Artist Profile #43: Wendy Jones (San Francisco, CA)

Photo: Sam Parker 

Hometown: Sacramento, CA

Current city: San Francisco, CA

Age: 37

College and degree: San Francisco State University, BA Dance with an emphasis in Education and Performance/Choreography and BS Kinesiology

Graduate school and degree: California State University Long Beach, MA Dance 

How you pay the bills: Full-time dance director/educator at Lowell High School in San Francisco, CA

All of the dance hats you wear: Teacher, choreographer, and director

Non-dance work: Certified Pilates instructor but not teaching at this time

Website: www.lowelldance.com

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Describe your dancing life in your 30s:

Even with my own program at Lowell High School and the energy I find in choreography, I draw inspiration from participating in the professional dance community. In San Francisco, I’ve had the opportunity to dance for Stacey Printz, Bill T. Jones, and Erica Chong Shuch.

To maintain the athleticism for dance, I’m often up before 6am to head to Bikram Yoga before teaching during the day.

The key change in my 30s is that I know that dancing as a performer draws from my principal focus on choreographer and teacher, not the other way around. I’ve found my strengths.

Photo: Sam Parker

Describe your first 5 years post-college:

My post-college years landed me in the heart of dance education even more quickly than I’d expected. I found a home in PE and dance at Lowell High School and developed the dance program there. At the same time, I worked to grow as a dancer outside the classroom.

After graduating from San Francisco State (SFSU), I set out to connect my lifelong passion for dance with the educational vocation that I’d tasted since teaching the summer after High School at Ron Cisneros’ studio in Sacramento. I joined the SFSU credential program immediately after graduation, on the single subject track for Physical Education, since that’s the closest to dance. Even after years of debate, there still is not a dance-specific credential for public education.

Based on meeting Lowell High School’s dance program director at a teaching event, I was invited to volunteer and I completed my student teaching requirements there, with one dance class and one PE class. And the opportunity to get involved in the school community presented itself when I choreographed the spring musical. I’d spent my teenage years doing musicals in the Davis Musical Theater Company, so the musical drew from the familiar but also showed me how rewarding it could be to work at the level of Lowell.

As a dancer outside of the classroom, I was a member of the Kendra Kimbrough Dance Ensemble, danced in a project with Emma Huckabay, and traveled to St. Louis, MO to train with Katherine Dunham. I was always training and auditioning, even though I knew I couldn’t split my time evenly between teaching and dancing in the community. Having summers off as a teacher allows intensive training and I studied in New York at NYU’s Tisch school as well as the Limón and Graham Institute.  As a choreographer, I worked for School of the Arts and Young People’s Musical Theater Company.

I found a stable home when I landed a job teaching PE at Marina Middle school in SF. Clearly, this was a key milestone as a young teacher, but the performing arts link was thin initially. I taught an after-school drama program and the administration held out hope to soon add dance as a permanent elective.

But after teaching only a semester at Marina, I was hired to teach two dance classes and three PE classes at Lowell, after a PE teacher’s sabbatical created an opening. After a few years, I was down to one PE class and I’d founded Lowell Dance Company and we started performing around the Bay Area.

Describe 10 years post-college:

With a good school like Lowell as a platform, I worked to develop a deep dance program by finding young academically-focused dancers, developing my choreographic style, and connecting with the local community to build an audience and funding stream to support the program and allow the company to travel state-wide.

Over the last decade, Donette Heath’s Vision Series and events at Julia Morgan and Dance Mission have provided at least annual occasions to debut mid-length modern pieces in front of a sophisticated audience. Through the lens of years of performance and community feedback, I found my choreographic style and developed a collaborative process with Lowell’s teenage dancers that constantly challenges me and keeps our style fresh.

My ambition was to teach at the university level and I developed additional kinesthetic skills to round out my dance expertise. I studied Pilates with Carol LeMaitre and Sharon Gallagher, and found that the deep muscular foundation is a path to a centered body and an important shield from injury. I’ve introduced Pilates at Lowell as an auxiliary activity for dancers.

Over three intense summers, I earned my MA in Dance from CSU Long Beach. The writing and dance history elements pushed me more than the daily dance and choreographic training.

The Masters unexpectedly led me back to reinvest in Lowell. After the degree, I appreciated Lowell’s community and the impact I could have there more than ever.

