In this episode, NCCAkron's Executive/Artistic Director, Christy Bolingbroke enters the 'studio' with New York City-based dancer, choreographer and educator Amy Miller. A former member of the Ohio Ballet, and founding member and artistic associate of Cleveland-based GroundWorks DanceTheater, she is now a Gibney Company Director and a performing member of the Gibney Company. An Ohio native, Amy earned a 2010 Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award and in 2009 was voted Outstanding Artist in dance by the Akron Area Arts Alliance.
In this episode, NCCAkron's Executive/Artistic Director, Christy Bolingbroke enters the 'studio' with New York City-based dancer, choreographer and educator Amy Miller. A former member of the Ohio Ballet, and founding member and artistic associate of Cleveland-based GroundWorks DanceTheater, she is now a Gibney Company Director and a performing member of the Gibney Company. An Ohio native, Amy earned a 2010 Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award and in 2009 was voted Outstanding Artist in dance by the Akron Area Arts Alliance.
www.gibneydance.org
www.groundworksdance.org
Emergent Strategy by adrienne maree brown
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
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 Spring of 2021. Today we join Christy Bolingbroke, our Executive / Artistic Director in conversation with New York City-based dancer, choreographer and educator Amy Miller. A former member of the Ohio Ballet, and founding member and artistic associate of Cleveland-based GroundWorks DanceTheater, she is now a Gibney Company Director and a performing member of the Gibney Company. An Ohio native, Amy earned a 2010 Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award and in 2009 was voted Outstanding Artist in dance by the Akron Area Arts Alliance.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: How did you know you wanted to make a career in dance?
AMY MILLER: Thanks, Christy. Well I, I’ve always been a mover. I was always flipping around the house and my beautiful mom Cathy said, ‘let’s go to gymnastics and so that you’re able to do this safely.’ And gymnastics led to dance, so I think I’ve just always had movement in my body and wanted to learn new forms and new ways it can evolve.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Yeah. And so in staying in motion then, how did you migrate and become a maker?
AMY MILLER: Yeah, I was thinking back to some amazing beautiful mentors that I’ve had over my life, and I think the, potentially the first moment of, ‘would you like to choreograph a piece,’ came to me from Lana Haylock, who was the director of the Dance Institute at the University of Akron where I spent so much of my youth. And she invited me to create a piece for Stan Hywet, the amazing house and gardens, for one of their galas. And so I had a chance to create a short piece and I think that really hooked me, but thinking back to her encouragement and how much I respected her, I think made me say yes to that opportunity. And then that idea of being a choreographer was absolutely encouraged by David Shimotakahara at Groundworks Dance Theater, who I’m still very connected to, was just speaking with him and his dancers yesterday. But he really supported my early choreographing for the stage in immeasurable ways.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Yes, that’s right. For those who are just meeting Amy for the first time, you do have lots of connectivity to the Akron, Canton, Northeast Ohio area. And I love also being able to call in Stan Hywet cause those are gorgeous gardens. So the opportunity to do something dance there, you know, whether it was site specific or otherwise, I’m, I’m curious, where do you start? What inspires you as an artist?
AMY MILLER: Yes, I think answering this question right now, February 2021, has for me expanded the definition of the word choreography. And at this point I see choreography in literally everything at every moment, so from a conversation to an email to the choices and the structures that we’re creating within the teams and the organizations that we’re a part of. That all feels like choreography at maybe a different scale. And so I guess I start by breathing and showing up and trusting that the choices that I offer are valuable and then trying to braid in other people’s perspectives as well to be the kind of choreography of the moment. To help us get to better decisions in a more equitable world, a more equitable arts field. So, yeah, I show up and breathe and trust, and let the process tell me what it needs. And then I keep adding in my part.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: And so you also talked a lot about responding to the people. What do you look for then in dancers or collaborators?
