Holly Johnston was born in South Korea and has lived in the United States since her adoption at the age of four. Spending most of her life preoccupied with physical play, she is now the artistic director of Holly Johnston | LEDGES AND BONES [LAB]. Johnston was selected by Dance Magazine as one of their ” 25 to Watch” in 2007 for her “fearless and fluid” (Dance Magazine) approach to choreography. She is a performer, choreographer and movement educator holding a BA in Dance from Loyola Marymount University and an MFA from Jacksonville University.  Her choreography has been presented in New York, Arizona and extensively throughout her home turf of Los Angeles and San Francisco.  Earlier in her career she was a founding member of Tongue Contemporary Dance (AD: Stephanie Gilliland) and worked as a principle dancer, master teacher, and the company’s rehearsal director from 1997-2005. She has received five Lester Horton Award nominations, for Outstanding Ensemble Performance and Outstanding Achievement in Costume Design. Johnston also works with private clients in her physical training business as the founder/creator of Integrated Human Action.

Interview by Katharine Hawthorne

How do you start your day?

I am a very early riser, usually around 4am, sometimes earlier.  Morning was a quiet time for my mom and I, I have wonderful emotional recollections of morning times with her. In elementary school, I used to get a wee bit impatient with everyone in the house being slow, so I would walk myself to school.  I would arrive early and see the janitor start opening up the classrooms before administrators or other students came.

I love this story of you walking yourself to Elementary school.  You have a voracious appetite to learn.  Where did that comes from, have you always been like that?

I started out as an observer.  I had to assimilate to a new culture and language as a young person, when I was adopted at four and a half years old.  I wasn’t always natural at learning how to read, write, to do anything academic or really cognitive and logical.  I had to use all my senses, everything I had, in order to take in information in the way it’s delivered in the American education system.  I recruited my whole body to learn in ways that I don’t think my peers and my classmates did or needed to, or knew was available to them.  Now as an adult, that’s just my body’s response.  I’m also kind of a hedonist – It’s a pleasurable body experience for me to learn.  To me it seems like an intelligent response.

As an adult how has learning evolved for you, and what are the different opportunities that you seek out to immerse yourself in new information?

As an adult I’m much more able to take in that learning is everywhere.  It isn’t just from somebody who you think knows better, who’s older than you or who has a role as a teacher.  Information/learning – it comes from the wind blowing, from walking out into the world and noticing.  I’ve become less specific in terms of what learning is or isn’t.  And so as an adult, I feel like a kid again.  It’s even more a passionate experience as an adult to learn because I feel like it restores wonder.

You’ve been involved in dance education for the past 20 years.  What are some of the changes and trends you’ve observed both in terms of the appetites and aptitudes of students?  And how do you try to subvert the American education system, by offering experiences to your students that start to break open the way that they learn?

Millennial learners have access to everything.  The instantaneous speed at which they can get what they want has changed the pace at which 18-35 year old learners ‘take in’ information.  I see a paradox in that at the same time they have a growing capacity to take in information, we ask them to restrict how they output the information to either a test mode or a grade.  We’re telling them, sit down, be still in your body.  You may only write it or you may circle it.  With this there’s a stunting and congestion inside of them that confuses them, because they feel so capable, yet they can’t output with creativity.

So as we open up all these opportunities for learning, we’re shutting down how we’re evaluating them.

Absolutely – we restrict the creativity of the individual learner.  Isn’t that one of the things that we’re assessing?  That America has fallen behind because we don’t innovate.  Well, no duh.  We are given literally two options to output which reside in a certain part of the brain and limited body.  To activate innovation, you activate all regions of the brain, you mobilize the body.  You can see how unexpressed a person’s brain and emotional system and body are, how under-resourced, undervalued, under-exercised.  When you aren’t willing to ignite the emotional system towards courage, you really can’t take any risk.  Without risk, there’s nothing new.  I spend a lot of time with millennial learners to help them feel courageous, to embrace their desire to be something other, something different, something great.  A lot of what I do is to affect the emotional systems so they will actually passionately learn, not always just rationally take in information.  I want them to feel the sensation of that kind of excitement towards possibility.  Right now we need individuals who can say I am brave enough to go forward and say “I am different, and I want the world to change.”

Another thing that is unique about the way you work not only in the classroom, but also in rehearsal, is structuring community and your attentiveness to social dynamics in addition to deeply valuing individuals.  Why is this important for your work?

