In this episode, NCCAkron's Executive/Artistic Director, Christy Bolingbroke enters the 'studio' with Miami-based, Cuban-American dancer and choreographer Rosie Herrera. In addition to being the artistic director of Rosie Herrera Dance Theater, she is an independent director and creative consultant and a classically trained lyric coloratura soprano who performs with the Performers Music Institute Opera Ensemble. Rosie has been awarded choreographic fellowships by MANCC and Bates Dance Festival, among others and was awarded a Princess Grace Choreographic Fellowship for her work with Ballet Hispanico.
In this episode, NCCAkron's Executive/Artistic Director, Christy Bolingbroke enters the 'studio' with Miami-based, Cuban-American dancer and choreographer Rosie Herrera. In addition to being the artistic director of Rosie Herrera Dance Theater, she is an independent director and creative consultant and a classically trained lyric coloratura soprano who performs with the Performers Music Institute Opera Ensemble. Rosie has been awarded choreographic fellowships by MANCC and Bates Dance Festival, among others and was awarded a Princess Grace Choreographic Fellowship for her work with Ballet Hispanico.
INTRODUCTION: Thanks for joining us Inside the Dancer’s Studio where we bring listeners, like you, closer to the creative process. Inside the Dancer’s Studio is a program of The National Center for Choreography at The University of Akron, as part of our Ideas in Motion initiative. This episode was recorded in the presence of a virtual audience in the Winter of 2022. Today we join Christy Bolingbroke, our Executive / Artistic Director in conversation with Miami-based, Cuban-American dancer and choreographer Rosie Herrera. In addition to being the artistic director of Rosie Herrera Dance Theater, she is an independent director and creative consultant and a classically trained lyric coloratura soprano who performs with the Performers Music Institute Opera Ensemble. Rosie has been awarded choreographic fellowships by MANCC and Bates Dance Festival, among others and was awarded a Princess Grace Choreographic Fellowship for her work with Ballet Hispanico.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE:So the first question that I have for you, is how, or maybe when did you know you wanted to be a choreographer?
ROSIE HERRERA:Wow, I think I was probably making dances before I understood that that was what choreography was.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: I mean, choreography is such a big word. Yeah.
ROSIE HERRERA:Yeah, exactly. And so when I was a kid, I used to put on productions, like in my house where I was like the star, the, you know, costume designer, and I was I did everything. So I was doing that, as a young age, I didn't understand that to be choreography. But really, I started making dances when I was in college, because I wasn't getting picked for any. And I was like, if I want to perform, I have to make a dance. Yeah. And so really, it was about me performing and me really wanting to perform.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: So I love so much about just that story. First reflecting, like, make the opportunities that you want for yourself. And then also the idea of how your idea of choreography started from a place of play. And that childlike curiosity and wonder. Now as an adult, where do you start, you know that there's a lot of mythology around inspiration, right, and the muses that are supposed to inform our art making. So I'm curious, like, where do you begin? As far as finding your own inspiration, or starting with music, or, you know, you just you start moving and find other things later, there's no one way. So where do you begin?
