Life as a Modern Dancer

My Dance Week: Elizebeth Randall Rains (SF Bay Area)

My life has changed profoundly since 2014, when I last contributed to this series. I got married, went from part-time to full-time teaching at Saint Mary’s College (SMC), gave birth to an amazing little being, and moved several times. Recently, my family decided to rent an apartment just over a mile from the SMC campus to give us more time together at home and allow me to walk or bike to work (I have chosen to not own a car or drive for the past 20 years). This move has been both simplifying and fulfilling for all of us. On my non-teaching days, my son and I spend hours in our neighborhood park, and the walk through the trees has added an invigorating and restorative element to my work days. I feel very fortunate to have an incredibly supportive husband/co-parent/best friend and a beautifully vivacious toddler who fills our world with joy. My journey into motherhood has been deeply transformational and, though it is often challenging to balance mindful parenting with a full workload, I have never been happier than right now.

SOME BIGGER QUESTIONS THESE DAYS...

• How can my teaching and moving practices continue to evolve while so much of my energy is focused on motherhood?
• How can I get more dancing into my schedule? Am I still a dancer even though I rarely take class or perform?
• How can I carve out more time and space for self-care, new research and learning, connecting with family and friends, and being of service in my communities?
• It is a strange and sometimes scary time to be raising children in this country. What actions can my family be taking to help ensure a healthy, happy, and safe future for all children?

Monday 2/12

7am-noon: Home stuff...snuggle, play, make coffee and breakfast, read dozens of books with baby Asher, walk to the grocery store, play in the park, choreograph a short phrase for tomorrow’s audition

12-1pm: Asher naps--I eat, prepare Asher’s lunch, clean up the crazy tornado of toys, proofread my syllabi and post for my students, emails

1-5pm: Play, eat, read, spend another hour in the park, start a load of laundry, emails, FaceTime with my mom

5-7:30pm: My husband, Blake, finishes work and joins us...family walk, play, read, finish laundry, bath for Asher & Blake, bedtime rituals, Blake cleans up the house and prepares dinner for us

7:30-10:30pm: Eat dinner, prep bags, food and clothes for tomorrow, fold laundry while watching Warriors game, meditate with Blake, sleep

Am I ready for the semester to begin in the morning? What does “ready” even look like?

Will Asher be okay without me all day? Will I be okay without Asher all day?

Tuesday 2/13

8-9:15am: Rough night so late family wake-up, Blake makes coffee and breakfast and feeds the cat while I get Asher and I dressed and ready for the day. Asher’s wonderful babysitter arrives at 9, Blake and I leave at 9:15...sad departure today!

9:45-11:20: Teach Advanced Ballet at SMC. We have an easeful first day back with a full barre and one waltz combination across the floor. Finish class with a rich conversation about what we want from our ballet practice this semester and what can keep the style relevant in our changing bodies and changing world. I love my job!

11:30-1: Hold audition for my new piece for the faculty concert in May

1-3: Meet with colleague about an upcoming MFA class, talk with another colleague about the same class. Eat lunch. Pump milk. Emails. Text with babysitter. Go to bookstore to re-purchase one of the Dance History textbooks that I can’t find my copy of.

3-4:30: Dance History

4:30-5: Walk home

5-5:30: Reunite with sweet Asher (he had a great day), feed him, play, change clothes

5:30-6:30: Chiropractic treatment for recent back pain

6:45-7:45: Bedtime rituals with Asher, Blake cleans up and prepares dinner

7:45-10:30: Dinner with Blake, emails, prepare Valentine’s Day craft project for Asher and I in the morning, fix internet bill problem, go over notes from class and audition today, re-read Dance History article assigned for Thursday, meditate with Blake, sleep

Is my body okay? Do I need to be dedicating more time to self-care and my own movement practices? I know the answer is YES, so how do I make space for that?

What is this new piece at school going to turn into?

Wednesday 2/14

7:30-11am: Breakfast, play, crafts, walk to public library for weekly toddler storytime group

11-12:30: Lunch, nap, babysitter arrives

12:30-1: Bike to school

1-2:30: Dance faculty meeting

2:30-3: Bike home

3-5: Play with Asher at home and park

5-6: School prep work while Asher & Blake nap

6-7:30: Dinner & bath & bedtime

7:30-11: School work and emails, talk and meditate with Blake, sleep

What else do I need to do to prepare for my first Dance History lecture on Thursday?

Thursday 2/15

6:45am: Wake up before family and shower, make coffee, prep for the day

7:30-9: Guys wake up, playtime, breakfast, get Asher ready, babysitter arrives

9-9:30: Walk to SMC while talking on the phone with Stranger Lover Dreamer (SLD) co-directors about our upcoming concert. Our collective has been on hiatus for a few years but we are super excited to be producing a full evening of dance theater magic this March.

9:45-11:20: Teach ballet

11:30-1: First rehearsal for new piece

1-1:30: Walk home

1:30-2:45: Babysitter leaves, Asher play time, get ride to campus from Blake

3-4:30: Teach Dance History (Blake cares for Asher at home/park)

4:30-5:15: Get ride home, home time, prepare for Shawl-Anderson Dance Center (SADC) Adult Intermediate Ballet class

5:15-5:45: Blake drives us to SADC

6-7:30: SADC class (Blake walks around carrying a napping Asher)

8-8:45: Home, bedtime rituals

8:45-11: Eat dinner with Blake, respond to emails, stretch and relax

It is the first Thursday I work a full day at school and then my evening class at SADC and I’m surprised by my high energy level. Can I sustain this? Or, rather, how can I sustain this?

Friday 2/16

7:30-12: Home stuff, walk to grocery store and park

12-1: Asher naps, I eat lunch, read/respond to work emails, clean up house

1-5: Lunch for Asher, play and read at home, play at park

5-6: Family trip to Trader Joe's6-7:30: Dinner, bath, play, bedtime

7:30-11: Eat, watch movie with Blake, run through my SLD solo, sleep

Am I going to be ready to perform in just a few weeks? Where can I squeeze in more rehearsal time alone?

Saturday 2/17

7:15-9:30am: Wake up, breakfast, read, play, get ready

9:30-12: Playdate in Oakland

12-3: Ethiopian food and ice cream with Blake's sister and her boyfriend

3-5: Home, play, catch up with a faraway friend on FaceTime

5-6: Asher & Blake nap together, I do Dance History prep work, shower, make dinner

6-8: Dinner, play, bedtime

8-11:30: Laundry, roll out my back while watching a few episodes of a Netflix program with Blake, run through my SLD solo, meditate, sleep

How can I intentionally sustain and grow this sense of connection that we found today, spending most of our day with family and friends? It’s easy to sometimes get wrapped up in the sweet, insular bubble of our small family but it feels so good and is so important to stay connected.

Sunday 2/18

7:30-9:30: Home time, coffee, read, play

9:30-10: Weekly trip to Farmer’s Market across the street

10-12: Breakfast, chores, play

12-1: Asher naps, I work on this blog entry and do some creative thinking about the pieces I am choreographing at school and for SLD

Afternoon: Lunch, park, play at home, family walk to SMC to look for costumes for SLD, park again, dinner, house cleaning and organizing

Evening: Dinner, play, read, bath, bedtime, short yoga class online, prep work

Where does my creative self live inside the extremely busy, endless outpouring work/love of  parenthood? In my daily life moving forward, how can I allow for the space to wander, improvise, dream, be curious, and challenge myself creatively? 

--------

Related posts:

My Dance Week: Alexandra Beller

My Dance Week: Valerie Gutwirth

Blog Series: Dance and Parenthood

A Year of Wellness

MFA Program Spotlight: Saint Mary's College of California (Low-Res and Full-Time)

--------------------

 

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.

----- 

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

-----

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

-------------------

My Dance Week: Alexandra Beller

From Alexandra:

This is a fairly typical week --- not too crazy, not too light. I am working at Princeton (teaching two courses: Intro to Contemporary Dance and Performance and Repertory), Alvin Ailey (mentoring in the New Directions Lab), La MaMa (teaching the Trinity/La MaMa students Laban and Bartenieff), choreographing for Peter Pan for Bedlam Theatre company, and prepping to start my Laban/BF/Anatomy course and to choreograph the musical The Mad Ones for Prospect Theatre Company. I also have two kids (11 and 5, almost 6) and live in Bed Stuy, Brooklyn. I commute to Princeton so I can still see kids the next morning, even if I sometimes don't make it home that night for bedtime.

Monday, September 25:

6:30am: Wake up unnecessarily because my little 5 year old decides it’s snuggle time. Sweetness ensues.

