Photo: Ivan Singer
Hometown: London, Ontario, Canada
Current city: New York City
Age: 49
Attended an arts high school? Interlochen Arts Academy (grades 10, 11); Professional Division of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet (grade 12)
College and degree: The Juilliard School – BFA
Graduate school and degree: The University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee – MFA (at age 38)
Website: www.rebeccastenncompany.com
How I pay the bills:
- Part-time Assistant Professor, The New School
- Lecturer in Dance, Lewis Center of the Arts, Princeton University
- Choreographer in Residence, Dartmouth College
- Freelance choreographer (most recent project: choreography for the multi-media opera, Cracked Orlando, at the Juilliard School, as part of the Center for Innovation in the Arts)
- Performances at theater and festivals
All of the dance hats I wear: Dancer, choreographer, teacher, author, mentor
Non-dance work I have done in the past:
I feel lucky -- for most of my adult life, my paid work has been in the field of dance. There are two notable exceptions – one summer, as a teenager, I worked at a Baskin Robbins decorating ice cream cakes. Later on, in my mid-twenties, after producing my company’s second New York City season, I was completely and irrevocably broke, so I got a job at the Juilliard Bookstore for a summer. It turned out to be one of the best things I ever did, as that was where I met my future husband (who was also working at the bookstore at the time). Marrying Jay has been absolutely, hands down, the best thing in my life, so I’m always grateful for the Juilliard Bookstore!
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Describe your dance life in your...
20s
I graduated from Juilliard at age 22. During my teen years (and much of my childhood), I had harbored dreams of becoming a ballerina. It was in my final year of high school, when I was studying at The Royal Winnipeg Ballet, that I had an epiphany of sorts. A few of the older students in the school were asked to come to company rehearsal, to augment the corps for a production the company was mounting of Swan Lake. I was thrilled when I was asked to join in and excitedly took my place, 4th “girl” in the line, stage right. At one point in the rehearsal, the Russian ballet mistress running the rehearsal came over to me and raised my right arm about 6 inches. I had this strange moment of awareness flood over me. This wasn’t what I wanted out of dance. I didn’t know, really, what else was out there, but I knew I had to look. At Juilliard I was exposed to many forms of modern dance that I loved, but I know now that I gravitated to something that, for me, still spoke of precision and visual imagery.
In my first year at Juilliard, on a whim, I attended a performance of Pilobolus, at the Beacon Theater in NYC. What I saw on stage, in that iteration of the company, was for me pure magic. They performed Land’s Edge and Untitled and other classics from the repertoire, and I was mesmerized by the beauty and clarity and resonance of the images. I resolved that I would dance with that company.
In my third year at Juilliard, I had the chance to work as an understudy with Momix for their annual Joyce Theater run. During my fourth year at Juilliard, I was performing in Milan with Momix during my spring break. After graduating, I became a member of the company and spent the next six years on tour, 200 days a year, mostly in Europe, but also in South America, the Far East and the US. This was in some of the golden days of touring (the early 1990s), and we performed in huge opera houses in Italy, France, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Singapore, Taiwan, Brazil and many other places. We also made films for Italian, French and Spanish television, IMAX movies and choreographed operas in Munich and elsewhere. It was pretty amazing. It was also during this time that I began to think about what it was like to tour with a group of like-minded people and to be in a collective, creative environment (all of the work was created in a group effort, collaboratively, and I loved it). I realized, what I really wanted, was to start my own company.
At age 26, on a break from touring, I put together a group of dancers and musicians (from my time at Juilliard, I had always known that if I ever started a company it would have equal numbers of dancers and musicians and that the musicians would play in the stage space with us, often interacting with the material). We performed our first New York City season at the Cunningham Studios, and we were off and running, with tours to Jacob’s Pillow that summer. It was after our second New York City season, at La MaMa Etc Annex Theater, that things really started to roll (I was 28). We started to work with a booking agency (and later began working with Jodi Kaplan, on whose roster my company spent many years) and began touring all over the USA. It was also during this time that I left Momix and got a call from Pilobolus saying that they were starting a brand new duet company, and would I like to audition for it. It seems crazy to me now, but in my late 20s and early 30s, I toured the world with Pilobolus, plus toured and made work with my own company, Rebecca Stenn Company. I was busy and pretty much working at every minute, but I was very happy.
