Photo: Lydia Daniller
Hometown: Palos Verdes, CA
Current city: San Francisco, CA
Age: 37
College and degree: UC Berkeley, BS in Molecular Environmental Biology
Graduate school and degree: University of San Francisco, MFA in Creative Writing (33 years old)
Websites: www.courtneymoreno.com www.bandaloop.org
How you pay the bills: I work at UCSF as a clinical research coordinator, and I’m a company member of Bandaloop.
All of the dance hats you wear: Dancer, teacher
Non-dance work you do or have done in the past: Set carpenter, stagehand, electrician, EMT, set medic, clinical instructor, marketing manager, field training officer, lab research assistant, lab manager, entomologist’s assistant, stuntwoman, writer, novelist, textbook reviewer, bench research, clinical research
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Courtney Moreno and Becca Dean in Bandaloop; photo by Ian Webb
Describe your dance life….
20s: I started dancing my second year of college at UC Berkeley, when I was 19. I had been told my whole life that I was uncoordinated, and I had been groomed since childhood to go into a medical/ scientific field, but then I fell in love with movement. I spent my post-college years in San Francisco, scraping by with odd jobs, living in crappy apartments, and dancing for Bay Area choreographers (Jo Kreiter, Lizz Roman, Chris Black, Erika Shuch, Rachael Lincoln, Sean Dorsey, and Erin Mei-Ling Stuart, to name a few).
In my late 20s, I made some sudden changes. I moved to the LA area, started training in stunts, and became an EMT so that I could more easily work on movie sets as a set medic and get to know stunt coordinators. I don’t remember anything exact prompting this change; it was more the feeling that I needed a really big shift and almost didn’t care what it was. The movie world wasn’t for me but the EMT work was. I spent 3 years on an ambulance in some of the roughest neighborhoods (South Central, Hawthorne, Inglewood) in the LA area. I danced a little during that period but very little.
30s: I started writing about some of the things I saw and experienced as an EMT. The first stories I published led to grad school, a book deal, and the publication of my novel, In Case of Emergency. The path back to dancing was bumpy at first. When I returned to the Bay Area for grad school, I was in a very different kind of shape from the EMT work, from carrying people and equipment, from working long hours. I was strong but lacking softness and fluidity, and the first few dance classes I took I couldn’t find my feet. But I was so happy to be dancing again. Since moving back I’ve danced for Lisa Townsend and Fog Beast, and I’ve been a frequent collaborator in works by Christy Funsch, Chris Black, and Lizz Roman, as well as a company member in Bandaloop.
Major influences:
Carol Murota, for making me think I could have a dance career back when I was all limbs; Lizz Roman, for teaching me release dancing and the value of endurance; Amelia Rudolph, for guiding me through incredible adventures and challenges I never would have imagined for myself; Christy Funsch, for bending my brain and helping me find new ways to approach movement; and Chris Black, for being a long time dance hero and for creating work I’ve always found to be so stirring, smart, and human.
Bandaloop; photo byBasil Tsimoyianis
What is on your calendar for the rest of 2016?
I’ll perform with Bandaloop in Helsinki, Finland in November, and at Oakland’s “Dances from Thin Air” in December. I’ll also appear in Christy Funsch’s work, “Le Grand Spectacle,” at ODC November 4-6, and in Chris Black’s “There’s Nothing Wrong With Beauty,” at the JGPG Annex December 10-11. And I’ll keep working on my newest novel about a controversial visual artist who makes sculptures out of human remains.
Current training practices:
Biking, walking, Pilates, dance class, pull-ups, boxing, jogging.
Please talk about your work with Bandaloop. How did you get into the company (audition, workshop, etc)? What do you love about vertical dance work?
