Hello there ladies and gentleman.
Last Saturday night i attended an limited run at a new downtown art gallery called NIETO FINE ART who was hosting the works of San Francisco Ballet principal Ruben Martin. Everyone came out to the event that night to show Ruben some love and it was great to see a lot of the local dance scene all in one place because the rarely happens with everyone schedules. Interestingly come to find out a couple days before i had learned that we had a works in progress showing for the new show INK that im choreographing for. I thought we were showing in October but already we have gotten offers for spaces to host us so i put on my thinking cap real fast!
We have been in the space all week hacking away at new material which is nerve racking because i get kinda worried about one of us(me) knocking a painting off the wall which i could not afford but the director of the space is a really cool dude and likes what i have come up with thus far which is good because if that happens ill be like “Well…..its part of the work!”. Lets see how well that would fly with him:) The showing on the 19th is gonna be really neat for the viewers to watch because not only is there gonna be some great dancing that never stops but there will also be live music and painting all working under the theme of “INK” and how it flows. Such a simple idea with infinite possibilities and not one show will ever be the same with a rotating cast of dancers and musicians from all over. Ohhhhhh, Alex is gonna be dancing a 10 min solo with 4 live percussionist so please wish her well because she was dead after the run yesterday.
Man of the hour Ruben Martin thumbs up at his showing.
view from the top
dancers working in the space trying not to hit anything.
Click here for some rehearsal footage of Chris Stuart from the Nashville Ballet and I working out some new movement.
Click here to “like” on FaceBook. Only if you “like” it though!
lator gators.
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Help save Dance New Amsterdam
a pic from a piece that i rehearsed at DNA before it went onstage
Dancers, lovers of dance and the Arts in general! The downtown New York based dance Studio Dance New Amsterdam is in threat of being possibly evicted. This would affect a lot of the dance world because DNA is such a huge supporter of dancers, choreographers and companies by providing wonderful classes, rehearsal space, residencies and performance oppertunities. Personally i always enjoy working at the DNA studios because there is such a wonderful air about the space and the studios are all beautiful. Please take the time to help out by signing this online petition to keep DNA alive and kicking. click on link.
hope all is well.
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24: A Year of New Beginnings
Hi readers! Please forgive me for not posting as frequently has I had promised. I have been very busy out here on the road but am determined to do more blogging!
I’ve recently celebrated my birthday! Two weeks ago I turned 24 years ‘mature’, as I like to say. Birthdays and New Years Eve are two very sentimental days for me, filled with lots of reflection, prayer of thanksgiving for life and all of its obstacles, moments to rejoice and blessings while also praying with thanksgiving for the future. I had the wonderful opportunity of being able to celebrate my “Year of New Beginnings” (as I’ve been calling this year as a 24 year old) with close friends in New York City in-between tour stops. Thinking about all of the wonderful and also challenging obstacles I’ve had to overcome in the past year, I can’t help but think of where I was just one year prior. On my 23rd Birthday I was still having issues overcoming an ankle injury I had sustained earlier that year, was unemployed and broke. Emotionally, I was in a rough place, especially because on that very day, only one year prior (my 22nd Birthday), I had just graduated from college and was headed to start my professional life, performing in Susan Stroman’s Contact with North Shore Musical Theater in MA. At the time, it was hard to reflect on how different the two Birthdays had been experienced.
McQueen as a child
Within my first year out of college I had basically jumped from job to job, back to back. I was truly living the life as what we call in theater, a Gypsy! I performed in Contact, took a mini vacation at home in California and went straight into working with a ballet company in Texas as a guest artist. While finishing up my job in Texas, I found out I was offered another job traveling to Germany dancing for Panasonic Electronics, which started literally weeks after the Texas gig. Then, while in rehearsals for the job I was just about to do in Germany, the day before I departed for Germany, I received a phone call informing me that I had been hired to dance on tour with the Radio City Christmas Spectacular. Rehearsals began literally weeks after I returned from Germany. It doesn’t end there! Once I was back from the Christmas season on tour, I went to one audition and booked it! In about a month of my returning from being on tour I was back out on the road again performing in a regional production of Disney’s High School Musical. Looking at it on paper, I worked consistently for 10 months with very few breaks. I was thrilled that my hard work and perseverance was paying off but I knew it wouldn’t last always. In any event, I proceeded to “hustle” my way through auditions (as I like to call it) while on short breaks or just before leaving to start the jobs. I was looking everywhere for potential opportunities for work and build my career not only as a performer but also as a choreographer and keep myself busy. I must say, I auditioned like no other to get my face out there, going to as many auditions I could a week, but in the end, I truly felt like things were all falling into place. In a sense, the hard work and lack of rest was paying off. I was “on a roll” so to speak and the more I rolled…the more I kept trying to keep that ball rolling and the harder I pushed and worked, often not getting enough sleep at night.
