Life as a Modern Dancer

Artist Profile #174: Mary Carbonara (San Francisco, CA)

Mary Carbonara. Photo by Weidong Yang

 

Hometown: Englewood, New Jersey

Current city: San Francisco, California

Age: 54

Attended an arts high school? No, but we had a dance teacher, dance studio, a contemporary dance company and a robust musical theater department on campus. I was able to take dance during school several days a week and be a part

of the school dance company which performed regularly, from 7th through 12th grade. And I did all of the musicals, spring and summer. I fancied myself a triple threat -- dancer, singer, actor -- though singing and acting were definitely not my top talents.

College and degree: B.A. in English from Barnard College, Columbia University

Graduate school and degree: M.F.A. in Performance and Choreography from Mills College. I was 32 when I completed my degree.

Website: www.marycarbonaradances.org

How you pay the bills: I teach classes through KINDance and LINES Dance Center and I have been an independent public relations consultant since 1995. Most of my clients are dance companies. I provide them with media relations, social media and marketing consultation, and long-term planning. I am also full-time as the Director of Community Programs at LINES where I’m in charge of school programs, weekly tuition-based classes for kids, summer camps and Dance for PD® at LINES.

All of the dance hats you wear: Teacher/ Program Director / Public Relations Consultant/ Marketing Consultant / Writer / Scheduler / Website Designer / Fundraiser / Performing Arts Liaison / Teaching Artist Mentor / Arts Education

Advocate

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Describe your dance life in your…

 

20s - I loved going to college in NYC, but over the course of those 4 years, I realized I didn’t want to

spend my professional life there. It just never felt like home. During a spring break visit to the Bay Area in

my senior year, I knew I would move here. I felt like I understood the place, that I could be me here. I

moved to the East Bay a month after graduation.

 

I started training at Shawl-Anderson Dance Center. The humble house that Frank Shawl and Victor

Anderson converted into a center of art making and community charms me today as much as it did on my

first visit. It was so unassuming, quaint even, but it was such a big place to me. Being there blew my

mind open to what dance could be: community, acceptance, home. Shawl-Anderson was my dancing home for

nearly a decade.

 

Somewhere in my first year or so in the Bay Area, I auditioned and got my first local job dancing with

Helen Dannenberg in a piece she was making for the Bay Area Dance Festival. I remember tutus,

cartwheels and tricycles. In one of the rehearsals she told us to do something we were great at that

wasn’t dance. I can’t remember what I did, but I remember Helen delighting in us, and I felt so bonded to

her because of that.

 

I met a lot of great dancers during that project, as well as in Dance Brigade’s Revolutionary Nutcracker

Sweetie, where I met a ton of great people whom I’ve ended up working with and for over the years,

including Amelia Rudolph who invited me to join her new company, Project Bandaloop. We performed

around the Bay Area and Amelia had us teaching dance to middle schoolers through a partnership with

the Museum of Children’s Art in Oakland. I had no idea what I was doing. Thankfully I was partnered

with Karen Elliot who had an easy way with kids so she took the lead and I learned. Amelia began

integrating rock climbing and suspension into her choreography. We gave our first performance at a rock

climbing gym in Emeryville and it felt magical; we were flying! I worked at cafés and restaurants to pay

the bills.

 

I moved to San Francisco in 1991 and began dancing with Liss Fain who had just arrived from Boston

and was starting a company. I loved dancing with Liss. Her work was technically hard, and required a lot

of strength. She was different, outspoken and ballsy, ready to say what everyone is thinking. I’ve always

loved that about her. Her work then was abstract, and interesting to make. We were animals, lights and

elements. It felt very experimental. I was dancing and training a lot, and realized that I needed a job I

could do that wasn’t physical so that I wouldn’t burn out. I met David Landis who was starting his own

public relations firm. He hired me as his assistant. I mopped the entryway of his Haight Street office every

morning, as well as helped him promote everything from tennis tournaments, major corporations and

dance companies. I worked for David for several years while his firm grew and during which he

generously gave me time off to dance and even tour. He taught me so much about how to run a

business, how to advocate for the arts, and how to take care of people who work for you.

 

One day I got a call from my close friend Suzanna Gallo, urging me to go to a private audition for

Margaret Jenkins Dance Company. Suzanne had been invited but couldn’t go and she told them they

should audition me. I’m still floored by what a generous act this was. Margy needed someone to fill in for

an injured dancer. Somehow she let me audition, and I got the job. It was my first tour and one of the

hardest jobs of my life. I learned that filling someone else’s shoes is not one of my strengths. After the

tour, Margy hired someone else. I was devastated.

 

30s - I taught at Shawl-Anderson, where I met Claire Sheridan from Saint Mary’s College who gave

me my first gig teaching in higher education. That led to other teaching gigs at UC Davis and San Jose

State University. I loved college level teaching and decided to go after my MFA so that I could apply for

more secure jobs. While I was getting my MFA at Mills College I was teaching at Shawl-Anderson in

Berkeley, UC Davis, Saint Mary’s College in Moraga and San Jose State, driving my little Honda CRX up

and down Northern California. It was grueling, but I loved it. I loved going from being a student to being a

teacher on the same day. I would learn something in the morning, and then teach it that night.

Meanwhile I danced two seasons with Robert Moses' KIN and worked part-time for David, assisting him

with a massive campaign around the renovation of the SF Opera House. I’m not really sure how I

managed to carve out the time to do it all. After I got my degree, I got a job as a Visiting Assistant

Professor of Dance at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina. I loved it, except that it was

so far from the dance community that I loved and my then boyfriend, now husband, Robert Moses. So

rather than pursuing a permanent appointment, I moved back to SF after one year. We got married 2

years later.

 

I went back to teaching locally, doing P.R. and training, mostly in San Francisco. In 2001 Margaret Jenkins

invited me to audition for her company and this time I got in. We rehearsed in an enormous space she

had converted into what she called the Dance Lab on the old UC Berkeley Extension Campus in the

Lower Haight. It was extraordinary, the full length of a university gymnasium, all sprung floor. (It’s now

condos). I worked with Margy for several years, touring nationally and assisting her on various projects,

including one that got me to Kolkata, India as her assistant for a three week residency with a company

there. I loved dancing in MJDC -- the dancers were all so good and so smart, and the work was

collaborative, with Margy steering the ship. Meanwhile, I was investing in making my own work,

showcasing on programs like Summerfest, then West Wave, and presenting my own full evenings at

Dance Mission and ODC Theater. I called my company Mary Carbonara Dances. I made work about

stuff that I was struggling to understand: faith, violence, homelessness, motherhood. I felt daring,

fearless, vulnerable, energized. I began teaching at LINES Dance Center when it was still at 50 Oak

Street, and at ODC School, and even did some teaching gigs in New York and Tokyo. It was a super

productive time for me professionally. I had my daughter when I was 39 years old.

 

40s - I danced one more season with MJDC, touring to Tallahassee, Chicago and New York City. Soon

after I had my son and resumed teaching at LINES and doing public relations independently for various

clients. I had my son when I was 42 and continued to make work for my company, often with my baby in

tow. It was hard and I gradually turned most of my energy toward my two kids. We took them to Noe

Valley Nursery School, a cooperative preschool where parents were empowered as teachers and that’s

where I discovered my love of teaching kids. I realized that teaching kids was a way that I could spend

time with my own children, dance and make money all at the same time. I picked up a few books by Anne

Green Gilbert and connected with Sheila Kogan, an incredible educator who met with me only once or

twice but whose advice and feedback continues to inform my teaching practice. I learned how to teach on

the job. I made a lot of mistakes and had a lot of fun in equal measure. I rented space and offered dance

camps for preschoolers. I called it Hamster Dance Academy. When my kids entered elementary school,

I taught dance at their school. In 2014, Robert and I started Studio 200, where we both taught and

rehearsed our companies, and where I held kids camps, Dance Teacher Gatherings, Artist-to-Artist

panels, open showcases, and co-hosted regular Dancer Musician Jams with Kara Davis, who taught me

so much about holding space.

