College Dance and the “Real World”

Posted on May 31, 2011 by admin

By Natalie Walters

If you’ve hung out with a Senior in college lately, you’ve probably witnessed a least one breakdown or “freak-out” about something along the lines of entering the vicious job competition underprepared and moneyless. If you’re hearing this from a Dance major, then they’re also worrying whether their body is pretty enough, strong enough, flexible enough, and whether they’re talented enough. And if it’s any one of my friends, then you’ve heard that they feel they have to face this transition all on their own.

Fear of entering “the real world” after college isn’t unique to dancers. Most new graduates step into the machine fairly clueless and jobless. But college is expected to equip a student with the skills they need for their projected career. Is this true for dancers?

Most dancers enter college with the intent and understanding that if dancing professionally is what they want to do, they are pursuing Modern dance. The dancers interviewed were well aware by high school that they would never be a Prima Ballerina; the career path for ballet is rather unique and set in stone over centuries. If you’re not apprenticing by your late ‘teens, the odds are bad that you’ll ever be in ABT or NYCB. That’s not to say a college graduate can’t dance for a small or local ballet company, but in Adelphi Senior and Paul Taylor Dance Company intern Elissa Cretella’s words, “I chose to go to college because I knew that I could never become a professional ballet dancer, and I was interested in learning modern and becoming a professional modern dancer.”

Attend nearly any modern dance show in New York City, and invariably, many of the dancers’ bios in the program will include the university at which they studied. This bodes well in terms of advocating the college dance route, because it shows that college graduates do get hired by modern dance companies.

But it’s worth delving into the question of whether a college education is the best choice for budding dancers. After all, it is a career that depends more on actual talent than on academic knowledge. There are no certifications or degrees required to become a dancer, as there are for, say, a lawyer or accountant. This raises the question of why a dancer should even bother getting a degree.

The answer is that for a lot of dancers, skipping college would mean not satisfying a big part of themselves as people. For those interviewed, college satisfied not only their need for technique class and dance training, but their academic pursuits as well. “I was very scholastically inclined in high school; I knew I wanted a college degree,” explains Ginanicole Caputo, an Adelphi graduate. While a substantial number of interviewees felt that attending college after high school was simply “the right thing to do,” for the others, college offered the opportunity they craved to explore and nurture interests and skills other than dance. “I wanted the best of both worlds, of my thirst for knowledge in writing and dance,” says Stephanie Falkowski, a Senior at Adelphi, currently interning with Dance Spirit magazine. College offers a special time and place to really focus on the “self,” serving as a kind of incubation period in which students have time to grow not just in their field, but as artists and as people. “Here, I am given the chance to grow. I’m being nurtured and prepared […]. Very rarely in life do you have the chance to be so openly self-centered for years,” says Sylvana Tapia, also an Adelphi Senior.

This isn’t without its drawbacks. Adelphi alum and LMProject dancer Jessie Niemiec cites a Kerry James Marshall quote from “Letters to a Young Artist” describing the cloistered, safe nature of art schools. “With any college,” she explains, “it is easy to get wrapped up in your surroundings, and the politics of each individual program, where everyone knows you; in ‘the real world,’ it is a lot of first impressions and direct contacts that get you ahead.

But mostly, after this “incubation period,” dancers are ready and eager to enter the dance world. When asked if ready to graduate and begin their careers, Falkowski and fellow undergrad Hana Delong proclaimed very positive interest in taking the next step. “I’m ready to start the next chapter of my life,” Falkowski expressed, and she can’t wait to “work at a real job and be a real person.” Delong feels the same way: “I’m ready for a new place, a new environment.

But when asked if they actually feel prepared for this step, the answer was dramatically different. “Fuck no,” says Tapia. Falkowski: “I’m scared shitless.” Generally, when asked whether their university, Adelphi, is helping them to prepare for the upcoming stressful transition, this Senior class gave a unanimous “no.” Cretella “[doesn’t feel that her university] gave [her] enough guidance or preparation for the transition” and Tapia “simply does not feel their concern.” Delong says, “as a Senior no one has spoken to me about anything. They probably have no clue I’m graduating; no one is really looking out for us.” To be fair, they do mention that a few teachers are exception to the rule; but the department as a whole “shows little interest … in the wellbeing of their graduating Seniors,” Cretella explains

But it is not just this graduating class. “I think only one or two of my professors actually attempted to help me in the transition. Other than that, no,” added Caputo.

One might conclude that this lack of transitional preparation is part of the reason that only some comparable schools’ dance programs are regularly found in dance companies’ bios. Schools definitely differ, according to graduates’ responses, in career assistance and transitional help. Former dancer and Center Stage Hilo owner and director Pier Sircello felt well supported by her alma mater UC Irvine. “They allowed me to take classes there while I was dancing and auditioning after I graduated; and I also danced in their touring company.” She says that yes, she felt well prepared. So did Kile Hotchkiss, a graduate of the Ailey/Fordham partnership: “I felt prepared both physically and mentally for the dance world,” he says. And he describes “seminars and speakers pertaining to different aspects of the dance world,” which just might be key.

As in most areas of study, college selection does matter somewhat. But Adelphi graduate Ashley Chandler, currently employed by Circle of Dance Repertory, doesn’t think your school should define your career. She did feel prepared for “the real world.” “I received a great technical training, the opportunity to work with many different people and personalities, and [my school] provided me with a space to find myself as an artist and a performer.” She states her belief that “life is what you make it to be.” “I recommend experiencing as many different techniques, styles, teachers, and workshops as you can,” she articulates. This advice is repeated by many of the graduates. “Take techniques that may be new or uncomfortable to you,” Hotchkiss adds.