On my 23rd Birthday I had not been onstage in what felt like forever (which was actually only a couple months) and was itching for something to do. I was having the hardest time getting a job. I would go into tons of auditions and come out feeling great, but none of them resorted in a job offer. I had fully been a part of what I like to call the “Roller Coaster Complex”. This is where you have stints of just doing really well, getting job offers after job offers in a row and always being busy, and then all of the sudden are left anxiously wondering what’s going to happen next and having difficulty even getting a callback. You know that feeling when your stomach drops from beneath you as you are coming down from a roller coaster really fast? The one where you’re left feeling uneasy, apprehensive, scared and vulnerable as if the ride is going to break? This Roller Coaster Complex, which hit me hard on my birthday last year and left me with much anxiety as I felt I was coming down the hill really fast. I knew in my heart that I just needed to remain faithful and focused that my situation wouldn’t be like the way it was, forever. I was off to a bumpy start of my 23rd year of life but I knew that I had to just continue keeping myself disciplined and continue “hustling” at auditions and the right opportunities that were meant for me would at some point appear. For the first three months of my year as a 23 year-old, I had a lot of time to really think and reflect on life and what it meant to me and what I hoped to obtain out of it. Through this unemployment slump, I was able to really reflect on my mission in life and focused a lot of my attention on volunteer work and giving back. In my heart, as much as I didn’t want to accept it at the time, I knew this was a time in my life that I knew I needed to have to a one-on-one conversation with myself about my life and my goals. Not to mention, I really needed the rest and time to rejuvenate my spirit. Through this period of reflection, I was able to discover whom Jeremy McQueen is and how he wants to leave his mark on the world.
McQueen (second from right) as a Flying Monkey in Wicked!
Fast forward to the preset day, only a year later, I cannot believe how much my life has changed. I have had so many wonderful blessings in such a short period of time! I finally got my “Equity” card touring with the 1st National Tour of The Color Purple, performed onstage at Radio City Music Hall, continued to make progress as a choreographer and now I am employed (On my Birthday!), performing in another Broadway national tour in a show that I’ve longed to do for so long, I am forever grateful for all of the challenges and moments of reflection I have had and will continue to have at points in my life. I truly believe that those moments help not only enhance your character but also prepare you for the challenges and blessings that lie ahead.
As I look forward to embracing whatever the universe has in store for me this “Year of New Beginnings” I have promised myself to be more faithful. I’ve devoted myself to really embracing my favorite quote that “Everything happens for a reason”. Even though we may not know how things will transform in our lives, I’ve dedicated myself to be more relaxed this year knowing that what is meant to be for me will be for me, when the timing is right. Until then, I will continue to be diligent in honing my craft and enjoying every little bump, fall, twist, curve, dip and climb that the roller coaster of life has to offer.
The Power of Passion and Perseverance
I auditioned for my current role in Wicked about 9 or 10 times. Honestly, I lost count after about the 8th time. But it was over the course of a few years. I was first introduced to Wicked during my senior year of high school when it first opened on Broadway. I had seen clips on You Tube and heard about the production, but it wasn’t until the end of my sophomore year of college that I decided to audition. I will never forget my first audition. I went into the waiting room and there were about 100 other guys practicing some strange combination.
My program inserts!
