Life as a Modern Dancer

Quote for Today: From Nicole Vaughan-Diaz

 

Julian De Leon and Nicole Vaughan-Diaz. Photo courtesy of Kate Weare Company; photo by Keira Heu-Jwyn Chang.

 

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

 

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

 

To read Nicole's full artist profile, please click here.

 

Quote for Today: From Risa Jaroslow

Being in a studio with dancers, making movement and choreography, is where I am a completely integrated human. Whatever else I’m dealing with or worrying about disappears. I love dancers. They are the smartest, bravest, most humble, generous people I know. It is a privilege to work with them. 

To read Risa's full artist profile from November 2016, please click here.

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Quote for Today: From Tami Stronach

 

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. 

 

To read Tami's full artist profile from July 2016, please click here.

Quote for Today: From Cynthia Oliver

I LOVE dance. It has saved my life so many times. It has taken me across the globe and introduced me to folks and cultures I would never have known. It constantly challenges and humbles me. It is my tried and true personal, spiritual and communal practice. And I’m not just talking about studio dancing. I’m talking about all of it. My Friday night dance parties with my husband and 11 year old son. I’m talking about the ritual of the club (and its remnants in my now 50 something body). I’m talking about the Orisha dances I have studied for decades. I’m talking about the wiggle my mother does in her wheelchair at 88 when she feels the notion. As well as what I do my best to offer an audience when they come and see a work I have made. I love dance in all its glory. I live for dance.

 

To read Cynthia Oliver's full artist profile, please click here.

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Quote for Today: From Becky Radway

Photo by Matt Carr 

Art is a fascinating outlet. It's not to be taken lightly. Whether you are making it, watching it, treating it as a hobby or a full-time commitment... art brings a sense of wonder, a sense of play, it challenges us, distracts us, makes us uncomfortable. It makes us think, and makes us dream. With all of the difficulties and uncertainties that may come our way, let's always continue to dream.

- Dance Artist Becky Radway

 

To read Becky's full artist profile, please click here.

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Quote for Today: From Christy Funsch

We live in astonishing machines that communicate as directly as speech. We're three dimensional and filled with inner volume. The body as a natural phenomenon holds endless mysteries and power. Performance is one way of being fully in our bodies, fully in our consciousness, fully aware of how we're marking time. As advocates for the body, our presence is subversive. Material and gain-based systems are on the way out - they've utterly failed us - and practice-based systems are the best alternative we can offer our next generation. Life is short. This gives urgency and relevancy to every day and every breath and every choreographic moment.

To read Christy's artist profile, please click here.

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Quote for Today: From Paloma McGregor

Brooklyn Arts Exchange open studio of Building a Better Fishtrap (paper ocean created by Sara Jimenez); photo by Sara Jimenez

As I move through this landscape and accumulate markers of what some call success, my hope is to always be emerging. For some, emerging means undeveloped; but for me it means pushing beyond my known, acknowledging with my practice that I am endlessly striving, endlessly curious, endlessly a student of this time and my place in it. That, to me, is what it means to be an artist and to be alive.

To read Paloma's full artist profile, please click here.

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Quote for Today: From Amy Chavasse

deux dogtooth

I’m all in with this dance/performance endeavor. Even as I continue to build on my skills as a teacher and choreographer, I still have big, tormenting questions about what matters and why. I love seeing the work of my peers and feel the most monumental sense of gratitude when I see my students making smart, provocative, enervating, radiantly rebellious work. I still haven’t made the dance I long to make…. Maybe just little shreds or moments of truth and liability…. Whatever that is. I love how dance makes me feel about the world, even in the midst of unaccountable cruelty. I love how dance changes what is available to us and teaches us how to watch things. I love touch and close and caring proximity to other people that happens in the rehearsal space or class. And I love how this physical inquisitiveness is unique to us.

To read Amy's full artist profile, click here.

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Quote for Today: From Jennifer Edwards

In several recent meetings, the director of NEW INC introduced me by my title and then added that I am a dancer and choreographer. She stated that she’s seen how this informs the work that I am doing and how I approach the material. Her commentary was unsolicited, and we’d not talked about this prior. It is an example of what I mean when I talk about sustainability + dance + "career." I encourage dancers to never leave the skills we have or the identity of "dancer" at the door. Bring dance into everything – parenting, walking, working, relationship-building – leverage your kinesthetic intelligence on stage and off. We need to broaden our understanding of what dance means – for dancers. The rest of the world values us based on how we value ourselves. We need to craft and own our stories far better. Currently, we are denying ourselves and the world the valuable wisdom we hold.

To read Jennifer's full artist profile, click here. 

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Quote for Today: From Michelle Boule

“White”     Photo by Ian Douglas

We get to be embodied…that is a radical act.

To be in touch with the very simple truths that are deeply expressed

through the vessels of our bodies.

It’s so easy to take that for granted and to dishonor that space.

Dancing,

although I sometimes feel like I could walk away from it at any moment,

is a gift and honor. It’s a way to access transformation.

If it stops feeling like that, then maybe it’s time to do something else

(forever or for a while).

And we don’t need to be so precious about it either.

 

To read Michelle's full artist profile, click here.

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