On top of technique training, other preparative tools are unanimously recommended by Seniors and graduates alike. One of these tools is taking on jobs in college, and, most importantly, saving money. “I wish I saved!” Niemiec laments. “I didn’t, and it made it very hard to go on auditions later on, because I wouldn’t be able to miss out on a day’s work because NYC rent will kill you!” In addition to savings, though, jobs offer something you can put on a resume. “I would definitely recommend getting a job at a studio, because it offers hands-on experience to another aspect of a dance career: teaching,” Adelphi Senior Kelly Leya offers

Another important tool for a dancer to utilize is the array of Summer and Winter intensives offered. Interviewees recommend going to as many as you can. “Intensives get your face exposed to the choreographers who are out there and the people you will be competing with for a job,” reasons Leya. “Every dancer should continue to stay in shape during the off season,” Niemiec points out. Another way to do this, Niemiec adds, is to regularly cross-train at the gym. “Dancing doesn’t always give you a cardio workout, and being that [dance] is such a visual art form, it is hard to maintain the physical expectations [of a dancer] without hitting the gym.” Tapia hopes that “being disciplined and cross-training now will ease the transition from student to professional.”

The final recommendation by interviewees is to try to secure an internship. Internships can be acquired after graduation, which Leya points out may be the ideal time to do them, when the free classes that often accompany an internship can be a godsend. But for those who have participated in one during college, they felt that interning in “the real world” provides a great way to ease into it. “I am becoming a part of a community and making connections, and learning things about the professional world in a studio and behind a desk. I highly recommend doing an internship,” advises Cretella.

Despite regrets at opportunities not taken, and some dissatisfaction with transitional help and post-grad support, all interviewees responded with a resounding yes, they are happy with their college education. “I had regrets, but would not trade any of it,” discloses Falkowski. Cretella only adds that “I feel my school needs to look a little more into our futures, because if ours are successful, theirs will be, too.”

Natalie Walters is a Dance major at Adelphi University, where she has studied under Leda Meredith in dance and writing.

La Salsa Cubana Experience

Posted on June 1, 2001 by admin

By Cherie Magnus

These days ladies alone do pretty well anywhere in the world they travel. The world has gotten used to women on their own in airports and hotels due to business traveling, and more recently, vacationing.

I’ve traveled alone in many countries and I wholeheartedly recommend it for those decisive independents who don’t get too lonesome at dinner. I’ve wandered by myself through Paris, Florence, Buenos Aires, as well as all over the United States.

But the one country where it doesn’t work out well is Cuba.

I had fallen in love with the country and its people in January on a cultural exchange in a group of about forty people. Not wanting to wait until it got too hot or until the end of the rainy season which would soon begin, I went back on my own in April. (To be sure I had my U.S. Treasury License to do research with me.) Wanting to avoid both the high cost and tourist ambiance of the big hotels, I rented a room in a crumbling 18th c. palacio on the Malecon, with a balcony overlooking the sea and the lighthouse across the bay.

The owner was friendly and accommodating, the location was fantastic, I had maps and a list of phone numbers of people I had met in January. Oh and the weather was perfect.

But I had a problem. I was an American woman. A tall, pale-skinned redhead, there was no way I could blend in as I always try to do wherever I go. It is impossible to walk down any street in Havana day or night without every man on it calling out to a female tourist. It isn’t dangerous, just not comfortable. Mostly of course it’s the younger men, and I suppose it’s equivalent to U.S. construction workers–just part of their macho roles as men. The older Cubanos’ machismo translates into courtliness.

I took a bicitaxi one afternoon from the Cathedral clear across town to calle San Miguel to deliver a letter from the States. The little old man cycled me over potholes and around pedistrians and trucks to the remains of an old hotel. Without comment, he chained up his bicycle and led me into the lobby, inquiring of several people the correct room. I could tell that there was no way he was going to let me fend for myself in that dark warren of habitacions, like a medina in Cairo. He was only satisfied when we found the correct room, which was divided into three tiny windowless areas altogether no bigger than a broom closet.

Two men were playing chess in the middle space in the front of the open door. When they didn’t understand my explanation of why I was there, the woman across the hall came over and instantly got a handle on the situation, and I delivered my letter.

The taxista was sitting in the shade by his bicycle when I came out into the sunshine, as I had asked him to wait for me. From there he pedaled me back across the square and plazas to El Floridita, where I had to change my $20 bill in order to pay him. Then I joined all the tourists drinking daiquiris and flashing their pocket cameras while posing in front of the Hemingway memoribilia on the walls. I joined a table of Belgian girls and we talked about Jacques Brel and sang some of his lyrics together. It felt good to be in a group of women.

A tourist woman alone feels vulnerable in Cuba wherever she goes, despite the policeman on nearly every corner day and night. She can’t lose herself shopping, because there isn’t any. People-watching on the Malecon or Prado is an open invitation to be hassled or hustled.

She’s more comfortable in the bars, lobbies and dining rooms of the tourist hotels because there is a security person for every few guests. But then she’s just meeting other tourists, and probably those from her own country. Cubans aren’t allowed in the tourist hotels, except in the public areas by special invitation.

This is the one country where I suggest going in a group. Especially if you are a dancer like me. In Buenos Aires I boldly go alone each night to the tango halls where I dance until dawn with no problems. There is a strict formal code of behavior there, and in my six trips to Argentina, I never once had any sort of difficulty.

Cuba doesn’t work like that. There are very few salsa clubs per se, and I wouldn’t recommend a woman entering them alone, hoping to dance, as she might in Buenos Aires.

The Cubans dance all the time, but informally at parties and casual gatherings. They can’t afford the clubs which are very expensive. And so it’s mostly other tourists who are at the clubs anyway.

So unless you meet local people who invite you to their fiestas, a Havana trip will not usually provide hours of salsa dance experiences.

Live musical groups perform in bars and cafes everywhere so you can listen to some great stuff, but in order to dance, you must bring your partner.

Women who want to dance salsa or to study folklore and religion or education or medical care in Cuba will learn more and have more fun in a group of like-minded individuals.

And as a matter of fact, I will be taking a small group of salsa dancers from Los Angeles in November 2001 to study Cuban music and dance, “The Salsa Cubana Experience.” Now that I know the ropes, I want to share what I learned about where and how to dance in Havana with other dancers, and to have fun in a mixed group of Americans and Cubans together. Also to help foster understand between our two cultures, where there is so much misunderstanding and misinformation. Let the music and dance bring us together.

