In this episode, NCCAkron's Executive/Artistic Director, Christy Bolingbroke enters the 'studio' with Maui Hawaii-based choreographer Christopher K. Morgan. Christopher is the Executive Artistic Director of Christopher K Morgan & Artists as well as the Director of the Dance Residency Program at Art Omi. His choreography has been presented in 18 countries on 5 continents and has addressed issues including sexuality, gender identity, race, climate change, immigration and water conservation. Christopher recently joined the Maui Arts & Cultural Center to be Vice President of Programming through which he curates dozens of music, dance, and theater performances each year, oversees the Schaefer International Gallery, and a robust arts education program that serves thousands of Hawai'i youth, adults, and arts educators. Prior to joining the Maui Arts & Cultural Center, Christopher served as Executive Artistic Director of Dance Place in Washington, D.C.
In this episode, NCCAkron's Executive/Artistic Director, Christy Bolingbroke enters the 'studio' with Maui Hawaii-based choreographer Christopher K. Morgan. Christopher is the Executive Artistic Director of Christopher K Morgan & Artists as well as the Director of the Dance Residency Program at Art Omi. His choreography has been presented in 18 countries on 5 continents and has addressed issues including sexuality, gender identity, race, climate change, immigration and water conservation. Christopher recently joined the Maui Arts & Cultural Center to be Vice President of Programming through which he curates dozens of music, dance, and theater performances each year, oversees the Schaefer International Gallery, and a robust arts education program that serves thousands of Hawai'i youth, adults, and arts educators. Prior to joining the Maui Arts & Cultural Center, Christopher served as Executive Artistic Director of Dance Place in Washington, D.C.
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 and Motion initiative. This episode was recorded in the presence of a live audience in February of 2022. Today we joined Christy Bolingbroke, our Executive/Artistic Director, in conversation with Portland, Oregon-based choreographer Christopher K. Morgan. Christopher is the Executive/Artistic Director of Christopher K. Morgan & Artists, as well as the Director of the dance residency program at Art Omi. His choreography has been presented in 18 countries on five continents, and has addressed issues including sexuality, gender identity, race, climate change, immigration and water conservation. This January, Christopher became the inaugural Director of the Center for Native Arts and Cultures or CNAC. CNAC is a brand new artistic center that will serve as a vibrant gathering place for Indigenous artists by providing spaces for exhibitions, events, practicing culture and art making, as well as areas for cultural ceremonies and celebrations.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Christopher (Christopher K. Morgan: Christie). That’s good, we're projecting. (Morgan: Yes) All right. It's like oh, was in front of an audience to project not just my Zoom Room (Morgan: Right). First question. When did you know you wanted to be a choreographer?
CHRISTOPHER K. MORGAN: Excellent question. It happened, I would say during my dancing career, and I was very fortunate as a dancer to dance in many different types of environments with lots of different choreographers, some very postmodern choreographers, like David Gordon, to really highly physical dancers, Hernando Cortez, who has some Cleveland connections and was the Artistic Director of Verb Ballets for a while, lots of wide ranging things. And I started to hear my voice inside my head, not out loud, occasionally in rehearsal processes saying, what an interesting choice this choreographer/director made, I would have done this. They went left, and I would have thought I'll go right. And so I started to hear that more and more, and I realized that there was a choreographic voice developing. You know, earlier in my career as a teacher, and I think a lot of students and other professionals have this experience, you're often asked to make dances a lot of the time, on, on students for recitals or other things. And, and that doesn't necessarily feel like an expression of yourself or your work. So I've had a lot of that experience. But when I really started to hear an inner voice that was making choices, articulating reasons why those choices might be important to me, as a performer and other people's work, that felt very clear. And then layer that with, I also felt a strong and clear impulse and urge around what the themes and ideas of work would be, that I would want to make. And that has carried through throughout the entire body of my work over the last 15 plus years. So yeah, it's started, I can remember a very specific instance, in 2000, I was dancing with David Gordon, I was in his Soho studio, and just really remember this clear moment of thinking, Yeah, I would make a different choice. That’s what started that choosing choreography as part of the practice.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Well, and whether it's a being a choreographer, you know, I'm a big fan of like, everything is choreography, right? Whether I'm designing a budget, or whether you are a community organizer, and a leader in some other environment. It doesn't have to be a studio. But, what I hear inside of your experience, is that like, noticing the world around you, and identifying where you have choice to make the world you want.
