In this episode, NCCAkron's Executive/Artistic Director, Christy Bolingbroke enters the 'studio' with New York City-based choreographer John Heginbotham. Originally from Anchorage, Alaska, Heginbotham graduated from The Juilliard School, was a member of Mark Morris Dance Group. In 2011, he founded Dance Heginbotham and has received a 2018 Guggenheim Fellowship and the 2014 Jacob’s Pillow Dance Award. Other awards include fellowships at New York City Center and at NYU’s Center for Ballet and the Arts.
In this episode, NCCAkron's Executive/Artistic Director, Christy Bolingbroke enters the 'studio' with New York City-based choreographer John Heginbotham. Originally from Anchorage, Alaska, Heginbotham graduated from The Juilliard School, was a member of Mark Morris Dance Group. In 2011, he founded Dance Heginbotham and has received a 2018 Guggenheim Fellowship and the 2014 Jacob’s Pillow Dance Award. Other awards include fellowships at New York City Center and at NYU’s Center for Ballet and the Arts.
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 in Akron, Ohio, as part of our Ideas in Motion initiative. This episode was recorded as an ongoing documentation practice with NCCAkron visiting artists in 2023-2024. Today we joined Christy Bolingbroke, our Executive/Artistic Director, in conversation with New York City-based choreographer John Heginbotham. Originally from Anchorage, Alaska, Heginbotham graduated from The Juilliard School and was a member of Mark Morris Dance Group. In 2011, he founded Dance Heginbotham and has received a 2018 Guggenheim Fellowship and the 2014 Jacob’s Pillow Dance Award. Other awards include fellowships at New York City Center and at NYU’s Center for Ballet and the Arts.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Do you remember a moment, was there a specific life moment or a choice that you made to say like, wait a minute, I'm gonna be a choreographer? How does one know that they're a choreographer?
JOHN HEGINBOTHAM: So, I have to tell you, I don't remember a moment [Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm]. What I do remember though, when you asked the question is I remember a place.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Ooh. Tell us more.
JOHN HEGINBOTHAM: Uh, the sort of, I guess I would call it the den area of our family house [Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm]. And my mom and dad and then sister when she was born, we would watch like Hollywood musicals from the golden era on our Betamax ancient device.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Betamax, 20th-century technology, okay [laughs].
JOHN HEGINBOTHAM: Yeah, yeah, barely 20th century. And you know, they loved the performing arts, they loved. They continue to love the performing arts, they love these Hollywood musicals. And so I was exposed to a lot of dance at that time. And I remember sitting there on the couch watching this and I can't tell you what movie it was or if it was a series of them, but that's when I knew, I knew I wanted to be a performing artist and I knew, I knew that choreography was somehow part of that. I didn't have the word choreography [Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm, Mm-hmm], but I knew designing, designing the scene, [Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm] designing dance, was part of something I wanted to participate in.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Well, and, and so for you to identify with, wait a minute, however they're organizing people or production elements [Yeah: Heginbotham] that, to have that role as a way of organizing and creating the, like, what's the relationship between not only those bodies in space, but to the music or to set elements and, and some people see the dazzle and some people see the edges. It sounds like you immediately [Heginbotham: Yeah] were seeing the frame, the edges.
JOHN HEGINBOTHAM: Yeah, that's very accurate. It's like you, it's like you know, me better than I know me.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Well, I've seen your work [both laugh]. Which also reminds me, I mean, I very clearly remember the first time, I don't think it was the first work you'd ever made, but I remember seeing Closing Bell. And, and this was something, was that music by Tande Braxton?
JOHN HEGINBOTHAM: Tyondai Braxton. Yeah [Bolingbroke: Yes]. And that was the first work that I made for what became Dance Heginbotham.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Okay, all right [Heginbotham: Yeah]. So it was almost from the beginning [Heginbotham: Mm-hmm]. And there was something just knowing you as a person and seeing how your personality was reflected on stage and that relationship to music. I wanted to know and hear a little bit more about how do you think about music?