With degrees in English, Dance, and Library Science from UCLA, Cherie has published many articles in professional journals and magazines. Her solo travels to Europe and Latin America have inspired several pieces published in Skirt!, PassionFruit, Moxie, JourneyWoman, Dancing USA, GoNomad, Open Spaces, Porthole, The Cusco Weekly, the-vu, and various online magazines. She was the dance critic for the Cerritos News in Orange County, California before moving to San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. She is currently at work on a novel situated in France, when she’s not out dancing. Follow her blog at http://tangocherie.blogspot.com/

For Love Or Money

Posted on February 1, 2001 by admin

By Leda Meredith

“If you care so much about the money, you must not care about your art.”

That astonishing statement was made by the executive director of a dance company with whom I was about to embark on a six week tour. It was in response to a question I’d asked about when we would be paid while we were on the road. I was trying to take care of the practical details such as how to cover my rent and bills while I was traveling. The last thing I was expecting was an attack on my motivation as an artist!

I wish I could say that this director’s statement was a bizarre exception to the prevalent attitude toward dancers and money, but experience tells me otherwise. The artist-starving-for-their-art myth has lodged in the subconscious of dancers and non-dancers alike.

The fact is that dancers are often willing to work for free, or for less than a living wage, simply because they are desperate for a chance to perform. The logic is that a dancer’s career is short, and one must fill it with as many dances as possible. “There are more dancers than there are jobs” is a common observation.

Imagine that you are going to hire someone whose job requires years of intense and specialized training before they begin to work in their field. Now imagine that this person has, in addition to that training, years of professional experience and comes highly recommended. What would you expect to pay?

Would you pay an architect less because they happened to love designing buildings?

Within the dance world, one often hears that there is a lack of funding for the arts. Is there? Paintings sell for millions of dollars, Broadway shows sell at $60 a ticket, and more than a few film actors will be receiving residual payments for their performances for years to come. And let’s not forget that the ubiquitous Nutcracker continues to support dance companies whose other, perhaps more interesting, concerts lose money.

I’ve also heard that the reason funding for dance continues to dwindle is because dance doesn’t provide an “essential” such as food, shelter, or military defense. I know for a fact that people are willing to spend money on “non-essentials”. A designer dress can sell for hundreds or thousands of dollars. An interior decorator can charge more per hour than any dancer would dream of asking. And I would argue that dance has the potential to provide something profoundly essential if you value your heart and spirit, two parts of a human being that are rarely factored into today’s economics.

I confess that I’ve postponed writing this article for many weeks because I don’t have any immediate solutions to offer to these issues. But sometimes it is helpful simply to begin raising the questions.

Three things seem clear to me: dancers need to begin valuing their work, we need audiences that are moved and delighted by dance, and the dances that will move and delight them.

As a performer, Leda Meredith’s career spans contemporary dance, classical ballet, and theatre. Her performances have taken her to twenty-five countries on four continents. She has been a principal dancer with American Ballet Theatre II, Edward Villella, Manhattan Ballet, Dances Patrelle, and others. She was a company member of Jennifer Muller/The Works for over seven years, and originated numerous roles in the repertory. She returned as Artistic Associate Director for the company’s 25th anniversary season in 1999-2000. Her piece Lullabye Lane, premiered as part of Jennifer Muller/The Works 25th anniversary season at the Joyce Theater in New York. With original music by composer James Sasser, Lullabye Lane marked their seventh collaboration. They recently completed the full evening work Small Talk At The Volcano. In Spring 2000 she co-created a cabaret style piece entitled All About Angels and Eggs, with Michael Jahoda and Maria Naidu at Dansatelier in Rotterdam. Other choreographic credits include works for Malaparte Theatre Company, the Gene Frankel Theatre in New York, Dixon Place, Peridance International, the Hatch Saturday Series, First Fridays at Five, and the Arts on the Hudson Festival.
She is a returning guest instructor for the Henny Jurriens Stichting in Amsterdam, Western Washington University; and Dance Loft in Rorschach, Switzerland. Leda is currently on faculty with Ballet Academy East. She has taught as part of the 1996 Iles de Danse in France, and for the Artist’s Trusts International Course in England. In December, 1999 she was guest instructor for Carolyn Carlsons Atelier de Paris. Other dance programs she has taught for include the California State University at Los Angeles, and Brigham Young University in Hawaii.

Part Four of The Essential Imagination Series

Posted on January 4, 2001 by admin

Living Other Lives
Part Four of the Essential Imagination Series
by Leda Meredith

Photo by Tom Caravaglia, of Leda Meredith and Michael Jahoda in Jennifer Muller’s ‘The Spotted Owl’

This is the article that inspired my quest to bring Leda Meredith to the-vu Jeffrey the Barak, Publisher.

Stepping onto the stage, I am living two lives at once. Three, if you count my life outside the theater which is waiting for me once I step back through the stage door into the night air. For the moment, though, that life is forgotten.

The lights are harsh in my eyes but warm on my skin. Part of me is keeping track of the necessary details of this job: The floor is a bit slippery tonight. I remind myself to drop my center of gravity to help give me more traction. I am counting the music for this next section, which is in counterpart to the other dancers. The lift we worked on this afternoon is coming up in eight counts and I am remembering the changes the choreographer gave my partner and I. Next come the spacing corrections I was told about in the dressing room at half hour. I am vaguely aware that my right shoulder is sore and stiff. The audience feels like a good one, packed house and several friends out there.

That’s one life.

In this dance I am portraying a woman in a classic love triangle, torn between the man she desperately wants who rejects her and the man who is trying to win her affections. The imaginative work has already been done in rehearsal. I know who she is, what motivates her to choose one man over the other, where this is taking place, what pleases her and what makes her despair. I have imagined, vividly, how she came to be at this point in her life where she cannot see her way out of unrequited love. I have tested all of these imaginative choices in rehearsal and adjusted them whenever they did not match the choreographer’s vision. Now there is only one imaginative leap left to make. I must become the character.

This is like the make believe games we all played as children, but with much higher stakes because I need to be believable enough to take the entire audience on this woman’s emotional journey. And for a dancer, there is the added challenge of using a highly athletic, specific physical esthetic as the vehicle for that journey.

