Latest / Making The Impact - A Dance Competition Podcast / Offering Modern Dance in Studio Training

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Offering Modern Dance in Studio Training · Making The Impact - A Dance Competition Podcast

0:07
SPEAKER_05: Have you ever wondered what goes on behind the table at a dance competition?
0:10
SPEAKER_05: Exactly what are the judges looking for anyway?
0:13
SPEAKER_05: This is Making the Impact a Dance Competition podcast.
0:15
SPEAKER_05: Each week we'll cover a different topic related to the world of competitive dance from the perspective of the judges behind the table.
0:24
SPEAKER_05: The competitive dance world is known for all kinds of things, from flashy costumes to trendy tricks.
0:29
SPEAKER_05: But one thing that's not usually present is modern dance.
0:32
SPEAKER_05: Considered the original rebellion against ballet, modern dance tends to be a polarizing subject in the competitive dance world if it's considered at all.
0:40
SPEAKER_05: On today's episode of Making the Impact, studio owner Alexa Conway from Supernova Dance Company and Francisco Gella, modern dance educator and choreographer, join us to discuss why they value modern dance and why you should too.
0:54
SPEAKER_04: Hello, dance world, and happy holidays, everyone.
0:57
SPEAKER_04: It's Courtney and welcome to this week's episode of Making the Impact, a dance competition podcast.
1:03
SPEAKER_04: I'm your host, and I'm here, like always, with my co-host, Leslie Mueller.
1:07
SPEAKER_04: Hey Courtney, happy holidays.
1:09
SPEAKER_04: Happy holidays.
1:10
SPEAKER_04: I am so pumped for the holiday season.
1:13
SPEAKER_04: I'm love I've been loving shopping for everybody.
1:17
SPEAKER_04: I love how festive it is in New York City, and my apartment is super festive with lots of decorations everywhere.
1:23
SPEAKER_04: It's just, I love this time of year.
1:25
SPEAKER_05: I know.
1:25
SPEAKER_05: It's nice and cozy, and I have decor as well.
1:28
SPEAKER_05: It's my first year with a fake tree.
1:30
SPEAKER_05: Oh I'd usually get a real tree, but the fake tree, you know what?
1:34
SPEAKER_05: I don't have to water it.
1:35
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
1:35
SPEAKER_05: The cat is not going to, I mean, I don't know, the cat could also probably knock it down just as well as a real tree, but I don't have to water it.
1:41
SPEAKER_05: And I made a wreath that smells, so I'm getting smell like Christmas tree smell, but no Christmas tree.
1:47
SPEAKER_05: So it's all good.
1:48
SPEAKER_05: And I'm really excited for uh this episode.
1:51
SPEAKER_05: I guess it's the second to last episode of this year.
1:54
SPEAKER_05: Wow.
1:55
SPEAKER_04: 2022 is coming to an end, and 2023 is right around the corner.
2:00
SPEAKER_04: Wow, I can't believe it.
2:01
SPEAKER_05: Wild.
2:02
SPEAKER_05: Um, but yeah, so I'm I'm kind of looking forward to as as this episode airs, I'm home in Georgia.
2:07
SPEAKER_05: So just enjoying family time and being, you know, taking a little teeny weeny bit of time off before we jump back into uh podcasting for the new year.
2:15
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, this season, I mean, even the dance season, the comp season is right around the corner.
2:20
SPEAKER_04: So I hope that everyone's able to take some time off during this time and spending it with your loved ones and your family.
2:26
SPEAKER_04: Maybe you're taking a trip, maybe you have a getaway.
2:29
SPEAKER_04: Hopefully you're not working too hard and going back to work sooner than you have to.
2:34
SPEAKER_04: So everyone enjoy this time of year.
2:37
SPEAKER_04: It's a special time.
2:38
SPEAKER_04: And I'm also very excited about this week's episode.
2:42
SPEAKER_04: We have some wonderful guests who are joining us, and this is a a necessary discussion that we need to have in regards to modern dance overall, but also incorporating it into your studio's training.
2:54
SPEAKER_04: I think that this is a genre of dance that we don't see quite often in the competition world.
2:59
SPEAKER_04: So I'm really eager to talk about it with our guests today.
3:03
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I'm super stoked.
3:04
SPEAKER_05: But before we get started on our amazing episode, we have some amazing sponsors to tell you about.
3:10
SPEAKER_04: Yes, we do.
3:11
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3:14
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3:16
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3:20
SPEAKER_04: That is wild.
3:21
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3:25
SPEAKER_04: If you spent as many years as I did as a dancer, I'm sure you all know it can produce long-term chronic aches, pains, and injuries because of the nature of dance, lack of rest, and time spent in class competitions, conventions, and intensives.
3:39
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4:24
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4:27
SPEAKER_05: And by now I'm sure you've heard about our new Platinum Premium Podcast subscription.
4:31
SPEAKER_05: But if you're new here, welcome, and we would love for you to join to receive exclusive content and monthly bonus episodes for members only.
4:38
SPEAKER_05: Our Platinum Premium subscription is for the Die Hard Making the Impact fan who wants to help support our podcast for years to come.
4:44
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5:03
SPEAKER_05: All of our subscribers have the option to receive a shout-out on a future podcast episode.
5:07
SPEAKER_05: And here we are today with two shout-outs.
5:09
SPEAKER_05: We would love to say hello and thank you for listening to Ms.
5:12
SPEAKER_05: J, the studio owner and dance teacher at Jazzel Dance Studio in Marietta, Georgia, my hometown.
5:17
SPEAKER_05: Jazzel, I believe, is a newer dance studio, so welcome to the community.
5:21
SPEAKER_05: Um, and Ms.
5:22
SPEAKER_05: J says, I love this podcast.
5:24
SPEAKER_05: Yay! And yay, Hometown Dance Studio.
5:26
SPEAKER_05: Thank you for listening.
5:27
SPEAKER_05: Thank you for subscribing and thank you for your support.
5:30
SPEAKER_05: And a little shout out now to a dance teacher and dance parent from 3D Dance in Northampton, Pennsylvania, Angela Lowry.
5:37
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5:39
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5:40
SPEAKER_04: Yes.
5:41
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5:49
SPEAKER_05: And now because we are in the middle of the season, your one-time fee does allow you access to our previous episodes from this season.
5:56
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5:59
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5:59
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6:02
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6:03
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6:09
SPEAKER_04: All right, listeners, it's time to jump into this week's episode.
6:13
SPEAKER_04: And boy am I excited for this one because we are talking all about modern dance.
6:19
SPEAKER_04: And not just modern dance as a whole, but we're talking about it specifically in the competitive dance world, which, you know, I mean, our podcast is all about dance competitions, so duh, we have to spin it into the competitive dance world in one way or another.
6:32
SPEAKER_04: But I'm really excited because modern dance is so important in training and a very uh it's something we don't see often, I think, in the in the competition dance industry.
6:44
SPEAKER_04: So I'm excited to dive deep into this discussion with two brand new guests who are joining us on this episode.
6:51
SPEAKER_04: And our first guest is a guest who I've been asking a lot to be on the podcast.
6:56
SPEAKER_04: And like four years.
6:58
SPEAKER_04: Yes, like many, many, many years because she has a lot to contribute as a studio owner, but also as one of my bestest friends in life.
7:06
SPEAKER_04: And we trained together in Maryland growing up.
7:10
SPEAKER_04: And I finally was able to get her, I convinced her finally.
7:13
SPEAKER_04: I was like, yes, this is the time.
7:15
SPEAKER_04: This is the episode for you, Alexa.
7:17
SPEAKER_04: So I am so excited to welcome my my bestie in life, Alexa Conway.
7:22
SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the pod girl.
7:24
SPEAKER_01: Hi guys, thanks for having me.
7:26
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it took a lot of uh bribing.
7:29
SPEAKER_01: It did.
7:30
SPEAKER_05: Not bribing, but it's been a few years.
7:32
SPEAKER_05: Not here under duress.
7:34
SPEAKER_05: We did not coerce anyone.
7:36
SPEAKER_05: Yes, yeah.
7:41
SPEAKER_04: I'm I'm excited for you to be on this one, Alexa, because I knew that I wanted to have a studio owner perspective on this, and you train your dancers at your studio in modern dance, which I find probably very rare.
7:57
SPEAKER_04: I mean, honestly, I was rocking my brain as to like what other studios train in modern dance?
8:02
SPEAKER_04: There's not many.
8:03
SPEAKER_04: So I immediately thought of you and you were finally like, okay, fine, I'll do the podcast and share your perspective.
8:10
SPEAKER_04: So I can't wait to hear all about it.
8:12
SPEAKER_04: But if you wouldn't mind telling the world a little bit more about you, your training, and what your studio owner life is like.
8:20
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
8:21
SPEAKER_00: Um, hi, I'm Alexa.
8:23
SPEAKER_00: Um, I grew up dancing with Courtney from a very young age.
8:26
SPEAKER_00: I went to Towson University.
8:28
SPEAKER_00: I got my BFA in dance performance and dance education.
8:32
SPEAKER_00: After I graduated, I worked at Joffrey Belly in Chicago.
8:35
SPEAKER_00: I worked a little bit for um showbiz, and then I took a teaching job in back in back home in Baltimore for dance.
8:44
SPEAKER_00: I started a dance program at a private middle school.
8:48
SPEAKER_00: And then shortly after, my boss of one of the dance studios I was working at was saying she wants to retire.
8:53
SPEAKER_00: And it was a very small studio, it was less than 50 kids, and I said, Okay.
8:58
SPEAKER_00: So I wanted to do that my whole life.
9:00
SPEAKER_00: I've this we're in our eighth year right now.
9:02
SPEAKER_00: I co-own it with another one of my good friends, Antonia.
9:06
SPEAKER_00: We also grew up dancing together.
9:08
SPEAKER_00: More than half my staff are kids that I grew up dancing with, or like dancers that I grew up with.
9:14
SPEAKER_00: And at our studio, we start modern around age nine or ten or so, and then we make it a priority in their training.
9:23
SPEAKER_00: It's not optional if you're on the competition team, and contemporary is the optional class.
9:28
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I love that.
9:30
SPEAKER_00: Wow with that.
9:31
SPEAKER_02: Whoa.
9:32
SPEAKER_02: My mind's blown.
9:36
SPEAKER_00: That's kind of where I'm coming from.
9:38
SPEAKER_04: I oh, I mean, this makes it.
9:40
SPEAKER_04: I I actually didn't know that.
9:41
SPEAKER_04: So that makes you even a better candidate for this discussion because everyone's mind is probably like, wait, what?
9:47
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, contemporary is secondary to mine.
9:50
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, my I I'm blown away by that.
9:53
SPEAKER_02: I love it.
9:53
SPEAKER_02: Like my mind is still processing, honestly.
9:57
SPEAKER_02: Good job.
9:58
SPEAKER_01: Yay.
9:59
SPEAKER_04: And also, um FYI, in case any anyone was curious, it's I'm I'm gonna give uh your studio a shout-out.
10:06
SPEAKER_04: It's supernova dance company in Maryland.
10:10
SPEAKER_00: Right.
10:10
SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh.
10:12
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
10:12
SPEAKER_01: Okay, we're in Forest Hill, Maryland.
10:18
SPEAKER_04: Uh well, I'm so proud of you for finally opening your studio eight years ago.
10:22
SPEAKER_04: I know it's been your dream since we were kids, and you're doing such great work, training your dancers in modern, training them in heels, getting them prepped and ready for the real world, which is so refreshing.
10:33
SPEAKER_04: And can't wait to dive deep into hearing more about your studio's training and atmosphere.
10:40
SPEAKER_04: So really happy you're here, Lux.
10:42
SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
10:43
SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much.
10:45
SPEAKER_01: Yay!
10:46
SPEAKER_04: All right, and our very next special guest is someone that I've been admiring via social media for a very long time.
10:53
SPEAKER_04: And I absolutely love their encouraging posts, that they're always posting words of wisdom, really, really great tips for our dance industry.
