Nuts

Nuts…

A term that could mean something yummy to eat. Or could describe some of my friends. Some of my friends would insist it describes me, which is how we know they’re nutty. But this is a dance blog, so we all know what “Nuts” really means.

NUTCRACKER!!!!

(This is the point you can run and hide, if you need to.)

For me, it is yet another blissful year not dancing or otherwise being involved in *that* ballet. And though it’s the ballet I love to hate, I have to admit, I kind of miss dancing in it, in a twisted sort of way.

(This is the point that I remind myself that back in the days when Nutcracker was the usual routine, I could barely walk into a store, coffee-shop or elevator for fear of some muzak-banjo-Waltz of the Flowers-monstrosity playing on loudspeakers and provoking rehearsal flashbacks (but on the banjo). I couldn’t take one more second of that music than I had to. Holiday shopping was near impossible.)

And yet… Enough time has passed that I have successfully repressed many of the traumatic Nut moments, and others are floating to the surface. The family tradition of my mother and I going to Nutcracker together when I was a little girl. The dressing room camaraderie as we found a way to gear up for the 28th show of the season. The fun version of Spanish that I got to do one year. The “I am superwoman” 55-second costume change while crossing over from stage left to stage right. Through the rosy glow of the past, it was kind of cool to do a ballet so much that I ended up performing almost every part at some point or another.

Which brings me to the point of this post: I was never in battle scene, and I am totally jealous of petitallegro for getting promoted to Rat King. That would have been so much fun!

On the Calendar: Going Nutz

December is going to be a busy month for me. I’m going to dance in three different productions this holiday season:

First, I will be making a cameo appearance with the University Nutcracker as Rat King on Nov 30th, Dec. 1st, and Dec. 2nd. No matter what other (more refined) parts I performed while at school here, I was also always a rat. So it’s kind of a dream of mine to be promoted to King Rat. I have a wham-bam pas de deux with teh Nutcracker, which includes lots of jumping, sword fighting, and some wrestling moves. Very fun.

The following weekend, I am making a guest appearance in a holiday show in Nashville, Indiana. This is a holiday-themed show, and I am doing a self-choreographed Steadfast Tin Soldier pas de deux with a good friend of mine.

And then, the weekend of the 21st, it looks like I will be performing with the Indianapolis School of Ballet in their Nutcracker. Again, the parts are character roles (my favorite!) I will be doing the Nutcracker and soldier dolls.

So, the moral of the story: learn to dance big and take chances, and when all of the boys have been snatched up in various guesting gigs, you can step forward to take their place…

Ivory Tower?

A series of visiting scholars that we had the last couple weeks got me thinking about the somewhat isolated position of dance in academia.

One of them in particular, Marcia Siegel, bemoaned the lack of literacy about dance among practicing choreographers and performers–so much wonderful scholarship has been done on the history of dance, dance in culture, theories of interpretation, etc, and she doesn’t see it manifesting in the dance world. In a way, this goes to the method of dance education: most people’s dance education consists of taking dance classes in studios, not universities, and these often don’t include the latest (or any) dance scholarship.

I don’t take as pessimistic a view as Siegel, as I know many dance teachers (myself included) who work to include things like dance history and dance science/anatomical information in their technique classes, and this seems to be happening on a wider basis than it did even just 20 years ago.

At the same time, I think we’re doing less than could be done. Here I am in grad school, immersing myself in all this knowledge about dance, and what is one of the big goals presented to me? With my MFA, I can become a college professor. But at that point, a huge population of dancers (and a huge percentage of dance education) is cut out, and the newly-educated-on-many-topics-of-dance person never reaches them. Is the academic field sort of shooting itself in the foot here?

Don’t get me wrong, I would love to teach in a college setting, and gaining the qualifications to do that is part of the reason why I’m here–but are we under-valuing the importance of studio teachers? Especially if we think it important that practitioners in the field have a sense of their context and history, shouldn’t we celebrate not only those who go on to a tenure-track position at some university, but also those who go into the dance studio, and start integrating their knowledge into a dancer’s training? Because let’s face it, it’s a minority of dancers who go on to study it in the university–if we want dancers to be educated, we can’t restrict that education to universities.

Thoughts?

Photos anyone?

Yes, I know, photographers can sometimes be our worst enemies, having a special talent for catching the exact wrong moment and leading us to consider quitting dancing permanently, but then again, sometimes they can make us look pretty fabulous. So here’s an open call to contribute photos that show off how fabulous dance is!

(And as for the photo I have posted, not only did Deb Townsend catch me at the height of my jump–something she’s quite good at–but for once I am taller than Stephanie and her gorgeous long limbs…)

You can see more here.