When I am teaching, I sometimes explain the experience of performing a character by using a metaphor from the original Star Trek series. It is as if you are both Spock and Captain Kirk. One part of you is very calmly taking care of things such as musical counts, remembering corrections, pre-setting props. That is Spock, the logical mind. But Spock is not the captain of the ship. Romantic, impulsive Kirk is the captain. This is the spontaneous heart of your performance. This is the part of you that is responding to the dramatic situation as if it was happening for the first time (even if you’ve performed the piece a hundred times!). This is the part of you that is, during the performance, making the life choices of another person.

Both are essential. And neither, alone, guarantee success. That is one of the thrills and mysteries of live performance. A personal willingness to give one’s best and take what comes is a useful a cure for performance anxiety. So is recognizing that the butterflies in your stomach mean you have a wonderful reserve of exceptional energy at your command. Why perform if it’s going to feel as flat as waiting in line at the grocery store? Performing is meant to feel anything but ordinary.

What makes possible that final mental and emotional leap of becoming the character you and the choreographer and/or writer have imagined?

There is the preparatory work I mentioned of creating the character vividly in your mind (see Detail and Nuance, and Make Believe). Your imagination will work for you prolifically if you are incorporating elements from your own life. That third life I mentioned at the beginning of this article, my “real life”, is my source material for everything I do onstage. Perhaps I have been in something like the character’s situation at some point, or perhaps it is entirely foreign to me. Even in the latter case, I will have felt some version of the character’s emotions. I will be able to remember situations that called up those emotions in me. In the case of the love triangle I described above, I can remember wanting something out of reach so desperately that I believed I could not be happy without it.

It is also useful to remember that crazy people do not know they are crazy, bad guys think they have a reason for what they are doing, and even ingenues sometimes feel guilty or unworthy. I let the audience decide whether I am portraying a hero or a villain tonight. In order to step into the character’s point of view, I can not afford to be judgmental. I am playing a person, not a stereotype. My job is to flesh out that fictional character and make her real, make her feelings and actions believable. In order to do that, I cannot afford to step outside the action and judge whether she is good or bad.

As I wrote in Essential Imagination, “Many times I have had a performer back off from the specificity and choices I describe above because they would be too real’ or too personal’ or too revealing’. Indeed. That is what we offer as performers. Our willingness to risk ourselves, our personal points of view in full view of an audience is what makes an audience willing to trust us. But when the curtain goes down, we must have the skills to step back out of the world we have been creating during the show.”

Coming offstage, I am drenched in sweat and grinning from ear to ear. My partner swoops by and gives me a hug and two thumbs up. This was a good show. I register a few compliments on the way back to the dressing room and nod my thanks. Make up off. Tell the wardrobe assistant that I heard something tear in my costume during the show and he might want to check it. Into a hot shower. The hot water feels good but someone is shouting that we have to be out of the theater in 10 minutes. When I come out, I see my husband chatting with one of the tech crew. He gives me a big, wonderful hug. “What do you want to do about dinner?”

Cherish your senses as a way to “come home” from living another person’s life onstage. The feel of the hot shower. The sight of a familiar face. The taste of food and drink. The sound of laughter, traffic, voices. Retell your favorite parts of the show, or write them down. Turn the lousy moments into tales to laugh about. Reach down to ruffle the cat who greets you when you step through your front door. When daily life is going through a rough spell, consider it part of your job to be as present offstage as you are onstage. That is what we do. A bridge must have two sides, and artists are the bridge between imagination and daily life.

Leda can also be found at ledameredith.net
As a performer, Leda Meredith’s career spans contemporary dance, classical ballet, and theatre. Her performances have taken her to twenty-five countries on four continents. She has been a principal dancer with American Ballet Theatre II, Edward Villella, Manhattan Ballet, Dances Patrelle, and others. She was a company member of Jennifer Muller/The Works for over seven years, and originated numerous roles in the repertory. She returned as Artistic Associate Director for the company’s 25th anniversary season in 1999-2000.
Her piece Lullabye Lane, premiered as part of Jennifer Muller/The Works 25th anniversary season at the Joyce Theater in New York. With original music by composer James Sasser, Lullabye Lane marked their seventh collaboration. They recently completed the full evening work Small Talk At The Volcano. In Spring 2000 she co-created a cabaret style piece entitled All About Angels and Eggs, with Michael Jahoda and Maria Naidu at Dansatelier in Rotterdam. Other choreographic credits include works for Malaparte Theatre Company, the Gene Frankel Theatre in New York, Dixon Place, Peridance International, the Hatch Saturday Series, First Fridays at Five, and the Arts on the Hudson Festival.
She is a returning guest instructor for the Henny Jurriens Stichting in Amsterdam, Western Washington University; and Dance Loft in Rorschach, Switzerland. Leda is currently on faculty with Ballet Academy East. She has taught as part of the 1996 Iles de Danse in France, and for the Artist’s Trusts International Course in England. In December, 1999 she was guest instructor for Carolyn Carlsons Atelier de Paris. Other dance programs she has taught for include the California State University at Los Angeles, and Brigham Young University in Hawaii.

Part Three of The Essential Imagination Series

Posted on January 3, 2001 by admin

Make Believe
By Leda Meredith

Photo by Eduardo Patino of Leda Meredith in Francis Patrelle’s ‘Macbeth’

Several years ago I was coaching a young dancer in a dramatic role and I asked what her interpretation of the character was. She looked at me with utter confusion and then described the mood of the entire ballet. She hadn’t thought about how her role contributed to that “mood”, and had no clue as to how to go about building a believable character. Suddenly I understood why, despite the dramatic angst in her dancing expression, I had not been moved. I was shocked, because this dancer was (and is) a soloist with a major company.

There is a misconception in the dance world that some people are born with a talent for dramatic work, just as some dancers have more flexible bodies than others. The assumption is that no further learning is necessary. But just as it takes training and strength to translate flexibility into a high extension, it takes training in specific skills to translate a good dramatic instinct into a believable performance.

