\n<\/p>\n
\u201cProbably in a great way but also in a bad way,\u201d Asante said, he decided to give Sandy the stems, or building blocks, of all the many tracks he had created for the show. \u201cSo I would walk into rehearsal and discover that a track I gave him is now a few counts longer,\u201d he said, making Sandy laugh.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve learned so much from Mikey,\u201d Sandy said. Now Sandy can look at a music file on a computer and \u201csee the waves, see when the beat is coming.\u201d Now he\u2019s \u201cnot just making a move for the sake of it,\u201d Sandy said; he\u2019s choreographing to the bass, to the snare, to different slivers of the beat. \u201cYou tailor the choreography,\u201d he said, and these days he also tailors the music.<\/p>\n
Hackett entered this process too. (As did the group\u2019s longtime rehearsal director, Nathaniel SB Impraim-Jones.) \u201cJade and I were bouncing off each other,\u201d Sandy said. At one point in rehearsal, he had created a hand-gesture combination, while Hackett had made a footwork sequence. Sandy proposed that hands and feet should join, then left the room. When he returned the next day and saw the result, \u201cI was like, \u2018Yeah,\u201d he said, nodding his head.<\/p>\n
And so it went, round and round. Sandy and Hackett would alter a track, and Asante would say, \u201cNo, it doesn\u2019t sound right.\u201d Asante would fix the track to his liking and give it back to the choreographers, who would apply it to their movement and say, \u201cNo, it doesn\u2019t feel right.\u201d<\/p>\n
Eventually, they would hit upon combinations that satisfied everyone, hard-won discoveries that made all three sigh with the satisfaction of finding something that\u2019s identifiable only when it appears. Then everyone<\/em> said, \u201cYeah.\u201d<\/p>\n The creative process involved others, of course, most crucially the show\u2019s nine dancers. One challenge in casting was that \u201cCycles\u201d requires dancers who can execute intricate choreography with Boy Blue\u2019s signature precision, but also, because the work includes many spots of improvisation, show off individual style and virtuosity in freestyle fashion.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n