30s
In my early 30s I was performing and touring constantly. My company did seasons at The Joyce, Danspace Project, performances at The Annenberg in Philadelphia, Jacob’s Pillow, theaters and festivals in California, Oregon, Florida, the Midwest and many other places. I was also performing in opera houses in Rome and Madrid with Pilobolus, making new work and learning how to teach (Pilobolus had a very active educational arm that I immediately became part of). I had just returned from a Pilobolus tour and was packing for a tour with my own company when planes flew into the World Trade towers and the world as we had known it, changed, irrevocably. Jay and I had gotten married a few months earlier and had agreed we were far too busy and excited by our work to have kids right away (Jay had become resident music director/composer and musician for my dance company and we had been touring together). But after 911, like many of our friends and contemporaries, we re-evaluated. What did it all mean anyway? What was important? We decided to have a family, immediately.
The rest of my 30s, my company toured with our young son and my mother-in-law. I remember nursing in the wings. I left Pilobolus. I concentrated on my own work. It got more nuanced after I became a mother. But I knew something then, that has remained true. My identity was first and foremost as a dancer. I started the company as a vehicle for myself as a dancer, and the other dancers in the company were my contemporaries (ie: my age). I knew I wasn’t interested in choreographing on a group of dancers and not performing, and that has been an interesting thing to reckon with as I age. But more on that later.
In my late thirties, I had another baby and began to teach at the newly formed dance program at The New School. I loved teaching from the minute I started and decided to enroll in graduate school very soon after I started teaching. I completed the program in Wisconsin in two summers, one of them while I was pregnant with my four year old in tow (he also attended the University, in a summer camp program for children of faculty and students – I used to joke with him that we were both matriculated students there). The second summer I had a 6 month old baby, and a five year old and was trying to complete my graduate degree in an accelerated program. What I remember is mastitis, sleepless nights, groggy rehearsals and lectures and extreme gratitude for my roommate, Eric Jackson Bradley, who wordlessly (if not always cheerfully) took the baby when I was losing it, or calmed me down at 3am when a paper was due and the baby had a fever. I somehow got through it and began teaching and growing the program at the New School in earnest.
40s
My forties are a blur to me of raising children, choreographing and performing 4 full evening length performances with my company (one of them a solo show) and teaching at The New School. For a period of time, I co-directed the dance program there. I also started mentoring other students and worked with the National Young Arts Foundation for a number of years in that capacity. More recently I have begun working as a mentor for Theater Development Fund. I also began to widen my reach as far as academia and enjoyed a number of artist in residences at colleges throughout the country. This led to more permanent work in the dance program at Princeton and more recently, Choreographer in Residence at Dartmouth.
Photo: Steven Schreiber
Major influences:
- Ohad Naharin
- Juliette Mapp
- Wally Cardona
- Okwui Okpokwasili
- Ellsworth Kelly
- Rei Kawakubo
- Ivo Von Hove
- Pina Bausch
- Evelyn Hart
- Moses Pendleton
- Alison Chase
- My students
What is on your calendar for the next year:
Teaching: 3 courses at The New School, 2 courses at Princeton. One I am particularly excited about is Dance Pedagogy: Dance in Education. I created this course last year for the dance program at Princeton and taught the pilot class last spring. The class was a real mix of theory (seminar style learning) and practice (I brought my students to an elementary school in nearby Trenton to teach 40 fifth graders once a week and the effect was stunning in many ways).
