BY EMMALY WIEDERHOLT

Peter DiMuro has worked as a dancer, actor, choreographer, director, teacher, arts engager and facilitator for more than 30 years. Currently based in Boston, he is artistic director of Public Displays of Motion, a creative umbrella for developing and performing artistic works in dance and dance/theater. He also serves as executive artistic director of The Dance Complex, a central dance hub in Boston. Here, he shares more about his most recent work, Significant Others: Dances for Family, Friends and Lovers, as well as how he utilizes his leadership roles to invite other voices into the conversation.

Photo by Olivia Moon Photography /@halfasianlens

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Can you share a little about your dance history – what kinds of performance practices and in what contexts shaped who you are today?

I’m 35 years into this, and I’ve reinvented myself every seven to eight years. Locally in Boston, I started making work at the height of the AIDS crisis. It was about bridging the gay and straight worlds, as I had just come out. Then I went to work with Liz Lerman for what I thought would be three years but ended up being 15. That was an amazing and pivotal time for me personally because I went from making solo identity work to helping facilitate the bridging of communities through engagement. I ended up running the company the last five to six years I was there because Liz had won a MacArthur that sent her on this new track – speaking more, a new project – so I ran the day-to-day operations. We toured all over the world, making and directing work on a healthy budget, mostly because of Liz’ name.

After I left, I took about three years to figure out who I was again after touring 30 weeks out of the year. I went to not touring and not having a budget, as well as trying to figure out who I am that’s different than Liz Lerman and the Dance Exchange. The past six years, I’ve realigned myself by running The Dance Complex in Central Square in Boston. It’s comprised of classes, studios and a performance series as well as services to the field. At the same time, I’ve been choreographing more, and I have a company that resembles the intergenerational aspect of Liz’s company. We’re doing a lot of site-specific work and seeing dance through a different lens. The newest arc of work in the past three months or so I’ve been making has been looking at what it means to be a gay man raised in a gay era, now immersed in a queer world.

Can you share a little about Public Displays of Motion and why you created the company?

I had an earlier company called Performance Associates. I wanted it to sound like a law firm because my brother is a lawyer and wasn’t very generous about my choice of career early on, so it was a little stab at the established world. When I left Liz’s company, the name “Public Displays of Motion” came first before there was a company. I always felt like the word “dance” sometimes demanded extra translation or explanation. Public Displays of Motion is truly about any human movement. It functions as an umbrella over my creative projects. The makeup of the current company is ages 17 to late 60s, and the dancers are committed to the human and humane inside dance. Even though we do structured dances on stages, we might also perform in a public park or around a dinner table. We flatten the hierarchy of performance.

How would you generally describe your work to someone unfamiliar with it?

The subject matter of the work is often things that are relatable to everyday people, not just a dance crowd. I feel my work is postmodern, but some postmodern work is most concerned with lots of abstractions. I want relatable gesture and iconic bits of language or song to give people a landing or a portal into what the dance is about so they can deal with the later abstractions as they come up. It’s pretty weird how, for audiences new to dance, we run around, lift each other up, and fall to the floor. But audiences clue into the visual, and one portal is who they see dancing; in addition to their age range, my dancers and those other artists and community members who join us are a wide range of people from different races, different genres of dance, different abilities, etc.

Photo by Olivia Moon Photography /@halfasianlens

Can you tell me about your most recent piece, Significant Others: Dances for Family, Friends and Lovers, and its guiding themes or concepts?

In the past few years, I kept writing grant applications saying I wanted to understand who I was before joining the Dance Exchange to understand who I am now. The first full-length evening I made in Boston when I was 28 or 29 was called Significant Others: Dances for Family, Friends and Lovers. My former lover at the time was dying of AIDS, and the work explored this but also explored love between family and friends.

Fast forward 30 years, I’m trying to understand my view from a historical lens of the current world. I re-used the title so as to create a basket to figure out which dances to add or make anew. I’ve included three of the older dances, which are based on family letters. The two new works are collaborations with younger men, one in his 20s, Alex Davis, and one in his 30s, Michael Winward. I wanted to find out what it means to collaborate with someone and not be the boss, and to make work from their queer sensibilities versus my gay sensibility. So the 30 year-old container of Significant Others was brought back and now there’s new inside the old.

What does your choreographic process look like, either more generally or specific to Significant Others: Dances for Family, Friends and Lovers?

That’s changed a lot. In the old days, I came into rehearsal with every step planned, though we might have improvised on partnering. Fast forward, a lot of the methods and tools I use are borrowed or adapted from The Dance Exchange, which really take postmodern collaborative methods from improvisation or devised theater. It’s a mix of that with my proclivity for giving assignments and prompts, interviewing dancers, and having people make movement on their own that then becomes phrases and eventually the vocabulary for that work. I feel like my job is rearranging the furniture with a director’s eye so the audience can recognize a structure. I see myself as a director or conceptualizer; I more often than not say that the choreography is by everybody in the performance. That’s also true of the composer of the sound score or music. Those people have a role in the crafting of things as well. It’s a relief not to think of my role as having all the answers all the time. The answers come through the dialogue of working together.

These two new collaborations with Alex and Michael are a step beyond that. It gets a little stumbly. Like dating, you want to be polite and congenial at first but, to get somewhere, you must ask harder questions or potentially disagree. It’s a new learning curve. When my name is on the company, people defer to that but, in these new works that might appear at my collaborator’s concerts as well as my own, then that’s out the door. It’s been good for me to articulate differently.

Peter DiMuro with Alexandrer Davis, Photo by JR Photography, courtesy of the Redfern Arts Center at Keene State College

Speaking more generally, are there certain themes or issues that feel important to you to keep tackling or addressing in your work?

Over an arc of 30 years, I’m back to the beginning looking at relationships. I come from a non-arts family. I grew up gay in the rural Midwest. My father was chief of police. I grew up in a traditionally macho world. I found that I could communicate better onstage, sometimes through movement and sometimes through movement and words. This was a key to communication not given to me as a kid. Not to compare my life with anybody who has been through more rigorous persecution, but I realized making movement and putting things onstage gave me power through communication. That’s been key throughout all the work I’ve done.

A friend, David Parker, has called my work, “Amiably subversive.” What I do is kind of renegade, like protesting. During the AIDS crisis, I couldn’t get out on the streets during ACT UP for whatever reason, but I could get onstage. It was my way of acting up and out. Those themes I’ve never really left, even when I get more traditional commissions. It’s not always overt, but it is its own subversion. I want to find ways to adjust the perspective or picture with whatever it is I do.

Another hat you wear is executive artistic director of The Dance Complex. From your perspective working both choreographically, directorially and administratively, how have you seen opportunities for and representation of voices that are often marginalized in the dance field (like LGBTQIA+, people with disabilities, people of color, immigrants, etc.) change during your career?

I’ve seen a lot of shifts, though I do still run into choreographers who aren’t dealing with those issues. But for anybody in research and development, it’s happening all around us. At The Dance Complex, we have an odd stew of very diverse faculty. We have teaching artists from all over the world. For example, we’ve offered seven different types of African dance from seven different African countries. When I arrived here after working with Liz, most of Boston was still catching up on issues of engagement and awareness compared to some of the work I’d seen around the country.