It’s been incredibly inspiring to see former students bloom at UCLA, in New York at NYU Tisch and Columbia, and dancing post-college in companies like Elisa Monte Dance. I try to see alumni performances whenever I can and keep in touch with the dancers.  It is wonderful when they come back to visit and inform me of all their post-Lowell experiences.

Photo: Sam Parker

 

 

 

 

 

 

Major Influences:

I am inspired by classic technique, expressive energy, authentic teachers, and collaborators with a personal style and the drive to make performance real.

I was lucky to have great teachers early in my training, including my mother, Gail Fernandez-Jones, who taught jazz, tap, and ballet for 40 years. Also in Sacramento, Bobbi Bader taught me the ballet classics. Ron Cisneros not only taught me jazz and musical theater but also how to choreograph a full stage of dancers with a feel for space and groupings.

I also had a lot of support by people that believed in me: Sunny Smith, director of dance at American River College in Sacramento, SFSU PE professor Robyn Locke who insisted I stick out the PE program, and SFSU dance professor Susie Whipp who opened my eyes to modern and introduced me to Joe Goode.

Joe Goode’s performances and summer programs woke me to felt movement. The intent-driven approach connects with my students and is a key technique to consistently bring young performers out on stage.

At SFSU, Dr. Albirda Rose exposed me to new horizons, including the Katherine Dunham technique and philosophies that led me to St. Louis and Kendra’s company. I loved the classic style taught to me by Cathleen McCarthy at SFSU and she is still a rock for me.

On teaching:

Lowell Dance Company is the culmination of my teaching program. Teaching has challenged me as a dancer and choreographer, and yet since Lowell is an integrated 4-year program, the better teacher I am, the more the company can achieve.

The dance company was always a vision I had and it was built to train and mentor dancers at a professional level that had an interest and talent to work at a higher level of technique and choreography. It was also to build a dance community where everyone felt welcome and open to dance.  It had always been my passion to make dance accessible for all students. Everyone deserves a chance to learn.

I love teaching high school. The students are open to taking risks, ready to open their creativity box, and it is fun to help mold their future. I have also had the great opportunity to see former dancers perform in New York.

A teacher wears many hats. Every day there’s material to work through, personal issues to handle, and an energy to bring to the room. Then there’s the yearly picture, from developing new dances and organizing performances to building relationships with parents and selling tickets. At the moment we are looking into painting the studio and getting some new marley for the floor.

 

Can you write a little about getting a PE credential in California and being a credentialed teaching in a public high school (since a dance credential currently does not exist in CA)?

It wasn’t easy. I took all of the Physical Education classes and felt like a fish out of water. What kept me on track was knowing I had to go through a lot of hoops to get to my goal.

The thing to remember is that we are all movers. Dancers have the ability to break down movement in many different ways, this makes a good teacher for physical endeavors.

I think it is worth it but you have to be ready to teach in a school environment, meaning you may be the only dance teacher and the only one carrying the dance torch.

Recent performances, books, websites, etc. that have inspired you:

I always go back to Doris Humphrey’s The Art of Making Dances, Twyla Tharp’s Creative Habit. I’m regularly at SF Ballet performances with my mom and I love the technique and history. Outside of dance, I’m inspired by hard working chefs like Marcus Samuelson and Michael Tusk, who balance the artistry of a kitchen performance with a touch that broadly connects with people.

Setbacks:

A constant concern is that at a public school, you always have to watch the enrollment. Students need to sign up for your classes.

Getting access to good rehearsal space at school is a constant challenge, with various athletic programs eyeing the dance studio during the winter.

And because I teach at a public school, it is hard to get respect as an artist.

Advice to young dancers:

Serious dance experience is your ticket to participating in a community wherever you are, in high school, at the university, and after school. Hard work pays off.

Future career goals:

I am still in contact with a lot of my former students and I am working on building an alumni dance company that performs in the community and also mentors the Lowell dancers.  I am interested in being a liaison between youth dance, college and the professionals dance community.  I believe we have a lot to teach each other.

Comments

[Albirda Rose]

Thank you for the shout out. But your are an exceptional young lady and your students are going to be the better for having been in your class. keep up the good work.

I thank the blogger for featuring an outstanding teacher.

Thank you
Albirda Rose Ed.D, MDiv.
Faculty Emeritus School of Music and Dance SFSU

[Coleen Fernandez]

BEAUTIFUL!! SO PROUD OF ALL YOU ARE & WHAT YOU HAVE ACCOMPLISHED. LOVE TO WATCH YOU DANCE. YOUR TEACHING IS AMAZING. LOT'S OF LOVE.