Emily Wolfe / Journal No. 3

Emily Wolfe (Spring 2017)

April was one of the most challenging months of the short yet busy professional dance career I’ve had in NYC. I feel as though I have been pushed to re-evaluate the elements of my dance career, in an effort to be honest with myself and overcome mental blockages. At the end of March, I ended the creative projects I was involved in, which left me to begin April with a new openness and period of reflection.  This has been one of the first periods of time where I’ve had stagnation and doubt, though I know I need to have grace in realizing that work sometimes fluctuates for a reason. Being an independent dancer is not exactly a linear path. It takes patience and endurance to continue to show up and sweat with no reward except self growth. It takes a lot of work to stay up to date on everything that is happening in physical practices and performance. I’m in this career for the long run, so I need to work on building healthy and honest patterns of research and evaluation.

I have been seeking insight from my community through classes, and being at Gibney helped me to stay active in the field by finding information about performances and workshops. I strongly dislike auditions. I know I’m not the only one, but I don’t like the idea that people judge a room packed full of apples against oranges for a few brief moments in a high pressure situation. I realize persistance is key and I should audition to be seen, but I’d rather be seen for my work ethic in class and with respect for my creative process. Perhaps I need to find a balance here.

In April, I have been working to specify what I need in my performative and creative career and to understand my identity. I find myself at the intersection of two perpendicular lines; One line runs north to south that represents the classical side of my physicality, musicality, and discipline. The other line runs from east to west representing my contemporary creative theory, collaborative process, and experimental improvisation. I want both to occur simultaneously and find (or create) a group of creative artists that run along that bisecting line. I know this work probably exists, but I haven’t seen or learned enough to find it. I need to continue to unearth this type of work in my dance making practice.

The variety and volume of work in the modern dance world can honestly feel disorienting. I have been trying to make it to more performances this month and am realizing how important it is to see everything and to network outside of the studio. There is always something to learn. Dance will always be my passion and career path, but sometimes, I don’t understand what I want or how to find it. I want to intentionally build my career and I suppose I am currently at a moment to take the time to seek, outward and inward. Being in class has been a stabilizing factor and helpful in giving me a view of dancemakers who I wouldn’t have normally experienced. My average class choices for the month of April perfectly display my perpendicular personalities: Gaga, Ballet, and Pilates. My body and mind find it’s full potential in this physical cocktail.

- Emily

 

Emily Wolfe / Journal No. 2

Emily Wolfe (Spring 2017)

While attending classes this month, I have brought these questions forward to the dance community and myself: “Why do I take class?”, “What do I need in a class?”, “How often do you take class?”. I’ve started to realize there isn’t one single answer for this! Here are some examples of responses:

I take class because it is at a convenient time to fit in my work schedule.
This class is a warm up for rehearsal. 
I am looking to explore something new and change my pattern of thinking.
I like the phrase work that the teacher shares.
I want to check out the artist who is teaching because they have an interesting history.
I have heard of this artist in the dance world and want to see what they’re like.
I need to satisfy a movement craving.
I come to this class every week and it is the only one I prefer.
I want this teacher to notice me for a potential job offer or connections.
The structure of this class allows me to be free.
I only do somatic training and Gibney offers these possibilities while still staying in the context of dance.
I need to move my body!
This technique supports the choreography I am performing.
I am an actor and need to better understand my body and how it exists on stage.
This is my dance community. This class is my body’s home.
This class is therapy, it helps me heal. 
I need an energy balance to stay calm and stable.
I am taking this class because I need to remember that I don’t know it all.
This teacher kicks my ass.
Taking class at Gibney helps me realize I am not alone. 
By understanding the world around me, I am better able to understand myself.

Every body’s needs are different. When I asked dancers how often they took class, there was a huge range frequency and a lot of regularity depended on financial situation or scheduling. Some dancers are able to afford one class a week or every few weeks, some dancers have managed to fit in up to three or four in a week. Many dancers also didn’t have one reason for taking class and some would take a range of classes to push their potential. It is such a huge privilege to attend so many classes on this scholarship. My body has become used to having the opportunity to move so much and I am starting to wonder how I will be able to make this work after the scholarship ends. I love being at Gibney, it is my dance community.