The community engagement that Liz or I were doing in the late 90s and early 2000s doesn’t fly anymore. We were pioneers in community engagement, but we had grown out of the preceding movement of outreach where people came in, taught kids how to dance, and patted their heads. Then we got to the engagement era, which was more about asking questions, dialoguing and interviewing. Still, the artist was in control; the artist was going to make a piece, and we made a pact with the communities we were in that we would shape it together. Fast forward to now, agency is the big difference. I cannot go into a community and say I want to collaborate with them, but I still get to tie the bow at the end. Sometimes it’s difficult for me as someone who has been previously marginalized to say, “Hey, really, I’m on the same team.” But in reality, it’s a good thing. I’m no longer necessarily the boss. Leading The Dance Complex like my journey with my two new collaborators. I may have some skill and be able to facilitate and be able to see the larger picture because of my experience and admitted privilege, but I find myself stepping back to the circle and bringing others in to facilitate our community. That’s been our latest thing at the Dance Complex is realizing I’m not the one to solve problems. Sometimes it’s my job to remove myself.

Photo by Olivia Moon Photography /@halfasianlens

It’s not easy; the conversations are so damn hard sometimes. For instance, there’s the question of what hip hop is and who gets to teach it. We’re finding ways to include more of the “other” under our roof, and our conversations are becoming more dimensional. We’ve been talking about hip hop and how it’s often geared toward the male figure displaying typical qualities of masculinity. In the queer community, there’s a movement toward empowering those with more feminine qualities to dance as strongly as those with male qualities and have them be equally well-received. So it’s not a black versus white issue or class only issue. It’s about gender and culture and evolving the form.

We’re at a place when we’re asking hard questions, acknowledging our lineages, and then going forward making dances and finding ways to sustain dialogue. The Dance Complex is about to publish online a document called Culture of Community that will replace our code of conduct. Insurance companies said we needed a code of conduct, so we scrambled to put together a code and got hit with, deservedly, a lot of pushback: “Why are you telling us how to act? Why do we have to do this?” We got to this place of, “How do we dialogue about this?” Throughout a year, we held a series of meetings. The result is this document that’s saying we want to be transparent about what we believe and work together on stating what our values are as a community. It will be available on Google Docs or some dynamic drive where people can add their thoughts or comments. We’ve acknowledged it is not perfect, but that it’s who we are as of this writing. We’ll review it periodically through meetings and open comments to ensure it continues to fit our values and that it also covers what we legally have to say. We can’t solve problems by mandating. We had to find a way to holistically have these conversations.

Any other thoughts?

With Public Displays of Motion, we have two artists with disabilities who are often part of the work. I mention this because I want to make a point about the world of universal design. There’s something so holistic about the way those working in the disabilities world are going about making it clear that universal design – ramps, adjusted sound levels and the tactile-ness of doorknobs, to name some examples – is good for everybody, not just those with disabilities. Similarly, I feel like my company is good for everybody, not just 20-somethings. If the world could get to this place of honoring past hurts and reparations, and then move beyond it, we can find a way for it to be good for everybody. That’s where I am personally, in my company, and with The Dance Complex. Reparations are equally important, but I want to see a time when we make good art and hold hands respectfully. That’s my goal for the next however many years I’m alive.

Photo by Victoria Awkward – VLA ARTS

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To learn more visit www.publicdisplaysofmotion.com or www.dancecomplex.org.

The post On Making Good Art and Holding Hands Respectfully appeared first on Stance on Dance.

Stella’s dance was a spiritual act; she gave herself wholly to her passion for the art form, and her viewer received a sort of spiritual communion from watching her. As simply as slipping into song, meditation or prayer, Stella slipped into movement. And, not surprisingly, it read like a song, meditation or prayer.

This interview is from the book “Beauty is Experience: Dancing 50 and Beyond.” Click here to learn more about the book, or click here to order your own limited edition copy!

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When did you start dancing and what have been some highlights along the journey?

I was a child in a World War II internment camp in Arizona when I first saw a tap dance. I thought it was out of this world.

I was almost 10 when my family was able to establish ourselves financially so I could take dance lessons. I started at a little neighborhood studio with a teacher from Russia who taught a little of everything: tap, ballet, acrobatics, jazz and baton. I loved it all. I studied with her for almost 10 years, until I went to college at UCLA.

I was supposed to be heading for USC to become a dental hygienist. My dad was a dentist and had predetermined my path, but he unexpectedly died of a heart attack when I was 16. My mother said to me, “Whatever you do, you need to get a job, like being a teacher, where you can go and work when the need arises.” I thought all I could do was dance, so instead I went to UCLA where they had a PE major which eventually became a dance major. When I started, I thought, “Oh I’ve taken 10 years of dance and I’m with these PE majors so I’ll look good.” I went to the barre and did my first plié and the teacher asked what I was doing. She told me, “That is not a plié.” I realized then that my training hitherto had given me a love of dance, but not much technique. I had to start from step one.

At UCLA, I was first exposed to modern dance. At first I hated it, but one day at the end of class, I discovered movement that just came out of being, movement that was not anything like a set technique. It was exciting, that sense of discovery and of feeling creative.

After I graduated, I took modern dance classes with a woman named Gloria Newman. Eventually, she asked me to be in her company. I was thrilled. At the time, I was living and teaching full-time in San Gabriel, and would drive all the way to Venice Beach in Los Angeles, take two classes, rehearse and then drive home close to midnight. It was really a labor of love. Later, I would take my children to classes and rehearsals, and set them up in a playpen. Luckily, Gloria was so accommodating. I danced with Gloria on and off for 12 years and absolutely loved it. Eventually I moved to Thousand Oaks. By that time, Gloria was in Anaheim, and the 75-mile commute became too much, so I stopped dancing with her. But those were wonderful years.

After that, I mainly taught at Moorpark College. When I started, I was the only dance teacher, so I had to teach every class. I even taught a jazz class at night to 80 students in a huge gymnasium with a microphone! Eventually, I hired 10 adjunct faculty and built up the program to a place where we developed a dance major as well as a performing arts center.

I’ve also run Alleluia Dance Theater. I started it in 1978 as a group that performed at churches and celebrations. When I retired from Moorpark College, I kept the company, and it still exists to this day.

What does your current dance practice look like?

Teaching is what keeps me in shape. I teach four tai chi classes, four or five dance classes, and I rehearse with the company three times a week.

How has your motivation to dance changed with time?

My motivation has spanned through my very first exposure to dance through my years at the local dance studio, at UCLA, and my years with Gloria. It is love; it goes beyond technique. When I danced with Gloria, people would come up to me after a concert and say, “There’s something magical about you. We loved watching you dance.” My technique wasn’t the best, but I just had a passion.

What does the idea of success mean to you?

After I graduated from UCLA, my goal was to go to New York and study with Martha Graham. Instead, I became pregnant. Many years later, my husband said, “You know, I feel so badly because you couldn’t go to New York and dance with Graham’s company. I think I thwarted you in your goal.” I looked at him and said, “Are you kidding? Maybe I wouldn’t have made it; maybe I would have been miserable; who knows what would’ve happened. I might have hated it and given up dance.” You just have to accept what’s in front of you. I feel God had a plan for me and I just followed my path.

What does the idea of legacy mean to you?

You touch people’s lives by what you do. It may be simple, but it’s about sharing. It’s moving someone who’s not moving. It’s transferring energy.