My body knows this as a truth:  when you feel safe, when you feel there is no harm or injury to your body, you get brave, you get real.  It’s ok to be honest, it’s ok to be discontent, it’s ok to just be who you are.  That sense of safety is missing in society and in a big part of our world.  This is what I wish people could really experience about dance: not one thing is asked of you, everything is asked of you.  It is a raw and vulnerable space for a human being.  And if it’s not safe and we cannot bring all of who we are, we have to guard the sacred part of who we are, and if we’re doing that, where does the art come from?  The art comes from the sacred place of who we are, and if that is guarded every time we come together then I get confused  what we are doing and what are we making.

What is your favorite secret place in Los Angeles?

The huge bed where I sleep at night with my husband Peter…and yes, our son Skyler can be regularly found sandwiched between us. It is my favorite place to be.

What are some of your current choreographic fascinations?  Any topics you are currently obsessed with or movement investigations you are digging into?

I’m kind of always ‘movement drunk’ and full of lust for wild dance that takes me to the edge of my own capacities, the sensation of force, freedom, forming and un-forming as my body strikes or slithers through space…it’s  just addictive.  Right now and always, I’m interested in pushing limits and breaking boundaries… to explore exhaustion, speed, intimacy, partnership, to interrogate my own intentions as a human being, choreographer, educator, parent, woman, female dancer, public artist and member of an ever expanding universe. Sensation, sensation, sensation… to feel life coursing through my body as it entangles space and creates time… to experience an ongoing living choreography through movement research and creative processes with collaborators who also share this love of the sensorial body. I bring to our attention ‘equal labor distribution in choreography’ and this means that if there is lifting to be done, we all do it, if there is flight to be taken, we all jump… if there is a fall to be caught, we all respond equally… Don’t care if you have a penis or a vagina, if there is work to be done, we all work.

If you could have a superpower what would it be?

To heal bodies with Love, it sounds dorkishly altruistic but it’s actually true.  I would in an instant want the ability to heal bodies, not really for the sake of prolonging life or to deny death, but to heal pain or injury that prevents us from being empowered physically and politically. I would heal the pain of ignorance, repair the injuries of racism and mend the broken bones that come from the abuse of power.

…and if I could have two superpowers I would definitely want to fly without the necessity of a cape or unitard.  Just want to feel my own ability to defy gravity and to avoid LA traffic.

In addition to being a performer, choreographer and educator (and mother!), you also work one-on-one with clients ranging from dancers and athletes to working professionals, focusing on somatics and functional body motion.  How did this practice start, and how has it influenced your work more broadly?

I have always been fascinated by why and how humans do what they do.  I have been observing this since I was first adopted in 1979.  Because I did not have verbal language to communicate and did not understand English, I first learned to ‘read’ bodies before I learned to read words.  Bodily behavior, qualitative movement characteristics and energy dynamics allowed me assess a person’s intentionality, whether they were ‘safe’ or ‘dangerous.’  I was forced to sense the world through my body, not through instructive language. I could smell rage, I could feel with my skin someone’s honesty, I could see the flinch of anger being suppressed, I could taste the foulness of arrogance, and I could hear the promises of love that came from the kind-hearted. What this taught me was that my body is knowledge, it is intelligence

My bodywork practice grew as a rational strategy of how to have a job after college that was still connected to dance and embodied practice.  I worked under skilled acupuncturists and chiropractors and became interested in the science of the body.  In my twenties I did a lot of high impact dancing (with Stephanie Gilliland’s TONGUE), and I didn’t question my body’s response and my sensations, which allowed a lot of instincts to show up.  Later I got into Rolfing and structural re-integration of connective tissue.  From there I just wanted to share this knowledge and experience of body.

I work deeper and more directly than many other practitioners and use directional force that understands movement.  I also work in human dynamics and understand the emotional layers within bodies.  I work to trigger a body sensation, which sometimes may show up as pain, as this requires the neurological system to trigger the intensity of fight or flight.  My work is a confirmation of the body’s capacity – yes you can, because you just did.  Every body is hard-wired for survival, our bodies fight for life, and there is something incredibly intelligent about this capacity. Often our conditioned ideas about our bodies confuse our ability to trust this intelligence. I seek to restore this trust.

If you could collaborate with any artist, alive or dead, who would it be?  What would that collaboration look like?