11:02
SPEAKER_04: And also what is super unique about this guest is that they actually are a convention faculty teacher who teaches modern dance on a dance convention, which is very rare, y'all.
11:15
SPEAKER_04: So I'm super excited to welcome Francisco Gella to our podcast.
11:20
SPEAKER_04: Welcome, Francisco.
11:21
SPEAKER_02: Hi, everybody.
11:22
SPEAKER_02: Oh my goodness.
11:23
SPEAKER_02: I'm so and honored to be here to talk about modern dance, which is like so important in the training of a dancer, especially.
11:32
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
11:33
SPEAKER_02: So yeah, I'm just really honored and honored to be here.
11:36
SPEAKER_04: I'm so grateful.
11:37
SPEAKER_04: And I know you just wrapped up uh an intensive that you were doing.
11:40
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, in Seattle, actually, at the very place at the University of Washington Dance Studios, the dance program there.
11:47
SPEAKER_02: We hosted it in the very place that I took my first ever plie.
11:53
SPEAKER_02: So it was a so I started dancing when I was 19.
11:56
SPEAKER_02: Oh, it was really emotional, and then my teacher was like, What's the big hoobaloo by the pianist next to and I look over and Hannah Wiley, who was the director of the program, sat and watched.
12:05
SPEAKER_02: I was like, I was it was uh it was a really emotional, yeah, an emotional homecoming.
12:11
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, full circle moment.
12:12
SPEAKER_04: Wow, that is so awesome.
12:14
SPEAKER_04: I love to hear that.
12:15
SPEAKER_04: And congrats on all of your success and how far you've come in this industry and inspiring so many.
12:21
SPEAKER_04: I love to hear a little bit more about your background, especially now learning that you didn't even start dancing until you're 19.
12:28
SPEAKER_04: So tell us a little bit more about you, where you grew up, what your training was like, and what you're working on now.
12:33
SPEAKER_02: Well, dance was not a part of my life at all.
12:35
SPEAKER_02: I grew up in a small little island in the Philippines that nobody's heard of, and then emigrated here in the United States in 1984.
12:43
SPEAKER_02: A dance wasn't really actually I d I shouldn't say that.
12:45
SPEAKER_02: When I was younger, my grandmother really wanted me to dance, but my parents were against it.
12:50
SPEAKER_02: So I was a competitive gymnast for a long time before I started.
12:54
SPEAKER_02: Actually, I went to the University of Washington to become an aerospace engineer, and then I was like, What, you want me to do calculus backwards?
13:01
SPEAKER_02: Uh no.
13:02
SPEAKER_02: You know, I just I was like, I forget it.
13:05
SPEAKER_02: And then I saw like I decided to cancel the classes, and then I decided to take a dance 101 class and an art 101 class, and then I took my first ever Fliegue, and then I saw a show that was required for us to write a paper about the show, and that was it.
13:18
SPEAKER_02: So, yeah, so I was I think the gymnastics definitely helped for sure.
13:22
SPEAKER_02: Uh, two years after I trained, I got a contract with Seattle Opera.
13:27
SPEAKER_02: Four years after that, while I was a student, I danced with Chamber Dance Company and Spectrum Dance Theater, and then I went on to dance with a company in Salt Lake City, it's a modern dance company called Repertoire Dance Theater, and then went to a predominantly black dance company, the Philadelphia Dance Company or Philadelphia.
13:43
SPEAKER_02: Then went from there and switched from those modern companies to dance for a ballet company.
13:47
SPEAKER_02: Two of them actually.
13:48
SPEAKER_02: So I went the other way.
13:49
SPEAKER_02: I went to Ballet Pacifica and then California Ballet and then National Choreographers Initiative.
13:54
SPEAKER_02: I did it the other way around, and then from there just you know, like kept going, and then now I'm choreographing everywhere.
14:00
SPEAKER_02: I actually just set a second piece for the Philadelphia Dance Company, and it was a modern piece that premiered just recently at the Camel Center in October 28th, and it was set to Vivaldi, it's Max Strickter's Vivaldi, but most people will choreograph it as a as a canon, but I I heard it from a folkloric standpoint.
14:19
SPEAKER_02: So all of the steps were folkloric and modern fusion as opposed to it being normally what um other choreographers will hear as a contemporary dance.
14:27
SPEAKER_02: I wanted to to get into the folkloric rhythm of the movement because I can hear it.
14:32
SPEAKER_02: I heard it differently.
14:33
SPEAKER_02: So that was that went really well.
14:35
SPEAKER_02: And just yeah, just traveling for convention and teaching both ballet and modern, and the modern stuff has been really, really wonderful.
14:43
SPEAKER_02: Uh students have been very, very open and very welcoming with the introduction and the continuation of that every year for the last uh I think I started teaching it in 2016, so almost six years.
14:56
SPEAKER_04: Nice.
14:57
SPEAKER_04: I love that.
14:58
SPEAKER_04: I can't wait to hear all about that even more when we when we dive deep into this discussion.
15:03
SPEAKER_04: But wow, what an inspiring journey for your dance career.
15:07
SPEAKER_04: And I I love I love hearing that.
15:09
SPEAKER_04: That is really exciting.
15:10
SPEAKER_04: Well, congrats on everything and uh thank you both so much for being here.
15:14
SPEAKER_04: Let's jump into this chat.
15:16
SPEAKER_05: Let's jump in.
15:18
SPEAKER_05: So we know, Francisco, that you started a little later than most people in the dance world.
15:23
SPEAKER_05: Alexa, I know you've been dancing for forever, but when did you get introduced into modern?
15:28
SPEAKER_05: Was that something that Hotshots did when y'all grew up?
15:30
SPEAKER_00: Yes and no.
15:31
SPEAKER_00: I remember I was probably nine or ten.
15:33
SPEAKER_00: We did have a modern teacher, and it didn't, it was maybe a year, maybe not even a full year.
15:38
SPEAKER_00: Uh, I remember her name was Julie Peoples.
15:40
SPEAKER_00: Shout out if you're listening.
15:42
SPEAKER_00: But don't remember.
15:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
15:45
SPEAKER_01: You were, I don't even know.
15:46
SPEAKER_01: I was not present, probably.
15:48
SPEAKER_01: This was on a while ago.
15:52
SPEAKER_01: I do not remember.
15:54
SPEAKER_00: And then that was that was it.
15:56
SPEAKER_00: I feel like Courtney would agree that a lot of our contemporary class, I don't even think it was contemporary, I think it was lyrical class.
16:02
SPEAKER_05: Sure.
16:02
SPEAKER_00: It was the Melissa and Shelly would come and we would have our contemporary class.
16:08
SPEAKER_00: It was based in modern, yeah, for sure.
16:10
SPEAKER_00: But we didn't have a formal modern class.
16:13
SPEAKER_00: I didn't have that until college.
16:14
SPEAKER_00: And at Towson, uh Lyndonese Fisher Herrell, who was a former soloist with Alvinelli, was my modern teacher for a good portion of the time.
16:23
SPEAKER_00: So I got really familiar with Horton very quickly for my four years there.
16:28
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
16:29
SPEAKER_04: I was actually curious because I was thinking, like, knowing obviously we grew up training at the exact same studio.
16:36
SPEAKER_04: So I'm like, I know that I never really took modern class.
16:40
SPEAKER_04: I appreciated it.
16:41
SPEAKER_04: And it was an easy transition for me based on the training that I received at the studio.
16:45
SPEAKER_04: But our teachers, Shelly and Melissa, who like Alexa was referencing, lived in New York City and would like bring down like New York City style, quote unquote contemporary downtown modern dance back to the studio and like introduce that to us.
16:59
SPEAKER_04: But they never really said this is modern, or we're not studying like a specific technique of modern in the studio training.
17:05
SPEAKER_04: We were just kind of like doing whatever they told us to do, and it just happened to be like influenced by modern dance.
17:11
SPEAKER_00: It was enough that it was familiar movement when we were introduced to it and given like the formal names of things, exactly, but it wasn't its own special class.
17:20
SPEAKER_00: Right.
17:21
SPEAKER_05: Got it.
17:21
SPEAKER_05: That's for sure.
17:22
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
17:23
SPEAKER_05: Interesting.
17:23
SPEAKER_05: And so in your studio now, what techniques are you teaching from that young age?
17:29
SPEAKER_05: And do you do you bop around from Horton to Lamone to Graham to to counter technique or like I know the words.
17:36
SPEAKER_05: See, I I know all the words.
17:37
SPEAKER_05: I just I could look at it and be like, maybe that's that.
17:41
SPEAKER_05: But so I'm curious what you start with and where you go from there.
17:44
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
17:45
SPEAKER_00: So our modern training is primarily Horton.
17:48
SPEAKER_00: Myself, my two of my faculty members, Cammy and Tracy, they both also went to Towson.
17:54
SPEAKER_00: So we've all had the same modern training, and Cammy and Tracy also uh were in hot shots as well.
17:58
SPEAKER_00: So at the younger age, uh their first, the their first lyrical class, every time class, I start with breath work, and we really nailed down rolling up and rolling down through the spine on the ground and like contraction.
18:13
SPEAKER_00: That it's their lyrical class, but that's one of the first things we do.
18:17
SPEAKER_00: And then as we get older, it's primarily uh Horton-based.
18:21
SPEAKER_00: We've gone through all the fortifications.
18:23
SPEAKER_00: Last year I spent the entire season going through all the fortifications so that they can whip those out at the drop of a hat.
18:30
SPEAKER_00: Then across the floor, it gets a little loosey-goosey, and we're fallen recovery, we're doing floor work, we're doing all of the things.
18:38
SPEAKER_00: But when we get into modern, we start with our roll downs, we start with our flatbacks, our primitive squats, they have the whole thing.
18:46
SPEAKER_00: I can push play on the music and they know what's up, so I can just walk around and fix what needs to be fixed.
18:52
SPEAKER_00: Oh, wow.
18:53
SPEAKER_00: That's incredible.
18:53
SPEAKER_00: That's amazing.
18:54
SPEAKER_00: Incredible.
18:55
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it really is.
18:56
SPEAKER_04: I mean, wow.
18:57
SPEAKER_00: Well, when I got to college, I I just want to give them a leg up.
19:00
SPEAKER_00: I don't want the first time they see modern at their college audition.
19:05
SPEAKER_05: Right.
19:05
SPEAKER_05: Because you didn't have a leg up.
19:06
SPEAKER_05: I mean, maybe, maybe you recognize some things, like you said, like I know what a lateral is, I know what you know, but I went to a school that promoted musical theater dance, you know, not modern.
19:17
SPEAKER_05: So at least I think for your kids, they do already from a young age have an exposure to ballet and jazz and and theater dance and you know, different kinds of movement.
19:27
SPEAKER_05: So they're like, Oh, I know, like we roll down in jazz class.
19:29
SPEAKER_05: I know how to like I can do that.
19:31
SPEAKER_05: I know what that is, as opposed to it just being like, what is what is this?
19:35
SPEAKER_04: Right, right, right, right.
19:37
SPEAKER_04: Francisco, so in your training, what styles of modern did you did you study all styles, certain techniques, or do you feel like that you gravitated towards one or the other?
19:48
SPEAKER_02: What was so like I when I became a dance major, the the style that we we were trained in, or I was trained in was Limon with a Bartania Fundamentals background, like all then doing understanding space.
20:03
SPEAKER_02: And um honestly, so when I got my job with repertory dance theater was fine, but when I transitioned over to the Philadelphia Dance Company, they did Horton and Graham, and when I went to the audition, did not know either.
20:14
SPEAKER_02: I had no idea what a fortification was, but based on my ballet training and and understanding of anatomy, I faked my way through the Graham section.
20:23
SPEAKER_02: I got like, oh, they're initiating from here, and then I got the job.
20:25
SPEAKER_02: And so then when I got into the company, I had to force myself to really Milton Myers was my teacher, and um I had to he was teaching company class, and I just remember I had to get it together, so I would take extra classes at the University of the Arts, and then I would like to take a Graham class, and it just hits really bad.