CHRISTOPHER K. MORGAN: Yes, absolutely. And there's so much design in all of that thinking, and the choreographic practice, as you just said, influences all of those different ways of working. Thinking about spatial relationships, timing relationships, that arcs can play out in every other capacity.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Yeah, so where do you start, right? Because like writers have to face the blank page. There's a lot of mythology around the muses and inspiration just striking you like lightning, and maybe that is your practice. But I'm curious, you know, where do you begin when you're going to start making a dance?
CHRISTOPHER K. MORGAN: Most of my dances begin from the inside, I would say. (Bolingbroke: How so?) usually it's a response to something I'm feeling, hearing, or experiencing. A lot of my work ends up mining personal identity to then reflect on larger social issues. So I think I do start first person. But I'm very interested in how there is a unique celebration of individual voice that also connects to many voices. So I want to try and work with either my own stories or stories shared amongst deeply respectful collaborative relationships to foster this feeling of being able to see oneself in work that is different than one's own identity. So if my identity is different than what's represented on stage, I still want to be able to see that reflected back in some way. So it starts with kind of personal inquiry experience. I often write and journal early in choreographic practices. Sometimes the written word ends up in a piece. Some of my pieces do have a lot of text in them, but the process comes inward to outward I would say.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Well, its beautifully put. But, knowing a little bit about your background, too, and I'm struck by how Liz Lerman has described herself as a nonfiction choreographer, which is very different right than like in story ballets, we might be seeing fairies and sort of more fiction or fantasy, but that that what's my role and relationship and identity to a larger world around me, feels like nonfiction might be part of the thread you're carrying.
CHRISTOPHER K. MORGAN: Absolutely. And it's been described sometimes as biographical or autobiographical, depending on the relationships of the storytelling inside. But that doesn't feel as accurate. I love this description from Liz of nonfiction because it is trying to encompass beyond personal story, including personal story figures, but…
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: It's bigger than just you.
CHRISTOPHER K. MORGAN: Exactly.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: And you mentioned texts, spoken word too, but how would you describe your creative practices’ relationship to sound?
CHRISTOPHER K. MORGAN: You know, when I think about the various inspirations for choreographic process, of course, music is a huge one. But it's rarely an origin for me. As I said, it starts personal. So I'm very fortunate now after years of dance making to have a lot of relationships with musicians and composers who are really key collaborators. For me, I do my best work in the creative process when everyone is in the room together. That's why a residency model such as what's offered at the National Choreographic Center here in Akron is so valuable to an artist like myself, because we are able to convene so many of the different collaborators in the same space. So, a strong example that's carried throughout multiple works that I have is a cellist composer named Wytold that we're working with, who's here with us during this residency and was in 2018, when we're on a residency then. Over the years, we've had varying models of working but we both have found that we enjoy being live in the studio together the most. He's seeing and responding to what the dancers are doing. He's mining imagery from my words. I have a mix of sort of ethno-musicological vocabulary that I might use, like we need a fermata here, can this have more bass tone? Can we pick up the tempo, but there's also a lot of poetic imagery that emerges. The light is cold. It's not a warm light in this music. So we vacillate between specific terminology and poetic imagery, which is also often how I coach dancing too, or come up with choreographic phrases. So when I think about sound, I think about collaborative relationships that I have with artists cultivated over many years that helps support the creative vision jointly.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: I want to zoom out for a second and invite you to riff and articulate how would you define 21st Century Dance Practices as a 21st century dance maker?
