way across the sky throughout the piece makes us aware of our own minuteness as individuals and as inhabitants of Earth, only one planet of many in our solar system. But it also makes us aware of our interconnectedness to what is beyond ourselves and our habitable scope. Even when we feel alone in our own orbitals, we are interconnected with others in a larger system, as well as to those who come before us and those who will come after us. Through the physical interlocking and interweaving of the dancers, Leighton’s choreography shows that our stories are interlocking and interwoven into a greater human fabric.
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