 

50s - Studio 200 closed at the end of 2019 when our lease ran out. I continue to teach and I still have my

public relations business. I’ve represented clients like Robert Moses’ KIN, Margaret Jenkins Dance

Company, Jess Curtis/Gravity, FRESH Festival, PUSH Dance Company, Cuba Caribe, Lenora Lee

Dance, Nina Haft & Co., ka-nei-see dance, Nava Dance Theatre, Chitresh Das Institute, and many more.

In 2017 I spent several weeks in Kolkata, India again, this time on my own, in residence choreographing

and teaching for Sapphire Creations dance company. I was preparing to return to work with them again in

March 2020 for another residency, until everything was cancelled by COVID. I hope to get there soon.

Most of my public relations work was on hold for 2020, since everything was shut down and companies

weren’t able to perform, but they’re slowly coming back with online programming. All of my teaching has

been online since March, with the exception of one weekly outing I make to dance outdoors -- physically

distanced -- with some very dedicated students each week.

 

In my work as Director of Community Programs at LINES, together with a team of amazing teaching

artists, we have put all of our kids classes and teacher trainings online since March, and we’re working to

create a more culturally responsive and trauma informed curriculum. I’m so grateful to be working and to

be surrounded by such talented people dedicated to kids and arts education.

 

Mary Carbonara in soon and briefly by Lynne Fried

 

Major influences:

Lynn Simonson, Susan Edwards, Suzanne Gallo, Frank Shawl, Margaret Jenkins, Krissy Keefer, Katiti

King, Roberta Mathes, Merce Cunningham, Anna Teresa De Keersmaeker, Robert Moses, my kids and my

mother who always made me feel like I knew what I was doing.

 

What is on your calendar for 2021?

I’m working from my kitchen table these days, busy with Community Programs at LINES, continually

adapting our programming during the pandemic and trying to anticipate what the fall will look like for kids

and how we can serve them better. I’m handling publicity for the 2021 Beyond Gravity program February

19 and 20, the 25th anniversary season of Robert Moses’ KIN and I have a few other public relations

projects coming up later this year. I’m also hoping to pursue more graduate studies in dance and

education.

 

Current movement practices and care for the body:

I hate exercise. If I’m not dancing, my physical activity is erratic at best. Normally I commute by bicycle,

but I’m cycling less since there’s nowhere to commute to nowadays. Sometimes I run or do yoga --

again, very erratic. I walk my dog a lot. I take my own classes, which still feel really great on my body and

have always been my most consistent form of self care.

 

The role of teaching in your career….and what the term “teaching artist” means to you:

Teaching is my research and creative practice. I feel like I’m at my best when I’m teaching, most in the

present and mindful of what I’m doing and where it’s all going. I love it more than performing. To be in

the investigation of what works, what heals, and what inspires is endlessly interesting to me. I’m

fascinated by anatomy, alignment, what qualifies as a technique and how to help injured dancers keep

dancing. I often feel like a sleuth trying to uncover the mystery of what works for one dancer, but not

another. I love working with new students, learning what they respond to, seeing them discover a

potential they didn’t know they had, undoing a habit that was blocking them or just watching them dance

their asses off. It’s an endless joy. If I wasn’t teaching dance, I’m not sure I’d still be dancing. I don’t

think it would be enough.

 

Advice to dancers who are learning how to teach:

I’m a big believer in training for teachers. While inevitably you always will be learning on the job, to truly

be in service as a teacher requires dialogue and reflection with peers who can challenge and support you.

 

I’ve trained in Simonson Technique since I was a teenager, with Lynn Simonson during college and I took

her teacher training intensive in my 20s. In that intensive, she taught us how to work with beginners, how

to communicate verbally and with touch, how to observe, when to wait, when to step in, and how to

modify for different bodies and abilities. Without question, that six weeks was the singular most valuable

training of my career.

 

For years, I was convinced I would never teach kids. I was sure I didn’t have the patience. Then I met

Susan Edwards, the director of my kids' cooperative nursery school, who taught me how to

communicate with children, how to trust them, that play is learning, and how making a mistake can be the

funnest, most productive part of a class.

• Study human development for the age group(s) you teach; kids are not teens, seniors are not 40 year olds. Their bodies and brains are very different.
• Study the different ways that people learn before judging what you think your students don’t know.
• Dismantle your biases and put your students at the center of your practice.
• Know what you do best, admit what you don’t know or aren’t good at, then get more training in both.
• Watch other teachers to learn what to do as well as what not to do.
• Don’t teach for free. Know your worth and always advocate for it.

Can you share about your work as an arts administrator? How is arts admin also a creative endeavor?

I love thinking big and saying yes, and I’ve always been impatient waiting for permission.

For me, arts administration is the work of making things possible, going out on a limb, facilitating a vision,

then sustaining its growth. You have to be nimble, you have to be willing to do things differently when old

solutions no longer work or when an opportunity is just too important to pass up. Sometimes it’s a long

haul and other times it’s a quick fix. Either way, you have to think creatively, especially in the nonprofit

world where resources can be scarce and opportunities fleeting.

 

What keeps you believing and passionate about modern dance in 2021?

Dance is the one thing that continuously and consistently makes sense to me. There are questions I can

only answer when I’m moving, music I can only hear when I see it danced, and people I understand best

when I see them in motion. Dance has saved me a few times, pulled me away from depression,

loneliness, self-centeredness, isolation and grief. It’s doing that for me now, too.

 

Last performance you saw that inspired you, or, a show that lingers with you:

Beneath the Surface, Lenora Lee’s underwater multi-media piece in 2018. I’m still reminded of how the

dancers danced in and with the water. Lenora was able to use water as a container, not just the

swimming pool, but the substance itself was a liquid vessel, a prismatic, splashing and evaporating

landscape. I’d never seen anything like it.

 

Final thoughts - Hope/belief/love of the profession:

As much as online classes and meetings frustrate me to no end, I’m still front row to a lot of great dancing

and to the catharsis and the love that happens between people when they dance with and for each other.

In 2020 I connected with hundreds of dancers, teaching artists and arts administrators. The vast dance

world feels a little closer knit. I’m looking forward to when we’re actually together again.

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Related posts:

Artist Profile: Robert Moses

Artist Profile: Amelia Rudolph

Five Questions for Dance Educator Anne Green Gilbert

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Artist Profile #173: Robert Moses (San Francisco, CA)

Robert Moses teaching. Photo by Peter Earl McCollough.

Hometown: Philadelphia

Current city: San Francisco

Age: 58

College and degree: Bachelors of Arts, Cal State University Long Beach

Website: RobertMosesKin.org

How you pay the bills: Speaking, teaching, commissions, artistic direction

All of the dance hats you wear: Dancer, Writer, Composer, Teacher, Speaker, Coach, Director

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My mission as an arts administrator is to create opportunities for enlightenment, to reinforce and provide the community with avenues that lead to realized cultural and personal voice. I hope to support the arts community in both embracing and challenging accepted norms and to support the discovery of what is specific and unique in our varied human natures as we travel those avenues. I have for decades used my service on panels, as an arts leader, art work and teaching work as platforms for focused expression in an effort to detail ideas on race, class, cultural belief, gender, and aspiration and use each medium as the vessel through which we gain a greater understanding of our intellectual interests and thereby give voice to the existence of the expanded possibilities of education and our individual potential and communal responsibility. My efforts are meant as testaments, cultural expressiveness and creative impulse, and about the power of educational growth.

As an intellectual explorer and artist I am interested in the honor, dignity , and potential of each of us. By working with multiple populations, youth groups, gospel choirs, spoken word organizations and more as I have over the course of my career, I believe we can both blur and clarify the lines that define understanding. As an African American male, a father, and a parent of two children of blended heritage, I feel invested personally in many of the issues that concern students on campus. Because of that I seek to speak with the voices of my heritage, to speak to the possibilities that my children hold, to uncover and use the full promise of a historically informed African American aesthetic forged by decades of multicultural, pan generational, post gender interactions, to honestly and respectfully and clearly help students to find their way forward.

