One rule of thumb I have for a dance concert, brought shamelessly into fruition thanks to dearest friend Rebecca Rainey (better known as Rebe), is that if I remain alert and engaged, and essentially don’t have a nod off moment while watching, (yes, there I said it – gasp! And I call myself a dancer!), then for the most part, I was intrigued and enjoyed the concert. There is something about a fed belly on a glass of wine, in a dark theatre that cries for at least a heavy eyelid. I used to feel awful about this nagging sleepiness that would wash over me until Rebe allowed me to loose the guilt and put it into blunt reality. Sometimes it’s just not interesting enough to hold your attention. Obviously, this isn’t my singular significant marker for a captivating performance or ingenious choreography, but it sure can point out moments that are sub par.

Andrea’s concert featured 4 works and I’d have to say the newest creation, TYPE3, had me the most on edge; continuously surprised and feening for the next movement that would arise from the dancers’ bodies. The way the movements collided unexpectedly into one another had me curious and kept my eyes glued to the performers’ next steps. Now call me biased, but I don’t care, I am about to ruthlessly toot the horn of some colleagues who had me so moved. Celia DeVoe, a dancer with Andrea since our days in college, is someone who understands Andrea’s choreographic technique and somehow subtly and lusciously flows through the inventive, unexpected, and jagged movement vocabulary as if that is the only way one would ever conceive of moving their body. Kim Machaby moves with precision and clarity to truly annunciate each moment with such a purity of focus and Katelyn Chakey is a captivating powerhouse who leaves no movement to waste. Alexandra Rose who I haven’t seen dance in unfortunately such a long time had me amazed by her dynamic artistry and choreographic talents (she presented a work of her own as well) which somehow managed to mature even more beautifully with years past.

So enough gushing! Here’s a did-bit on how Andrea operates behind the scenes….

Andrea thrives on asking her dancers for movements that are not cliché and calls upon images and ideas that generate movements not seen from dance concert to dance concert. I had the blessed experienced to work on a solo with Andrea this summer, and the proof was in the pudding. She saw images of a spring winding up eventually leading to the point of inevitable destruction. The first day of rehearsal she had me moving up and down in a single location, moving my arms in linear, cylindrical pathways. Not only did I have two left feet, but my feet belonged to two different people entirely. I quickly discovered the challenge of transforming this choreographic vision into something conceivable on my body. (Being performed Nov 29th @ 8pm @ Red Bean Studios on 320 West 37th Street – shameless plug!) Having this knowledge of how Andrea pulls new ideas out of her dancers, elevated my level of respect for the performers on stage who danced as if the next moment was precisely what should come next, no matter how contorted.

Another fabulous (if you ask me!) aspect of the evening was the inclusion of other art forms into the concert. WhaleHawk created all the music for the pieces, and played a live set to open the concert as well as at intermission. While they did not perform live with the dancers, they encapsulated the mood of the evening and allowed the audience to see and absorb them in action and take a piece of them into the dance. Not to mention, it made those moments of quiet reading of program notes, ransacked by jamming out to their entrancing music. I literally had to move right next to them to check out how they were making magic happen on these high-tech (to me at least – doesn’t take much!) instruments to blend in alternative beats. Also, Philip Kowlton’s (Andrea’s sweetheart… what a dynamic duo!) backdrop of city landscapes for the new creation fit seamlessly with Andrea’s confrontational, and abrupt dynamics without distracting from the work of the dancers. Gosh this doesn’t happen enough!

Andrea’s work had me proud; proud to have come from the same educational background of someone who created a beautifully progressive work of art. Proud that a colleague of mine is producing work just as I had imaged her to do years ago, and proud of where I can fathom her heading years down the road.

Check out photos here!

….it’s been awhile since I’ve posted but here’s for some ruthless gumption!

