In this episode, NCCAkron's Executive/Artistic Director, Christy Bolingbroke enters the 'studio' with Twin Cities-based dancer, choreographer, and educator, Paula Mann. Mann moved to the Twin Cities in 1987, has created 50 new works, and is co-artistic director of TIME TRACK PRODUCTIONS with visual artist Steve Paul. She has been a driving force in Contemporary Dance and Performance-based out of Minneapolis for the past 30 years; challenging, educating, and engaging artists, audiences, and communities with passion, inventiveness, and rigor. She was full-time faculty at the University of Minnesota Department of Theater and Dance from 1993-2013 and is a 2019 McKnight Choreographer Fellow.
In this episode, NCCAkron's Executive/Artistic Director, Christy Bolingbroke enters the 'studio' with Twin Cities-based dancer, choreographer, and educator, Paula Mann. Mann moved to the Twin Cities in 1987, has created 50 new works, and is co-artistic director of TIME TRACK PRODUCTIONS with visual artist Steve Paul. She has been a driving force in Contemporary Dance and Performance-based out of Minneapolis for the past 30 years; challenging, educating, and engaging artists, audiences, and communities with passion, inventiveness, and rigor. She was full-time faculty at the University of Minnesota Department of Theater and Dance from 1993-2013 and is a 2019 McKnight Choreographer Fellow.
http://www.timetrackdance.org/about.html
A recreation of New Dance by Doris Humphrey (with my teacher Linda Tarnay in the main role)https://youtu.be/EA4KmKnYRwM
Bill T Jones https://youtu.be/o4DD3dgfvS0
Donald McKayle's Rainbow 'Round My Shoulder https://youtu.be/kXZ2ca066Lo
Daniel Nagrin's Strange Hero https://youtu.be/rxWVYT3_Ccc
Robert Wilson Einstein on the Beach https://youtu.be/a8kgAkTS7oM
Sharon Wehner performs "32 Fouettes" from Swan Lake https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIADfYGc9Vw
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 Twin Cities-based dancer, choreographer and educator, Paula Mann. Mann moved to the Twin Cities in 1987, has created 50 new works, and is co-artistic director of TIME TRACK PRODUCTIONS with visual artist Steve Paul. She has been a driving force in Contemporary Dance and Performance based out of Minneapolis for the past 30 years; challenging, educating and engaging artists, audiences and communities with passion, inventiveness and rigor. She was full time faculty at the University of Minnesota Department of Theater and Dance from 1993-2013 and is a 2019 McKnight Choreographer Fellow.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: How did you become a choreographer?
PAULA MANN: Well, I think I might have mentioned this to you before, but I did have an event when I was 15. I was living in a commune at that time, that’s a long story, but, but I saw the Kent State University dance program, they had a show, I saw contemporary dance for the first time. And I had just enrolled in high school and was watching this performance and it was, it was like a, I mean this sounds as corny as can be, but really like a lightning bolt struck me. And I thought, this is, this is visual, this is spatial, this is musical. I mean I’m trying to put it into words, but it just came through like, I want to do this. I don’t, I didn’t know what choreography was. And as you say, I was drawing a lot and continued to draw through high school and be kind of an art, an art room star in high school, if you can be that. And, but, you know, dancing just kept taking over, you know, more and more, the musicality of it, I was just something you know, I really wasn’t getting in art. I just, I really wanted to learn to be a great dancer. That was my first thing. Is I want to go to NYU and I want to, you know, I want to master this. Yeah. And so.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Yeah, yeah, you’d been accepted at Cooper Union, but at the last minute decided to go to NYU, New York University Tisch School of the Arts, and...
PAULA MANN: Yeah.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: The rest is, shall they say, history.