Auguste Rodin. I have been obsessed with his work for a long time now.  I fell deeply in love with him when I traveled to Paris just after I finished my BA at Loyola Marymount University in 1996.  His ability to understand and accurately express the emotional body as well as the physical body inspires me. His ability to capture an epic story in a single frame of movement is simply brilliant. I would want Rodin to be my biographer. I would desire for him to ‘frame’ both my personal life and my artistic work as a choreographer.  How might he ‘crystalize’ the emotional intention and situational context for my work? How might he see me as a person? How might he shape, form, re-form and un-shape who I am in the sculptures he creates? For me Rodin would replace ‘dance photography’…and instead of two-dimensional images, he might create multi-dimensional sculptures that do not arrest the dancing image, but set it free.

What’s next for you?  What are you most looking forward to in the coming months?

I am heading full force into unknowing what I think I already know about myself.  I do not want to make ‘dances’ anymore.  I want to create work, to generate thinking, to wonder constantly, to ask, to be receptive, to question, to examine and experiment, to move through my body towards a state of dance that leads me closer to everyone, everything and into an acceptance of nowhere and nothingness.

I have just launched a new website, www.causegoodtrouble.com, which I hope will become an interactive forum for dialogue in-of-with-within the dance community.  Looking forward to causing good trouble on the campuses of CalArts and Chapman University this Fall, and at San Jose State in early 2016. I will be performing a solo for The Commuter Festival at CalArts at the beginning of October, which will be a works in progress showing of a new collaboration with lighting designer John Garofalo. I am curating-facilitating Emerging Above Ground which is a site-space for emerging choreographers to be supported through a creative research phase with selected mentors over a 5-6 month period. This process culminates in a presentation of their work-in-process in June 2016 at The Diavolo Space in Downtown LA.  Emerging Above Ground occurs during the second week of SummerLAB, my two week intensive program on contemporary dance practices for choreographers, performers, dancers, teachers and students, I am already making plans for both programs….I am very excited about about both of these endeavors.

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Monica Bill Barnes is a choreographer, performer and the Artistic Director of Monica Bill Barnes & Company Productions, a New York City based contemporary dance company. Barnes founded MBB&CO in 1997 with the mission to celebrate individuality, humor and the innate theatricality of everyday life.  She is joined by a core of long-time collaborators: Associate Artistic Director and performing partner, Anna Bass; Lighting Designer, Jane Cox; Set and Costume Designer, Kelly Hanson and Creative Producing Director, Robert Saenz de Viteri. The company creates full-length shows that tour the country’s biggest stages and tiniest rooms, bringing dance where it doesn’t belong: making site-specific dances in public places, mounting collaborations with radio hosts and bringing down the house at comedy shows. MBB&CO has performed in more than sixty cities throughout the United States, been commissioned and presented by The American Dance Festival, The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, and performed all over New York City in venues ranging from Upright Citizen’s Brigade to The BAM Opera House. Barnes has been an invited guest artist at many universities and has choreographed for various theater productions. She began working with radio host Ira Glass in 2012 when she created a solo for David Rakoff for This American Life Live! In 2013 Barnes collaborated with Glass to create, choreograph and direct a new show that combines radio stories and dances: Three Acts, Two Dancers, One Radio Host. This show premiered in New York at The Town Hall in September 2014 and will tour to 30 US cities throughout 2015. Upcoming projects include a collaboration with author/visual artist Maira Kalman creating a guided museum workout, and Happy Hour, the world’s first-ever office party dance show.

Three Acts, Two Dancers, One Radio Host Trailer by Monica Bill Barns & Company

What is your favorite part of each day?

I love the mornings. If I manage to get up before most people are awake I feel like I can think without any responsibility or agenda.

 When was the last time you saw a work of art and were left speechless, in any art medium?

Honestly this happens often which is one reason why I love living in New York City – it affords me the opportunity to see so much.  This past weekend, I had speechless moments watching Catherine Galasso’s “Fall of the Rebel Angels” and David Bryne’s “Contemporary Colors.”  I also sat with my mouth wide open at the end of “Mad Men” for several speechless minutes.

What do you look for when hiring a dancer?

Something distinct and hard to write about, but mostly I look for a generous spirit and a sense of humor.  I cannot express strongly enough how important it is to be a human being who you would look forward to seeing at 5am at JFK with an unreasonable amount of luggage.

