In this episode, NCCAkron's Executive/Artistic Director, Christy Bolingbroke, enters the 'studio' with Shaina and Bryan Baira of BAIRA MVMNT PHLOSPHY. Their New York City and Detroit, Michigan-based dance theatre company creates live performance, dance film, and immersive-virtual-reality experiences. Shaina and Bryan are recipients of the ‘Creators of Culture’ award through Culture Source Detroit and were honored as nominees for Outstanding Breakout Choreographer by the Bessie Award committee in 2023.
JENNIFER EDWARDS: 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 in Akron, Ohio. This podcast was recorded as an ongoing documentation practice with NCCAkron visiting artists in 2024 and 2025. In this episode, NCCAkron's Executive/Artistic Director, Christy Bolingbroke, enters the 'studio' with Shaina and Bryan Baira of BAIRA MVMNT PHLOSPHY. Their New York City and Detroit, Michigan-based dance theatre company creates live performance, dance film, and immersive-virtual-reality experiences. Shaina and Bryan are recipients of the ‘Creators of Culture’ award through Culture Source Detroit and were honored as nominees for Outstanding Breakout Choreographer by The Bessie Award committee in 2023.
Christy Bolingbroke: It's always interesting when we have duos, collectives, collaboratives because it completely upends the single choreographer model as far as how decisions and the creative process works. I'd love to start by hearing from both of you. How or when did you decide to claim the role choreographer?
Bryan Baira: I've been dancing or like making dances since I was about 14 years old. Teaching at my local studio, making up like the competition pieces and the recreational pieces, teaching class to pay for my lessons. And I've always loved making dance happen. Making like, teaching the moves. Putting the positions, you know, making, making the experience of the, of the performance happen. I feel like I, uh, became a modern, contemporary person in college (Bolingbroke: Mmm) where I was introduced to, to this world and didn't really feel like a major shift other than I guess the style really (Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm) grew as it hopefully does. Yeah. But from a very young age.
Christy Bolingbroke: Wow. I identify with that so much. I was also a competition kid.
Bryan Baira: Come on.
Christy Bolingbroke: And that's how you were able to pay for it was by teaching, was by making. Where did you grow up?
Bryan Baira: Carleton, Michigan. And my studio is Sherry's Academy of Dance. Shout out.
Christy Bolingbroke: Right.
Bryan Baira: Yes.
Christy Bolingbroke: That's right. Put it down on the archives.
Bryan Baira: Yes.
Christy Bolingbroke: (Laughs) And Shaina, what about you?
Shaina Baira: Yeah, I feel like I had a much less direct path with this word choreographer.
Bryan Baira: Mm-hmm.
Shaina Baira: And I mean, I've always been fascinated by making things and putting things together to create something that's new. And I would say maybe the last decade that has been completely, I've been completely obsessed with movement and with dance and with bodies and with the way that our bodies tell stories (Bolingbroke: Mm). And so, through a, a long process with a lot of, much more interdisciplinary, less streamlined dance approach, have come to understand that that is what I do.
Christy Bolingbroke: Hmm. Long before you can put a name on it.
Shaina Baira: Yeah.
Christy Bolingbroke: How did y'all meet and start working together?
Bryan Baira: We were both working in New York City. You had just gotten back from, uh, overseas, , with the foreign collective that you were working on. And I was dancing in a project and Shaina was actually doing some photography for that project (Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm). And we saw each other, and then we ended up both dancing in this project, next iteration. And then after that we just started working together. We really enjoyed the vibe of like improvising together, the chemistry of improvising together, spending time together and then spending time and making dance was all like wrapped up together. Really organically unfolded. What would you add to that?
Christy Bolingbroke: Is that how you remember it? (Laughs)
Shaina Baira: I would add in detail.
Christy Bolingbroke: Ooh.
Shaina Baira: Um, I took Bryan's class.
Christy Bolingbroke: Oh. Yes, yes, yes, yes.
Shaina Baira: All that is true. But, um, I was really fascinated with the what he was developing (Bolingbroke: Mmm), and my mind was like, whoa, this is actually, in terms of movement generation, this feels really specific and I've always been really fascinated with analysis and movement analysis and patterns, and so I took his class and it was really after that class, I was like, oh, we have so much work to do. There's so much to understand here.
Bryan Baira: That's so true. During the class, you were asking so many. Not questions of like, oh, how do you do this? But like, questions of like interrogating what was happening (Bolingbroke: Mmm). Um, which like made for a really lovely class. And then afterwards we hung out for the rest of the afternoon discussing all of that and nerding out about what was happening.
Christy Bolingbroke: That's cool.