PAULA MANN: It’s history. Yeah, I just sometimes I do wonder where my life would have gone if I went in that direction because it’s not an easy life to, to put your work out there and just funding and choreography and the whole. Just, even the artistic stress sometimes to want to make something, you know, it’s, it’s as great as you can, and so you’re always working back and forth with yourself in that way. That’s the creative process, but, but you know I, I really am. Being a dancer for me has just been, that’s been the thing, you know? As much as I love choreography, I just love dancing so much. Taking an idea, bringing it through with energy, understanding energy and how that moves through our body. It’s just such a wonderful thing and I, I don’t really talk about this so much, but, you know, it’s just, it’s been a great thing for me personally, to be able to dance, you know. That’s, it’s been meaningful for, I’m not even talking about audiences right now, I just mean on a personal level. It’s been, it’s been just wonderful.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Oh, yes. And so where, where do you start then? It, does it start with the movement, is drawing still a part of your creative practice? Have you picked up other tools. Some might call it inspiration. Like where, where do you begin for when you have to manifest your own lightning bolts?
PAULA MANN: I need some lightning bolts right here. Yeah, I mean it comes from all those sources, but actually it does, it starts in my body but also in a conceptual way. If this is an evening length work, what is this about? So I do, I do think about intention. I've been building this large scale work for the last year in my mind and then physicalizing it with some movement, but I know that’s gonna shift when I get into the space with dancers and I know they will bring so much to it. I mean, I couldn’t, could not work without the people I work with. I’d be doing a lot of solos, which I’ve done. But it’s important to think about the overall intention in a way and bring it through that. I’m trying to think of a better word for that, but, you know, to physicialize that intention in some way. Especially if it’s a large-scale idea, you know.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Yeah, and with that in mind, so what do you look for in dancers or collaborators?
PAULA MANN: They have to be pretty flexible, and I don’t mean that physically, although, I’m not a choreographer who values being able to put your leg over your head. I used to be able to do that, but. I want them to be flexible in their consciousness, in their, in their ability to shift from one idea to the next. And the other thing I would look for is, is also the ability to shift energy levels, from one idea, from one energy level to, you know, to really, to really understand contrast. The energy level contrast in our body, I hope this isn’t getting too esoteric.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: We’re here for it.
PAULA MANN: The way it can shift back and forth, because I love that in movement. I just, I love contrast and, and conflict to a certain degree. I really, when it’s getting out as the emotions that people are feeling. I mean, you can feel it now, what’s happening now.So it’s a way of processing emotions through energy and that comes out in the work I think. So if a dancer can do that, it’s fantastic.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Even so much of your language is movement oriented. Just this idea of embodying, like dance, dance has always been where it’s been at for you. And this idea of shifting weight, or what you call energy, it’s, it’s prevalent throughout your answers and I just wanted to reflect that back, thank you so much. And also invite, I just want, real quick want to invite our listeners, we welcome you to share any questions you have in the chat. I’m happy to incorporate them along the way, you’re invited to disrupt our score, but otherwise I will continue to have a, this dialogue with Paula too. So thank you for being here and please feel free to chime in.
PAULA MANN: Yeah, I love questions.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: I love that. So how do you name a dance work? And this is something that comes directly from some of our students who, it’s like, how do you navigate the creative process, which is not always linear, with very practical demands, right? Whether it’s a grant, or program copy and you’re like, I’m still making up the thing, I don’t know how, what it’s going to be called yet. How do you approach that problem?
PAULA MANN: Maybe you should call it, ‘The Thing I Just Made.’
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Don’t overthink it.
PAULA MANN: This is a thing I just made. Well honestly I’ve had some crazy titles and some of it has come from what the work is about. It had one piece that was called ‘The Train wreck is Proceeding Nicely’ and I guess it could be for any period of time in history really. There’s always kind of been a train wreck, but it really seems apt today. But it, it, it was, you know, it was loosely based on some things that were happening in 2005 politically, and just also going backward into other, the ‘50s, kind of the stress of McCarthyism. Sometimes I do make a title that people would kind of be startled at a bit, but I do want them to that, have that imagine in their mind. To see the title. I’ve done plenty of titles that didn’t make sense, and you know, I’ve had no. One time I had a piece that I didn’t know what to title it yet, and we had to have a showing, and I called it ‘Plastic Lemon, Spicy Fish.’