20:43
SPEAKER_02: So I had they didn't do Lamon at all.
20:46
SPEAKER_02: Like I I when I was in Repertory Dance Theater, it was a different style, but Lamon to me was something that I further developed just based on, you know, like after dancing for a ballet company, I felt like they were the two the two that really supported each other.
20:59
SPEAKER_02: But in terms of the Horton technique, like my friend Usha Marie Susan, who danced with complexions and an Alvin Ailey, like she is the one that teaches the Horton classes in our intensives.
21:09
SPEAKER_02: But we try to really, really expose the kids to so many.
21:12
SPEAKER_02: Our program in Miami, we have a Taylor teacher, we have a Graham teacher, I teach Lamon, and she teaches Horton.
21:17
SPEAKER_02: And I think that we're about to hire somebody who is was also part of the Cunningham Company.
21:23
SPEAKER_02: Um, and she was Nurse Cunningham's star, who I actually went to school with.
21:27
SPEAKER_02: She was a grad student when I was an undergrad, so it's kind of like a full circle moment.
21:30
SPEAKER_02: But yeah, like that's pretty much it.
21:32
SPEAKER_02: But Lemon is my first love.
21:34
SPEAKER_02: I love the circularity and the breath.
21:37
SPEAKER_02: I love the the the a lot of the concepts there about fallen recovery were from Doris Humphrey, who Jose Lemon danced with when he was with the Humphrey Wyvern Company.
21:45
SPEAKER_02: And so that stuff to me, I see a lot in what is now known as contemporary.
21:50
SPEAKER_02: But it's so funny to try to see people not understanding the conditions of an undercurve.
21:54
SPEAKER_02: They're doing contemporary and they're not rounded the floor, they're not understanding how to scallop the pelvis or to get grounded or where.
22:00
SPEAKER_02: They when they try to fall on the floor, there's no suspension and release and recover, it's just throw yourself down and clunk on the floor, and you know, so it's really, really needed.
22:10
SPEAKER_02: And I'm just really blown away, Alexa, that you are implementing that as part of your curriculum because there are there are studios that are doing it that I know of in the West Coast.
22:18
SPEAKER_02: Uh, one of them implements a Horton curriculum, but I can't count like on one hand how many.
22:24
SPEAKER_02: Like you're the other one that I know of.
22:26
SPEAKER_04: Right.
22:26
SPEAKER_04: Right.
22:27
SPEAKER_04: So it's true though.
22:28
SPEAKER_04: Honestly, it's true.
22:29
SPEAKER_04: Like, I was we were really like rocking our brains trying to think.
22:32
SPEAKER_04: Like, if I want a studio owner on this podcast, who is that that teaches modern dance?
22:37
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
22:37
SPEAKER_04: Like, or not teaches it, but I'm saying like the studio doing it.
22:40
SPEAKER_05: Teaches it in a studio that is not a contemporary modern ballet-based regulatory-esque studio.
22:47
SPEAKER_05: That's a whole nother world where there's plenty of those out there.
22:49
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, the ballet, the ballet companies.
22:51
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, they they they do different things than we do.
22:53
SPEAKER_05: And so it's, you know, again, we wanted to make sure we're spinning this in the direction of our purposes, which is for competitive dancers.
23:00
SPEAKER_05: And, you know, I can also count on one hand in this 10 years I've been judging, how many modern, actual, literal, real, not contemporary masquerading is modern, right?
23:10
SPEAKER_05: Modern dance pieces I've seen.
23:12
SPEAKER_05: And again, I don't have all of the vocabulary for all of these, all of these techniques, but you know it when you see it.
23:18
SPEAKER_05: Right.
23:18
SPEAKER_05: As a trained, educated dancer, I know what I'm seeing and I know you're doing it properly.
23:22
SPEAKER_05: Well, and I also know when you're not doing it properly because you fell on the floor and there was no like suspension.
23:27
SPEAKER_02: Well, and on honestly, I'm not sure whether I'm jumping the gun here or not, but I mean, honestly, like in the convention that I teach in and and the and similar conventions in the same company, you know, like 10 years ago, you would never see an assistant from Juilliard.
23:41
SPEAKER_02: We have three assistants from Jewel Yard that are assisting our classes, and more kids now are graduating to get dance degrees from the convention and competition world than ever before.
23:50
SPEAKER_02: Before it was just like the ballet companies that would do it.
23:53
SPEAKER_02: Now you see kids that are doing it, and I think that's why the growth and appreciation of it for convention has grown.
23:59
SPEAKER_02: Because you can't get into a University of Arizona or Chapman University or USC Coffin or Jew Yard or Boston Conservatory, and a lot of the kids that are populating those programs are from the competitive world.
24:09
SPEAKER_02: Whether the ballet world likes it or not, they that's what's happening.
24:12
SPEAKER_02: So the need for it is more paramount, and that's why I feel like, Alexa, you have a head, uh, a leg up on that, because I feel like you're addressing an issue that is not necessarily normally addressed, and oftentimes some of the studios are benefiting from from their training at an arts high school.
24:29
SPEAKER_02: You know, they're getting their modern training in arts high school.
24:32
SPEAKER_02: In addition to the studio, the studio is getting the credit for that, but actually where they're getting their actual modern training is in a prestigious arts high school.
24:39
SPEAKER_02: So they're getting kids that are already trained in modern, and then when they do their contemporary, they're fantastic.
24:43
SPEAKER_02: But the studio actually does not do it because they figured, oh, they're already doing it there.
24:47
SPEAKER_02: So I just have to do whatever's best.
24:49
SPEAKER_02: So I don't think it's a necessarily a benefit, it's a definite benefit for some areas in the country, but for other places like in Idaho and Montana, where there is not an arts high school, maybe available, it's harder to implement those programs, more challenging.
25:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we have Baltimore School for the Arts.
25:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but where we're located in Maryland, our our children don't filter into that program.
25:11
SPEAKER_00: Right.
25:12
SPEAKER_00: We're too far away.
25:13
SPEAKER_00: Right.
25:13
SPEAKER_00: So they're not getting that at school where we are in Harford County.
25:17
SPEAKER_00: So they needed to get it at the studio.
25:20
SPEAKER_00: No.
25:22
SPEAKER_00: I feel like me and Courtney, we had an excellent training growing up.
25:26
SPEAKER_00: Of course.
25:27
SPEAKER_00: An excellent training program, but we would sit there and okay, Courtney worked on a cruise ship.
25:31
SPEAKER_00: She never partnered and she never worked in heels.
25:34
SPEAKER_00: Let me make sure that that happens for my kids.
25:36
SPEAKER_00: I went to how many college auditions and did modern.
25:39
SPEAKER_00: Let me make sure that those kids know what's up when it's their turn.
25:43
SPEAKER_00: So that's kind of where my thought process went.
25:47
SPEAKER_05: When you started, when you took over the studio, Alexa, you said there were not very many children involved.
25:53
SPEAKER_05: Did you go ahead and implement the modern classes at that point, or did you wait till you had a bigger, bigger clientele?
25:59
SPEAKER_05: They already had modern.
26:00
SPEAKER_00: They had the modern classes.
26:02
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
26:02
SPEAKER_00: Um I got I I got rid of the foot paws in the middle of the football.
26:11
SPEAKER_02: I can't.
26:12
SPEAKER_00: I can't pretty much now.
26:16
SPEAKER_02: Oh my god, I can't believe I mean it's just cracking me up.
26:19
SPEAKER_02: Great.
26:20
SPEAKER_02: I love that.
26:21
SPEAKER_04: So that being said, uh turners don't equal modern dance in contemporary or okay.
26:28
SPEAKER_01: No, we need we need to call the party callus.
26:32
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, party callus.
26:34
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah.
26:35
SPEAKER_04: Barefoot forever, everyone.
26:37
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
26:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
26:38
SPEAKER_00: So when we took over, a few of the older kids stayed.
26:41
SPEAKER_00: And then there was a huge gap because I was teaching the modern classes.
26:45
SPEAKER_00: So anybody, and it was like their competitive team, which was small, it was maybe less than 20 children.
26:52
SPEAKER_00: And then some of the babies stayed.
26:53
SPEAKER_00: So we had this huge gap.
26:54
SPEAKER_00: So our older kids right now that are like their our average age of our older kid dances is 13, 14.
27:00
SPEAKER_00: So those are our kids that we've grown.
27:02
SPEAKER_00: So everybody is just kind of feeding in, and this is this is what we know, this is what we do.
27:08
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, they're used to it now.
27:09
SPEAKER_04: They know what they're signing up for.
27:10
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, they're used to it.
27:11
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
27:12
SPEAKER_04: Which is great.
27:13
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I mean, uh I have I have so many thoughts.
27:17
SPEAKER_04: And I I think it's interesting that uh Francisca that you brought up the whole arts high school or the arts program um thing, because I think a lot of dancers are choosing to go to an arts high school, a magnet school of some sort.
27:29
SPEAKER_04: And like in these more conservatory style programs, they're usually training in ballet and modern and modernists, yes.
27:37
SPEAKER_04: And they're supplementing like maybe some jazz.
27:39
SPEAKER_04: You know, they're getting their jazz and at their studio.
27:42
SPEAKER_04: Exactly.
27:43
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
27:43
SPEAKER_04: So they have the best of both worlds where they're getting this classical training in during the day, and then they're coming and getting like their their tap and their hip-hop and their jazz and their commercial styles at night and making them versatile, which is great.
27:55
SPEAKER_04: But again, it's like, well, why isn't that classical style of modern being introduced before they get to that arts high school?
28:03
SPEAKER_04: So they have a lake up.
28:05
SPEAKER_04: Like, why do we as a competitive industry, the competitive dance industry, feel that modern isn't necessary when mostly, and I'm sure and the whoever's listening, if you got a BFA in dance at a college, you took modern dance.
28:18
SPEAKER_04: Like, I know for a fact you did.
28:21
SPEAKER_04: I mean, well, Leslie, you didn't.
28:23
SPEAKER_05: Is it true?
28:24
SPEAKER_05: No, they do not offer it at all.
28:25
SPEAKER_05: So I went to Oklahoma City.
28:27
SPEAKER_04: I'm saying I'm retracting now.
28:29
SPEAKER_04: Oklahoma City.
28:30
SPEAKER_05: Well, and like there there are a few dance programs now currently that that do not offer it because they focus on theatrical dance or commercial dance.
28:39
SPEAKER_05: But like 10, 20 years ago, you couldn't there was that's what college dance was.
28:44
SPEAKER_05: It was modern and ballet.
28:46
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
28:47
SPEAKER_05: Because that that's all there was, or you were a musical theater major, and then you maybe got your tap class, maybe you got your jazz class, you know.
28:53
SPEAKER_04: And something else I want to mention, especially for a lot of our listeners out there who, and like maybe we can go into this discussion.
29:00
SPEAKER_04: What's the difference between modern and contemporary?
29:04
SPEAKER_04: Oh, I can go on the there we go.
29:06
SPEAKER_04: Yes, please.
29:07
SPEAKER_04: Yes, because we want we want it.
29:09
SPEAKER_04: We talk about on our podcast all the time the difference between lyrical versus contemporary, but we rarely talk about the difference between what modern dance is and what contemporary dance is.
29:21
SPEAKER_04: And you hinted at it a little bit, Francisco, saying, like, I'm seeing inspiration from modern dance within the contemporary choreography that I witness at competition, but I don't really think that people even know like what's Graham, what's okay, what's Taylor, what's Horton.
29:36
SPEAKER_02: This is just my perspective on it, and this is just based on information on just living this life and seeing what's going on.
29:44
SPEAKER_02: So contemporary actually became big because So You Think You Could Dance didn't want to call it modern.
29:48
SPEAKER_02: They call didn't want to call it miracle.
29:50
SPEAKER_02: So they came with a can they came up with contemporary, and then from there, Mia Michaels did her thing, and then all of a sudden everybody wanted to do it, right?