 What are other passions and interests in your life?

Lots of interests, few other real passions.  I am really happy to have a passion for making and performing dances. I am obsessive about it and this takes up a good part of most days.  Outside of this, I am passionate (although that word feels a bit funny) about the people in my life – my husband, my family and my friends.  I also love to read and I’m a sucker for poetry.

 Why not follow the above passions? Why dance?

Dancing and making dances just makes the most sense to me as a way of spending my days.

In the spirit of full disclosure, Kenna asked me to say more about this and I am realizing that it is hard to put words to.  It’s a funny idea to organize your life around making something that no one asked for and then even funnier to hope that you can continue to do this unlikely thing for a long time. Somedays my career feels a magic trick that I am just pulling off.  I was a philosophy major in college and thought I would go to law school and become a judge.  Then when I was looking into which law school to apply to, I realized that I did not want to spend my days doing this.  I wanted to spend my days making dances.  The funny thing about that decision is that you end up also spending your days running a non-for profit organization, touring, making budgets, answering an endless number of emails, training, sound editing and sweeping stages.  As I sit here, on this sunny morning answering these questions, I realize that I am willing to do so much in order to have a few hours a day to make dances.  I’m not sure why making dances makes the most sense to me, but I do understand that it feels important enough to my happiness that I am willing to do so many other things to support this endeavor.

 Favorite restaurant in NYC?

Sam’s Deli.  It is not a restaurant, but Sam makes the best egg sandwich and I eat there most often.

 Do you cross train?

I swim as often as I can in any and every body of water.  The bigger, the better.  I also take yoga often.

 What kind of body doctor healer do you use for injuries?

I met Katinka Locascio about eight years ago – she does Cranial Sacral Therapy and massage.  She is amazing and has been a central part of my health maintenance.  I could not recommend her more highly: earthandskyhealingarts.com

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The Self/The Dancer

Season 4 : Episode 1 | 6:34

Emery LeCrone was once told she was too tall to be in the piece they were working on as a company at North Carolina Dance Theatre (now known as Charlotte Ballet). Although this is a typical scene in the dance world — her reaction? Go back into the studio and make a solo.

Little did she know, this moment would spur a brand new trajectory as a contemporary choreographer, one she still finds herself passionately serving in NYC. Now, in her company Emery LeCrone Dance, she works alongside classically trained colleagues from companies such as ABT and New York City Ballet in embodying her unique physicality which she describes as “spiraling…a continuous transition from one thing to the next.” LeCrone’s well-rounded perspective not only applies to her artistic style but is also embodied in the way she finds inspiration and how she interacts with her dancers as intricate people and not just as trained bodies.

Here, she talks with us about relationships, the places she goes to keep herself engaged and the day-to-day life of a choreographer whose body of work is quickly blossoming.

It wouldn’t be back to school without the promise of Fall For Dance approaching.

This year we are proud to present the 2015 Fall For Dance Festival trailer, made in partnership with New York City Center. You’re just in time to make your picks — tickets go on sale this Sunday, September 13th at 11 AM. With 20 companies over 10 performances, the highlights are many. We are also anxiously anticipating the way Fall For Dance brings all the corners of the dance community into one theater, reuniting old friends and sparking new collaborations and relationships. To see everyone in one place almost like…well, the first day of school.

Take a look. And we’ll see you there September 30th – October 11th.

2015 Fall for Dance Schedule

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 30 and THURSDAY, OCTOBER 1 at 8pm

• MIAMI CITY BALLET, Allegro Brillante, George Balanchine
• DOUG ELKINS CHOREOGRAPHY, ETC., Hapless Bizarre, Doug Elkins
• L.A. DANCE PROJECT, Murder Ballades, Justin Peck
• CHE MALAMBO, Che Malambo, Gilles Brinas and dancers

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 2 and SATURDAY, OCTOBER 3 at 8pm

• LA COMPAGNIE HERVÉ KOUBI, What the Day Owes to the Night (US Premiere), Hervé Koubi
• STEVEN MCRAE, Czardas (US Premiere), Steven McRae
• PROJECT FFD: PAM TANOWITZ, One Last Good Chance (NY Premiere, FFD Co-Commission), Pam Tanowitz
• ALVIN AILEY AMERICAN DANCE THEATER, Four Corners, Ronald K. Brown

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 6 and WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 7 at 8pm

