The Attempt
Bruce McCormick
Photo courtesy of Kathryn Farnsworth
The Attempt
Performed by
Bruce McCormick
MUSIC
Original Composition by Michael Wall
COSTUMING
Kathryn Poppen
Bruce McCormick (he/him) is a choreographer, performer, educator and scholar. He earned his BFA from The Juilliard School and his MFA from the University of Washington where he was also on faculty. He performed in twelve countries on four continents as a member of Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, the Bavarian State Ballet, and the Bern Ballet, where he was a soloist and ballet master. He also served as Assistant Artistic Director of North Netherlands Dance and Guest Rehearsal Director with Ballet BC. McCormick has choreographed throughout the Americas, Europe and Asia for the concert dance stage, opera, site-specific work and film. He prioritizes supportive atmospheres in any creative process and engages with the next generation of dancers with a sense of hope. In 2018, he joined the faculty of the University of Southern California Glorya Kaufman School of Dance where he serves as Associate Professor of Practice in Ballet Technique.
PROGRAMME NOTES
Try. Fail. Try again but with something new this time. That didn’t work either. What about that thing that we tried before? Throw that in too. But start over there instead. That might be it. No, still not it.
All this trying, all these attempts are in hopes of experiencing something, feeling something. Something bigger, something better, something different! But what about what we’re feeling right now? What are we feeling while trying? How is this feeling different from what we’re hoping to feel, hoping to experience, hoping to achieve? We judge ourselves harshly for what we don’t achieve, for what we don’t experience, for what we don’t feel, for not producing what we intended to produce. But what is it that we’re doing while not doing what we intended to do? Why is this less important than that? Why is what we hope to do more important than that which we’re actually doing? How can we find the pleasure in what we’re doing/pleasure in where we are while trying to be something more, something bigger, something better? For in the attempt lies the beauty, the feeling, the love, the connection.