Photo: Kelly Badger
Hometown: Sandy, UT
Current city: Salt Lake City, UT
Age: 31
Websites: ashleyandersondances.com, lovedancemore.org
College and degree: Hollins University, B.A.’s in Dance & English
Graduate school and degree: Hollins University/the American Dance Festival, MFA under the direction of Donna Faye Burchfield (age 22-23)
How you pay the bills: A combination of teaching and direction of my non-profit, “ashley anderson dances.” My family also pays the bills (and has health insurance) with dual income from my spouse who is an attorney specializing in non-profit formation and also a Land Trusts Specialist at the State Office of Education.
All of the dance hats you wear: Choreographer, educator, writer, non-profit director, periodic performer
Non-dance work you do: Being a mom
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"The Windy Gap," solo by Ashley Anderson; photographed at Hollins University (VA) by Christy Pessagno
The first five years after college:
After I completed Dance and English degrees at Hollins University, I continued with the MFA program in partnership with the American Dance Festival. I graduated at 23 and moved to Philadelphia with Hollins peers Jen McGinn & iele paloumpis. Together and apart we did a handful of projects between Philly and New York. Afterward, I lived in Virginia for a year and returned to Salt Lake, when my soon-to-be husband got a job. The decision to move was based partially on the recession but also frustration in the competition for resources that would have marked life in a larger city.
Eight years after college/Now:
I have been out of school since 2007, eight years. I returned to Salt Lake in 2009 without a plan but was connected to Brittany Reese at Sugar Space by my MFA peers Sarah Skaggs and Neta Pulvermacher. I helped develop projects at Sugar Space while beginning to navigate ways to present my own creative work. In 2010, at age 25, I founded “ashley anderson dances” to house the umbrella “loveDANCEmore,” a creative platform for choreographers in Utah. I knew finding an audience would be difficult due to the disconnect of attending school elsewhere, so I opted to find connections with peers in the development of: a works-in-progress series, new media galleries, a performance journal & sponsorship of peer projects. I retained the name “ashley anderson dances” because I wanted to be eligible for funding to support what I am making.
Mentors/someone who believed in you:
Donna Faye Burchfield was the only professor in the dance department for my first two and a half years at Hollins. She made a wildly imaginative curriculum including weekly showings so long we ordered takeout. She pushed us critically and identified a life as a dance-maker but was also an innovative administrator with the ability to develop the seemingly impossible. She gave us the clothes off her back for costumes and every book on her shelf for new ways of thinking. We were just texting about the dance “Golden Hours,” and I look to her still for ideas about this life in viewing and making performance.
Donna Faye assigned Ishmael Houston-Jones to be my graduate school mentor, and he serves as my founding Board President. He too has a belief that dance can exist outside a major city. He keeps me on task while supporting new possibilities. Mostly he answers panicky phone calls and texts with calm responses like “Yeah, that sounds great.”
Faculty from other departments at Hollins were also supportive of my creative life and include: Marilyn Moriarty, Eric Trethewey, Kim Rhodes, Ben Pranger, TJ Anderson and Pauline Kaldas. Jeffery Bullock became the second dance faculty in 2005 sharing books, movies, and a love of Balanchine, Bart Cook and Suzanne Farrell.
Before going to college, I was supported by an array of incredible women including Janet Gray and the educators at Virginia Tanner Dance/Childrens Dance Theatre. Also, my parents for driving my sister and I to the aforementioned, and that is true belief.
"little long look," performed by students at ADF, Reynolds Industries Theater (Durham, NC); photo by Sarah Holcman
More on Tanner Dance:
I grew up in Tanner Dance. My second teacher at the Copperview Rec Center in 1987 was Tad Simonsen, and she was also the first dance teacher for both of my kids.
Virginia Tanner brought modern dance traditions to children in Salt Lake to counter studio conventions that she felt were “adult,” like glitzy costumes She was vocal that dance training wasn’t only a physical pursuit but something related to imaginative and productive lives. Tanner students are as likely to observe sea shells and make spiraling pathways as they are to do tendus.
One more training aside:
Tanner’s role is unique and formative but I would be remiss not to also name Janet Gray. My sister Carly and I went to Janet’s to tap (Carly now teaches tap at the studio). Janet’s approach was different (one of her t-shirts says “I Yell Because I Care”) but her direction was an important counterpart to the creative freedom of Tanner. She made us sign recital contracts and she provided guest artist experiences. She was also the only teacher I had who linked issues of race and history to the form. This was basically all white kids in a Salt Lake suburb, but we learned about the role of minstrelsy in tap history.
Major influences in college:
I watched tons of videos of choreography by Robin Harris, Tatiana Baganova and Inbal Pinto when I was in college. I appreciated their use of object-based environments and their works also resonated as an expression of female voices and experiences. In that vein, I also loved the history of Helen Tamiris and Martha Graham in their dedication to female ensembles.
I was interested in a lot of other choreographers and investigating repetition and variations in formal ways (Lucinda Childs anyone?). But the great thing about Hollins was that I was also encouraged to engage across disciplines, drawing me to visual art by Tracey Emin, Tracey Moffat, Kiki Smith, Jasper Johns and Kara Walker; writing by bell hooks, Kate Atkinson, Anne Sexton, and Elaine Scarry; music by Dolly Parton; and a whole array of other tools.
I was not only looking outwardly but also at my peer group. I didn’t learn any repertory in school. I made and performed dances exclusively with other students. They influenced me in formative ways and some continue to do so. There are too many to list, as all had indelible impacts on the way I perceive movement -- you can find all of our college websites here, where everyone will be fairly named from 2002-2007.
How did you get into dance writing? Any formal training?
I am adept at writing because I did high school debate and learned to quickly assess, analyze, and describe scenarios. It’s not so different than describing a dance.