I am also very aware of impermanence in my work – the tension between the past and the present, and the essential mutability of moments, feelings, people, and relationships. I choreograph the notion of “passing” from one moment, to the next, from one time in your life to the next, from one persona to the next – and the instability in time, space, emotion and thought. I was able to create “Lucifer’s Prance” because I wasn’t where I had been before; I had passed through. My piece “State of Annihilation” embodies loss and how one can find contentment in this world through non-attachment. As in dance, that which has no fixed nature can know no change, decay or death. I look for ways to reveal that transience we can only see if we are given the opportunity to slip away from ourselves.  

My 20s:

During my time in, and after finishing school, I made a bit of work but I spent most of my time in rehearsal, class, training, and working with a variety of companies, including Jazz Movement Exchange, Mattie Hayes Afro Haitian Dance, ODC, Twyla Tharp Dance  and American Ballet Theater among others. During that time I traveled from New Zealand to Venezuela and enjoyed most of it.

30s:   

In my 30s my impulse to interpret others' visions was overwritten by a desire to more fully explore my on creative as well as performative inclinations. I continued to teach in studios and began teaching regularly in the universities, including UC Berkeley and Stanford University. I started RMK at 32, but began making work for small composite programs before that and setting work on local companies about that same time.

40s:

In my forties I worked conceptually and practically in many but not all of the social, emotional and intellectual modes that continue to interest me. I made a lot of work, some of it personal some in service, so for the love of it.

50s:

I am in the midst of this so this is hard to speak to.

RMK, SFUSD Fundraiser; photo courtesy of Robert Moses' KIN

What is on your calendar for 2021?

We have since Covid started produced 8 new digital works, and we have a great many digital premieres and live premieres upcoming, all of which will be announced on our website. We also are presenting artist talks and lectures at over a dozen educational institutions all over the country.

Please describe your most current project and the questions you are asking yourself right now as an artist.

"Thread" is a major work for dancers/storytellers/music gatherers/visual artists in which the re-creation of a fabled unconscious collective cultural mind, a mythical lost library of a destroyed African American culture, a people so powerful at one point they were by their God feared and made to forget who and what they were so that they would forever have to re-create themselves as two echoes. The first echo, that of who and what they were, the other of what they are being kept from by their God. The echoes escape from the throats of what are thought of as fictional characters.

How do you find dancers? What do you look for in a dancer?

Until 2020 I felt I had to see dancers live to have an understanding of what they had to offer. I feel that more strongly now but have gotten better at evaluating our chances for a successful collaboration via digital media. What do I look for in a dancer? An individual of strength  and maturity. That dancer will find a way to honor your vision. But more practically and currently  - word of mouth and on ine.

Current movement practices and care for the body:

Common sense, take a break once in a while, sit with friends in the park with a lemonade and a smile.

Athletic maintenance: I bike ride when time allows.

Please pose three questions for choreographers to consider:

Why do this now?

What is the real history of that idea?

Was it worth it?

What keeps you believing and passionate about modern dance in 2021?

My love of life, my mind' s eye

Last performance you saw that inspired you, or, a show that lingers with you:

I’ve seen so much during this time things are a bit of a mashup right now. I would say in this moment binge binge binge Art/Dance/Opera/Music/Theater/Storytelling…

Final thoughts - Hope/belief/love of the profession:

Keep going.

Robert Moses' KIN in rehearsal; photo by Steve Disenhof

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Related posts (current and former RMK collaborators):

Artist Profile: Amy Foley

Artist Profile: Liv Schaffer

Artist Profile: Raissa Simpson

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Updated List: Artist Profiles # 1-172

Kathleen Hermesdorf. Photo: Robbie Sweeny

From Blog Director Jill Randall:

Yes, the list gets longer and longer to scroll through....but what an incredible list of artists who have shared, in their own words, about their career paths. Since August 2012, 172 artists have taken the time to reflect and to write on their dance experience. 

Browse through the list and click on a name or two, or ten. Any name in blue has also shared a second post, "updating" their artist profile and how life has shifted/changed/grown since first writing for the project.

To quote from Linda C. Smith's artist profile:

Enjoy the journey. Be patient. Decide why you love to dance and then just DO IT. Don’t question yourself every day. Just get up and work and work and work.

Dance is for everyone but life as a professional performer is not for everyone. There are so many ways to make dance part of your life. Don’t get stuck. Experience dance on many levels. Teach it, perform it, make it, fund it, watch it, write about it…love it.

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Katie Faulkner (Oakland, CA)

Melecio Estrella (Oakland, CA)

Nadia Oka (Oakland, CA)

Doug Gillespie (Brooklyn, NY)

Rachael McClellan Leonard (Port Orange, FL)

Mike Barber (Portland, OR)

Jill Randall (Berkeley, CA)

Ashley Thorndike-Youssef (Washington, DC)

Tamara Riewe (New York, NY)

Annie Rosenthal Parr (Mill Valley, CA)

Christal N. Brown (Middlebury, VT)

Laura Everling Mulchay (Las Vegas, NV)

Helen Simoneau (Winston-Salem, NC)

Natalie Desch (Seattle, WA)

Jenny Showalter (Phoenix, AZ)

Katie Kruger (Alameda, CA)

Sarah Crowell (Oakland, CA)

Sima Belmar (Berkeley, CA)

Katie Sopoci Drake (Chicago, IL)

Rebecca Johnson (Oakland, CA)

Craig Berman (Las Vegas, NV)

Randee Paufve (Oakland, CA)

Stephanie Sleeper (Brooklyn, NY)

Damon Rago (Los Angeles, CA)

Stephen Koester (Salt Lake City, UT)

Valerie Gutwirth (Oakland, CA)

Mo Miner (Oakland, CA)

Nina Haft (Oakland, CA)

John Beasant (New York, NY)

Jill Voorhees Edwards (Salt Lake City, UT)

Amelia Rudolph (San Francisco, CA)

Christine Chen (New York, NY)

Dawn Robinson (New York, NY and Fort Lauderdale, FL)

Angie Hauser (Florence, Massachusetts)

Janet Wong (New York, NY)

Daniel Charon (Salt Lake City, UT)

Shaunna Vella (Oakland, CA)

Annie Arnoult Beserra (Chicago, IL)

Jennifer Nugent (Brooklyn, NY)

Dana Lawton (Oakland, CA)

Colleen Thomas (New York, NY)

Aaron Mattocks (Brooklyn, NY)

Wendy Jones (San Francisco, CA)

Emily Carson Coates (New Haven, CT)

Gigi Arrington (Salt Lake City, UT)

Elizebeth Randall (Oakland, CA)

Pamela Vail (Lancaster, PA)

Ellen Bromberg (Salt Lake City, UT)

Alexandra Beller (New York, NY)

Charlotte Boye-Christensen (Salt Lake City, UT)

Jill Patterson (Lakeville, MN)

Jillian Harris (Philadelphia, PA)

Peter DiMuro (Boston, MA)

Graham Brown (Provo, UT)

Jennifer Kayle (Iowa City, IA)

Tina Fehlandt (Brooklyn, NY)

Shelley Senter (Brooklyn, NY)

Rebecca Lazier (Brooklyn, NY)

Maile Okamura (Brooklyn, NY) 

Carrie Homuth (Minneapolis, MN)

Patricia West Sotelo (Oakland, CA)

Neal Beasley (New York, NY)

Gretchen Pick (Minneapolis, MN)

Tandy Beal (San Francisco Bay Area, CA)

Victoria Marks (Los Angeles, CA)

Marlena Penney Oden (Brooklyn, NY)

Stephan Koplowitz (Los Angeles, CA)

Sara Rudner (New York, New York)

Julia Burrer (Brooklyn, NY)

Douglas Nielsen (Tucson, AZ)

Juliana Monin (Oakland, CA)

Lauren Grant (Brooklyn, NY)

Kelli Brown (Idaho)

Ivy Baldwin (Brooklyn, NY)

Jennifer Salk (Seattle, WA)

Cathy Davalos (Richmond, CA)

Joanna Kotze (Brooklyn, NY)

Dawn Karlovsky (Saint Louis, MO)

Leah Cox (New York, NY)

Michelle Yard (Brooklyn, NY)

Kate Weare (Brooklyn, NY)

Onye Ozuzu (Chicago, IL)

Ellie Goudie-Averell (Iowa City, IA)