The dancer I mention above is very, very good from a dance -savvy person’s point of view. But she does not have the knowledge she needs to be able to deliver a performance that could also appeal to a non-dance audience.

Does this matter? After all, isn’t dance one of those aristocratic arts in which the general public’s understanding isn’t expected? Wouldn’t it cheapen the art form to appeal to a wide audience?

If so, then please explain to me why so many ballet companies still schedule a Nutcracker every December. And please don’t complain about how little dancers get paid: if audience equals the ability to pay the performers, then we need a wider audience for dance! (For more on this subject, please read How Often Do You Get It?).

Believability has a charismatic appeal that can only benefit both audience and artist. It requires excellent and imaginative acting skills from a dancer. I strongly believe that all dance schools should include acting training for their students. Unfortunately most do not. This leads to many well -meant but either dry or overacted performances.

There is more than one article’s worth of information here, but I’ll begin with two of the points dancers often miss when working on a role:

Who, Not What

In Essential Imagination I wrote:

Who, not what means that within a tragedy yours may be a comic role that provides needed contrast. Within a comedy, somebody has to play the straight man. Identify what purpose your part serves in the piece as a whole, and then play it clearly and believably. Trust that the mosaic of all the elements of the piece, including your role, will create the intended effect.

You Can’t Fake It

In order for an audience to believe, you must believe. Period. While you are dancing you must believe what you are doing one hundred percent. (Even if you don’t agree with the direction, even if you don’t like the choreography).

Each of us already knows how to do this. When you read a great novel or watch a great movie, you find yourself caring about what happens next even though it is fiction. That ability to suspend disbelief and to care about an imaginary person’s life is exactly the same door you walk through each time you step onstage. It is also what you are asking the audience to do.

Part of creating believability is not repeating. What worked beautifully last night will fall a little flat if you try to repeat it tonight. The smile that lit up your face as you held that arabesque balance will not be as luminous if you try to conjure it up at exactly the same moment night after night. Trust your creative imagination. There will be a new smile somewhere unexpected during the show, and all the more memorable because it will be genuine and spontaneous.

The audience will journey exactly as far as the creators and performers do. There is magic in believing.

Part Two of The Essential Imagination Series

Posted on January 2, 2001 by admin

Detail and Nuance
by Leda Meredith

photo: Tom Caravaglia

Make believe

No, not fantasy, but truly how to make someone believe.

How to make an audience suspend disbelief in what they are witnessing long enough to be moved by what they have seen and to think about it for years afterward.

What do you remember from the performances you have seen in the past? Think not just of dance, but also of theater, music, movies and other arts that depend on live performers for their origin.

Among my personal memories I find the way Gelsey Kirkland’s Giselle stroked Albrecht’s arm before she faded into the wings, Janis Joplin’s laugh at the end of Mercedes Benz, Keith Jarrett’s voice chiming in over his melancholy piano during the Koln Concert, Angie Wolfe’s sky-turned face and arched chest as she was set down by a trusted partner, Cynthia Gregory learning how to strut with a feather boa in Francis Patrelle’s Red Ellington, Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones saying, “Why did it have to be snakes,” Makarova’s supple feet as she ran across the stage…

Look at the reviews in today’s paper – if they are well written they will mention specific moments that lodged in the reviewer’s memory.

We remember these moments – why? What did the performer, choreographer, director, writer, composer do to make them memorable?

Honesty and Imagination

Every human being possesses the potential for every conceivable emotion.

If you think this through, it can be a scary concept. It implies that given the right situation, anyone could feel an overwhelming passion, a murderous rage, a religious ecstasy, a suicidal despair.

How else to be able to portray something believably onstage? I have never died, nor killed, nor been a heroine, and yet I have portrayed each of these. If I could not imagine how someone could arrive at those circumstances, I could not dance them believably.

But every human being does not possess the character for every conceivable action.

So what might lead Lady MacBeth to encourage her husband to murder might only lead me to be frustrated by an inability to change circumstance. As a performer, I have to be able to imagine what it would be like to be someone else, making different choices. And there is no right or wrong in these choices, there is only what someone did because that is who they were and how they felt when this event (given by the script or choreography) happened. “There are no devils, only fallen angels” is a useful thing for performers to remember.

If I cannot imagine it as a performer or choreographer, how is the audience supposed to?

Internal Dialogue and Images

These are two invaluable tools for creators and performers.

To experience their effectiveness, try this simple exercise:

Raise an arm to shoulder height with the index finger pointed while saying out loud, “Get the hell out of here!”

Now perform the same gesture while saying, “You’re the one I’ve chosen.”.

Now do the same gesture imagining that you are raising your arm through the waters of a warm, Mediterranean sea.

Now that you are raising it in an ice cold, bitter wind.

Same gesture, entirely different messages. Onstage, dancers need to remember to keep specific, detailed thoughts going while they are moving. The alternative is the vague “eyebrow acting” that leaves no one moved (see my article Essential Imagination for more about this disease).

The Magic of Intent

When your imagination is fully engaged as a performer or creator, you understand the character’s intent and the details occur to you as you do them creating a completely believable spontaneity. If you are a teacher or director, you can guide your dancers in this process by asking them to consider:

Who the character is.

When they are living.

Where they are living (a city street leads to different body language than an open hillside, for example).

What they care about and what is at stake.

For a clear example of how specific intent changes visible action, try the same shape or movement done with different motivations. An arabesque can be done to show off its height and technical proficiency. Or to reach for a lover across the stage. Or to express melancholy. Or to aim an arrow-like accusation. Or many, many other things which do not change what is being done but drastically change how.

Keep It Personal

The details which will emerge from a performer’s or creator’s imagination will be highly personal. Each of our unique takes on what we are embodying will be ours and no one else’s. To be effective we must be willing to reveal these pieces of our soul.

Don’t censor your imagination while you are working, but do guide it with the parameters set by the director and the material.

Censorship is death to creative work, even if it is just a thought such as, “But I’m not the kind of person who…” If you are a performer, you can portray any kind of person and that is no reflection on who you are in the rest of your life. If a choreographer asks for it, you can deliver.