7:15: Motivate the house to get ready. Make breakfast, pack lunch, make sure school bags are packed, teeth brushed, etc.

8:10: City bus to school, read to little one, morning rituals at school

9:15: Bus back home

9:45-10:45: Grade Princeton homework assignments, cross check schedules and send work emails about schedules for extra rehearsals being added to Princeton and rehearsals being canceled for Peter Pan.

10:45: Bike to train

11:10: Train to Penn, grab food and coffee

12:01: Train to Princeton

12:02-1:36: Read through Peter Pan script, plan Intro to Contemporary class, make to do list for Rep class, answer a few personal texts, eat!

1:36-2:15: Check roster for added/dropped students, update attendance book, re-upload revised syllabus to Blackboard

2:15: Meet with two students who want to late-add the course, about make up work

2:30-4:20: Intro to Contemporary Dance

Today is Technique day (Wed is Composition Day), and we are working on the idea of task, so I am trying to be especially clear about anatomy, initiation and sequencing, cause and effect, spatial landmarks, rhythm, and emotional agenda. For the most part, I try to think a lot about what it is the class is ABOUT, but not actually PLAN class. That probably sounds scandalously unprofessional, but the system seems to work well for me. The preparation for me is in really embodying concepts and deeply probing what I want to invite in class, and then letting the energy and responsiveness of the class direct and edit and season the material. There are moments I feel scared because I don’t know what the next exercise will be, and occasionally it fails because I am less clear than I’d like, but usually it feels more successful than when I choreograph exercises ahead of time…

They do really well. This is, for some of them, a first ever dance class. One of my biggest goals in the class (ironically) is to have them diminish their sense of success and failure and goal setting, and be able to find a really present moment embodiment. It’s not easy at Princeton, where they have such a mentality of pushing hard to achieve an outcome. It takes almost constant re-initiating on my part to get them to relax and feel. We end up making a pretty long phrase by accumulating a bunch of material. The accompanist is bad ass and I ADORE him. Gave him the cue to give me sort of a Brian Eno/David Byrne vibe, and he rocked it.

4:30-6:20: Repertory and Performance Lab

This class is so crazy! Trying to make a piece in 9 weeks, 2 classes per week, but HALF of the 1:50 class has to be a technique class. So I end up with about 45 minutes for rehearsal, and it’s SO hard to build momentum. Luckily, they are hard workers and focused, and the piece is very vignette based, so I can work on a single section in 45 minutes. But I find myself already stressed about how little time we have… I would like 4 hours…

It goes well today. I teach a duet with some intricate and delicate balanced partnering, and for the most part they start to grab the leverage system.

6:21-6:36: RUN to get dressed, grab a snack to go and get the 6:36 train home.

(Miss the express connection so arrive at Penn at 8:15, boo. That means I can’t kiss the kids goodnight, which is really sad.)

On the train home, attempt to read a script for a show I’m working on, but can’t focus. Eat snack, people watch, text friends, chill.

8:15-8:45: Subway to bike

8:45-9:05: Bike home

9:05: Kiss kids sleeping. Oh, big one still up (he’ll be tired tomorrow) so we get to chat for a few.

9:15-10: A bite of dinner (make a tuna sandwich) and answer emails (Why do I have 28 REAL need-to-answered emails?)

10-11: Shower, unpack dirty dance clothes, clean up after kids (How do they manage this mess every day? It’s a serious skill.)

11-12:45: You should go to sleep. You should go to sleep. You should not be on Facebook. Do NOT, I repeat, DO NOT continue that episode of Mad Men. Damn it, what are you DOING??? You will probably get woken up at 6:45.

Tuesday, September 26:

6:15: Kid crawls into bed with me. Cute for a minute.

7:15: Time to motivate this house. Repeat above through 9:45.

10-1: Do research on images for flying for Peter Pan, email director about how we are handling the idea of the “Indians.” Do a traditional First Nation dance, and then pull the plug on the appropriation because it’s an all-white cast? Skip the section? Do Bharatanatyam? If so, I should call my friend Preeti to come to rehearsal. He decides to cut the section of the script. Grade more Princeton homework (Why did I assign two responses per class of 2 paragraphs each from a class of 20? It’s 80 paragraphs twice a week… But I don’t know how else to make sure they do the viewing and reading, of which there is a lot.) Watch the videos from the last piece I made with this creative process to see what yielded what results with that group; make notes.

1-1:30: Get dressed, straighten house

1:30-2: Bus to Fort Greene

2-3: Meeting with my friend Todd Coulter. We are probing the idea of writing a book about embodiment and acting, and about the relationship between instinct and analysis. But it is very hard to find time to work on it for real, and it is so damn daunting. We end up chatting more than working, which is recuperative.

3:15-5:15: Pick up kids and play in playground and do some homework outside

5:15-6: Travel home

6-7: Make dinner, check homework, straighten up, answer some emails

7-7:45: Snuggle time, watch Supergirl with the kids, start bedtime rituals.

8pm: Bike to meet a friend for a drink

8-11: Friend time

11-12: Go through class plans for tomorrow, answer more emails, plan rehearsal for Thursday’s Peter Pan rehearsal

12-1: Go to bed, go to bed, go to bed, go to bed. Why do you DO this every night?

Wednesday, September 27:

5 am: Kid climbs in bed with me. Wake up and phone is completely non-functional. Having a mini meltdown. Need it for music for rehearsal, and doing work on the train. Both my class plans for today are on there, and I don’t totally remember them. Get up once he’s asleep and try reboot, plug in, itunes reboot. Nothing doing. Look up nearby Apple stores and opening times. Stay up til 7:15.

7:15-8: Repeat, but Kids’ dad brings them to school so I can get to Apple store by 9 am opening time.

8-9: Bike/subway/walk to Apple.

9-10:15: Deal with phone. They FIX it!!!! $149 later…

10:30-11:30: Therapy, because life…

12:01: Train to Princeton. Repeat Monday’s tasks.

1:36-2:25: Print materials for both classes and update roster

2:25-2:30: Lay on a ball for my achy back. This is amazing. Self care!!! Why do I only do this for 5 minutes a week?

2:30-4:20: Intro to Contemporary Dance

Composition Day. Makes them nervous, but they do so well!!! I warm them up with a Bartenieff condensed class then have them add tasks to their already created phrases they made last week. I have 20 copies of five tasks (100 slips of paper). They do one; when finished, trade me for the next (so they can work somewhat at their own pace). The tasks are:

• Take out ALL repetition from your phrase
• Add up to 10 seconds of repetition of one thing to your phrase
• Make something that was still locomote
• Put something free inside a container
• Change the force of two movements. Make something that was forceful now be delicate and vice versa

They are doing great work. I mostly refuse to answer questions so that they have to decide on the interpretation and not default to mine.

When they’re done, I add:

• Add a beginning before your beginning, which makes your phrase feel surprising (so set it up with conflict)
• Add an ending which exits and relates back to your new beginning

Their beginnings and endings are STUNNING, really interesting. I’m so into them right now.

4:30-6:20: Repertory and Performance Lab

Why is it SO STRESSFUL every class? Too much to do. My to do list from the train for this class would require 3 hours. Sound system is broken, so I lose ten precious minutes there, and almost lose temper but pull it together. Monday is Bartenieff and dance and Wed is floorwork and inversion and dance. So we get going and get sweaty pretty fast. They are eager dancers, really fun to lead.

We review a bunch of material, and then build a big partnering section with some pretty high flying lifts. They are fairly fearless, and conscientious. Good work today. I feel a tiny lightening of the worry that we will get this done, ever.

6:30: Ride home with Stuart Singer and Raja Kelly

Luckily Stuart drove today, and Raja is visiting to choreograph for Gurls, so we get a respite from NJ Transit. Talk about body fear, shame, inclusion, sensitivity, sexuality and how it relates to our students’ burgeoning identities. Nice to get a moment with other professors to break things down. We also talk about what a “dance class” is anymore, and what we do for our bodies, and how our beliefs about how and what to teach have radically shifted and continue to shift. The ride flies by.

8:15-8:45: Lyft back to my bike

8:45-9:10: Bike home. Kids are already down so I miss kisses tonight. :-(

9:15-1: Repeat Monday

Thursday, September 28:

6:30-9:15 am repeat above.