Bryan Baira: Hundred percent. Yeah.
Christy Bolingbroke: Yeah. It's one of the things that I try to encourage any of my colleagues in the arts ecology, but particularly those that sometimes are a little removed from the process, like a funder (Bryan Baira: Hmm) (Shaina Baira: Mm-hmm). Or a presenter.
Bryan Baira: Mm-hmm.
Christy Bolingbroke: Just go watch an artist teach class. If teaching's a part of their creative practice, you can learn so much about the artist's worldview. And how they think and process things that isn't always evident in the finished product on stage.
Shaina Baira: I would just add in there, I, I think that that being amongst many other things that Bryan was mentioning really where collaborate, our collaboration really did have a very strong pedagogical interest from the beginning.
Christy Bolingbroke: Say more.
Shaina Baira: And that has, it's very much driven, it's very interwoven with our creative process, the process of understanding what method we are doing, where it is coming from, not even just in, in terms of dance lineage, but human lineage. Bodies moving through practices lineage. My background is interfaith seminary school and, um, Laban movement analysis (Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm). So it's a lot of inquiry into how we move, why we move, how we teach that, why we teach that? That really started from the very beginning when we were very young as well (Bolingbroke: Hmm), figuring out what we were doing. Teaching has always been a part of that process because that feedback loop, right? (Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm.) The feedback loop of sharing something for me, teaching is more than anything else, it's about sharing my current research. So it's always shifting. We don't have a a class, we've never taught the same class twice, ever.
Christy Bolingbroke: That's a really interesting sort of dynamism and how you're pointing out that also upending the hierarchical approach that maybe was more prevalent in the 20th century. It's not a one-way street, right?
Bryan Baira: Hmm.
Christy Bolingbroke: Where teacher, choreographer tells dancer what to do. You have this rigorous feedback loop between the two of you. How do you invite or welcome dancers and other collaborators into that loop and and what do you look for in dancers and collaborators if it is sort of larger than a single form or technique?
Shaina Baira: The first things that are coming through my mind is there's, there's a couple different layers of the loop, right? We teach each other, we've always taught each other (Bolingbroke: Hmm). There's always been a feedback loop pedagogically, uh, with Bryan and I, and sharing what we are thinking about, which is from two different bodies, you know, two different minds.I think at this point, lots of times we get sort of clumped together as BAIRA MVMNT PHLOSPHY is this. But it has really always been a pedagogical feedback loop between the two of us with very separate interests that have been merged (Bryan Baira: Mm-hmm) over the past decade plus. And then beyond that, we teach people that are not necessarily tethered to us, which is a very different approach of sharing than our, our layer, our loop with someone else and then them asking questions, which then builds that.
Bryan Baira: We look for bravery. We look for, willingness to repeat rigor, to be curious themselves so that they can find answers with us and not just us provide answers of what does this movement feel like? What can this movement become? How does this pathway fit your body different than my body? So that we can find the essence of what the physicality is so that we can stop thinking about that so much and get into what it feels like, what we're thinking about what does this movement then, how does this movement then turn into a container for whatever story we might be telling, um, given whatever piece we're researching or what topic is driving the creative process. Like a willingness to, to repeat and repeat and repeat so that things can evolve as they will.
Shaina Baira: I would add on adaptability is like, feels very central. I think we also look for slightly different, for slightly different things, each of us. And for me, I feel like if someone is able to, sometimes it's, it's just an ability. It's not that people don't wanna be adaptable, it's that maybe they're just not ready in their journey…
Christy Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm.
Shaina Baira:…to, it's a…
Christy Bolingbroke: …different sort of mental (Bryan Baira: Right) and physical muscle.
Shaina Baira: Yes.
Christy Bolingbroke: That, that sort of flexibility.
Bryan Baira: Hmm.
Shaina Baira: And so it's having an existing muscle of that and then being interested to work that muscle of adaptability and really always going back to like, is this aligned or not? I feel like we say this with people that we've worked with throughout the years, and it's, it's never been a, a, we've at least always tried for it to not feel like a negative thing if it's not aligned, you know? (Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm). We, you're either, it’s either aligned to work together or it isn't. And I think sometimes we're afraid to just look at what's there and where we're on in our journeys and if that makes sense for us to work together versus kind of these ideas that we create. Well, I wanna do this, or I want, it's like, well, is it working? (Laughs)
Christy Bolingbroke: Well, and that also I think it sounds like, would be a part of the feedback loop of…
Bryan Baira: Mm-hmm.
Christy Bolingbroke: Is this working? Yes. Would lead to a different place? No, it would lead to another place and then continuing to cycle through that. A little bit more about collaboration. Um, how would you describe BAIRA’s relationship to sound?
