Tag Archives: Leda Meredith

Is Ballet Humane?

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By Leda Meredith

Today one of the young student dancers I rehearsal direct in a Nutcracker production came up to me and pointed to her right foot. A bad blister had bled through her tights and through her pointe shoe. She looked up at me with wide eyes and a well-trained ballet-school smile and asked if it was okay if she did the run-thru on flat. I said yes, the other ballet mistress said no. She kept the shoes on. During the run through, I heard, “Smile, girls, it’s Nutcracker not a tragedy!” shouted at the dancers. I looked at Susan’s foot. Her shoe was red with blood. She was smiling.

This is complicated. There are times when I think a dancer does need to perform despite bleeding blisters and such. When the curtain is going up and there is no understudy, for example. On the other hand, if this were foreign policy rather than ballet I’d say it was utterly inhumane.

I think ballet is beautiful. The ancient Chinese bound women’s feet because they thought small feet were beautiful. What did those women think? My ballet students are willing to put up with real physical and psychological pain in pursuit of beauty. Is it worth it? Is there an alternative way to get to the beauty without the torture? Are we willing to break with tradition to investigate what that way might be?

In a recent dinner conversation with Cynthia Gregory, she mentioned that during her performing career she was very protective of her body. For example, she would let whoever was running the rehearsal know that she could only do one full-out one through. This was not laziness, but a guarded attention to what her instrument could handle. She had no major injuries during her remarkable career.

Sometimes dancers abuse this principle. “I have to mark this run thru because the floor is slippery” (when it isn’t), “I can’t do the lifts today because my back is bad” (when it isn’t). Directors are sometimes right to be skeptical of dancers claiming physical excuses not to perform full out.

But then there is Susan with her bleeding feet at a rehearsal when it won’t make or break the show if she does the run thru on pointe or not. Given enough longevity, professional dancers learn how to make this call for themselves: yes, I can do this and it won’t injure me and it’s necessary vs. no, this would actually injure me and/or isn’t really necessary. But what are we teaching our dance students?

“Smile, girls, smile!” Right. Maybe that needs some rethinking.

Leda Meredith is the author of “Botany, Ballet, & Dinner from Scratch” (Heliotrope Books 2008). She is the winner of the 2007-2008 Teaching Excellence Award from Adelphi University. For more, go to www.ledameredith.com

Photo: Leda Meredith and Jonathan Riseling in Francis Patrelle’s “Macbeth”, Photo Credit: Eduardo Patino

A Passion for the Dance

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A Passion for the Dance:  Choreographer Francis Patrelle
By Leda Meredith

Photo Credit: Eduardo Patino

There are few choreographers I know of that are as generous and loyal to their dancers as Francis Patrelle, or who care as much about making sure that each dancer is shown at their best. Dance is a verb, not a noun, and without the dancers up on that stage the choreography does not exist. Francis Patrelle’s work is an ongoing celebration of the people who bring this art form to life.

He is also a storyteller who has survived, and thrived, during an era when the trend in dance was toward the abstract and impersonal. In doing so, he has carried forward a legacy inherited from his Juilliard teachers, Anthony Tudor and Jose Limon. Francis Patrelle’s ballets speak to audiences who want their hearts to be moved as well as their intellects.

Q: What do you require in order to create your best work?

FP: To create my best work, first of all I need a tension-free rehearsal room. Not that everybody has to be happy and go-lucky, but we all have to be there for the same reason, and, hopefully, to leave our egos behind. That includes mine. We all have to be working towards the same purpose. This business is so physically hard, why do we need to beat up on each other?

Thirty-something years later, still choreographing, I still love dancers. I love the process. And I hope to be doing it till the day I die. I am happiest in the rehearsal room. I am happiest creating. The audience, though, does not need to know the process. A quick and juicy and fun-filled rehearsal process may not give a better performance than a hard, pulled out, difficult rehearsal process. As long as there is the final result, the audience doesn’t care. But when I’m creating, I enjoy the giggling and the laughing — even when I’m doing death. Sometimes when you’re doing heavy drama and life struggles, approaching it through humor in the rehearsal room is the only way of going about it.

Q: Is there a “Patrelle Dancer”?

FP: Yes, I think there are dancers that I feel very comfortable working with. Martha Hill, the founding director of the Juilliard Dance Department, used to say, “The American Dancer is one that could have pointe work ready to enter into American Ballet Theater, and then do a back fall at the same time.” That would define a Patrelle Dancer. I love exquisite pointe work; I love beautiful, articulated, defined legs and positions; and I then I want you to be able to lose all of that and bend on the stage and bring sweeping and luxurious movement. I also need and require a sense of maturity and of life in a dancer.