9:15-10: RACE!!!!! Rehearsal at 10 am in midtown…

10-6: Peter Pan rehearsal for Bedlam Theatre Company

We are working on a version of Peter Pan that diverges drastically from the original, a piece of devised theatre based on the play and using the text, but more adult, darker, more about some of the danger and desire that is inherent in the script. Today we are working on both the idea of mermaids and the idea of flying. I am interested in exploring gender in the mermaids section and terror and ecstasy in the flying. The cast is so amazing, ready and willing and very receptive to the material. We work on a syrupy floor section for mermaids, with some bite to it once we stand up. Sensual, and with a seductive quality to it, I am excited to see the men do it with some sense of playacting or irony. Quite beautiful. Then onto flying, where we are working with some extreme partnering, flying someone as a group. They are not as used to contact as many of the performers I work with, so safety and consciousness and learning about connecting through breath and the rhythm of weight is key. Fun. The rest of the rehearsal I just watch them play with text and work on the script and character ideas.

6-7: Travel home

7-9:15: Dinner and bath and bedtime rituals with kids

9:30-11: Answer emails, grade more Princeton papers, set up ideas for La MaMa class tomorrow, order birthday present for little one (bday upcoming!)

11-12: Shower and clean house etc.

12-1: Lament my inability to fall asleep immediately

Friday, September 29:

6:45-8:45: Repeat, but kids’ dad takes them to school, so a moment to relax with coffee. We are out of coffee. Damn.

8:45-10: Travel to La MaMa

10-12:30: Laban Movement Analysis and Bartenieff Fundamentals for Trinity/La MaMa

We are working on both Basic Six (BF) and beginning Effort Theory today. Working on the dynamosphere in the Cube, the Diagonal scale with Effort Affinities and Disaffinities, and then taking Effort out of Space and allowing for creative applications. They needed a bit of a talking-to today. They were tired, end of a long week. I totally get it. Also, I’m only here once a week, so if we don’t have a pretty productive time together… we are a bit screwed. So I call them out on needing to take responsibility for bringing themselves soulfully and with integrity into the room. Showing up is not enough. They pull it together quite impressively!

12:30-1: Grab food and COFFEE

130-3: New Directions Lab at Alvin Ailey

This is a great program. I am so impressed with it. They give a grant of space and mentorship and money and production to 2 choreographers per semester. I am the mentor for one of them. Having had an initial talk about the scope of our mentorship, and a quick prep talk before his audition for dancers, I attended the audition and hopefully helped him to bounce around to make final selections. Today is my first time getting to a rehearsal, so I’m excited to get in there.

He’s got some very compelling material. A big question for him is around the architecture of relationships and unison. He seems to be choosing to have either a solo against group, full group unison, unison simultaneous duets, or full group solos. I am curious about the narrative that this progression of relationships is telling about the community and how the content is directing the choices around numbers of dancers and unison or contextual tension.

3-4: Errands (I need shoes, as weather is turning crisp and I am still in sandals!)

4-5: Travel home

5-6: Make dinner, check in with kids

6-645: Dinner

7-830: Run out for a quick meeting with a potential director for a show that needs a choreographer.

830: Bedtime rituals

930-12: The usual

Saturday, September 30:

It’s our 5 year old’s sixth birthday! Birthday pancakes, presents, bring his best friend to the Bronx zoo, pick up another kid for a playdate, dinner cupcakes, songs, more presents, bed. Cute Facebook posts of crazy animals we saw.

Sunday, October 1:

Was supposed to have Peter Pan rehearsal but Movement got canceled at the last minute. Using the day to catch up, grade Princeton, send Ailey mentee my notes, plan my Laban course (which starts this Thursday), re-read the script for Mad Ones (meeting the director Tuesday), prep some things for Princeton piece and Intro course, write a letter 0f rec for a friend, set up extra Princeton rehearsal, send email to students about articles upcoming, and a few household things (been meaning to stick 1100 star stickers to the kids/ ceiling…). Make dinner, catch up with a friend in CA on the phone.

 

---

Related posts:

My Dance Week: Pamela Vail (Professor at Franklin and Marshall College)

My Dance Week: Nina Haft (Professor at Cal State East Bay)

Artist Profile: Alexandra Beller

Artist Profile: Raja Feather Kelly

Blog Feature: Dance and Parenthood

------------------------

 

Catching up with Nadia Oka (Artist Profile #3)

Photo: Michael Topolovac

Artist Nadia Oka (San Francisco, CA) was one of the first people to write for Life as a Modern Dancer. Five years later, we reconnect with Nadia, and she shares an update on her current dance path.

How would you describe the past 5 years?

In the past five years, everything has changed. I mustered up the courage to leave the restaurant world completely and focus on teaching yoga full-time at various gyms and studios. Gradually, I built a private practice and now solely work for myself, teaching one-on-ones as well as groups in the workplace, allowing me even more independence and flexibility to focus on dance. Other titanic changes: I started a new relationship, we moved in together (left my beloved Oakland for SF), got married in the Anderson Valley, fell in love with the place and bought 50 acres of land, put an Airstream on it, and the biggest seismic shift of all is that we now have an 8-month-old baby. Still catching my breath…

Nadia dancing with paufve dance. Photo: Tony Nguyen

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 an incredibly rewarding experience performing in an evening length work with paufve dance last year, I felt simultaneously hungry for more while grappling with the intense desire to start a family. As a female dancer on the cusp of 40, I was facing the dual pressure of the aging dancing body and the proverbial ticking of the biological clock. When we decided to have a kid I was unsure of what role dance would have in my life post-baby. How would I heal? What will this new body feel like? What will caring for this new human be like, and how much energy will I have for anything else? I am grateful that I recovered well, and although it is not my former body, it is fortunately one that is ready for dancing. I am getting to know this new body and enjoy exploring how it moves. Rather than be frustrated by what I can’t do as easily anymore, I’m treating this as an opportunity to learn something new about myself.

Our baby also provides an endless amount of movement inspiration. Through him, I get an intimate view of the developmental stages I studied in abstraction for so many years in my Laban/Bartenieff/BMC studies. He’s my improvisation partner—we mirror, use our voices, roll around, and surprise each other. We’re in a constant state of dance.

What is on your calendar for the fall?

I am finally able to go out in the evenings! So I will go and see some dance and reacquaint myself with the community and the work that is being made. I will continue to take class, and I would love to start performing again.

Photo: Michael Topolovac

To read Nadia's full artist profile from August 2012, please click here.

------

Related posts:

Blog Series: Dance and Parenthood

A Modern Dancer's Guide to....the San Francisco Bay Area

Artist Profile: Randee Paufve

------------------------

Catching Up with Melecio Estrella (Artist Profile #2)

Melecio Estrella (right) and family

 

Artist Melecio Estrella (Oakland, CA) was one of the first people to write for Life as a Modern Dancer. Five years later, we reconnect with Melecio, and he shares an update on his current dance path.

 

How would you describe the past 5 years?

I would describe the last 5 years as FULL. I cherish the moments of slowing down, of finding quiet, being with family, of temporarily letting go of to-do lists, and being in the wilderness inside and outside myself. Professionally, I have been full steam with international productions, local bay area productions and teaching. It has been a whirlwind of physicality, listening, joy, grit, meetings and emails. I made a show about climate change,  performed Joe Goode's iconic solo 29 Effeminate Gestures and made 2 films in Yosemite with Bandaloop on cliffs 3000 feet above the ground. I also bought a house, had a kid, and assumed more leadership in work.  I feel like I turned a page of my life, and I have this "adult" context now... mortage, child care, parenting tactics, and a sometimes wavering hold on my planning calendar. I am happy to say that dance continues to bring me home --- to be my own personal wilderness, respite and superconductor to remind me of myself and what is important. 

Bandaloop    Photo: James Adamson

 

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?

In 2015 I became the Assistant Artistic Director of Bandaloop. This meant more artistic leadership, a salaried position in a mid-sized arts organization, and less "piece-it-togetherness" of my previous years as an independent artist. I am fascinated with the art of leadership, of holding a group of people together, creating a situation for dancers to flourish in their brilliance, and communicating with many parties to complete a mission. I feel blessed to be in the leadership of an organization that has given me so much over the last 15 years. 

I also became a leadership fellow with APAP (the Association of Performing Arts Professionals). In a cohort of 30 arts professionals - artists, agents, administrators and presenters - I have been learning about the complicated and quickly changing world of the performing arts establishment. It has given me some lenses to contextualize my work and the work of my colleagues around the world. It is helping me see the vital role arts professionals have as cultural workers. I am inspired by mission driven arts organizations and institutions that are addressing current issues and bringing communities together in big and small ways. There is also a ton of learning for me here as I scratch the surface of arts markets and economies, organizational dynamics, and the business of what we do. 

What is on your calendar for the fall?