It is interesting to notice at Gibney, that even though it is a large dance community unified under the love of dance, that there are many dance cultures within itself. Many people are ‘regulars’ for specific classes or techniques. I have become familiar with the people I may encounter in ballet class vs the people in contemporary forms vs the people in gaga.  Over my time with the scholarship, I have been exploring many different classes rather than restricting myself to one specific technique. I feel there are pro’s and con’s to this choice. My personality prefers variety and responsiveness to the moment. Thankfully, the range of classes at Gibney has been incredibly satisfying and it supports the diversity of movement my body needs. I am able to get my stability from Ballet, new structures from Contemporary Forms, cross training from Pilates, repatterning from Gaga and even a spiritual fix from Witchcraft!  I do often wonder what would happen to my approach to dance and technique if I chose one type of class to take for the whole month. Now may be my time to try something a bit out of my comfort zone by restricting myself to one technique  or continue to put myself in classes that I am inexperienced in (hip hop is whispering in my ear). Having the stability of class at Gibney, has allowed me to stay engaged in the dance world by allowing me to catch performances I may not have heard of otherwise. While my identity and home base will always be with dance, I am also having cravings to expand my artistic potential through mediums such as acting and visual arts. I am able to keep my dancing reliable while exploring my multidisciplinary interests. This scholarship is also crucial to my connection to the dance community because I have recently left the company I was working with and now I’m searching for opportunities and new projects!

Choreolab with Alexandra Beller was such an important component of my scholarship. I often create work in isolation or with small groups of people and do not receive feedback until the final showing. With a feedback community present to witness my process over 8 weeks, I felt encouraged to continue due to the accountability to bring something new and challenged to understand the reasons why I made the choices I did. I engaged in a collaborative relationship with a saxophonist and felt comfortable taking risks through new lands of exploration. I feel fortunate to have connected with the other artists in the group and I look forwards to the opportunity of reconnecting. At times, it was difficult to show work when I felt like the project was so early in its process. There was a lot that was unknown, but I was enthusiastic about making mistakes that could help redirect me. I pushed to present something new each week and I felt I was able to achieve a good balance of exploration and solidification. Giving feedback is also an important part of being an educated artist and it was so useful for me to exercise the skill of critical thinking. I plan to have a full life of performance and choreographing and Choreolab has been an important professional stepping stone for my career.

- Emily

Emily Wolfe / Journal No. 1

Emily Wolfe (Spring 2017)

It has been an incredible experience to be the first recipient of Simon Family Scholarship, and to invest time into training and developing myself as an artist. Now that I have many options and opportunities for movement every day, I have found the need to deconstruct the question “Why do I take class?” By looking at my training habits pre-scholarship (the past two years since I’ve moved to NYC) and my experiences from the first month of the scholarship, I am able to set new goals that accelerate my exposure.

I have realized it is important to analyze my physical habits and question my comfort zones. Since moving to New York two years ago, my average training consisted of two ballet classes a week and three to four yoga classes at a studio where I have a monthly pass. I took ballet because it is a structure I have grown up with, and have found how to discover my artistry though its form. I could also depend on it to give me a full body exercise, get me on my legs and keep my body flexible. On the opposite end of the training spectrum, I would attend Kundalini yoga classes to enrich my spirituality and to train my body and mind to push through its perceived limitations. I am a performer and choreographer, so my body needs to be prepared to do anything on a daily basis. In my physical practice, I want class to be a container in which I find myself, rather than trying to fit into someone else’s container. It can be difficult to take risks in exploring the dance world because it often consumes time and money that we don’t have… So whatever we do, it has to be the best.

For the first month of my scholarship, I unfortunately had to deal with an ankle sprain I had acquired on New Year’s Day. Every human, but more especially every dancer has to deal with finding ways to recover from injuries while continuing to do the work they are doing. With this scholarship so fresh, and the amount of dance work I have to do, I had to become creative about what types of classes I needed. I was forced to seek classes that would keep my body strong yet not over work my ankle. This month I was able to explore all of the amazing somatic and body practices that Gibney Dance has to offer. I had tastes of a few different classes, including Qigong, Pilates, Witchcraft, Klein, and Alexander Technique. Having these options have allowed me to stay in work while rewiring my body and brain to create healthier physicalities.

I am passionate about the infinite amount of possibilities for approaching the body and dance! With the diversity of class offerings at Gibney, I am excited for the opportunity to be open to new physicalities and teachers that I may not naturally choose. While I am exploring different movement methodologies for myself, I’ve suddenly become curious about the community around me and am wondering about their class choices. This month I am going to launch a small survey to analyze which classes dancers take and why. I anticipate there will be a wide range of responses and I want to investigate trends or the different dance “cocktails” that are preferred. One of my personal goals of this scholarship is to network in the dance world by connecting to people in the community. I will be able to achieve this by interviewing people I interact with at Gibney or in class. With this scholarship, I want to act as a megaphone reflecting back responses about current dance training because I realize everybody needs something different. What my body likes and brain has stylistic opinions about, can often be 100% different than someone beside me.

I want to ask:
What are the basic elements of your physical practice?
What do you need from class?
What type of classes do you like?
How often do you take class?
Why do you take class?

I look forwards to presenting a pool of data over the next coming months and I plan to continue looking for new ways to ask/answer questions about the economics of training. 

- Emily