My boyfriend (at the time….unfortunately a long story) lent me Rick Pitino’s “Success is a Choice” when I was craving a motivational, self-help if you will, read. I didn’t know what to expect from the former NY Knicks coach, but turned out his motivational mantras proved more than valid and helpful when applied in reference to dancing and working effectively within a dance company, which at times is absolutely a team or family. As I enter my second season with Parsons Dance, it is my upmost priority to make this season more fulfilling than the first. To take what challenged me, and make those weaknesses into my strengths, and to maximize my strengths to capitalize on what makes me special as a dancer. One aspect I wish to focus on here is performance pressure. As performers we’ve all had our moments where we feel these pressures seep into our bones, when the thought of convincingly moving those rattling bones becomes a much more daunting accomplishment than moments prior in rehearsal. In class and rehearsals, we can more easily tap into the glorious freedom of taking risks with movement and being fearless to make big mistakes and take a wipeout in lieu of finding where our physical limitations lie; these moments are exhilarating because we are pushing ourselves to our maximum. Performance can be exhilarating as well, when those limitations found by falling in the studio, can be trusted and so closely breached as we propel our body full throttle through space with the somewhat-calculated knowledge gained from hours of rehearsal. Most shocking however is, as a professional, this liberty of rehearsing specific works repeatedly to gain the confidence and full comprehension of how our bodies respond to each moment, simply doesn’t exist. Lack of funds, relates directly to the amount of rehearsal time allotted which relates directly to the feeling of preparedness prior to lights, costumes, and stage. I’ve been off-stage with only a single-hand of run-thrus under my belt, partner and all – “Slow Dance” this past summer is reminiscent – and forced to take this pressure and turn it into a positive influence and deliver a moving, elating experience for myself and the audience. Was I completely certain about every moment in the piece? No. We can never be entirely certain of a performance. It hasn’t happened yet; we don’t know what lies ahead. That’s life and what makes it exciting, unless we prefer to take this unknown and make it feel daunting instead. The choice is ours. Pressures exist, and thank god they do. They make us strive harder, longer, seeking finer details and additional nuances. If deadlines of performances and expectations of artist directors and fellow dancers didn’t exist and impose the feeling of wanting to be the best version of ourselves for them, we would be floating around in the blasé realm of mediocrity. And as far as I’m concerned, when we feel ourselves slipping into coasting mediocrity, which inevitably happens from time to time, we need to gratefully seize the opportunity to up the ante, set new goals, reach for higher sights.

So lets not feel negative pressure from the audience and those we wish to impress; that simply leads to stress and fear of failure – completely stifling. Failure is only an emotion we chose, not in definitive existence. Choosing to fear failure of certain moments within a piece, or not having the best performance, we are allowing those fears to take control unnecessarily. Instead lets use the pressure opportunity to see how far we can go. No two performances will ever be the same and this uncertainty is exciting.

So, easier said than done. How can we feel we have a grip on this pressure? For one thing, be confident in the moments we do know in a dance. Do our homework. Know every count, study a video, get into the studio and do some extra work to ease out the moments we don’t know as well or don’t feel as organic on our bodies. No rehearsal time with the rest of the company doesn’t mean we have to stop our work there and settle for not being as comfortable as we need to feel prior to a performance. Eliminate the uncertainties we have control over because other obstacles will always throw us for a loop in live performance – costume malfunction (Nasciemento skirt becoming untied and strings playfully doing another dance around my ankles), odd wings and back stage space (try an octagonal stage in FL with wings about two feet deep with 3 dancers hiding before a grand entrance), makeup running in our eyes (performing Envelope with my glasses pressed onto my face so hard my mascara runs and I’m forced to see out of one, barely open, blurry eye, which tends to happen on multiple occasions). Who says I’m talking from personal experience?? ; )

The performance is going to happen regardless. We choose to experience it trepidatiously or with an all-out vigor leaving no moment full expressed. Lets find trust in our work ethic and discipline. Performance is the prize for all those endless hours of rehearsal and class. So what if we’ve only rehearsal a dance 5 times before we perform it. We’ve had countless hours of dancing under our belt that prepares us to fly under this moment. So lets bring on the pressure and find out just what we are capable of; I bet we’ll surprise even ourselves.

(….gosh, even re-reading this serves as a helpful reminder!)

By far one of the most touching and enthusiastic viewers was Julio, sitting front and center, who was a professional flamenco dancer in Cuba.  Amazingly, he had much of his wit and dance knowledge still with him.  The thought of using your body as a form of expression and way of being, to then later be completely deprived of your body control and confined to a seat day in and day out is beyond comprehension.  Julio carried an air of acceptance and knowledge about his degenerative state, but maintained a glowing face and his contagious laughter.