In my head I was thinking to myself that there was no way that these guys already knew the combination. To my surprise, they did know it, because the combination that you dance at the audition never changes. So they had all done their homework. I walked into the room and attempted to learn the ballet/modern based choreography but just couldn’t get it. The combination was counted so weirdly with a combination of 5, 6 and 7 counts. It all had my head spinning. I quickly was cut, but I had the best time of my life. The great thing about the Wicked audition is that they have a live drummer in the room. That was my first experience with that type of audition but having a drummer just makes it feel more like a performance and you sort of let your inhibitions go a little more and just really relish in the fact that you’re getting to dance this awesome choreography to some really rocking music.
Well, I got cut and walked out of the audition a little sad but determined to do my homework and go in there and NOT get cut the next time. I went home that night and videotaped myself doing the choreography so I would be able to remember it and reference it before the next required open call for the show in 6 months and I had also seen the show for the first time and became even more hooked and obsessed with working hard to make my dream become a reality. The next audition I went in with greater knowledge about the show and it’s style and gave it my all. This time I managed to get kept around to learn the second combination. I was so ecstatic but I still didn’t have the job in the bag. I was just happy to have made it a little further!
McQueen in costume from the OzDust Ballroom scene from Wicked
Over the course of the next three years the casting directors got to know me better, I grew as a dancer, young adult and artist and they called me in to be seen for the ‘track’ that I play in the show on several different occasions. Although I would often make it down to the final cut, I was not offered the role, but I didn’t get discouraged. I believed and stayed faithful that it just wasn’t my time and continued pressing forward in my pursuits of not only dancing in Wicked, but other shows as well. Eventually, after college, I started working and only went in to audition if it happened that I was not working on another show that conflicted with the audition.
Overall, the audition was a little intense the first few times but after a while you just get the hang of it. You dance about two or three different sections of a long combination and do some partnering with either the female dance captains or sometimes the female auditioners. Then the last thing you do is sing for the artistic team. The last time I went in to be seen for the part was just before Thanksgiving and I declared that if this job was truly for me, then I would be offered the role. If not, I couldn’t let it get me down and just had to keep working on other projects and finding other shows/parts that I am right for.
The Ensemble of the 1st National Tour of Wicked!
I choose to believe that if I am not cast in a particular show, it’s not a reflection on my talent or potential as a dancer, but rather, the casting directors and artistic team didn’t feel I was ready or just didn’t think I was ‘right’ for their show. At the end of the day, being cast in Broadway productions is a waiting game. You just have to keep working hard, be consistent with who you are and represent that fully each time you go into the audition room. It is our jobs as young artists to do out best to just enjoy the experiences of auditioning and not take things personally. After each of those nine auditions, I walked out of the audition room each time with my head held high believing that I had done my best and represented myself to the fullest. At the end of the day, that’s all you can do and that is all that matters.
Tonight, I will celebrate my 150th performance in the national touring company of Wicked! Each performance continues to be a surreal experience.
Dream big! Dreams do come true!
-Jeremy McQueen
Introducing Jeremy McQueen
One warm summer day in San Diego, my Mom took me to the San Diego Civic Theater to see a touring production of the Broadway hit, The Phantom of the Opera. At the young age of 8, I knew nothing about musical theater besides the Disney movie musicals I had seen on television and the few acting classes I had taken with a local children’s theater group. As we entered the grand theater with thousands of plush red seats, I was enthralled with the beauty and festiveness of this new experience. Everyone was dressed eloquently in semi-formal attire, including me in my Sunday suit. My Mom and I made our way to our seats on the last row of the balcony in the 3,000-seat theater, with my binoculars in hand. I had no idea what was in store for me that evening, but was very excited. As the curtain rose revealing a very large candle lit chandelier, with the sounds of blood curdling organ music and elaborate costumes filling the stage, I quickly found myself caught in a trace. Over the course of the next 3 hours, I sat on the edge of my seat, staring through my binoculars, never bli-
Photograph from the Broadway production of The Phantom of the Opera.
nking once so not to risk missing a single moment of the action. From that single experience, I decided that I wanted to be a performer. I wanted to be in a production of that caliber and perform on regal stages across the globe. From that moment on, my Mom nurtured my passionate desire as I disciplined and immersed myself in everything related to theater.
