Photo: John McCarthy
Hometown: Tucson, AZ
Current city: Salt Lake City, UT
Age: 61
College and degree: University of Arizona, BFA
Graduate school and degree: University of Arizona, MFA; I returned to school in my mid-40’s
Website: http://www.dance.utah.edu/index.php/people/detail/138/
How you pay the bills: University Professor
All of the dance hats you wear: teacher, choreographer, video artist (which I consider a dance hat), mentor, producer/curator, collaborator
Non-dance work you do: Administrate, administrate, and administrate
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Dancing was how I learned about life: trust, responsibility, community, purpose, joy, risk, collaboration, pain, resilience, and more. But it wasn’t my first love. From the time I could pick up a pencil I was drawing, and spent most of my time sitting and drawing the world around me. Once in school, the sudden heightened level of exercise at recess caused very painful leg cramps that woke me in the night. Concerned that I had a serious illness, my mother took me to the doctor who recommended ballet classes to strengthen my legs, and the cramps stopped. This was the beginning of a theme, its own dance, between injury and activity that continued in my life. And while it was a painful one, it has led me in directions for which I am extremely grateful. I hope to be able to communicate a little of what I have learned about dance, physical research and the creative impulse that transcends physical limitation. It is true that our greatest challenges can become our greatest gifts.
As a young child I fell in love with the physical challenges and the emotional release of dancing. I danced as well as took painting and drawing lessons throughout elementary school and high school, and also performed with the dance company that was based at the JCC in Tucson, AZ. Majoring in dance in college at the University of Arizona, I began traveling to Salt Lake City for summer workshops to study with the Repertory Dance Theatre, then one of the largest touring companies in the country. Seeing the repertory of this company was a transformational experience; works by Anna Sokolow, José Limón, Jennifer Muller, Lar Lubovitch, Dick Kutch, Clay Taliaferro, Donald McKayle and others of that generation, opened my eyes to what dance could be. Also while in college, I met Frank Shawl, Victor Anderson and Louisa Pierce when they came as guest artists to teach and perform. I fell in love with them and knew that after graduating college I would go to the Bay Area instead of NYC. It has also always been important for me to live in physical beauty.
In my senior year of college, needless to say, I was thrilled and honored to be invited to join Repertory Dance Theatre. Dancing in the works I had seen on stage was so exciting that I often had to pinch myself to believe it was really happening. I would forget to pick up my paycheck ($6000 a year which seemed like a fortune then) because I couldn’t believe I was getting paid to do something that I would have paid to do! Unfortunately, once some of these brilliant choreographers came back to create new works on the company, I became incredibly disillusioned with the entire experience. Being in my 20s, I had put these artists on pedestals but soon realized that just because their work revealed so much understanding of the human condition, didn’t mean that they did as individuals. Experiencing the misogyny, narcissism and lack of respect for the dancers in the company was the beginning of my decision to leave.
During this time I had developed a passion for choreography and after leaving RDT I decided to pursue choreography more seriously. I had also developed very bad ankle tendonitis and I just needed to rest. Resting was something I knew little about. Thinking that teaching would be more restful than dancing in a touring company, I took a guest artist’s position at the University of Arizona for a year and while there, I managed to tear a cartilage in my knee and also herniate a disc in my back. I had planned to move to the Bay Area after this “year of rest” and now I was devastated and confused about what to do. I ended up having knee surgery (before arthroscopy was commonplace), and this surgery was really the beginning of the end of my dancing. But fortunately, it did not end my career in dance, nor my career as an artist.
I moved to the Bay Area to teach (at Shawl-Anderson and other studios) and choreograph, and in spite of ongoing physical issues, had ten wonderful years (1980-1990) of growth as an artist and an educator. I freelanced for a number of years and then was hired to direct the San Francisco Moving Company. I produced annual seasons at the Herbst Theater and other venues throughout the Bay Area. Subsequently, I asked my dear friend, the late Della Davidson, to be my Associate Director and we had such a great time working together, touring, teaching and collaborating. After 3 years, I grew tired of the predictable structure of running a company. I left the company for Della to make her own, and began to freelance again locally and nationally as a choreographer and teacher.
During this time, still grappling with physical limitations, I pursued many forms of bodywork, meditation, and other spiritual practices and realized that my body was still my teacher, but that I was being drawn, or forced to explore different ideas, ideas of identity, loss, attachment and most importantly, the potential for transformation. It certainly wasn’t the journey I would have chosen, but I am grateful for what I have learned and continue to learn as a result. We never know how it is all going to unfold. I believe it rarely if ever goes the way we envision. But it is the envisioning that matters, and then being open to what happens, which is mostly out of our hands.
While in the Bay Area I had the good fortune of being invited to reconceive for video, a stage work I had created. Being co-commissioned by KQED and Twin Cities Television KTCA for the visionary experimental television show, Alive From Off Center, was a turning point for me. I was so fascinated by how the camera literally and figuratively reframed the piece; by the way it changed the scale and perception of the body in motion and how the experience of time and space was transformed. I told myself that once I was no longer choreographing, I would pursue working in this medium. I just didn’t think it was going to happen as soon as it did. But it did. After ten wonderful years in the Bay Area, I return to Tucson again to live more quietly and explore painting and drawing, video and technology. This period opened up a new world of creativity and collaboration that has carried me to this day. Working in video is like both dancing and drawing at the same time and there has been great satisfaction in knowing that rather than leaving dance, the way I engaged with it had actually transformed. Rather than losing all that I knew, it was being integrated and expressed in a new way… no loss, just change.
