Hometown: Bismarck, ND
Current city: Seattle & Vancouver, WA
Age: 62
College and degree: University of Utah, BFA Modern Dance
Graduate school and degree: No. I did, however, receive tenure and the rank of Associate Professor of Dance at The Ohio State University.
Current position: Executive Director, ArtsEdWA (Washington Alliance for Arts Education)
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Describe your dance life in your….
20s: Learning dance, growing strength, challenging perceptions, exciting synapses
30s: Deepening understanding, expanding horizons, solidifying skills, exploring expectations
40s: Confirming capacity, utilizing innovation, applying technique, establishing voice
50s: Leading ideas, promoting community, developing others, engaging impact
60s: Serving others, targeting influence, learning again, growing finally
A turning point:
Getting fired from my first professional dance job
Major influences:
I had the opportunity to begin teaching early while in college. I modeled my work after my instructors at the time until I found my own body and voice in movement. When I was 30 years old, I attended the Los Angeles Foundation Center’s Program Planning and Proposal Writing summer seminar. It changed the way I thought about communicating with others. I’ve had a dozen distinct careers in the arts over the past 40 years, and fearlessness in the face of change has always stood me well. If you trust yourself, all things are possible.
Mentors/someone who believed in you:
My dance professors at the University of Utah gave me the space and time to grow as a dancer. I thought it would be a fast learning curve, not a lifetime endeavor. I appreciated their amusement at my impatience.
Kay Clark at RDT believed in me, and she is my lifelong friend for that.
Vickie Blaine was my Chair of Dance at The Ohio State University, and she taught me how tenacity and planning will always make you successful.
Ronni Ephraim and Merle Price were my supervisors at Los Angeles Unified School District, and they modeled everyday how a leader moves people forward to meet established goals.
Can you talk about the transition from performing into teaching? How did this come about?
There really was no transition from performing to teaching. I was teaching the entire time I was performing. I did both until I retired from dancing in 1989. I always saw teaching as the place to experiment with movement ideas with a large group of dancers. Every class was a performance. And even now, in arts administration, I see myself as a teacher, a guide, a coach, and an encourager.
Can you talk about your next transition, into arts administration and consulting?
The biggest life transition for me occurred when moving from dancing as a career to executive arts management. I applied the many skills of dance to my new experiences as an administrator.
Dancing provided me the discipline to keep forging ahead, day by day, just like taking daily class.
Dancing reminded me that all things are temporary and ephemeral, so don’t take anything for granted.
Dancing comforted me during life’s ambiguities since not everything has a clear storyline.
What does the phrase “teaching artist” mean to you?
Teaching artist has meant different things to me over the years:
- It was how I made a living after college
- It was what you did when you weren’t performing full-time
- It was how the National Endowment for the Arts felt they could bring the arts alive in public education and communities in the 70s and 80s
- It was how artists could be community and cultural workers without giving up their integrity
- It is now part of collective work of providing arts teaching and learning in public education through cooperative ventures with classroom teachers, arts teachers, arts organizations
What is on your calendar for 2015?
I finished my work in Newark, NJ and relocated back to the West Coast. I plan to continue my work with the National Coalition for Core Arts Standards as a part of their leadership team. And I hope to craft an exciting and dynamic growth for ArtsEd Washington. I hope to take my 12 year old rescue greyhound on more walks that feature observable squirrels.
How would you describe the landscape for K-12 arts education right now in the US?
It is the best of times and the worst of times. There are pockets of excellence to be found throughout America. There is a dismal lack of leadership in public education surrounding keeping the arts alive for all students. There is mounting fear that as a society we are moving towards a quantifiable set of expectations, not a qualitative set of values. And yet, we all still sing, dance, act, draw, produce, create, reflect and connect.
Three pieces of advice for college undergrads interested in teaching in public schools:
- Do it because you love it; explore and learn early
- Use your best teachers as inspiration
- No one, absolutely no one, knows your job better than you; respect your students
Current passions and guiding questions:
How does one finish a career?
Should I write it down?
Is gardening like teaching?
Will I dance after I am dead?
A few book recommendations on arts education:
None. But check out the new national core arts standards. Honestly, they are extraordinary:
http://www.nationalartsstandards.org/
Final advice:
- Believe in yourself; acknowledge when others believe in you, too
- Recognize your strengths; embrace your weaknesses
- Understand you can grow, but will never change
- People will always criticize; thank them, nod, file it away
- See yourself in 30 years; don’t be a young person who got old, or an old person trying to be young
- Knees, hips, neck, ankles and back are temporary gifts; use them wisely
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