CHRISTOPHER K. MORGAN: 21st century dance practices are a whole bodied inclusive expression and alignment of everything coming into the practice. I think there's been a lot of models of artificially-built barriers between different sectors of dance and choreographic practice and administration. These are the teachers. These are the office administrators. That's the registrar. This is the marketing person. This is the publicist. This is the grant writer, and that's the artists and that's the dancer, and that's the musician. But in fact, the more hybrid and free flowing we can be between so many of those other roles and roles that I didn't even articulate, is the truer representation of the way our world is functioning. I think about the digital impact of the pandemic, and how so many artists who were not videographers and filmmakers now are becoming quite skilled at that. And within that they had to learn lighting, they had to learn a little bit more about social media marketing, about what formats their editing needed to take place and be able, to be able to distribute their films. So that kind of all-encompassing hybridity, I think, is really interesting to me, and Representative 21st century dance practices. I think a little bit about when I was a dancer, which bordered the 20th and 21st century. And the highly versatile dancer was really prized, being able to dance in a hip hop video and do a modern dance and be in a concert tour, and then suddenly, you know, guests with a ballet company. This was how I was able to make a career happen and sustain my work as an artist that still valued, but I feel a lot more blurring of lines and less definition of genre, and more of an all-encompassing dancer. Not a ballet dancer and a jazz dancer and a modern or not, I'm a ballet dancer, who can do modern. I'm a dancer, and I incorporate all of these things. I'm an artist, and that means that I might be really gifted at social media and music editing, but my primary practice is movement. So I think that is at the core of it: this sort of all-encompassing, all-embracing way of working.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: It, you know, that was my hypothesis, you, of course, said it much more eloquently than I would have, but, I would offer that that's what we witnessed you doing in rehearsal yesterday. We watched Christopher, both dancing in select sections of the work, giving music direction, also to two different musicians, and with different terms, whether it was a cool light, or also giving a maybe Hawaiian chant and prompt. So I mean, you were playing different roles, you were speaking different languages, different aesthetics, and embodying all of that in rehearsal, in a really beautiful way. So I'm glad to hear that's how you're seeing the way to navigate, you know, in this time. A lot of times when people may be funders or presenters, their definitions of success, in my opinion, are outdated. They're on what it was when Merce Cunningham or Trisha Brown, or a Balanchine started last century. And if any of those artists were starting to make work today, they would have a whole different set of parameters. As you laid out, the challenges are different, the access to different resources and opportunities are also different.
CHRISTOPHER K. MORGAN: I wanted to bid on something you said that I find so interesting, and what Christie was able to witness and that I had privilege in that moment of being the person who is offering direction, instruction and jumping in. And within the structures that we work in, I also hope and believe that actually everyone in the room has some of that same leadership, and I think that's an important part of 21st century dance practices, which is I can look to Assistant Director Tiffany Carson, and give her the responsibility to really rehearsal direct, really not just clean dances, but also offer choreographic suggestions, thematic content ideas. The end of our rehearsal day, an hour after you left, it got really, really clear for all of us about a couple of transitions, and that was largely under the inspiration that came from other collaborators in the room and not just my voice. So I think there's something really interesting too, about these less hierarchical structures (Bolingbroke: Yes). And I often think of collaboration as a spiral. A lot of times in my life, I've entered collaboration with other people, and they often gesture to a circle, and we'll stand in a circle, and that feels nice, and there's some equity in that. But, sometimes circles actually can become static. And like tensegrity, when, you know, Matthew Cumbie, one of our incredible collaborators who taught with the company earlier this week in our beautiful time here, at University of Akron, he mentioned tensegrity, this architectural principle, where two opposing energetic directions create suspension. And circles can actually feel that way sometimes, and this is just like stop moving. There's balance. So I like to think of a spiral and because of the privilege that I hold in this company, as its Director and Founder and primary but not only choreographic voice, it's often me that gets to swirl up and lead. But, actually spirals have a lot of energy like the eddy in the water, and that can pull me right down. And then up comes Jamison Curcio, dancer and Company Manager, and she might be leading us and then actually the eddy pulls that back down and we really need to listen to our musical collaborator Okay, Patrick Makuakāne is leading, and this floats back down. So this is real dynamic energy. And there's a certain privilege that I might have because of some of the structures that we work in, but hopefully there's this energetic flow that helps this feel equitable.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Well, you just talked about the choreography of organizational management. And I, you know, of course, I'm going to love that. Yeah. I'm going to challenge us then, so we zoomed out now we're going to drill down to kind of like a quick speed dating style. It if you're developing the music at the same time with everyone in the room and the sound score, how do you know when a dance is done?