AMY MILLER: No matter if I’m making a dance for the stage or crafting a class to do a, a dance class, or as I say, seeing this choreographic opportunity in any of the tasks as an administrator, and, and as a human, I think I always want to cultivate spaces where I can feel most like myself, where I hope other people can feel most like themselves. Feel safe enough to kind of maybe say the elephant in the room, or bring something to the table that hasn’t been mentioned and feel, feel like we can do that. Because those, those other perspectives, potentially the, the things that are often hard to talk about or take a lot of work and effort to unpack, that those give us a greater sense of what we’re dealing with. And so I really, I really look to be around folks and invite myself to meet each other halfway. Noticing how to lean forward and lean back, to, yeah, meet each other halfway in the moments and be sensitive to how to invite other folks into a process. Lean back when necessary and allow for collisions of ideas, and then lean forward and offer mine. So I, I want to be around folks who understand that as well and are sensitive to it. But also want to model that within the environments that I’m in to maybe remind each other, remind other folks and remind myself that that movement is possible and feels good.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: And, and this sounds like it’s such a dynamic process, right? It’s always ongoing and living and feeding, you know, the environment, the entirety of, of your role in the room, the people in the room. When you come up with a, a task, cause oftentimes there’s other forces where you have to deliver a name, a title. How do you derive at that moment when it sounds like it’s always in process.
AMY MILLER: Yeah, in terms of naming and putting language to a, a piece of art, is that, is that the direction?
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: And a piece of art that, you know, might also unfurl over time, right? Over 20 minutes and yet you want a title, in a, you know, 20 characters or something.
AMY MILLER: Absolutely, yeah, so hard to distill down into language oftentimes this, the universal language of movement that can oftentimes say so much more than, than words and concepts can. But I think over, over the years, the choreographic pieces I’ve made for the stage, each one of the titles or the ways to speak about that was really braided into curiosities I was chewing on as a human over time. Whether it be themes that really challenged me, or I was really confused about from a book I read or a conversation I had with someone. And like the living document within my, my heart and my head of how to chew on that idea in numerous way and over and over and over and over of writing and thinking and having discussions would eventually kind of lead to a title, or lead to a concept. And then, I don’t know, I guess I try to take the pressure off of the title in that each piece I’ve made, I almost feel like it’s an iterative process on the last piece. I just keep chewing on the same ideas around relationships and invisible and visible manifestations of ideas over time. So each one of my pieces just continues to chew on that. And the name, try to take the pressure off myself for that and just keep thinking about the root of the work.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Oh, I love that cause I definitely subscribe to the idea that everything an artist makes is somehow related to what they’ve made before and related to what they will make in the future. We just haven’t gotten there yet. That it does happen on that sort of long continuum. I am curious though, and one of our, our students offered up this question as well, when do you give yourself permission to repeat, right? To kind of go to what you know and, and use that as a tool over and over again, versus when you challenge yourself to refresh, to seek out something new and different?
AMY MILLER: Yes, gorgeous question. I guess the first thing that sparks for me from that question is maybe that repetition and freshness are not mutually exclusive for me. That those don’t actually feel like two separate ideas, they feel like they’re very much combined and intertwined. I rely on repetition, I rely on version after version after version of anything. A dance or a relationship, a conversation, an excel sheet. The versions of that, so the repetition of that same structure tell, help to tell me what it needs and where the innovation and the freshness can come. I feel like if I don’t have that structure to press against, then I’m a bit lost. And so I really rely on the structure of repetition and trying the same, potentially the same thing over and over again. The ritual of going back to, quote, unquote the “same thing.” And trying it in a new, innovative fresh way. So they, they feel very combined into a kind of a hybrid sort of way, approaching both equally.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: So, one of the things specifically in envisioning 21st century dance practices was the idea that we’re trying to challenge or disrupt the, the previous dance canon. Most of the 20th century was really focused on a single choreographer companies, codified techniques, and, and with that it can be quite traditional in some of its definitions of excellence or virtuosity. It’s the 32 fouette turns at center stage, it’s the spectacle sometimes. So I’m curious how you would describe or define virtuosity in dance as we are working to expand these definitions?