When I was a young dancer, I thought I wouldn’t be able to live if I couldn’t dance, and then later as a choreographer, I thought I wouldn’t know who I was if the dances stopped coming. They eventually did stop. However oddly enough, every time I experienced a loss I encountered more freedom to re-imagine the creative process for myself.
I now understand that the creative impulse supersedes obstacles, truly like water on its way to the sea. The important thing is to keep that energy moving inside, and the flow finds its way. I feel grateful to be old enough to hold this knowledge, and yet young enough to continue to develop my work, in whatever form it manifests. I’ve made dance films, I design video for live performances, and I’ve even started choreographing again, making site-specific works that engage space and time in differing ways. I continue to struggle with my physical body, but rather than be the direct vehicle of my work, it acts like a tuning fork that guides me in defining the energetic fields in which I am most alive and resonant. I learned this from dance and in this way I still feel deeply connected to my dancing self.
What are you exploring in your artistic work over the next year?
I’m interested in continuing to explore the painterly qualities of video.
Current passions and curiosities:
As an artist, I’m still very curious about video as an art form and about dance and performance. I am ever more curious about the fact of life and the potential for transformation within it and beyond.
Books, websites, blogs that interest you right now:
My stack of books to read gets taller and taller and the top book is entitled Ten Days to Faster Reading! Subjects range from dance, visual art, biography, social criticism/essays. For choreographers I would recommend A Choreographer’s Handbook, by Jonathon Burrows, a real gem. A website I would recommend is http://www.dance-tech.net/, a great online community for international current events, interviews, groups of particular interests within the dance community, etc.
Last performance you saw that really inspired you:
Einstein on the Beach at Cal Performances in Oct of ‘12.
Do you still take classes? How do you train and care for your body?
I go to the gym and do a lot of my own exercises that integrate physical therapy, Yoga, Pilates, Floor Barre, etc. although I have to say that my schedule is always so packed, I don’t get to the gym as often as I’d like!
Advice to young dancers about teaching, learning how to teach, and the role teaching will play in their dance careers:
I feel a bit like a disgrace to my profession, as I never worked as a waitress! I started teaching at a very early age and in addition to being able to support myself within the field of dance, teaching was a critical part of my education about dance as an art form. Teaching on a regular basis allowed me to constantly experiment with movement ideas, rhythms, phrasing, etc. It also helped me to analyze how best to communicate these ideas to less advanced dancers. Learning how to teach was a lot of trial and error, a very humbling process, one that continues to this day. My advice to young dancers is, if you feel interested in teaching, do it. Not everyone feels drawn to teaching, but it is a wonderful way to give to others and to deepen learning at the same time.
Can you talk a little about your passion for the intersection of live performance and media?
When I started focusing on video, I also became fascinated by computer technology and the myriad ways in which media itself can perform. I was interested in working in interactive environments in which the dancing body triggered video, light and sound. I explored this in a residency at the former Institute for Studies in the Arts at Arizona State University. As interactive technology has become more commonplace, there continues to be fascinating work created using animation and real time video processing. Motion Capture technology has become more and more affordable so animations derived from actual human movement are commonplace. I continue to be fascinated by questions that arise about embodiment, identity, authenticity and performance in the digital realm.
Can you talk about the Dance for the Camera program you have developed at the University of Utah?
I was invited to the University of Utah to create a media track within the Department of Modern Dance, first as a visiting artist and then as a faculty member. This was in 1998, immediately after I’d received my MFA in which I was immersed in the study of media and interactive performance. It may be difficult for young dancers to imagine this, but at the time in Utah most students (and some faculty) didn’t even have email addresses. All of the cameras were VHS and the editing was still in analogue format. Needless to say there was a lot of work to do and I’m happy to say that we’ve come a great distance since then. As my dance media course developed, I realized that there was only so much a dance department could do to support this work. Cameras, computers, software, etc. have not traditionally been under the purview of dance departments, which are always underfunded for their regular activities, let alone expensive equipment. That’s when I started thinking about creating the Graduate Screendance Certificate Program. The University of Utah has a very good Film & Media Arts Department (FMAD) in which students learn professional production methods, video editing, animation and so much more. However, the only way to access those classes was to be admitted into their department, which was impossible for dance MFA students to do. So I collaborated with FMAD to create the certificate, which consists of 17 credit hours and allows dance students to register for most of the Film curriculum. For Film students (which we have had every year since the certificate’s creation), they are required to take the same courses, but they are also required to register for dance classes. It has been a very successful collaboration between Dance and Film and I have been thrilled about the knowledge and experience with which students graduate. The Certificate is also free standing so non-matriculated students can register for it!
Do you have links for films you have made?
I have a Youtube channel with a number of older things under my name. I’m very behind in documenting my work online. There are also excerpts of video design work I created in collaboration with Della Davidson on the Youtube channel.
This is an experimental film made entirely of stills but it is really about motion:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ttktvv7zQk
This is a documentary on Deborah Hay:
Final advice to young dancers:
Focus deeply, trust yourselves and trust the process both in and outside of the studio. Be open to the unexpected!
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