For dancers, dance teachers, and those who love dance. – Page 65 – A website for dancers, dance teachers and others interested in dance

Book Review: Ballerina – by Edward Stewart

March 21, 2014 by 4dancers

Reading Ballerina by Edward Stewart is like snacking on too many Girl Scout Cookies. There’s something sentimental about them, and it’s so hard to just have one. Chapter after juicy (and sometimes eye-roll-inducing) chapter, I couldn’t put this novel down.

Ballerina was originally published in 1979. The latest edition comes in e-book format from Open Road Publications. At 500 pages, it’s a quick read with plenty of theatrics. A few of the forty-nine chapters seem like separate episodes in the often scattered plot, and as a whole the book has the slightly dated feel of a yellowing Polaroid photo. If you’re looking for a good soap-opera-type travel read, though, this definitely fits the bill.

The plot follows dancers Stephanie Lang and Christine Avery from their audition for the country’s top ballet school at age sixteen into their early twenties as they navigate promising careers, romance, and friendship. Steph’s overbearing mother Anna and the manipulative artistic director Marius Volmar are in turns detestable and pitiable as secondary characters, twisting and prodding Steph and Chris for personal gain.

The world Stewart creates is one of catty backstabbing and sleeping around—think Dancers, The Turning Point, or Center Stage. Despite the book’s shortcomings, the intrigue of the insider-outsider dance world makes Ballerina a readable jaunt for dancers and non-dancers alike. I rate it three stars out of five for exciting drama but lack of depth, and PG-13 for some strong language and few graphic scenes—it’s not a novel for the Girl Scout-age set.

Emily Schoen – Performance Highlights At Gibney Dance Center

March 19, 2014 by 4dancers

by Nel Shelby

Emily Schoen is a real up-and-coming star in the dance world. A dancer with Keigwin + Company, Emily was named Top 25 to Watch by Dance Magazine. She’s danced in a couple operas at the Met (with Mark Morris and Doug Varone) and even performed in the Rolling Stones 50 and Counting Tour last year. She received Gibney Dance’s bookoo grant to create and present work in Gibney Dance Center, and she was just selected as one of five emerging choreographers nationwide to create work for Met Dance in Houston, TX next summer.

She just so happens to also be Nel Shelby Productions’ awesome Project Manager for all our dance films and video editing services. We met and bonded when I was filming Nejla Y. Yatkin’s Central American tour and Emily was dancing with Nejla. It clicked that Emily could really help me with organizing my business and communicating with my growing clientele, and we’ve worked together ever since.

We just had the pleasure of filming her choreography at Gibney Dance and I thought it would be great to get her thoughts on working with us from the other side of things!

Contributor Nel Shelby, Founder and Principal of Nel Shelby Productions, is deeply dedicated to the preservation and promotion of dance through documentation of live performances, fully edited marketing reels, live-stream capture, and documentaries and films that encapsulate the essence of nonprofit organizations.

Her New York City-based video production company has grown to encompass a diverse list of dance clients including American Ballet Theater II, Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company, Gallim Dance, Gotham Arts, Kate Weare and Company, Keigwin + Company, Monica Bill Barnes Company, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, Shen Wei Dance Arts, Wendy Whelan and many more. She has filmed performances at venues throughout the greater New York area including The Joyce Theater, New York Live Arts, Lincoln Center, Symphony Space, St. Mark’s Church and Judson Church, to name a few.

For nearly a decade, Nel has served as Festival Videographer for the internationally celebrated Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in the Berkshires. Each season at the Pillow, Nel’s responsibilities include documenting aspects of festival culture in addition to its 20 mainstage dance performances, filming and overseeing documentation of more than 100 free performances and events, managing two dance videography interns and an apprentice, and educating students about the technical and philosophical aspects of filming dance.

She also serves as Resident Videographer at the Vail International Dance Festival where she spent her first summer creating five short dance documentary films about the festival in addition to documenting its events and performances. Her longer-form, half-hour documentary on Vail’s festival, The Altitude of Dance, debuted on Rocky Mountain PBS in May 2013.
She has created four short films for Wendy Whelan’s Restless Creature, and she collaborated with Adam Barruch Dance to create a short film titled “Folie a Deux,” which was selected and screened at the Dance on Camera Festival in New York City and the San Francisco Dance Film Festival. She is making a dance documentary featuring Nejla Y. Yatkin, called Where Women Don’t Dance.

