The National Museum of Dance in Saratoga Springs, New York, has exhibits as well as three spacious studios used by NYSSSA.
Is there heaven on earth? Living and working intensively with a group of passionate dancers, choreographers, and educators comes pretty close. Throw in access to gorgeous studios at the National Museum of Dance and Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs; 35 young dancers hungry to learn modern dance; projects with the American Dance Legacy Institute; and visits by other dance scholars and artists. This heaven is the New York State Summer School of the Arts (NYSSSA) in Dance. While NYSSSA’s ballet program is conducted in conjunction with New York City Ballet’s season at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center, this 4-week modern dance intensive is directed by former Paul Taylor dancer and Juilliard faculty member Carolyn Adams along with her sister Julie Adams Strandberg, who heads Brown University’s dance program. Every year, the pair assembles a dynamic faculty including musicians, professional dancers, and established and emerging choreographers who set and create work on talented teenagers from New York State. With the age spread of the faculty and guest artists plus the presence of family members ranging in age from just a few months old to nonagenarians, NYSSSA Dance feels like an intergenerational artist village. I have had the privilege of serving on the staff and faculty side of NYSSSA Dance for several summers - and it was there that I really started researching and teaching - so it holds special significance for me. It is one of my artistic homes, populated by an inspiring and supportive artistic family.
This year is the 20th season of NYSSSA Dance, and I spent last week in Saratoga to help with preparations for an alumni reunion and to reconnect with colleagues and former students. Each morning, I joined students and other faculty in rigorous classes taught by Carolyn Adams, Robert Battle (director of Battleworks Dance Company), and Battleworks dancer Erika Pujic. The teenagers spent the rest of their days in rehearsals with Robert & Erika; Toronto-based choreographer Danny Grossman (another former Taylor dancer) & dancers Eddie Kastrau and Laura Bennett; Jessica Lang; Kanji Segawa; and Marisa Ballaro (a NYSSSA alum herself). Meanwhile, I kept myself busy by assisting with some logistics, taking a little time in the studio to improvise, and treating my sore muscles to a mineral bath (Saratoga is known for its spas). Even better, I had the opportunity to coach dancers in a few works for Saturday night’s faculty concert. I started serving as a rehearsal assistant while I was injured in college and grew to love this role, keeping it even after my body healed and I returned to the stage; in fact, with my graduate degree in directing dances from Labanotation scores, I spent plenty of time leading rehearsals and polishing pieces for performance. I relished jumping back into this position after a year away, and armed with a more thorough understanding of dynamics and energy from my experience dancing in Israel, I had fun applying this knowledge in my coaching.
The reunion weekend itself was terrific. I caught up with old friends and met other alumni at receptions, took Robert Battle’s invigorating master class, enjoyed a lecture-demonstration showcasing NYSSSA students in the repertory they were learning, taught part of Donald McKayle’s Rainbow Etude for an alumni workshop, and proudly watched the dancers I coached in the faculty concert. I also celebrated late into the evening for a few nights (what else can you do when you have such a great group of people assembled with good food and music?), so while I already miss everyone, I’m happy to get some more sleep again!
Here are some photos from my week in Saratoga, and soon I’ll also post some from the faculty concert.
Clapping and drumming on the floor to applaud master class teacher Robert Battle and musician Tom Farrell.
Teaching part of Donald McKayle’s Rainbow Etude for an alumni workshop. Photo by NYSSSA co-director Julie Strandberg.
Demonstrating more of Donald McKayle’s Rainbow Etude for an alumni workshop. Photo by Julie Strandberg.
Laura Bennett’s Reverieduring dress rehearsal for the faculty concert. Laura is the program coordinator for NYSSSA dance, and because she was also dancing in this piece, I helped out as rehearsal assistant. The dancers are Amy Marie Burns, Erika Pujic, Jude Sandy, Melody Gamba, Laura Bennett, and Marisa Ballaro. Photo by Laura Frank, who is also a NYSSSA counselor.
Some of the NYSSSA alumni, faculty, and family members after an alumni brunch. There are talented NYSSSA alumni studying dance in college, performing with major choreographers like Mark Morris and Bill T. Jones, dancing on Broadway, choreographing, directing their own companies, and teaching dance in a variety of settings.