ROSIE HERRERA:I love that question. And I think I'm really trying to every single time, reinvent the wheel, reinvent how I'm approaching making dances. I have a pretty intense research period. So I actually was talking to my stage manager of 12 years, Tiffany Schrepferman yesterday, and she was saying to that she was talking to her friends about oh, yeah, well, Rosie is in research for five years before she makes a piece. And it wasn't until she said that, that I was like, Oh my God, you're right. I do do that. I tend to really start with a feeling a sensation, that can be physical, it can be sort of like an intellectual question, but sort of like a gut feeling. I'll give you an example. When I made “Dining Alone” in 2010, which feels like 1000 years ago, I used to have this very strong gut reaction to watching people I grew up in my father's restaurant, and I would see people dying alone. And I got this feeling that I didn't understand. It wasn't sadness, it wasn't nostalgia. It wasn't confusion, it was something I didn't understand. And so that gut feeling sort of became the basis of the work and then after I have a gut feeling, then I identify what are my interests? What are my intellectual interests? What are my aesthetic interest? And then the very last thing to come online is like, what does it mean about me? Like, what is it? How does it reflect what's going on in my heart and in my mind, and in the heart and mind of the people that I tend to attract to be in the room? So, so the part of the research is, like, you know, obviously a lot of reading and thinking and speaking and sharing and collecting music and collecting objects and collecting fabrics and being in the world of that dance for a really long time before I go into the studio, so that I can I have a tendency to over create, make too many things. And then I'm like, Okay, well, this is not really a part of that work. I got to put it over here and then so I, so really knowing what that feeling is what that state is, before I go into the studio is important. But then again COVID hit, and I reinvented again, and I started making a work with my best friend Leah. And we just started moving. And she was like, Well, what's this about? And of course, I had 1000 ideas, 1000 concepts, and I was like, my heart is just telling me to move first, and then figure out later. So I guess I'm, I'm using every protocol, as, as so much as it is useful to the process.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: A big toolbox, as we might say, in choreography classes, sometimes there's something about how you describe it that ‘cause your work is deeply personal, but not like, you know, autobiographic, and also not so insular, that it's all about Rosie. And even in just what you share this idea that you identify a gut and then look outward, and then reflect it back. Like what does that mean, for me, that I think also create some of that space and some of that universality that people identify in your work. They're like, I can feel that, right, because there is a broader invitation in. What I'm also struck by, you know, sometimes especially emerging, or younger choreographers, it will start from ‘I love this song.’ And so they'll choreograph the dance, make a dance to that song, which also defines that this is a three minute dance or a five minute dance, because that's how long the song is, with your process. On the flip side of where you start, when do you end? How do you know it's finished?
ROSIE HERRERA:Oh, my God. That's like the question I asked myself every, every year, every, every new piece is like it's never finished. But I did feel last year was the first time that I was like, this is this piece is done. It was a piece called “Make Believe.” And again, I over created I ended up editing after it premiered like 20 minutes out, and then I was like, Okay. I think being in research, always, I don't know if that's a sustainable practice or not. But this is how I am I have never stopped making work. And I think having knowing that I will always be in research and always be in process allows me a little bit more freedom. So that I don't feel that if this idea or this concept, or this movement doesn't make it into the stance doesn't matter, it's probably part of the new one. So I feel, I don't know, it's kind of like, you know, when you clean your room, and it's like, it looks exactly the same, but you're like, ‘yeah, but now all the blue shirts are here,’ and all the glittering things are on this side. And it makes sense to you. I think I know, when I'm done, when it feels that the bow has been tied, that each person that's a part of the process, whether that's a lighting designer, the stage manager, each collaborator, each performer knows what is needed for the work. And it's a sustainable thing. You know, and that, that you can keep digging into it that you know, Britney can do the work this way. And two years from now that the work will still ask her to do it maybe in a different way, then it feels complete in some way. ‘Cause it's always offering space for the performers. And space for me to see it in a new way. So I feel like that's the closest to done but I don't really ever know.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: I love so much of I love the room cleaning metaphor, because that also implies something, you know that I believe the choreography is a way of organizing life, the world information. And that doesn't mean that you are finished with it. But it just gives you that filter. And so yes, I immediately could feel that sense. After cleaning a room that you're like, Oh, alright, it's still my room. But it it has a certain sense of organization to it, even organized chaos.
ROSIE HERRERA:Yeah, sometimes that you know where things are. And so in the way, you know, same thing with the performers that are doing the work on stage. It's like they know where things are, and they know how to find them. And so in that sense, it's clean.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Yeah, well, and I'm glad that you brought up the collaborators and performers knowing where to situate themselves in the work and the world that you're making. What do you look for in dancers or collaborators?
ROSIE HERRERA:So, I mean, I just have to fall in love. It's like,
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Just fall in love if we can all hope for so much.