Q: When you are preparing to choreograph a new ballet, do your mental images include the dancers whom you know you will be working with?

FP: Of course. There are two basic ways I choreograph a ballet: eighty percent of the time it has been that I have a particular dancer or dancers in mind, and I am working to create vehicles for them. Their personal motif: their lines, their musicality are all in that first ballet. The second way is that I have a story that I’m needing to tell, and then I go and find the dancer that in my mind defines, or helps define, that story. That’s slightly harder, and ultimately more rewarding.

Q: What is your choreographic process in a situation when it isn’t possible to be familiar with your cast ahead of time?

FP: When that has happened, especially when I am working with a lot of the youth companies that I’ve been working with recently, I must know the music as well as I know my own name. I must know exactly what I want to say in the ballet. I usually try to write out cards, scene by scene, of where I want to go, even down to floor patterns, without a single step in my mind. The steps have to come from the dancers, because I’ve always enjoyed and had this need to make dancers look as best as they can. I never superimpose my motifs on somebody who can’t do them. So if I know exactly what I want to say, and I know the music backwards and forwards so that I can play with it, that’s the way that I go into a rehearsal with dancers that I’m unaccustomed to working with. That is singularly the hardest situation to go into.

Q: How does the original cast of one of your ballets influence the choreography for you and for future generations who will perform the ballet?

FP: They actually define the roles. Let’s take my ballet of Romeo and Juliet. We have now done the ballet five or six times. The roles have changed, the production itself has gotten more mature — I was young when I created that — but the structure and the basic theme steps have always stayed the same. And the original dancers’ moves and motifs follow the production all the way through, even if it has changed over the years.

Q: How do you approach recasting a ballet that has already been premiered?

FP: In two ways. The first, to make everybody’s life a little easier, is to cast similar body types, similar musicality, similar levels of maturity. And then, every once in a while, there is someone who is so stunning, so energetic, so right for something, that even though they may be completely different that I don’t mind going into the studio and changing the role to make it for them. Joni Petre-Scholz could not be more different as Lady Macbeth from Leda Meredith, the creator of the role. Both are unbelievably valid, both are wonderful Lady Macbeths, and both have been an absolute joy to work with. But I did have to go in and help mold the steps to fit Joni’s body, which is a different body type. But what I was looking for in that particular case was the drama, not the body type. The drama – because if you can’t tell the story there is no Macbeth. It’s as simple as that.

When asked if he had any additional comments, Francis Patrelle responded:

I would also like to say that I personally over the years have tried desperately, whether it’s in class or on stage or in interviews, not to talk badly about any other choreographer’s work. Every time you create, whether it’s a ballet, a painting, a song, you’re putting your heart and soul into it. Nobody goes about the business trying to do the worst job they know how. Every time they do it they try to create a bit of genius. So we don’t need to be beating up on each other. I go to see everybody and everything, and when I enter the theatre, I say to myself, “This has been created by my best friend” (even when I don’t know the creator). It makes everything more enjoyable.

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 Carlson’s Atelier de Paris. Other dance programs she has taught for include the California State University at Los Angeles, and Brigham Young University in Hawaii.

Making It Your Own

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By Leda Meredith

Joni Petre-Scholz & Abdul Rasheed in Patrelle’s ‘The Yorkville Nutcracker’. Photo Credit: Eduardo Patino

Here is a scene that any dancer would recognize: You are in a studio with a mirror, barres around the walls, a stereo system, a TV and VCR. There is an opening night coming up, and you don’t know all of your steps yet, let alone what you want to do with them as an artist. There is another, older, dancer in the studio with you, showing you the choreography (a word which means “map of the dance”).

Dance is taught in person by one generation to the next, a hands-on sharing of information and example that cannot be effectively transmitted in any other way. In many ways, dance is like the oral traditions of centuries past, in which history and lore were passed from memory to memory without ever being written down. As Anne Kochanski says, it is “… quite a beautiful and intimate exchange.”

In Passing the Torch, I wrote about my experiences teaching roles that were created on me. But what was it like for the dancers I was teaching? Rather than share my memories of what it is like to inherit a role, I decided to interview two dancers who are living that experience.

I have known Joni Petre-Scholz, principal dancer and rehearsal director for Dances Patrelle, since 1988 when we toured the Far East with Manhattan Ballet. One of the ballets we performed on that tour was Francis Patrelle’s ‘Rhapsody in Blue’. Joni had already worked with Mr. Patrelle before that tour, and in the decade that followed, I originated many roles for his company, Dances Patrelle. I am currently restaging his ‘Macbeth’ with Joni in my original role of Lady Macbeth.