It is so beautiful to have the capacity to extend yourself to others and this experience reinforced the gift of waking up every morning with the ability to dance.  Here are some photos Eileen took throughout the afternoon.  The dancers beyond myself who participated include: Julie Blume, Sarah Braverman, Eric Borne, John Corsa, Emily Daly, Jason Macdonald, and Ian Spring.  Very much looking forward to our next visit!

After a series of welcome back hugs and chatting about the tidbits of our summer that have been off each others’ radars, we got straight to business and Liz (associate artistic director extraordinaire) went over who’s going to be doing what for the upcoming performance of Remember Me in Chatham, NY for PS 21 (Performance Spaces for the 21^st Century).  This performance is somewhat of a transition between the former and new company – Julie will still be dancing, but this will sadly be her last performance – and some dancers will actually have to learn a separate role for when this upcoming season is underway.  Always a fun mind game!  Yet, there’s no better way to have a deeper understanding of the work and be a more educated teacher.  I fortunately will be the same role in Chatham as in the rest of the season, but it is a separate role from my initial Remember Me experience (I was Julie’s role and now slipping into Lauren’s and most of the core movement is similar – phew!).

The entire company is not back in rehearsals quite yet, so it was just us new folks – myself, Jason, and Ian – along with the help of Sarah, Julie, and Eric.  Most of the day we were translating from the video and sketching out as much of the piece as possible.  We got through the first half, which included about three sections for the ensemble.  Great progress for day one, but if I never have to learn another dance off a video I would die a happy dancer.  Dance companies across the board rely on videos in rehearsal to pass down the information effectively and it gets the job done.  It absolutely is a great record of dance – beats labanotation for the purpose of disseminating movement to future members for sure.  Now to completely dismiss the aforementioned, I find it incredibly tedious and instantly my dyslexia, seemingly inapparent in my writing, comes out in full force as I stare blankly at the screen for what feels like five minutes just to distinguish if I am on stage right or stage left.  Oy!  A good practice of patience I presume.  In addition to my bouts of mental slowness, the energy and dynamism of live performance get muffled through video and I’m often stuck learning movements and then applying the layers of performance, interaction, and energy afterwards.  It is a blessing to have the minds of those who originally conceived this piece in the room to retain and communicate the original intent.  Ideally, with each learning experience I’m attempting to embody the movement in as close to the full, performance form as possible.  I am itching to dance Remember Me with full gusto and looking forward to sinking deeper into it all tomorrow and eventually with a full cast.  Damn, patience is my arch-nemesis.

Assessment of day one?  My body felt a little “crunchy” (typical dance lingo for feeling less than supple!) and I plan on getting to the studio even earlier tomorrow to give myself a proper ballet barre.  That is, if my morning is more zen than today’s fun madness!  Face-planting pillow soon!

So these challenges aside and this positive spin in full force, Kate works so doggedly at her passion of dancing and choreographing.  She never relinquishes when the harshness of the industry (measly paychecks, attempting to produce your own work with limited funds, advertising creatively in an over-saturated world to name a few more, with no intentions of dampening your spirit of course!) get the best of her.

Last week I had the privilege of finally seeing “Un Duet Noir,” a piece she has been working on throughout these past few months taking on various final versions throughout its development.  Kate’s work displayed the dark emotions underlying an intimate relationship and the progression of emotions over time.  She had a set consisting of a black cloak, a mailbox, and about one hundred letters.   Kate’s props advanced and morphed with the development of the piece, taking on new meaning as the relationship between her and fellow dancer McCay Montz shifted and intensified; the cloak once something revered and cherished later masked and blinded her from reality, and the letters once scattered about the space later were packed into the mailbox.

© Paolo Ferraris

Although Kate’s props were rather basic for our overly visual society to accept, I view sets as another layer of choreography added to an already challenging creative environment and generally react pitifully tame and steer clear despite audiences’ ready capacity for visual stimulation.  Yes, now acknowledging this small fear, I will have to push myself to explore this with my next creative endeavor!  (This blog is going to be the death of me, holding me accountable in writing!)