ROSIE HERRERA:There are patterns, you know, like it's so funny like those who have known me for a long time can almost even see like, not archetypes, but some archetypal-like patterns in the work. I'm very interested in, in people, first and foremost, that are kind. That's the most important thing because kindness and care translates to every single thing you do every every aspect of the creative process. So kindness. I mean, when you care, it's like, you, it's how you put a plate down can be poetic and beautiful, or how you show up for another person in the space. So kindness, risk takers, people that are comfortable taking risks, and that know themselves enough to be able to take risk. I mean, in the past, it took me a long time to figure out that some people are risk takers, and it's not healthy. They're gonna push their body further than they can sustain, or they're going to push them ourselves emotionally further than is unhealthy. And I don't want to invite any demons into the room, I've done enough of that. So people that really know themselves and know, know themselves, and that is obviously a muscle knowing your body. So kind, risk takers, and, and really luxurious or glamorous at one thing, not everything just has to be that one thing, like, if you're just the most luxurious, beautiful balloon decorator like, it just has to be that one thing that that's the romance, you know, that's like pulls me in, like, oh, you know, this person, you know, only moves slow. But God, she moves slow, so beautifully, and I have been able to see her move slow for so long, and I'm still not born with it. So we are really luxurious at something.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: I love that. And these are also all things that for any of our dancers who have gone on casting calls, or they're looking at auditions, thinking about, oftentimes, we only describe the technique we're looking for. You know, must have a ballet background, or must be able to do this other piece or technique. And so I'm curious how you reflect on your own training, sort of like coming of age, through the end of the 20th century, in the early 21st century, a lot of traditional training, not only in dance, but in other art forms. How does that work and training, reflecting what you value in dancers and collaborators to
ROSIE HERRERA:A great deal. I mean, anything that you engage in consciously is an extension of your training, every hug, every lover, every rest, every anxiety is incorporated into what you do as a performer. And that sort of separation of the mind and body or have the personal life and the professional life is just like not true. You can't pretend that your body is not your body on stage. It has done everything you've done and gone everywhere you've gone and so yeah, every sunrise comes in. So, all aspects of that are honored in the integration of my body. And but when I think about like these sort of formalized techniques, you know, I think for it took me a long time to figure out like, what was the reference in my work? I mean, I was just like, very bizarre out there super avant garde dancer and very classical singer. And then as a cabaret artists, the wildest most avant garde also like I can imagine. And so when I was sort of sitting with those things, and trying to, as I said, integrate them, I thought, Okay, well, you know, cabaret really does teach you the potential of humor and the potential of humor to really get people to be in their bodies to let their guards down and to go on an emotional journey with you. So I will always give credit where credit is due because I learned that you know, I would see Ademino Compos literally read a book on color theory live on stage dressed like a dominatrix lemon and, and have people in the palm of his hand, you know, and have these people captured. And, and classical music, which is like my big my big love. What I have really learned about that is that you never stop training. You could be the greatest opera singer in the world. It could be Maria Callas and you still have to take voice lessons, and you never stop training. On it also broadens my spectrum, you know that you have to do what you have to do to meet the audience. So if you have to sing through 150 person orchestra into a hall that's like massive, your body has to show up in superhuman ways to meet that, then you do that. And there's places that don't ask for supernatural-ness. And so maybe that's not brought in. And then also with modern dance, I've always felt like an outsider. I've always felt like an outsider. I've always felt like everybody got the memo, but I didn't get the memo. You know, I did train I did do Graham, I did Limone. And, but it wasn't until I was like setting a piece on the Limone company that I really was sitting with the history of who Jose Limone is, and, and how I am a part of that legacy. So as a lover of modern dances, I continue to research and I call myself sort of like the student emeritus of the American Dance Festival, because I'm there. Every summer I'm training, I'm going at the Archives, I'm learning I'm meeting and the more that I learned, the more I feel like a part of a lineage that makes me feel like really supportive that before me there was Jawole, there is Jawole, there is Martha Clark, there is like a legacy of powerful, strong, badass people that have been asking these questions for a long time. And that I can reach out and be like, what do you do? Um, so yeah.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Oh, I mean, I feel that you, even without me asking the question just illuminated so much about why we invited you to join this year as part of 21st century dance practices. Because it's not a new thing. There's no it's not about innovation, but it's about how do you honor and acknowledge those that have come before you as well as find your own place in relationship to it? And that it sounds like exactly what you're doing. A couple more process questions. One of the things that our students, you know, ask often is, how do you name a dance? Right? Like, it seems like such a finite challenging thing is to like, how do you title something? And this could be an essay question this dance? Yeah. You know, and if you have to answer this question every single time you make a piece, right?