Leda can also be found at ledameredith.net

About the writer:
Leda Meredith’s biography deserves to be reprinted in full. the-vu proudly welcomes her exceptional talent to our pages.
As a performer, Leda Meredith’s career spans contemporary dance, classical ballet, and theatre. Her performances have taken her to twenty-five countries on four continents. She has been a principal dancer with American Ballet Theatre II, Edward Villella, Manhattan Ballet, Dances Patrelle, and others. She was a company member of Jennifer Muller/The Works for over seven years, and originated numerous roles in the repertory. She returned as Artistic Associate Director for the company’s 25th anniversary season in 1999-2000.
Her piece Lullabye Lane, premiered as part of Jennifer Muller/The Works 25th anniversary season at the Joyce Theater in New York. With original music by composer James Sasser, Lullabye Lane marked their seventh collaboration. They recently completed the full evening work Small Talk At The Volcano. In Spring 2000 she co-created a cabaret style piece entitled All About Angels and Eggs, with Michael Jahoda and Maria Naidu at Dansatelier in Rotterdam. Other choreographic credits include works for Malaparte Theatre Company, the Gene Frankel Theatre in New York, Dixon Place, Peridance International, the Hatch Saturday Series, First Fridays at Five, and the Arts on the Hudson Festival.
She is a returning guest instructor for the Henny Jurriens Stichting in Amsterdam, Western Washington University; and Dance Loft in Rorschach, Switzerland. Leda is currently on faculty with Ballet Academy East. She has taught as part of the 1996 Iles de Danse in France, and for the Artist’s Trusts International Course in England. In December, 1999 she was guest instructor for Carolyn Carlsons Atelier de Paris. Other dance programs she has taught for include the California State University at Los Angeles, and Brigham Young University in Hawaii.

Part One of The Essential Imagination Series

Posted on January 1, 2001 by admin

Essential Imagination

By Leda Meredith

“It’s just your imagination.”

Was there ever a more detrimental thing to say to a child, especially a child who may someday wish to be a performer?

Think about it: the computer screen you are looking at would not exist if someone hadn’t imagined it first. The design of the chair you are sitting upon had to be imagined before it could be built. Even something as basic as what to have for dinner depends on your imagination.

The essential function of imagination may be more obvious in the performing arts. What dancers and actors do “isn’t real”. It is all make believe, right?

Yes and no. The emotions and situations you are watching depend on the imaginative skill of the performers, writers, choreographers and composers. They also depend on your imagination as an audience. But the belly laugh that escapes you is very real, as are the tears that fill your eyes, and the disturbing new point of view you may walk home thinking about.

It is my experience that a performer who can cross the bridge between fictional situations and the audience’s very real response has a highly trained and disciplined imagination. In this article I hope to give an overview of some of the skills of imagination which make the difference between a performer who leaves us unmoved (even if impressed) and one who awakens our emotions and challenges our perceptions. In future articles I will share specific techniques that I have found useful both when I am onstage myself and in teaching performers. Each of the general headings below will be developed as an article unto itself.

Detail and Nuance

“God is in the details,” William Blake said. Let’s say you are watching a piece about a love affair. The dancers have smiles pasted on their faces and their eyebrows are pinched upward in some sort of angst. This is supposed to represent passion. Is this what your face felt like the last time you looked at someone with undeniable desire? Probably not. So you will watch this performance somewhat outside the action, recognizing what it is supposed to be, but not experiencing it.

Now suppose that one of the performers reaches out to touch a stray lock of hair. And their attention is truly on that lock of hair, as if no other color, no other scent, no other texture but this could please them. Perhaps this has happened in your own life, or you hope it will?

Who Not What

The situation is the writer or choreographer’s job. You can’t play a situation. You can only play a specific character’s thoughts and emotions as they live through a situation. You don’t play the entire tragedy of Romeo and Juliet in a single line, for example. You play your specific character’s hope, action, love, desire, fear, or despair from moment to moment. It is the tapestry of those moments woven together that creates the author’s message. Playing the situation rather than the person in the situation leads to overacting and generic emotion that leaves the audience with nothing to personally identify with.

How

This is the individual artist’s domain. The steps or words are set for them, the overall point of view dictated by the director, but how to express that point of view through those givens is where choice and artistry begin. This is why no two performers will ever play the same role exactly the same way. Young performers need to be encouraged to make personal choices about how they want to do the material, and learn to wed their choices with the director’s vision. This takes training, even if the performer’s instincts are usually good. It is a learned skill to be able to recognize an instinct, explore it, determine its appropriateness to the direction, and use it onstage.

Getting Home Again

Many times I have had a performer back off from the specificity and choices I describe above because they would be “too real” or “too personal” or “too revealing”. Indeed. That is what we offer as performers. Our willingness to risk ourselves, our personal points of view in full view of an audience is what makes an audience willing to trust us. But when the curtain goes down, we must have the skills to step back out of the world we have been creating during the show. That lock of hair may belong to someone entirely inappropriate for us to be attracted to in everyday life. I’ve found that performers are only willing to dive in as far as they trust themselves to get back out again.

Leda can also be found at ledameredith.net

She is a returning guest instructor for the Henny Jurriens Stichting in Amsterdam, Western Washington University; and Dance Loft in Rorschach, Switzerland. Leda is currently on faculty with Ballet Academy East. She has taught as part of the 1996 Iles de Danse in France, and for the Artist’s Trusts International Course in England. In December, 1999 she was guest instructor for Carolyn Carlsons Atelier de Paris. Other dance programs she has taught for include the California State University at Los Angeles, and Brigham Young University in Hawaii.

Technique Is Only The Beginning.

Posted on January 1, 2001 by admin

By Leda Meredith

photo by Bill Hedberg

“There was a child went forth every day,
And the first object he look’d upon, that object he became,
And that object became part of him for the day or a certain part of the day,
Or for many years or stretching cycles of years”

When I was twelve years old my ballet teacher, Jody White, asked her students to read the Walt Whitman poem that begins with these lines. She and her husband, Ralph White, insisted that their students think beyond technique to the artistry that inspires audiences and leaves tracks in the history of dance. They led me to understand that a performing artist’s work is made up of the palette of colors that their life gives them.

