In fact, Karin’s last performance (which she refers to as her “Swan Song”) is a dance interpretation of this hand-me-down tradition.  In this performance, Karin dances with Kathy.  Karin performs a set of steps and Kathy imitates her.  The sets get more and more complicated, and overlap each other more and more, until Kathy and Karin are doing the routine together, their taps completely in unison.  The choroegraphy is great, and so is the sound of it. 

Karin was kind enough to loan me a DVD of this performance, and I’m working on ways to get it up on this blog.  So, hopefully, accompanying video to come.

An interesting article in the Sunday Times Arts section, “Twisting and Chatting the Ailey Way” by Jennifer Dunning, raises a few questions about storytelling, reporting, and the ways we employ different media forms.

In the article, Jennifer Dunning “covers” a sit-down conversation/interview between Matthew Rushing, a performer with the modern dance troupe Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater since 1992, and Judith Jamison, the troupe’s director. 

Dunning begins:

DANCES have traditionally been handed down from performer to performer, even since the invention of dance notation. But how do dancers learn about the mysterious culture of performing? Some of that can be soaked up in the daily work, but there is nothing quite like a lazily extended, spontaneous conversation with a veteran choreographer, dancer or company director.   

That last clause seems true enough.  But in that case, why are we reading a news feature about it?  What of the elements of conversation, in this instance: of a certain inflection, pauses for thought, laughter, sighing, all the rest?  Dunning attempts to recreate the scene of the talk for us, but ultimately falls short.  The article, in turn, is strange– it is merely all he-said-then-she-said, and the effect is distancing, almost uncomfortable.  We don’t know why Dunning was there.  And if the conversation was spontaneous, well, we don’t quite believe it from Dunning’s transcript.  How nice it would have been to hear actual voices.  To have an audio option!

I believe completely in the power and effect of carefully-wrought writing, and especially in narrative.   And I prefer good writing to good versions of all other media forms (audio, video, etc., whatever).  Had Dunning been interested in voice, had she made an attempt to convey through writing what couldn’t be conveyed through audio alone– something visually important, some small moment or almost imperceptible gesture (maybe too easily overlooked on video), than the writing might have been worth it.  But without, why not just have an audio bar?  Why not a video of these two people interacting? 

I think this example draws upon what I consider the major lesson of our course: that different stories call for different storytelling media, distinct forms.  And it’s the author/videographer/editor’s job to use the chosen form to its maximum capacity.  I’m not sure if this is something I’ve been able to accomplish in every exercise this semester, but it’s something I’m certainly more aware of than I have been before.     

Thanks!

And of course once I have an audio complement, it will be easier to convey a clear narrative. See slideshow below …

Nowak’s case puts a strange spin on the age issues already at play in the dance community.  It’s a given that the majority of dancers will reach an age at which they can no longer perform at a professional level; the intense physicality of dance is straining, regardless of whether it results in debilitating injury.  In a way the reality that all professional dancers must eventually stop dancing at the high levels contributes to the stigma around dance, its seeming specialness compared to other performance arts.  Dance careers expire in a way that careers in acting and music don’t; they are always stipulated by states of physicality.  In theory an actor has the option to progress from young actor to adult lead to mature character actor.  Of course, it doesn’t always work out this way for actors.  But in dance maturation is not even an option.  After a certain age, bodies can no longer perform the way they need to in order to make any sort of living by dancing only.

At this career point a paradox arises.  In order to have succeeded at professional dance most dancers will have eschewed other training, advanced education, hobbies.  Like any competitive and difficult art or sport, dance doesn’t allow time for the indulgence of many other interests.  When dancers find themselves unable to keep working they face a difficult period of transition into a second career (CTFD was created to help dancers through this transition). 

So it’s interesting that the ABT Orchestra would be implicated in even one case of age discrimination.  Orchestras are unlike dance companies in that their members can (in theory) perform well through middle-age.  Still, ABT orchestra is so near dance.  And though age is a detriment in the profession, one would assume that it’s a sympathetic one, both inescapable and irrelevant to skill or strength or deservedness.  It’s easy to imagine that youth is revered in the community but difficult to imagine that older age is, in contrast, disrespected or disregarded.  It rather seems an unfortunate, universal inevitability.   

(Click below to access the rest of the post, and to read its recent addendum re my Feelings and Thoughts re movie-making…) 

Jary’s transition was prolonged, in part, by the education process; Jary left dance at age 30, and she had to complete her undergraduate degree (she’d left college after two years when she was offered a chance to do dinner-theater in Denver) before attending Columbia University’s School of Social Work.  

But the process was also slowed by Jary’s hesitance to detach herself from dance, her reluctance to no longer qualify as a professional dancer.  As a student she maintained her Dance Equity Membership.  Choosing to apply for and attend a graduate program was, to Jary, the equivalent of negating her former identity.  She visited CTFD frequently for one-on-one and group sessions even after she’d decided to pursue social work and become a counselor; 4 years into her transition, she hadn’t quite ruled out auditioning for dance work again.    

One year after graduating from Columbia an opening at CTFD allowed Jary to begin her counseling career assisting dancers who found themselves in similarly difficult and emotional transitional phases.  Jary asserts that her transition process is not singular.  Many dancers, says Jary, refuse to address their inevitable transition out of dance until they find themselves rather forced out of the dance profession, either by age or injury.  “Transition is still stigmatized, it’s still taboo,” says Jary; “In my experience, I’d say 75% of our clients come to CTFD already in crisis.”   

*Addendum!  Making the video.  The video above is my first-ever video, composed of my first-ever film footage.  I have never before had even the littlest interest in video narrative.  I think in words, not in images, and– I know now for sure– it’s difficult for me to predict what images will best tell the story that’s still forming while filming; and then it’s difficult for me to arrange the images collected in a compelling way.  My footage is lousy, though (thank goodness) Suzie Jary is a pretty engaging talking-head.

But video editing– video editing is Great.  It’s so much like editing in writing.  And it’s a dream for compulsives; all of those orderly lines and boxes and in-buttons and out-buttons.  So editing alone wasn’t as jarring a process as that of collecting and composing the visuals; it was actually sort of a pleasure.  I do hope for next time to have a better handle on B-roll, to capture something dynamic enough to do some serious justice in Avid.*      

Career Transition for Dancers is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to assisting professional dancers in periods of transition– most notably, the inevitable transition out of professional dance and into additional schooling and second careers.  CTFD provides one-on-one counseling and several specialized support groups, as well as scholarships and grants of up to $2000 for eligible individuals. CTFD was founded in 1985 in response to an international dance-themed conference held London that year, a conference which significantly addressed the issue of “the dancer’s situation;” that is, that a dancer’s career will inevitably reach its end due to either age or injury, much earlier than most professionals in mainstream careers (or even various other performance careers) face retirement.  This situation leaves professional dancers in an awkward and uncertain position, as many eschew other types of formal training and education in order to wholly pursue–and succeed at–dance.

In its early stages the organization, motivated by the efforts of professional dancer Ann Barry who would act as its founding and executive director, existed as an off-shoot of the Actor’s Fund.  Eventually it grew large enough to sustain itself as a non-profit.  Much of its funding was found in the profits of the organization’s annual dance gala, which grew in scope and spectacle each year.  (This year’s gala, themed “Dance Rocks!“, will take place on October 29 at the New York City Center.)