Nel has a long personal history with movement – she has a B.A. in dance and is a certified Pilates instructor. She continues to train with world-renowned Master Teachers Romana Krysnowska and Sari Pace, original students of Joseph Pilates. In addition to her dance degree, Nel holds a B.S. in broadcast video. She often collaborates with her wonderful husband, dance photographer (and fellow 4dancers contributor) Christopher Duggan on creative projects with dancers in New York City and beyond. They live with their beautiful daughter Gracie and son Jack in Manhattan.

The Sport Of Spectating

March 17, 2014 by 4dancers

by Lizzie Leopold

Ask five people to define dance and you’ll probably get five different answers. Each dancemaker has a personal opinion (or opinions) about how to make steps, what those steps should look like, who should perform those steps, where those steps should be performed, and so on. And there are even those choreographers (Paul Taylor, most famously) who would tell you that you don’t need any steps at all; stillness is dancing too. So then, I’m back at the beginning. What is dance?

One of the common grounds that I keep returning to when trying to tackle this impossible question is audience. All of the disparate genres, venues, styles, and approaches share the act of watching. Sometimes the audience is also the dancer, starring back at herself in the mirror as she simultaneously moves and monitors. Sometimes the audience is 4,000 deep in an opera house. Of course there are exceptions (the private pajama-clad, living room jam session for one); but for this dancemaker there is always an audience.

With that idea settled, or at least settling, I can begin to ask myself more pressing questions about this common denominator. Questions like: What does the role of the audience entail? Is there a responsibility innate to the act of watching? What are the different kinds of watching? There is watching to judge and to criticize. And there is watching that works to examine and understand. There is watching without thinking and there is watching with deep, critical engagement. Is there such a thing as gendered, racialized, or sexualized watching? Dance scholars like Susan Manning would tell you yes. They would tell you that who you are, both how you see yourself and how you are seen by society at large, determines how you watch and what you see. They would tell you that the historical moment you inhabit colors your vision. They would tell you that like visual art, there is such a thing as the ‘period eye’ for dance spectators. We are conditioned to watch in a certain way and to see certain things.

So how would I characterize a 21^st century dance audience? What kind of spectators are we? I believe that today’s audience, first and foremost, wants speed and efficiency. These are qualities that we have come to expect from our world. Technology has rendered us impatient; if a webpage takes more than four seconds to load it is refreshed or abandoned, and if the Lean Cuisine calls for a seven-minute cook time we are annoyed by the wait. So, what is dance’s role in either catering to or subverting this need for speed? I cannot answer that question for you. I can only offer my opinion, as one dancemaker, in one moment. And of course, as my world changes so will my answer. But for now, here is a proposal:

Stage the act of watching. Put the audience on the stage with the dancers so that they watch each other as much as they watch the dancing. Ask your dancers to be better audience members throughout dance work. Identify watching as an act of responsibility, witnessing as an act of humanity. Try to blur the lines between dancing and watching; strive for a place where the differences between the two actions are imperceptible and the similarities are many. Have dancers stare back. Write a to-the-point program note explaining your intentions and your questions, thus feeding the need for efficiency. Now your audience will spend less time ‘re-loading the page,’ having already understood its message. And, all the while, recognize your complicity in this 21^st century pacing. Then end the dance slowly and, like the inertia that throws your head forward at the end of the roller coaster, imagine that the globe stutters on its axis momentarily.

This is just one answer, for one moment. It is the answer that I will stage on March 28-30 at the Ruth Page Center for the Arts. In this instance, as you can tell, I have given into speed and spectacle and I cannot wait to share the results. In the past I have staged slow dances, long dances, dances with closed eyes (of course, a nod to Yvonne Rainer’s pioneering subversion here), and dances without explanation. I watch all of my dances aware that there is no such thing as a neutral spectator or a passive spectator (with the possible exception of my father sleeping through childhood dance recitals).

