Hometown: Santa Cruz, CA
Current city: Oakland, CA
Age: 35
Attended an arts high school? No, but I had a fantastic dance teacher in high school, Cathy Warner. Her class was my first foray into modern dance after years of being a complete bunhead. I loved it and thank Cathy for bringing prances and undercurves into my world! She is still teaching dance and theater at Harbor High School in Santa Cruz.
College and degree: Santa Monica College, 2 yrs Dance Major; San Francisco State, BA in Dance
Graduate school and degree: New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, MFA in Dance Performance & Choreography; graduated at age 30.
How you pay the bills: Part-time dance faculty at St. Mary’s College, SF State, and Shawl-Anderson Dance Center.
All of the dance hats you wear: Teacher, dancer, choreographer
Non-dance work you do: I am very grateful; my work has been entirely dance-related since I graduated from SFSU in 2003.
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Describe your dance life 5 years after college:
I hit the floor running (dancing!) after graduating, thanks to the many teachers and choreographers who supported and believed in me. I performed with wonderful companies throughout the Bay Area, including Liss Fain Dance, Deborah Slater Dance Theater, Dance Ceres, Davalos Dance Company, Paco Gomes and Dancers, and for friends in smaller shows and festivals. I lived in San Francisco, performed almost every month, and had the opportunity to tour the world. It was a dream! I began teaching ballet and modern dance to children and teens more regularly and took on the terrific job of assisting SFSU Professor Susan Whipp in her modern technique classes. That experience was quite formative for me in terms of learning to craft classes. Susie and I would meet an hour before the students arrived and she would warm me up and then teach me the movement phrases of the day, with insights into her intent and process. Invaluable. In 2007, I decided to take the big risk; I flew to NYC, auditioned for Tisch, and thus began the next chapter...
10 years after college:
NYU was a great unraveling and rebirth for me, as a dancer and as a person. It was deeply challenging, thrilling, exhausting, and illuminating. I had the most incredible teachers and mentors, many of whom I am still in touch with and consider close friends. I loved living in NYC and also learning from the city itself and its unique electric energy. The summer after graduation I moved to Boston and joined the faculty of Boston Ballet School for three years. There, I was offered a glimpse into the classical ballet world that I had always longed for. I shaped myself as a ballet teacher during my time there and was constantly inspired and guided by my extraordinary colleagues. I returned to the Bay Area in August 2012 and, though it was difficult to leave a full-time job with benefits and the relationships I had built in Boston; I have never made a better decision. All has been falling into place with ease since the moment I got back. I felt immediately embraced and welcomed back into the dance community, especially by everyone at Shawl-Anderson and St. Mary’s. I LOVE my work and the people I work for and with, and I appreciate every single one of my wonderful students. I feel like I am truly on the path and in the flow these days. And ready for more!
Can you talk about the relationship of ballet and modern dance in your life – growing up, your training, your performing work in the past and present, your teaching and artistic work right now?
My early training was in classical ballet but ballet and modern dance have swam side-by-side in my world since I was a teenager. I have always been a modern dancer in my performing life, though ballet certainly informs my work and is very present in my body. As a teacher, I cannot stress enough what an asset it has been over the years to be able to teach both disciplines. Currently, I teach only a handful of modern classes and my teaching focus is definitely centered on ballet. That said, I always bring ideas and images into my ballet classes inspired by principles of modern dance, yoga, and/or various somatics-based practices.
What’s on your plate for the next year?
Stranger Lover Dreamer, the company I co-founded earlier this year with three amazing friends. We will have our first full season at The Garage in SF, April 4-6, 2014 and I am super excited to see and experience what we build together. I have just begun a new collaborative film project with a composer and I’d really love to start dancing for other choreographers again. I will be diving deeper into teaching and learning. I will continue to enjoy every day.
What are your strengths as a performer?
I strive to be generous, clear, and honest onstage. I let myself be seen. I feel like I can allow the technical strengths in my body to be fulfilled without compromising sensation or presence. I try to always dance (and live) with a wide open heart.