Abigail Hosein (Oakland, CA)

Eddie Martinez (Wuppertal, Germany)

Linda C. Smith (Salt Lake City, UT)

Jennifer Monson (Urbana, IL and New York, NY)

Anna Sperber (Brooklyn, NY)

Jeanine Durning (New York, NY)

Netta Yerushalmy (New York, NY)

Abby Fiat (Salt Lake City, UT)

Alice Sheppard (New York, NY and San Francisco, CA)

Vicky Shick (New York, NY)

Carley Conder (Tempe, AZ)

Lily Baldwin (New York, NY)

Molly Heller (Salt Lake City, UT)

Chantal Sampogna (Oakland, CA)

Brandon Cournay (New York, NY)

Donna White (Salt Lake City, UT)

Keith Johnson (Long Beach, CA)

Sarah Wilbur (Los Angeles, CA)

Ashley Anderson (Salt Lake City, UT)

Adriane Fang (Silver Spring, MD)

Dawn Stoppiello (Portland, OR)

Richard Burrows (Seattle and Vancouver, WA)

Cynthia Oliver (Urbana, IL)

Debra Knapp (Las Cruces, NM)

Sondra Fraleigh (St. George, UT)

Abby Zbikowski (Champaign, IL)

Jesse Zaritt (Brooklyn, NY)

Gwen Welliver (New York, NY and Tallahassee, FL)

Lia Bonfilio (New York, NY)

Joan Woodbury (Salt Lake City, UT)

Rashaun Mitchell (Brooklyn, NY)

Susan Marshall (New York, NY)

Jodi Melnick (New York, NY)

Tiffany Mills (Brooklyn, NY)

Kathleen Wessel (Atlanta, GA)

Liz Lerman (Baltimore, MD)

Todd McQuade (Los Angeles, CA)

Reggie Wilson (Brooklyn, NY)

Banning Bouldin (Nashville, TN)

Elizabeth McPherson (New York, NY)

Jo Kreiter (San Francisco, CA)

Pamela Quinn (New York, NY)

Elisa Monte (New York, NY)

Rosana Barragan (San Francisco, CA)

Paloma McGregor (New York, NY)

Amy Chavasse (Ann Arbor, MI)

Gerri Houlihan (Durham, NC)

Samsam Yung (Brooklyn, NY)

Michelle Boule (New York, NY)

Rogelio Lopez (Oakland, CA)

Phyllis Haskell Tims (Arizona and Idaho)

Amy Foley (San Francisco, CA)

Tami Stronach (Brooklyn, NY)

Angela Demmel (San Francisco Bay Area)

Jennifer Edwards (New York, NY)

Camille A. Brown (New York City)

Christy Funsch (San Francisco, CA)

Laura Faure (Portland, ME)

Linda Carr (Berkeley, CA)

Pamela Geber Handman (Salt Lake City, UT)

Courtney Moreno (San Francisco, CA)

Risa Jaroslow (Oakland, CA)

Donna Uchizono (New York, NY)

Jeremy jae Neal (Brooklyn, NY)

Marc Brew (Glasgow, UK)

Dante Brown (Brooklyn, NY)

Gesel Mason (Boulder, CO)

Jess Humphrey (San Diego, CA)

Jan Erkert (Champaign, IL)

Becky Radway (Brooklyn, NY)

Molly Lieber (New York, NY)

Heidi Henderson (Wakfield, RI)

Becca Levy (Jacksonville, FL)

Rebecca Stenn (New York, NY)

Raja Feather Kelly (Brooklyn, NY)

Laura Colby (Brooklyn, NY)

Nicole Vaughan-Diaz (New York, NY)

Dayna Hanson (Seattle, WA)

Nia Love (New York, NY)

Kristin Damrow (Oakland, CA)

Charles Slender-White (San Francisco, CA)

Shirley Ririe (Salt Lake City, UT)

Kathleen Hermesdorf (San Francisco, CA)

Lauren Simpson (San Francisco, CA)

Tanya Chianese (Oakland, CA)

Liv Schaffer (Oakland, CA)

Mark Travis Rivera (Oakland, CA)

Raissa Simpson (San Francisco, CA)

Joan Lazarus (Greenbrae, CA)

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Artist Profile #160: Nicole Vaughan-Diaz (New York, NY)

Hometown: Miami, Florida

Current city: New York, New York

Age: 28

College and degree: University of South Florida, BFA - Dance Performance

How you pay the bills: Kate Weare Company, and an event company, to supplement.

All of the dance hats you wear: Dancer, Choreographer, Teacher, Dance Filmmaker/Editor

Non-dance work you do or have done in the past: As a teenager I was cast in a professional musical theater company in South Florida, as a singer/actor, facing fears and playing smaller roles in productions including West Side Story, Fiddler on the Roof, and South Pacific. These were formative years that assisted my initial understanding that much can be achieved when risk is involved.

 

 

Describe your dance life…

 

High school: I was a true novice that had been riding out my dance experiences on pure observation and trial and error. I had only ever discerned the art form through a public school lens and mainstream media. All I knew was that the body fascinated me and I had much catching up to do. I joined everything I could --- dance classes and teams, adopting leadership roles and involving myself as much as possible. Teachers were charmed by thirst for growth and understanding, and they believed in me in ways I had yet to trust.

 

College: My educational experience was one encounter after another in which dance professors urged me to fully invest myself in the field and choose to major at a university level. Through heavy suggestions, I took the leap and wound up at the University of South Florida. Till this day, I continue to affirm these were the greatest years of my growth, both as a human being and as an artist. My days were filled with classes, rehearsals, and personal choreographic journeys. Risk was demanded of us, and safety in these ventures was both promised and delivered. Through the intensity with which they led the program I was able to work with artists such as Doug Varone and Rosie Herrera, as well as Colleen Thomas during a study abroad semester in Paris, France.

 

The first 2 years after college: Because of my steadfast dedication to the program, I was able to gain mentors I had never anticipated. Through recommendation, I was given the opportunity to audition for Kate Weare Company. Immediately following graduation, I apprenticed with the company for a short while, swiftly jumping into the roles of fallen dancers, until I was eventually offered a full company position less than a year later. Under two years after graduation, I made my debut in KWCo's premiere of Unstruck, originating my role in the trio with two other male dancers. 

 

Now: My allegiance to Kate remains. Her work continues to evoke something in me I am still grappling with, and I find my artistic voice is the closest to what I have come to understand about myself as a mover and where I am interested in going. 

 

Photo courtesy of Kate Weare Company; photo by Keira Heu-Jwyn Chang
 

Major influences: 

Despite being entirely enamored of female powers, including Pina Bausch and Crystal Pite, my major influences have come from the immediate figures that have had a direct impact on my career. 

 

Andee Scott, of USF, introduced me to the gravitational force and impact our forms have with the floor, and the understanding that too many questions might impede the body's innate wisdom and understanding of its own limitations.  

 

Kate Weare is undoubtedly one of my greatest influences. The androgynous nature of her work has allowed me the ability to explore and meditate on sole human power and fight. I have come to rediscover my femininity through sheer strength and animalistic desire that is described by nothing more than pure human kinesthetics.  

 

Michael Foley, my beloved mentor, will forever be an influence I am indebted to. He is the person that helped me navigate this field and solidify my presence and career in dance, which up until him I was unsure I could penetrate or belong to. Movement-wise, there is a constant flow, shift of weight, and use of descending/ascending momentum that can be felt in his work, and this is where I was introduced to the organic wisdom movement could adopt, if desired. Without the drama, without being literal, his work was the first that let me vividly feel my humanity through movement. For all of this, I will forever cherish my time under his wing. 

 

What is on your calendar for the 2017-18 academic year (teaching, choreographing, performing)? 

With KWCo, I will be performing in the premiere of our newest collaborative work, Sin Salida, in Paris, France, which will later have a U.S. and European tour. I will also be involved in the creation of Kate's newest piece, which will begin in the Spring of 2018. Teaching and setting work under the company's name will also continue.

 

Personally, I have begun my journey in dance film, which has been a fascination of mine for several years. I hope to premiere two short films by the end of 2018. Both are solo journeys, as I continue to investigate and solidify how I wish to voice my art. My intention with these films has yet to be determined, but submitting them to festivals is just the tip of the iceberg. 