And so I humbly ask, next time you enter a theater ask yourself what kind of spectator you are, and what kind of spectator you want to be. What do you see and how do you see it? After all, you, the witness, are a defining factor in the practice of dance and you hold its history in your remembrance.

Tickets for the performance can be purchased here.

Contributor Lizzie Leopold is a dancer, dance maker and dance scholar. She holds a BFA in dance from the University of Michigan and a Masters in Performance Studies from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, with thesis work titled Choreography and Commerce: Tracking the Business of Dance Through the Rite(s) of Spring . In fall 2011 she will begin work on an Interdisciplinary PhD in Theater and Drama Studies at Northwestern University, continuing to focus on the intersection of dance and business, both historically and theoretically. Her writing has been presented at the Congress on Research in Dance 2011 Special Topics Conference, Dance and American Studies, and the Cultural Studies Association Conference 2011. She is also a contributor to the Auditorium Theatre of Roosevelt University blog writing about their dance performance series.

Lizzie is the founder and Artistic Director for the Leopold Group, a Chicago based not-for-profit modern dance company. She was awarded Best Choreography for Green Eyes, a new kind of musical in the 2008 New York International Fringe Festival and has been in residence at the Workspace for Choreographers’ Artists Retreat in Sperryville, Virigina and at the Chicago Cultural Center through DanceBridge. In addition to choreographing, Leopold has danced with the Lyric Opera of Chicago. She also works for Audience Architects (www.audiencearchitects.com, www.seechicagodance.com) , a service organization working to build audiences for dance in Chicago, and is working to launch the New Books Network Dance Channel podcast. She currently serves on the Alumni Board of Governors at the University of Michigan’s School of Music, Theater and Dance.

Hubbard Street Dances Kylián

March 15, 2014 by 4dancers

Hubbard Street Dancers Ana Lopez, left, and Garrett Patrick Anderson in Petite Mort by Jiří Kylián. Photo by Todd Rosenberg. — Hubbard Street Dancers Ana Lopez, left, and Garrett Patrick Anderson
in Petite Mort
by Jiří Kylián. Photo by Todd Rosenberg.

by Catherine L. Tully

Thursday evening Hubbard Street Dance Chicago offered up an evening focused completely on choreographer Jiří Kylián at Chicago’s Harris Theater. Two works the company has performed before (27’52” and Petite Mort) and two are company premieres (Sarabande and Falling Angels).

The program is arranged beautifully—working its way back from 2002 to 1989, letting the audience see the choreographer’s development—but in reverse. First on the bill is 27’52” with its stark set, authoritative music and unusual poses. The title of the work refers to its length, but the force supplied by both the movement and the music draws the viewer in, making it feel much shorter.

The flooring is used in different ways here—sometimes as a cover or wrap for a particular dancer, other times as the impetus for the movement itself. Once it even pulls a dancer along the stage, resulting in a forceful type of floating motion—which is oddly compelling.

Kylián uses the spoken word throughout the work, which in and of itself isn’t particularly unusual, but the fact that the recorded voices are those of the original cast gives it a deeper layer, tying past to present dancers each time it is performed.

Petite Mort is the next Kylián work, and it is an audience favorite. The beginning presents a striking image, with six men on stage maneuvering six foils and six women standing in the shadows behind them looking on. Gender roles are on display front and center here, with the men brandishing weaponry and the women darting in and out from behind voluminous black dresses that slide across the stage on wheels. Although most sequences are danced expertly by the company, the eroticism does at times translate more as a series of poses and steps to be executed rather than raw, visceral movement.

Hubbard Street Dancer Johnny McMillan in Sarabande by Jiří Kylián, with Jason Hortin, left, and Jonathan Fredrickson . Photo by Todd Rosenberg. — Hubbard Street Dancer Johnny McMillan
in Sarabande by
Jiří Kylián, with
Jason Hortin, left, and Jonathan Fredrickson
Photo by Todd Rosenberg.

Sarabande begins with a literal bang as six men lay stretched out on the floor, slapping their arms down in unison, as if demanding attention. The women’s gowns are back on display again, but this time they are heavily decorated, hovering over the men–empty–almost haunting. The men roll through a series of postures and poses, ranging from primal, manly screams in unison—to little boys peering at something interesting on the ground.