What do you love about performing?
Everything. I love all the little rituals surrounding a show, the connections with fellow performers and stage crew, the backstage warming-up, the dark chocolate, the feeling of the lights on my skin, the nervous butterflies, the particular fatigue following a full-bodied performance, the engaged, silent vibrations of the audience shining back to us, the way time passes differently onstage, the sensation of really giving freely, with love and vulnerability. It thrills me that it is never, ever the same...it is an ephemeral and magical experience, every single time.
Taking class, training, and care for your body:
I absolutely love taking class and do it as I often as I can fit into my schedule. I frequently take modern, ballet, Gaga, and yoga classes and I walk and bike several miles every day. It’s interesting to look back and realize how different my class-taking experience is now, at this stage in my life. In my 20’s, I often lived in a sort of vortex of self-doubt, worry, and fear. I was so afraid of what others thought of me and so fearful of making mistakes and looking bad that I constantly held back. There were many classes that I wanted to take but wouldn’t, because I didn’t think I was good enough. Thankfully, with time, I’ve been able to release that fearful and judgmental mind. I go to classes now and I just feel so sincerely happy to be there and to be moving, learning, and sharing.
Major influences on teaching:
All of the teachers and choreographers I’ve worked with throughout the years have shaped and continue to influence my teaching self, which is constantly evolving. I am thankful beyond words for their guidance and generosity. All of my students are also my teachers.
Advice to young dancers about teaching, learning how to teach, and the role teaching will play in their dance careers:
If you have a real desire to teach, follow it. The world will never stop needing positive, passionate, and enthusiastic teachers. Learn by taking classes with teachers you respect and admire and talk to them about how they do what they do. Consider being an assistant teacher for youth classes when you are first getting started. Observe classes. And most of all, do it; we learn to teach by teaching.
Teaching has paid my bills throughout my career but it has also been the place, on a deeper, personal level, where I have discovered my voice and built my confidence. When I walk into the studio to teach these days, where once I felt nervous and uncertain, I now feel a kind of relief; I know I can really be myself in that space and I trust the relationships I have built with my students. It is a fruitful and beautiful place to be. I think I used to think I could either be a dancer OR a teacher and that focusing on one would compromise the other. In some ways, this is true, but I am realizing now that teaching is just another facet of my full experience as an artist. I am also learning that it goes far beyond the simple transmission of technical information or choreography. Our work as teachers can be transformational. I believe we can also help students grow and deepen their sense of connection, awareness, intention, joy, and self-worth through the lens of this particular form.
Current passions and curiosities:
I am teaching an embodied anatomy course for dancers for the first time at St. Mary’s College this semester. Creating a course from scratch is a tremendous amount of work, but I am learning so much and am fascinated by the process of demystifying the body and its mechanics and empowering students simply by helping them become more aware. I am also endlessly inspired by nature, meditation, music, science, yoga, children, poetry, visual art, improvisation, and all of my friends and colleagues.
Last performance you saw that really inspired you:
I feel like my heart, brain, and body are still reeling and reverberating from two shows I saw earlier this month; Randee Paufve’s solo concert, SOIL, and Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company’s, A Rite. Both experiences were utterly unforgettable; richly layered, raw, fragile, clear, fierce, honest, powerful, sexy, sad, human, thought-provoking, heart-opening.
Final advice to young dancers:
Be brave, be curious, be humble, be mindful, be real. Listen to your heart and follow your guts. If you get discouraged, notice that what may be holding you back is often just a boatload of self-imposed limitations and beliefs...let them go. Instead of spending your energy comparing yourself to others, work on recognizing and honoring your authentic and unique beauty. Go to shows. Take class. Spend time in nature. Connect. Build communities. Make mistakes. Learn. Laugh. Enjoy. Say yes, do your best, and love yourself a lot.
beautiful piece and true to you @dsdt
Posted by: deborah | 11/06/2013 at 12:25 PM