 

Can you share a little about getting into Kate Weare Co? Did you audition, attend a workshop, etc? What do you love about the work and the artistic process? 

My college professor reached out to Kate during my last semester and expressed his fervent opinion that he had a graduating student who may potentially be a nice fit for the company. Kate perused my website at the time and invited me to a workshop she was having the following week. A short time after the audition, Kate contacted me with an apprenticeship offer. Just weeks after graduation, I landed in New York City with one bag and no place to live. This is my fourth season with the company. 

 

As previously mentioned, Kate's work grounds me by way of pure human mechanics attached to the power or insistence of our nature. Her work is intelligent and intentional. It's expressive of the many layers of our animal desires, without leaning too heavily on human sentiment. She cuts the gratuitousness from movement that may be overly influenced by our training as dancers. And in this way, there is a rawness I am able to reach in her work that connects me to the very reason I started dancing.

 

What are you exploring and focusing on as a performer right now? 

Currently, I am focused on the concentration of the human experience via movement through the lens of film. Whereas there are copious reasons why live dance is insurmountable, I believe significant micro-movements and expressions can be lost in translation due to the fleeting nature of live performance and physical distance from its viewers. Placing dance under the microscope can help bring audiences closer to the dancer as a means of connecting them on a human level by exposing their faces and individual complexities. I believe the collaborative efforts of technology and dance can exhibit the artform in new ways, and hopefully dismantle the feeling of "aloofness" we are sometimes known for.

 

Current training practices and care of the body: 

I'm simply interested in keeping my form open to new direction and staying limber. I find yoga to be a tremendous help in maintaining the connection to all that makes up my being. And as of recently, I have begun to poke at the intrigue of ridding my fear of backspace through ventures into gymnastics.

 

Photo courtesy of Kate Weare Company; photo by Keira Heu-Jwyn Chang
 

What does collaboration mean to you in your art making?

Collaboration means a constant flow of influence, openness, and malleability to such inputs. There is little in this world that is not a form of collaborative effort. In my work, collaboration can be as commonplace as the inclusion of music, or even having a dialogue with a friend or colleague about their suggestions regarding the direction I may be going with an idea. 

 

Last show you saw that inspired you: 

A piece Crystal Pite set on NDT, titled The Statement.

 

Non-dance activities, hobbies, service work important to you: 

Music is an expression that runs in my family, either instrumentally or vocally; I happen to do both. Although I have succeeded in keeping this outlet to myself for most of my life, the desire to share it with others is starting to surface. I am open to the unfolding of its potential. 

 

Advice to dancers moving to New York City: 

Get back to the real reason you started dancing; this may mean redefining your assumption of success and happiness. Rejection is inevitable and sometimes has little to do with talent. And as timeworn as the reminder may be, truth will always remain in remembering to never forget your worth... so don't forget it.

 

Final thoughts: Hope/belief/love of the profession:

My hope for the field is that it may one day fully re-immerse itself into mainstream culture as an essential reminder of our connectedness as humans. 

 

There is something about dance as an art form that has consistently lured me to its home. It simply makes sense to me; it is my celebration. And I feel honored to be part of a small collective of people fighting to share it. 

 

Photo courtesy of Kate Weare Company; photo by Keira Heu-Jwyn Chang

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Related posts:

Artist Profile: Kate Weare

Artist Profile: Doug Gillespie

Artist Profile: Colleen Thomas

Advice on Moving to NYC

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Catching Up with Ivy Baldwin (Artist Profile #74)

Three years ago, Ivy Baldwin wrote an artist profile for the blog. Today, she candidly shares an update about her work and how major life events alter our artistic landscape.

Ivy Baldwin. Photo credit: Nafis Azad

How would you describe the past 3 years?

They’ve been challenging. In late 2014, just as we were in final rehearsals for Oxbow for the Brooklyn Academy of Music, my beloved long-time dancer/collaborator/friend, Lawrence Cassella, someone I was intensely connected to and spent countless hours with, suddenly became extremely ill. Over the next several weeks, without a clear diagnosis, this exuberant, powerful, funny man got sicker, weaker, was hospitalized, and passed away quite suddenly in January 2015 from what turned out to be a very rare immunodeficiency. It was such a shock and a heartbreak to all of us. He was only 38 years old.

Following his death I took a break from dance, and then began the Keen project in late 2015, working through, and with, the grief I and the rest of the company were feeling. Keen as a title references keening — the old Irish grieving ritual practiced predominantly by women.

Keen (Part 1) was a site-specific dance for the Philip Johnson Glass House in New Canaan, CT that premiered in May 2016 and was performed by the remaining women of Ivy Baldwin Dance (Anna Carapetyan, Eleanor Smith, Katie Workum, and Ivy Baldwin).

Then the presidential campaign and election of 2016 happened, and deeply affected so many of us. The day after the election I drove to Peterborough, NH to begin a month-long fellowship at the MacDowell Colony to develop Keen [No. 2]. My originally deeply personal connection to grief and women suddenly became more universal, and it was there I imagined a louder, stronger female presence in Keen [No. 2] and committed to making the work a dance for 10 women instead of 4. We premiered Keen [No.2] at the Abrons Arts Center Playhouse in June 2017.

So though the last 3 years began with an incredibly sad and difficult event, they’ve also been filled with a lot of creativity, and expression, and deepening relationships with friends and family and my husband — much of it profoundly colored by that event.

Photo: Maria Baranova

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?

After Lawrence passed away, I had to reconcile how and why to keep making dance in the face of this loss. Choreographing Keen (Part 1) and Keen [No.2] gave me the opportunity and space to process and reflect on grief, how women grieve and support one another, and the joy of memory and love, too. Now that I’ve created these works in response to this tragic loss, I find myself yet again at a crossroad where I must ask myself how best to continue. The role of dance in my life has always been (and will most likely always be) the way I process the world around me and the messiness of being a human being in it.

What is the role of teaching within your work? What is the interplay between teaching and choreographing?

When I took a break in early 2015 from making new work, I also took a break from teaching and choreographing work on students. It’s something I’m now eager to dive back into—particularly working with college-aged dancers. Working with young people has always fed my choreographic process with my company as it makes me both question and clarify my methodologies and inevitably spurs new ways of thinking about, seeing, and making dance.

What is on your calendar for the new year?

Upcoming projects include a month-long fellowship at Yaddo in Saratoga Springs, NY in early 2018 and the creation of a new site-specific dance for Manitoga/The Russel Wright Design Center in Garrison, NY in 2019.

Links to Keen (Part 1) and Keen [No. 2]:

Keen (Part 1) at the Glass House

Keen [No. 2] at Abrons Arts Center

Photo: Maria Baranova

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Related links and posts:

Ivy Baldwin Dance - website

Artist Profile #74: Ivy Baldwin

NY Times Article: Her Longtime Dancer Died. Instead of Moving On, She Embraced Loss. (By Siobhan Burke)

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Catching Up with Anna Sperber (Artist Profile #88)

Today we catch up with Brooklyn-based choreographer Anna Sperber. She first wrote for Life as a Modern Dancer back in 2015. Read her original artist profile here.

Photo: Ian Douglas

How would you describe the past 2 years?

The past two years have been very full! Thinking back to two years ago today - November  2015, I was at the beginning of the process of making PRIZE, a piece that premiered in June 2016 presented by The Joyce Theater’s Unleashed Series, off site at New York Live Arts. I worked with a cast of six dancers, only two of whom I had worked with before. I loved getting to know and to work with this new group of amazing people and artists. I also worked with composer and percussionist Ryan Sawyer, lighting designer Elliott Jenetopulos and scenographer Sara Walsh. One special thing about this process that enabled these collaborations to feel very integrated with one another was that I was able to go on residencies with them all to Mount Tremper Arts, where we had intensive time to workshop and play with ideas about each of the elements in dialogue with one another in the creative process in advance of going into the theater.