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Top of the grocery list, I love it.
PAULA MANN: Exactly. Like, one, two. And it eventually became ‘Rules of the Crowd’ because it really was about the political, the consciousness of a people, of humans. So yeah.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: I love that too, that it eventually became something else. Cause this idea that a title can seem so finite, right? Just like with choosing what you’re gonna do with the rest of your life is somehow being a finite idea, in that it has room to, to ebb and flow and evolve.
PAULA MANN: Yeah, it’s not linear.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: No, no not at all. And I appreciate too, that you reflecting on, on our, our world’s lived experience, your own lived experience. Taking a series of events in 2005 and reflecting on McCarthyism in the ‘50s and this idea, how do you do that with movement, right? Especially when you’ve navigated a career and sometimes our field is very overly fascinated, in my opinion, with innovation. But then there’s that, that strictly ballroom quote - there's no new steps. So, this idea of like new movement material vocabulary, old movement vocabulary. How, how do you navigate that landscape?
PAULA MANN: Well, there may not be any new steps, but there are new ways to do them, new approaches. But even I, I’m fascinated with what comes out of my body. It’s not always connected to my mind, it seems to have a thrust all of its own. And then I would reflect on it and change it, so I do like the fact that my body is continuing to generate movement. That makes me happy, more on a personal level, like oh I can, it’s, it’s like drawing. I can take a pencil or a pen and just put it to paper and something comes out, and I don’t have to think about it. And that’s because I’ve been drawing since I was 2 or 3, but with movement I also feel that way. That I’m, whatever comes out of me has some validity. Then I might shape it a bit and think about it, but that’s why improv is so great, because what comes through, I should say, what comes through, comes through. And that, you have to not only honor that but reflect on it. And is this movement filling the ideas of this work? Fulfilling the ideas of the work? Or because I know if you take a specific subject and put it in front of an audience and the audience will look at it and go, well I didn’t get that at all from that movement. You know, that was not happening for me. But at the same time, I think that’s the, that’s the trick with movement, you kind of have to honor it and look at it. But I was gonna say too, Christy, that I think you get across an intention through, through the heart. Through emotions for an audience. I want my audience, I would love the audience to be feeling something. I mean then they always are, but, the mind, the heart connection, hopefully that’s resonating with them. And so, through energy, that whole energy construct, you can get at emotions. You can get at dynamics, you can get at all kinds of emotions and sometimes they’re all together and sometimes you can pick them apart and. You know, it’s just, it’s very complex in a way, but then it’s something that happens naturally.I hope that made sense.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Well that you have to feel it, you can’t overanalyze it. But I, I want to follow up and reflect also, you know, you, you said that you’re not necessarily a choreographer that values the leg over the head. The virtuosity of that. I think that’s something that changes over time is, and so I invite you to share, how would you define virtuosity in dance based on where you are now?
PAULA MANN: Virtuosity is being able to work on multiple levels, or be, call it platforms, multiple levels. Like, emotional, I understand this idea, mental, not that they’re separate but, oh I get this, I can get this in my heart, I can feel this. To me that probably would be the number one. I can feel this movement. It’s instinctive but, and also somebody, it’s virtuosic to be able to be present in the room, actually. Just to be, I mean I can feel, I’m pretty sensitive to people and dancers and I can feel when a dancer is off, is having a bad day. I mean, I kind of know it immediately. And they know it too.And it’s just amazing how you can build a group consciousness like that. That would be virtuosic, to be part of a group, all the things you want to portray onstage or in some format, that would be virtuosic to me.I mean, but they also have to be able to be, to be able to use their body as a vehicle for this. Almost like you have to be kind of clear in a way. So I, I mean while I, I actually love technique, I mean who knows, there’s so many different kinds of techniques and, you know, I like to be open to that.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Well, that idea of complexity but also clarity, it makes me think about, you know, in, in other creative mediums. Maybe the literary arts, it’s not just about you’ve got a big vocabulary. Can you also use big words to get an idea clearly across?