29:56
SPEAKER_02: In the ballet world, um, contemporary was actually a re uh a rebellion against ballet, and the person who is responsible for that development was actually William Forsyth.
30:08
SPEAKER_02: What he did was he could he created, at least in my opinion, and then Yuri Killian did that, and also Nacho Dowado.
30:15
SPEAKER_02: Those three there, if you notice them, they're all from the yeah, they're all from the ballet world.
30:20
SPEAKER_02: And all the improv technologies that you're now seeing in implementing convention, all the improv stuff that is big now, that started from the ballet world, not from the modern world.
30:30
SPEAKER_02: It actually was a way for William Forsyth to deconstruct his incredible dancers.
30:34
SPEAKER_02: He goes, you know what, I love the technicians, but how can I get them to not be these classical positions all the time?
30:39
SPEAKER_02: And so he started making into these improv tasks, and then from there bore out the idea of contemporary, and then he just ran with it.
30:46
SPEAKER_02: Killian ran with it.
30:47
SPEAKER_02: If you look at a lot of his work bare feet, a lot of the stuff is like the influence there is, you know.
30:52
SPEAKER_02: I mean, when Forsyth was really a draffer, he ended up like doing some Limon stuff, but Killian, I like I see a lot of Limon workiness and the the the the um the undercurve.
31:02
SPEAKER_02: So for me, from the ballet world, that is how it happened.
31:05
SPEAKER_02: But in the in the commercial world, I feel like contemporary was the cool world to do, and for me, that particular um influence was born out of So You Think You Can Dance.
31:16
SPEAKER_02: So really, they didn't want to call it lyrical, they wanted to call it something different, and then Mia Michael started sickling the feet, and then you know, all these other choreographers started doing it, Travis Wall started doing that, and then but a lot of the inspiration, if you talk to Mia, it comes from the concert dance world ballet and my ballet and modern, actually.
31:34
SPEAKER_02: And and so for me, it's it's kind of like it's come to a point now where when you ask kids where the history and where it comes from, it's really that.
31:40
SPEAKER_02: But in terms of the modern training itself, like the way we look at contemporary dance in the ballet world is you have to be a ballet dancer to do it.
31:49
SPEAKER_02: You can't just do it, and in a modern dancer, it's just something completely different altogether.
31:53
SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
31:54
SPEAKER_02: Where where it's a where where contemporary dance is it's not really a rebellion of ballet, it's more of like taking it a step further where now they're dancing in socks, but a lot of the partnering is still based on the part of their work.
32:05
SPEAKER_02: Modern does not have that.
32:07
SPEAKER_02: Modern has several different disciplines that you have to be expert in, you know, um, for you to be able to do that particular vernacular.
32:14
SPEAKER_02: But contemporary dance is really not from the modern dance world, it's actually from ballet.
32:19
SPEAKER_02: Isn't that interesting?
32:20
SPEAKER_02: So for me, it's like it's just it's just a different situation.
32:24
SPEAKER_02: Like you, you know, like since I also trained in ballet, I felt like I became a better Lamon dancer because you know I was able to travel more.
32:31
SPEAKER_02: So I'm it's it's kind of a hybrid, but there's not really a clear separation of the two.
32:35
SPEAKER_02: But in the in the commercial world for sure, that contemporary situation was because they didn't want to call it lyrical.
32:40
SPEAKER_02: They wanted to, they wanted to they came up with this colloquial word, so they're confusing the two.
32:44
SPEAKER_02: And if you just have to know the history of how each came up with, but the thing that's making it more confusing is nowadays in the competitive world, they're doing a lot of stuff that the modern and contemporary basketball does.
32:57
SPEAKER_02: So it's like it's influenced now, like there are more kids that are crossing over.
33:01
SPEAKER_02: I mean, you've got like Anthony Burrell who danced with Alvin Ailey, he trained at the University of Arts in the Philadelphia Dance Company, which is where I danced.
33:08
SPEAKER_02: But guess what?
33:09
SPEAKER_02: When he was at Alvin Ailey, he said, I'm gonna take a break, Judy.
33:11
SPEAKER_02: When Judas Jameson was a director, I'm gonna go dance for Beyonce.
33:14
SPEAKER_02: And he did that for two years and came back and danced with the company again.
33:17
SPEAKER_02: So you have a lot of people crossing over nowadays that you've never had before.
33:21
SPEAKER_02: And I feel like everybody's understanding that you just have to train in it.
33:25
SPEAKER_02: Um but I think modern is still kind of a mystery, and one of the biggest things that I try to do in in in the conventional world is to allow for for the kids to think that modern is actually cool and try to link, you know, why it's important.
33:39
SPEAKER_02: And then when they see that the movements are very similar, you know, this thing that you do, you know, or that play, and then you're getting out of love, you see the shapes that are familiar, because you're you know that shape that you do in your solo, you see the shape?
33:49
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, this is from that technique, you know, like this is that from Horton.
33:53
SPEAKER_02: So if you think that there's no connection, there is.
33:55
SPEAKER_02: And so I think it's just allowing them to see how beneficial and valuable it is is is is uh was it has been a challenge, but as the years progress, I feel like there's more acceptance of it because again, I s I as I say this, a lot more competitive dancers are going into the university programs than ever before.
34:11
SPEAKER_02: So Yeah.
34:12
SPEAKER_05: I just wanted to comment that I I love, love, love hearing just the snippets of history and the way that things, you know, come full circle.
34:22
SPEAKER_05: And I think that that's you know, I really hope that after this episode there's some dancers out there and some parents who like do a little history research and look up some of these names that you're s you're talking about because you you cannot we we as a community can't move forward unless we understand where we all came from.
34:39
SPEAKER_05: And like you said, you know, and and now what's so wild is that we just you just said contemporary dance in the commercial sphere started with so you think you can dance.
34:50
SPEAKER_05: That is history now.
34:51
SPEAKER_05: That is actually something that will probably be in a textbook because that is that's actual true fact history.
34:57
SPEAKER_05: And you know, it's it's like 40 or 50 years ago you would have been talking about you know Martha Graham and like Mars Cunningham and Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, like all of those people, Catherine Dunham, like and so so these are this is this is we are living history right now and we're moving in history.
35:13
SPEAKER_05: And so I just really hope that you know, any of the resources we can provide uh for people who are interested in this kind of world and interested in the university dance program system, you know, this this is you're gonna need to know these names.
35:24
SPEAKER_02: Well, no, and history is important.
35:26
SPEAKER_02: I feel like you know, like if you're getting musical theater, if you if you don't know who Bob Fossey is, that's a problem.
35:30
SPEAKER_02: Right.
35:31
SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
35:31
SPEAKER_02: Like, you know, or yeah, it's a problem.
35:33
SPEAKER_02: That's a problem.
35:34
SPEAKER_02: If you don't know who Save Don Glover is or Gregory Hines, that's a problem too.
35:38
SPEAKER_02: So it's like in ballet, you have to know who Anna Pavlova is, you have to know who George Ballanchine is, you have to know who Marius Predapat is, and and in the commercial world, you also have to know the people that have made the business huge, you know, and and I think you have to know your history to understand your place in it and then how to move things forward.
35:54
SPEAKER_02: If you have no reference at all, then it's hard to move things forward or to stay current or to even understand who your voice is if you have no reference to launch from, rebel against, or move forward from.
36:06
SPEAKER_02: So I just think it's uh an important point, you know, and not everybody can do that.
36:10
SPEAKER_02: I've seen dancers succeed without knowing a single bit because they are so incredibly talented in their own vernacular.
36:16
SPEAKER_02: But I think knowing history is just a huge part of at least what I feel is important because I would not be here if I didn't stand that on the shoulders of the teachers that taught me who danced for that did dance for Boris Tampere, did dance for Martha Graham, that did dance for Lester Horton.
36:30
SPEAKER_02: So, you know, yeah.
36:31
SPEAKER_00: Anything to add?
36:32
SPEAKER_00: Our modern classes, we've sat, yeah.
36:34
SPEAKER_00: Well, um, just talking about the history, like the kids have sat and watched documentaries, they've watched performances, we've taken them to see Ailey, we've taken them to see NDT, we've amazing and yeah.
36:45
SPEAKER_00: We've I need them to know that modern has specific techniques, there's syllabuses, there's different there's just as there's like Chick Hetty and Vaganava for ballet, there's the same things for modern dance.
36:58
SPEAKER_00: And they need to understand that even though we primarily do Horton, there's other ways to do that.
37:03
SPEAKER_00: And then originally modern was such a rebellion to the ballet world, right?
37:07
SPEAKER_00: There's that freeing movement, but now contemporary has completely turned that on its head and said, I don't want to do that either.
37:14
SPEAKER_00: I just want to do whatever this 2022 version of that is.
37:18
SPEAKER_00: So it kind of got lost in the shuffle along the way just because studios aren't teaching it, they're finding it in college programs, and that's really it.
37:27
SPEAKER_00: You have the companies that they can be uh like subjected to, and that's like performances or college programs.
37:35
SPEAKER_00: And if they're not doing it in the studios, where are they getting it from?
37:38
SPEAKER_00: So we just want to make sure that it sticks around.
37:41
SPEAKER_02: I actually think that it's actually making a turnaround because, like I said before, like I see a lot of kids that are now graduating with degrees from the competitive world and they're going back to their respective studios and teaching those techniques now.
37:52
SPEAKER_02: I see it a lot in the West Coast, like when I go when I go so I think before it was I I think we're just on the cusp it.
37:58
SPEAKER_02: Like Leslie, you were saying that we're part of the history.
38:01
SPEAKER_02: We are literally uh living the transition right now.
38:04
SPEAKER_02: Because right now we're just at a point where a lot of those kids are graduating and going back to studios, and now they're sharing that Horton technique or that Limon knowledge.
38:11
SPEAKER_02: Although I say Limon is pretty rare because it was it is passed on by tradition, where Horton is has a codified system of fortifications and flatbacks, and Graham has a codified full work, a codified bar, but Trisha Brown, Cunningham has another system.
38:26
SPEAKER_02: Limon is passed on by tradition, and I was I was lucky enough that it was passed on to me.
38:31
SPEAKER_02: So that's the style.
38:32
SPEAKER_02: And you know, it's funny because my artistic director, Linda Smith, who is a director of Repertory Dance Theater, she's still directing.
38:38
SPEAKER_02: She's so I said six years ago, so Linda, you know, I've been taught teach to I've been asked to teach modern convention.
38:44
SPEAKER_02: And she goes, Francisco, well, how lucky of you that you are now responsible for sharing the tradition that is passed on to you to a larger group.
38:54
SPEAKER_02: And I said to them, Thanks, Linda, thanks so much for making me even more stressed.
38:58
SPEAKER_02: Because, you know, you're telling me that you're all on my shoulders.
39:02
SPEAKER_02: So she was confident to me, but saying that I'm I I thought about it, I'm like, oh, uh, hello, uh, okay.
39:08
SPEAKER_02: So I had to make sure that I actually go back to the notebooks to make sure that I was that I was saying, because you know, it's been a while doing it right because I've been teaching ballet for a while, and then when we implemented this um the modern um classes, I wanted to make sure the terminology was right.
39:23
SPEAKER_02: And you know, it's so funny because like sometimes some uh the the kids that graduate from their dance programs that are now teaching back at their studios or have been hired by studios when they come and take my class and I say this, and they say, What is a spacehold?
39:34
SPEAKER_02: What is an escrow?
39:35
SPEAKER_02: What is about fall and recovery?
39:36
SPEAKER_02: What is a breath and release in the back, and they're like going like this, and I'm like, yeah, and then they're sharing that same information.
39:43
SPEAKER_02: I got you.
39:43
SPEAKER_02: I got you.
39:44
SPEAKER_02: So I think that we're just living this transition right now.
39:48
SPEAKER_02: I think we're about to hit it.
39:49
SPEAKER_02: I mean, maybe 10 years from now, it's gonna be a lot more common than what it is now.