JOHN HEGINBOTHAM: It is mostly music is first and then a dance is inspired, from what I'm hearing [Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm], but not all of the time. And in fact, the piece that I'm currently working on is something that I'm making mostly in silence [Bolingbroke: Hmm]. However, and by the way, the piece I'm currently working on is a piece that is really born here [Bolingbroke: Oh, in Akron]. Yeah.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Yes! [Heginbotham: Yes] Is this related to, to mycology [Heginbotham: It is] and mushroom hunting? [Heginbotham: Mushroom hunting] So there's a little, music's always there. Do you want to elaborate?
JOHN HEGINBOTHAM: Yeah, sure. So I started working on this piece from a story that I heard here in Akron [Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm]. Christopher Auerbach [Bolingbroke: Yes] told the story. You introduced me to him. Composer and, and oversees performance at Cuyahoga Valley National Park [Bolingbroke: Valley National Park. Mm-hmm]. And he told the story about John Cage winning a lot of money on an Italian game show and then giving that money to Merce Cunningham, a great choreographer who then used that money to buy a VW bus so that his company, which was brand new, could tour [Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm] and the work could be shared. So for me, the story was just, it was sort of delightful that it all happened because of a game show. John Cage answered a question about mushrooms, which is why he won the money. And then the money went to this way so that art could, could be shared.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: And if people who are maybe dance aficionados first listening to this, John Cage is a very famous experimental composer. And so hence, all roads leading back are somehow pulling music along.
JOHN HEGINBOTHAM: Exactly. And there was a time in the sort of like 50s and 60s where not only was he an avant-garde composer, but he was sort of this novelty figure. He appeared on a bunch of variety shows and game shows. And his music, the avant-garde experimental part, often very challenging, even now [Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm] to what, to what our ears are prepared for or what our definitions of music are [Bolingbroke: Mmm]. And so I've seen the transcript of that game show now [Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm]. And the host, who has a great name, Mike Buongiorno [Bolingbroke laughs], is his name. And at one point, at the end of the game show, they're making kind of small talk. And he says something like, Oh, Mr. Cage you know, are you, you know, are you hanging around Italy for a while? And John Cage says, well, I, I have to go, but my music, you know, there's a performance happening, my music will be here. And the game show host Mike Buongiorno says, well, we wish that you would stay, but your music would go [both laugh]. Really nice. So, but the point is, is that I'm working in silence. [Bolingbroke: Okay]. With this piece [Bolingbroke: Which is..] I’ve started [Bolingbroke: Very Cageian]. Yeah. Well, yeah. And yes, right. John Cage's most famous piece of music, Four Minutes and Thirty-Three Seconds is sort of a staging of musicians in which we are, silence is framed [Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm] or ambient sound is framed. And yeah, so we're working in silence. We didn't start that way. We started with a lot of music that Colin Jacobsen [Bolingbroke: Mmm], a frequent collaborator [Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm] and someone who I love dearly and who's a really good friend, as well as a beautiful artist. He sort of is our sort of music director working on this piece, brought us a lot, a lot of music and then also composed an original piece [Bolingbroke: Mmm], which is only the notes C, A, G, and E, Cage [Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm]. And that is the one piece of music that has remained in the piece. Everything else is in silence. But I've started working with a sound designer [Bolingbroke: Hmm], Omar Zubair [Bolingbroke: Mm-huh], who is The Wooster Group, experimental theater company [Bolingbroke: Mm-huh], the sound designer for that group. And what I'm realizing is that for this mushroom piece, um we went from having a lot of music to having essentially no music, to realizing that the sounds of the natural environment for this particular piece are um exciting when they're augmented or warped a little bit [Bolingbroke: Mmm]. Or deconstructed a little bit. [Bolingbroke: Mm-huh. Some distortion]. Yes. And sometimes in ways that people may notice and sometimes in ways that people may not notice. [Bolingbroke: Hmm] But this is all to say that the sound environment is really important to me, regardless of whether there is what we would call, I guess, traditional music [Bolingbroke: Mm-huh, Mm-huh] playing or something that I would say, quote unquote is in silence [Bolingbroke: Hmm], you know.