I met Anne Kochanski, principal dancer with Jennifer Muller/The Works and Leda Meredith’s Story Dance, when she replaced me as a dancer with The Works. I had the opportunity before I left to spend several months teaching Anne my roles. There was a wonderful sense of passing on a legacy, not only of the roles I had originated but of those I had inherited from my predecessor, the legendary Angie Wolf. At twenty-two, Anne has already become an excellent teacher, sharing her passion for dance with the next generation.

Q: How do you approach learning a role?

Anne: I make sure that prior to beginning, I clear my mind as much as possible of any thoughts that don’t pertain to the process. From there I soak in as much information as possible. Along with learning the basic movement, I also clue into what the atmosphere may be, what the dramatic intentions may be, all in one full swoop, as opposed to learning the basic movement and adding the dramatic intention and atmosphere on top of that.

Joni: I like to approach a role from the physical aspects first. Getting the choreography and having it settle in the body so that I don’t have to remember sequences is my first step. I like to make a story in my head so that the movement flows with the music. The music creates the accents and gives texture to what is being said with the movement. With a dramatic piece like Macbeth, it is important to define the style and period as well as the character of the person you are portraying.

Q: How is the process different if the role is being created on you?

Joni: The work process is similar. A few perks are that movements feel more natural and generally comes from your natural strengths, which is not always so when you learn a role created on someone else’s body. When you create a role, you are part of the process of creating a language for your character.

Anne: For a role that is being created on me, I find that my brain really has to be in high gear. In this case I feel that the process is much more collaborative and that I am aiding the choreographer in fitting all the pieces of the puzzle together.

Q: How do you make the role your own?

Anne: It is a bit of a process for me, one in which time is definitely involved. I can recall dancing certain roles and afterwards feeling as if the spirit of the original dancer had inhabited my body! I didn’t feel that I had just performed. But now I realize that once I have gotten all the technical and dramatic instruction, then it’s time to go back and say to myself, “Okay, how does this work on my body, how do I relate to this character?”

Joni: When working with videos it is easy to see the overall effect certain movements convey and to get tied into using another dancer’s body language. I think the key is to identify what is being said by the character and try to find out how you will say it. What are the movements that are effective? How can I make that work for me? I like to find something about the character that is like me so that I can relate to some part of their actions.

I found it interesting that Joni and Anne both mention the pitfall of taking on too much of an original cast’s interpretation. Video tape recordings are commonly used today in reconstructing choreography, but they are imperfect records of live performance. Many details simply don’t show up on performance videos, which are commonly shot from the back of the house. And even the best performance video merely crystallizes one night’s version: the same cast may have made quite different dramatic and phrasing choices the next night, but since that wasn’t recorded those options will not be learned by subsequent casts.

Q: What is it like to be taught a role by the person who originated it?

Joni: It is invaluable to have the person who created the role teaching it. They can recall why certain series of steps exist, they can define original motivation for dramatic points. Not to mention the fact that they remember the shape and feel of that character and can give you road signs and guiding markers to shape your portrayal.

Anne: I feel that I not only learn the choreographer’s intentions and desires, but I am simultaneously picking up on the subtler points of the role, points that perhaps only the original dancer, having lived in that role, could convey. I also find it to be quite a beautiful and intimate exchange. Especially when the role is one that was very special to the original dancer. I imagine that it can be quite bittersweet to pass the torch on to someone else and so I do my best to show the original dancer that I can be trusted.

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.

Passing the Torch

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By Leda Meredith

Photo by Eduardo Patino of Leda Meredith as Francis Patrelle’s Lady Macbeth

I am standing in front of a full-wall tapestry in a museum. It is magnificent. Reading the museum’s pamphlet, I learn that it took three generations of craftsmen to complete. Did they stick to the original design, or add their own touches? Did the grandchildren’s generation have a hard time finding the exact same blue to match the sky? Did the symbolism of the tapestry have the identical meaning for them that it had when their grandparents’ generation was doing the stitchery?

The experience of passing on a role to someone else can be a delight or a strain depending on the people involved. Some choreographers will alter the choreography of an old work to suit a new cast, others insist that it be taught verbatim. Some dancers want to learn from a previous generation’s experience, others prefer not to be influenced by anything other than their own viewpoint.

This month I am restaging Francis Patrelle’s Macbeth. He choreographed it in 1995, and I was his original Lady Macbeth. Even while the role was being created on me, I was acutely aware of the centuries of actresses (and originally, actors) who portrayed Lady Macbeth. Turning to the play itself, I reached even further back through the generations, and delved into my personal understanding of what Shakespeare wrote.

But that was only my understanding, at that particular time. I would dance the role quite differently if I did it today.

