Photo: Hope Davis
Julia first wrote for Life as a Modern Dancer in August 2014. Today, Julia shares a bit about her current career and projects.
Describe the past 3 years:
So much has changed in the last three years! Looking back to when I wrote my first profile for Life as a Modern Dancer, I was still dancing with Doug Varone and Dancers, still living in Brooklyn and trying to stay afloat in a wild, messy city with which I had a love/hate relationship. Since that time, I left the company. That choice was a hard one. Leaving a company that was so familial for me, one that I had invested in for so many years, felt like a monstrous decision. At that moment, however, not only had my priorities started to shift, I also felt a sense of clarity and completeness in my role in the company. I made the choice to let the company go and to make time and space for new endeavors in my life. Once I committed to that choice, so many other aspects of my life fell into place. I got married. I moved across the country to Seattle for two years to pursue an MFA at University of Washington. I applied for jobs in academia and just this fall have started my first full-time position at The College at Brockport, State University of New York. I now find myself back on the east coast with my husband and our sweet pups, forging a path for myself in academia. It’s amazing how much can shift in three years!
What would you say is the most major change in your dance career or the role of dance in your life, since you wrote the profile?
I know that dancers often wrestle with the idea of going to graduate school for dance. Looking back at my experience, I realize just how important it was for me. It gave me the opportunity to be selfish, in a good way. I was able to take my education into my own hands and to fill in the holes I felt I had after getting a BFA at a conservatory. I was able to take time to look at my teaching, to dismantle it, to analyze it, and to build it up again. I took courses that ranged from cadaver labs to video art courses, from contemporary feminist theories to neurobiology of learning courses. I also felt myself digging deeper into the broad, seemingly simple question—Why is dance important? I refueled myself in exponential ways. For me, graduate school was an expansive, overwhelming experience that I wouldn’t change for the world. I also feel very fortunate to have found the right program for me.
I no longer perform to the same degree as I did during my time with the Varone company and that has been a welcomed shift for my body. Instead I’ve brought most of my focus to teaching and education. Teaching in academia goes beyond being in the studio with students. I now teach lecture courses. I serve on committees within the college. I mentor and advise both undergraduate and graduate students. I continue to pursue my research interests. I find that my comment in the last profile about multitasking and juggling still remains true, maybe even more true now than before. Academia is not the right place for everyone, but at this moment in my life, it feels like a pretty good fit.
What is on your calendar for the fall?
This fall has been a busy one. My husband, Benjamin Wolk of the feath3r theory, and I collaborated on a duet, Angle of Repose (in Human Form), that we shared at the Rochester Fringe Festival in September. I am currently finishing up a work on the students here at The College at Brockport entitled Calving—a physical exploration of the subtle and cataclysmic glacial act of calving (breaking off or splintering, to produce a detached piece). I am beginning a new solo work that will be a seed for a series of solos/small works to be shared in 2018. I am also working on an article sharing pedagogical approaches that teachers in academia (particularly in dance) can use to frame students’ writing tasks as embodied improvisational explorations. My hope is to submit that to a dance journal in the near future. I find myself at the beginning of a lot of threads, both in my research in academia and in my life in general. I look forward to seeing how these endeavors continue to weave together.
Photo: Warren Woo
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Related posts:
Artist Profile: Daniel Charon (another Doug Varone alum)
MFA Program Spotlight: University of Washington
Deciding When to Begin Graduate School: Five Perspectives
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