39:54
SPEAKER_02: And so, Alexa, then you've just paved the way for all this to happen, honestly.
39:58
SPEAKER_02: You know, like you've you've you're ahead of the curve there because you've been doing it since it's become I don't want to say trendy, but you know, it can be trendy.
40:06
SPEAKER_02: You know, everybody does a particular role that everybody wants to do in competitive dance, you know.
40:10
SPEAKER_02: Back then I remember when I taught for Dance Precisions with Shandra Mather, it was like, how many Also Cone turns can you do?
40:16
SPEAKER_02: And how many turns?
40:17
SPEAKER_02: Like, and right now, like we have a a severe challenge.
40:20
SPEAKER_02: People can't turn the way they used to.
40:22
SPEAKER_02: They just want to dance to music without counts and you know, screeching nails or whatever, because that's what contemporary is.
40:28
SPEAKER_02: And now you can stick with your foot, you can stickle your foot and not make a room.
40:32
SPEAKER_02: You have no micro and making your foot, like you know, that would be perfect for um because that's actually like you know, people wouldn't be able to dance, they would never hear the music until they were about to perform.
40:46
SPEAKER_02: That's what my friend did when she danced with the company because we don't know anything, we don't know how to have to look at each other, and then he will just put music at the day of the performance, and we had no idea what to do.
40:55
SPEAKER_02: We just had to make sure that our cues were the same.
40:57
SPEAKER_02: It was just it's just crazy.
40:58
SPEAKER_02: But the whole thing about contemporary dance is I do love it, but if you if you're not if you're not uh uh exposed to too much uh rhythm, then it's hard for you to hit a really sharp jazz accent, you know.
41:10
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
41:11
SPEAKER_01: I mean musicality, you know, overall.
41:13
SPEAKER_01: I think so many kids are exposed to modern we don't know.
41:17
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
41:18
SPEAKER_00: So I think that taking classes would just like make them feel more confident to say, oh, I already know how to do this, I just didn't know the name of it.
41:26
SPEAKER_00: Right.
41:27
SPEAKER_00: Right.
41:27
SPEAKER_00: I didn't know that there was a box I could put it in.
41:30
SPEAKER_04: Well, do you think that's the reason that's could one of the reasons be that a lot of studios don't teach modern at their competitive curriculum is due to finding a qualified modern modern teacher?
41:43
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely, absolutely.
41:44
SPEAKER_04: Because like the thing that's interesting to me is like as like so like Alexa, you train you trained in modern dance at your Towson University, and there are so many other now educators who also graduated with degrees who probably also train equally amount of in modern as you, and you felt qualified enough to be able to say, I can teach modern dance.
42:03
SPEAKER_04: So why aren't those teachers able to feel the same?
42:06
SPEAKER_04: You know what I mean?
42:07
SPEAKER_00: Well, from a studio owner's perspective, I made the conscious decision not to do contemporary as a class they had to take, a mandatory class, because they were getting it at conventions.
42:18
SPEAKER_00: If I needed to get a guest teacher in, I would be a lot, it would be a lot easier for me to get a contemporary teacher than a modern teacher.
42:25
SPEAKER_00: So if I'm looking at I only have say three, four dance studios and I need to cut something, I can see why that would why someone would say, okay, we're gonna do a modern lyrical contemporary class and combine maybe it's a space issue, maybe it's they can't find a teacher.
42:42
SPEAKER_00: Right.
42:43
SPEAKER_00: So from a studio owner's perspective, I can see why something that isn't as popular as contemporary, where I would say that word and that class would fill versus modern and maybe people aren't sure.
42:55
SPEAKER_01: They're like, what's that?
42:57
SPEAKER_01: Well, there's a little right.
42:59
SPEAKER_01: Do I wear my foot poles for that?
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44:29
SPEAKER_05: I mean, my my perspective from one of my ballet teachers in in high school also taught modern, but she taught modern at a different studio than where I grew up dancing.
44:40
SPEAKER_05: So I I took a couple of classes and I believe she did gram.
44:43
SPEAKER_05: And while I loved her for ballet and I loved what she did, I it felt dry, like modern dance at the time for me, compared to what I was doing in jazz and in lyrical.
44:53
SPEAKER_05: You know, it's the 90s.
44:54
SPEAKER_05: So we're like doing the thrashy lyrical had just come out from LA.
44:58
SPEAKER_05: And like, you know, that that felt exciting.
45:00
SPEAKER_05: Modern to me at the time, my tiny bit of experience just felt very it somehow felt even more dry than ballet.
45:07
SPEAKER_05: It was like it was, you know, still followed that same like, we do this, we do this, and we do this every single time.
45:12
SPEAKER_05: And it was like, I already do that in ballet.
45:14
SPEAKER_05: Like I already do this A, B, and C sort of, you know.
45:17
SPEAKER_05: And I wonder if that's part of the hesitancy too for studio owners, where it's like, you know, like you said, it's a business.
45:24
SPEAKER_05: You're offering these flashy hip-hop classes and we're calling it this and we're calling it that.
45:28
SPEAKER_05: And then, you know, you really can't.
45:30
SPEAKER_05: I don't know how much, how much zhuzhing you can do to modern when you have to learn how to do a flatback.
45:35
SPEAKER_05: You have to learn how to do these kind of basic things that feel simple but actually aren't, right?
45:40
SPEAKER_05: But are hard.
45:41
SPEAKER_02: Well, I mean, on honestly, like I feel like you're right about that, Leslie.
45:45
SPEAKER_02: It's it's it's harder to sell, you know, because you know, it's it's it it it is a particular, you know, but you know, in in in our intensives where we teach, like it's first called Dance Advance, we had modern Lamon, we had a live drummer, and the drummer was like kick.
46:01
SPEAKER_02: It's like blah blah blah.
46:04
SPEAKER_02: And the drummers yelling and also singing.
46:06
SPEAKER_02: So I think, I think, I think you're right about that.
46:09
SPEAKER_02: I think I think that the challenge there is to get them interested.
46:12
SPEAKER_02: But I I feel like you know, it's harder to find modern teachers, and a lot of them transition and or already just teach into universities, they don't really go into the dance studio system because also when they see all these kids and it it can be intimidating.
46:26
SPEAKER_02: I mean that I mean that's why when I first got hired at dance precisions, you know, like I remember I was like, these kids are crazy.
46:33
SPEAKER_02: Like, what uh do I have to offer?
46:34
SPEAKER_02: But I figured out that you have to communicate it in a way that makes them feel important.
46:40
SPEAKER_02: But for me, I've when I teach modern to the kids, like I teach ballet, because I teach two two uh vernaculars and idioms that are not very popular, you know what I mean?
46:49
SPEAKER_02: Like, and tab is a third one, right?
46:51
SPEAKER_02: So I always I figured out a way that if you can make it about a life lesson, it's about integrity and it's about about taking like you know, taking the risk to learn something different to make yourself better.
47:01
SPEAKER_02: If I frame it in that respect and give them support to try something new, then they'll all for it.
47:07
SPEAKER_02: So for me, it's like it's like to be able to sell the concept, I have to appeal to the person first as opposed to the dancer.
47:14
SPEAKER_02: Because then they'll understand why it's important for them to ballet, because ballet is not just ballet, ballet is all about dedication, discipline, and tradition.
47:20
SPEAKER_02: Ballet is all about wanting more for yourself.
47:22
SPEAKER_02: So even if you're not a ballet dancer, uh like same thing with modern, if you're not a modern dancer, like why why it's important, why is it important for you to sit in this in these positions and you know, sit in it because you think highly of yourself and you have the integrity to be able to try something new.
47:36
SPEAKER_02: And when I say that, that's when they all of a sudden are like, oh, and then they become interested.
47:41
SPEAKER_02: So I had to sell first the concept of them as people and the integrity and the pride and being better before I can even introduce the whole modern thing.
47:49
SPEAKER_02: Because if I just gave them a flat back and they were like, What is this?
47:51
SPEAKER_02: If I gave them a lateral, they'd be like, Why do I have to stand there?
47:54
SPEAKER_02: It's hard.
47:55
SPEAKER_02: I don't understand why I have to do it.
47:56
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you know, you know, like you know, why do I have to do a contraction?
48:00
SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, Whoo, you're doing all the contractions in the famous charging, but it just came in to set your work, you know.
48:05
SPEAKER_02: So like I feel like I think referencing it back to importance, but in the end, referencing it back to, you know, in the end, all about the learning and and about wanting more for yourself.
48:16
SPEAKER_02: And I feel like if you frame it in that respect, they'll be more apt to want it.
48:22
SPEAKER_02: And that's it comes from any discipline, but modern dance especially, but because you're right, it is a business.
48:26
SPEAKER_02: If you just put modern people won't show up.
48:28
SPEAKER_02: If you wrote ballet, you won't show up.
48:29
SPEAKER_02: But if I put stretch condition stretch and conditioning in my teacher's class, oh my god, 50 people show up.
48:34
SPEAKER_02: You know, it's just right.
48:36
SPEAKER_02: And you're like, actually, we're doing ballet.
48:38
SPEAKER_02: There is a ballet component or a modern component to those stretch and conditioning classes, you know.
48:43
SPEAKER_02: So then you don't, so in a way, I have to indirectly like sell it to then directly give the information.
48:49
SPEAKER_02: I don't know if that makes sense or not.
48:51
SPEAKER_05: It's like putting vegetables in a smoothie.
48:53
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
48:54
SPEAKER_05: You have to hide the good stuff, you have to have it, and but you don't know you have to have it, it's in there.
49:00
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna use that vegetable in the smoothie.
49:02
SPEAKER_02: Like, I'm gonna say that now.
49:03
SPEAKER_02: I want to teach that in the next video.
49:05
SPEAKER_02: Like, it's like putting vegetables in the smoothie.
49:07
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, you're like, oh, this smoothie's so good.
49:09
SPEAKER_05: You don't know it had broccoli in it.
49:10
SPEAKER_00: Perfect, exactly.
49:11
SPEAKER_00: Wonderful.
49:13
SPEAKER_00: That's like when we um we were having a late night, and we told our parents that, oh, the only reason they had a ballet dance this year is because they needed another ballet class.
49:23
SPEAKER_00: And the way that their mouths dropped open, that, oh my gosh, that our rehearsal was because we needed more ballet.
49:30
SPEAKER_00: Yes, that is the only reason you had a ballet dance at comedy this year.
49:33
SPEAKER_00: That's the reason they needed another ballet class.
49:35
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
49:36
SPEAKER_00: So, and I feel like that's how we started with our modern too.
49:39
SPEAKER_00: Our first year, we had a modern dance, and let me tell you, winning first overall in the with our teens, that's all they needed.
49:46
SPEAKER_00: Okay, we're a modern student right now.
49:49
SPEAKER_00: And this got them excited.
49:50
SPEAKER_00: It got them excited to what is our modern dance this year?
49:54
SPEAKER_00: Right.
49:54
SPEAKER_00: What are we doing with modern this year?
49:56
SPEAKER_00: This year, one of one of our students, she she had a goal.
49:59
SPEAKER_00: I want to be in the modern dance and I want to be in the dance that has the guest choreographer.
50:03
SPEAKER_00: Great.
50:03
SPEAKER_00: I'm so happy that that is your goal this year because that means I'm doing my job right now.
50:07
SPEAKER_02: They're wanting some, they're wanting something that it that is not otherwise popular, you know what I mean?
50:11
SPEAKER_02: But you've done an incredible job with tying it into your curriculum to where you know they're seeing the results and now they want to be part of it enthusiastic.
50:20
SPEAKER_02: That right there is a huge, huge accomplishment, Alexa.
50:24
SPEAKER_02: Like, I have to give you kudos for that because the if because even if you're not doing it directly, you're doing what is necessary for these kids to get the exposure they need to succeed in the dance world.
50:33
SPEAKER_02: And if you have to tidbit it, if you have to if you have to do the smoothie method, and then finally they'll be ready eventually to be like, and you guys are there already, because you're talking about fortifications, they know it.