I’ve been dancing in what the company calls “the green team” since 2005, which meant I would sometimes get a call when Bandaloop was double booked or needed additional dancers, but I’ve been a full-time company member since January 2015 because of a successful audition. What I love about vertical dance: there’s nothing quite like flying. It’s a very addictive thing to get to do. And it’s a very particular kind of challenge, convincing your brain that it’s more than okay, it’s actually a good idea, to climb over the side of a cliff or bridge or skyscraper, because dance and partnering and flying and music and laughter are all waiting for you on the other side. This work creates a particular kind of problem solving and camaraderie—in the middle of a performance, you might end up dealing with a rope tangle, or a gust of wind, or a bird flying through your dance—and I think partially because of this, Bandaloop truly is a terrific group of dancers, riggers, collaborators, and managers with which to travel and perform. I also really love the kind of experiences I’ve been exposed to since joining the company, like dancing on a tower of rock in Yosemite at dawn, or taking a thirty minute gondola ride through an insanely formidable mountain range in China to access a “nice-looking dance wall.” It’s been a chance to collaborate with people with completely different backgrounds and cultures than what I would otherwise be exposed to. I’m very grateful.
Please talk about your growth as a performer over time:
There’s something really powerful about getting older as a dancer. You see a lot of people give it up, you see a lot of new faces take it on, and you have to keep contending with your own reasons of why you continue in it. One of the biggest changes I’ve felt as I’ve gotten older is that I’m not afraid to be really spare in my movement. I can get very quiet on stage without worrying about being seen. It’s more about focus, attention, and curiosity than it used to be. I spend more time trying to be true to whatever particular, distinct voice lies inside my moving body, as opposed to trying to be objectively beautiful or good, whatever that means.
Jennifer Edwards recently wrote a Dance Magazine article about undergraduate dance programs, and she used the phrase “sustainable dance career.” What does this phrase mean to you? How have your many career paths and interests sustained you as a dance artist in the U.S. in current times?
As someone who has not had any kind of external financial support, at a basic level, a sustainable dance career has meant that my day job comes first. I cover my bills, health insurance, school debt, and basic survival, and factor in dance after that. Early on in my dance career I kept looking for that magical job that would offer financial coverage but also flexibility, and without creating too much stress on my mind or body. While I was searching for this elusive creature I got some very sound advice from Lizz Roman: “You’re never going to figure it out.” She was right. So instead I do the best I can, juggle too many things, and have gotten comfortable with the realization that things can change at any moment.
Last performance you saw that really inspired you:
I watched the Wrecking at ODC, in which Tanya Bello’s work got dismantled and rebuilt by three guest choreographers. I love the Wrecking, the premise of it and the presentation of it. It puts the act of choreographing on display in real time, instead of just the end result, but it also offers a neat way of bringing to an audience that weird intersection of language and movement invention that dancers are so good at. A choreographer might say, “Can you find a way to do that lift in slow motion?” Or, “Can you look as though you want to run right at this person and grab them but instead you are stuck over here, with your fingers in a jar of bees, doing this gesture slowly and purposefully while trying not to get stung?” And then you get to watch the dancers try to figure this out. For me, watching this unfold, the point is not whether the dancers can actually create that lift in slow motion, or get murderously stuck in a jar of bees; the point is, can the dancers access some kind of distinct physical moment by integrating the choreographer’s words? The effort alone is beautiful.
Advice to dancers wanting to move to San Francisco:
Be prepared to get financially creative.
Bandaloop; photo byBasil Tsimoyianis
Final thoughts: Hopes/dreams/love of the profession:
Dancers are some of the smartest people in the world, because they have the ability to translate and manifest ideas, thoughts, feelings, the illogical, the non-linear, and the non-verbal into acts both rigorous and physical. I read recently that language is the foundation of civilization and culture, an essay essentially claiming that spoken/written language is the language, the means with which we understand and convey all meaning, and I found myself fighting with the pages: You haven’t seen dance. You haven’t danced. So much more meaning is possible than linear thought, storytelling, written accounts; so many more spheres of understanding are accessed through non-linguistic arts—paintings, sculptures, music, dance—than these forms are given credit for. My hope for dancers is that we can give ourselves credit for what we do, and delight in it.
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Related posts:
A Modern Dancer's Guide to San Francisco
Artist Profile: Amelia Rudolph of Bandaloop
Artist Profile: Christy Funsch
Artist Profile: Jennifer Edwards
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