Will you continue to dance for the foreseeable future?

I am 78 now and I wonder if 80 will be the magic number when I stop performing. I really don’t care if I perform. That’s not the crucial part. To me, it’s seeing what’s happening and seeing the process continuing.

What advice would you give to a younger generation of dance artists?

Nowadays, it’s all about the tricks: how many fouettès, leaps, flips, etc. I marvel at the dancers of today because they’re so technically wonderful. But I watch So You Think You Can Dance and I find it’s more than just the tricks and technique. You have to show who you are. What is it you bring, and how can you show it?

Any other thoughts?

The early years were not easy. I woke up at five in the morning, cleaned the house, prepared dinner, got the kids together, took two classes, rehearsed, came home, gave them a bath, cooked dinner, put them to bed and still had to be present for my spouse. I knew if I complained, my husband would tell me to quit. But I needed to dance despite the hardship.

Dance is not always going to be easy, and it’s not always going to be accepted. People will say, “Why are you doing this? You should spend more time at home, you should be with your kids, you should…”

But if you have to do it, you will.

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Stella Matsuda started dancing at the age of nine and went on to dance professionally with Gloria Newman Dance Theater. She graduated from UCLA with a BS in dance/PE and earned an MA from California Lutheran University. She developed the dance major for Moorpark College and retired as director of dance in May 1997. Alleluia Dance Theater, which she founded in 1978, exists to this day.

This interview is from the book “Beauty is Experience: Dancing 50 and Beyond.” Click here to learn more about the book, or click here to order your own limited edition copy!

The post Giving and Receiving: An Interview with Stella Matsuda appeared first on Stance on Dance.

Don embodied the dance teacher archetype. He arrived early and prepared; he had given thought to what he wanted to say; he bestowed what he had to say with a measure of surety and kindness. He made me want to dance for him. But no, it was the other way around. Just as so many students have placed their passion in his care, so he placed his passion in my care to document and share.

This interview is from the book “Beauty is Experience: Dancing 50 and Beyond.” Click here to learn more about the book, or click here to order your own limited edition copy!

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When did you begin dancing and what have been some highlights along the journey?

I grew up in Portland, studying theater and piano when I was young. I loved music. When I was 15, a girl I walked home from school with was going to the dance studio one day, so I went with her. The teacher coaxed me into partnering, since they needed boys. It was very difficult, but when I saw the ballet they did to the music I loved, I was very moved and began taking more classes.

The studio closed, and though there were other studios, I felt my teacher was quite enlightened. So after one year at Portland State University, two girls and I got in an old Lincoln Continental and drove to Toronto, Canada. We were going to make a new life. Canada’s National Ballet School was opening. Betty Oliphant, the founder of the school, had an old Victorian home and let us stay in the garret. We were fairly poor, so I cleaned the St. Lawrence Hall, which the National Ballet School later inherited and remodeled. I earned a scholarship for the summer, and naturally when the summer was over we all wanted to be in the company, but I was not good enough yet.

Friends got me a job at the Canadian Broadcast Corporation television network outfitting props on the sets. I rented a little house between the ballet studio and the TV studio. I went to work at 6 a.m. so I could go to my ballet classes later. Suddenly I had a decent paycheck and could afford to continue studying.

Eventually I got a contract with the National Ballet, which said “This artist agrees to work for $45 a week.” I remember the wording. It was much less than I was making in television. Then I met someone who was working on The Denny Vaughan Show on CBC television, which was similar to the American Hit Parade. I eventually became one of three featured dancers. We did these wonderful numbers choreographed by Joey Harris, who would eventually become my partner. I did that for three years, and with my salary I continued my dance studies with the best teacher I could find. I studied with Margaret Saul, who was Ms. Oliphant’s teacher from England.

Then I moved to Montreal, where I was on another television series called Music Hall. It was very high-class. Then Joey got a job offer in California choreographing for a new show, but there was some horrible scandal and the show got cancelled. By that time, we had already moved, and were stuck in Los Angeles with no work.

In Santa Monica, a lady was closing her studio, so we took it over. After eight or nine years, I began to teach at colleges as well. My days were crazy. I was teaching at UC Riverside in the morning, then I’d drive to Loyola Marymount, and then I’d drive to UCLA. I also taught at Cal State Long Beach for several years, and continued to teach in Santa Monica throughout. I became head of the dance department of the High School for the Arts, which was on the campus of Cal State LA.

Eventually, I took over a festival called Dance Kaleidoscope. It had gone on for about seven years and was put on by the Dance Alliance. When the organizer retired, the festival stopped. I was able to revive the festival, and we expanded it to five nights in three different theaters. I did that for 13 years before I retired.

What does your current dance practice look like?

I have a short routine I do every day, and I go for walks. I’m looking forward to a hip replacement; I can’t do as much right now.

I had an accident in my 50s where I had my leg on the barre and the damn barre came off the wall. I fell over, and bone fragments went into my spinal cord. I got an operation a day later, and was told I’d be lucky to walk again. I was unable to get up for a long time, and finally I got to the point where I could crawl and do simple Pilates. Then I started pool therapy and they put me on these mats to regenerate the nerves. I eventually got so I could walk. The doctor said it was a miracle, but it was probably because of dance.

How has your motivation to dance changed over time?

I don’t think it’s changed. The motivation is in the music, and I was always inspired by my feelings for the beauty in nature. Some way of conveying the mystery of life pushed me toward music and dance. The energy and dedication I’ve had my whole life falls back on that spiritual inspiration.

Do you feel you’ve achieved some measure of success?

I think I’ve had success and luck. You attract what you radiate, and though I’ve put out some bad radiation from time to time, more or less I think I’ve been successful and lucky with timing in life.

What do you perceive is your legacy?

I think I’ve influenced people’s lives and opened their eyes to what dance can be. I try to be insightful and supportive. I think I have been influential in producing good teachers and dancers by passing on the method, manner and hopefully the inspiration.

Is there a point at which you’ll be done dancing?

Right now I can’t move much because of my hip. But I expect that to be fixed and to go back to actively demonstrating.

What advice would you give to a younger generation of dancers?

Just like Diaghilev took Nijinsky to museums and galleries, I think it is important to experience as much art as you can. Whatever an artist thought, that essence is passed along to you, if you are open to it. This passing of knowledge and recognition makes you more energetic and sophisticated in your life and work.

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Don Hewitt was born Portland, Oregon. He performed with the National Ballet of Canada, the Montreal Theatre Ballet Company, and was a featured dancer in television musical series and stage musicals. Don is well-known as a teacher and coach, and has taught in most of the major universities around Los Angeles. In 1985, he was selected to be the principal ballet teacher at the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts, where he additionally served as chair. In 1989, he revived the Dance Kaleidoscope Festival and guided it for 13 years.

This interview is from the book “Beauty is Experience: Dancing 50 and Beyond.” Click here to learn more about the book, or click here to order your own limited edition copy!

The post Appreciating the Passing: An Interview with Don Hewitt appeared first on Stance on Dance.

“I’ll just move slowly,” Hae said when we arrived for the interview. First, she danced small; then, there flowed a bit of momentum; and then she was swimming in movement. Soon, her self-consciousness had left the room, and in its wake was breathlessness – both hers and mine.