50:43
SPEAKER_02: So obviously you're there.
50:44
SPEAKER_02: But if you have to do the smoothie method, thank you, Leslie, um for for to be able to introduce those concepts.
50:51
SPEAKER_02: That's I mean, that's what I did in the convention.
50:53
SPEAKER_02: It was a definitely a smoothie moment for me.
50:55
SPEAKER_02: So, you know, and then and now it's like I see I the combinations that I come up with, you see, it depends on the city.
51:01
SPEAKER_02: I go across the floor with Lamon and do the S-curve, or I come up with a combination and put it to heavy drum music, and then they're like, Do you see the feel?
51:09
SPEAKER_02: Like it's kind of close to contemporary, right?
51:11
SPEAKER_02: There's a lot of relationship here, but I'm gonna use these um undercurves.
51:15
SPEAKER_02: I mean to use this flat back.
51:16
SPEAKER_02: This move is from Paul Taylor, opposition to the torso.
51:19
SPEAKER_02: This move that you're doing, so I I reference a lot while they're doing it.
51:23
SPEAKER_02: Now, whether they get it or not, it doesn't really matter.
51:26
SPEAKER_02: The point is is they are busting their butt to cook to work really hard in that class, and that's all I could ask for.
51:32
SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
51:33
SPEAKER_04: Is that they And being introduced to it is like the very first.
51:37
SPEAKER_04: I mean, at least they can say, I obviously on one hour class in a convention isn't going to be like you're a modern dancer now.
51:44
SPEAKER_04: But at least if they were to go to an audition, they can be like, I remember we did this at whatever convention, and I and I remember they referenced what this what this step was called.
51:55
SPEAKER_02: Emails I received of that exact same sentiment, like countless emails.
51:59
SPEAKER_02: So like remember that, or they decided to go and do instead of going to like uh you know a more commercial intensive this summer, they did you know the Lamon intensive, they did the Graham intensive, or to inspire them to do that, and then it goes further into that, and then they go for different, different uh intensive, like Hubbard Street, you know, or Alonzo King, all those different places.
52:18
SPEAKER_02: And it's I feel like it's like a door has been opened and they just want to walk through it.
52:22
SPEAKER_02: But you know, the thing about it is if I can accomplish in one hour in that convention city, then I go, do you still think modern is boring?
52:29
SPEAKER_02: And they're like, no, do you think it's cool?
52:30
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, do you think it's hard?
52:31
SPEAKER_02: Oh my gosh, it's so hard, but I love it.
52:34
SPEAKER_02: If I then I know I've done my job, you know.
52:37
SPEAKER_00: So absolutely.
52:39
SPEAKER_00: I do have to say that I saw one of your videos on Instagram, and I was completely blown away by it.
52:46
SPEAKER_00: So their modern dance this year has arms.
52:50
SPEAKER_00: We have been drilling those, and it was completely based off of one of you.
52:55
SPEAKER_00: I'm excited.
52:57
SPEAKER_02: You share some more moves there and things I can, I will give us some videos of me demonstrating it.
53:03
SPEAKER_02: Now I'm almost 50, so it might look a very marked version of it, but I I probably I'll have somebody else do it.
53:09
SPEAKER_02: Honestly, there's so many things you could do in it with the Bar Kenya.
53:12
SPEAKER_02: Oh my god, but that's that's amazing.
53:13
SPEAKER_02: I I'm glad that that you can do that.
53:16
SPEAKER_02: And I bet you those kids, when you introduce those concepts, they probably got it like that.
53:21
SPEAKER_02: Am I am I am I saying that right?
53:23
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, because you already have the training.
53:25
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so it's amazing.
53:26
SPEAKER_00: I love that.
53:27
SPEAKER_00: Well, I also love that modern pulls for so many different things.
53:31
SPEAKER_00: Um, like those S-curve arms that you could work on them in jazz class, like going back to like Luigi and just having that as part of that also, too.
53:40
SPEAKER_00: I didn't mean to drop a I just had a thought.
53:42
SPEAKER_02: So let's just sort of like take a step back about modern dance, okay?
53:46
SPEAKER_02: We would not be sitting here talking about modern dance if it wasn't for the revolutionary women, uh not men, women that started this whole movement.
53:59
SPEAKER_02: No, they didn't want to wear a t-shirt point shoes, they wanted to be close to the earth.
54:02
SPEAKER_02: Isadora Duncan, Mary Wigman, Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, all women.
54:09
SPEAKER_02: And by the way, the men came after that.
54:11
SPEAKER_02: Not not the same time, after Paul Taylor and Jose Leon danced for and Paul Taylor danced for Martha Graham, whether he wants to admit it or not.
54:19
SPEAKER_02: Okay, and also, and also uh uh Jose Lamon danced for the Humphrey Wine and Company.
54:25
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I mean, and and honestly, it is the women, the fierce women that started this movement.
54:32
SPEAKER_02: So back then, you know, before women's rights were a thing, they were the ones that started this.
54:36
SPEAKER_02: So we wouldn't have jazz dance, we would not have improv.
54:41
SPEAKER_02: We would not have contemporary if it wasn't for these women.
54:44
SPEAKER_02: So let's just kind of go back to that and give a shout out to the women that started this movement.
54:49
SPEAKER_02: Because, you know what I mean?
54:50
SPEAKER_02: Honestly, think I mean, I'm trying to try to be dramatic, but but at the same time, also, you know, when you think about when you think of ballet, you think about the men.
54:57
SPEAKER_02: I mean, in the in the courts, it was all about the men dancing and the the the phenomena of the ballerina didn't come until later when men were shamed, you know, later.
55:06
SPEAKER_02: But really, if you think about it, it is modern dance is an American pioneering movement that was started by these incredible women.
55:13
SPEAKER_02: So I wanted to shout that out.
55:15
SPEAKER_05: Love it.
55:15
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, absolutely.
55:17
SPEAKER_05: That's true.
55:18
SPEAKER_05: I mean so true.
55:19
SPEAKER_05: I love it.
55:20
SPEAKER_00: There's that there the modern family the modern dance, like family tree, is very much very close to a circle.
55:27
SPEAKER_02: Central part of it.
55:28
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, where ballet here was American Ballet didn't come until Balanchine came and he Americanized the the Russian vernacular to the point where Russians were were hated him so much that it was only recently that they were able to do Balanchine rap.
55:42
SPEAKER_02: Only in but before that they were like, no, we don't want to recognize him.
55:45
SPEAKER_02: Balanchine is Russian, he's male, and he started the whole American ballet movement, you know, different from the ballet rush in Monte Carlo.
55:52
SPEAKER_02: But it it it's it's really interesting that when I say that and and the and the women in the interventions are like, What?
55:58
SPEAKER_02: I said yes.
56:00
SPEAKER_02: Women did something incredible in this dance field.
56:03
SPEAKER_02: We wouldn't be doing what you're doing right now if it wasn't for them.
56:06
SPEAKER_02: And when I put it that way, they all of a sudden think different and they want to do it more.
56:10
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
56:11
SPEAKER_02: I I just noticed that.
56:12
SPEAKER_02: So for me, that's a an important tidbit that I always always say before I even start the class.
56:18
SPEAKER_02: Because when they hear that, because I mean there's still more, there's still more girls that are in the classroom than you know, and than than guys in whatever gender you decide to identify with, but honestly, like you know, it's it's just it's just that's what it is.
56:32
SPEAKER_02: And then when I say that, there's a different click that happens, and all of a sudden they want to feel their bodies feel this vernacular that was originated by these incredible women.
56:42
SPEAKER_02: So Yeah.
56:43
SPEAKER_04: I love it.
56:44
SPEAKER_04: I love it.
56:45
SPEAKER_04: I love it all.
56:46
SPEAKER_04: I love this chat so much.
56:47
SPEAKER_04: I love where it's gone.
56:49
SPEAKER_04: Something that I do want to ask both of y'all's opinion on is, and we can start with Alexa, and then um I'm curious to hear like more in the convention setting as well from Francisco, but how has your your dancers' other styles have they improved because of modern?
57:09
SPEAKER_04: Do you feel like that modern has helped their your dancers as a whole, as a as a dan when you look at this dancer as a whole, or or has it has it been harder to get them to do other styles because you're training in modern?
57:21
SPEAKER_04: Like what are the benefits of it?
57:23
SPEAKER_00: The benefits of the modern, they are so gr our kids are so powerful.
57:28
SPEAKER_00: They're such powerful movers and they're so grounded.
57:31
SPEAKER_00: And that only came from their modern classes and their modern training.
57:35
SPEAKER_00: All of our choreography, despite us trying to be as well rounded as possible, is we know we are very uh very modern based.
57:44
SPEAKER_00: Our contemporary dances are are very still modern.
57:48
SPEAKER_00: Um, our jazz dances are very still modern throughout.
57:52
SPEAKER_00: There's hints of it throughout everything.
57:54
SPEAKER_00: So I think that it also builds their confidence.
57:57
SPEAKER_00: They know that they're doing something that's not the norm.
58:01
SPEAKER_00: So when they can get out on stage and they can do it well and the judges appreciate it, they know that that's gonna be like their persona now for the weekend.
58:12
SPEAKER_00: And I feel like it carries through through the rest of what they do.
58:15
SPEAKER_02: You know, it's interesting to me because when I actually run into dancers and judge solos or groups, like specifically solos, and I know that kid, especially a senior age kid, 16 to 18, that we have trained in modern, they will do a solo with not a single needle, with not a single knee drop, with not a single turn.
58:35
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, their transitions and their power and their conviction is so strong that you can't it takes your breath away.
58:42
SPEAKER_02: And the only reason why they're able to have that artistry so so powerfully compelling is because their technique is already in their body, so they're not worrying to have to be on their leg.
58:53
SPEAKER_02: They already have it, and they're so grounded in their mom technique, and so you are really compelled by what they're performing, and it takes what people don't seem to understand is that it takes so much training to have that kind of conviction for your body to just automatically let go of your technique and then be in the moment, you know.
59:10
SPEAKER_02: I think I see it, I see it, and it's transitioning further.
59:13
SPEAKER_02: And those dancers that I that I'm talking about, by the way, that have now graduated, because I've been in this now for 10 years, some of them are dancing for Netherlands Dance Theater, some of them are dancing for Harvard Street, and their training is because of our Ballet Rambert or or Wim Wim or all these contemporary companies that are getting all this ballet BC where I'm at right now in Vancouver, British Columbia.
59:32
SPEAKER_02: See those kids, you know, one kid who is in the company took third at NY at a at a convention, another one um was uh outstanding dancer at one point, and now both of them are are in the company here.
59:43
SPEAKER_02: And I remember seeing them perform, and I would just be like, I can I just sit back and not say anything and not type anything, can I just enjoy?
59:49
SPEAKER_02: Because they already had a training in their bodies, and here they are.
59:53
SPEAKER_02: So for me, yes, I definitely see a huge difference.
59:56
SPEAKER_02: And then when I go to uh a city where you know that that training is not there, it's choppy, it's not like there's a lot of clunking and and a lot of like hitting the knees hard on the floor.
1:00:07
SPEAKER_02: The transitions are not there, they're not working through their feet, they're not understanding how to follow through.
1:00:12
SPEAKER_02: So it's just it's just a it's a I I noticed it's consequentially different.
1:00:16
SPEAKER_02: So definitely for sure.
1:00:18
SPEAKER_04: I just think that's something that's important to mention for everyone that's listening, and just even just how this conversation has evolved is that modern is a technique, and there needs to be more of an emphasis on actual technique and training and studio training at the end of the day.
1:00:33
SPEAKER_04: Because, like you s like you kind of mentioned, you know, in a dance, someone who's actually classically trained and trained in modern dance isn't going to have a scorpion in their dance.
1:00:45
SPEAKER_04: Like they're just not going to.
1:00:46
SPEAKER_04: That's not part of the rep, that's not part of that technique.