Why this reaction from myself?  Props and video instantly add 1) an additional financial burden – even if its slight, 2) a physical burden – carrying them around town to various spaces and setting them up for each rehearsal, and 3) an artistic challenge – this being the most significant deterring factor for me because the prop/video needs to be integral to the piece and be used creatively throughout for it to be an enhancement.  Instead of smelling fear, Kate finds it easier to create once a tangible scene has been set on the stage.  Automatically now, the characters/dancers have objects to relate and respond to based on their own isms.  It serves as an aid to generate movement rather than an additional burden.  (One potential solution to conquering my hesitation!)

In similar vein to weaving sets compellingly into work, Kate also exemplified the intermingling between technically oriented movement and more theatrical/pedestrian gestures within her piece.  This is also a direction I am interested in heading choreographically.  My previous works in college and there after have been primarily movement based.  The theatrical moments Kate utilized throughout “Un Duet Noir” were dispersed within dance-oriented sections so it never felt uncharacteristically jolting.  How did she successfully strike this balance?  My deductive reasoning after chatting and engaging in the work is her character development.  The letters in the work are letters she wrote to those she had a complicated relationship with in her life.  However, she not only wrote them but mailed them to herself and reread them as they were delivered back to her apartment.  She wrote multiple letters to one person in varying tones and improvised different scenarios to question the reactions and motives of those she was investigating.  When she was creating, she knew her characters inside and out.  When solidifying the vocabulary she wasn’t setting choreography on dancers; she was embodying the gestures and body language of these depicted characters.  This allowed for the dance movement to be an extension of the pedestrian language and exist in this fluid cohesion.

© Paolo Ferraris

Anyone can string together a series of interesting (or not so interesting!) movement. A valid choreographer is capable of stringing these thoughts together and sculpting a scene in an inventive and intelligible pathway.  This brings a weight to the work elevating it from moving limbs to moving art.  One sign of a well-crafted piece is when you can sense the audience is with you.  (How I hate the shuffling and coughing of an audience as a struggling performer!) At the very end of the work, there is a playful moment between Kate and McCay where he jabs a note on her chest and she just peers back at him, a glimmer of a smirk on her lips, holding the heir of utter understanding only two people with a deep history can share.  There was a collective chuckle released from the audience who finally exhaled after traveling committedly through the dark drama prior.

© Paolo Ferraris

“Un Duet Noir” is a deeply personal expression of a relationship in Kate’s life.  (Ironically with this last performance, the relationship in actuality has somewhat withered away.)  She plans on leaving the personal to dive into the play of random objects, imposing a connection externally rather than from a deeply internal origin for her next work.

Here are some clips of my chat with Kate about her thoughts on her next creative endeavor.  Viewers beware:  looking directly up my nose is shockingly not my most photogenic angle but I’m putting vanity aside for the sake of disseminating dance banter!

“Un Duet Noir” was presented at The Rover on 41 Wooster Street: A new venue launching various dance artists.  It also holds affordable rehearsal space ($10/hr) and classes – check it out!

Here’s Kate’s company website, 121 Dance Project, if your further interested in her work.

I just got off the 6 train and nearly missed my stop thanks to the chapter devoted to “place cells” and “grid cells.”  Yes, I was for a moment that obnoxious girl walking on the platform distracted with nose in book.  I like to believe because I’m a dancer with hopefully slightly more body awareness than the average being, I can handle this multi-tasking conundrum with relative ease.  Not always the case, but this time I made it home unscathed.  So what are place cells and grid cells?  “Place cells map the space around your body in terms of whatever environment you happen to be in” (130).   These allow you to situate yourself within a space relative to the objects around you.   Grid cells on the other hand “map space independently from your environment” (130).  This accounts for you knowing where your body is in space based on your own movements.  Superb athletes, Sandra and Matthew explained, have highly developed place and grid cells which allow them to have extremely detailed awareness of themselves versus other players in the game and open court/field opportunities.  Through familiarizing yourself with your performance space, can you enhance your performance experience?  I do often like to meander about the stage, run around, become accustom to the wing space, distance from the audience, feel of the floor in different places, the height of the ceilings, etc.  Prior to a performance I like to make myself as familiar as possible with the space to feel a sense of ownership and comfort while dancing movements under the unpredictable wrath of live performance.  Apparently, this urge holds actual purpose – acclimating and activating your place cells – rather than just a psychological one.  With this in mind now, I will actively introduce this into my future performance routine, perhaps taking more tedious care to acknowledge my surroundings.  Let’s see if it has any beneficial effects! In addition, being comfortable with the movements of the dance and the other performers with you on stage, educates your place cells and heightens your awareness further allowing for appropriate handle of the curve balls of live performance.  Note the ease and effectiveness of a tight-knit dance company performing familiar repertoire while on tour.  Definitely looking forward to this unity for in the upcoming season!