This interview is from the book “Beauty is Experience: Dancing 50 and Beyond.” Click here to learn more about the book, or click here to order your own limited edition copy!

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When did you begin dancing and what have been some highlights along the journey?

When I was 14, a friend of mine went to a traditional Korean dance studio. It was summer break, and she asked me to join her. I watched and fell in love. The teacher asked me to join. Before I started dance, I did six years of figure skating, but I stopped and focused only on dance.

In high school we had a ballet class, and one of the ballet teachers thought I had talent. The teacher went and talked to my parents. The teacher said I was starting later than most, but that I had potential, and so my parents hired a private teacher. The first day of my lessons, I knew it was what I wanted, and that has never changed.

I arrived in America when I was 25 and initially admired all the artists around me. My creativity was hooked. But 10 years later, it seemed they were doing the same thing as when I arrived, just changing the title and costumes.

When I first came to America, I went to the Martha Graham School. I studied her technique for many years, and she invited me to join her company. But I didn’t want to be a little Martha. In fact, it took me 10 years to find my own movement beyond the Graham technique.

The Olympic Arts Festival took place in Los Angeles in 1984. Great artists throughout Europe and Asia came to perform. In particular, Pina Bausch and Sankai Juku were the most inspiring for me. Seeing their work totally flipped my perception of movement and dance.

At that time, I was very established in the Los Angeles dance community, but I was horrified that I would stall. In art, if you’re not paying attention, you’re repeating yourself. I really didn’t want to do that. I didn’t care if I made a name, but the creativity and creation were most important. So one day I just packed and moved to Paris. I didn’t know anybody and I didn’t know the language. I went to three classes a day and then went to the gym. I was dancing – dancing – dancing. Every day I wanted to move back to Los Angeles, but I stayed and persevered. The next 10 years of my creation were rooted in that time living in Paris and seeing great art. I still go back to Paris every year to remind myself.

I was a soloist performer for 20 years before creating a company, and I found it was difficult to translate my movement onto my company members’ bodies. That was a huge challenge and, eventually, I stopped forcing my movement on them and instead channeled their own movement.

Now, as a teacher, I try to bring out what is already in my students and create from there. I just love when someone is able to express their own movement vocabulary.

Every year, I tour with international festivals and take students with me. I am lucky because I had opportunities at a young age to see the world, so that is my devotion and dedication now: to give opportunities to my students.

What does your current dance practice look like?

I teach advanced technique classes. I also go to Europe regularly. I don’t perform regularly anymore except in Korea. I’m very happy not performing now and instead giving younger dancers opportunities.

And then I choreograph, which I would never give up. The creativity is the most important thing.

I’m very gracious and content. I don’t need a spotlight. I’m in a retiring mood. When I was young, I would have died if I had to stop, but now I accept it.

What does the idea of success mean to you? Do you feel you have you achieved success?

I am extremely content and satisfied with my career and life. My one fear is if I stop being creative. If I stop creating, that means I am dead. But I don’t want to be running around crazy. I’m happy teaching the next generation. It’s satisfying to see their growth. I’m surprised to find myself in such a calm place letting things go, but I’m okay with where I am.

What do you perceive is your legacy?

I believe every individual has a talent and a unique strength, and I’m good at digging it out and letting it shine. If students carry on and continue to nurture their strengths, they are going to find success. I love guiding that strength in students. It’s very satisfying.

Because you tell me you’re content to let dance go, what does that ending look like?

It’s different for each individual. I don’t want to be greedy. I had a long prime time. Tomorrow, if I had to stop, I would let it go. On the other hand, my teacher in Korea still dances. She has a desire to perform and will probably dance until she dies. I respect that. But for me, my art is about beauty. And if I can’t represent it, then I don’t want to do it.

Art should be inspiring for the audience. If you can inspire when you’re 100 years old, then why not? But it takes honesty.

Honesty is everything. How can you fake dance? Everything that’s in you, you represent. You need internal strength to reflect your own truth. Dance cannot be faked. If you’re repeating someone else, it’s no longer working. That’s why it’s so hard to be an artist: How do you not repeat yourself?

What advice would you give to a younger generation of dance artists?

Find your own essence and stick with it. Work hard. Without work you won’t get what you want. But if you try to mimic and copy others, your artistic life will be very short.

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Hae Kyung Lee received her BA from Ewha University in Seoul, Korea and her MA from UCLA. She is the artistic director, founder and choreographer of Hae Kyung Lee & Dancers, and has performed internationally. Hae has performed in numerous international and national dance festivals, and has been the recipient of several awards and grants. Currently she is a faculty member in the department of music, theater and dance at California State University, Los Angeles.

This interview is from the book “Beauty is Experience: Dancing 50 and Beyond.” Click here to learn more about the book, or click here to order your own limited edition copy!

The post How Can You Fake Dance? An Interview with Hae Kyung Lee appeared first on Stance on Dance.

One year ago, my book, “Beauty is Experience: Dancing 50 and Beyond,” finally, after four years of hard work, patience, many lessons, and a few tears, came out! Hooray! The photographer with whom I collaborated – Gregory Bartning – and I printed a first edition of 500 copies, and we were glad to have pre-sold 200 copies in order to pay for the initial printing and shipping costs. Hooray! After getting the book on Amazon and going on a couple small promotional tours, more books sold. Hooray! I became a regular at the post office as orders came, and basked in the praise and congratulations I received from readers and supporters. Hooray!

One year later, it’s all ebbed, all the excitement and novelty. Sales have slowed to a trickle, and I’ve almost completely backed off marketing. After so much hype, the feeling is a little bitter sweet. But I’ve caught the book bug; I’m already on to the next project – a book about disability in dance.

I want to take a moment though to examine hype. I experienced a fair amount of hype in the months before and after the book came out. My book was no bestseller by any means, but it did attract a bit of attention and acclaim.

I cringe a little at that last sentence: “My book was no bestseller by any means…” Did I fail to take in the premise and content of my own book?

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About ten years ago, while dancing my little heart out in San Francisco, I went through a stereotypical artist crisis where I decided suddenly that I needed to quit dance. I can’t even remember the reasoning that time (yes, there have been multiple episodes of thinking I should just quit and go lead a normal life, whatever that means), but I do remember speaking with my mentor, Summer Lee Rhatigan. She spoke of pursuing dance like being married. Of course it’s not easy to have a deep and layered relationship with something (or someone) that’s been in your life for a long time, but it’s a rich and meaningful journey.

I’ve come to love the idea of one day being 60 and having a completely different understanding of my body than I have now, still through a strong commitment to dance. I love the idea of reading this essay in 30 years and cringing at my own audacity writing this. I love the idea of layers upon layers of years and their accompanying sweat stains culminating in dances I can’t even fathom!

~~

Writing a book, I’ve found out, is like putting on a performance, but drawn out. There’s the same search for ideas and resonance, the same study of content, the same sheer grit work, the same administrative duties, the same much anticipated public release, the same buzz and praise, and the same withdrawing of attention. I even have the same relationship to my book that I have to old performance videos – I don’t want to examine it too closely. What if I find errors? What if it no longer holds up?

However, my book is a little more accessible than a performance video on my personal hard drive. It still can be readily picked up and read by anyone. The content can still be perused and explored.