• COMPANHIA URBANA DE DANÇA, EU DANÇO – 8 solos no geral (NY Premiere), Sonia Destri Lie and dancers
• FANG-YI SHEU AND HERMAN CORNEJO, Pheromones (NY Premiere), Fang-Yi Sheu
• HOUSTON BALLET, Maninyas (NY Premiere), Stanton Welch
• PAUL TAYLOR DANCE COMPANY, Brandenburgs, Paul Taylor

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 8 and FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9 at 8pm

• NRITYAGRAM, Invoking Shiva, Surupa Sen
• SAN FRANCISCO BALLET, Solo, Hans van Manen
• STEPHEN PETRONIO COMPANY, Locomotor, Stephen Petronio
• DORRANCE DANCE, New Work (World Premiere, FFD Commission), Michelle Dorrance

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 10 at 8pm and SUNDAY, OCTOBER 11 at 7pm

• BOSTON BALLET, Pas de Quatre, Leonid Yakobson
• BILL IRWIN AND TILER PECK, Time It Was/116 (NY Premiere), Bill Irwin, Tiler Peck, and Damian Woetzel
• JESÚS CARMONA & CIA, Ímpetu (US Premiere), Jesús Carmona
• L-E-V, Killer Pig (NY Premiere), Sharon Eyal and Gai Behar

Special thanks to LA Dance Project, Houston Ballet, L-E-V and Compagnie Hervé Koubi for their help in video production. Video Editor: Stephanie Crousillat 

Christian Burns is the artistic director of burnsWORK (SF, CA) and co-founder of interdisciplinary arts space Parsons Hall Project Space (Holyoke, MA). Christian choreographed his first dance at age sixteen and in 1994, after finishing his formal training at The School of American Ballet, he began practicing improvisation in earnest.  As a performer he worked with influential dancer-makers such as William Forsythe, Alonzo King and a sustained five-year collaboration with the renowned improviser Kirstie Simson. His choreography, improvised performances, and dance-for-camera works have been commissioned and presented throughout the US, Europe and Asia. He has been awarded the Choreographers in Mentorship Exchange (CHIME, mentor), Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Fellowship for Choreography, National Choo-San Goh Award for Choreography, Paula Citron Award for Choreography for Camera (Moving Pictures Festival, Toronto, CA) and a McKnight Artist Fellowship for Dancers. burnsWORK is a Company in Residence at the SF Conservatory of Dance.

Set away from a traditional proscenium stage, site-specific dance works enliven and rejuvenate urban spaces, reimagining their uses and celebrating their unique characteristics. The use of film as a medium only heightens the visual possibilities of a collaboration between camera, space and bodies. Today Klein & Corazón premiere ‘Into The Dust,’ a short dance film inspired by the treasures we happen upon in our cities.

“Over a year ago I was poking around forgotten parts of San Francisco, CA on foot. I ended up in the Dogpatch, a neighborhood that has swiftly gentrified over the past few years, but still has a handful of turn-of-the-century machine shops in various states of disrepair. To call these “shops” actually diminishes their grandeur. These are brick and steel cathedrals of an industrial era. They’re full of texture, grit, and diffused light pouring through huge dusty windows – the stuff of dreams for those of us that live behind the lens. At least for now, until they turn into high-rent condos. Even more reason to preserve them in a visual story.

I wanted to bring professional ballet dancers into this environment to create an art piece with plenty of contrast – elegant lines set against a harsh backdrop. We imagined that this was a place our dancers would discover. It would be their secret practice space…an awe-inspiring world free from distraction and judgment.
-Andrew Klein, Creative Director and Producer, ‘Into The Dust’

Dancers:

Dores Andre, Principal San Francisco Ballet
Courtney Henry, Alonzo King LINES Ballet

Klein & Corazón:

Creative Director/Producer: Andrew Klein
Cinematographer/Editor: Ronn Seidenglanz
Photographer/Art Director: Tanya Pavlis
Mashup Track: DJ Schmolli “Rock of Ages (2012)”

Last week Victoria, Shane, Terri, Krista, and Austin graduated from five different New York dance conservatories.