“Leda Meredith stood out in a beautifully nuanced portrayal of Lady Macbeth.”

That review was written by Jennifer Dunning of the NY Times for Francis Patrelle’s MacBeth’ in 1994. Fine, but how did I get there? How does a young dancer translate her or his passion into believable characters that will move an audience? A high extension or multiple pirouette is not enough. Those must become the tools, the verbs used to express something more.

I realize that I am going against the current trend here. I have danced so-called abstract work, and loved doing it. But when I look for where this performing art form can make the most impact, I think of moving audiences, making audiences think about something in a different way. Making that guy in the fourth row, the guy who hasn’t cried in years, shed a few tears and go home happier for it. Making that woman in the balcony, who was about to give up, notice that there is beauty in the world, and go home seeing the stars between the skyscrapers for the first time in years.

Technique is invaluable, but only as a language. If I have poor technique, it is as if I am muttering. It doesn’t matter how brilliant the idea I am trying to express is: you won’t get it. On the other hand, if all I am about is technique, it is as if I am reciting perfectly pronounced ABCswho cares?

If there are any students reading this, please listen: learn your technique(s) well, otherwise none will be able to understand what you are trying to say.

Professionals, pay attention. What do you have to offer the audience – the role – the art form? It is upon your choices that the next generation of dancers will build their careers.

Leda can also be found at ledameredith.net

How Often Do You Get It?

Posted on January 1, 2001 by admin

by Leda Meredith

photo by Tom Caravaglia

What if you were to walk down the street and randomly interview passersby with the question, “How often do you buy tickets for dance performances?” Now imagine asking the people who sometimes do, what would motivate them to buy tickets more often. Then imagine asking the ones who never do, “Why not?”

Tickets for dance are generally less expensive than for a Broadway show. Some downtown dance venues are cheaper than a movie-plus-popcorn. So why aren’t the houses packed?

Dance is a performing art. This sounds obvious, yet is often ignored. Why perform for an audience? Why not simply practice in our living rooms because we love exploring movement? Why not choreograph and rehearse a piece (and pay our dancers for their time) without making any attempt to get it onstage?

I’m asking many questions here, and I don’t have as many answers. But I do strongly believe that those of us who work in the field of dance need to take a long, hard look at why we do what we do, and at our responsibilities to the audience.

Communication is the heart of any performing art. No audience, no performing art form.

I have been to many performances lately in which I felt as if I was watching choreographic warm up exercises. There was really no reason for me to be there. The choreographer and performers didn’t seem to care whether or not their ideas were communicated clearly. Eventually I gave up trying to “get it” and just felt bored. I will not pay money again to go see works by those artists.

So why doesn’t your average passerby go to see dance more often? Maybe she or he got tired of “just not getting it”. Maybe they took boredom as a sign that dance just wasn’t for them, rather than realizing that the artists were not communicating anything in particular.

On the bright side, I once had a man come up to me after a performance whose wife had dragged him protesting to the show. He explained that he’d really wanted to stay home and watch football, “…but that dance you did with the tall guy, that was really something. It was over too soon, though. Are there more dances like that?” I wonder if he did give dance another try? If so, I deeply hope that there was something to delight him on the program.

I believe that the arts provide an essential service. Yes, we need to keep ourselves clothed and fed. We also need to laugh and cry, to be inspired or sometimes disturbed, to shake up our old ideas and see things from a new point of view. The arts do that, and more.

Do that for whom?

To the Audience: the next time you go to see a dance concert, please invite someone whom has never been to one. I will cross my fingers and hope that the work you see is something which might inspire your companion to come again.

To the Choreographers and Performers: please remember that creating and fine tuning movement is only the first draft. First drafts by writers don’t usually get published. Why should an audience pay to see yours? What is it for? Who is it for? What is it that you care about so much that you need to share it? I hope it means enough to you that you will do whatever it takes to communicate as clearly as possible.

Leda can also be found at ledameredith.net

Solo Tango in Buenos Aires

Posted on November 1, 2000 by admin

By Cherie Magnus

It’s just before dawn, and our small group of Argentines and Americans are tired and filled with reverie after a night of tango. We’re drooped over cafes con leche on an old wooden table in a run-down nineteenth-century coffee shop. The large party over by the dark windows also look like they’ve been up all night having a good time. The men are wearing jackets, the women decolletage,all somewhat portly and of a certain age.

Suddenly one of the men stands up and begins to sing, loudly, proudly, passionately. Heads nod with approval. A woman in gold beads joins in.

Several others, our table included, brighten with the music and begin to clap along. I don’t understand the words, but I know it is Tango–love, life, disappointment, desire, joy and sadness.

Marcello can not resist the siren call of the emotional song, even after dancing all night. He’s an Argentine. He looks at me purposefully, and we tango on the cracked black and white marble floor around the men having breakfast with their newspapers on their way to work.

It’s a normal morning in Buenos Aires.
What is tango, anyway? I had danced other dances all my life, both social and theatrical, but I really didn’t know the answer to that question. I knew Tango meant more than a dance, certainly more than a (slow slow quick quick slow) ballroom exhibition, a campy movie moment, or a Broadway show. Because I wanted to experience the legendary dancers’ dance and all that Tango meant, I made a pilgrimage to Buenos Aires.

Knowing no one in Argentina and no Spanish, I was lucky enough to hook up with a tour of dancers who I found on the Internet. But it didn’t matter, I would have gone anyway. Tango is addictive and I already was a junkie after only three months of tango dance classes in L.A.

Tango permeates the air of BuenosAires–tango art and history, the dance of politics, the music of extinct German bandoneons, a 24 hour Tango TV channel, tango dancers on the streets, tango clubs two per block, curios and postcards, altars to Carlos Gardel. The city could just as easily be called Tango Aires. For a tanguera wanna-be like me and the other American women I met on the trip, it was paradise.