As Bandaloop's artistic director Amelia Rudolph is on sabbatical for the rest of the year, I am acting artistic director of the company. I am writing this from Sydney, Australia where we are having our Australian premier here in a few days on a 22 story skyscraper in the center of downtown. I will get home next week and finish a rehearsal process for my company Fog Beast, and we will premier our new work "He's One of Us" at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. After that, we travel to Seattle for the premier of Bandaloop's new work "Strings" at the Meany Center for the Performing Arts on the University of Washington campus. Then I get to be home for a few weeks (phew!). After that it's off to Europe for Bandaloop shows in Budapest, then returning home for shows in Southern California. During that, I am overseeing local educational programs for Bandaloop at our West Oakland studio, and teaching my Thursday morning technique class at Shawl-Anderson Dance Center. 

To read Melecio's original artist profile from August 2012, please click here.

 

Bandaloop    Photo: James Adamson

------

Related posts:

Artist Profile: Amelia Rudolph, Artistic Director of Bandaloop

Artist Profile: Courtney Moreno, Dancer with Bandaloop

Artist Profile: Patricia West of Joe Goode Performance Group and Fog Beast

My Dance Week: Andrew Ward of Fog Beast

A Modern Dancer's Guide to.....the San Francisco Bay Area

Blog Series: Dance and Parenthood

The Arts Administrator's Alphabet: Letter L (Leadership)

----------------------

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

Tami Stronach - Paper Canoe Theater Company

 

From Tami Stronach (Brooklyn, NY)

 

It is hard enough to eek out a living as an artist without a child. With kids you are definitely rolling a ball uphill. For me, creating family programming in addition to my previous work with my dance company was a creative way to address this. It utilizes my skills and interests but they are re-contextualized and there is a broader market there. Also this allows my daughter to connect easily to what we do. I'd hate for her to dislike art because it’s the very thing that keeps me away from her. I made a really conscious decision about finding a way to have the practice of making art bring us together as family.

 

From Amy Foley (San Francisco, CA)

 

Balancing any career and raising a family is hard, I think. But often worth it for all the reasons we already know: sense of self, pride, income, contribution to your field, intellectual stimulation, and more. Balancing a dance career and raising a family is particularly challenging, I think, because there is no set path to travel along. There is no ladder to climb and usually no 8-5 schedule. If you do happen to have a full-time dance job or work with an established company, the pay is not typically substantial enough (or the work consistent enough) to actually live in the area, without other jobs and/or additional support. There are the few, desired, full or nearly full-time dance teaching jobs but those often leave little time for your own practice or creation, particularly if you have a family which is (I still marvel!), incredibly time-consuming and labor intensive. All of these elements and so many more, challenge our notions of "success." Not a bad thing, necessarily, but at times, profoundly confusing.

 

When my first daughter was an infant and I joined the ODC company, I was thrilled and excited. I was also relieved, in a way, to have someone tell me what I had to do and when. I wanted to be back, rehearsing and performing but did not feel I had the bandwidth to piece together my own dance existence at that time. And yet, a full-time job away from my infant daughter presented many other challenges, personal and practical. One example: my paycheck went directly and 100% to the childcare provider for my baby. That reality forced me to examine my desire to dance at that level and my love of the particular job in a way that I may not have, had I been making a higher (non-dance) salary and contributing to the family "pot" even though I was spending so much time away.

 

I feel fortunate to be able to spend a lot of time with my kids and to be able to dance a fair amount, still. It is not always easy on our family schedule or on our family finances, but I think I have to do it, and I am so very thankful that I get to. I take paid dance jobs, but there are plenty that I essentially pay to do. There exists an elusive balance of time and creativity and childcare and school and dinner and (on and on...) that I am trying to reach, every day. But it is of great value to me that my daughters see me as someone who uses her body articulately and creatively and that being an artist is my career, albeit a somewhat non-traditional one. Lastly, being a mom does not necessarily make me a better dancer but dancing certainly makes me a better (saner, happier) mom.

 

From Pamela Geber Handman (Salt Lake City, UT)

 

For a long time, I was seeking balance between the various aspects of my life, professional and personal. I have come to the conclusion that balance is nearly impossible. Instead, I think of this process as managing the falling and while doing so, keeping a sense of humor and humility. Over time, I think that I’ve gotten better at being efficient, at prioritizing, at saying “no” when needed and in all honesty, I feel that my professional life is richer because of my family at home. I think I teach with greater empathy, patience and attention to individual differences. The opposite is true as well—that my family life is richer because I’m engaged in a profession about which I’m passionate. I strive to model passionate and committed work for my children. I am fully engaged in both aspects of my life. I only hope to gain more sleep one day.  

---------------------

Artist Profile #136: Tami Stronach (Brooklyn, NY)

 

Hometown: Berkeley, CA

Current city: Brooklyn, NY

Age: 44

 

College and degree: BFA in Dance, SUNY Purchase 

 

Graduate school and degree: MFA from Hollins/ADF at age 37

 

Websites: tamistronach.com and papercanoecompany.com

 

How you pay the bills: Teaching…I am now transitioning to adding performing for family audiences as a source of revenue, and public speaking.

 

All of the dance hats you wear: Artistic Director, Choreographer, Producer, Professor, Yoga Instructor, Dancer, Actor, Singer, CEO Paper Canoe Theater Co., Puppeteer, Teaching Artist

 

Non-dance work you have done in the past: In the past I was a florist and an aerobics instructor.

------------------ 

 

Describe your dance life in your….. 

 

20s: My first year in the city was insane --- I started my day working from 6:30AM -11AM at a gym stretching people after their workouts and then worked in the evenings from 6-9PM at a pharmacy selling soaps in addition to teaching the NYC Ballet Workout several times a week at NY Sports Club. In the middle of the day and all weekend I made art dancing with Neta Pulvermacher’s company and creating my own dance works. By the next year I had created a healthy personal training business along with the ballet classes, so things improved. But I wasn’t happy unless I was doing three shows simultaneously. It was crazy --- I had no time to eat and would have lunch and dinner on the train between jobs.

 

30s: After 7 years of working with Neta, I left her company to focus more intently on my own choreography and also to work with some new artists.  I joined a physical theater troupe called The Flying Machine where I was exposed to clown and mime techniques and also danced with friends like Monica Bill Barnes and Kate Weare, who are incidentally both from the Bay Area too. In my 30s my own choreography became my central focus, and I started to cultivate a signature style blending all of my influences and interests together into a language that falls somewhere between dance and theater. I also started eating dinners at home --- on a table --- a big upgrade in my quality of life.

 

40s: At the end of my 30s I enrolled in grad school because I was interested in teaching at a university level. I was offered a full-time tenure track position at Marymount Manhattan College before I graduated. I then had several very packed years teaching full-time and being a new mom at age 38. Teaching was very stimulating and rewarding, but after 5 years working in a full-time capacity, I stepped away from the full-time position in favor of being an adjunct, because I still have a lot of art making left in me. So I recently co-founded a new interdisciplinary company with my husband called Paper Canoe Company to create high quality family programming. Having a daughter has deeply influenced what I want to spend my time doing and what I want to be making. Paper Canoe shows have been wonderful to work on because my husband and I can play together in the studio trying our hand at new things like puppetry and singing and outrageous accents. Our daughter is really invested in these performances too and even introduces our sock puppet shows. I’m really excited about growing this business over the next decade to build on my work combining arts and education. I’m still of course making dance theater works for adult audiences with my dance company, Tami Stronach Dance.

 

Major influences:

Pina Bausch, Charlie Chaplin, Susan Marshall and all the artists I worked with over the years.

 

Tami Stronach Dance in Around the Bend    © Julie Lemberger

 

What is on your calendar for the rest of 2016?

I have a commission from the Czech Center coming up. I’ll be in residence the month of September working on a program called Prague NY Effects that pairs an American artist with a Czech artist. For this project I am being paired with Czech composer Tomas Dvorak, who creates interactive performances. We will give several performances in late September in NYC at the Czech Center as well as teach a workshop before heading to Prague at the end of September to perform there. I’m also planning to share a concert with an Israeli choreographer Rachel Erdos next year. We met at Susan Marshal’s SUMAC choreography workshop last summer and have been scheming to share an evening together ever since. We will each show a ½ hour duet in NYC and also in Israel, as well as do some teaching at universities in both countries. The Israeli Consulate has generously offered to support this initiative after seeing my last show, Around The Bend, at the 92nd Street Y. We are working on organizing the dates and venues. I’ll also be remounting a Paper Canoe Company show in the spring called A Socks Fables –a sock puppet show based on Aesop’s Fables that has been a blast to perform for 3-6 year olds as well as releasing an album --- a kindie rock opera that tells the story of Jack and the Beanstalk with a twist. It has been so fun to start performing this music, and I’m so grateful for the amazing musicians we are working with. I’ll also be teaching two composition classes at MMC each semester.