Graduation looms over all dance majors as a landmark of all they have accomplished and as a door to an unprescribed future. With a degree finally in hand, seniors feel the mixed emotions of completion, anticipation, trepidation and pride. Some have detailed plans of what comes next. Some see a giant blank horizon ahead. Some have work starting on Monday. Some want to savor the celebration and put off plans for later. As 5 ambitious college dancers finally cross the finish line, we bring you their inner monologues–their fears, joys and reflections. So wherever you are, whether you’re working towards college graduation or you’re many years past and reminiscing about your first few steps into “reality,” join us in celebrating them in the exact moment they stand.

MEET THE SENIORS

Listen by question

1. Where are you moving?
2. What were the most valuable things your taking from school?
3. If you could go back, would you change anything?
4. How do you feel when everyone asks “what’s next?”
5. From your college expereince do you feel prepared to be not only a dancer but a working human?
6. How have you changed since freshman year?
7. Based on what you have heard, do you have expectations of the real world?
8. Will you miss the structure?
9. What is your ideal life or specific goals for the next few years?
10. Was school worth it?

Listen by person

1. Austin Goodwin | The Juilliard School
2. Krista Morgenson | SUNY Purchase Conservatory of Dance
3. Shane Larson | New York University
4. Terri Wright | Ailey/Fordham BFA Program
5. Victoria Lowery | Marymount Manhattan College

1. Where are you moving?

2. What were the most valuable things your taking from school?

3. If you could go back, would you change anything?

4. How do you feel when everyone asks “what’s next?”

5. From your college experience do you feel prepared to be not only a dancer but a working human?

6. How have you changed since freshman year?

7. Based on what you have heard, do you have expectations of the real world?

8. Will you miss the structure?

9. What is your ideal life or specific goals for the next few years?

10. Was school worth it?

Below are the full answers from each person.

Austin Goodwin

Krista Morgenson

Shane Larson

Terri Wright

Victoria Lowery

Lumbar Spine | Photo Tanya Ghosh

Lumbar Strains

What’s happening

The low back ligaments, tendons, and muscles (or combination of these) over stretch to the point of injury. This results in microscopic tears of varying degrees in these tissues.

Why

Lumbar strains are common when dancers work on raked stages or wear heels which alter the alignment of the entire spine. Also, performers are often put in heavy costumes and head pieces which place a great amount of strain on the spine. Strains can also occur with repetitive partnering lifts with poor form.

What to do

It is important to strengthen and stabilize the core and hips. Pilates is great method for dancers struggling with lumbar issues, and can be studied in groups or privately, in mat or reformer classes. Dancers should also get educated about their posture and how to improve day to day carriage of the spine.

Cervical Spine | Photo Tanya Ghosh

Cervical Strain

What’s happening

Cervical strains are caused by damage to the muscle or the tendons, bands of tissue that connect muscles to bones in the upper back and neck area.

Why

This injury is often due to heavy neck pieces, wigs, and neck heavy choreography which can cause whiplash injury. (The Lion King, for example, has a lot of heavy costumes and headpieces that requires a lot of neck and scapular stabilization.)

What you feel

Pain, decreased range of motion, and tightness in the neck. The muscles may feel hard or knotted. It may be painful when you rock your head from side to side or backward and forward. You may also get headaches at the base of the skull that radiate towards the forehead.

 What to do

Strengthen the cervical spine and perform exercises that aid in scapular stabilization. It also helps to strengthen the rotator cuff (muscle group surrounding the shoulder joint). Again, Pilates and postural education can really help in prevention of this one.

Knee | Photo Tanya Ghosh

Knee Issues Patellar Tendonitis and ITB Syndrome

What’s happening

Patellar Tendonitis is an injury to the tendon connecting your kneecap (patella) to your shinbone. The patellar tendon works with the muscles at the front of your thigh to extend your knee so you can kick, run and jump. ITB Syndrome (Iliotibial Band Syndrome) occurs when the iliotibial band, the ligament that runs down the outside of the thigh from the hip to the shin, is tight or inflamed. The IT band attaches to the knee and helps stabilize and move the joint. When the iliotibial band comes near the knee, it becomes narrow, and rubbing can occur between the band and the bone.

Why

Wearing Bad footwear (on and offstage!), jumping, and squatting on raked stages contribute to these issues. For example, The Hedwigs are males performing in heels in which the choreography requires a lot of jumping and squatting. Performers in Sleep No More are required to navigate many flights of stairs for 3 hours a night. The cumulative effect of the repetitive nature leads to overuse and inflammation.