ROSIE HERRERA:Well, I will tell you this, I have a secret skill, a secret special skill that nobody knows of naming things. I have a secret skill. And people have hired me to like name things. My friend has a cosmetics line and I like named the cosmetics or you know, my friend has a podcast and I had to come up with the name. So I'm very interested in language. And I really am really attracted to people actually like you that I feel have an ability to say what's in their heart and such a clear way and there's really nothing in the way. And I really am attracted to that and I want to be one of those people that can express themselves well so I think a lot about titles I think a lot about language I think a lot about words. And I think in two languages, which I think helps me a little bit more because I have more available to me. Some words are just like much prettier in Spanish than they are in English. Which but I this is interesting you asked me this now. This is the first time in my life I'm currently making a piece and I don't like the title. I always am so sure I'm like this is what it is “Querida Herida,” “Various Stages of Drowning,” “Carne Viva.” I am so sure that that's what it is. That those words hold this world in a way and this the first time I don't so and that process I would say I've not given it a great deal of thought as to how I name things. But I look through my journals at what I've written the most so every every journal that I have is like supposed to like be it's supposed to like look and feel like how I want the peace to feel so like this is “Make Believe” so it has like a lot of texture and, like sequins and, actually if you see as like little stuff.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Yes, I love that Rosie's holding up a sequined journal and if you run your hand over it how dancer and tactile can you get that it changes color sequence that it's so fabulous.
ROSIE HERRERA: I put it on the floor people just caress it. So I feel like I'm like almost how smart to put something. It's like having a golden retriever. In your rehearsal process. People come to take notes and then they're just like softly caressing this like surface. So when I look through my journals I write I look at the things that keep coming up the most like you know, for example, I'll do whatever I'll share my struggle with you guys I have a new pieces called devotion. I don't know how I feel about that yet. But the words I keep coming into the process are this idea of negotiating surrender. Those are the words that are had the most in the process. So I'm sort of split between these two things, feeling like devotion sort of puts a flag somewhere. If you're Catholic, or puts a flag somewhere, if you're married, it puts a flag somewhere. If you're those various things, it puts a flag somewhere for you. But negotiating surrender, I don't know, it puts the flag light out in the ocean, I don't know what what it means. So I'm sort of in that process now. So usually what I do is I look at what's written the most what I've said the most. And try to be in that in that world. With with and because because I am a director, as much as I am a choreographer, I'm really from the I'm really using language in a much I almost gave myself props, I don't want to give myself props. I'm using language a lot and thinking about my language a lot, even before I get into the studio. And so I think it's a slightly easier for me, because I'm not coming in and teaching phrase work. I'm coming in and I'm saying your ancestors are singing at the edge of your skin. And so when I've had to think about the language, so clearly, certain things just come online, certain words come online.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: That, I mean, thank you for also being so vulnerable and sharing something you're grappling with right now, but also hearing your answer, as a reflection of our students experience in the studio this week. Explain so much like one of the prompts was a oh, how to maximize pleasure. I've never been in a dance class that necessarily use that particular phrasing. And so I think it revealed how much language is a part not just in the naming of dances, but in your choreographic thinking, and in your teaching, and, and it seems too redundant to say as part of your communication, but we've all been in those dance classes, where it's very emulative, where the instructor will say, and then you do this, and then you do that, and I'm gesturing with my arms. And then you we look in the mirror, and we fit it on our bodies, and we might apply language to it later. But sometimes it's just even sounds, but it sounds like you really come from a place of language first. And long before you get into the studio. So yeah, it's all coming together for me.
ROSIE HERRERA: I mean, I love it had to because my company, not everyone was a dancer. You know? And I mean, I not everybody spoke English. And so, you know, if you have a drag queen and a B boy and a ballerina and a visual artist and a singer together, demonstrating a physicality is not going to get you very far, you know? So yeah, I sort of had to be very specific about how I, what words I was using to to be able to transcend that barrier.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Ah, yes, I love that. Because in some ways to you're finding language to communicate with them to elicit their own gut responses to the to the research and task at hand. I have one last question. And then we'll, we'll say goodbye. And, and that is, I would like to invite you to either offer a piece of advice to our aspiring artists and thinkers and dancers. Or if that's too much pressure, please feel free to share maybe the best piece of advice that you've received and you'd like to pass on.