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: You're reminding me and so, so we'll plant a little Easter egg here. We have been fortunate to talk on and off over the years and there is a conversation on NCCAkron's YouTube channel specifically about the relationship between dance and music. And Colin Jacobsen and Maile Okamura joined us for that conversation [Heginbotham: Yes, yes] because that was early on in the Caprice series [Heginbotham: Yeah, yeah] for Dance Heginbotham [Heginbotham: One of which we're filming this week]. So doing all the things [Heginbotham: Yep]. What I want to bring it back to this idea of navigating a creative career [Heginbotham: Yeah]. I think what happens for a lot of our dance students and maybe even artists everywhere is how you're making choices based on inspiration or based on avoiding litigation. And I'll explain what I mean [Heginbotham laughs]. So there's, there’s a rights issue, when it comes to music rights [Heginbotham: Absolutely. Yeah]. Right? I mean, and that's it's not going to go away, especially with things like AI and otherwise [Heginbotham: Sure]. So I'm curious how you might reflect you've navigated that between something like Niccolò Paganini's 24 Caprices [Heginbotham: Mm-hmm. Yep], which I believe is in public domain [Heginbotham: Yep], versus an original music uh you know from something that's not in public domain or an original composition?
JOHN HEGINBOTHAM: My immediate thought is whatever is inspiring, you need to go with that [Bolingbroke: Hmmm]. I need to go, it's the most direct path to something successful [Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm]. And by successful I mean something that is satisfying to me in an artistic sort of context. Right with Paganini, yeah, public domain. Actually, there's a beautiful John Cage-Merce Cunningham story where Merce choreographed a dance to Erik Satie's Socrates [Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm]. And then after he had made that dance, he couldn't get the rights to the music. So John Cage wrote a rhythmically identical piece of music. It sounds nothing like Erik Satie's Socrates, but rhythmically all of the landmarks are there [Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm] for the choreography. And John Cage called that piece Cheap Imitation [Bolingbroke laughs]. You know, which is such a great thing. And actually Mark Morris did that [Bolingbroke: He did]. With the piece called Violet Cavern [Bolingbroke: Right, with another one of your collaborators, Ethan Iverson of the Bad Plus, right?] There we go, right [Bolingbroke: Circles upon circles]. [Laughs]. And I, the thing also I would say about rights is that I think, let's see, I can, I'm sorry, I'm not gonna remember exactly who it was. It may, it may have been the orchestra that recorded Tyondai Braxton's album Central Market. And forgive me if I'm not accurate with this, but I think we were, we were trying to get the rights to that and I believe the, the rights holders sort of gave us a quote that was way out of our [Bolingbroke: Yeah. Price range] possibility [Bolingbroke: Yeah]. And the Executive Director of Dance Heginbotham at that time, a dear friend, Adrienne Bryant [Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm], she went back to them and said, hey, listen, you know, we're just, we're this small modern dance company, we're just starting out, like there's no way we can pay that. And just to give you an idea of who's gonna see this, you know, it's gonna be a hundred people in the little theater. It's not a stadium show [Bolingbroke: Right]. And they listened to reason [Bolingbroke: Okay]. And they said, ok, ok, we see now what is happening here. And they, they gave us a fee that was manageable for us. [Bolingbroke: Something commensurate and yet..] Yes, [Bolingbroke: but you had have a strong sense of self. Like, where's this gonna go] Right [Bolingbroke: to be able to advocate for yourselves]. Well, totally, totally. And also that is a really good reminder that, you know, not everything has to be so hard edged [Bolingbroke: Hmm]. There can always be a little conversation about, you know, is this really what the fee must be? [Bolingbroke: Right] Or could we work something out? And you know what, my experience has been that, not even in general, I mean specifically almost every time [Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm], people are at the very least willing to have a conversation.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: You've been very fortunate to collaborate with lots of very talented, great, amazing people [Heginbotham: Yes]. What, if you could synthesize it and put it into words, what do you look for in dancers and collaborators? [Heginbotham: Hmm]