CHRISTOPHER K. MORGAN: I would ask, is a dance ever done?
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Hmm. That's a great, great, great answer. Yes. How do you title a dance?
CHRISTOPHER K. MORGAN: Titles often come very, very early, often during a grant writing process before I've even gotten into the studio, and they're often a touchstone, when I start to feel choreographic block like writer's block. I'll just say to myself, the title of this dance is this, how can I get more in tune with that it's a succinct way for me to know about the whole inspiration behind it.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: And you admitted or wasn't really a confessional that you often will journal often, early on in the process. So maybe something surfaces there. It sounds like the choreography of words is also in your toolbox.
CHRISTOPHER K. MORGAN: And as fraught and complicated as funding and grant writing can be. And it can be very problematic as well. Also, it can be very enriching as a writing process and a part of my creative practice. As much as I want to push against those systems and how difficult and challenging and sometimes exclusionary they can be. Though many amazing funders are working on inclusivity and thoughtful practice behind that. For me, it also helps me deepen my thinking about a work. And if there are good questions in a grant application, I'll get clear on what the work is. And I often think about we're not speed dating anymore, sorry. But I'll often think about this work, Native Intelligence/ Innate Intelligence, which is the focus the choreographic exploration of the company right now, in our most recent residency here. I was rejected from the same grant three times for it. And each, you know, year after year, I would apply again, and I just got clearer and clearer about what the piece was because I had to keep writing about it over time. And between rounds one and two, I still had never stepped foot into a studio with that work in mind. So there's something about that process that enriches and I think is part of 21st century dance practices. Recognizing sometimes funding is problematic.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: There's, there's something that I think in naming that because sometimes it's easy to celebrate, we got the awards, we got all the things. But to also name like it took us a while to get through all the things. And I remember from your 2018 visit, that at the end of the week, you had already submitted a bunch of grants. And you were like, I have to go back to those funders and ask them if I can rewrite the grant. I know more now. You had written it, and then you went into the studio to noodle about it to try different things out. And then you were like, I'm clear now. And some of them did let you rewrite things (Morgan: They sure did). And that, to me, I think also speaks to the same versatility that you talked about. It's not just in terms of genres or type of dance performances, but in how you think about dance. Maybe writing is your jam. Maybe it is pictures and photography and videography as another way of thinking about it. Maybe you like to doodle, but that when we set ourselves out on any task, whether it's making a dance, writing a paper, sitting down, and just thinking you can force it out of you doing one thing over and over again, feels like it's very closed off to creativity, that you need that dialogue, whether it's from other collaborators, or it's from other processes asking you, what are you doing in that question?
CHRISTOPHER K. MORGAN: Yes. And I'm so amazed that you remember that we finished that week, and I went back to a funder. And it was a lengthy grant application process where you do kind of a round 1, they whittle it down a little bit and they asked for more information from the applicants. And I had submitted that final part. And a reminder for me is to always ask. I was hesitant and I don't know fearful that it would reflect poorly on the power dynamics…
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Well there are power dynamics at play (Morgan: Totally). You don't want to come across that vulnerable sometimes.
CHRISTOPHER K. MORGAN: But I realized it was really important. The vision had changed. I was clear, I had more information, I had new information. Because of the emails that we had received, they, I knew they had not reviewed yet. And I thought, What do I have to lose, I just have to ask. But I was actually, you know, navigating that fear. And so I just want to highlight that because as we enter these systems and these different communities, they're both systems and communities, because they're systems that are populated by humans. And they have names behind their email addresses. And eventually you reach the human and you can start to build a rapport with them. And even in these university systems, it's like that Registrar's Office, finally you meet Sally, you know, after how many times they've been trying to get that class change, and then you get to the human and something can actually transform. Sometimes the system just works. But it was such an important reminder for me that they accepted that change and incorporated into the final review. And we still didn't get the grant that year, if I remember correctly. I think we got it the next year…
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Not that year, the next year (Morgan: Yep). Yes, as your grant dramaturg. I, us kind of are leaning in this way, but our last question is, I'd love to invite you we have a lot of people who will be coming up through university, quote unquote, going out into the real world, and maybe navigating some form of a creative career as a dancer, as a choreographer, as an administrator. Shameless plug, dancers make the best administrators. But I would love to invite you to either share some of the best advice that you received on your journey, or offer advice to our friends now about how to navigate a creative career.