 

After the premiere of PRIZE, I had the desire to work solo for a while. And this has lead to my current project which will be predominantly a solo performance. It’s both exciting and daunting as it will be the first evening length solo I have made. Creatively, the past year has been filled with the research and work on this piece. I am grateful to have been on two residencies at The Macdowell Colony and Yaddo. These were different than past residencies I have been to, in that artists in different disciplines (writers, composers, filmmakers, visual artists) come to work solo but are concurrently part of a community working in close proximity in these many different mediums. Working in a concentrated solo practice this year has allowed for time to shift rhythms and patterns  that had established in my working process.

 

When I look back on the last two years, it is inevitably in the context of the political events and climate in our country. The current administration’s relentless assaulting bigotry and intolerance affects me and the communities that I live and work in on a cellular level. In its relationship to my work as a dance artist, I am inspired by the resiliance, intelligence and strength of the artists around me. My belief in the urgent importance of self expression, the life of the imagination, and community is only reinforced. 

 

PRIZE. Photo: Ian Douglas
Pictured: Tara Willis in foreground (Lizzie Feidelson, Rebecca Breheney, and Michael Ingle in background left to right)

 

On balancing career and family:

 

Balancing career and family is an ever evolving process. My husband is a musician, so from the beginning when our son Jonah was born, we have been negotiating between the time that each of us spend with him, with our work, and also prioritizing time together. Our son is now turning 7 years old. In some ways this makes finding time to work easier because he is more independent, but he also needs a different kind of emotional attention and engagement from us. In the past two years my husband has been touring more than when Jonah was an infant, so I need to be very clear with how I plan and prioritize my time when he is away, but I have also had the opportunity to go on longer residencies and working periods away from them than I have in the past. It takes a lot of cooperation and negotiation for us to support each other in this way, but it’s definitely worth it.

 

What is the role of teaching within your work? What is the interplay between teaching and choreographing?

 

This year I have really enjoyed teaching as a way to re-examine how I want to articulate what I value in dancing. It’s been an opportunity to reflect on my own approach to my body, to physical practice, to movement from an internal somatic experience and also in relation to the space and people around us while we are dancing and performing. I have always loved dance class as a ritual and a practice for myself. Teaching is a way to enter that space and share what I have found useful to me, and to let go of what is not. To excavate what I still draw on in my own practice as information and inspiration from my teachers at different points in my life. It’s also been an opportunity to connect with dancers in the community who I might not otherwise cross paths with and get to know.  

 

What is on your calendar for the new year? 

 

My current project, Wealth From The Salt Seas, will premiere in March 2018 at The Chocolate Factory Theater in L.I.C.,  NYC.  It’s an evening length solo performed in collaboration with composer and vocalist Gelsey Bell. After that I will be starting a new group piece at a creative residency at The Yard in Martha’s Vineyard.

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Related posts:

 

Artist Profile #88: Anna Sperber

 

Dance and Parenthood: Three Perspectives (Tami Stronach, Amy Foley, and Pamela Geber Handman)

 

Advice on Moving to New York City: Three Perspectives from Tami Stronach, Samsam Yung, and Michelle Boule

 

New Book - A Life in Dance: A Practical Guide (By Rebecca Stenn and Fran Kirmser)

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Catching Up with Ashley Thorndike-Youssef (Artist Profile #8)

 

How would you describe the past 5 years?

Exciting, fulfilling, stressful.

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?

When I wrote this profile, I was splitting my time between Now Next Dance, teaching Pilates, and adjunct professor-ing, and I had just had my first child (I now have two). My main goal was for Now Next Dance to become my sole, full-time job. I achieved that a few years later. It was truly great and a little lonely. Working full-time, we were able to develop programs including after school classes, a leadership institute, more summer programming, and we reached many folks. I’m really proud of that work.

After a few years, as an organization, we reached a point where we needed to merge with another nonprofit, get absorbed by a larger organization, or do a giant fundraising push to develop more programming and really grow as an organization. Personally, I had a conundrum: I didn’t want to keep running programs, so I didn’t want to go work for an organization we would merge with, and I had begun using the NND framework (Action, Support, Curiosity, Challenge, Resilience) in all my writing, so I certainly didn’t want to lose that intellectual property.

I deeply believe in the work we’ve developed. I want folks to do it -- to merge mentoring, dancing, creating, developing, teaching, emboldening -- all into one messy, magical, immersive experience. I kept returning to an axiom my mentor Dr. Edith Lawrence uses: “False power holds it tight; true power gives it away.” Embodied, this is like Abby Yager’s tool when introducing Trisha Brown’s release-based philosophy. She asks students to clench a fist, then asks them to release the tension, but not relax: the hand remains in a fist, but grows three-dimensionally, taller and broader.

True power expands.

I began to wonder how it would feel to just finish the curriculum and sell it. Not to manage satellite programs, or approve who could buy it, or develop partnership agreements, but just sell the curriculum and let it live on whether people use it or modify it, or just take a few ideas. People always ask to buy the curriculum, and I realized it was time to say Yes.  I also attended a Braindance™ workshop with Anne Green Gilbert where she said (paraphrasing here): “Use this work. Go use it with students. Just please give me credit.” That spirit of generosity really resonated with me.

Working with college dancers, my top priority is blowing up the notion of what it means to be a dancer. So often college dancers have the narrowest of definitions of success (i.e. touring with an international company). While I cheer that desire, I also know there are many paths in, with, and around dance. Like the college dancer, I began to define success narrowly: 501(c)3 , full time ED position, 40% earned income, 40% individual giving, 20% grants. When I opened my definition of success, and dug into my true values and needs I realized how limited I was becoming by that definition: our work reached a small number of students; much of my fundraising was for my own salary; and I was missing opportunities to develop the work by spending time learning Quickbooks and 990 forms.

So the 501c3 is officially closing. I’m reclaiming the curriculum and am compiling 8 years of notes, timelines, checklists, emails, and to-dos into a Now Next Dance Playbook which people can purchase.

In some ways that’s a big change from 5 years ago -- and in some ways it is a totally logical pivot.

I’m approaching 40, and the role of dance in my life continues to evolve. I just finished a choreographic project with my creative partner Peter V. Swendsen and several dancers with whom I’ve been collaborating for 10 years (and a few new, stunning ones), and that was both amazing and depleting.  

coldness & lightness by Ashley Thorndike/Peter Swendsen. Photo credit: Mark Hoelscher (mwhphoto.com)

My current work:

Now Next Dance Playbook

The Now Next Dance Playbook will be available by December 1. It includes the program curriculum, philosophy, checklists, protocols, planning timelines, and a how-to for creating your own version of the program. I’m really excited to begin selling the Playbook and engaging with folks on social media and in consultations as they develop their own dance mentoring programs.

Dance in Community

I’m also hard at work on a new book titled Dance in Community. Dance in Community is a visual textbook and teacher-diary designed to be used in dance teaching methods classes or as interactive text for dance educators at all levels. The book focuses on teaching dance in diverse settings and is a mix of teaching skills focused on Context (who and where you teach), Approach (how you teach), and Content (what you teach) and planning guides. The book is interspersed with glimpses into the lives of dance teaching artists teaching in a huge variety of contexts and with incredibly diverse populations.

I’m also chewing on my next professional adventure. I’ve started doing some leadership & strategy consulting, which I love as well as continuing to work in the Pilates/yoga/wellbeing sphere. So I’m trying to make some decisions about what I want my income, lifestyle, and time to look like in the next stretch of my life.

Playbook planning

What is on your calendar for the fall?

I’m cranking out the Now Next Dance Playbook, and I’m so excited about it. Anyone interested should reach out to me. (It really helps me work faster. I’m like Mike Mulligan and Mary Anne!)

I’m slowly working on Dance in Community in a more systematic research and writing process. I’m scheduling interviews, collecting resources, and creating tools. I’ll devote my Spring to organizing and writing.

I just got back from the newly formed Dance Studies Association meeting (CORD and SDHS have merged). I shared some of my work and sat on a panel giving career advice to dance PhD students.