Bryan Baira: That's easy. I, I, so I make the sound for our work. I'm either like composing, uh, for my own original stuff mostly, um, or editing, deconstructing, field recording found sound, tiny samples from meaningful pieces of music or, uh, scores. But mostly deconstructing them, stretching them, putting them through different effects, processors. I work with Logic Pro X and Ableton specifically. And then I play some instruments. I play guitar, a little bit of piano, sing. What I look for is trying to create a, a, a sonic environment that sort of engulfs the viewer and the performers into a shared world. Where the sound is a, an additional visceral element that you can literally feel the frequencies, the, the modulations, the, the tones, the stretching, the yearning for what is unfolding. So the sound is, it's, it's almost its own life that should and often does, like, live on its own. So it's like a duet between the physical performance and the, the, the score.
Christy Bolingbroke: Does it come in later in the process? Just kind of based on your description. I'm, I'm trying to…
Bryan Baira: Yeah
Christy Bolingbroke:…understand where it fits in the, in the loop.
Bryan Baira: Yeah, totally, totally. Depends. Usually they're overlapping the creative, the creations happening around the same time and they find a crescendo at the end of like, okay, now we have to make a decision.
Christy Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm.
Bryan Baira: Um, because it's always never finished. Or we could keep making all of the things forever. And then there's the show and you have to make a choice.
Christy Bolingbroke: Yes.
Bryan Baira: Um, and so then both things get sort of finalized or decided. But it's not like one a hundred percent ahead of the other. The dance research, the movement research lives definitely on its own. It's not generally driven by the sound score. They're very much in dialogue with each other.
Christy Bolingbroke: Well, and something interesting because you are also a mover and dancer yourself.
Bryan Baira: Hmm.
Christy Bolingbroke: That it's in your body, you know, as you're making the sound.
Bryan Baira: Yeah.
Christy Bolingbroke: So there, there is something inherent to that.
Bryan Baira: I, I do have to be careful sometimes with that because then when I'm making, I have these images and I, and I, and I can't need them to get so cemented in my head.
Christy Bolingbroke: Hmmm.
Bryan Baira: Because it's like, that's not really what's important. That image was nice for finding what that sound was, and then the movement's going to evolve. And then probably, and potentially this sound is gonna re-evolve in response to that. So it's exciting to feel like you have an idea, landed on it, and then realize actually that was just like a trampoline to launch you into the next idea.
Christy Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm. Speaking of adaptability.
Bryan Baira: Yeah.
Christy Bolingbroke: There, there's something, you brought up choices in decision making.
Bryan Baira: Hmm.
Christy Bolingbroke: And, I'm also reminded there's a, a choreographer from the San Francisco Bay Area, Janice Garrett, who I heard once say that performances are just interruptions of the creative process.
Bryan Baira: Mm-hmm.
Christy Bolingbroke: And…
Bryan Baira: I love that.
Christy Bolingbroke: I, I know it's like, oh, you know, could we, could we relish and continue to become in those things forever? But to your point, and then a show date is a show date.
Bryan Baira: Mm-hmm.
Christy Bolingbroke: And you have to make a decision. So I'm curious inside of this feedback loop, and especially as a choreographic duo or collective, how do you make final decisions?
Shaina Baira: I would say it's. It's a really violent process. Right?
Christy Bolingbroke: Ooh.
Shaina Baira: It’s, okay, time to kill ideas. Time to not keep going with curiosity. Time to lock this in.
Christy Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm.
Shaina Baira: This is what it is and everything else is, it's stead for now. You know, it's for the next process.
Christy Bolingbroke: The imagery of killing ideas, I, that feels very decisive. That's, that is a, a, a clear act. Whereas I feel a lot of times, um, whether writing a sentence or choreographing a dance, you can almost like see the dot, dot, dot ellipsis (Shaina Baira: Mm) of an idea. I'm really drawn to this idea. , and I wouldn't consider myself a violent person (all laugh).
Shaina Baira: Same.
Christy Bolingbroke: But it, yeah. I'm just like, ooh.
Bryan Baira: Yeah. Well, I feel like even like that word, violence, intimacy, attraction, like these like words I feel like are large containers for what else do those words hold inside of them? Outside of the different, maybe societal, um, symmetries to those words, What is inside of intimacy? What is like, what makes something violent? What makes something, what makes something, what am I looking for?
Shaina Baira: ‘cause the question was how do you make decisions? How do you, how do you, how do you make the performance happen?
Christy Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm.
