Doyle Armbrust: We’ve been lucky enough to have years to develop The Space Between with you. How has the piece transformed since you first conceived of it?

Lisa Coons: You’re right – the work has evolved incredibly from those initial sketches! And I think that's less about the time it took and much more about the process of workshopping and collaborating with all of you; the structure is completely revamped, the materials morphed and grew (and were often discarded), and some ideas created in the workshops became integral to the piece. Perhaps the biggest change is in how I see the material: the gestures and sections started out meaning something specific (and quite personal). As you all developed them with your own bodies and instruments, and through exploration with Mark DeChiazza, these elements grew and stopped being so singular. They now feel multidimensional and inspire a much more complex read – still personal, but encompassing something more than my personal narratives. That has both been exciting and really difficult for me, as I try to work with material that has grown more complex, less linear, and often even changed meaning significantly from when I first started creating it.

Doyle Armbrust: Because you work with artists of different disciplines, is part of your job as a director to "discover your instrument," so to speak? To interact with the performers and find out how to most effectively use their bodies in space, based on what they bring to the table?

Mark DeChiazza: Absolutely, and the fewer assumptions about “the instrument” one starts with, I think the better. I also feel staging and movement should not be decorative, but rather necessary—either grown out of a musical gesture or adding a separate conceptually important dimension or even impediment to it. So I need to understand what that gesture is and what it takes for performers to execute it.