I don’t, however, want to quantify my success or lack thereof by hype. Just like I cringe when I hear myself say, “The performance was great – we had a full house,” instead of, “The performance was great – the energy from the audience allowed me to explore the choreography from a new vantage point,” I don’t want to say, “I published a book, sold the majority of the copies, and got some acclaim for it.” Instead, I want to try saying something like, “I published a book and experienced new ways of sharing and distributing ideas.”

Just like the dancers in my book, when you keep doing something for a long time, the hype ebbs and flows. What’s most important is the experience gathered along the way.

That being said, there still are a little more than 100 books available for sale on Amazon. And I just knocked $15 off the retail price! Hooray!

The post Living Up to the Hype appeared first on Stance on Dance.

Kathryn’s staunch opinions and forthright realism about the schema of women in the dance world were strong and well-founded. She spoke with authority. But when she danced, what began to surface was a beautiful contradiction: she sharply questioned dance, and yet continued to give herself to it. For Kathryn, being critical and generous went hand in hand.

This interview is from the book “Beauty is Experience: Dancing 50 and Beyond.” Click here to learn more about the book, or click here to order your own limited edition copy!

~~

When did you start dancing and what have been some highlights along the journey?

I started dancing when I was three. I lived in the Bay Area and my mother was a dance critic, so I was regularly going to the opera house and seeing legendary dancers and companies. I started training through the San Francisco Ballet School. My father was a writer and went to London for work, so I trained in London as well.

When I was older, I trained in New York at Balanchine’s School of American Ballet, but I ended up spending the majority of my career in the Bay Area dancing with the San Francisco Opera Ballet. The theater, drama and production aspects were always what appealed to me.

From an early age, I was interested in choreography, but was told I needed to work on technique and being in a straight line before I could choreograph. There were no opportunities to choreograph as part of my training. In my early 20s, I started to seek out those opportunities for myself, gathering fellow dancers and presenting small shows in art galleries.

I developed the practice of giving myself ballet class in my 40s and 50s. I did a number of residencies, including at the Djerassi Resident Artist Program. It was a two-month residency in a rural setting, and I had to give myself class and create work on myself. It was a real challenge; I learned to use myself as my own resource.

Later, I lived rurally in West Marin for two years by a little town called Marshall near Point Reyes National Seashore. I would walk down the road to the old post office and sweep out the crushed oyster shells before giving myself class. I had long periods on my own where I was giving myself class and working. It was rather intense. Eventually, I brought other dancers up to the space and choreographed on them, and we’d give shows and eat oysters. It was really great.

I’ve been able to dance longer because I had to build my own dance practice and invite the community to come. It made me able to weather challenging circumstances.

What does your current dance practice look like?

I seek out ballet class regularly. I always do the barre, but sometimes the center work is challenging for me now. I also teach, which keeps me in shape.

How has your motivation to dance evolved over time?

It’s hard – people don’t see the hours of work behind dance. If you’re a poet you can just sit under a tree and write, but to make a dance you have to organize dancers, book rehearsal and performance space. It takes me a year or more to make a piece, especially being a single parent.

Aligning my work with other powerful artists keeps me going. I need overarching themes; for me, motivation goes way beyond just getting into a studio regularly. The overarching themes guide me and help me rise to the occasion. Some of these themes include working with war veterans or penetrating the psyche of Emily Dickinson through dance.

Do you feel you’ve achieved some measure of success?

I’ve done as much as I possibly could with the cards I’ve been dealt. I don’t feel limited; I feel like I’m operating in a limited world. I feel successful but I don’t know if my success has been recognized. I think that’s true of many women. I have to fight to feel successful, because I know what I do is powerful and impacts people.

What do you perceive is your legacy?

Throughout my life, I’ve had a particular challenge: I was discouraged heavily from going into choreography and being a creative artist in the world of ballet. That has always been a glass ceiling. When I became a single parent, I felt the glass ceiling even more so.

As we speak, I’m gathering together a group of women to create a residency for women ballet choreographers at Djerassi. Women are not encouraged to be creative in ballet. Ballet is a female-dominated profession, but the men have the power. Choreographers and artistic directors are more commonly men and they’re further up the chain.

We hear about Misty Copeland becoming a principal dancer and other instances of minorities progressing in ballet. That wasn’t the case before. But in terms of women having real jobs in ballet after being in a company, it’s a really old paradigm. If you’re a beautiful ballerina, what are you supposed to do when you’re done dancing in a company? The opportunities to choreograph or lead just don’t exist, so I’m trying in my own way to change that.

It goes back to my daughter. When my daughter first showed interest in dance, I could not encourage her to go into the field, and I asked myself why. I had such ambivalent feelings because my life experience had taught me ballet was not a great field for women. It’s an environment permeated with sexism.

Is there a circumstance that would cause you to stop dancing?

I get mad at the dance world and want to walk away, but I can never stop being a dancer. Even if I couldn’t move, I would still be a dancer inside because I’ve spent my entire life doing this.

Some of the times I’ve been gladdest to be a dancer have been surprising. A dear friend of mine was dying, but I could simply hold his hand and feel a communication with him because of my dancer body and mind.

What advice would you give to a younger generation of dancers?

Use technology carefully. Don’t be distracted by all the new gadgets. Dance is ancient; there’s a truth in the body and in being human that machines can never outdo.

Any other thoughts?

I’m saddened how, in the ballet world, the trend is younger and younger. In my era, we had fantastic mature women dancers, but we don’t have those examples as much anymore. The era we’re in now is about how much, how fast, how far, how extreme, etcetera. It mirrors our fascination with technology and the idea that faster is better. We’re narrowing our vision of what dance is and who gets to do dance, and thus losing the richness of the fabric.

~~

Kathryn Roszak trained at the San Francisco Ballet and the School of American Ballet, and performed with the San Francisco Opera Ballet. Her company Danse Lumiere has collaborated with kabuki master Shozo Sato, choreographer Alonzo King, musicians Mazatl Galindo of Mexico and Ailu Gaup of Norway, composer Gordon Getty, writers Gary Snyder and Maxine Hong Kingston and Swedish Nobelist Tomas Tranströmer. Her choreography has been presented by Cal Performances, Scandinavia House, the 92^nd Street Y, The Smithsonian Institute, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin West and the Copenhagen Cultural Festival.

This interview is from the book “Beauty is Experience: Dancing 50 and Beyond.” Click here to learn more about the book, or click here to order your own limited edition copy!

The post Limitless in a Limited World: An Interview with Kathryn Roszak appeared first on Stance on Dance.

Anandha struck me as one of those people who practically bleeds passion. She moved like a serpent and spoke like a sage. Her awareness of her body and voice was like a fine-tuned instrument. In other words, every moment, every movement and every word felt like a revelation.

This interview is from the book “Beauty is Experience: Dancing 50 and Beyond.” Click here to learn more about the book, or click here to order your own limited edition copy!

~~

How did you start dancing and what have been some highlights along the journey?

When I was a kid, I took a ballet class and loved it, but my family didn’t have the means for me to continue. In high school, I started doing a lot of drugs. A friend told me, “There’s this really cool thing called kundalini yoga, and it’s a natural high.” I studied kundalini yoga intensively from ages 14 to 16, and ended up going to a 10-day silent yoga retreat in New Mexico one summer. Every day we would have a two-hour break, and during that break I found this woman who was doing this unusual kind of yoga; it was done to music and was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I would sit and watch with tears rolling down my eyes. At the end of the 10 days, I found her and asked, “What is this amazing yoga you’ve been practicing?” She answered, “Modern dance.” So I found modern dance. I was 16.