 

Current training practices:

I really believe in seeing shows and analyzing them as a group. There is something so useful about taking the time to really notice all the details of a work of art, to generate questions about it, to investigate those questions and to hear the different interpretations that emerge from seeing a work of art for different people in class. There is a depth to the experience that this kind of engagement provides. It also starts to get young choreographers to think about how something might be read by audiences with different cultural influences and perspectives then their own. It easy to burrow into a very specific aesthetic bubble, and I feel my job as a composition teacher is to keep expanding the frame for young people…to show them there is a frame…and maybe what is outside of it. Once they feel more comfortable analyzing a work of art (through gathering and comparing observations, insights and questions) created by an accomplished choreographer, the same in-depth considerations start to infiltrate the feedback they give one another for class assignments.

 

What is the role of teaching within your dance life? What do you love about teaching? What does the phrase “teaching artist” mean to you?

I have been a teacher for 20 years. I love teaching because it forces me to keep asking myself questions about why art matters to me and to others --- to keep refining the values of my artistic practice.

 

Teaching composition for me is about creating the space for others to find their choreographic voice --- it is so moving to see young people dare to expose themselves through this beautiful medium and start to flex their own artistic muscle. Teaching composition and improvisation allows you to know people in a different way. I enjoy facilitating an experience where we can gain access to these rich aspects of one another that lie beyond small talk, and the daily grind. There is something profound about knowing someone through how they move and how they structure their ideas.

 

I think being a teaching artist is about making a work of art relevant to all students, including students who don’t want to be artists. Your role is to find doors for people into a work of art by listening to them, by being curious about their own life experiences and how those experiences impact how they view the material. The process of appreciating a work of art ultimately gives rise to students enjoying their own creativity --- to see is a creative act. To witness yourself creating connections, noticing metaphors, combing through details, contextualizing information --- all of this builds a lot of confidence that can be applied to any area in life. When the process of seeing is laid bare one can appreciate what an incredibly dynamic thing it is to be an audience member. Teaching artists make students understand that they can alter their experience of a work of art by insisting that they dive into it more fully rather than tune out. This is good advice for life too. So often students tell me that something they initially hated comes to life and becomes fascinating/agitating/exciting through analyses and engagement. That practice of diving into a work of art is so important because it alerts us to the fact that on a much grander scale we have the capacity to generate meaning. Every experience we have becomes an opportunity --- we can choose to notice more, to listen more and to dig deeper into the things that we encounter and thereby carve out a more meaningful life.

 

Role models and inspiration for your teaching practice and pedagogy:

The Lincoln Center Institute gave me my training as a Teaching Artist. The ideas and methods they shared with me form the backbone of my pedagogical approach. The Philosopher in Residence at Lincoln Center when I was there was Maxine Greene, whose ideas on why art is relevant to a democratic society had a profound impact on me. My graduate school program also had a deep impact on me insisting that I re-examine dance history through a political lens, which I had not previously considered.

 

What are the skills a contemporary dancer needs in 2016?

I think to be a dancer in 2016 you need to commit to sharpening your administrative skills and become interested in the business side of things. Expect to have several jobs. My generation all went to art school dreaming of graduating and getting into a dance company where we would dance 8 hours a day and then go to the hot tub. But that kind of company model was already drying up, and I saw that if I wanted to stay active I would need to generate opportunities for myself. One skill you will really need is networking. Pay more attention to that than you think you should…reprogram your brain to see administrative work as creative work. Trust your taste. It’s ok to like what you like even if its not popular…things go in and out of fashion. What you are passionate about will cycle around --- keep refining your voice so when the microphone comes, you are actually ready to make some noise.

 

Non-dance interests, specialties, service work, or hobbies important to you:

Women’s rights, minority rights, animal rights. I dream of retiring and volunteering at an elephant sanctuary.

 

Paper Canoe Theater Company

 

On balancing parenthood and artmaking:

It is hard enough to eek out a living as an artist without a child. With kids you are definitely rolling a ball uphill. For me, creating family programming in addition to my previous work with my dance company was a creative way to address this. It utilizes my skills and interests but they are re-contextualized and there is a broader market there. Also this allows my daughter to connect easily to what we do. I'd hate for her to dislike art because it’s the very thing that keeps me away from her. I made a really conscious decision about finding a way to have the practice of making art bring us together as family.

 

Recent performances you experienced that really inspired you:

-Soho Rep’s An Octaroon by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins and directed by Sarah Benson

 

-Chekhov at Lake Lucille, The Sea Gull directed by Brian Mertes

 

-Okwui Okpokwasili, "Bronx Gothic"

-I can't wait to see Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker at BAM in October!

Advice to dancers wanting to move to NYC:

If you are set on the big apple, give yourself two years to get situated --- it really takes a little longer there. See everything at BAM. Take the workshops from the people you want to work with in addition to auditioning --- but if you haven’t been “picked” yet get in the studio and make stuff or dance for a budding choreographer, as that’s the easiest way to meet people. Know that being easy to work with --- being mature, responsible and reasonable --- is very, very valuable and as important as talent/training. The current system is hard on women who have to compete against much larger numbers for fewer positions. Know that; be tough. Let it motivate you to work harder, and keep fighting for more support for female choreographers in the field.

 

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

I believe that a life spent embracing the body, a life spent moving, of tuning into our instincts and senses, is the richest form of being alive. While dancing, we can practice staying open, responsive and flexible --- physical qualities that become a guide for our emotional life...how we hope to act in our relationships and approach our work.

 

Our world often devalues the physical. It asks us to disassociate from our body, or it over-sexualizes the body, or under-sexualizes it, or it only wants to allow young bodies to be seen. Dance can offer something wonderful --- a path to a clearing. In an embodied state we can experience our bodies as intelligent, sensual, powerful, vulnerable, aging and growing all at the same time. This offers a kind of grounding one can drop into at anytime. For me dance has been a teacher in learning to embrace contradictions --- to see contradiction itself as beautiful in so much as it affords me a better angle on truth. Useful contradiction can be found everywhere --- when executing a dance movement, such as a relevé, where you focus on going down to go up. In an improvisation class it becomes more philosophical as you must become both a leader and a follower simultaneously. In modern dance I love to see how abstraction and pedestrian readable gestures collide and vibrate against each other.

 

When I dance, my body and my mind are experienced as two sides of the same coin…they are not the same thing and yet they are….the coin has to be in motion for me to see the whole picture --- the coin must keep spinning in my mind…..dancing. 

------------

Related posts:

Artist Profile: Susan Marshall

 

Artist Profile: Kate Weare

 

How many MFA programs are in the United States right now?

-------------------------

 

Artist Profile #135: Amy Foley (San Francisco, CA)

Hometown: Anchorage, Alaska

Current city: San Francisco, California

Age: 41

College and degree: Colorado College -- BA in English with a Women's Studies minor

How you pay the bills:

I work as a teaching artist, performer, choreographer, and Pilates instructor. But my husband largely supports our family financially, allowing me to continue to do these various, rather low-paying jobs (but which I love). I also contribute by taking care of our two children 2+ days per week and all afternoons (when they are not in school) -- which is a considerable cost-savings to our family but of course keeps me from being able to work "outside the home" during those times. We constantly wrestle with the cost of living in the Bay Area, but our jobs, our lives, and our communities are here. It is always a patchwork, often a struggle, and we have come close to leaving. But we love it here. We are making it work, for now.

All of the dance hats you wear:

Performer, choreographer, teaching artist; administrator/grant writer/artistic director for my fledgling company, Bellwether Dance Company.

Non-dance work you do or have done in the past:

Mom, Pilates instructor, development associate for an arts non-profit, bartender, server, customer service provider, dance company office manager, group exercise instructor, house/pet sitter, jewelry maker/seller, restaurant host, babysitter, receptionist, event planner. So many odd jobs over the years in order to live here and to dance, dance, dance.

——————

Describe your dance life….

20s: At 21 I moved to San Francisco and began to seek out dance classes and opportunities. I was eager, free, and enamored by the city but also terribly insecure and broke. How I wish I could go back and give myself a pep talk and a hug! I had danced seriously (mainly ballet) since a young age but quit for the last two years of high school, feeling like I was missing out on my good old-fashioned "high school experience" and also that I really wasn't going to become a professional ballet dancer. I had not yet seen any other model of dancer than the rail-thin ballerina performing classical works -- or I had not yet seen enough of them. I knew I was a good dancer and that I loved it but didn't know where I fit in the larger sphere of dance. In college, I "discovered" modern dance and was thrilled to feel at home in dance again, but my seriousness about pursuing it as a career really wavered, mainly because I just didn't know if I could do it or how. Had I believed in myself sooner and more consistently, my dance trajectory would have been more focused and perhaps less painful.