1:00:50
SPEAKER_04: And regardless if you're doing quote unquote modern dance on stage or if you're doing contemporary, there's just a different style and quality to your movement because you've trained in that technique.
1:01:00
SPEAKER_04: You've and it and again, it's you've trained in it.
1:01:02
SPEAKER_04: You you aren't drilling choreography, you actually pointing out, you know, because like there's just so many people.
1:01:11
SPEAKER_04: Oh, well, I do contemporary, we have a contemporary dance.
1:01:13
SPEAKER_04: Well, are you training in contemporary movement weekly?
1:01:17
SPEAKER_04: Because there's a difference.
1:01:18
SPEAKER_05: Like, what are you doing across the floor?
1:01:20
SPEAKER_05: What are you doing in your contemporary warm-up?
1:01:22
SPEAKER_05: Like, I'm sure some people have a very codified, their own personal probably version of what they do to teach contemporary, but like, you know, and that's I'm curious everybody's perspective on this, Alexa, specifically, because you take your kids to competition and you compete in the modern category.
1:01:39
SPEAKER_05: Probably you're the only one that's a good thing.
1:01:40
SPEAKER_05: Well, if they have a modern in the place that I work at, it's contemporary.
1:01:46
SPEAKER_05: So right.
1:01:49
SPEAKER_02: But they teach contemporary.
1:01:50
SPEAKER_04: But you teach a modern class.
1:01:51
SPEAKER_04: How do they not have a modern category?
1:01:54
SPEAKER_02: So it's funny because actually I'm not the only one.
1:01:57
SPEAKER_02: There's another person who teaches actually Graham, but they they basically sort of fold that into the contemporary category or they fold it into specialty.
1:02:04
SPEAKER_02: Specialty.
1:02:05
SPEAKER_01: But it's not specialty.
1:02:08
SPEAKER_01: I know, I know.
1:02:11
SPEAKER_02: I mean, but I think contemporary is such a huge sort of like envelope of styles.
1:02:18
SPEAKER_02: So it's like they figure the same terminology in contemporary, like you know, spiral breath, contraction, opposition, resistance, like those words, foundational elements are being, I mean, those words are used in the modern vernacular, but it's it's it's under the contemporary, you know, uh envelope.
1:02:36
SPEAKER_02: And you know what?
1:02:37
SPEAKER_02: I go and and do modern pieces for studios, you know.
1:02:40
SPEAKER_02: I mean, so like for me, guess what?
1:02:41
SPEAKER_02: Like they just put in the contemporary division and then and it is what it is, you know.
1:02:45
SPEAKER_02: So I I wish I would have I I wish they would have a separate thing, but then you would then have to have a score sheet then says, you know, like how is their flat back?
1:02:53
SPEAKER_02: How is their S-curve?
1:02:55
SPEAKER_02: How is their rolling of the spine?
1:02:57
SPEAKER_02: Where is the undercurve?
1:02:58
SPEAKER_02: And it's like the ballet score sheet is already horrendous as it is.
1:03:01
SPEAKER_02: There's so much stuff to get through in two minutes that it's like, ah, like where am I going?
1:03:06
SPEAKER_02: You know, like and then if you're a non-ballet person, you're just looking at the sheet and you're like, uh, where do I go?
1:03:11
SPEAKER_02: You know, there's a lot, there's a lot.
1:03:12
SPEAKER_02: There's also in a score sheet, they also reference how is your quase, your FSA, your en avant.
1:03:18
SPEAKER_02: Like, I mean, it breaks it down.
1:03:19
SPEAKER_02: Just so for us, like, you know, like where's your backspace, front space, where's your horizontal plane, where's your sagittal plane emphasis?
1:03:26
SPEAKER_02: I mean, imagine that, and people are like, the vernacular is not taught because you have to go to university to understand what horizontal, vertical, and sagittal planes are.
1:03:33
SPEAKER_02: So it's like if a person who is going to have a score sheet, so it's better to just generalize it, you know.
1:03:38
SPEAKER_02: But you're right about that, Courtney.
1:03:40
SPEAKER_02: We should have it, but we don't.
1:03:41
SPEAKER_02: So should be an option, at least.
1:03:44
SPEAKER_05: Well, and I've I mean, I've seen a few of the smaller competitions that do have a modern category.
1:03:48
SPEAKER_05: Now, whether anybody's in it or not is a different story.
1:03:51
SPEAKER_05: Right.
1:03:51
SPEAKER_05: But at least they have it.
1:03:52
SPEAKER_05: Like y'all, yeah.
1:03:54
SPEAKER_05: I mean, you sort of you sort of hinted towards my question of okay, if you're a studio, you want to implement modern, you've put modern into your program and you want to bring it to competition, does modern dance even fit into the competitive world as an entity?
1:04:07
SPEAKER_05: Because as you said, Francisco, do I need a separate score sheet?
1:04:11
SPEAKER_05: Because if I'm having to look at all these other other things, which sort of in my head I'm looking for anyway, it's like, how well are you using the space?
1:04:17
SPEAKER_05: Are you, what are your levels?
1:04:18
SPEAKER_05: Like there's some general stuff that applies to every kind of style.
1:04:22
SPEAKER_05: But, you know, if if and I and I think this is a question just for the audience to hear, because when when people think competitive dance, it's a needle, it's fouetes, it's a big group number, it's a big giant prop, it's all these things we think of.
1:04:36
SPEAKER_05: Is it modern dance where half of the dance is me walking in a pattern?
1:04:39
SPEAKER_05: You know what I mean?
1:04:40
SPEAKER_05: Like contractions on the floor.
1:04:42
SPEAKER_02: Definitely saw some choreographers that had definitely pushed the envelope, like you know, like whether it's doing it and referencing like an Ohad Naharin work with chairs in it, you know, from Batcheva or whatever, or like I, you know, there's a choreographer that used to dance for Crystal Pipe, who's brilliant, you know.
1:04:57
SPEAKER_02: Um, and you know, he did a piece with with these masks, and they were drawing on their masks, and then they put him upside down and the coins fell out.
1:05:05
SPEAKER_02: It was a commentary about society and itself and and and how you know economy, whatever.
1:05:11
SPEAKER_02: Anyway, that was a modern dance, and it won everything in our event.
1:05:14
SPEAKER_02: It won.
1:05:14
SPEAKER_02: And people were like, that won?
1:05:16
SPEAKER_02: But there wasn't a single needle in it.
1:05:17
SPEAKER_02: But the judges felt so much.
1:05:20
SPEAKER_02: You know, there was a piece about, you know, about uh uh, you know, about like just understanding who they are and talking about the the politics of the world and and things like that.
1:05:30
SPEAKER_02: And it was it was spoken, word, and the movements were all modern, and all of about breath, and and that also I think I think the thing about it that makes it edgier is that there's something about the modern dance that does reference the strength of the past, and it's dance used in a way that that appeals to what is current and contemporary in terms of the culture, and so there's something very primal about that, you know, like like having breath is a big thing.
1:05:55
SPEAKER_02: Well, we can't live without breathing.
1:05:58
SPEAKER_02: We dance, we dance actually when.
1:06:00
SPEAKER_02: Wake up in the morning and we go, right?
1:06:01
SPEAKER_02: That's already an internal advance that's happening.
1:06:03
SPEAKER_02: So I think when these contemporary choreographers tend to go on the modern route, I feel like that's when their works become really, really compelling to watch because there's something really honest about it and something that's timeless about it.
1:06:15
SPEAKER_02: But yeah, it should be in a separate category, but I mean it it it is what it is.
1:06:19
SPEAKER_02: I I I it's such a it's such a a hard thing because I feel like modern has gotten lost in the mix and we're just sort of discovering it now, you know, the importance of it because more kids are going into tradition, into these university and conservative and prestigious conservatories.
1:06:34
SPEAKER_02: So they're placing the importance of it.
1:06:35
SPEAKER_02: And also a lot of the choreographers are seeing, you know, a lot of the a lot of them also used to dance for these companies in the college dance world, and they're now also several of them, Alex Keply, Barack Marshall, Peter Chu is doing it, like they're doing setting pieces and they're winning everything.
1:06:50
SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
1:06:50
SPEAKER_02: And so I feel like then then people in the competitive world see that it's doing well, and so they want to be a part of that, do their research, and then they want to see if they can incorporate it, but they necessarily study it.
1:07:00
SPEAKER_02: No, but they're doing a great job with trying to represent it.
1:07:04
SPEAKER_02: And and so I think that it's a different world altogether where everybody is just influencing and referencing each other and is getting inspired by each other, but for sure, like you know, it's still uh very rare for me to hear that all the kids in your studio know their fortifications.
1:07:21
SPEAKER_02: I mean, when you said that, my blind was just like blown away because like I will go to a studio and say do fortification one, huh?
1:07:27
SPEAKER_02: They won't know what that is, you know.
1:07:29
SPEAKER_02: Or when I say top of the head, head-to-tail connection, it's like head to tail?
1:07:32
SPEAKER_02: Like, what is that?
1:07:33
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you have a head and you have a tail.
1:07:34
SPEAKER_02: It's called your tailbone, you know, and it and and I think that I think that we're doing it in a roundabout way, but at least for me, you know, until things change, they're getting exposed to it at some to some degree.
1:07:47
SPEAKER_02: And it's some successful more than others, you know.
1:07:50
SPEAKER_02: So I'm not does that answer your question?
1:07:51
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
1:07:52
SPEAKER_02: I just went on a tangent.
1:07:55
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:07:57
SPEAKER_05: I love it.
1:07:58
SPEAKER_05: I will I want I want more.
1:07:59
SPEAKER_05: Um, Alexa, what is your perspective?
1:08:01
SPEAKER_05: I heard you say yes, it does belong in the competitive world.
1:08:04
SPEAKER_05: Elaborate.
1:08:05
SPEAKER_05: It does, yeah.
1:08:06
SPEAKER_00: We have not been to a competition that hasn't appreciated our modern movement when it hits the stage.
1:08:12
SPEAKER_00: More often than not, we are in the top three, if not winning the whole thing, just because it's just not seen.
1:08:20
SPEAKER_00: They've seen the turns, they've seen the legs, they've seen that over and over and over again for weeks at a time.
1:08:26
SPEAKER_00: So when we come in and the judges like, I remember, oh, I haven't seen this since college.
1:08:33
SPEAKER_00: We've had judges find us on Instagram and leave us notes thanking us.
1:08:38
SPEAKER_00: It's just, and for that, it's not just their crazy teacher making them take modern.
1:08:43
SPEAKER_00: It's that kids feel appreciated in during their class time.
1:08:46
SPEAKER_00: And it's so impactful for them to hear that what they're doing is important.
1:08:51
SPEAKER_00: And I feel that they're not going to be doing turns and second when they graduate, but they will be doing this.
1:08:58
SPEAKER_00: I want to spend my time doing this.
1:09:00
SPEAKER_00: It's been eight years.
1:09:01
SPEAKER_00: We just started working in a jazz class because we made their jazz class longer this year.
1:09:06
SPEAKER_00: Congratulations, we have 15 extra minutes.
1:09:08
SPEAKER_00: We'll start working in turns and second year eight.
1:09:11
SPEAKER_00: But they've been doing moderns for eight years already.
1:09:14
SPEAKER_00: So that's kind of where if they can feel proud of themselves on stage doing something that they know that they are good at, that's all that matters to me.
1:09:22
SPEAKER_00: And it is appreciated.
1:09:23
SPEAKER_00: It we've gone to conventions, we've gone to smaller competitions, we've gone to competitions that are throughout the entire United States, everywhere there's been appreciation, and the kids have heard that in their like judges' critiques.
1:09:35
SPEAKER_05: That's awesome.
1:09:36
SPEAKER_00: I think there's definitely a the judges crave it.
1:09:38
SPEAKER_00: They want to see something different.
1:09:40
SPEAKER_00: They don't want to see something that they see every every other dance.
1:09:44
SPEAKER_00: A lot of contemporary movement is very gestural.