However, how can we better prepare ourselves for performances that are not as familiar in our body? Dancing professionally often means being on tour and performing on stages you are experiencing just hours before curtain as well as jumping into new roles and pieces on a whim.  This is where grid cells and having superb comprehension of your body in space comes in handy.  As dancers we have been training to move our limbs through space for a sufficient part of our lives.  I would imagine that by now, our grid cells are well adept.  Edvard Moser, a scientist at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, believes we are born with our place and grid cells or they develop very early in our growth (132).

Can we strengthen our cells through constant rehearsal?   I like to believe so despite Edvard, because something tells me my place and grid cells could use some additional work.  I can’t help but recall a time when my grid cells were clearly out of whack.  It was my second Parsons performance of Remember Me when my first few 8 counts required me to chaine on stage from stage left to just beyond center mark and then stop on a dime to walk confidently downstage arms slapping the space in front of me directly towards the audience.  Well, the newness of the material, stage, and lights got the best of me, because as soon as I reached stage right of center and avoided hitting my partner Eric, who is spiraling directly at me mind you, I paraded my sorry butt upstage towards the scrim with complete conviction and gusto.  It only took about one or two steps before I recognized the black scrim was not quite the black haze of the audience and turned myself around like nothing ever happened besides my mental bewilderment of “did I really just do that?!”  What a way to kick off the piece, particularly when it’s David Parsons’ first time seeing you perform his work.  Priceless!  This seems like a prime example of my place and grid cells unable to adequately identify my body in space.  For the record, I am awful at recognizing my north-south-east-west unless I can identify at least one direction from an outside source.  Apparently there are people who innately know what direction they are facing.  Slightly jealous.  Sandra and Matthew claim once confused by cardinal directions, always confused since the cells themselves are confused (132).  Not looking too good for me.  I have slightly confused cells for sure!  This brings the golden rule of changing your position at the ballet barre to a whole new level.  I often change my spot at barre, but generally pick standing with my torso north and south (in the cardinal directions of the room) rather than east and west.  Think its time to start retraining my place cells!

I highly recommend The Body has a Mind of its Own for so much more than just this chapter.  If you are at all curious about how we make sense of our bodies in space from a scientific vantage point written in not-so scientific lingo, pick it up!

About to perform In the End on Friday in Maryland.  The Rouse theatre – a new theatre.  In the End – a new dance.  Come on cells, don’t fail me now!

The engaging challenge for me is to actively reach out and engage each and every student to have them put forth their best effort.  One of the most eye opening experiences was to see one young woman in particular have so many “can nots” and personal limitations imposed upon herself, when she truthfully had some of the most potential and mental swiftness of the bunch.  She wouldn’t dare push herself, but when myself and dance instructor for the program, Vivian Ullman (bless that woman and the tremendous work which she does!), milked it out of her she was nothing short of remarkable.  Gets me thinking so much about how our upbringing and background has such an impact on our perception of ourselves and the possibilities we have available to us.  I believe I can thank Malcolm Gladwell for this – reading Outliers now!  Perhaps a post about the patterns instilled in most “successful” (gosh whatever that means) dancers to come!  So without further ado and any more distracting side-bar remarks, here is intimate video footage of the dancers working, from the studio through to dress rehearsal.  Enjoy!

