Photo: Liv Schaffer
Hometown: Algonquin, IL (Northwest suburbs of Chicago)
Current city: Oakland, CA
Age: 29
College and degree: Bachelors of Fine Arts from Alonzo King LINES Ballet BFA Program at Dominican University of California
How you pay the bills: Adjunct and administrative positions with University of San Francisco and Dominican University, studio classes, and private lessons
All of the dance hats you wear: Performer, Teacher/Professor, Choreographer, Community Engaged Artist/Facilitator, Administrator, and Audience Member
Non-dance work you do or have done in the past: Hospitality, Retail, Personal Assistant
Website: aliviaschaffer.com
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Describe your dance life…
High school:
In high school, I danced 5-6 days per week at a small ballet studio in the suburbs focusing on The Nutcracker each Fall, other full length ballets in the Spring and more creative and alternative classes each summer. My year round training consisted of Ballet, Pointe, Variations, Modern, Jazz, Character, and lots of rehearsals for new work and studio company repertoire. As I began high school, a trusted teacher of mine invited me to join her over the August breaks to take the train into the city to attend open professional level ballet class. Through these journeys downtown, I became exposed to Lou Conte Dance Center/Hubbard Street, Luna Negra, Thodos Dance Chicago, Giordano, Deeply Rooted, Ruth Page Center for the Arts, and others. My identity as a Modern, then Contemporary, dancer began to form as I spent many long weekend or summer workshops immersed in the language of these vibrant Chicago-based dance companies. All the while, my loving and supportive parents were driving or training in with me and treating me to city walks and mango smoothies post sessions.
I visited San Francisco for the first time to attend the LINES Ballet Summer Program, and fell in love SF and Alonzo’s emphasis on artistry and working internally to create aesthetic. I was elated by the freedom to wear whatever I felt comfortable moving in to class. By my Senior year of high school, I had my college plans in place by November, I had graduated from public school a semester early, and opted to study more full time downtown instead of with my youth ballet studio to finish out the Spring semester while I took care of a parent who was ill at the time. I was always kind of the black sheep at the ballet studio; a little too over weight, outspoken, and excelled in the less classical roles. I was well ready to let myself grow in that direction.
College:
I attended the LINES BFA Program from 2009-2013, straddling Dominican’s Marin campus and LINES’ San Francisco studios. This conservatory style program had its complete Freshman through Senior classes for the first time when my class arrived in the Fall of 2009. I loved feeling like I was a part of building a new program. We took a Contemporary Ballet class each morning followed by Modern or Gyrotonic®️ classes. Semesters were sprinkled with improvisation, Gaga, and composition courses that nurtured our explorative sides. We performed in original works by in-house and guest choreographers each semester, and created our own concert work in our final year. I performed and presented work at ACDA. I met and lived with some of my best friends. I traveled regularly as a student volunteer with the JUNTOS Collective to various countries in Central America, using dance as a bridge across cultural barriers in workshop and performance settings. A lightbulb switched on in my head - dance as social service?!
Academics pared down as the four years went by, leaving myself and a lot of my peers finishing the program spending less time on DU campus and more time at LINES. I felt like a dancer in the local scene, and it was a nice transition into an active arts community. I studied Arts Management until the loss of my Dad during the Spring semester of my Freshman year had me searching for something deeper. I ended up studying Religion, and was influenced deeply by the Professor who stewarded my Minor in Religious Studies, Gay Lynch. She taught a class on Spiritual Expression, framing bodies as catalysts for spiritual change and vessels for religious meaning. This rich scholarship on embodiment paired with the program’s concert rigor and small class sizes made for a special and safe four years for me to take risks, build networks, and work hard amidst my grief-stricken heart.
The first 2 years after college:
My first 2 years after college were spent as a company member with DanceWorks Chicago under the Direction of Julie Nakagawa. DanceWorks is a rich laboratory style dance company providing early career artists with the training, collaboration, mentorship, and performance necessary to propel themselves into the field. Julie’s leadership style laid profound groundwork for my dance ethics. I identified my professional identity and voice. I felt appreciated and challenged to grow. I simply cannot say enough about this organization and the thoughtfulness it infuses into its artists. We toured nationally and internationally, performed at esteemed local venues, and overall I really felt like I had "made it" and achieved what I had always hoped for. Because of that I felt a sense of relief and relaxation that carried into the rest of my career pursuits. Lucky enough for me, being in Chicago also allowed me to take care of my Mom during her end of life and share this achievement with her. She was always my biggest fan, and there was some bit of closure knowing she could see me reach that goal before leaving this life. She passed away a year after I graduated, in between my two seasons at DanceWorks. Again, I was caught and held by a dance family during grief. I leaned further into my work as a home for my loss.
Now:
Currently, I perform with Robert Moses’ Kin, Dance Exchange, and in my own work. I wear a few hats working at USF: teaching Contemporary Dance, directing an on-campus intergenerational dance company called Dance Generators, assisting with production and administration, and choreographing new works for semester culminating concerts. This year, I had been working on a new piece that connected my work at USF with my personal choreographic endeavors. I had cast undergraduate students, older adults, and professional dancers in the same work. I developed it during residencies at Jacob’s Pillow and throughout the beginnings of my time as a Margaret Jenkins Dance Company CHIME 2020 Mentee - we were set to premiere excerpts at USF and in full at Shawl-Anderson Dance Center just last week! Though the shows were all canceled, I continue to engage the cast through virtual intergenerational dance classes via Zoom, and through humble and distanced creative projects. We are caring for each other through creating together with no pressure to produce, making an investment in a different pace of research than we typically work at. I will spend my summer doing some online teaching and preparing for the classes I teach in the Fall. I will rest, cook, dance at home, and tend to my mental health.