Buenos Aires is often called the Paris of South America, perhaps because a lot of the city’s architecture emulates La Belle Epoque and if you squint your eyes it is possible you could be in Paris: the French windows, balconies, wrought iron, sculptures of large buxom women over doorways. Elegant cupolas pop up on rooftops all over the city’s skyline, stamping the city as somewhat European and indefinably Buenos Aires.

But the Argentines are not sitting for hours in sidewalk cafes discussing and arguing and philosophizing like the French so love. Despite the city’s mild and sunny weather, Buenos Aires has few sidewalk cafes in which to have a cafe con leche and people-watch, to observe that the Argentines are slim, stunningly beautiful, well-dressed, and have perfect posture (due perhaps to their dance-charged culture.)

Instead of sitting and talking, the people of Buenos Aires are dancing. They go to practicas and even milongas (tango clubs) by day, and fill the dance halls from midnight till dawn every night of the week.

During my stay, I didn’t shop, sightsee or sleep more than an occasional nap. I lived on caf?s con leche, little croissants called medialunas, chicken empanadas, and vino tinto, all on the run. At midnight I would wrap my feet and pad my toes before stuffing them into spike-heeled pointy-toed tango shoes, and then hobble down the hall to the elevator. I suffered until blessed numbness set in an hour later. Then once the music began, I would float on air across the hard cement and tile floors of the tango halls. After one milonga closed, I went to another one, and when it closed, I had breakfast. Then I soaked my bloody feet in the huge lavender bathtub of my room at the Hotel Continental, throwing in as much salt as I could beg from the kitchen. I fell into bed each day at 6:00 a.m., smelling of men’s cologne. I was deliriously happy.

Why is this city dancing? Tango was born a hundred years ago in Buenos Aires, its direct lineage a bit mysterious. The name may be derived from “tangle,” as the couples’ legs seem to indeed. Tango, by its nature of leading and following, could only have originated in a country of overtly macho, strong men and responsive women.

There are no real “steps” in Argentine tango, but a walk forward, back and side. It is improvised. The man leads with his mind and body, and the woman follows with hers. She does have the choice of adding adornments and embellishments, but the control and responsibility are the man’s. The couple dance as one in a tight embrace, cheek to cheek, chest to chest, but their legs do different things.

I had to learn not to avert my eyes from a man’s direct gaze if I wanted to dance at the Buenos Aires milongas. It wasn’t easy for me at first to stare at a man from across the room, too forward for women here in the U.S. But it is considered rude in Argentina for a man to approach a woman’s table without permission, and so a woman gives her permission silently with her eyes. Often that’s all that passes between a man and a woman before meeting on the dance floor, simply a look that says, let’s dance together.

Then after the man opens his arms and the woman walks into them, they hold each other wordlessly for a moment before beginning to dance. One of my teachers there said, “The way a woman walks to me when I ask her to dance tells me if it will be a good tango or not. And at the moment when I first embrace her, I know all I need to know.”

Argentine Eduardo Arquimbau confided, “I decided when I was young that I had to be a good dancer so that women would dance with me.” The pioneering dancer, choreographer and international stage star who gave our American group a Master class, continued, “I look at a woman in the street and compliment her and she won’t even return my gaze, but at a milonga I can ask her to dance with my eyes. Then I can hold her in a deep embrace, our breath mingling, our faces touching.”

American women, myself included, flock in droves to the romantic allure of the tango and the macho men who dance it in milongas all over the world. The deep embrace, which is the norm in Buenos Aires, both seduces and frightens us.

We are so thrilled to be held in a close embrace and led strongly around the dance floor in a dance of beauty and passion, that sometimes we confuse the dancer with the dance. It is easy for many of us to fall in love with the dancer. However the sensuous communication and intimacy of the Tango is traditionally over once you leave the floor. Argentines know this, but
Americans can be disoriented and befuddled after a sexually-charged dance.

I saw how attractive are strong men who know where they are going and what they want and who never doubt themselves–even if they are old with missing teeth (often due to dance hall brawls in their youth), or are young and skinny boys just out of their teens.

American men are different, unsure of their place in the world and with women. It’s a cultural thing. Perhaps we American women have brought it on ourselves with our race to equality.

All of this naturally in both cultures, translates to the dance floor–and perhaps the bedroom.

It’s possible that American women don’t really want a romantic relationship with a macho man, but many are starving to give up control, at least for the time it takes to dance two or three tangos. And to be held so close that your breath combines and your legs tangle and you dance as one… well, some of us lust for that in our lives, not just for ten minutes. On my trip there were a lot of tears shed by my American traveling companions in the Ladies’ Rooms of the tango halls. And I admit, even though I knew better, to having a crush on one of the teaching assistants and being disappointed that all he did was dance with me.

It’s more comfortable to have our personal space, to keep a lack of commitment that prevents our being hurt, to not press our breasts against the chest of a stranger who we may never see again and whose name is unknown.

It takes courage for Americans to be close physically, and to embrace a stranger with no expectations.

Holding someone “at arm’s length” is a lot easier, after all.

It’s just not Tango.

Juan Bruno, another Master teacher I studied with, described the physiology of Tango as “the brain sending a message to your feet through your heart.” And el corazon, the dominant phrase of tango song lyrics, is also the soul of Tango as well as the heart of its dancers.

I learned that Tango is music, a mystique, a way of life, a people, not only a dance. My dancing improved after dancing twelve hours a day with strong leaders, and now that I’m back home again, I’m haunting the milongas of Los Angeles looking for the perfect dance experience as I found it in Buenos Aires. And if I also find tremendous pleasure from a man’s deep embrace with no strings attached, well, who can blame me?

However, along with all of its other qualities, a tango can also be just a dance. At a milonga I remind myself of that each time a man takes me in his arms to dance, and before I go home, alone.

the-vu

An Original Internet Magazine – Online Every Day Since July 1st ,2000, at the-vu.com

Tag Archives: Dance

College Dance and the “Real World”

La Salsa Cubana Experience

For Love Or Money

Part Four of The Essential Imagination Series

Part Three of The Essential Imagination Series

Part Two of The Essential Imagination Series

Part One of The Essential Imagination Series

Technique Is Only The Beginning.

How Often Do You Get It?

Solo Tango in Buenos Aires