PAULA MANN: Oh, it’s so true, yeah.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Right? Whereas in dance, if it’s the flexibility, or the 32 fouettes at center stage, you know, but opening our minds and bodies up to different, you know, possibilities of virtuosity is one of reasons why I love to unpack that question a little bit.
PAULA MANN: I mean, I totally, I geek about being able to do 32 fouettes and I used to do a few so I know what that entails. But it’s not, I’m, my work isn’t about showing that, it’s not showing. It’s really trying to get the dancers and the audience to connect. And, and be, have the audience be in a piece and not show it. I don’t know if that makes any sense, but, as much as I love to see people do that, because it is really hard, it’s really hard. But you know, it’s not so much, it’s not so much what I want to focus on right now.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Yeah, so I’m, I’m curious cause one of the things that’s been appealing about our lunchtime talks is we have several dance students and dance community members, but anyone who has lived a creative life, what do you do when it’s not working? When you find yourself in a rut and yet you’re still working against a deadline.
PAULA MANN: Oh yeah, I’ve, I’m thinking back to quite a few times. Especially if a certain part isn’t working, and you have other things and holding in the balance, and we know that this is not happening. I need to find another solution to this. I mean, I think I would have given you a different answer 15 years ago, you know, cause I’ve had, I actually pushed through a lot of that, of those things and kind of powered through it. But now actually, I would just let it go for a while, you know? Just let it go and see what came, cause I don’t know if pushing at a door that’s not gonna open is really. You know, is, you know, you maybe you just want to just, I think that’s, the value of being a little bit older is you just kind of, ok I’m just gonna let this go for a while. I think then your mind starts to churn on something in a different way. And this is what drawing does for me because as I’m drawing, and I draw things that kind of move around a page, I can, my, my brain can do a lot of different things and I end up coming up with ideas. Same with movement improv, but a little different, but you know it’s, it’s, it’s maybe just yeah don’t push.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Because maybe you’re missing the fact that door is a pull.
PAULA MANN: That’s right.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: You know and when we’re pushing so hard.
PAULA MANN: It opens the other direction, you know. Oh there you are. And an idea, I swear an idea will come. Something will happen.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Well that’s what the creative practice can feel like a lot.
PAULA MANN: Yeah.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Right, like it is work, but it also is not predictable.
PAULA MANN: Right.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: The way a lot of other jobs or work may be sometimes.
PAULA MANN: It can be crazy that way, yeah. It’s not predictable and you’re kind of asking yourself, well what’s going on here. Why isn’t this, this working and.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Yeah, so I want to pick on something cause I, I got to see a small work in process, a solo that you’ve been developing recently. And I was fascinated by the sound score. Like, where in your own practice does sound begin to incorporate itself and how, how do you dance or make in relationship to sound?
PAULA MANN: Wow, I, if it’s what I’m thinking that you might have seen that, that came at the end, you know? I just generally don’t use sound until a little bit later in the process. Not, not, I mean I might use something for inspiration that may, may not be in the piece it, you know, itself, but because I just love, I love music and I know that most choreographers are very sensitive to music and sound. But I might not add it in because I want to see what the body does without that, that impetus. But, you know, having said that, I sometimes need it. You know? It just depends on where I’m at. I might need it for improv, or I might, it, I usually improvise in silence, but sometimes, some days I need it, you know. And some days that will bring something really positive forth, you know, but I, I try to use composers basically. So the, there’s another collaborator in the room and they bring something extraordinary to the work. I, I because I do think audiences hear music before they are visually understanding what’s happening. Or it’s just, you know, the music is coming, the sound. And so when working with a composer, I feel like there’s, there’s that collaborative energy and they’re bringing that, they’re bringing their ideas to the forefront there.And it’s, I’m so grateful for having, being, to be able to work with composers.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: It, it, it also, it kind of drops additional puzzle pieces into place. You talked about the audience and the mind, heart feeling connection. The thinking connection, what are you seeing, what are you feeling, and what are you hearing? Like that’s the element of sound is not about making something that’s an object for the audience separately to relate to, but it sounds like they’re all invitations to how they might engage too. I love that.