AMY MILLER: Thank you. Virtuosity for me today is really about the capacity to braid ideas together. Or to reveal and acknowledge that there’s a multifacetedness to anything. I think I’ve been hugely inspired by a book called ‘Braiding Sweetgrass’ by Robin Wall Kimmerer, who is a brilliant thinker and scientist and Indigenous woman who braids together Indigenous knowledge, scientific knowledge, and nature, what we’ve learned from nature to really, I don’t know, for me kind of, it, explode the concepts that we’re talking about here in ways that feel good. Yeah, really inspired by that notion of virtuosity as the capacity to braid a multifacetedness and, or reveal it and just find it within, within dance in our lives.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: I love that. And I also love reading recommendations too, thank you so much for sharing that. ‘Braiding Sweetgrass’ by Robin Wall Kimmerer. I want to take a moment to acknowledge for anyone listening, if you would like to share your questions in the chat function, we’d be happy to incorporate those. We’re mindful of time because this is envisioned as a lunchtime chat, so hopefully you’ve been able to rest your eyes and open your ears as you’ve tuned in with us. Thank you for being here. Amy, you know, sometimes the juices aren’t flowing. So, sometimes you’re up against a deadline, or you only have so many hours with your, your cast, or access to resources. How do you get out of a creative rut in that moment?
AMY MILLER: Sometimes I just stop and shake my body and realize that change is possible, just the couple of moments to shake and then be still and feel the tingle or the heat or the different sense in my limbs helps me to get back into my body. Remind myself that this moment that I feel stuck in is gonna pass and, and then just, yeah, tell myself things my mom tells me all the time, there’s no way through, but through. There’s no way through but through, so let’s keep moving forward even in baby moves or baby steps. One move after another will get us there. Yeah, but never underestimate, I think, the power of shifting, getting back into our bodies in some small way, and then reapproaching from the different, hopefully more expanded philosophy of perspective.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: I love that, there’s no way through but through. That reminds me of one of my niece and nephew’s favorite books, ‘We’re Going on a Bear Hunt.’ Which is essentially their favorite childhood fable, you can’t go around it, you can’t go under it, you can only go through it. Yes.
AMY MILLER: My mom Cathy Casper is, has been an amazing supporter to me and to the arts field for so many years and she guides me in such a beautiful way to this day.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Yay shoutouts to the mom! Thank you Cathy Casper! So looking forward and continuing to move through not only this pandemic, but in the field as well, you accepted our invitation to come teach as part of a 21st century dance practices. I would be curious how would you define that? What does that term even mean to you?
AMY MILLER: Yeah. I think for me 21st century dance practices spark for me an evolution from the stage and the studio. And then my, my sense of how dance can be utilized then shifted to the definition for using dance as activism or community engagement, which has many different definitions of course. But for a long time I only was aware of and saw community dance as working alongside communities addressing a social justice issue very explicitly. And, you know, oftentimes reaching out, creating new networks, partnering with social service organizations. Which, I had a beautiful chance to activate that sort of definition of community engagement at Gibney for sure. We worked, we traveled alongside survivors of intimate partner violence and utilized arts practices for revealing our agency through choices. And also healthy relationships with, conversations about healthy relationships with young people through an assembly program. But at this point it's even evolved I think further for me, or deeper maybe, to who are the communities that I’m involved in, involved with everyday. Who am I quote, unquote rubbing elbows with or shifting, moving alongside. And it, how to braid in, there's that word again, that concept of braiding, how to braid in activism and community awareness with the company members, the artistic associates that I get a beautiful chance to work with through Gibney Company. How to braid in community activism with my family and my partner and with a staff meetings and just the communities that I am personally, that we are, an invitation for all of us. The communities that we currently engage with everyday, how are we braiding in community engagement sort of philosophies, right? Of creating opportunities for each other, finding ways to lift each other’s voices up. And create spaces where we’re seen and heard. How can we do, be doing that even without a codified project or funding for this external project. How could each of, any of, any and all of those ideas be considered a community project that we’re flexing our muscles and building capacity around.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: What, what I notice too, and, you know, from our standpoint at least from NCCAkron in UA, we named the capsule series 21st Century Dance Practices to also break away from the idea that all, dance is only technique. But that it is a means of practice which, which could be on your body, in the studio, which could be out in community, and, and building relationships that will lead to movement. So I appreciate that, that I don’t feel like you avoided it, but that you absolutely went to that much broader definition of everything outside of the studio that informs dance as an art form and dancemaking. We do have a question too from our chat that I think is a, a natural extension for anyone living in the 21st century. They said love the dialogue, thank you for that feedback, and are curious how the role of relatively new tech, like mobile phones and laptops and social media channels, might play in your work as an artist in terms of developing choreography or devising events?