I decided dance was going to be my career. I started going to college for dance, but my first semester I got pregnant. I had my daughter when I was 18 and had another child soon thereafter. With children, I figured I couldn’t be a professional dancer, so I’d be a dance teacher. I got the degrees necessary and started teaching at Yavapai College in Prescott, Arizona. Eventually, I became head of the dance department and started a small dance company that toured Arizona and California for 15 years. Then I applied to get my master’s degree in Los Angeles, and ended up getting two master’s degrees.

I ended up moving to the Bay Area and getting remarried. Slowly but surely, I built the impossible dream: an international touring professional dance company of world class dancers. That lasted for about 15 years. Then I had my own studio with a theater in it. That lasted almost a decade. Then the economy crashed and all the funding fell out from under it. I also had severe injuries. I tried to retire, but it was impossible. My soul was screaming, “You have to move, you have to be presenting, you have to do art, you have to be involved.”

So I found a new way to be involved without the funding. I closed the studio, closed the company, and found a new love: tribal fusion belly dance. It’s what got me on the path to what I do now, which I call shamanic fusion dance. It involves the spiritual aspects of Native American culture and several indigenous cultures but, of course, is also highly informed by my experiences in the contemporary dance world. In this form, the performances deepen as the dancer ages. Though the young dancers can be quite athletic, the dance journey in this form is about the spirit of the soul being transmitted through the poetry of motion, and that becomes quite rich with experience.

What does your current dance practice look like?

Seven days a week, I do yoga. Two days a week, I train dancers for five hours a day. It’s my new group, called Quimera Tribe. Once a month at the new moon, I present a journey called Serpent Ceremonies. I created this form I call intuitive technique, combining my master’s degrees in dance therapy and choreography with an emphasis in kinesiology. The goal is to transform the personal self through movement.

How have your motivations to dance evolved over time?

When I was 16, I was amazed by the fact I could choreograph about anything I wanted. My dad was an alcoholic, bless his heart, and my first dance was about the trauma of having an alcoholic father. I ended up feeling a sense of healing through it.

Many of the awards I’ve won have been humanitarian awards because I’ve done a lot of outreach to schools and underprivileged children. Even as a beginning dancer, I wanted to reach out and give dance to people. I think it’s a sin you have to pay for dance. So I went into Title One schools and taught six-week workshops. I would then grab the students who were really taken by dance and bring them to my studio. At the end, because the economy crashed and I had like 95 percent scholarship students, I killed my studio! But it changed peoples’ lives. It’s why I dance. Because dance can change the world.

What does the idea of success mean to you?

At first, my definition of success was to form an internationally touring dance company with world-class dancers. I set that goal, and in the course of my career I got to work as a cultural ambassador with the U.S. Embassy bringing dance across international borders in tours called “Dance without Borders.” We toured to seven countries and in every country we received standing ovations. Sometimes I remind myself of that, but it’s easy to forget because it passes. Dance passes.

The way I judge success now is by seeing lives change. Dance is about more than the steps; it’s about the life lessons and community that supports us and can bring a sense of peace, belonging and feeling that we matter.

What do you perceive is your legacy?

Hopefully, every dancer I’ve touched will pay it forward. That’s what I’m doing; I’m paying it forward for my teachers. Martha Graham, Isadora Duncan and Doris Humphrey trained my teachers; I have a family tree that’s so rich.

Is there any circumstance that would make you stop dancing?

I have had some horrible physical ordeals where I had a neck brace for six months or I had my foot reconstructed surgically. There were times I could barely stand up. But I had to keep moving.

I remember when I was young, I thought if I was ever paralyzed in a wheelchair… my worst fear is to not be able to move. If I ever couldn’t move, I’d just want someone to wheel me into a dance studio. I’ll dance in my mind. Dance is in the mind, right?

What advice would you give to a younger generation of dance artists?

Don’t stop. When you’re young, you think, “Ah, I don’t want to go to class today, I don’t feel well, I’m not gonna go to class.” But those are the days when you learn so much. Just get up and go.

~~

Anandha Ray currently directs Quimera Tribe: Shamanic Fusion Dance. She directed Moving Arts Dance from 1996 to 2011 and ARK III Dance from 1980 to 1995. She has received awards and commendations from the Women’s Hall of Fame and the U.S. Senate and California Assembly, was named one of 25 Women Leading the Arts and a Visionary for the 21st Century, and has received numerous choreography grants and awards. Former faculty/chairperson of dance at a college, university, community arts program and her own studio/theater, she continues to choreograph, teach and tour internationally.

This interview is from the book “Beauty is Experience: Dancing 50 and Beyond.” Click here to learn more about the book, or click here to order your own limited edition copy!

The post Of Body and Mind: An Interview with Anandha Ray appeared first on Stance on Dance.

Ann held sadness in her. It was a very real melancholy based on her life experience of loving and losing. But when she danced, something seemed to shed. It was the first time since meeting her I had truly seen her face smile and her body release. She moved with luxury; it was a luxury for her to dance, a gift she reveled in each time she found it again.

This interview is from the book “Beauty is Experience: Dancing 50 and Beyond.” Click here to learn more about the book, or click here to order your own limited edition copy!

~~

When did you start dancing and what have been some highlights along the journey?

I had no formal dance training until I was 19. I grew up in a very poor Italian family north of Boston. I had no idea what ballet or modern dance was, but I loved watching musicals on TV. That was really my only exposure to dance, and I watched voraciously.

Out of high school, I lived and worked in Boston for a year. It was my friend Betty who suggested I get some actual dance training. I looked into it and got accepted into Emerson College. I ended up getting a degree in dance. My teachers had been trained in New York, Graham-style. I was hooked. I was young and hungry, and moved up very quickly.

From there I began After Image Dance Company. It didn’t last very long, and only had about six people in it. We actually toured and were on television. Soon though, the dancers started moving or getting married, and I didn’t want all that weight on my shoulders, so I let it go and started choreographing and performing solos around Boston.

Then I taught for three years under the direction of Claire Mallardi who was the director of the dance program for the Office for the Arts at Harvard. Claire became my mentor, and I was the artistic advisor under her. We performed at Jacob’s Pillow and I had many opportunities to choreograph. Eventually though, it became an issue to work under her. She thought relationships with men were a waste of time; she had been through two or three that ended badly. When I met my husband, she disapproved. I learned so much from her, but in the end it was not a healthy relationship.

When I was in my early 30s, my husband and I moved out to the Bay Area. I didn’t want to leave Boston. I loved it there, but I loved him more. We were together for 35 years but he died about nine years ago. Shortly after we moved to the Bay Area he started displaying troubling symptoms; he was always sick, numb and fatigued. He was finally diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

When we moved to the Bay Area, it was a whole new world. I was a teacher, performer and choreographer on the East Coast, but in California I had no name. I tried, but I never knew how to market myself. I took class and performed here and there, but I felt lost. Nothing stuck until I met Lucas Hoving and Joan Lazarus, both of whom I danced for a few years in their companies.