Truth is, although I moved to San Francisco in large part for the dance community, I was a bit lost here until I found Robert Moses' class. Once I saw Robert Moses' KIN perform, I knew exactly where I wanted to be. I threw myself into all of his classes, organized my work schedule around them, stood in the front, and fell in love with the movement. But it didn't happen right away. I had to wait until Robert was looking for dancers, of course, and once he was, I made an initial audition cut and was even called back to try out with the company but I was not hired that first audition. I had been so singularly focused that it was a blow. But in the meantime, I was learning a lot about being a grown up and surviving in this city. I was taking class and dancing in smaller projects. Eventually, Robert Moses did ask me to join the company. I danced with RMK for 11 years.

30s: By my 30s I had gained a lot of confidence through experience. I performed, toured, and taught, mainly with RMK, along with some enriching side projects and touring with Margaret Jenkins Dance Company, Manuelito Biag, and in other friends' and colleagues' work. I started teaching more and more and ventured into my own choreography for the first time since college. I became certified in Pilates, which helped me leave some of my odd jobs behind and I think, helped my dancing. I retired from RMK at 35, after 11 years with the company. By that time I had already met and married my husband.

Three months after my first daughter was born, I joined the ODC Dance Company (too soon? probably). I had a wild and mostly fun ride with ODC, but when I got pregnant again, I didn't think I could or wanted to handle the pressure and time commitment of that company with two very young children. This was a fruitful (ha!) time and a crazy one. Learning how to take care of myself after having children and the new worlds of pregnancy, childbirth, nursing, childcare, preschool, play dates, sleep-deprivation (years!), kindergarten, and work-life balance were/are intense in their breadth and intricacy. The identity shift I faced after having my children is something I still confront. I felt entirely the same person after I had my girls; and 100% changed.

40s: I'll be 42 later this year -- so far so good! I have been performing a lot in the last couple years, and I will continue to do so as long as the fates allow. A couple years ago my dear friend Tanya Bello asked me to dance in a piece with her company, project b. I was 39 or 40 and hadn't performed in two or so years. I remember thinking, "This will be either my final performance or the one that pushes me back into this world." For better or worse, it was the latter. Dancing in that show was a visceral reminder of what I treasure about performing -- recognizing and experiencing that intangibly creative, bold, adrenaline-fueled part of myself that I do not currently access through any other area of my life. I love the improvisation live performance requires; I love the camaraderie with other dancers it affords; I love that I have to be brave in order to do it. It presents challenges and JOY.

The project-based manner in which I have been working for the last number of years works well for my body and for my family. I do have aches and pains and physical limitations and vain concerns -- to be sure. But I try to remember that I had a lot of those in my 20s as well. I am a professional dancer, after all. The aches and pains and concerns about my appearance are not only due to my age.

Last year I decided to apply to graduate school in order to earn my MFA in dance, something I had considered for many years. I went through an involved process to apply to the University of Washington program, and I was thrilled and honored be accepted. Ultimately, however, I did not attend. It was an agonizing decision but one I am at peace with. I think I had to walk all the way to the edge to realize that it was not quite the right time for me. Perhaps it will still happen, who knows?! So. Earlier this year I started to work on forming my own company. I have been creating work for the last handful of years and am ready to gather and cultivate my artistic visions and body of work. Bellwether Dance Company is born. In my 40s -- still searching, stumbling, learning, and I hope, growing.

Major influences:

In college, Renee Redding Jones, then of Ronald K. Brown/Evidence, visited and inspired me like no other teacher yet had. I followed her to the American Dance Festival that summer and was equally inspired and pushed by Ron Brown himself. What an amazing treat to take daily class with these masters for 6 weeks. They introduced me to a freedom of movement I had never experienced -- the "flow" that is something I still seek in class, in performance, and in my teaching.

Robert Moses has likely influenced my movement style and approach more than anyone. His movement -- incredibly kinetic, technical, dense, and rhythmic -- feels both highly challenging and almost natural on my body, still. I appreciate the form, the ambition, the fervor, and the cool drama of his works. I am always moved, watching his company perform. I would love to be a smidgen as good.

For the last number of years, Janice Garrett is the teacher I have taken class with most often. She is a master teacher, who challenges on many levels: mental, physical, artistic, aerobic! She has truly helped me improve my technique, after all these years, and she teaches me how to become a better teacher. I treasure the community she has built with her consistent and high-level teaching and her empathic wisdom. At her concerts I marvel at the intricate choreography, musicality, and sense of the sublime.

My time with Margaret Jenkins taught me volumes about presence and true collaboration. I was pushed to discover a range of movement and performance I had never explored, thanks to her. She trusts her dancers implicitly, and in so doing, allows them to grow deeply as individuals and as artists. She sculpts and directs their offerings into experiences of moving art. She is the back-bone of contemporary dance in the Bay Area, and she continues to help foster the community.

What is on your calendar for 2016 (teaching, choreographing, performing)?

I recently wrapped up performances with KAMBARA+DANCERS, in their inaugural home season and also performed with that group in January. February brought some time with project b. and a fun fundraiser performance with them. In March I showed my first piece, officially, as Bellwether Dance Company: a trio, "Facet," at Dance Mission.

This summer I will choreograph a piece on the young adults of the Alonzo King's LINES Summer Program as well as teach and choreograph for the Summer Session of the Academy of Ballet. Starting mid-August, I will teach advanced contemporary at ODC Mondays and Wednesdays.

I have just started rehearsals with a friend and dance-idol of mine, Nol Simonse, for a WestWave performance in September. Also in September, I'll perform in a duet with Bellwether for PUSH/fest. Meanwhile, I'll be rehearsing at SAFEhouse for the Performing Arts, as part of the RAW Artist Co-op, toward an ambitious (for me) show in early November. Meanwhile, I am applying for grants in order to make that show come to life and trying to establish the administrative side of Bellwether Dance Company.

Dreams for the next 5 years:

I hope to keep dancing at a level that makes me happy and feels good on my body. I dream of performing for as long as it brings me joy. I hope to establish Bellwether Dance Company so that my artistic visions can grow arms and legs of their own and have a chance to live outside of my head. We shall see -- even if my work doesn't gain traction or if growing a dance company is not ultimately rewarding to me, it feels like the right thing right now. I also hope to continue to explore more classes and techniques: back to ballet, more Gaga, Countertechnique, more yoga and Pilates. I want to continue to stretch my knowledge and my abilities, knowing that all of these modalities inform one another, as well as my dancing and my teaching.

Current training practices and care of the body:

I currently take 2-3 technique classes per week and rehearse anywhere from 2-8 hours per week, though that will shift once I start teaching and setting work this summer and fall, when I will be teaching more and rehearsing (in others' work) less. Even when my schedule is very full with teaching, I try to take class at least once a week. After a few-year hiatus, I am studying and practicing Pilates again which I find incredibly helpful to my body in general, and after my pregnancies in particular.

What is the role of teaching within your dance life? What do you love about teaching? What does the phrase “teaching artist” mean to you?

I have taught dance with varying regularity, for many years. I have taught children, teens, beginner adults and most often, advanced adults, and I love different aspects of each group. For all levels, the more I teach, the more I learn -- and thank goodness for that. Teaching allows me to tap into and share what I have learned from my experience and from my teachers, over the past 35 years, with others.

I treasure this physical tradition of dance -- it must be passed down, it must be taught from an individual with a particular point-of-view or interest. The information is ever-changing and evolving but it can only be filtered, added to, altered, and passed along from one person to another. I love that dance class is taken with other humans, in a room where sweat and energy are generated. I think we all have wisdom to share, and I appreciate the two-way channel that teaching and taking class opens for me.

As a student who is also a teaching artist, I see a more three-dimensional view of the movement and/or the corrections, than I once did. As a teacher who dances, I am acutely aware of physical challenges, mind-barriers, competition, and frustrations that are always lurking. At this point in my life, I view class as a precious gift. I want to receive the gift as a student and I aim to offer that gift as a teacher, every time.

Role models and inspiration for your teaching practice and pedagogy:

Again, Robert Moses and Janice Garrett. Also, Sandra Chinn and Katie Faulkner.