AMY MILLER: Thank you for this question. A couple things come to mind right away. When I once choreographed a solo for myself I think almost exclusively through iMovie, and it, I don’t think it could have been created any other way. I videotaped myself improvising in a studio over a period of six weeks at different times and just kept loading it into iMovie and keeping the parts of that improvisation that interested me and letting go of the parts that didn’t. And just continuing to copy, paste and rearrange those, that iterative, the version after version of that improvisation as it happened over those weeks until it created through iMovie a new sequence of moves. And then once I had that all arranged, like felt good, then I taught myself the dance. So I didn’t know the solo, I had to then learn it from myself, from iMovie. And I, I just I really loved that process. It also kept the amount of hours that I needed to reserve studio time down, I didn’t have much resources to support studio payments at that time, so I would only reserve the studio for two hours, capture a bunch of footage, and then do so much of the editing in my living room at night to keep the process going. So that’s one thing that occurs to me. And then the other is how many I think beautiful discussions I’ve had with people all over the country since, since Covid, of moving, I would say, moving our bodies but also moving ideas through discussions series around, yeah, how we’re expanding the definition of choreography. And so I don’t think in any way shape or form the amount of conversations or the depth of conversations that I’ve had with University programs and beyond would have been possible if I was flying to all those places, but because we can, we have. So many of us have the access to be able to press a button and be connected that I feel like that’s gone deeper and has gone faster than I could have imagined to engage with so many people through technology.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: I, I love that and, and dropped a couple of my notes is now in the time of Covid I want to do in the chat. But this idea that you’re using technology to move the process along. Not as a means to an end of sharing the dance. And, and also, like, it is an age old question when choreographing a solo, like how choreographers set work on their, themselves, how can they also see themselves to step back from the work with some sort of criticality or distance to still be the one shaping it as well as performing it. And such a like beautiful elegant solution to say like, ‘I incorporated the iMovie as part of the choreographic process,’ you know, a lot of other people would have used a mirror, so I think that that’s really exciting too. That it doesn’t always have to be something big and flashy, you know, with lots of extra cutting edge bells and whistles, innovation or some of the pain points I think when we talk about incorporating technology into our dance making process. We are coming up just on the hour and I do have one last question for you, Amy. And I’m wondering if you might share with our listeners, in making a creative life, what’s the best piece of advice that you’ve received and would you share it with us for others to benefit?
AMY MILLER: Yes, yes. The one that comes to mind, absolutely, is a, I think the first and the best thing that I learned from Gina Gibney, the founder of the Gibney organization. She encouraged me to make an opportunity for the person beside me as I made one for myself. And when she offered that to me years and years and years ago, it really shifted my sense of opportunity for one thing, made me question how I defined the word opportunity and also just really, I think, challenged, challenged me to think about welcoming partnership and welcoming maybe the, as I say now the dovetailing of our different roles together to create something that we couldn’t make on our own. And really, in so many respects I think encouraged me along the lines of being a facilitator and a synthesizer and yes potentially choreographing environments rather than just thinking of myself as a choreographer of dances.
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, transcription by Madeline Greenberg, theme music by Flocco Torres, cover art by Micah Kraus, and Julian Curet and Kat Wentz are our artist coordinators. To learn more about NCCAkron, please visit us online at nccakron.org and follow us on Instagram or Facebook @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. Thank you for listening and stay curious.