There seems to be two schools of thought – you either 1) follow a particular company, giving adequate face time.  You go to all their workshops, auditions, shows, classes taught by company members, etc. or 2) spread your energy to various classes, lacking focus on any one particular company or technique.  If you put all your eggs in one basket you can potentially master a style, making you the most likely candidate for hire.  “Yay!” But when the time comes, will they hire someone else leaving you feeling like you just lost your big shot? “Ekk! No!”  Unfortunately, I’ve seen it happen both ways.  If you go with route number two, are you training yourself to be versatile in this world of eclectic and ever-changing choreography or are you lacking objective?  All are good questions to ask ourselves periodically in the midst of attempting to obtain dance jobs.

Some companies seem to have a more linear pathway to hire such as Ailey, Graham, and Taylor.  These companies have second companies from which they can recruit into the first company.  Note the word “can” because for sure these companies have hired dancers without this seemingly logical progression.  If I want to join Ailey, you better believe I’d be taking classes there and assimilating myself with those dancers, teachers, and choreographers.  If Graham is your shtick, there are tons of classes at the Graham school and so forth.  However, these are companies with institutions attached to them.  What about Andrea Miller, Sidra Bell, or companies lacking a second company such as Momix and Parsons?  I believe networking and adequate face time is a must, in addition to obviously passion and inquisitive training.  Companies, and not just dance companies, hire based on who you know.  Bottom line, being in the game – in class with the dancers of these companies, incessantly honing your craft – counts for something.

Companies hire more than just talent.  They are hiring you as person to be a part of their creative family.  This kind of deep seeded relationship takes time to cultivate.  Your energy needs to gel with the others in the group, on a physical and personal level.  This works in the best interest of both parties – there is nothing worse than dancing in a company who’s work you do not believe in and who’s creative environment doesn’t allow you to prosper and grow.  Yes, not only do we need to be dancing, but we need to be dancing work we are passionate about.  Otherwise, what’s the point?  We clearly do this because we love it, not for the whopping paycheck at the end of the day.  Damn it.  Let’s make this even more challenging!

I’ll share my path so far, not because it’s all that fascinating or because I want to write about myself (hmmm, who doesn’t? Please note sarcasm).   Purely because when I first graduated, I would have loved to hear a personal story rather than being mystified and preoccupied with the how-the-hecks of the job-landing process.

I started dancing with Jacqueline Buglisi after learning Requiem while at Marymount Manhattan College.  I love that piece.  I remember performing it for the last time in college, saying to myself right before the first low bellowing note of Fauve’s Requiem, while having my torso draped over the edge of my box whispering, “Please don’t let this be the last time I perform this dance.”  And luckily, it wasn’t.  And the reason it wasn’t, was because I loved it that much and wanted to work so deeply on it, and that enthusiasm and passion shined through – at least that’s what I like to believe.  While in college I was lucky enough to do a few performances of Requiem with the company.  So upon graduation I was able to begin dancing with Buglisi Dance Theatre full-time once a fresh rehearsal process commenced.  Trust me, I remember sitting at the Joyce as an office intern with the company my senior year, wanting so badly to be a dancer on the stage with them for the following season.  I still had no idea if my efforts to stay connected with the company would prosper into Jacqueline asking me to join on for the season and the not knowing was arduous and exciting simultaneously.  However, I wish I felt more excitement being on the brink of a job rather than worrying if I would receive the opportunity.  Bottom line my efforts paid off and moreover, the company was a great fit for my movement style.

While dancing for Jacque I continued to do artistic projects with Sue Bernhard and Maxine Steinman (with whom I still work with) who were teachers of mine at college.  Also, through sheerly being close friends with the dancers of Shen Wei Dance Arts, I was able to be a part of their structured improvisation Behind Resonance at the Park Avenue Armory.  Shen Wei asked his dancers if they knew of anyone who would be great to work with for the project and my dear friend Javier included me into their process.  Being in a dance environment fosters dance opportunities – that simple.  Working in the restaurant also generates more bar and waitressing opportunities.  Take note of where you invest a large amount of your time.

The only dance job I landed solely on an audition without any particular connection to the choreographer was Take Urykemo.  I have danced in class and in college with some of the dancers in his company, which whether or not this helped in the audition process is unbeknownst to me, however it did bring a comfortable and familiar energy to the audition.  Importantly, the movement style felt familiar on my body and exciting simultaneously.

