Artist Profile #103: Adriane Fang (Silver Spring, MD)

Hometown: Stevens Point, Wisconsin

Current city: Silver Spring, Maryland

Age: 43

College and degree: University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point, BAs in Dance and Psychology

Graduate school and degree: George Mason University, MFA-Dance at 34 years old.

How you pay the bills: Assistant Professor at the University of Maryland, teaching gigs, choreography gigs, performance gigs.

All of the dance hats you wear: Teacher, choreographer, coach, rehearsal director, mentor, performer, website designer (I did the initial Varone site way long ago!)

Non-dance work you have done in the past: Word-processing temp, waitress

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Describe your dance life in your…. 

20s:

College: I apparently wasn’t consistently focused in my dance classes – I remember getting the critique during juries once that I “lacked passion." Summer intensives and ACDFA gave me a kick in the butt, and I ended up moving to NYC to pursue dance. I took all sorts of classes and attended almost every audition. I got into temping work doing secretarial duties and word processing, which was excellent at the time for its flexibility in scheduling.  I had several wonderful opportunities to dance at the Yard and with Wally Cardona, among others, before miraculously being chosen for Doug Varone and Dancers. My beginning years in that company were exhilarating, learning the ropes and trying to find my voice and confidence as a member of that excellent company of dancers.

30s:

I continued to dance with Doug and was moving into more mature roles, feeling more confident in my own abilities. However, I was starting to itch to move onto a new phase of life and decided to go back to school for my MFA (re-engaging with my college sweetheart was also a catalyst for a life change). School was wonderful, bonding with my cohort and being able to apply what I was learning immediately in the classes I taught. I choreographed and performed sporadically around the DC area. I was invited as a guest artist at the University of Maryland (UMD) and then had a baby, which knocked out my abs for quite a while.

40s:

I’ve continued working at UMD, having fortunately switched into a tenure track position. I absolutely love my colleagues and students as well as the opportunities to branch out into collaborative ventures. I’ve been expanding my choreographic and performance presence in the area and abroad at festivals, although the challenges of balancing family and career continue to exist. I’ve also been able to create and perform with great longtime friends like Colleen Thomas and Sarah Gamblin – there’s something so special about coming back into the studio and onstage with people you shared a past with, but now with an earned maturity from lived experience. This maturity can be difficult to reconcile with not having the facility of my younger body, but I do enjoy employing a certain finesse to my movement that I wasn’t able to tap into before.

Adriane Fang and Colleen Thomas        Photo by Stan Barouh

A turning point: 

Of course becoming part of Doug’s company was the major shaping event of my life. The consistency and opportunities within company existence allowed me a reliable course with which to develop my technique and artistry.

At the audition I really didn’t think I would get the job, so I relaxed and had fun. (By that time auditions felt more like precursors to having tea with your auditioning friends afterwards.) Taking the pressure off allowed my best dancing and personality to show.

Major influences:

Wally Cardona and Doug Varone; Company idols: Gwen Welliver, Eddie Taketa, Larry Hahn, Nancy Bannon, Merceditas Manago; Teachers: Jackie Villamil and Sonia D. Cronmiller

On perseverance and determination: 

So we were teaching our daughter to ride her bike yesterday, and she was getting frustrated because she couldn’t do it right the first time. Such a basic point: if you never get back on the bike (metaphorical or actual), you’ll never learn to ride! I love it when students, who struggle horribly during the first part of their training, apply themselves fully to the task and improve by literal leaps and bounds. I’ve seen the most amazing transformations during the years of my teaching life by students who don’t give up at first challenge but put their noses to the grindstone and make it happen.

Photo by Zachary Handler

The role of teaching in your career….what do you love most about teaching? What are some of its challenges?

I love the process of connecting to the individual student and deciphering the semantics and psychology that allows me to effectively convey concepts and motivate that particular student to improve.

I think the main challenge immediately present for me is keeping a positive outlook when I don’t seem to connect well.  

Current training practices: 

Oh, this is a sad answer…during the school year I try to jump into ballet class or go to the gym, once or twice a week. I like it when I have a performance to prepare for so I have a regular schedule of warming up and recovery. Does the contact improv and circus play I do with my daughter count too?

What somatic practices have you explored? How has this influenced your work or your care of the body?

Hmm, I’ve dabbled in many things. I’ve recently been fascinated by the Feldenkrais Method and have had wonderful results from Rolfing. I took a fabulous workshop with the legendary Irene Dowd and have studied under one of her protégées for several years. Of course, a good yoga class can smooth out a frayed nervous system and help find balance.  

All experiences in these varied somatic practices feed into my teaching, as all ideas might be effective for some student. The general idea of soma, "the body as perceived from within," is integral to my movement philosophy. I think they are different ways of understanding how to gain more sensitivity in awareness, which lead to greater technical prowess in dance (technique for me means “being able to do what you want to do when you want to do it”).

Although I have gained many tools with which to address body issues and to prepare for any activity, I find that having an ongoing practice (not necessarily in one modality) is the most helpful – the act of exploring is always more potent than the products of having explored.

Can you talk about your flash mob project at the World Bank?

Sure! The performance was part of a gala event organized by Connect4Climate, which is an initiative launched by the World Bank and the Italian Ministry of Environment that focuses on climate change. I was brought into the project by some of my colleagues from UMD who were designing the lighting and projection. It was an opportunity to work our collaborative magic into the grand space of the World Bank lobby.

We had about 50 banker-dancers and three rehearsals to organize the performance. I sent an online video of the choreographed phrase I was going to manipulate to the volunteer dancers. I used three of my UMD dancers to organize the action and act as leaders, which worked superbly. We had a plan for the choreography but had to play it by ear during the actual performance, as a whole bunch of things changed at the last minute. But everyone rolled with the punches and it was a huge, super-awesome party!

What is on your calendar for the rest of 2015?  

Highlights include creating a work on ClancyWorks Dance Company and on my UMD dance crew, attending the IADMS (International Association for Dance Medicine & Science) conference, directing the Fall Faculty Concert and preparing for performances at Indiana University and the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage.

What are the skills a modern dancer needs in 2015?

Well, I think the qualities needed right now are the same as always – resilience and resourcefulness. Modern dance has never been a form that has widespread, popular support. Dancers need to innovate and create the situation they want to be in.

I think the smart thing to do is to develop marketable workplace skills – right now skills such as web programming and personal training seem to be useful. Since none of us got into this profession for the big bucks, paying rent and supporting our modern dance habit are of vital concern.

I also believe the answer depends on what a person’s criteria for success as a modern dancer is – is it only about having a full-time dedicated company job? That seems to be a narrow visualization of the term. There aren’t many company jobs of that sort available, but that’s nothing new; there were always more dancers than jobs. I think people need to broaden the criteria which allows one to identify themselves as a modern dancer. 

Photo by Stan Barouh

Final thoughts - Hope/belief/love of the profession:

I love dancing; I love seeing dance; I love dancers; I love teaching dance; I love people who appreciate dance.

I believe in the power of dance to bring people more in touch with themselves and others, a very important concept in this world of disembodied communication.

I hope very much that support of the arts will be strengthened in the near future.  I place my hopes in dance educators – we need to build our audience and cultural interest in what we do.

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Comments

[Phyllis Haskell Tims]

Lovely post. So nice to know what Adriane is doing now. I always loved watching her dance with Eddie.