Thought I would just toss out a hello

Especially since I just performed this past weekend, so I guess I can’t tell you to come see it. It was great fun, though. I danced in a work by Toni Pimble (I was a ballerina again). The piece felt really beautiful and we came together nicely, especially on opening night. I also had the chance to be the rehearsal director for David Dorfman, which was a total blast. He came in and created this work in 5 rehearsals and then left with all sorts of changes still to be made. I would then send him a video and get feedback and make other changes as he suggested with my own input encouraged and listened to. Seeing the work onstage after everything that the whole group put into it was fantastic.

Now, I’m getting over being sick (fever and all) and looking forward to the Bill T Jones performance tomorrow.

What’s on the calendar?

Hey folks–let me know what performances or other events you have going on.  I’ll always try to make it if I can, and if not, I’ll at least be thinking merde for you.

Living History

Here it is not even all the way through the first quarter of grad school, and there is of course way more happening than I could ever post, but I wanted to muse a bit on one of the things going on…

I’m in the midst of rehearsals for Anna Sokolow’s “Steps of Silence”. It was originally choreographed in 1968, and is being restaged from the Labanotation score by Valerie Mockabee (who originally restaged it in 2004 on a group in Utah). History nerd that I am, I would be excited about being part of this at any point in my life, but it is especially meaningful for me as part of my graduate school experience. In other classes, we’ve been talking about the nature of the art of dance, how its ephemeral nature affects scholarship on it and its transmission, and other such issues, and I’ve been reading about historical choreographers and works. Last week the dance critic Marcia Siegel and the dance historian Anne Dils were both present as Visiting Scholars, and they discussed the importance of dance literacy and knowing the field’s history.  It was pretty neat to go from those discussions into rehearsal, and think about where the piece fit into dance history, its dance lineage, and also how it fit into the political/cultural events of the time, the war and social unrest of the ’60’s that she was directly responding to.  It’s a different era now, much has happened in dance since then, but here we are again in a time of war and social divides, which for me gives double poignancy to connecting with and (hopefully) bringing alive this moment of dance history.  After talking theory in bunches of classes (which I love, don’t get me wrong), it feels so good to get out and actually do something, not just talk about it.  I feel that the activities of pondering ideas and dancing in this piece reinforce each other, making the experience richer than if I were just dancing it on its own.

Oh yes–I will be performing!  Sometime on the weekend of March 14-16 2008 (exact schedule not yet set) at the Sharing the Legacy Festival in NYC, then May 1-3 2008 at Dance Downtown here in Columbus.

Whee!

Is Chicago Dance-Hungry or Dance-Bloated?

Hello world! I’m so flattered that Karena asked me to contribute to her blog. I want to talk today about dance in a certain city to my west:

Chicago. Famous for deep dish pizza and the Sears Tower. Incidentally, it is also THE dance hub of the midwest. Most major ballet company audition tours make a stop there, and the city (well, let’s call it “The Land,” as in “Chicagoland”) somehow supports many companies. (The Joffrey Ballet, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, and Gus Giordano represent the biggest of these in three delightfully distinctive ways.) Besides these, there are a countless number of smaller groups, companies, and schools in The Land.

This already-impressive dance scene might not yet be fully saturated. The dance community in The Land seems to be hoping that residents will support still more. In the 2007/2008 year alone, there are two new companies trying to emerge as major forces. One of them, Alma Dance Company (Premiering with Frankenstein next weekend,) hopes to survive to fill next season with big-budget, full-length classical ballets. The other, Danceworks Chicago (holding auditions this weekend for a January-July run,) aims to be a starting point for dancers seeking a career in more contemporary ballet-based works.

This makes me wonder, has Chicago become dance-crazy? Does The Land embrace a thriving concert dance scene and still ask for more? What is Chicago doing right? And what changes on the short drive from Indianapolis (which fails to support a large dance company–Ballet Internationale just folded a couple of years ago) to The Land? Is it something in the water?

On the other hand, maybe these new groups are just hopefuls that won’t find audiences. I guess that only time will tell. As I trek westward for auditions this spring, I will take note of how things fare. If I make any discoveries about secret deep-dish pizza ingredients that provoke cravings for arabesques, you’ll be the first to know.

hello

Hello Ms. Karena! How is good ol’ Ohio treating you!? I’m sure you are blowing all of your professors away as always. Are you doing any performing?

I am doing well! Having fun with Kristen’s company and all the girls. We miss you though. I performed at Benaroya Hall last night for the Children’s Hospital Benefit with Tesee’s company. It was fun! We got to meet the lead singer of Alice and Chains. Matt and his friend Collin Skone wanted to see the band so much they did some dancing in the show themselves. Other than that I don’t have a show until January with Redd Legg.

Anyway, I hope all is well and we all think of you often!

Jamie

The scintillating first post…

Well here it is, the breathlessly awaited first post to my blog. I’d love for this to be a place where I and others can post things like upcoming performances, work we’re doing, and anything else remotely relevant to my widely scattered group of wonderful dance colleagues.