The Phantom of the Opera left a lasting impression in my life. Being exposed to the arts at such a young age introduced me to the magnificent world of live theater and helped provide me with focus for the rest of my childhood. The moment the curtain fell at the closing of the performance, I begged my parents to put me in acting, singing and dance classes and I worked my hardest each day to become the strongest ‘triple threat’ I could become. I would often save up my allowance during high school just so that I could afford to buy a ticket to see whatever national touring show was coming to town that month.
16 years later, I’m still out here working hard and achieving my goals, one step at a time. I am currently a featured dancer in the 1st Broadway National Tour of Wicked! Over the next couple of months, I will introduce you to my evolution as an artist, the life of a touring Broadway performer and all that comes with it. Join me every couple of days as I take you on a behind the scenes journey of my life as a performer, choreographer and teacher.
-Jeremy McQueen
New Works in New York this April!
Hello everyone!
I hope that everyone is doing well and that the New Years is working out for you.
This month im gonna be back in NYC with a couple different projects that i would love for you to come out to. I can promise you a fun filled evening with some new innovative work.
April 16th will be the world premiere of a new dance film titled “Burrowed Brow” otherwise known as the “Squirrel Dance” at Dance Theater Workshop. The process of the film is pretty awesome if i would say so myself. And here we go:
Alex before getting into costume
The film was a Twitter collaboration with myself Dance Theater Workshop and @common_squirrel. A little background info for you is that Dance Theater does something called “community choreography” on twitter where they ask they’re followers to tweet them any dance move like “right elbow up” and then they have a dancer make sense of all of the replies and film it. Super cool concept, I always thought as it being very inclusive for the followers to be part of the creative process. I was too busy during the time with Sketch comedy shows ghost choreographing and other projects but always kept a close tab on Twitter. One day Dance Theater posted another challenge where they wanted someone to take the tweets of @common_squirrel and make a dance out of that. My scheduled had freed so I decided to take on the task. After looking at the tweets of “run run scratch scratch sniff sniff TREE acorn”, I had to ask myself what did I get myself into? I contacted my dancer Alex Jenkins whom was born for the part and we started to work on the movement in Studio G. I knew that it would be tres easy to make it cheesy ( ahh that rhymes) so I added some meat to the bones and gave the movement a back story or a reason to exist. However working in my studio I was constantly laughing at what we were coming up with because C’mon, how seriously can you make a squirrel dance? After finishing the choreography I contacted my new fantabolous costume designer to get involved. I sketched her out a drawing that was inspired by Where The Wild Things Are meets Japanime and slapped with punk. From that point I contacted my videographer and long time collaborator Dr.Bacon about shooting the dance on location in DC. He was telling me about some new ideas that he had and all of the new tech equipment that he wanted to shoot it on so this dance was ago! Through the generosity of David Benaym co-founder of Movmnt Magazine (along with Danny Tidwell) we had our tickets to DC to film the thing! The shoot was crazy because my dancer and I both were not feeling well and we both had an 11 hour day of shooting other dances before Burrowed Brow. Needless to say after dancing in a super hot Squirrel costume being sick will make a person vomit off the side of the road like Alex did after the shoot. Now that pre-production was completed we flew back to San Francisco where I had my new award winning music producer David Molina score the film with my sound instructions. Dance Theater Workshop will be premiering the film at they’re space on the 16 along with other community choreographies and older dance films by us with artist such as Jacoby & Pronk dancers from SFB and others. Here is the NYT article on dancers using Twitter with Ashley Bouder on the cover. The Winger and Kristin Sloan got a shout out too:) More info about tickets which are limited click here. I will also be posting the film up somewhere on the web that day for one day only so id check my blog for more details.