Most recently (as of last Friday!!), I received a job dancing with David Parsons.  (I believe the news threw me in a frenzy of screaming “Yes!!” in tandem with jumping up and down doing some semblance of some pathetic “happy dance” you would do when you were five – somehow I believe it was probably much cuter at five and slightly ridiculous at twenty-five, but who the hell cares?!

While I received news of landing this job in a single instant, so many other relationships and classes earlier in my training and career have made this a logical step.  My training prior to college consisted of jazz classes similar in attack to Parsons’ style.  I have performed work by Robert Battle and attend his classes whenever he offered them.  This was the most direct influence of Parsons technique and repertoire.

However the connection was established more concretely when I was taking Zvi’s ballet class at City Center – loving life, having a great class – and Parsons had rehearsal in the space directly afterwards.  From being involved in the small New York dance community and having auditioned for his company before, David casually talked to me after class.  Nothing significant, just small talk – water cooler chatter if you will.  The next day, I thankfully went to class again at City Center which was quite the feat considering I worked at the restaurant until about 3am the night prior.  When my alarm woke me up at 8:30am for class, it took countless times of lifting my head off the pillow in a wearied eyed debate with myself.  Finally, my will won the fight over my puffy eyes and tired head and I supremely decided I really wanted to go to class – there’s always time to sleep later.  (This personal mantra tends to bite me in the butt time to time – I’m not the most sane while sleep deprived!)  A cat nap was plotted on as soon as I got back home.  Little did I know that after ballet class, David would invite me to stay for rehearsal directly afterwards to just pick up some of the movement, mess around in the studio – “no guarantees.”  I was so beside myself excited and exhilarated.  Exhaustion was the furthest thing from my mind for those next hours.  I looked like a loony, jumping around the back of the studio trying to pick up anything I could while they ran through their pieces.  Turns out loony enthusiasm works.  (Should this be method 3 for getting a job?)  The next day, David asked me to study Julie’s track in Remember Me because there may be two performances at the Joyce when he need her role understudied.  What?!?!  Friggin’ awesome day.  (Yes, awesome day was not enough.  Classy I know.)  The next weeks all I did, and all I wanted to do was my best with the opportunity I was given.  I worked hard, but more importantly I enjoyed every second of it.  The company was such a great group of people and I felt I worked positively in their environment.  I felt challenged and appreciated.  I knew this was something I wanted to be a part of and I felt that it made sense for me.  Boring story short, the Joyce performances lead to a performance in Park City, Utah, which lead to a small fundraising improvisation, which lead to a performance opportunity with them in Maryland to perform a new repertoire piece, In the End.  They offered for me to take their summer intensive and learn the material for the Maryland performance during this time.  Fantastically, they also held an audition for a full-time position.  While I recognized I was in a great position for potential hire, I truly didn’t know if I was going to get the job, ultimately because so many things play a factor into hiring.  I had a blast dancing at the audition and worked hard.  The next day, David professed I got the job and…insert Happy Dance!

What has worked for me so far, and by no means have I reach some ultimate success, is taking classes and mastering to the best of my ability, techniques which make me feel the most alive and enjoying the various company of my colleagues along the way.   My take on the two methods of getting a gig?  In this day and age when variety seems to be a valuable asset it is ideal to have different disciplines in your back pocket.  That being said, when you are asked for a true Graham contraction, don’t put a Parsons spin on it and vice versa.  Listen and watch intently for these details because every company has a language being built on the detailed vocabulary of its movers.

Relax and recognize the relationships and training you established will get you somewhere in due time.  Nothing in life is guaranteed, but have faith in your efforts and keep going!  No audition is a wasted opportunity even if you get the boot at first.  Ya’ just never know…

Mystification disclosed?  I hope to at least some degree.

Wishing I had some backstage photos to share, but too caught up in the pre-performance rituals and backstage banter!   Warming up, fueling, hydrating, makeup-ing, hair do-ing, chatting – the list is endless!  Wondering if it was the banter or rituals that got the best of me.  Hopefully a more thorough account on future posts.  Someone hold me accountable!