I went to Hollins to be a student in Creative Writing. I knew I could dance but didn’t plan to major in it. Having both majors in a liberal arts setting meant I was writing a lot and across disciplines as varied as immigrant literature, feminist contemporary art and ancient governments.
Do you have a regular writing practice?
Not really. For reviews, I’m writing in my head while something is happening and revising as it continues to unfold. Then I come home and put together the fragments. My best practice is feedback from other artists and writers: Kathy Adams from the Tribune and my peers Samuel Hanson and Erica Womack.
Other thoughts on publishing dance criticism…...
In creating a community platform for dance I’ve received praise and criticism both directly and passively. For every review on lovedancemore.org people share one of two basic opinions: I’m so glad someone was able to say that, it’s so true -or- I can’t believe someone would have the audacity, they are so misinformed.
I agree that not every review on my site is perfect. It’s an open system and I’ve once or twice cringed as I’ve hit “publish post.” But I do it because it seems better to openly share voices than to whisper. Also, somewhere between Alastair Macaulay and Instagram people are forming an impression that all forms of media should be more supportive of dance. This is false.
Alastair isn’t a hot topic because he has critical views on dance; he’s a hot topic because he disparages women’s bodies while using the same barometer of white, male choreographers for every work he discusses in the newspaper of record. Criticizing him on these particular grounds is fair but silencing all dance criticism which isn’t laden with praise is not. When this is combined with the rapidity with which we can produce filtered images of our performances for people to like, the expectation of “support” becomes skewed.
Alternatively, the loveDANCEmore peer-oriented review structure supports dance not by “likes” but by identifying issues within the form as they occur to practitioners of it. This mode isn’t about getting you to their show; it’s about championing conversations regardless of agreement and reflecting alternating points of view on the record.
"don't be cruel," performed by Movement Forum at the Rose Wagner (SLC)
What is on your calendar for the rest of 2015?
--Moving a loveDANCEmore performance series, “Mudson,” to new venues after a rent increase forced a change.
--Publishing a new volume of our performance journal.
--Fiscally sponsoring projects by Erica Womack, Graham Brown, Natosha Washington and Tanja London.
--Rehearsing a new duet for Molly Heller and Mary Lyn Graves.
--Brainstorming how to re-stage a larger group project I performed in March.
--Delegating loveDANCEmore to new artists in an effort to more rigorously focus on my choreography.
--The daily grind of coordinating and planning teaching jobs, finding infrastructures that work well for my programs, continuing to fulfill the responsibilities of a registered non-profit, grant management, you name it.
What does a typical week look like for you - in terms of training, creating, studio time, administration, teaching?
This continues to shift as my roles as a mom change. Breastfeeding, school commutes and extracurricular activities turned 2014 upside down, and they are as much a part of what I do as my work. I spend about 25-30 hours a week administratively working on my non-profit projects. I spend about 10-15 teaching in various scenarios with an additional 5 hours of planning, on average. Rehearsal hours are added on top, but that shifts in and out of my schedule.
What is the role of teaching in your career right now?
Teaching is the most consistent way I can keep money coming in to support my work.
In the last year I have reduced my teaching to things that I feel are a unique service. For Tanner Dance, I teach classes for disabled children and adults as well as in area elementary schools. For high schools and community centers I do residency projects, and for universities I am often teaching technique as a guest or doing composition workshops and history lectures. The point of view of younger artists refreshes my ideas about our form, and working with unique populations keeps joyfulness as a part of movement and removes some of the more esoteric aspects of concert dance as a rather insulated form.
This does come with consequences. Teaching fees very rarely include compensation for planning. I often feel like I’m using magic beans to make a structure that pays myself and other artists. Because I don’t teach full time it is somewhat sustainable but can be depleting.
You received the 2014 Mayor’s Artist Award in the Performing Arts. Can you tell us more about it?
Every year at the Utah Arts Festival, awards are given in various disciplines to artists and organizations which serve the city. The awards have a peer nomination and selection by a panel of previous recipients alongside representatives from the Mayor’s office and the Arts Festival. I received a cash award and also the knowledge that my peers in dance find the work I do (both choreographically and through loveDANCEmore) to be a service. I was honored to share the honor with previous recipients who were my childhood teachers: Tina Misaka and Mary Ann Lee, among others.
Last performance you saw that really inspired you:
As I mentioned earlier, Donna Faye just texted me last week about Anna Teresa de Keersmaeker's dance, “Golden Hours.” Even just seeing the trailer I felt a rush of “this is it.”
A couple others, all different in their own way, that I saw live...
…. a commercial performer, Jesse Sykes, dancing between pieces at the State Room
…. Erica Womack’s duet with Courtney Norris called “dear son”
…. Paul Matteson’s blind solo draft for SaltDanceFest
…. Jesse Zarritt’s performance lecture about Israel & Identity from the same festival
…. works by Breeanne Saxton and Katherine Adler at the last spring Mudson
Final thoughts:
When I work with college aged interns it’s easy to start griping about how dance pedagogy isn’t linked to realities of performance in the US, let alone abroad. But I also remember how hard it was for me to leave the magical hub of my own school experience and integrate what I had, in fact, learned and practiced.
So, one of my hopes does remain that universities near me can get more magical with their curriculum, enabling students to find their own way to be in the field. I see a lot of differences between my experience where I was met by my own measure, to other contexts where faculty voices are a more exclusive measure. I hope that is a practice which can shift.
But, I can also see that, dance is something some people do in school because they’ve done it their whole life. And that having a dance education but going on to become a chef, a bodyworker, a doctor, an administrator or any other variety of career can still have great impacts on how you perceive and work in the world.
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Ashley also co-wrote the Modern Dancer's Guide to....Salt Lake City with Molly Heller. Find it here.
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