JOHN HEGINBOTHAM: I'm gonna go back to this wonderful new friend and great artist Omar Zubair [Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm]. So Omar Zubair, he’s a sound, he's a musician, he is a composer, he's a sound designer. But when we were working with him recently on this mushroom piece called You Look Like a Fun Guy, there was a time [Bolingbroke: Noted], thank you, there was a time where we wanted to try a version where maybe Omar danced [Bolingbroke: Mmm] with the dancers and with also with an actor who's in the performance a wonderful, wonderful friend and artist, Daniel Petro. And I have to tell you, like Omar is not a dancer [Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm]. I think he would be the probably the first person to say that or he's not a traditional concert dancer like some of the other people on stage. But what he did was so beautiful [Bolingbroke: Hmmm] and so sort of without affectation [Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm]. Not that the other people on stage have affectation [Bolingbroke laughs]. I just mean that the, the non-training [Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm] was really beautiful in this context [Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm] and he's a beautiful dancer. And so it's not that he is a great dancer so I'm hiring him to be a dancer but there's something there [Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm] that is of interest [Bolingbroke: Mmm] to look at, in the context of that particular piece. So there has, so the answer to your question is there has to be some point of interest for me [Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm] um and that can be artistic, it can be surprising, it can be charisma [Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm] displayed in some way. And then it is important, it's maybe not the most important thing, but it really is great to work with friends and friendly people.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: And then, are you, it's not just the people that you like, but friendship that has like a certain level of vulnerability, perhaps [Heginbotham: Yeah]. Because you have asked collaborators to sort of be outside their comfort zone [Heginbotham: Yeah]. So they need [Heginbotham: It's thrilling to watch that]. They need that confidence and yet the humbleness and vulnerability to try something else.
JOHN HEGINBOTHAM: Well, and trust [Bolingbroke: Mmm]. Like everybody has to just to trust each other [Bolingbroke: Mm-huh] in this situation. Otherwise it's, it’s not, it’s not gonna work, or if it does work, it's gonna be really stressful getting there [Bolingbroke: Yeah]. And there is something thrilling about seeing people, yeah, as you said, go outside of their comfort zone. And I would even say, that's true, even if you're a dancer in a dance show, when you see someone trying to achieve something that might be beyond [Bolingbroke: Mmm-huh] their abilities. It's pretty interesting to watch that [Bolingbroke: Yeah]. It's one of the things I love about Merce Cunningham [Bolingbroke: Mmm] as a choreographer, because he would ask his dancers to do things that were sometimes sort of like, maybe not possible for a human being to do, and you would watch them make the effort to do that, and it makes you sit on the edge of your seat. [Bolingbroke: Mmm]
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Thinking across all these different collaborators, and especially when they come from other disciplines [Heginbotham: Yeah], I think something that, if you're a maker of any kind or facing a deadline [Heginbotham: Yeah], you've got that paper due, you've got that grant due, something [Heginbotham: Yeah], how do you face a creative block and, and yet you know you need to proceed?
JOHN HEGINBOTHAM: So, this is something that has been a practical help to me. It is also something, it was also some advice that I got from Bessie Schoenberg [Bolingbroke: Hmm], who is widely considered sort of the greatest teacher of choreo, how, how to choreograph [Bolingbroke: Mm-huh]. She said, you know, like, I'm paraphrasing that if, if you run into a challenge or a block, change your place in the room where you're watching [Bolingbroke: Hmm] the piece you're making from. So yeah, just something new. Change your perspective, make a new step, put on a different piece of music. Just throw yourself out of the confinement. And it might not be right, you know what I mean? It might not be the answer, but it will open, it'll hopefully crack open a door to go somewhere else.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Yeah, I can almost picture it's like, because we know the creative process is not a linear path [Heginbotham: Right]. And so, if you're feeling in a rut, maybe you've fallen into a crack and you need to get outside of it [Heginbotham: Exactly]. I love this idea of just like, step to a different place in the room.