CHRISTOPHER K. MORGAN: The first thing that comes to mind is wisdom that I garnered from Nicole Wolcott. Nicole Wolcott was is the Associate Artistic Director of Keigwin and Company, which is an incredible New York-based dance company led by Larry Keigwin. And one point in time, Nicole shared to always remember that when you're auditioning as a dancer, everyone at the decision-making table is hoping that you are their next inspiration, their next muse. And oftentimes in that similar way of the power dynamic of funders to choreographers, the decision-making choreographic casting table to auditioning, we feel like we're there begging for the opportunity (Bolingbroke: Scarcity). Scarcity mindset. Actually, everyone is looking for the relationship to blossom and grow and the opportunity to flow equally back and forth. There are some dynamics at play that don't always foster that. But always remember that you have power in every situation, and you have something to offer every situation. Sometimes it's not a match. That's okay. And might be a match later on between the same parties. But that was really powerful, and I just love that idea. They're looking at you hoping you're the next thing. And it really, it applies in so many different ways, starting from that dancer casting idea. You mentioned a little while ago, definitions of success, and some that are outdated. And I often lean on bringing up Liz Lerman. Again, some of the ways that when I had the great honor of working with Liz, that Liz would define success for us in choreographic practice and exploration creative practice. Do you know what you're doing? I love that. Because often the few times in my life where I felt nerves is because I'm a little unsure of what I'm doing. I might not know the dance well enough, I might not have enough information to speak intelligently about the subject. I'm missing something, but I have to do it anyway, so it creates nervousness. And good things can come from that too. But defining that as one of the elements of success. Do you believe it? Do you believe in what you're doing? That's been so important for me and I talk a lot about art heart. And I try and have my art heart lead me. My mind is a powerful instrument, but my art heart and my gut are just a little more in tune to more things than my mind can get. My mind gets a lot. But these two other sources lead me very well. So I'm trying to find that balance and understand do these places and my body believe it? There might be data that supports it, but my gut might question it. And I have to listen to that. So do you believe in something is another important element of success that I really try and lean into. And then the last thing and this still kind of strands from some of Liz Lerman’s thinking is, you know, defining it on your own terms, defining success on your own terms. And this is something I work on a lot for myself and with people I work with and you know, the world around us tells us a lot what success looks like right? (Bolingbroke: The capitalist influence, yeah). Huge capitalist influence. And so, that's not the only measures, right? There are other measures: fulfillment joy, meaningful collaboration, impact that can't be measured through data but through experience.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Amara Tabor-Smith, another artist, reframed success for me once, where she said, Can we call it satisfaction? (Morgan: Yesss) Right? Because then it opens up a whole different series. It's not something that's necessarily quantifiable, and you named all those things. (Morgan: Love it). Thank you so much, Christopher.
OUTRODUCTION: Inside The Dancer’s Studio Lunchtime Talk Series is supported by NCCAkron, the University of Akron, the University of Akron Foundation and the Mary Schiller Myers Lecture Series in the Arts. Our podcast program is produced by Jennifer Edwards. Ellis Rovin is our composer and editor. Theme music by Floco Torres, cover art by Micah Kraus. Special thanks to Kat Wentz and the team on the ground in Akron, Ohio. To learn more about NCC Akron, please visit us online at nccakron.org. And follow us on Instagram or Facebook at NCCAkron. We hope you enjoyed this episode, and we encourage you to subscribe on your favorite podcast streaming platform by searching for Inside The Dancer’s Studio. Please share with your friends and if you’d like to help get the word out rate us, and leave a review on Apple podcasts. Thanks for listening and stay curious.