April 22-24th will be my 1st ever 20min work titled “A Study Of Things Gone Wrong” being presented in New York as part of the Chronos Project with fellow Winger and show producer Benny Royce Royon. Costumes provided by the San Francisco based clothing brand HUF. Other choreographers include Nilas Martins and Monique Meunier. I’m very excited to be part of this project because its also marks the 1st time my work has been presented in NYC ever since I was a student so I have to be sure not to suck!!!! I was in NY last month setting the piece on the dancers whom were all great to work with and could handle my sound effects. In the evenings after my work day I would watch Bennys rehearsal. His work was soo inspiring. His movement vocab is exciting to watch along along with the choices that he makes its easy to see that this is something that he is meant for. His dancers are something to talk about as well. Not too mention him being one hell of a mover. I told him every time I watched his work I would go home and think to myself “damn! what am I doing? I need to step my game up”. Anywho, we will be having performance at the University Settlement and i would like to invite everyone whom is in town to come out and support some great work. more info here.
I posted this video years ago on the site. I finally got around to using the movement in one of the sections of my new dance. Try and see if you are able to recognize it:)
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Find Love with the Paris Opera Ballet and Dr. Fisher
Join me on Monday night for just that: the Guggenheim Works and Process presents EMOTION & MOTION With dancers from the Paris Opera Ballet and Dr. Helen Fisher. I will be tweeting this event live at 7:30p from @lolastretch and @worksandprocess.
I will take you, 140 characters at a time, through the lecture and performance as Clairemarie Osta and Mathieu Ganio, ?toile dancers from the internationally acclaimed Paris Opera Ballet, will interpret various stages of love through dance, with discussion on brain systems that evolved for reproduction: lust, romantic love, and attachment by renowned anthropologist Dr. Helen Fisher, author of Why We Love and Why Him? Why Her?.
Interspersed between excerpts from Giselle, Emeralds and Caligula, Dr. Helen Fisher explores the connections between the dances and lust, romantic love and attachment. Today’s NY Times also references Dr. Fisher in an article about the business of finding love.
Happy Valentine’s Day! and hope to interact with you all on Monday night via twitter feeds!
xo
Candice
Dancing for Haiti
It’s horrible to hear of the tragedy in Haiti and how the devastation continues for the people who suffered from the earthquake recently - but it’s even more of a shock to know someone closer to home, in our own tight NYC dance community, who was hit personally by the aftermath.
The Haitian dance teacher at The Ailey Extension Program, Peniel Guerrier, apparently lost family members in the devastation and knows others in trouble there. Fortunately Ailey has donated time and space to offer a big benefit performance evening, with all ticket proceeds going directly to those in need in Haiti.
Though I’ve never taken Peniel’s class, I always feel a personal loss when I hear of sad news in the dance community (like the recent death of my teacher’s great ballet teacher, Dick Andros). The dance world is so small and I’ve somehow developed that strong empathy for those who’ve lost - so I am very glad to know I can do something myself to help this time.
I’ll be performing in the 9:30pm benefit performance this Saturday night (Jan. 23), and I’m really looking forward to being part of the cause. I’ll be dancing one of my favorite variations - Kitri’s Act 3 Variation from Don Quixote - coached by my amazing teacher, Kat Wildish.
If you’re in the city and want to give, I highly recommend coming to either the 7pm or my 9:30pm performance that night. A whole slew of talent is performing. Cash donations are also being accepted at the Ailey Extension front desk at their studios. Purchase tickets (and see more info) here.
“King of all Nutcrackers”?
I’m running errands about town and happened to chance upon this.
According to its inscription:
“This Nutcracker is believed to be the King of all Nutcrackers. Found in Saragosa during the 17th century, it is the oldest Nutcracker ever discovered.”
(Marquis Lorenzo Leonard)
So functional, non?
Opening Night of “Itutu” at BAM
It’s my day off today, and I plan to do nothing except try to see a masseur or a physical therapist. My back is super sore and my left calf won’t release me of it’s grip. I am in pain. The usual. But, I was really happy to see my friends last night who came to see me perform in the opening night of “Itutu.” It’s always an extra boost to know that friends and family are in the audience watching. The house was full! I think our company did exceptionally well last night. I could feel the “mystic cool” energy from everyone, including the audience.
It’s been a dream of mine to dance at the BAM stage! I am truly blessed. Two more shows and it’s over.
Come see us!