Around the time my husband’s condition was getting worse, I started working fulltime as an IT systems administrations manager at UC Berkeley so I could support us. My job kept me and my husband in our house. His MS progressed from using a cane to a walker to a scooter to a wheelchair. All of his functionality left him, and next came infections. I cared for him and worked fulltime to support us. In other words, I had to stop dancing.

I didn’t dance for eight years. My life project, my art project and my love project was to make my husband’s life as good as possible. I didn’t want him to be in a hospital or nursing home. I don’t know how I did it. I managed somehow to navigate the medical system and its agencies to help us. By the end of his life, he was living as fully as he could in our home, but he couldn’t even move his hand.

After he died, I needed to help myself. I started with Pilates and physical therapy. I had gained a lot of weight and there was so much stress in my body. Frank Shawl kept pushing me: “Just come and do a beginning ballet barre. Don’t worry. No one cares what you look like. Just do it.”

From that beginning ballet barre I quickly went on to the intermediate and advanced classes, and I started dancing in choreography again. It was a real gift Frank gave me along with the people at Shawl Anderson Dance Center. I felt like I was back home.

How has your motivation to dance changed over time?

When I was in Boston, it was sheer joy. I couldn’t get enough. If my body didn’t hurt the way it does now, I would dance the same way. Something essential has not changed – that excitement. It doesn’t really have words; that’s why I dance.

It’s harder for me to get myself to class now. I’m tired. I argue with myself. But once I’m there I’m always happy I came. I’m humbled and exhilarated if I can actually take a whole class and make it through. There will always be challenges, but I push through them. Part of me doesn’t know I’m 67 years old. But I am 67 years of wear and tear, and I have to be smart about it.

What does the idea of success mean to you?

It doesn’t mean anything to me. I’ve never cared about it, and I don’t care about it now. The word “success” would be better applied to someone with a big company. For me, the word is satisfied. And grateful.

Is there a set of circumstances which would cause you to stop dancing?

Victor Anderson [who co-founded the Shawl Anderson Dance Center] has compression fractures in his spine. He can’t dance anymore, but he walks. He takes two walks every day.

To me it’s all dance. I won’t always be able to take advanced modern or ballet classes, but I’ll never stop moving. It’s not good what happens when you stop. I’ve seen it.

What advice would you give to a younger version of yourself?

Go toward everything. Try everything. There’s no mistake that can hurt you. It’s all experience. Allow yourself to let the experience of what’s being offered wash over you instead of coming in with a preconceived notion. Stay open and try everything.

No matter what you do, you’re doing your art… when you cook a meal, when you’re taking care of your dying husband, when you’re working as an IT help desk person… it’s all the same.

~~

Originally from Boston, Ann DiFruscia graduated with a BFA in dance from Emerson College. She co-founded After Image Dance Company, with which she performed and toured throughout New England. Her teaching credits include jazz, ballet, improvisation, composition and creative movement for children at numerous colleges and institutions. Ann has danced in choreography by Martin Kravitz, Claire Mallardi, Jack Moore, Sara Sugihara, Randee Paufve, Mary Armentrout and Rogelio Lopez. She is a former member of Ina Hahn Dance Co., Lucas Hoving Company and Lazarus Dance.

This interview is from the book “Beauty is Experience: Dancing 50 and Beyond.” Click here to learn more about the book, or click here to order your own limited edition copy!

The post Moving Beyond Loss: An Interview with Ann DiFruscia appeared first on Stance on Dance.

When Mira danced, it was as though she had invited me into a secret world. It was a bit like following Alice in Wonderland down a rabbit hole, but Mira’s dance pulled me down a gentle grassy slope instead. There was nothing hurried or excessive; she moved like a whisper that knows it doesn’t need to shout to be heard.

This interview is from the book “Beauty is Experience: Dancing 50 and Beyond.” Click here to learn more about the book, or click here to order your own limited edition copy!

~~

When did you start dancing and what have been some highlights along your journey?

I didn’t start dancing until I was 18. At a friend’s suggestion, I went and took a dance class. I was immediately in love with being able to communicate through movement and not being required to talk. It was a huge relief to me; speaking was not my thing.

Early on, I was introduced to Lucas Hoving, who had been a principal with the Limón Company. When I met him, he was in his late 70s, but he was teaching technique, choreography and improvisation. He started a performance group which I was part of for a while. It was magical to be working with someone who was such a master and yet so available.

The experience dancing for Lucas was in part what inspired me to get a degree in dance. I did things backward; I had a child before I went to college. I had never wanted to go to college until I realized you could actually study dance as a subject.

I went to Mills College to study dance. I didn’t end up getting the degree because I had a small child and thought I had to be practical. But I never stopped dancing, and have performed with many choreographers in the Bay Area over the years. Since 2010, I’ve been a member of SoCo Dance Theater, an intergenerational company with people ranging in age from the 20s to the 60s. Dance is where we all connect, and when we dance, it doesn’t matter how old we are. It’s a treasure to work with a group like that.

I have just finished my first year in an MFA program in dance at St. Mary’s College of California. It’s kind of crazy, as I also have an MA and PhD in language and literacy education. I wrote to the director of the program and asked if she was open to diversity in terms of age, and she said, “Absolutely.” There’s actually a couple of us in our mid-50s.

What does your current dance practice look like?

Right now, I take dance class on average three days a week. I also do Pilates, yoga, go to the gym and walk a lot. I find I need that variety. Although I would love to dance every day, I have to find other ways to be in my body now.

How has your motivation to dance evolved over time?

For me, dance is about expression, connection and community. It’s always been about those things, but I didn’t always know it.

I love creating art and working to accomplish a vision. I love the vulnerability of the dance environment. When we’re all taking class or rehearsing, everything is visible; there’s no hiding. I really appreciate that. I feel there’s an intrinsic honesty to dance that I really value.

The first couple of days I was in the MFA program, I had this experience of looking around the room and feeling like I had come home. Here were all these other people who had quirky habits like needing to stretch and sprawl about on the floor. It was a revelatory moment of realizing I was with kindred spirits.

What does the idea of success mean to you? Do you feel you’ve achieved some measure of it?

If success is about connection and having an artistic voice, then I feel like I am continuing to work toward success. If it’s about virtuosity in terms of what the body can do, then I’m totally over the hill.

However, in an MFA show this spring I deliberately chose to choreograph on two dancers over 50, and we received unexpectedly positive feedback. The piece was about loss, and I have thought to myself since then how it would have been a really different piece had I chosen to work with two dancers in their 20s instead. I love the embodied wisdom I see in older dancers. The notion of success all depends on what you want, what your purpose is, and who your audience is.

As far as my own sense of being a performer, it’s important to me to feel like I can be true to what I am actually capable of and feel good about it as opposed to trying to do what I did 20 years ago. Can I still dance with integrity and share what I think I have to bring? It’s a tough question. I know many older dancers who stop performing or even going to class because it makes them so sad they can’t do what they used to.

Do you have a sense of your legacy?

If my legacy exists, it’s one I’m still in the process of creating, and it has to do with writing about dance. I have spent my whole career as an academic, both teaching and writing about education. Over the last several years, I have shifted my focus to bringing my knowledge as an education researcher to this thing I know from the inside out; increasingly, I’m writing about dance, and it gives me great joy. It gives me permission to release myself from a more formal academic voice and write about my experience, the power of the arts, and the powerful role the arts can play in education.