Teaching a role that was created for me is delicate. I must communicate much more than the sequence of steps. I must also convey details of the choreographer’s intent that a second generation of dancers might not be able to surmise. If a dramatic choice I made was used and elaborated on by the choreographer, then that choice is now part of the choreography and needs to be taught. On the other hand, some artistic choices may have worked for me but be inappropriate for the dancer learning the role. My job is to provide enough information for the current dancer to develop her own interpretation of the role, keeping it in line with the choreographer’s original intent.

The magic starts after the steps have been taught, the information communicated, the role discussed: after the bridge between one generation and the next has been built.

It is my own belief that certain roles have a life of their own, and that the role itself steps in at a certain point to inform the player’s actions. So I watch as the current Lady Macbeth, Joni Petre-Scholz, begins to get a certain glint in her eye, a certain timing to her gestures. It is not my version I am seeing, nor should it be, but I recognize that Lady. I have looked out through her eyes, I have thought her thoughts. Shakespeare’s character has taken over the teaching, and I can turn to working with the other dancers knowing that Joni is well on her way to her own Lady Macbeth.

As a dancer, I’ve stepped into many previous generations’ shoes, found my own way across the bridge between learning and making it my own. As a teacher and director, I’ve tasted the sharp joys of letting go of my memories of how it felt to perform a role, and then of being delighted by a new dancer’s process of discovery. I have learned to be grateful to dancers like Joni Petre-Scholz of Dances Patrelle and Anne Kochanski of Jennifer Muller/The Works, who respect the past enough to learn well, but are fiery enough to find their own way. I find myself wondering how my mother, Penelope Lagios Coberly, herself a former soloist with San Francisco Ballet, felt when she sat in the audience watching me perform.

If you look closely at some of the famous tapestries, you can spot small patches that appear to be unfinished. A corner of a cloud left unstitched, a part of a border missing, a petal sketched but not sewn, as if waiting for the next generation to begin where the last had left off.

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 Carlson’s Atelier de Paris. Other dance programs she has taught for include the California State University at Los Angeles, and Brigham Young University in Hawaii.

Every Kind of Casserole

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By Leda Meredith

Casseroles were one of those things that my mother knew how to make which I somehow never learned. So I invented the useful culinary term “Crumble”, as in, “No, dear, this isn’t supposed to be a tuna casserole – it’s a tuna crumble.”

However, I don’t give up that easily. Reading between the lines of many recipes in old cookbooks, I came up with this basic casserole formula that works very well for whatever ingredients you have on hand. It is especially useful for using up leftovers in an appealing way. I sometimes cook twice as much rice or pasta as I know I’ll need for a meal because I already have plans to turn it into casserole the following night.

This is a classic rich, creamy casserole that holds together well in thick slices. Save the “crumble” for some other night.

For every 9-inch casserole dish you will need:

* 1 cup milk
* 3 eggs, beaten
* 1 cup bread crumbs
* 1 cup grated cheese (cheddar works well)

Butter the casserole dish and sprinkle half the breadcrumbs on the bottom and sides. Fill with layers of cooked pasta, beans or rice alternating with grated cheese and cooked meat and/or vegetables (excellent way to use up leftovers!). Beat together the eggs and milk. Pour over other ingredients. Top with the rest of the bread crumbs. Dot with butter. Cover and bake in a moderate (350) oven for 30-40 minutes until golden on top (you can remove the cover during the last 10 minutes if you like a crunchy top). Serve with a bit of minced fresh parsley on top. This is just as good reheated the next day.

For a rich flavor, mix two teaspoons of Fines Herbes blend or half tablespoon of Verdurette in with the milk and eggs mixture. If your leftovers are on the bland side, dice an onion and saute it in a little olive oil. Include that as one of the layers in your casserole. I choose to leave out salt and pepper and let each person add theirs according to preference.

Vegetables that work well in casseroles include mushrooms, onions, greens (spinach, chickweed, lamb’s quarters, kale, etc.), green beans, cauliflower and broccoli.

Leda Meredith writes about her passions – plants, cooking, dance, theater, travel – and shares the many ways she has found to include them all in her busy urban life.

Leda’s full biography can be found at the foot of any of her many wonderful dance articles here in the-vu.

Part Four of The Essential Imagination Series

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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 Carlson’s 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

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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:

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 tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, for example. You play your specific character’s hope, action, love, desire, fear, and despair.

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.

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 Carlson’s 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 Two of The Essential Imagination Series

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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 Carlson’s 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

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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

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 Carlson’s Atelier de Paris. Other dance programs she has taught for include the California State University at Los Angeles, and Brigham Young University in Hawaii.