JOHN HEGINBOTHAM: Yeah, exactly. Just change something about how you are experiencing the dance you're making [Bolingbroke: Mm-huh] or project you're making, the, the paper you're writing. And then the, the other thing I would say is the opposite of that, which is to revisit material that exists [Bolingbroke: Hmm]. That is another way, and there's something really to me very comforting about that. And as you spend more time on the planet, you [Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm] maybe theoretically make more things, so you have more things, more repertory to draw from in those situations. Or maybe within the piece itself, there's a motif that could use some more attention or be taken apart or put together in a different way. So, in that situation, you're also making something new [Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm]. It's not a new step, but it's a new way to approach something that already exists. So, I would say those two things, just break it out, break open, try something, or, and, or revisit something that is already existing, either within the piece already or within your overall repertoire, and see what maybe is good to help you at that moment [Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm]. I will say something that Robert Battle said in a talk that I, I witnessed where somebody asked him, not, it wasn't about being blocked, but it was about something like how do you, it maybe was a question just like how do you choreograph a dance, and he said something that I found to be very profound, which is he said, you just have to do something, you have to start somewhere [Bolingbroke: Hmm], and then that will lead, [Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm] that will lead you somewhere, and I have to say that sounds really simple but to sort of give yourself permission to write the first word, to make the first step, to start a word becoming a sentence, becoming a paragraph, becoming a chapter, becoming a book. You know, yeah, you just, you just have to start somewhere.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: It so resonates, because what you're talking about is momentum, right? [Heginbotham: Yeah]. And if there's anything that we understand, coming through dance, whether it's in class or being a choreographer, is the hardest thing is to build momentum from standing still. [Heginbotham: Oh, wow, yeah]. So, yes, Robert Battle for those that might be listening in, Artistic Director for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, and you've just sort of reaffirmed for me, because I am a little bit biased, but I think that dance makers make some of the best administrators [Heginbotham: Interesting. Yeah]. Just understanding the systems, like we're used to choreographing momentum, whether, whether it's feeding it or working through that, and then you can apply that outside of the studio too.
JOHN HEGINBOTHAM: Yes, well, and you can react to it [Bolingbroke: Mmm]. If you start somewhere and you recognize that it doesn't feel right, start somewhere else [Bolingbroke: Yes]. You don't need to change it somehow. You'll get information [Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm]. You'll start somewhere. You'll receive information that will either propel you or let you know that you need to be taking a different path [Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm]. It's learning. [Bolingbroke:Yeah]
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: You have a very expansive career as a choreographer. You have make work on Dance Heginbotham. You have worked with college students, you have worked with the Parkinson's community [Heginbotham: Sure]. You have also choreographed for operas, ballet companies and commercial success for season three of The Umbrella Academy. [Heginbotham: Thanks]. Another little Easter egg if people are running through things to binge. How do you define virtuosity [Heginbotham: Oh] as an, as an art maker today?
JOHN HEGINBOTHAM: Immediately what comes to mind is that I recently saw this documentary Man on Wire [Bolingbroke: Uh-huh]. Philippe Petit [Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm], I believe his name was, who walked across the World Trade Towers on a tightrope. That I mean, there's not to me, there is nothing more virtuosic than what that person did.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: And so, by that definition, how does virtuosity play a role or not in your work? Is it something that you are searching for when you are putting together a piece?