What you feel

Pain from patellar tendonitis is felt just below the patella. The pain is most noticeable when you move your knee or try to kneel. ITB Syndrome can be mistaken as a knee injury because pain and swelling will mostly happen where the IT Band connects to the know. But you’ll know the difference if you bend your knee at a 45-degree angle. If you have an IT band problem, you’ll feel pain on the outside of the knee.

What to do

Get a foam roller! Foam rolling the ITB regularly can greatly reduce tightness and strain. Also, focus on  strengthening the muscles of the butt, the gluteus maximus and medius. Single leg balances are great for this muscle group. Quad strengthening all also take the pressure off your knees.

Rotator Cuff | Photo Tanya Ghosh

Rotator Cuff Impingement and Tendonitis

Why

What you feel

What to do

Ankle Joint Dysfunction | Photo Tanya Ghosh

Ankle Sprain/joint dysfunction

What’s happening

The ligaments of the ankle tear.  Most commonly, the anterior talofibular ligament and the calcaneal fibular ligament are at risk for dancers.

Why

Ankle issues can occur because of a wrong step or bad landing where the weight is not correctly distributed. In Broadway shows, dancers are often in heels or other non-supportive shoes. This can cause weakness, instability and overuse of the ankle.

What you feel

Pain, instability around the outside of the ankle joint. You can also experience bruising, swelling and poor balance.

What to do

Plyometrics, also known as “jump training” train muscles to exert maximum force in short intervals of time, and can strengthen the ankles and feet. Look for other exercises that can strengthen the other muscles of the leg and glutes, reducing pressure on the ankle. If using a Pilates reformer, focus on footwork.

Some of the major injuries we see in the dance/performing world we mostly attribute to overuse. Most performers do 8 shows a week so there are cumulative effects on the body from doing the same movement 8 times a week.We work with performers at the clinic and at theaters to help prevent and fix these injuries. A lot of our work at the theaters is maintenance and prevention. We do a lot of soft tissue work, joint mobilizations, cupping,  ultrasound/estim and neuromuscular re-education. We combine many methods and techniques when doing manual work: such as Active Release Techniques, methods from Institute of Physical Art  Paris technique, and many joint mobilizations.

Along with manual work, neuromuscular re-education has to take place to rehabilitate an injury and reprogram the body. We use several Pilates techniques on and off of the reformer, balance and proprioception work, plyometric training, cervical and lumbar stabilization, functional training, and dance specific exercises.The most important thing and the most difficult thing is rehabilitating and re-educating while the patient is still in full performance mode. It can be difficult to find the balance and not overworking during PT.

–Natalie Kinghorn ,  MPT , Neurosport NYC

Kate Wallich is a choreographer, director and teacher. The YC is her dance company founded with Lavinia Vago in 2010 in Seattle, Washington. Her work has been commissioned and presented nationally and internationally by On the Boards, Velocity Dance Center, The Rauschenberg Foundation, MANA Contemporary, Springboard Danse Montréal, Northwest Dance Project, Cornish College of the Arts, Henry Art Gallery, Bumbershoot, Conduit, City Arts, The Frye Art Museum, W’him Whim and Seattle Art Museum/Olympic Sculpture Park among others. She has also taught workshops and held lecture-demonstrations around the collaborations involved in her work in Seattle, Montréal and New York. Kate has created 2 evening-length works with The YC; Super Eagle commissioned through Velocity Dance Center’s Made In Seattle program and Splurge Land commissioned through On the Board’s Performance Production Program. She is among Seattle’s top contemporary dance teachers, leading packed classes through her own brand of movement.

Splurge Land from Kate Wallich + The YC on Vimeo.

What is your favorite part of each day?

Mornings. They are ritualistic for me.

When was the last time you saw a work of art and were left speechless, in any art medium?

Anne Hamilton’s The Common Sense was beautiful. It was clear, thoughtful and gave an opportunity for the viewer to create a personal experience inside of the greater meta of the work.

How do current trends affect your work( you)?

I pull a lot of information from popular culture in making my work, especially from fashion and design. There is so much imagery in pop culture that is relevant. I like distilling from this place.

When you have an idea for a project how much do you leave open ended for your dancers to shape and how much do you prepare prior to rehearsals?

I enter a process with concepts and general formatting in place. The choreography is manifested in the rehearsal studio, created specifically on each dancer. I rarely ask dancers to generate material. If I do, its less about choreography and more about bringing a persona or personality to the dialogue of the material. Rehearsals are filled with a lot of conversations around the work we are creating. I wouldn’t be able to create the fully realized work without the dancer’s in the room with me.