Is there a circumstance that would cause you to stop dancing?

I don’t ever want to stop dancing, but I do feel increasingly self-conscious about being the oldest person in the room. Sometimes I think younger dancers wonder why people my age are even there. And yet I’m not even close to giving it up. I am moving more toward yoga, Pilates, authentic movement, choreography and writing. Those are new avenues I’m hoping I can go to in lieu of, or at least alongside, class.

What advice would you give to a younger generation of dance artists?

Pay attention. Don’t take things you can do for granted. And don’t underestimate your gifts. Find what is unique about the way you move, and value what you bring.

~~

Mira-Lisa Katz has been dancing in the Bay Area since 1977. She has performed with Lucas Hoving, Mary Reid, Jill Randall, Dana Lawton, Randee Paufve, Gay White, Ruth Botchan, Virginia Matthews, Nancy Lyons and Mercy Sidbury. She is currently pursuing an MFA in dance/creative practice at St. Mary’s College of California. In addition to dancing, Mira holds a PhD from UC Berkeley, and has been a professor of English at Sonoma State University, where she teaches teachers, since 2002. Her book, Moving Ideas: Multimodality and Embodied Learning in Communities and Schools can be found on Amazon.

This interview is from the book “Beauty is Experience: Dancing 50 and Beyond.” Click here to learn more about the book, or click here to order your own limited edition copy!

The post Connection and Community: An Interview with Mira-Lisa Katz appeared first on Stance on Dance.

It’s worth noting Laura cut her foot during her photoshoot. Her dance knew no “no.” It was only a matter of “yes.” She spoke like butter and moved like a dragon. Color seemed to engulf her. She jumped into the dance and never looked back, as in her element and unconcerned about the small glass littering the asphalt as a child. She truly didn’t believe anything could hinder her dance.

This interview is from the book “Beauty is Experience: Dancing 50 and Beyond.” Click here to learn more about the book, or click here to order your own limited edition copy!

~~

When did you start dancing and what have been some highlights along the journey?

I should begin with my grandparents, who founded a performing arts school in Los Angeles. It was called the Young Saints Performing Arts Foundation, and they gave training and scholarships to young people. It started in their backyard on Wellington Road, right in the heart of Los Angeles. They grew to have their own show and were even invited to the White House.

My parents met in the Young Saints, so I was in the Young Saints energy from the get-go. I was pretty inspired not just by my grandparents, but also by my aunt, Lisa Roberts. She would take me to her classes and recording sessions; she was on The Carole Burnett Show and The Sonny and Cher Show. At the age of eight, I had a Screen Actors’ Guild card. I grew up understanding that what you love can be your career.

When I was six, a bunch of neighborhood girls decided to enter a contest at a community dance center. The prize was a little trophy and six months’ worth of free dance lessons. The older girls took me along for fun. Two weeks before that, my parents had taken me to see Tina Turner. When it was my turn, I jumped up and reenacted everything I remembered from the Tina Turner concert. I won first place. That’s how I started dancing.

From there, I went on to study under R’Wanda Lewis for a number of years. When I reached the age of 15, I left my dance training in order to be a normal high schooler. I got involved in musical theater in the afterschool program. I discovered there was a lot of racism; we couldn’t get the major parts in the musicals because of typecasting. But I learned to advocate. We started an afterschool program doing a multi-ethnic The Wiz and other works.

I went to Mills College, which is how I ended up in the Bay Area, and afterward was accepted into Dimensions Dance Theater. The director, Deborah Vaughan, became my mother-sister-friend. I connected to the blending of modern and jazz styles with African diasporic dance. I’ve been dancing for Dimensions since 1986; it’s been my dance home for 30 years.

What I learned from Deborah is, there’s no such thing as being a leader if you’re not nurturing and supporting other voices. She encouraged me to explore my own choreographic voice, and also pushed me to present others. Her company was part of Black Choreographers: Moving Toward the 21st Century, the brainchild of Dr. Halifu Osumare. In 2005, I decided to partner with a friend of mine, Kendra Kimbrough Barnes, and produce The Black Choreographers Festival: Here and Now. We’ve been doing it over 10 years, and it wouldn’t have been possible without Dr. Halifu and Deborah giving me the support to have a vision, make it happen and find sustainable ways to bring it into the community.

What does your current dance practice look like?

I teach at Cal State East Bay and the Athenian School. When I decide to take class for myself, I often take rhythm tap.

In addition to dancing for Deborah, in recent years I’ve particularly loved working with Anne Bluethenthal and Robert Moses. This past fall, I was asked to do a project with Jo Kreiter. It was the first time I’d taken on aerial dance. I did the highest solo I’d ever performed, at 70 feet.

How have the motivations for why you dance evolved over time?

Dance is what I love doing most in the world. I just have a sincere passion for it. I like being involved in the creative process and being a vessel for an artistic vision. It’s important to me to do work that has an impact and to be the type of performer who affects people. The incredible people dance has brought into my life are invaluable; the friendships and connections are something I would not have guessed would resonate so much.

What does the idea of success mean to you?

It all boils down to the sheer joy I have doing what I do: joy in the challenge, joy in the aches and pains. If it’s not for the joy, what’s the point? It’s not for the money, and as much as I love the opportunities and people, those come and go. Except for the trophy I got when I was six, it’s not about the trophies. I could give a damn about recognition. With The Black Choreographers Festival, it’s about the collective of artists, not me. The thing has to come before the person.

What do you perceive is your legacy?

I don’t know if I personally have a legacy. What I have is what’s come before me and what I’ve been able to create and be a part of in the moment. I don’t know how important what I leave behind is. What’s really important are the folks who will be there in the future. I see myself connected in a web of amazing experiences rather than being in the center of something.

Even The Black Choreographers Festival is the expanded legacy of someone else. I feel the empowerment of standing on shoulders. I don’t want people moving out of the Bay Area because they can’t dance or have a career here. I want to help African American dancers and choreographers stay and bring their art to the stage without being marginalized. If I can have any small part of that future, that would be awesome. It remains to be seen, though, because the shifts are small. Access is still hard. It’s a highly political point.

Is there a circumstance that would cause you to stop dancing?

Nope, no and absolutely hell no. Right now I’m still hanging with the 20-somethings. I do step back on movements that might be extremely painful later, but I’m accessing other ways to dance. I’ll literally have to drop to stop, and then I’ll drop it like it’s hot.

What advice would you give to a younger generation of dancers?

Being fearless is not an overstatement. You have to go for what scares you. At times, I’ve failed miserably, and other times I’ve crossed the threshold and had a brilliant experience. Both are important, but risk-taking is integral to get anywhere.

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Laura Elaine Ellis began dancing in Los Angeles with the R’Wanda Lewis Afro-American Dance Company and the Young Saints Performing Arts Academy, a school founded by her grandparents Evelyn Freeman and Tommy Roberts. Laura attended Mills College and was a founding member of the Mills Repertory Company and LAZARUS/Dance. She currently tours nationally and internationally with Dimensions Dance Theater, directed by Deborah Brooks Vaughan. Laura also currently co-produces The Black Choreographers Festival: Here and Now.

This interview is from the book “Beauty is Experience: Dancing 50 and Beyond.” Click here to learn more about the book, or click here to order your own limited edition copy!

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