Each is unique in his/her approach but all are immensely generous and welcoming teachers, which positively affects everyone in the room. I am always inspired by Robert and his sheer creativity and fun, ultra-challenging material. Janice teaches such a thoughtful class filled with meticulous movement that uses every inch of the (large) studio -- you know, you feel, that she respects her students and the art of teaching. Thanks to Sandra for giving everyone a gold star just for showing up, and for helping us move with joy and ease without strain and undue force. She presents her considerable wealth of knowledge matter-of-factly, and I hang on her every word. Katie ever-inspires with her humble, rockstar ways -- a beautiful mover and thinker whose class is perfect, seamless. I aim to teach more like each of them.

On balancing a dance career and raising a family:

Balancing any career and raising a family is hard, I think. But often worth it for all the reasons we already know: sense of self, pride, income, contribution to your field, intellectual stimulation, and more. Balancing a dance career and raising a family is particularly challenging, I think, because there is no set path to travel along. There is no ladder to climb and usually no 8-5 schedule. If you do happen to have a full-time dance job or work with an established company, the pay is not typically substantial enough (or the work consistent enough) to actually live in the area, without other jobs and/or additional support. There are the few, desired, full or nearly full-time dance teaching jobs but those often leave little time for your own practice or creation, particularly if you have a family which is (I still marvel!), incredibly time-consuming and labor intensive. All of these elements and so many more, challenge our notions of "success." Not a bad thing, necessarily, but at times, profoundly confusing.

When my first daughter was an infant and I joined the ODC company, I was thrilled and excited. I was also relieved, in a way, to have someone tell me what I had to do and when. I wanted to be back, rehearsing and performing but did not feel I had the bandwidth to piece together my own dance existence at that time. And yet, a full-time job away from my infant daughter presented many other challenges, personal and practical. One example: my paycheck went directly and 100% to the childcare provider for my baby. That reality forced me to examine my desire to dance at that level and my love of the particular job in a way that I may not have, had I been making a higher (non-dance) salary and contributing to the family "pot" even though I was spending so much time away.

I feel fortunate to be able to spend a lot of time with my kids and to be able to dance a fair amount, still. It is not always easy on our family schedule or on our family finances, but I think I have to do it, and I am so very thankful that I get to. I take paid dance jobs, but there are plenty that I essentially pay to do. There exists an elusive balance of time and creativity and childcare and school and dinner and (on and on...) that I am trying to reach, every day. But it is of great value to me that my daughters see me as someone who uses her body articulately and creatively and that being an artist is my career, albeit a somewhat non-traditional one. Lastly, being a mom does not necessarily make me a better dancer but dancing certainly makes me a better (saner, happier) mom.

Non-dance interests and hobbies important to you:

All of my spare time is spent with or on my children and that is usually how I like it. We explore playgrounds and beaches and museums and the fun things the city has to offer. We spend time with friends, new and old. We cook, we read. We travel a little. My "me-time" is dance or Pilates. My one solitary, non-dance hobby is reading.

Advice to dancers wanting to move to San Francisco:

It is a magical place to live and dance. There are opportunities galore to perform -- though you will not always be paid. Do not be afraid to ask, directly, if you will be paid and what the pay is, however! We are all struggling to make it work but the community is open and friendly, I find. If you want to dance for someone, tell them! The living here part is hard -- but if you want to be here, you will find a way. Get a bunch of roommates, have a few jobs but stay focused. Carve your unique path and don't lose heart. Take class from the elders -- they have so much wisdom to impart.

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

The struggle is real...but we are the lucky few.

 ——————

Related posts:

A Modern Dancer's Guide to.....the San Francisco Bay Area

Dance and Parenthood

Dancing and Reflecting: Dancers in Their 40s (Jennifer Nugent, Carley Conder, Damon Rago, and Rebecca Johnson)

Dancing and Reflecting: Dancers in Their 40s (Jennifer Salk, Rebecca Lazier, and Kate Weare)

————————————

Artist Profile #102: Ashley Anderson (Salt Lake City, UT)

Photo: Kelly Badger

Hometown: Sandy, UT

Current city: Salt Lake City, UT

Age: 31

Websites: ashleyandersondances.com, lovedancemore.org

College and degree: Hollins University, B.A.’s in Dance & English

Graduate school and degree: Hollins University/the American Dance Festival, MFA under the direction of Donna Faye Burchfield (age 22-23)

How you pay the bills: A combination of teaching and direction of my non-profit, “ashley anderson dances.” My family also pays the bills (and has health insurance) with dual income from my spouse who is an attorney specializing in non-profit formation and also a Land Trusts Specialist at the State Office of Education.  

All of the dance hats you wear: Choreographer, educator, writer, non-profit director, periodic performer

Non-dance work you do: Being a mom

————————————————————-

"The Windy Gap," solo by Ashley Anderson; photographed at Hollins University (VA) by Christy Pessagno

The first five years after college:

After I completed Dance and English degrees at Hollins University, I continued with the MFA program in partnership with the American Dance Festival. I graduated at 23 and moved to Philadelphia with Hollins peers Jen McGinn & iele paloumpis. Together and apart we did a handful of projects between Philly and New York. Afterward, I lived in Virginia for a year and returned to Salt Lake, when my soon-to-be husband got a job. The decision to move was based partially on the recession but also frustration in the competition for resources that would have marked life in a larger city.

Eight years after college/Now:  

I have been out of school since 2007, eight years. I returned to Salt Lake in 2009 without a plan but was connected to Brittany Reese at Sugar Space by my MFA peers Sarah Skaggs and Neta Pulvermacher. I helped develop projects at Sugar Space while beginning to navigate ways to present my own creative work. In 2010, at age 25, I founded “ashley anderson dances” to house the umbrella  “loveDANCEmore,” a creative platform for choreographers in Utah. I knew finding an audience would be difficult due to the disconnect of attending school elsewhere, so I opted to find connections with peers in the development of: a works-in-progress series, new media galleries, a performance journal & sponsorship of peer projects. I retained the name “ashley anderson dances” because I wanted to be eligible for funding to support what I am making.

Mentors/someone who believed in you:

Donna Faye Burchfield was the only professor in the dance department for my first two and a half years at Hollins. She made a wildly imaginative curriculum including weekly showings so long we ordered takeout. She pushed us critically and identified a life as a dance-maker but was also an innovative administrator with the ability to develop the seemingly impossible. She gave us the clothes off her back for costumes and every book on her shelf for new ways of thinking. We were just texting about the dance “Golden Hours,” and I look to her still for ideas about this life in viewing and making performance.

Donna Faye assigned Ishmael Houston-Jones to be my graduate school mentor, and he  serves as my founding Board President. He too has a belief that dance can exist outside a major city. He keeps me on task while supporting new possibilities. Mostly he answers panicky phone calls and texts with calm responses like “Yeah, that sounds great.”  

Faculty from other departments  at Hollins were also supportive of my creative life and include: Marilyn Moriarty, Eric Trethewey, Kim Rhodes, Ben Pranger, TJ Anderson and Pauline Kaldas. Jeffery Bullock became the second dance faculty in 2005 sharing books, movies, and a love of Balanchine, Bart Cook and Suzanne Farrell.

Before going to college, I was supported by an array of incredible women including Janet Gray and the educators at Virginia Tanner Dance/Childrens Dance Theatre. Also, my parents for driving my sister and I to the aforementioned, and that is true belief.

"little long look," performed by students at ADF, Reynolds Industries Theater (Durham, NC); photo by Sarah Holcman

More on Tanner Dance:

I grew up in Tanner Dance. My second teacher at the Copperview Rec Center in 1987 was Tad Simonsen, and she was also the first dance teacher for both of my kids.

Virginia Tanner brought modern dance traditions to children in Salt Lake to counter studio conventions that she felt were “adult,” like glitzy costumes  She was vocal that dance training wasn’t only a physical pursuit but something related to imaginative and productive lives. Tanner students are as likely to observe sea shells and make spiraling pathways as they are to do tendus.

One more training aside:

Tanner’s role is unique and formative but I would be remiss not to also name Janet Gray. My sister Carly and I went to Janet’s to tap (Carly now teaches tap at the studio). Janet’s approach was different (one of her t-shirts says “I Yell Because I Care”) but her direction was an important counterpart to the creative freedom of Tanner. She made us sign recital contracts and she provided guest artist experiences. She was also the only teacher I had who linked issues of race and history to the form. This was basically all white kids in a Salt Lake suburb, but we learned about the role of minstrelsy in tap history.

Major influences in college:

I watched tons of videos of choreography by Robin Harris, Tatiana Baganova and Inbal Pinto when I was in college. I appreciated their use of object-based environments and their works also resonated as an expression of female voices and experiences. In that vein, I also loved the history of Helen Tamiris and Martha Graham in their dedication to female ensembles.