JOHN HEGINBOTHAM: Okay, wow. Okay, so interesting. So, listen, I love, I love a thrill, or I love to be thrilled. I love to see something that is a magical feat of human capability - physically or conceptually, aesthetically, whatever that is, of course I'd love to see that. I would never, I don't feel like I have operated a lot in the world of, let's see, I'm not, this is suddenly I realized this is gonna sound like an insult, but I guess for me, the most important thing is like being moved by something [Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm]. And that is not always maybe what I would define as a virtuosic event [Bolingbroke: Hmm, Mm-huh]. Although being moved, something had to happen to make that occur, I suppose you could define that as virtuosity.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: It's, it’s something of the craftsmanship, right? Like hearing you reflect on it is reminding me of another early Dance Heginbotham work, a duet Throwaway [Heginbotham: Sure], which is deceptively simple as a lot of your work is, but it is mentally virtuosic. [Heginbotham: Totally. Thank you]. And just letting it sit in its simplicity, I think gives it the space to move the viewer in some way, to laugh or to feel it or to see it. That in itself is a creative choice over say, 32 fouettés or walking a tight rope wire [Heginbotham: Right, right] or something that has built in drama in that regard.
JOHN HEGINBOTHAM: So, my final tour [Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm] that I ever did with the Mark Morris Dance Group [Bolingbroke: Okay] was in Macau, which is sort of the Las Vegas of [Bolingbroke: Oh, Southeast Asia. Yeah]. A lot of us saw the show called, I believe it was called The House of Falling Water, something like that, which was advertised as the most expensive show on the planet Earth.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: That is yet another definition of virtuosity.
JOHN HEGINBOTHAM: Well, it is, it is. Okay, so this show was like, you know, it would be sort of like a Cirque du Soleil kind of extravaganza [Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm]. I mean, the stage would fill with water. There would be a whole water element. The water would empty out. People would be doing aerial work. I mean, really high up. There were motorcycles. I think there was fire. There was sort of a storyline that I mean, I don't really remember what it was. And this very, very comfortable theater that was designed, I mean, everything about this, the theater was designed to house the show [Bolingbroke: Wow], right? So everything sort of the, production values of the show were unbelievably excellent. And I remember sitting in this theater watching the show and my heart never...uh, got fast, my heartbeat never got faster [Bolingbroke: Oh wow]. I mean, I just was never, everything had the same value [Bolingbroke: Hmm]. It was like, yeah, motorcycles, water, fire, flying, all of that. But instead of feeling thrilled, and I appreciated what the performers were doing [Bolingbroke: Oh my goodness]. And I'm sure it was very, very difficult. But it was just, everything was so slick and easy. I don't know. It just, I never felt suspense. Now that was a while ago. Jumping forward to this past, like two months, a month ago. I, I was in London and I saw this performance of the musical Guys and Dolls. Back to musical theater and Hollywood musicals, definitely Guys and Dolls was a movie. Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra, the other stars made this Hollywood film, one, one of the many that I saw in that Betamax [Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm]. Okay. So I saw, and I've seen, you know live productions of it over the years. So, I'm watching this show that's very familiar to me. And I'm sitting in this London theater and I'm by myself, which is by the way, how I often love to see performances [Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm]. I can have my own sort of experience and it sort of just gives me time with myself and with what I'm experiencing. So, I'm there, I'm by myself, I'm watching the show, which is a Guys and Dolls, unlike anything I've ever seen before. It's immersive [Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm]. So, Nicholas Hytner directed it. This thing happened to me in the second act. And I, I do know why it happened, but it had a lot to do with the performers [Bolingbroke: Hmm] and how really just sort of honest and wonderful they were in this context of musical theater, which sometimes you can go really broad [Bolingbroke: Hmm. With that affectation that you're talking about]. Affectation, yes [Bolingbroke: Yeah]. So, these performers delivered Guys and Dolls in its own truth, but with sort of a simplicity and honesty, and I guess I would call it virtuosity. And I wept probably for an hour and a half from the start of the second act all the way to the end of the show [Bolingbroke: Wow]. And I didn't see it coming. I was just so moved by what was going on [Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm] on that stage. And I would way rather have that experience than see the , 32 fouettés [Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm], unless those 32 fouettés are performed by like a great, great artist who's able to bring something to that, that is maybe not purely physical [Bolingbroke: Where's the human inside of it?] Yeah, yes [Bolingbroke: Yeah, for sure]. If virtuosity and humanity, I don't know if they should be on opposite sides of a continuum [Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm], I'm way more interested in the humanity side.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Somewhere on the spectrum [Heginbotham: Yeah], maybe. And, and so it's not the extremes, but finding that overlap. For anyone who is trying to navigate a creative life, would you care to pass on the best piece of advice you've ever received [Heginbotham: Okay] or to offer one of your own?