ROSIE HERRERA: I feel drawn to share the piece of advice. Because I just love this story. And this is a person that I feel doesn't get talked about enough in contemporary dance, but I have the extreme pleasure and honor to be friends with Martha Clark. And I met her through Charles Reinhard and she's just a brilliant, brilliant choreographer and director. And I did my first show in New York at the Baryshnikov Arts Center. And I got a scathing review from the New York Times, I got a really amazing review from Deborah Hay, but then I got like a scathing review from the New York Times. And I was like, oh, and I don't really care about reviews. I know a lot of people it means a great deal, but I just I didn't even know at that time to care that much. But so everybody called me like, Oh, so sorry, Rosie. Oh, no, your review. And I was like, so I looked it up. It was scathing. And so I call and so Martha called me and she's like, she started the voicemail with a round of applause and she was like, congratulations, baby. You are amongst the greats that got scathing reviews from the New York Times me, Pina Bausch, Bill T. Jones, Alvin Ailey, Merce Cunningham, Martha Graham, and I was like, there was something about the way. Like I said, I always feel like an outsider. So having someone who is what I consider, like very insider, like remind me that that all of these artists who we see as sort of like de facto the pioneers of modern dance, all of them were outsiders. Just made me feel like really seen. And then she said to me, she's like, whenever you get a really bad review, buy yourself a nice pair of shoes. And then she's like, I have a lot of nice shoes. Rosie, I have a lot of my shoes.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: I love that. I totally resonate with shoes.
ROSIE HERRERA: It’s just so, so great. And I don't want to like overstay my welcome. But I will say this, I did hear something last week that stayed with me deeply. It sort of speaks on this like maximum pleasure that you and I do in my own work. And actually, Ohda doesn't his work as well. But Risa Steinberg, amazing coach, teacher, leader. We were working with Young Arts, the young scholars scholarship program here in Miami, and she said to the students, you have a right to enjoy yourself. And so I'm really I'm really carrying that with me right now. Risa’s words you have the right to enjoy yourself. A divine, divine right to enjoy yourself reminds me of that movie “Enough” with J Lo, did you ever see that movie “Enough”? It's so good. And she calls her friend on the phone. And you know her, her ex husband comes and he's like attacking her. And she's gonna she has to, like, kill him. But she doesn't want to do it because she's a good person. So she calls her friend and her friends like you have a divine animal, right? To protect your life and the life of your child. And then she like, beats them up or whatever. So that's how I imagined recite in my head like my Juliette Lewis, I'm J Lo I'm calling her and she's like, you have the divine right to enjoy your life as an artist.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: I love that. Thank you. And it also reminds us back to where you started from, from a place of play, as you know, and enjoying yourself as opposed to work. I mean, yes, there are lots of tropes about like it's not work if you enjoy yourself and but yet there is still labor in being an artist and making this work. So I so appreciate our whole conversation today about being able to tease that line and find one's place in this world and in this field. Thank you again to Rosie, we're sending you all the virtual rounds of applause. Feeling the energy, let's say goodbye Rosie.
ROSIE HERRERA: Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. This has been a joy.
OUTRODUCTION: Inside The Dancer’s Studio Lunchtime Talk Series is supported by NCCAkron, the University of Akron, the University of Akron Foundation and the Mary Schiller Myers Lecture Series in the Arts. Our podcast program is produced by Jennifer Edwards. Ellis Rovin is our composer and editor. Theme music by Floco Torres, cover art by Micah Kraus. Special thanks to Kat Wentz and the team on the ground in Akron, Ohio. To learn more about NCC Akron, please visit us online at nccakron.org. And follow us on Instagram or Facebook at NCCAkron. We hope you enjoyed this episode, and we encourage you to subscribe on your favorite podcast streaming platform by searching for Inside The Dancer’s Studio. Please share with your friends and if you’d like to help get the word out rate us, and leave a review on Apple podcasts. Thanks for listening and stay curious.