And just for fun:
My mineral bath, with some essential oils that are supposed to soothe sore muscles. Wouldn’t it be great to have this after every rehearsal?
This is one of the posters starting appear around the city (this one at 5th Ave N/R/W train stop). This is a great event at City Center (all tickets $10!!!) The shows are in Sept. Everything from Shen Wei, ABT, Cunningham, to Oregon Ballet Theater and much much more. A great mix, the right price, and a SUPERB venue. One of these days, we hope SYREN will get on the bill! In the meantime, we are enthusiastic supporters.
Riding in style with the Batsheva Ensemble on the Batsheva bus!
The theater in Kfar Saba which hosted studio Zeadim’s end-of-year performances
As a dancer who performs in a variety of aesthetic frameworks, occasionally teaches technique, stages repertory, and conducts dance history research through physical as well as traditional means, I’m always intrigued by the intricacies of training. Sometimes my inquiries are bounded by time periods. In graduate school, for instance, I cast a critical eye on the nascent techniques of American modern dance in the 1920s and 1930s. Right now, though, my inquiries are bounded by geographical space: the borders of Israel.
I started my examination of dance training in Israel by taking both Gaga classes and a variety of contemporary dance classes at studios throughout Tel Aviv-Yafo. As my body absorbs the information in these settings, I better understand the particular techniques themselves as well as the ways in which they are disseminated. Yet individual classes - and particularly the classes I take, which draw a population of working dancers and/or adults who dance for pleasure - do not provide a sense of how Israel’s training system functions, how a network of studios and schools prepare aspiring dancers for professional careers. To learn more, I’ve stepped outside of the professional Tel Aviv circuit, talked with teachers of younger dance students, and attended an array of student performances: a smorgasbord of pieces performed at the Suzanne Dellal Center by dancers from a variety of studios; a selection of works performed by students from several performing arts high schools; student compositions at the highly regarded Telma Yellin high school in Givatayim; workshop performances by young dancers who are studying Gaga with teachers from the Batsheva Ensemble; end-of-year concerts by students at the Zeadim (Steps) studio in Kfar Saba; and concerts by undergraduate students at the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance. Here are the basics, from my vantage point:
Ballet, the foundation of many dancers’ training in the U.S. and Europe, does not have strong roots here in Israel. Without a wealth of professional ballet companies and their attached academies, the country’s dance training system for children and adolescents follows a different model. There are plenty of independent studios throughout Israel, but it seems that for teenagers who are serious about becoming dancers, the key site of training is a solid high school dance department (and I mean solid - this is not at all like my public high school in the U.S., which had two classes labeled dance that primarily readied us for swimsuit season with lots of ab work set to music). The best high school programs in Israel bear some resemblance to U.S. university programs, with courses in ballet, modern dance, composition, improvisation, repertory, history, anatomy, music, and other related subjects. It’s from here that many dancers enter the professional world, further polishing their skills in workshop groups and second companies (such as those affiliated with Batsheva, the Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company, or Vertigo Dance Company) or performing with independent choreographers. The university, which has such a prominent role in educating America’s modern dancers, is barely present in the Israeli training system. Two notable exceptions are Seminar HaKibbutzim in Tel Aviv and the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, but their programs emphasize pedagogy rather than performance or choreography. It’s important to note that the students at these colleges are older, having spent a few years - often the most formative ones in a dancer’s life - completing army service. Some dancers get out of the military in order to train and perform during this crucial phase of artistic development.