Choreographing: The third evening length performance of a trilogy for Rebecca Stenn Company. Over the last 4 years, we have been working on a triptych and have performed the first two evening length iterations at the Gowanus Loft in Brooklyn, in collaboration with photographer and projection artist George Del Barrio. I’ll work all year with company members Trebien Pollard, Megan Williams, Raven White and Quinn Dixon and we will premiere the work in July 2018 at the Gowanus Loft.
As Choreographer in Residence at Dartmouth College, I will be working with the Dartmouth Dance Ensemble and colleague (and director of the DDE) John Heginbotham to create a modern day Petroushka to be performed in collaboration with the Dartmouth Symphony Orchestra, at the Hopkins Center for the Arts, May 2018.
Performing: True to my word, I still perform with my contemporaries, although one of the benefits of teaching is that I love working with my students too. This show’s cast is a great mix of older dancers in our late 40s and early 50s to young dancers in their mid 20s. I love the juxtaposition this allows and we explore it in the work. I don’t know what I’ll do when it is finally time for me to stop performing. I’m not convinced that will ever happen. For the moment, I look forward to next July when we premiere our new work and I am onstage exploring, growing, breathing. Something has happened to me as a “mature” performer. I’m different now. I’m not sure I can explain it totally in words, but there is a calmness and a clarity – this is who I am. I am here, now.
Current training practices:
I swim two or three times a week. I practice yoga on my own and take classes intermittently. I rehearse and often go to the studio to improvise alone or with other dancers. This is the most beneficial of my training practices.
What is the role of teaching within your dance life?
What I discuss and learn with my students, I bring to the studio to mull over in my own work. What I discover in the studio in my work, I bring to my students. It is a profound circle for me that is endlessly interesting and inspiring.
What do you love about teaching?
The above. Plus, I love watching/helping/encouraging a student to find their voice. There are few things in life that are more fulfilling to me than this.
What does the phrase “teaching artist” mean to you?
One of my mentors in my journey as a teacher was Joanne Robinson Hill, who for many years ran the Education Department of The Joyce Theater. Some of my first experiences teaching were under her guidance as a "teaching artist" for The Joyce. I’ve always loved the notion of an artist who looks deeper by considering how to share and disseminate whatever knowledge they have gained. Joanne taught me the importance of breaking down concepts in dance to their essence, to the simplicity of a body moving through space in time with energy and intent.
Role models and inspiration for your teaching practice and pedagogy:
- Joanne Robinson Hill
- Alison Chase
- Rebecca Lazier
Photo: Kokyat
Please describe your latest choreographic project.
Elusive Bird – An evening length piece for Rebecca Stenn Company to be premiered July 12, 13, 14, 2018 at the Gowanus Loft, the final part in a Trilogy. Elusive Bird explores the idea of the binary – extreme darkness (through the use of camera obscura) to totally bright white light, confined spaces that open up to a 3000 square foot loft, silence and noise and the form of the duet with all that is inherent in two people onstage together; gender, age, speed and force.
Please pose 3 questions for other choreographers to consider:
- Are you making what you want to be making?
- Are you being bold with your choices (whatever that means to you)?
- Are you being honest?
What do you look for in a dancer?
Someone I can communicate with. Someone who has something strange or unusual lurking under the surface. A willingness, a sense of humor, a playfulness, a seriousness, a restlessness, a desire.
How do you find dancers?
I have worked with the same dancers for 20 years now, they are my contemporaries. I have also recently started working with some dancers who are new to me – two of them have been students of mine at Princeton and University of Wisconsin. Recently I began working with Megan Williams. I saw her perform and fell in love with her mature, subtle, sly beauty.
Financial advice to choreographers just embarking on starting a dance company:
Start slow and don’t rush the process. Bartering is an excellent way to make things happen. For years now, I have had a wonderful barter with the person who designs and does upkeep for my website – each time I ask her to put in a few hours updating the site, I give her a private yoga class. What can you bring to the table? Work with your friends if you can. Be careful with your finances and learn how to save money. Be mindful of the fact that you are actively getting to do what you love to do and don’t forget that when things get rough.