I was  interested in a lot of other choreographers and investigating repetition and variations in formal ways (Lucinda Childs anyone?). But the great thing about Hollins was that I was also encouraged to engage across disciplines, drawing me to visual art by Tracey Emin, Tracey Moffat, Kiki Smith, Jasper Johns and Kara Walker; writing by bell hooks, Kate Atkinson, Anne Sexton, and Elaine Scarry; music by Dolly Parton; and a whole array of other tools.

I was not only looking outwardly but also at my peer group. I didn’t learn any repertory in school. I made and performed dances exclusively with other students. They influenced me in formative ways and some continue to do so. There are too many to list, as all had indelible impacts on the way I perceive movement -- you can find all of our college websites here, where everyone will be fairly named from 2002-2007.

How did you get into dance writing? Any formal training?

I am adept at writing because I did high school debate and learned to quickly assess, analyze, and describe scenarios. It’s not so different than describing a dance.

I went to Hollins to be a student in Creative Writing. I knew I could dance but didn’t plan to major in it. Having both majors in a liberal arts setting meant I was writing a lot and across disciplines as varied as immigrant literature, feminist contemporary art and ancient governments.

Do you have a regular writing practice?

Not really. For reviews, I’m writing in my head while something is happening and revising as it continues to unfold. Then I come home and put together the fragments. My best practice is feedback from other artists and writers: Kathy Adams from the Tribune and my peers Samuel Hanson and Erica Womack.

Other thoughts on publishing dance criticism…...

In creating a community platform for dance I’ve received praise and criticism both directly and passively. For every review on lovedancemore.org people share one of two basic opinions: I’m so glad someone was able to say that, it’s so true -or- I can’t believe someone would have the audacity, they are so misinformed.

I agree that not every review on my site is perfect. It’s an open system and I’ve once or twice cringed as I’ve hit “publish post.” But I do it because it seems better to openly share voices than to whisper. Also, somewhere between Alastair Macaulay and Instagram people are forming an impression that all forms of media should be more supportive of dance. This is false.

Alastair isn’t a hot topic because he has critical views on dance; he’s a hot topic because he disparages women’s bodies while using the same barometer of white, male choreographers for every work he discusses in the newspaper of record. Criticizing him on these particular grounds is fair but silencing all dance criticism which isn’t laden with praise is not. When this is combined with the rapidity with which we can produce filtered images of our performances for people to like, the expectation of  “support” becomes skewed.

Alternatively, the loveDANCEmore peer-oriented review structure supports dance not by “likes” but by identifying issues within the form as they occur to practitioners of it. This mode isn’t about getting you to their show; it’s about championing conversations regardless of agreement and reflecting alternating points of view on the record.

"don't be cruel," performed by Movement Forum at the Rose Wagner (SLC) 

What is on your calendar for the rest of 2015?

--Moving a loveDANCEmore performance series, “Mudson,” to new venues after a rent increase forced a change.

--Publishing a new volume of our performance journal.

--Fiscally sponsoring projects by Erica Womack, Graham Brown, Natosha Washington and Tanja London.

--Rehearsing a new duet for Molly Heller and Mary Lyn Graves.

--Brainstorming how to re-stage a larger group project I performed in March.

--Delegating loveDANCEmore to new artists in an effort to more rigorously focus on my choreography.

--The daily grind of coordinating and planning teaching jobs, finding infrastructures that work well for my programs, continuing to fulfill the responsibilities of a registered non-profit, grant management, you name it.

What does a typical week look like for you - in terms of training, creating, studio time, administration, teaching?

This continues to shift as my roles as a mom change. Breastfeeding, school commutes and extracurricular activities turned 2014 upside down, and they are as much a part of what I do as my work. I spend about 25-30 hours a week administratively working on my non-profit projects. I spend about 10-15 teaching in various scenarios with an additional 5 hours of planning, on average. Rehearsal hours are added on top, but that shifts in and out of my schedule.  

What is the role of teaching in your career right now?

Teaching is the most consistent way I can keep money coming in to support my work.

In the last year I have reduced my teaching to things that I feel are a unique service. For Tanner Dance, I teach classes for disabled children and adults as well as in area elementary schools. For high schools and community centers I do residency projects, and for universities I am often teaching technique as a guest or doing composition workshops and history lectures. The point of view of younger artists refreshes my ideas about our form, and working with unique populations keeps joyfulness as a part of movement and removes some of the more esoteric aspects of concert dance as a rather insulated form.

This does come with consequences. Teaching fees very rarely include compensation for planning. I often feel like I’m using magic beans to make a structure that pays myself and other artists. Because I don’t teach full time it is somewhat sustainable but can be depleting.

You received the 2014 Mayor’s Artist Award in the Performing Arts. Can you tell us more about it?

Every year at the Utah Arts Festival, awards are given in various disciplines to artists and organizations which serve the city. The awards have a peer nomination and selection by a panel of previous recipients alongside representatives from the Mayor’s office and the Arts Festival. I received a cash award and also the knowledge that my peers in dance find the work I do (both choreographically and through loveDANCEmore) to be a service. I was honored to share the honor with previous recipients who were my childhood teachers: Tina Misaka and Mary Ann Lee, among others.

Last performance you saw that really inspired you:

As I mentioned earlier, Donna Faye just texted me last week about Anna Teresa de Keersmaeker's dance, “Golden Hours.” Even just seeing the trailer I felt a rush of “this is it.”

A couple others, all different in their own way, that I saw live...

…. a commercial performer, Jesse Sykes, dancing between pieces at the State Room

…. Erica Womack’s duet with Courtney Norris called “dear son”

…. Paul Matteson’s blind solo draft for SaltDanceFest  

…. Jesse Zarritt’s performance lecture about Israel & Identity from the same festival

…. works by Breeanne Saxton and Katherine Adler at the last spring Mudson

Final thoughts:

When I work with college aged interns it’s easy to start griping about how dance pedagogy isn’t linked to realities of performance in the US, let alone abroad. But I also remember how hard it was for me to leave the magical hub of my own school experience and integrate what I had, in fact, learned and practiced.

So, one of my hopes does remain that universities near me can get more magical with their curriculum, enabling students to find their own way to be in the field. I see a lot of differences between my experience where I was met by my own measure, to other contexts where faculty voices are a more exclusive measure. I hope that is a practice which can shift.

But, I can also see that, dance is something some people do in school because they’ve done it their whole life. And that having a dance education but going on to become a chef, a bodyworker, a doctor, an administrator or any other variety of career can still have great impacts on how you perceive and work in the world.

 ----

Ashley also co-wrote the Modern Dancer's Guide to....Salt Lake City with Molly Heller. Find it here.

-----------------------------

Multiple Perspectives: Dancing and Parenting (Colleen Thomas, Rachael McClellan Leonard, and Jill Patterson)

Colleen Thomas

How has being a dancer shifted/changed since becoming a parent as well?

Colleen Thomas

Being a parent is everything. Or rather, my children are everything. I’ve spent most of my life as a self-absorbed artist. How can I look at my children’s sweet faces and care whether I got that gig or not? Nothing else really matters. I enjoy dancing more now because my world is bigger- because I care about staying open…because I have learned from my children that life is amazing and full of possibility, and because I want to model strength, clarity, and compassion.

I felt a sudden sense of power once I had my first child, Olivia. I think I went into survival mode (dancers are good at this) and I figured I had to support this baby and I needed to figure out how to do that now! I became very clear about the choices I made and how I negotiated work. I began my love affair with the feminist perspective.

Rachael McClellan Leonard

It’s a constant juggling act to balance career, marriage, motherhood, graduate school and self. I find that I have to be extremely organized, painfully type A, drastically resilient, and totally accountable. At the same time, I sometimes have to employ my sense of humor and my intermittent ability to know when to stop burning the candle at both ends. Yoga definitely helps. Maintaining some perspective is crucial. And I am fortunate to have surrounded myself with a remarkable band of family and friends. 

Jill Patterson

That is the million-dollar question. Fortunately, I am very passionate about teaching, and teaching offers a more stable income and a consistent time commitment. I honestly think the idea of “having it all” is a bit off. When I am with my children for a long stretch I think I should be doing more professionally. And, when I am busy at the college or away from home more than usual, I yearn to be home with my children. I usually have the sense that I am not doing enough professionally and that I am certainly not doing enough as a mother! It is a constant push and pull that I was not prepared for in any way. I have talked with close friends in the field who have children and I know I am not alone in my feelings, and I think it is imperative that families, and mothers in particular, talk about it more. Again, that all being said, I couldn’t imagine doing one and not the other!

-------