In your eyes, what is lacking in the dance world?

I’m excited about the dance world taking on new formats for presentation and distribution. Touring is expensive and difficult, creating high budget pieces that last for such short runs, limiting opportunity for exposure and time for a work to live and breathe. In thinking about longevity of work and sustainability of the people in this form, personally I am excited about how works can manifest in different genres. Creating an album that lives beyond the live performance or a film relic that can circuit the internet. Creating blogs that capture process or even making the internet a place for live performance to live. I think we are on the verge of embracing these necessary changes. It takes a lot of time to create a stage work from initial concept phase all the way to premiere. Making performance more dimensional in terms of its output excites me.

Favorite Seattle restaurant?

Cafe Presse. It’s the cutest little french restaurant with cheap demi-pichets for after rehearsal.

Do you cross train?

In between rehearsal residencies I cross train more than I take class. I run at the gym or on soft trails, take yoga, and boulder at the climbing gym.

Where do you and how do you find new music?

I spend a lot of time researching new music on the internet. I often get caught in these crazy deep black holes of gnarly music and have no clue how I even got there. Generally a search will start on some magazine website like V or Dazed and blossom from there. My friend Al is a good resource too.

Do you think its important for aspiring dancers to go to college?

I learned the most about myself as a person post-college. That feels like the important thing. Maybe I would have found that sooner if I went to college for something other than dance, but for me college was necessary. I needed that time to try to fit into a box and then realize how much I didn’t want to be in that box. My education in the dance world beyond technique was rewarding. Specifically classes like dance history and movement analysis. Honestly, I think we all should have gone to school for business or design so we could do our own branding and figure out how to make lots of money, but who knows what the work would look like then.

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I was born in 1978 in Madrid, Spain. I am the seventh kid of a wonderful family. My first experience with the arts was in 1991 when I started to study ballet in Madrid at the Víctor Ullate School followed by a scholarship in NYC at the School of American Ballet. For seven years I studied and trained my body in order to express through it. After my formal education I worked with Víctor Ullate Ballet in Madrid, Zaragoza Ballet, English National Ballet in London, Het Nationale Ballet in Amsterdam, Hamburg Ballet, Dresden Semperoper Ballet, Ballettmainz, guest artist with Jacoby & Pronk and at last Alonzo King Lines Ballet in San Francisco. In addition to my dancing career, I have always worked in mixed media. I never studied, I never noticed it, I just did it. At the present I do not dance anymore. I teach and share my knowledge in ballet, I am a barkeeper and use all my time to learn and do more arts. Life has no meaning if I don’t do arts.

Since I was a child I have always been drawing, sewing, performing and diligently collecting the things that could make me remember a certain moment. These collected items become the inspiration and body of my work helping to both recall and tell a story. Closet doors became an accessible and solid substrate in which to make collages with all these collected elements and gave the finished products a human scale. I keep on collecting and cutting out as much papers, newspapers, books, magazines.. as I can. I organized them by themes. I like to make collages because it allows me to use real images, things already existing. At the same time I have to always adjust to what I have, giving to the end result of the art work its own personality, that most of the times is not even close to the first idea. I use only what I have in my hands

Nothing is made to be beautiful. My work is the result of ideas and thoughts that need to be expressed. Love, sex, confusion, discovering, re­learning, finding, looking, falling, my own experiences, my sensitivity. I do not care if it is correct or not. If it comes to me by coincidence, I like it even better. I try to use elements that are available to everybody. We are all able to create, it is just a matter of doing it or not. I learn from my mistakes, but I keep on repeating them. I don’t believe in perfection, but I want to be it. I want to be as good as I can be. It is never enough. I do what I do, and I do it with love. It does not hurt anyone or anything. All risk on myself. No limits. No time for insecurities. I was told that I live in my own world. I don’t kill people in my world, they don’t starved to death, I don’t discriminate because of skin color, sex orientation, religion… I don’t stone one to death, I don’t own the water or food… In my world we live and share the earth together, respecting and knowing that we won’t be here one day. My world and yours are not the only ones.

This is part of our ongoing Artist Features series, showcasing artwork in various visual and design mediums, made by dancers. Check back often to discover the diverse expressions of the movers you love.

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