Photo: Julie Lemberger
When did you start getting into writing on dance? How was completing your book, A Life in Dance: A Practical Guide, like the choreographic process as well?
I’ve always written and I’ve always been an avid reader too, which helps with writing. The book came together in a strangely organic way: my coauthor Fran Kirmser and I would work when we could, go away from the project for a while and then return, re-enthused and with fresh eyes. It was similar to the choreographic process in that you have to look at what you are working on in both a macro and micro way. Mostly, I enjoyed interviewing passionate, smart people and writing about their lives.
On balancing parenthood and artmaking:
There is no balancing. I’m aware of trying but I often feel that one of the sides is out of whack – if I am giving too much time to my work, I feel like a bad mom. If I am giving more time to my kids, I feel kind of irrelevant, out of the loop, unfocused. I accept that I am a mother who makes art and there will be some great moments and some awkward ones too (many of them in fact).
Last performance you experienced that really inspired you:
Ohad Naharin’s most recent piece for Batsheva, Last Work, was for me profoundly disturbing, inspiring and meaningful. The curtain opens to reveal a woman running on a treadmill upstage right. At first the runner was, for me, a metaphor for the continuous nature of our lives --- we keep going, running, moving but we don't ever get anywhere, we just keep running, always running. We never arrive. And our lives can feel like a treadmill.
Then, she became a heartbeat. Just always there even when you don't notice and then suddenly you do and you're totally aware.
At the end, she was something different. She became a symbol of being inured to something extraordinary. The fact that she ran for 65 minutes was amazing but we just start to accept it and take it for granted. That is a metaphor for what is happening politically right now. It becomes so horrifying and unbelievable but so constantly so, that we come to expect and accept it as something "normal." And it is not.
To me it speaks to the creative ways we live our lives. And it was undeniably powerful
Raja Feather Kelly’s recent show at The Kitchen, Another Fucking Warhol Production or Who's Afraid of Andy Warhol. What struck me about this performance was that every decision that Raja made, choreographically, was bold and brave. The show was very long and very personal and both Raja and his cast of performers lived in every moment, boldly. I loved this.
Rei Kawakubo – This was not a dance performance but I want to include it in this list because the show had such a powerful impact on me. This was instead an exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the minute I stepped into the room, my heart almost stopped. It was extraordinary. Rei Kawakubo is a designer and her designs are unlike anything I have ever seen. I turned to the friend I was with and said with awe, “She does whatever she wants. She truly does what she wants.” And this should be a mantra for all of us. There seems to be no thought to what others are doing around her, what she should be doing or saying or making or anything like that at all. She just makes what she wants to. It’s simple.
Advice to dancers wanting to move to NYC:
New York is full of contradictions – it is the most exciting place in the world and can also make you feel lonelier than you’ve ever felt. What is it that grounds you? Be clear on that and go there when you need to.
Final thoughts: Hope/belief/love of the profession:
I’ve had a complicated relationship with dance my whole life and it hasn’t gotten much clearer as I’ve aged, but I do realize one thing, when I am away, and quiet. Dance is an identity that is as malleable for me as the sky, and for better or worse, it is where I can come into myself time and time again. It is my changing, pliant identity, and I’m grateful there is a place and people with whom I can share that constant exploration and release.
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Related posts:
Rebecca Stenn writes about her new book, A Life in Dance: A Practical Guide
More about A Life in Dance: A Practical Guide
Artist Profile: Craig Berman (another Momix and Pilobolus dancer)
Artist Profile: Rebecca Lazier
Spotlight on MFA Programs: University of Wisconsin Milwaukee
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Rebecca, We knew you way back when at Interlochen, and are fascinated to read this wonderful presentation of a fantastic life. Congratulations. Bruce and Karen Galbraith
Posted by: Bruce Galbraith | 08/06/2017 at 06:56 AM