Shaina Baira: And I, I think it's, it's craft like that's, for me, gets the exciting part. Like that is the craft for me…
Christy Bolingbroke: Yeah.
Shaina Baira:…of being a choreographer is, of course, I can make, we can make sequences and scenes and, uh, forever, forever.
Christy Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm.
Shaina Baira: But the craft is making those decisions is how are we gonna tell this story? What is this story that is being developed? Part of that is cutting things away.
Christy Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm.
Shaina Baira:…is letting things go…
Bryan Baira: Yeah.
Shaina Baira:…is is surrendering to the fact that not everything can belong.
Bryan Baira: I feel like it's a deep listening as well, which is sort of like this other side of this violence, if you will, this, this decision, coin violence. Um, and like care.
Christy Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm.
Bryan Baira: It's like carving away at the block of wood that we've been. Chiseling at until something inside of us is like, oh, I resonate with that.
Christy Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm.
Bryan Baira: That feels like it goes here.
Christy Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm.
Bryan Baira: And then you place it there, and then you grab the next block of wood and you start chiseling, which is like a knife carving away pieces that might have been something else. And that feels like a violent idea. But it's towards, um, this love. Ultimately, it's how do I feel about what it is that I'm making? And how do I, how do I feel like I've put my intention? How do I feel like I've put my care and my, and my passion into making it feel engaging? And then I want to be brave to put that into the world to resonate with whoever it needs to resonate with or whoever it can resonate with. And whoever it won't as well.
Shaina Baira: I just had one thought from what you said, which is, you know, there's always the two sides to it. So on one side, you know, it feels violent 'cause we're killing these ideas. But on the other side it is very thoughtful and caring and, and prioritizing other ideas. It's, it's both, it's this, it depends how you look at it. You know, it's either cutting these out or really caring more deeply about these ideas over here that we're saying actually, we’re gonna put everything into you, these ideas that we have chosen to decide upon. And in that way, it's a huge act of love for those ideas. Depending on how you look at it, it's either an act of love or an act of violence, depending on (Bolingbroke: Mmm), um, which side you're looking at.
Christy Bolingbroke: Yeah. And I would even flesh it out from what we've talked about so far, that it isn't the binary which side (Bryan Baira: Hmm), but that, bringing up the feedback loop. Not all entry points in the loop are necessarily the same act or tool.
Shaina Baira: Mm-hmm. Exactly.
Christy Bolingbroke: And, and that informs the listening that you mentioned, Bryan. And, and, uh, you know, as well as embracing the love and violence that you mentioned, Shaina. It’s like, Oh, when people are talking about distributed leadership, all they get to is like, Okay, we, we don't want hierarchy. So now you gotta figure out the how.
Shaina Baira: Mm-hmm.
Bryan Baira: Mm-hmm.
Christy Bolingbroke: You know, it's, it's not enough of just declaring it, but it's all of those, you know, parts in between to navigate that.
Shaina Baira: Well and the parts on top of each other and the parts that are happening at the same time. I think that exactly as you're saying. It's easy to look at any situation, we’re talking about making dances right now and see it in one way or another versus it, it is both, it's both ways at the same time. And it's so much more also at the same time.
Christy Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm.
Shaina Baira: And when we can hold that, when we can hold that whole container, then there's endless possibilities of what things can be. Then no one is actually right or wrong.
Christy Bolingbroke: Yeah.
Shaina Baira: Everyone is is valid (Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm). In how they feel 'cause it's all true.
Christy Bolingbroke: You have highly trained physical capabilities yourselves, and we talked about like competition dance.
Bryan Baira: Mm-hmm.
Christy Bolingbroke: Uh, coming out of conservatory and college and, even with your multitude of skills when it comes to movement generation (Bryan Baira: Mm-hmm) and to have so many reference points, how do you navigate another binary that sort of like old versus new movement?
Bryan Baira: Hmm.
Christy Bolingbroke: Um, you know, when, when do you sort of rely and repeat what you know, like feels good, works well, might be a classic sort of by BAIRA moment? You don't have to tell any secrets (Bryan Baira: Mm-hmm), but I'm sure there might be something that you're like, this is in every single one of our works.
Bryan Baira: Mm-hmm.
Christy Bolingbroke: Versus pushing yourself to find something new that might not even have a name yet.
Bryan Baira: A big part of our practice is keeping and growing our container of vocabulary. Particularly when we're working in groups, group settings. The same moves look and feel so different with so many different bodies and different arrangements and a singular move can be done in so many ways, can be affected, can be evolved. We keep growing this, this container of what core phrases do we have to work from so that there's always that shared essence of like the root of where we begin working together.
Christy Bolingbroke: Hmm.