PAULA MANN: Yeah, community, I mean. I think building a piece is like building a little community. And I hopefully, you, we’re doing a series of, I guess, you know, workshops or they would be more showings that invited the audience to participate. Some simple things, a lot of audiences don’t want to do that, I understand that, but these would be very low key events, they’re not performative in that way. They’re just, oh I want to show you this thing we’ve been making and I want perhaps to get some feedback and also maybe have you participate in this in some way.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: And we, speaking of community, got a great question from our online community who also wanted to hear more. So you went to NYU Tisch, at one point in your career and experience, you moved to the twin cities. How has living and working in the twin cities influenced your creative practice?
PAULA MANN: Well, it’s, I’m very grateful to the twin cities community for accepting me back then. You know, there is a stereotype about the midwest, I find that presenters are still kind of in that mode a little bit. Even though I work in Minneapolis, and The Walker is here, which is a phenomenal presenting organization. Well, we have an Arts Midwest here and they, you know, do a tour around it, midwest and.. But I think there’s still a thought about New York being really the place to be. And I was there and, and, and it might be subtle, it might be going away, I hope it is, but also it, in, I was in Europe and they really couldn’t have given a, anything, I was gonna say, they could not have cared about. In fact, another, we, we got some gruff, I guess some angst about us being from Minneapolis. They just thought that was the most hysterical thing that we weren't from New York and we were in Europe. We were from somewhere they hadn’t actually heard of. So it, it, all these places get sort of insular and you try to, you know, say oh the people in this place are like this. That’s not true, it’s very, it’s very varied. Yeah. So, I don’t know, Christy, I mean I think the thing about Minneapolis when I got here and what it, what it’s been for me so far is that I’ve been able to make a lot of work. And I kind of realized in New York I, I’m not gonna be able to make as much here. And, and I also wanted to teach, at that point in my life I thought, I think I’d love to teach also. So it became a teacher, another skill to develop but I, I just didn’t think I could, I had this feeling that I needed to make a lot of work just to make, just to understand the form and to delve into the form and also just for, you know, expanding creativity and I’ve been so interested in how we create and what creativity actually is. And, you know, that still fascinates me. I still think about that all the time and so, I hope those stereotypes about the midwest are going away, and, and I had them too coming from New York, I actually did. And it took me a while to get rid of these, but yeah, I mean. It’s very hard to make work in New York, it’s financially hard.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Yeah, there’s so much, there’s so much in that. I also found that, dropped the link to Arts Midwest which is in itself like many states, I mean, we’re highlighting, Minnesota is a huge state. It would not only include immediate neighbors like Wisconsin and Illinois, it includes Ohio here. The first Arts Midwest conference that I went to had artists from Texas.
PAULA MANN: Amazing.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: It’s a big swatch of the country to sort of homogenize.
PAULA MANN: Right? Yeah.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: And, and if there’s anything that we, and additionally, you know, we’ve learned lots of things, hopefully let go of lots of things during 2020 and Covid times, but I think the hyper-regional opportunities is something that people are starting to see more when we remove some of those infrastructures that uphold institutions on the coasts first and foremost. And it’s like, oh wait, what are the different opportunities for everything from our healthcare to performing arts when we can traverse as easily. You know, what does it mean to be a global citizen, but also hyper-rooted in your immediate community…
PAULA MANN: Yeah, oh it’s so true.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: And finding that along the way.
PAULA MANN: Yes, so true.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: So much. So speaking of shifts in thinking, one of the things that NCCAkron focuses on a lot is how do we build on what we call 20th century knowledge to develop a 21st century dance ecosystem? For the advances of the internet and also the migration from having codified techniques to less and less artists developing those nowadays, I would love to hear how you might define 21st century dance practices?