Photo by Robbie Sweeny courtesy of University of San Francisco. Dance Generators performing Liv’s work, Mütterland, at USF’s Presentation Theater April 2019. Dancers: Cecilia London, Laura Trupin, Kathleen Moore, Ann DiFruscia, Nancy Mossa, Shelley Richanbach, Kate Carter and Leah Hanley.
Major influences:
My colleagues and mentors from Jacob’s Pillow - Elizabeth Johnson, Margot Greenlee, and Celeste Miller. My past boss from DanceWorks, Julie Nakagawa. My colleagues/friends/collaborators whom I admire. The communities I serve. The people who make up the various teams I work within daily. I’m influenced by what I think my mom would have said in a particular situation.
Prior to shelter in place, what was a typical dance week like for you (teaching, rehearsing, choreographing, training)?
Two days per week I would typically head to USF for full 10-12 hour days of physical and computer work. Other days were spent rehearsing for upcoming shows, personal training (yoga, taking class at Shawl-Anderson or LINES usually, going to the gym), and facilitating movement classes in a variety of senior centers or other community venues. I teach a weekly adult ballet class at SADC and fill remaining hours with the unending amount of personal administration and networking list items. Beyond that, I try my best to keep big chunks of time free to spend unplugged and connecting with my loved ones, resting, finding joy, or playing.
What are you exploring and focusing on as a performer right now?
I rely heavily on interaction with audience in my performance, almost flirtatiously taking the temperature of the audience experience in ways that are sometimes funny and sometimes tender. I am wondering how to continue exercising those skills over digital or distanced platforms. What new skills will these platforms help us develop? What may we be able to intuit after a year’s time working digitally?
How about as a choreographer?
Who am I responsible to right now? Who would benefit from being engaged in a choreographic process right now? How can I sustain my collaborators? What does my work look like during the pandemic? A creative outdoor performance? Film? What do I need from my collaborators while we’re in a digital room? What do they need from me? What does rigor look like when creating while sheltering in place? Who is our online content truly for? I’m excited by the nature of our current state dissolving some preexisting rules and thus making more space for innovation. I am creating between the intimate and digitally exposed each day. I feel a need for both.
Photo by Grace Kathryn Landefeld courtesy of Jacob’s Pillow. Liv’s work Saludo being performed at Jacob’s Pillow Inside/Out August 2019. Dancers: Juliann Witt, Claire Fisher, Hayley Bowman, Alexis Staley, Cora Cliburn.
What does the phrase “teaching artist” mean to you?
I actually find that phrase often belittled in our field. Since working in arts integration and medical humanities programming with Jacob’s Pillow, I have been referred to as a “Community Engagement Artist,” which I prefer. Community Engagement Artist emphasizes the artistic vision and inquiry that I bring to a community. It allows tailored intimacy at the intersection of my personal artistry and the needs of the community I’m serving. I have been titled as a teaching artist in the past, and have been okay with it - each organization is different, and I’m happy to go with the flow. Ultimately, the title doesn’t matter much to me when not looking at the resume - my practice will likely be the same: my work as a choreographer, educator, and performer are all present as keepers, receivers, and exchangers of knowledge in the room. They all inform each other, and the communities I’m working with are informing each of them as well. Teaching Artist or Community Engagement Artist work is oftentimes a sub project of the work being produced that checks a grant friendly box. I am curious about how community engaged dance practices and experiences can shape concert product and ethos in meaningful ways.
Current training practices and care of the body:
Finding a consistent sleep rhythm, being gentle with myself, taking friends’ yoga classes on Zoom, circuit workouts, small improvisations around the house, long walks.
Last show you saw that inspired you:
Margaret Jenkins CHIME Encounters Over 60 with Vicky Shick (see links below). I loved knowing the work was made so quickly; I loved absorbing the aesthetic from another geographic location and generation. Working as a CHIME Mentee during Encounters Over 60 has allowed for such a meaningful feeling of legacy and belonging to a broader dance lineage.
Non-dance activities, hobbies, and service work important to you:
Painting, social time with friends, Burning Man community, playing frisbee, riding my bike, journaling.
Advice to dancers moving to the San Francisco Bay Area:
Closed mouths are rarely fed. Reach out to people whose work you want to perform, or whose work interests you. Ask questions. Be the kind of dancer/human you want to cross paths with - this includes in the dressing rooms, lobbies, in emails, etc. Networking is a long haul game, so plant seeds with no expectations for immediate sowing, yet be open to unexpected harvest in time. There are a lot of doors to the same party; don’t be afraid to trailblaze.
Final thoughts: Hope/belief/love of the profession:
This profession has given me a relationship and connection to my body that predates shelter in place, meaning those of us lucky enough to dance regularly have some great tools for engaging our bodies during this uncertain time and in the face of trauma. I’ve always seen my work as a digestive container for my personal history, and its feeling amplified now. I am grateful.
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Related posts:
Encounters Over 60 with Vicky Shick (Continuing to work on what you're working on - Megan Nicely)
Encounters with Vicky Shick - Valerie Gutwirth
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