JOHN HEGINBOTHAM: The simple thing is you just, you have to follow your inspiration [Bolingbroke: Hmm] and you have to listen to what's interesting to you. You have to follow your heart. I mean [Bolingbroke: Hmm], that, you have to follow your passion, your heart, your inspiration. And if you follow those things, you will be led in the right direction [Bolingbroke: Hmm]. And I can say from my own experience that is absolutely true. And when I deviate, when I second guess or question or take on a project that is not [Bolingbroke: Hmm] where my heart is. I'm not saying it's a 100% failure, but it's sometimes it's not as successful or not as not.. [Bolingbroke: As satisfying]. As satisfying [Bolingbroke: You feel it], you know [Bolingbroke: Okay]. I feel it and others feel it [Bolingbroke: Hmm]. That's the other thing is like, if I'm, if I’m not moved, then why would I expect other, other people to be moved [Bolingbroke: Hmm]. So you just gotta follow it, even if you didn't get the rights, even if it seems impossible. So yeah, so it seems impossible. Then you find a way to, you find a way into it [Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm], even with the impossibilities around it. You'll find a way to be creative [Bolingbroke: Okay] to make it work. Right? Like you figure out a way to make it work [Bolingbroke: Yes]. I also feel, I love saying this, this is from other people [Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm]. Mark Morris said two great things. One to me personally, and one I think he was maybe during a talk or an interview. One thing he said to me is, he offered this advice. He said, don't make up the dance that's in your head. Which I love because what that means is if everything's already decided, then maybe it, it isn't so fresh or open [Bolingbroke: Mmm] to the possibilities of the, that the process of creating will bring [Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm]. It closes, it makes it closed as opposed to having some openness. Now I will say, I, I prefer to walk in with a plan [Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm]. I think, I think Mark probably does too [Bolingbroke: Yeah]. So, it's not saying go in with no, like [Bolingbroke: Yeah] nothing, but don't confine yourself to the decisions you already made before you were in the dance studio with the dancers, with the air conditioning, with the light coming through the window. Like let those things in [Bolingbroke: Yeah], let them influence you. [Bolingbroke: Some space]. Some space [Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm]. And then I'm gonna say a piece of advice, this is the last one. This was really early in my like serious choreographic career. I was making up a piece and I somehow, I was doing the thing where I was second guessing and having doubts. And I think, you know I was working with my really great friend and collaborator, Maile Okumura [Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm]. And I said something about, I don't know, is it too weird, what I've done? And she said, I wouldn't, I wouldn't be scared of being weird. I would say, she said something along the lines of you should be more weird [Bolingbroke: Mm-hmm], like, or you should embrace the weirdness. And that is a really great piece of advice. Embrace the weirdness.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Be as weird as you want to be.
OUTRODUCTION: Inside The Dancer’s Studio Conversation Series is supported by NCCAkron, 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 Jennifer Edwards. James Sleeman is our editor, transcription by Arushi Singh. Theme music by Floco Torres, cover art by Micah Kraus. Special thanks to Laura Ellacott, Sarah Durham, and Will Blake. 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. 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.