Bryan Baira: And it's instead of that essence that when we go into create quote unquote new moves, as if that's possible, it's coming from this essence of like, what it, what is it that makes our curiosity unique to, to our relationship and our work. And we invite people to find their additions to that through our sort of roots that we hold onto and, accrue.
Shaina Baira: Our archive is vast. We, we hold onto so much baggage. A lot of it is in the form of choreography. And a lot of it is in the form of experience that's then embedded in when we made those sequences. And it feels very central to our work, which largely centers around weight and understanding the weight we give and receive to hold on to a lot of that. And to teach it. And to continue to teach it. And sequences, sequences that we made over a decade ago. And we're teaching one of them this week, you know, and how we, we, we approach it differently year to year because we have more information about what we are doing. So it also feels like a loop for us to track our growth and development to hold on to those physical sequences that we created with our bodies years ago.
Christy Bolingbroke: We're all aging right? from like day one.
Bryan Baira: Hmm.
Christy Bolingbroke: And so, uh, rather than trying to retain or hold on to a particular phrase as your body would've performed it 10 years ago, how does it show up in your body today is certainly a part of that. And then I also hear so much of what you're talking about like the context of some of the moves, all the different elements, the framing, the cast, the, the sound design could also I like the word recycle.
Bryan Baira: Yeah.
Christy Bolingbroke: You know, upcycle, reus,e this idea of reinvention and, and nice shout out to, I dunno if that was your intention, Baz Luhrmann's. Strictly Ballroom. “There are no new steps.”
Bryan Baira: Yeah.
Christy Bolingbroke: That's a great, great movie. Great line (Everyone laughs). Think of it often, especially when fighting, uh, larger powers that be, that are pushing innovation.
Bryan Baira: Mm-hmm.
Christy Bolingbroke: And I was like. Really?
Bryan Baira: Yeah.
Christy Bolingbroke: Yeah (Laughs).
Bryan Baira: Yeah.
Christy Bolingbroke: This has its own internal struggle, different podcast (Everyone laughs). But let me ask you one last question 'cause we do have a lot of students, across the country that tune in or listen. And so for anyone who is facing the prospect of navigating a creative life, what is the best piece of advice that maybe you've received, that you've continued to hold onto? Or what advice would you offer to them?
Bryan Baira: You can do anything you put your mind to. Follow what you're passionate about. Don't be afraid for that to change. Don't be afraid of any logistic gig or job or opportunity that you need to accept to support yourself surviving in pursuit of your passion. The jobs we do don't take away from our passion. You have to live in this world or you can go be you, there are other options.
Christy Bolingbroke: Yes, it's a choice to engage.
Bryan Baira: You, you can go live in the Himalayas, but that will be a different challenge. But yeah, don't, don't be afraid of the job you have to get to pay your rent and get your food so that you can find the five minutes, two hours, 30 seconds where you are immersed in your passion. Time is relative and if you are really in the flow, then you can get anything done.
Christy Bolingbroke: Note to self, I might have to go Google residency opportunities in the Himalayas (Bolingbroke and Bryan Baira laugh).
Christy Bolingbroke: Because I'm just curious now.
Bryan Baira: Monk life.
Christy Bolingbroke: Yes. Monk life.
Bryan Baira: Detach.
Christy Bolingbroke: Yes.What would you want to share, Shaina?
Shaina Baira: Sure. Whatever your situation is, there’s, there's not a better one to create. You are on your journey and have been a led exactly to where you are. We are all in the perfect situation to create exactly what we need and anything that feels that it is in conflict with that is the struggle that we're meant to push against (Bolingbroke: Hmm), to make exactly the work that we're supposed to make. And part two on my mind is, that we, we, we do have the answers inside of us. I think that it's so easy to search everything or the answers and all of that is so helpful. That's research, that is fodder, that's information to find the answers within yourself. And to know that we are all so powerful and have the keys to our own life.
Jennifer Edwards: ‘Inside the Dancer’s Studio Conversation Series is produced by NCCAkron and supported in part by the University of Akron, the University of Akron Foundation, the Mary Schiller Myers Lecture Series in the Arts, and Audio-Technica, a global audio manufacturer with U.S. headquarters in Northeast Ohio. Our podcast program is produced by Lisa Niedermeyer of Handmade Future Studio. Rahsaan Cruz is our audio engineer, with transcription by Arushi Singh, theme music by Floco Torres, and cover art by Micah Kraus. Special thanks to Laura Ellacott, Sarah Durham, Christi Welter, Nakiasha Moore-Dunson, and Dante Fields. To learn more about NCCAkron, 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. Thanks for listening and stay curious.’