PAULA MANN: Well, the practice, that’s a difficult question actually. The practice is unique to each person. And that, that I guess had, that has to be cause we actually have to dig to find that practice. and that’s what I’ve been doing for the last 40 years, had to count there. But, you know, just globally I think there’ll be more integration of, first of other forms, but of other movement, movement genres or, I guess you could say styles, but it’s more like more movement thought, considerations of more global movement practices. And maybe, and I think more acceptance of those. Because I think there was a very strange, well there’s been a ballet paradigm, you know, and a modern paradigm and I think that needs to shift and open because who has, who has the, who has the right to hold onto those paradigms? So I think, it’s a complicated thing in my brain but.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: And the curiosity that I’m, I’m hearing it invite. Like recognizing that those have been shortcomings or blindspots in our field. There definitely is that moment of reckoning that we didn’t need 2020 to start it, but it has elevated and highlighted that conversation.
PAULA MANN: Yeah. Definitely, yeah.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: So now people are, are really going, whereas I experienced in the ‘90s I would say that it was a little more politically correct tokenism, where, you know, I remember there was a like a fusion flamenco class in, in my college curriculum. Whereas now I feel we’re trying to, to make more space and say, tell me more about your art form, how much of it’s rooted in identity, how do you relate to other forms and crossing through that too?
PAULA MANN: Totally.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Yeah, I, I’m following what you’re laying down and I also appreciate how much you emphasize like, it means something different to you the way it will mean something different to, you know, another artist and another artist after that. And that that space for more individualised approaches is an interesting one for us to look at if we are to also be a ecosystem that, that is supported by the industry of the art form.
PAULA MANN: It’s a, I think it’s a global idea about the power of the individual, yet we need to bring together a community. So there’s a, sort of a dichotomy there, but it has to be worked out because we know that we are unique in that.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Yeah, for sure. So one last question, cause we do have lots of students but some are in dance, some may be in the literary arts, or in music and, and just also as the individuals trying to navigate their path in this world, I am curious if you might share a piece of advice for navigating a creative career? This could be something that, that you had received at some point in your 40 plus years and wouldn’t mind passing that forward, or you can make one up. You know, and as far as what you might share, what kind of advice would you offer for anyone trying to navigate a creative career?
PAULA MANN: Well I, I mean, this is, this is what I have done is to just focus on my own, own process in those times where, I think what’s happen, when nothing is happening exterialiy on the outside, I would focus on the process within and try to continue developing, creating and developing. Because it’s, it’s a muscle, or I mean, it’s, it’s, or it’s a way, I think it’s a muscle, but it’s a way of, of continuing to work I mean, that I think that’s what people are navigating in this. There’s funding issues, there’s connecting with other, with people, other human beings. But when, in times like this I think it’s, it’s just good to, to understand your own process or to dig into it. You may not understand it for a while or you may come to something, but dig into your own unique creative process and, and stay with it, you know? You stay with it, I mean, I mean I’m just a stubborn, a very stubborn person and I just, I just stick to things, you know?I just, but, but I’ve been try, I’ve had terrible moments where I’ve just wanted to give up, you know, just wanted to stop. You know, there’s just, I have, so many stories, but then I would come out the other end and realize I actually do love to do this and hopefully it will mean something to someone else also. An audience, a student, you know? That’s what I loved about being a, is I could really actually see what my, what, how my energy was, was being used and understood by students.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Coming through.
PAULA MANN: Yeah, and that, that’s a wonderful thing about teaching, it gives you that right away. You know, and that so, you know, that’s what I would say, it just, I mean, it sounds a little bit corny, you know, but keep going, and keep, keep trying to understand yourself in this process. That’s the journey.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Stay with it. I love that. Stay with it friends.
PAULA MANN: It’s gonna be up and down.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Thank you so much Paula, yes, absolutely, thank you so much for joining us, for sharing your experience.
PAULA MANN: Stay with it.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Bye everyone.
PAULA MANN: Yay.
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 Floco 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.