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Related posts: 

Artist Profile #8: Ashley Thorndike-Youssef

A Modern Dancer's Guide to....Washington, DC (written by Ashley Thorndike-Youssef)

Program Spotlight: The University of Utah's Department of Modern Dance

The View From ADF: With Anne Green Gilbert

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Catching Up with Julia Burrer (Artist Profile #69)

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: Julia Burrer

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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Catching Up with Graham Brown (Artist Profile #54)

Artist Graham Brown (now based in Provo, UT) wrote for Life as a Modern Dancer three years ago. This week, we reconnect with Graham, and he shares an update on his current dance path.

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The past 3 years/ the most major change in my dance career:

By far the biggest shift has been to dive into immersive theater as my primary mode of research/presentation of my work. It must have been only a couple of months after I wrote my profile on here that I saw Then She Fell by Third Rail Projects in NYC, and it completely changed my life. It is an immersive show for only 15 audience members who are each brought through a very specific and individual experience, spending about half of the time alone with one performer or another. I was intensely impacted by the intimacy, both of being inside of an experience with them, and of the power of seeing dance from such close proximity. It was so meaningful and emotional for me. It felt like a personal gift, in a way that no stage performance has ever felt.

My show You that I was working on at the time (referenced in my profile) was all about this question directed to the audience - “Do you see yourself in it?” On my flight home from NYC it hit me that there would be no more direct and potent way to achieve my goal of helping the audience to “see themselves in it” than to literally put them in it. It’s one thing to watch people on stage dancing like they’re at a club, it’s a whole different experience to actually be at a club and the performance happens around you; and with you.

And so You as an immersive experience was born. We removed the seating in the Rose Wagner Black Box Theatre, and the audience and performers shared the large black box space, with furniture and set pieces moving in and out in coordination with the different scenes. The show ran for one very successful weekend, January 2015. When it was over, rather than feeling finished, it felt like time to begin the next and final chapter - a fully immersive advancement of the work.

The title changed to Sonder (look the word up in the dictionary of obscure sorrows by John Koenig, www.dictionaryofobscuresorrows.com) and took two years and some crucial artistic collaborations to realize. Dramaturg/writer Rick Curtiss and I spent countless hours re-writing the show and adding scenes to accommodate a multi-dimensional experience in which, rather than exiting, characters split ways providing a choice for the audience of who to follow into which scene. We also integrated as much audience interaction as possible into the work. There were 58 total scenes in the show with at most eight happening at the same time and about half had some level of audience involvement, be it simply holding something for a character, or being transformed for a time into a character themselves.

Another crucial connection was with the production company Sackerson, directed by David Mortensen, Alex Ungerman, and Daniel Whiting, who produced the show. Among a host of miraculous work they did, perhaps the most significant was to land an incredible historic building in Downtown Salt Lake City as the venue. Many know of it as The Bay - a nightclub that has gone in and out of operation over the years. We occupied three stories of this building creating the many environments of the show including a nightclub, a restaurant, and two different homes with bedrooms, living rooms, kitchen, office, etc. Installation artist Aundrea Frahm (www.a-frahm.com)  created much of the design work - approaching set design as installation art. Sonder ran March-April of 2017 for a 6-week sold-out run of shows, seen by over 1,200 people, with many returning two, three, and even four times. There’s an infectious feeling to this type of work where the audience has agency, intimacy, and is directly involved with the events as they unfold. It creates a deep level of connection to the characters, experiences, and the world of the show. And because there is so much happening at once, you can come multiple times and see a whole new show each time, deepening your understanding of and relationship with the work.

A scene from Sonder - Eliza Tappan on top (she played the character Charlie), Connor Voss on bottom (video)

Beyond my professional choreographic work, I created or curated 3 evening-length works with the BYU dancEnsemble:

• Only Now - A made-from-scratch collaboration with fellow faculty member Caroline Prohosky, composer Gavan Ryan, and the students
• Ordinary Festivals by Sara Pearson and Partik Widrig – PEARSONWIDRIG DANCETHEATRE’s glorious signature work filled with hundreds of oranges and Italian folk music. Lehua (my wife) and I set the work on the students off of the video, and Sara and Patrik spent two weeks refining it with the students. Lehua and I also performed in the show. This is the first time the full work has ever been set on another company.
• A Mobile Excursion – An epic collaboration with Aundrea Frahm (it was intended to be our warm-up for Sonder and ended up being an immense accomplishment of its own) and the students in which we re-imagined the spaces in and around the Dance Theatre as a combination of site-specific dance, installation art, and immersive theater. Audiences moved through several experiential environments ranging from laying on the floor on a pillow while the dance happens around them, to moving through a duet between double doors in which audience members sometimes get trapped inside. The music was composed and played live by a team of student musicians.

From A Mobile Excursion

For the BYU Theater Department, I choreographed Shakespeare’s A Winter’s Tale directed by Lindsay Livingston. In terms of performance I toured with PEARSONWIDRIG DANCETHEATER in 2016 to Havana, Cuba where we collaborated with the Compania Rosario Cardenas. I also performed a solo from Sonder in that show.

In regards to teaching at BYU I’ve created two new classes - A Contemporary Partnering class using contact improvisation as its primary reference point, and an Urban and Street Forms class. For the Urban class I created and organized it, but contracted with the SLC based B-boy Federation (www.bboyfed.com) to provide teachers in the different styles including b-boying, popping, new jack swing, and house. After two semesters of this we hired one of the teachers - Marc Cameron, aka Big Chocolate - to take over the class as an adjunct faculty member. This class has a huge waiting list every semester.

My calendar this academic year:

Sackerson is producing The Little Prince, and I will be choreographing it. We’ve identified certain scenes for which we will generate choreographic content with the actors, furthering the narrative with an unexpected abstract physical layer. That will open in Salt Lake City in November.

I have started on my next big professional project called Apple Falling. A re-imagining of a stage work I made a few years ago, it will be an immersive experience set in a house and centered around ideas of family, inheritance, and legacy, asking the question - “Can we control how far the apple falls from the tree?” It will be a multi-generational cast of 6 and an audience of 18. Each audience member will follow one character for the full duration of the show, getting their side of the story. Sackerson will be producing it and we are working with a team of writers to realize the story and script. We don’t have a time frame set for opening, but I’d guess it will be within the next year or so.

On balancing career and family:

The truth is I failed at this during the Sonder process. It took a huge toll on my family and marriage. I learned some important lessons about how much is too much… rehearsals five days a week in Salt Lake City (45 minutes away from Provo where we live) is too much. Also being in the thick of such a huge project really took over my mental and emotional space, leaving me pretty absent from my personal life. Moving forward with Apple Falling I am very aware of not falling into that again. Having writers frees up hours of time, not jumping into a set calendar right away relieves stress, and when we get to the point of setting a calendar I will keep it in mind to space things out enough to be able to stay present in both my art and my real life.

The family-work balance has flipped now, and I am making more sacrifices because Lehua has started an MFA program in dance at the U of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. She was gone for 7 weeks over the summer, so I kept my calendar clear to be home with the kids, including turning down a tour to Germany with PEARSONWIDRIG DANCETHEATER. She is now home taking 12 credits, both online and 2 classes at the U of Utah, so I come home every day after teaching to shuttle kids, clean house, and make dinner. She will also be gone for a few weeks in February touring the Nikolais work with Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company. Basically it ends up that we take turns.

It’s a constant juggling act of needs, wants, opportunities and responsibilities between not only Lehua and I, but also the four kids, two of which have arrived at the opportunities and challenges of the teen age years. We look forward (with slight chagrin) to the day when our oldest can help out by driving herself and other family members around!

To read Graham's original artist profile, please click here.

www.grahambrown.org

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Related posts:

A Modern Dancer's Guide to.....Salt Lake City

Artist Profile: Lia Bonfilio of Then She Fell

MFA Program Spotlight: University of Wisconsin Milwaukee

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Artist Profile #159: Laura Colby (Brooklyn, NY)

Hometown: If you mean where I went to high school - Berkeley, CA. (I lived there 4 years.)

Current city: Brooklyn

Age: 56

College and degree: The Juilliard School, BFA in Dance

Website: www.elsieman.org

How you pay the bills: Through my job at Elsie Management.

All of the dance hats you wear: Artsworker, artist representative, artist manager, manager, dance goer, I'll give you my feedback if you ask for it. 

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Please describe your dance life/arts life in your.....