While the nuts-and-bolts differences between Israeli dance training and American dance training are intriguing, it is what is taught in the studio itself that is most fascinating. I’m not sure how some of you trained, but until I went to college, I merely had a smattering of modern dance at Princeton Ballet and Walnut Hill’s summer ballet workshops with an extra dose thrown in through a pull-out modern dance program for high school students in my county in Jersey. Here, however - at least from the look of the performances I have seen - modern (or contemporary) dance is the name of the game. I most recently went to nearby Kfar Saba for the end-of-year performances by a local studio called Zeadim (Steps). Yes, there was some ballet and some tap on stage, but there was clearly a modern dance thrust to the training and the resulting show. The school’s director, Adi Hen-Degani, talked about the influence and inspiration of the Batsheva Dance Company, and her studio’s older students actually studied Gaga, the training method developed by Batsheva’s director Ohad Naharin. Doron Raz taught Gaga to Zeadim’s teenagers once a week and set excerpts from Naharin’s work. The 12 to 15-year-olds enthusiastically danced the accumulative “Echad Mi Yodea” section that has cropped up in various productions and that you might recognize from Deca Dance, while the 16 to 18-year olds passionately broke out into full-bodied solos in the “Arab Line” section from Virus (it has also been featured in Deca Dance). As part of the connection between Zeadim and Batsheva, the Batsheva Ensemble also performed Naharin’s Seder after each of two concerts so that families might see the progression and the possibility of where their budding dancers might be in a few years. Batsheva may not have a full school in the mold of those attached to American ballet companies (and some modern companies), but the company is building links with Israel’s existing training structures and consequently, some lucky students are making big steps forward in their abilities and artistry.
Many thanks to Eldad Mannheim, Adi, Doron and everyone involved in the Zeadim/Batsheva experience, as well as to David Dvir, Netta Blumenthal, Paul Bloom, and others who gave me a glimpse at other schools and student concerts!
Well, the company is hard at work creating a new piece that is set to the “Pelleas et Melisande” suite by Sebelius. We have just two weeks before it premieres! It will be the first time SYREN has worked with live musicians, so we are thrilled and a bit nervous at the same time.
The company has never worked so fast, with only four weeks to get the piece done. Our heads are spinning in 12’s and 3’s, but we are really getting somewhere, and I think that after Thursday’s rehearsal we will have a solid dent in the beast!
Check out what Lynn and Lindsay were rockin with today…
I’d like to introduce you to Ms. Kate Mehan of SYREN Modern Dance. Kate co-founded SYREN with Lynn Peterson after graduating from SUNY Purchase. She also happens to be a friend of Sean’s from NYCB (who has great taste and is an incredible artist himself) so I’m really excited to learn more about what Kate and Lynn and SYREN are up to. They just finished successful performances of a work called DIG at the Ailey Citicorp Theater and can be seen at the Dance Theater Lab at SUNY Purchase in March.
There began a small investigation here in Kassel about the origin of an idea. Johannes Wieland, Director and Choreographer of the Tanztheater in Kassel built his version of “Le Sacre du Printemps” around seven human-sized tanks, each filled with at least 500 Liters of lukewarm water. The idea stemmed from a piece he created and premiered in New York City (2001) called “Tomorrow;” which has become one of Johannes’ signature works. In our rendition of “Sacre,” water ends up converting the entire opera house stage into a slippery sea comprised of splashed water, buckets full of water and quite literally, hair loads of tossed water.
After our premiere, a writer for the “Süd Deutscher” Newspaper wrote a positive review of the work but inferred that Johannes “copied” a piece by Sasha Waltz, a famous European choreographer whose company is based in Berlin. The reviewer attributed the originality of the tank idea to Ms. Waltz and her work “Dido and Aeneas,” which premiered in 2005. Chronologically, the tanks of water appeared first in Johannes’ “Tomorrow” nearly eight years ago. The writer of the review failed to research Johannes’ repertory and made a false claim based on her performance-going experience.
So, where did the idea of tanks of water on a stage originate? And does it matter? Can ideas really be claimed? It seems to me (and several of my colleagues with whom I’ve spoken much with about this issue) that both choreographers found reason to use the same not-so-commonly-used prop as tools to achieve separate visions. And perhaps tanks of water have been used on stage in several other occasions, perhaps prior to both of the aforementioned pieces.
Which brings me to another issue: the writing of a review. What is going on? I was taught to write as objectively as possible when reviewing performance art, and though I did not go to Journalism school, isn’t the point of it all to educate the public? How can we expect the public to gain an interest in dance if we make assumptions without researching the facts we claim or telling the public what “I” like and “I” think about the work. Thank goodness for blogs…
