Minnesota-based Black Label Movement prepares for world premiere of 'Battleground' in tilled dirt

Black Label Movement gets its hands dirty for its latest project "Battleground."

Literally. But it's not just the hands. The performers get the rest of their bodies dirty as well, as they move through 10 inches of tilled dirt for the developing performance.

Scheduled to premiere at the American Dance Festival in North Carolina in October, Black Label has been holding a series of open rehearsals outside of Northrop on the University of Minnesota campus as it puts together the ADF-commissioned work that seeks to draw not only a new but also a younger audience. The next round of open rehearsals begin Sept. 20, and will have a final showing on Oct. 1 before the Minneapolis-based company heads to Durham for the Oct. 11 performance.

Founder and choreographer Carl Flink has used natural materials in Black Label's earlier works — like the 2009 piece "Field Songs," which laid down 2,000 square feet of sod onstage. But "Battleground" takes things to a whole new level.

"At times we don't even know if what we're making is a dance," Flink said.

In this new work, he hopes to look at the consequences of living in a society that's organized around a perpetual war. In doing so, he and the dancers are feeling out how to create something that's compelling, but not glorifying violence. Part of that is resisting turning the piece into a "dance."

"The more we stay in functional movement, the more I think it stays away from that," Flink said. "We're at an edge of what I don't think we've ever been to before."

At a showing in August, performers flung one another in the mound of earth. They crawled, flipped and flew through the air. They also grunted and called out to one another, using their voices as an integral part of the soundscape. By the end of the piece, they were all covered in dirt.

Audience members were seated around the soil-filled performing area. When a student passing by, stopped and asked, "What is this?" the response from the audience was: "It's dance."

Flink said he drew inspiration for the piece from President Dwight D. Eisenhower's farewell address on Jan. 17, 1961. The one-term president warned that the U.S. must guard against "the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex."

Besides running Black Label and the University of Minnesota's dance department, Flink has a background in political science and law, and worked as an attorney earlier in his career.

"I always have a particular focus on international conflict and a particular intrigue in America's Forever War," he said. "We accept without much conversation the idea that there are young men and women of our country being shot at and killed and killing other people — young men and women of other countries across the world. We just don't talk about it."

After the August showing, performer Anna Pinault wanted to ask questions as a dancer.

"I ask questions about what's happening to the body," she said. "What are the consequences of this Forever War on the body?"

The open rehearsals have taken place on the west side of Northrop, which is a busy thoroughfare of students and cars. Flink said he has been surprised by how many people stop and watch the rehearsals for 15 minutes or so.

"We've had people in cars stopping, taking their phones out and filming," he said. In one case, a person began taking video of the performance, saying she was concerned that something "bad" was going on and called security.

While the piece has resonance toward current political events, it's not directly focused on any particular conflict.

"We've had really interesting discussions, because a lot of people want to hook it into the conflicts of the era — the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the Ukrainian conflict. I'm absolutely happy to talk about those conflicts in relationship to this piece, but this piece is operating at a different kind of meta discussion," Flink said.

Eddie Bruno Oroyan, a founding dancer of the company who left in 2012 to perform in Europe, has been assisting Flink with the choreography, fine-tuning some of the specific moments.

"We work really well because I trust him. He's such a good listener," Oroyan said. "It's a reflection of how much communication goes on in a creation."

More recently, Oroyan has been doing subsistence farming in Hawaii along with his partner, Jessica Eirado Enes, who also dances in "Battleground."

"We come from being in the soil all day, over there," he said.

The piece hasn't been without its challenges. Dancer Cheng Xiong broke his leg during the rehearsal process, and the company had to employ an understudy to fill that role.

"We had a strong voice exit the piece. So, we had to kind of build up to fill in that gap," Oroyan said.

The work also has been challenging emotionally. Dancer Claire Wilcox said she has felt overwhelmed at times, "wrestling a lot with the piece."

"We've been doing an immense amount of processing," Flink said. "We've been wrestling with this idea of who are each of these individual humans in this space, and how does this affect them. It's not an easy topic."

'Battleground'

When: 4 p.m. Oct. 1

Where: West lawn of Northrop auditorium, 84 Church St. SE., Mpls. Free.