Teens: From age 6-16, I had nothing but ballet training. When I was told (at 16) by the San Francisco Ballet that I would never dance in the company, I left my ballet training and began my modern dance training. (Lucky me, I attended Berkeley High School where Marcia Sigman led a class titled "Dance Production" which encouraged dance practices of all kinds.) I also studied tap, musical theater, and jazz. After graduating from Berkeley High, I was a dance major at UC Irvine 1979 - 1981. Throughout high school and my two years at UCI, I cleaned houses and worked in retail shops for income.

20s: I was accepted to Juilliard and graduated in 1984 where I received classical training in modern dance (Graham & Limón) and ballet training (Cecchetti & Russian). I started waiting tables in NYC for income. After graduation, I performed for Mark Haim, a Juilliard classmate. In 1985, Mark was invited to present his first full night of performance - Mark Haim & Dancers was presented at Riverside Church. While dancing for Mark, I also helped him with the administration needed for this season. Neither of us knew what we were doing - we learned as we went using (then) Dance Theater Workshop's "how to write a press release" as a guide. This was the start of my arts admin life. We had a total of 3 seasons at Riverside Church. I continued to wait tables - working my way up in the NYC's restaurant hierarchy, with my last restaurant job at The Casual Quilted Giraffe. When I was 23, I got married. When I was 25, I gave birth to my son. In my last trimester, I returned to retail, working at a local coffee store. 

When my son was 6 weeks old, I performed in Mark Haim & Dancers' final NYC season at Riverside Church. When my son was 6 months old, I auditioned for and was hired by the Limón Dance Company. My training then turned to strictly Limón technique and ballet with the Corvinos. (Alfredo Corvino had been my Cecchetti teacher at Juilliard.) During this time, Mark left NYC, and I started doing admin work for other choreographers who paid me by the hour. I auditioned for Nancy Duncan's CoDanceCo and performed (and did admin work) for this company for 6 years. At CoDanceCo, I worked with choreographer Ann Carlson - introducing me to a very different kind of dance than I had previously encountered.

30s: My husband, son and I moved out of Brooklyn to Westchester County. I was being paid by the hour to do primarily company manager work for a handful of downtown contemporary dance choreographers. I commuted into NYC to take class, rehearse, and perform. In 1995, I created Elsie Management specifically to attend the APAP (then the Association of Performing Arts Presenters) conference. I produced 2 showcases featuring 14 (mostly emerging and unknown) contemporary dance companies. By this time, I had discovered the system of annual (regional) booking conferences that exist. APAP is the annual national conference that convenes in NYC each year. In 1996 I left my marriage, returned to Brooklyn, and worked as Sean Curran's founding company manager while Elsie became a year-round business. I got an office across the street from my apartment and hired part-time, hourly employees to help with the growing roster of dance companies. I performed in Sean's company for 3 seasons and trained and performed with Sara Rudner during this time.

40s: The roster of Elsie Management developed to include world music and dance and then added contemporary theater and outdoor spectacle. I transitioned from being paid by the hour (or project) and started working on commission. I hired my first full-time employees. I stopped dancing and took up cycling. I trained for 600-mile fundraising rides for AIDS and found a new physical outlet. A cycling pal and a choreographer I represented led me to try Iyengar yoga - a perfect tonic for my aging dancer body and new cycling body. I trained in social dance for the first time, picking up Argentinian tango. I began attending milongas 3-4 times a week in NYC and wherever I could whenever I traveled. I had a torn labrum in my right hip surgically repaired. My orthopedist said the tear was from "screwing around my hips for 30 years."

50s: At a milongas, I met a swing dancer who I started dating. I began dancing swing and a lot less tango. I was hit by a car while commuting to work on my bike. I now have a permanent neck injury, with bulging of disks C6&7 in my cervical spine. I have stopped social dancing regularly. Now I try to take yoga 2 times a week, 3 if I can swing it. I ride laps and longer rides on my road bike when my neck is feeling okay. I tore my labrum in my right hip and had it surgically repaired - yes, again. I see a physical therapist once a week and have 20-30 minutes of daily exercises to keep my hips and neck functioning.

Elsie celebrated its 20th anniversary! We now represent 22 companies from around the globe in genres that include a lot of dance, world music and dance, contemporary theater, puppet theater, circus, and outdoor spectacle. We continue to produce our annual dance showcases during APAP.

Can you describe a typical week as Director of Elsie Management? 

The granting process and booking process are cyclical. (I bring up grants as they are instrumental in the creation and often touring of new work.) So, a typical week at Elsie really depends on which part of the year it falls in - and what our immediate focus is that week. This is often based on where we are in the booking process. We are always managing tour dates - our companies that are out on the road that day - while we are also looking for the next opportunity for a new work to be created.

I travel to see our artists' new works, to be at specific performance engagements, as well as to our industry's convenings. So a lot of my typical week is in an airplane.

A typical week can include chasing marketing materials from our artists, anxiously following a visa petition, waiting on a grant award for a new project, and tracking our artists' payments from venues!

What do you love and enjoy most with your job?

I love working with my staff (Anna Amadei, Katie Diamond, and Jimena Alviar). As it happens, we are all dancers, so we speak the same language. We are organized, we can keep track of stuff, we're super disciplined, and we are not afraid of working hard. We are often accomplishing the impossible. 

I love the artists I work with and the incredible worlds they bring us. I love the incredible people (presenters at venues and other managers) I work with throughout our country, and around the globe. And I do love to travel. Discovering different cultures is endless adventure...

You didn't ask, but I'll let you know that the thing I least like about my job is how risky it is. Our work is at the mercy of the market - the economy. And when you represent international artists, you increase your risk factor with all of the variables working against you: visa applications that can be readily declined; taxation obligations that many companies are unwilling to abide by or unable to pay for; venues cancelling out of a routed, contiguous tour; and the arrival of freight that can go all sorts of wrong.

Current movement practices and care of the body:

I am caring for my body primarily through Iyengar yoga, weekly physical therapy, massage, and decent rest. And lots of really good pillows.

Can you describe a few of the biggest changes in modern dance over the span of your career?

Socks - omg, those damn socks! I never want to see another dance with socks. They should be outlawed. Seriously.

What skills (attributes) do you think a modern dancer needs in 2017?

An open mind. The ability to listen. A body that can recover. The ability for that body to speak multiple languages.

Advice to dancers with new companies, in terms of long-term planning and goals:

If you mean dancers who have been hired by a dance company:

Know what you are getting into. Does the company have a company labor policy? Are the dancers organized? Were you given a contract? Does it spell out labor parameters at home versus on the road while on tour? Do you know what you are getting paid, when you will get paid, and how you will get paid (W2 vs 1099)? Did you give the company permission to use your photo or video images? If so, for how long? (Once you have left that company, do you really want them to be able to use your image - forever?)

If you mean a choreographer organizing their own company:

Honestly? Take a class in small business management, because that is what you will be running. If you are in NYC, join The Field, take as many of the classes in company management they offer as you can! (And if you are not in NYC, join your local arts service organization.*)

*Please check out the 16 city guides on the blog to find out more about regional service organizations throughout the United States. 

 Advice to dancers who want to get into arts administration:

Your highly disciplined work ethic will take you far! Your ability to memorize and repeat will serve you. You have a familiarity with the material, therefore you can speak from a place of knowledge. (And if you don't know it - as in haven't actually danced it - you can understand it from a place of deep knowledge of movement.)

For me, it's all about bodies in space. And more recently, it's about what story is being told (through the work of the contemporary theater artists we represent).

Final thoughts: Hope/belief/love of the profession:

If you want to continue your life in the performing arts, there are countless artists who are in need of support - be that through administration or production. I love the work I do. Shameless promotion here - if you are interested in taking a look at the kind of work we do at Elsie Management, considering applying for one of our internship positions: http://www.elsieman.org/internship-program/ 

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Related posts:

17 Awesome Examples: Arts Administrators Around the United States

Blog Series: Becoming an Arts Administrator

Blog Series: Building a Dance Company

Artist Profile: Sara Rudner

Artist Profile: Kate Weare (Kate Weare Co is on the Elsie Management roster)

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