They dance at times with shirts up around their heads, reminiscent of a miniature Martha Graham costume from Lamentation, and other times with pants down around their ankles. A series of short robust solos is the highlight here, very well executed and supremely powerful.

Falling Angels is the final work of the evening and it features live accompaniment by the steady hands of Third Coast Percussion. While the men of Sarabande seem to alternate between singularity of focus and camaraderie, Falling Angels is a multitasking, tribal marvel. This piece was perhaps the best suited to Hubbard Street, as the women of this company are fierce dancers who hold nothing back.

The choreography is at once aboriginal and contemporary, alternating between African dance movements and a scattershot series of expressions of modern femininity. The women moved in strength—rotating very quickly between shy, sexy, hurried, self-conscious and powerful poses and movements.

Hubbard Street performs at the Harris Theater through March 16th.

Modern Dance History In Today’s Classroom

March 14, 2014 by 4dancers

Loie_Fuller — Portrait of Loïe Fuller, by Frederick Glasier, 1902

by Janet Neidhardt

Every year I teach my students about the history of modern dance. Each student researches and presents to the class the story of a modern dance pioneer. During this process of research and presentation I see various light bulbs pop on in my students’ minds as they come to the realization that movement has origins in history. They say things like “We do this movement in class!” and “This dancer had similar concepts about dance as we do in here.”

It’s so wonderful that videos of pioneer dancers like Loie Fuller, Ted Shawn, and Mary Wigman (just to name a few) are available on the internet for free and with such easy access. Watching videos of old dances and dancers is eye opening and creates great discussion among students about how dance has changed and how it has remained the same.

I find that my students appreciate learning and studying dance movement as an art form with greater depth after they learn about the history involved in the evolution of modern dance. Part of their assignment is to reflect on how their pioneer dancer connects or relates to our class. This often starts a conversation about the various dance forms I’ve studied that I am now passing on as well as what and how dancers study movement today.

I ask my students, what does it mean to research movement in the body and devote your life to it as opposed to learning movement from others? Can you do both at the same time?

It is difficult for them to understand the idea of researching movement in the body because they are so used to learning movement from others. This is one of the many reasons I value teaching movement improvisation and choreography in high school. I love to see students discover that they can make up and create movement that is their own. They start to understand that if they really want to be original they need to evolve from what they already know and ask questions about what they don’t know. It is this curiosity that leads them to great creations of authentic work.

We also discuss studying one technique of dance verses studying them all and how that can change a dancers’ understanding of movement.

When talking about studying one technique verses studying many we can see that as dance has evolved there is more of a trend to be able to do it all. This is clearly a huge topic all on its own, but within the context of modern dance history my students always seem surprised that dancers would study with one teacher for many years and then branch out on their own after only learning one way of moving. They are impressed with the commitment and passion for dance that the pioneers had and they realize that is what they need to have to fully embody all movement they learn and create.

I encourage all dance educators to teach their students about modern dance pioneers and relate them back to their own classroom work. Students’ appreciation for dance and movement is expanded and their perspective about what it means to study dance is altered in profound ways.

dancer posing upside down — Janet Neidhardt

Contributor Janet Neidhardt has been a dance educator for 10 years. She has taught modern, ballet, and jazz at various studios and schools on Chicago’s North Shore. She received her MA in Dance with an emphasis in Choreography from the University of North Carolina-Greensboro and her BA in Communications with a Dance Minor from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Throughout her time in graduate school, Janet performed with Sidelong Dance Company based in Winston-Salem, NC.

Currently, Janet teaches dance at Loyola Academy High School in Wilmette, IL. She is the Director of Loyola Academy Dance Company B and the Brother Small Arts Guild, and choreographs for the Spring Dance Concert and school musical each year. Janet is very active within the Loyola Academy community leading student retreats and summer service trips. She regularly seeks out professional development opportunities to continue her own artistic growth. Recently, Janet performed with Keigwin and Company in the Chicago Dancing Festival 2012 and attended the Bates Dance Festival.

When she isn’t dancing, Janet enjoys teaching Pilates, practicing yoga, and running races around the city of Chicago.

Disclosure – Affiliate & Ad Info

Copyright Notice