1:09:46
SPEAKER_00: So when I'm coming in here with an S S-curve arms and an undercurve, and we're doing triplets across the floor, it just resets their brain and it counts.
1:09:58
SPEAKER_02: It's a different look altogether.
1:09:59
SPEAKER_02: I've done that with a couple of pieces that have one like in convention.
1:10:03
SPEAKER_02: It's a different look altogether.
1:10:04
SPEAKER_02: There's something about it that you know they they feel a connection to it and they feel and it stands as it's and when it's done really, really well, it stands out from the rest of what's already there.
1:10:15
SPEAKER_02: Because, you know, and I think the thing about it is that sometimes, you know, the contemporary pieces can be can get trendy, right?
1:10:21
SPEAKER_02: And so when you when when they get trendy, you see the same thing over and over again, and some are done well, and others.
1:10:26
SPEAKER_02: When you put in a modern dance where you know the kids are trained in it, something about the reference of that traditional, but also it's not antiquated, it's something about the truth of that, it's a rebellion.
1:10:36
SPEAKER_02: In in it was a rebellion against ballet.
1:10:39
SPEAKER_02: So, you know, something about being a rebel and wanting to be grounded into the earth or whatever, something about that still appeals to the human psyche.
1:10:47
SPEAKER_02: And so, you know, when you have a piece that that appeals to that, they won't necessarily understand it, but they'll feel something.
1:10:54
SPEAKER_02: And more often than not, those pieces tend to be more memorable.
1:10:56
SPEAKER_02: I just remember, you know, like when somebody told me Ty Steoria called the studio owner and said, Who is that piece from?
1:11:03
SPEAKER_02: And whatever he comes up to me and said, You literally changed my life watching that piece.
1:11:06
SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, Oh, okay, great.
1:11:07
SPEAKER_02: And I didn't even know, but for me, for me, it was like it was something that I hadn't really done.
1:11:12
SPEAKER_02: So I'm like, what are you talking about?
1:11:13
SPEAKER_02: You know, but for me, it wasn't familiar.
1:11:15
SPEAKER_02: It was already things that I already know, but for I forget sometimes because they haven't seen that vernacular and style, but they were really taking from it.
1:11:21
SPEAKER_02: And it was it was a piece called Collage, which was my which was like honoring the modern dance influence, and I put it to a very fast, Max Frick of Evolving piece that they just streamed across the floor and they were doing all these fast contractions and flooding.
1:11:34
SPEAKER_02: There was on a single churn, on a single pirouette or whatever, and it just I think it it took their breath away.
1:11:40
SPEAKER_02: And that was like, oh, there's something to be said.
1:11:42
SPEAKER_02: They're welcome to they're they are now welcoming it.
1:11:44
SPEAKER_02: So maybe there's something to be said about this.
1:11:45
SPEAKER_02: So that was a proud moment for me.
1:11:47
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:11:48
SPEAKER_00: We are very much on the same page.
1:11:49
SPEAKER_00: Last year was our last I did our first like big modern dance.
1:11:54
SPEAKER_00: We did November.
1:11:55
SPEAKER_00: It was Max Richter.
1:11:56
SPEAKER_00: So then I went through the rest of his music and I did every season.
1:12:00
SPEAKER_00: Last year was summer, and that was like our last one.
1:12:02
SPEAKER_00: But it's just um, yeah, no, I about his music and modern dance, I guess.
1:12:07
SPEAKER_02: The piece were very much on the dance company that just premiered just a couple of weeks, a few weeks ago, was the entire was six movements from that Max Richter recomposed thing.
1:12:15
SPEAKER_02: It was called Seasons, and it's not it wasn't referring to the seasons, it was referring to the human cycle.
1:12:19
SPEAKER_02: So it's kind of funny.
1:12:21
SPEAKER_02: But another famous photographer has done something to it, and she does a really, really good job.
1:12:25
SPEAKER_02: Her name is Crystal Pipe.
1:12:26
SPEAKER_02: She just did it for the Parish Opera.
1:12:27
SPEAKER_02: It's called the Seasons See, yeah, Seasons Canon.
1:12:30
SPEAKER_02: And Pacific Notes of Ballet just did a revamp of it, and it just it the audience was floored.
1:12:35
SPEAKER_02: They stood up.
1:12:36
SPEAKER_02: There was like 10 curtain calls.
1:12:38
SPEAKER_02: It was like, you know, my friend was in it, so like he was telling me how they just and all it was was 40 bodies doing these different canons, and there was the West interspers first, but it was it's brilliantly done.
1:12:51
SPEAKER_02: So, you know, it's there's just something to be said about that.
1:12:54
SPEAKER_02: I mean, you know, like you can't help but the honest reaction of the people that are watching, so yeah, yeah, love it.
1:13:00
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
1:13:01
SPEAKER_05: Wow, wow.
1:13:02
SPEAKER_05: Courtney, we could we could keep talking because I we've had I mean, I just have to give like all of us recently in the past couple weeks like a big pat on the back.
1:13:10
SPEAKER_05: Like these have been some really excellent conversations with with people who are so knowledgeable.
1:13:16
SPEAKER_05: And I just I'm so grateful that we've had so many amazing guests come and just share their expertise with us because you know you and I do what we do and we do what we do really well, but like we don't do everything.
1:13:26
SPEAKER_05: And to be able to hear from, you know, to be able to hear from people who do everything that we don't do, like it's awesome.
1:13:40
SPEAKER_02: So what you're doing is quite significant.
1:13:42
SPEAKER_02: So don't sell yourself short.
1:13:44
SPEAKER_02: You are you are um you are allowing a platform for us to be able to keep furthering uh educating a larger audience.
1:13:52
SPEAKER_02: So, you know, like when you're asking to come in here to talk about modern dance, not about ballet.
1:13:57
SPEAKER_02: I was really excited and I wanted to make time for it in my very busy schedule because you know, like especially when it comes to sharing information, sharing the wealth of information, to have this podcast be available to anybody, studio owner or not, students, whatever, you guys are your this work that you're doing is significant and important, so you need to know that.
1:14:15
SPEAKER_02: And I'm saying that, expressing that to you, that it is significant.
1:14:18
SPEAKER_02: You are affecting people's lives when you are allowing them to see more than what they they have in front of them.
1:14:25
SPEAKER_02: And when you open possibilities for people to do better for themselves, that is really what it's about.
1:14:29
SPEAKER_02: So I kudos to both of you for doing this.
1:14:32
SPEAKER_02: Thank you very much.
1:14:33
SPEAKER_04: Oh, thank you.
1:14:35
SPEAKER_04: That is so nice.
1:14:36
SPEAKER_05: Oh my god, I'm gonna cry.
1:14:37
SPEAKER_05: So nice.
1:14:38
SPEAKER_05: Jeez.
1:14:39
SPEAKER_05: I mean, and that is why we do this.
1:14:40
SPEAKER_05: Like, I think you know, we really we really do that do it for that reason.
1:14:44
SPEAKER_05: Um, because there's such a big world out there, and if we can be a part of exposing it to other people, and you know, it's that's amazing.
1:14:52
SPEAKER_05: That's like that's what we can do.
1:14:53
SPEAKER_05: We that's how we make an impact.
1:14:55
SPEAKER_00: I know that in my family's listening.
1:14:57
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, they you're you're you're they're affecting people's lives.
1:15:01
SPEAKER_02: So so I'm I'm honor I'm humbled to be here.
1:15:04
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so know that.
1:15:05
SPEAKER_04: Aww.
1:15:06
SPEAKER_05: We are we are truly grateful because we know you're so busy.
1:15:09
SPEAKER_04: We're grateful for you both for squeezing us into your lives and chatting with us today and modern dance.
1:15:14
SPEAKER_04: I'm so grateful for you both.
1:15:16
SPEAKER_04: How we have our guests always lead us out as with just one final thought.
1:15:19
SPEAKER_04: You can speak to the teachers, the dancers, the parents, the dance world, whoever you'd like.
1:15:24
SPEAKER_04: One final bit of advice, guidance, words of wisdom on modern dance for competitive dancers.
1:15:31
SPEAKER_00: Uh I just want to thank my faculty and my families for trusting us and just agreeing that this is important to your child's training.
1:15:41
SPEAKER_00: And I hope other studios start to follow suit.
1:15:44
SPEAKER_02: I do want to give a shout out to you, Alexa, for doing what you're doing because that is take takes a lot of courage to do what you do, and you've come to a point now where it's accepted.
1:15:51
SPEAKER_02: So, congratulations and kudos and bravo to you for doing that, for being ahead of the curve.
1:15:56
SPEAKER_02: You know, for me, of course, uh for me, it's not really just about modern dance.
1:16:01
SPEAKER_02: I think for me, the most important part about it is empowering your you, you know, to allow your students to see more.
1:16:09
SPEAKER_02: The more they see, the more they can craft uh out who they are as people.
1:16:13
SPEAKER_02: And in the end, really, I always say this, you know, uh dan a person first, dancer second.
1:16:19
SPEAKER_02: Because without that healthy person, that inclusive environment, to be able to explore things, to find out what their voices are, to be able to nurture that, we be able to have this art from continuous.
1:16:29
SPEAKER_02: So for me, just allow your kids to flourish and allow them to accept themselves, allow them to see more, allow them to know more, allow them to understand who they are as people.
1:16:40
SPEAKER_02: Because in the end, that's what it's really about.
1:16:44
SPEAKER_04: We hope you enjoyed this week's episode all about modern dance and studio training.
1:16:49
SPEAKER_04: Be sure to follow our special guests on social media.
1:16:52
SPEAKER_04: You can find Francisco at Francisco Bella Dance Store and follow Alexa Studio at Supernova Dance Store.
1:16:59
SPEAKER_04: Also, be sure to check out some of Francisco's upcoming intensives will be hosting throughout the 2023.
1:17:18
SPEAKER_04: And in Miami, Florida, June 2nd through the 4th.
1:17:21
SPEAKER_04: Ballet and Beyond Technique will be hosted in Miami, Florida from June 11th through the 17th.
1:17:27
SPEAKER_04: And the Pre-Professional Dancer Institute intensive will be hosted in Santa Fe, New Mexico from August 31st through September 4th.
1:17:34
SPEAKER_04: Learn more and register now by clicking the links in our show notes.
1:17:38
SPEAKER_05: Don't forget to follow Making the Impact on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and pretty much everywhere you listen to podcasts.
1:17:45
SPEAKER_05: And if you want more exclusive episodes, support our podcast by joining our Platinum Premium membership for only$5 a month.
1:17:52
SPEAKER_05: Subscribers receive free Making the Impact stickers, shout-outs live on the air, add free listening, and exclusive access to our QA episodes for members only.
1:18:00
SPEAKER_04: Be sure to check out IDA affiliated competition, High Demand Dance Competition.
1:18:05
SPEAKER_04: High Demand takes the competition experience to a whole new level.
1:18:09
SPEAKER_04: HD aims to provide a fresh, fun, and professional experience for their dancers and families to take home with them forever.
1:18:15
SPEAKER_04: HD offers two competitive levels and uses full panels of IDA judges at every event.
1:18:20
SPEAKER_04: Studios can choose their stage lighting for each entry, and they even offer a complimentary stretch class on the stage so dancers can fill the floor and start every competition day like a professional.
1:18:31
SPEAKER_04: They host dance-off challenges at every regional event and award dancers with continual education scholarships and pastoralizes.
1:18:38
SPEAKER_04: To learn more about high demand and to see if they're coming to a city near you, visit their website at HDdance Competition.com or find them on Instagram at HD Dancecomp.
1:18:50
SPEAKER_05: We're excited to bring you more amazing episodes this season.
1:18:53
SPEAKER_05: Stay tuned for episodes covering the title divisions, competition trends, and how to combat stage rifles.
1:18:59
SPEAKER_04: Thanks for tuning in to this week's episode and happy holidays to all.
1:19:02
SPEAKER_04: We'll see you next week.
1:19:04
SPEAKER_04: Until then, keep dancing.