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are loners.
At least, it’s easy for us who watch them to think that. Their art is often
wordless; we don’t see them converse, and that suggests an image of aloofness,
separation, each keeping to herself, himself. It’s a stereotype based on a
flawed perception, but in talking to local dancer-choreographers, it turns out
the stereotype has a grain of truth. These artists work hard at their art —
and at making ends meet so they can work hard at their art — and it frequently
means toiling away in isolation, apart from dance fans and their colleagues.
This week and next, more than a dozen of Austin’s independent dance artists
come out of isolation to join in a festival of movement at Hyde Park Theatre.
Personal Dances, founded in 1996 by Margery Segal and produced by Margery
Segal/NERVE Dance Company and Frontera@Hyde Park Theatre, is an annual event
that gives local dance makers a shot at trying new work and collaborating with
peers they might not otherwise see. The Chronicle took advantage of this year’s
gathering of dancers to get several of them to talk together about what they
do. Taking part were Andrea Ariel, Beverly Bajema, Lisa Fehrman, Heloise Gold,
Jason Phelps, and Segal herself. As it turned out, these dancers were most
interested in talking about connections — to their work, to other artists in
the community, and to their audiences.
Austin Chronicle: Is it fair to say there is a dance community in Austin? There
are a lot of dancers doing pretty extraordinary work, but is there much
cohesion among the people who do dance in Austin?
Margery Segal: If you say something insulting, you can offend a lot of people
really quickly. That’s one way of determining if there’s a dance community.
That’s my flip answer. There is definitely a sense of pride here that I learned
you can offend very quickly that’s very different than in New York, where
people criticize things regularly. So I think there is.
Andrea Ariel: I think people have a pretty good sense of all the different
people who are part of the community and are very active. But there is
certainly a trend toward isolation. I grapple with it all the time: how not to
be so isolated and yet how to be completely absorbed in the piece that I’m
doing and how to survive. With work and rehearsing and teaching, it takes a lot
of effort to do something beyond that to bring us together.
Lisa Fehrman: At that gathering at Dance Umbrella in December, it was so nice
to be able to see other people, to see faces that I haven’t seen and don’t see
throughout the year. I know that we’re busy, but we certainly have time for
socializing, too, and we just don’t really do that.
Beverly Bajema: I think there are many dance communities in Austin. There are
folk dance communities, club dance communities, a ballroom dance community, and
there is this kind of alternative artist dance community that we identify with,
and that’s what I think we talk about a lot when we talk about a dance
community: people who are making their own work, not in ballet or modern dance
set technique.
Margery Segal: One of the things about Austin is that it’s in Texas, and
there’s a lot of individualism here. A lot of people move here, I think,
because this is a place you can be an individual. I found that really
attractive coming from New York; I was like, `Wow, there’s so much energy here
to make work.’ At the same time, I feel that plays into the mentality that
we’re supposed to have it all together. This is a very product-oriented town.
Playwrights can have a two-year development period with a play before it’s on
the boards. [In dance] we’re lucky to get a year. I’m doing dance-theatre, and
my expectation from dance was that I should have it together right away, as
opposed to having time to develop it. If I could be a really smart parent for
myself and for other dancers in Austin, I would encourage them to use the town
and each other to develop work, to create some nurturing center for work where
dancers could develop it in front of each other and to authorize choreographers
to ask for the kind of support that they really want.
Lisa Fehrman: Kate Warren has that space [Cafe Dance], and I’ve told her that
it would be really nice to have a situation where once a month people could
come in and show works-in-progress and do something like `Critical Response’
that’s a real positive way to look at work and get some kind of feedback that’s
not just `I hated it’ or `I liked it.’ That’s actual feedback in a
non-defensive format. I think that would really help dancers in town support
each other.
Andrea Ariel: That’s often a thing that brings people together. Dance Umbrella
used to do the New Choreography Project. For a week or two, you would see other
dancers a lot, and you’d all workshop material and have somebody from the
outside come in. That was one of the rare times each year when you could be
among your peers.
I want to second what Margery said, because I was attracted to Austin for the
same reason. When I first visited here, it seemed like a place where I could
make something happen, as a free and independent person. Because I had Brandon,
who was eight or nine, I wasn’t going to do the New York thing. I knew that
trying to support a son and my dancing would be a little difficult. So that was
one of the things that attracted me here. There was support and there was
room.
AC: It does seem like process is bubbling up as a concern. I hear other
choreographers talk about process and wanting to get audiences involved earlier
in the development of new works. Is it something that’s bubbling up now, or is
process something people have been concerned with for a long time?
Andrea Ariel: Most of my training was through schools, and one thing they offer
as a format is a place to develop work and continually get feedback and build
rapport and discussion. It’s a very vital part of creating work, so I think
there’s always the need. I don’t know if it’s become more prevalent or it’s
just that we’re all doing it now.
Heloise Gold: It could be that different people are wanting different kinds of
support right now and that we’re coming to know what that is.
Jason Phelps: Personally, coming from doing a lot of theatre, where often the
focus seems to be on having a finished product that you present the same as you
can every night for a long period of time, I got really burned out with that.
In the dance community, I saw this opportunity to explore things over longer
periods of time and include all the influences and nuances of an idea in a
piece — and it could keep growing, it didn’t have to be the same thing over
and over again. I’ve worked with pretty much everyone here, and I’ve seen so
much growth over time. I think that is so incredibly beneficial, as opposed to
having something that’s going to stand on its own and that’s what it is, then
you walk away from it.
Lisa Fehrman: I personally think that part of that growth comes from finishing
a whole piece. My work changes when someone looks at what I’ve done. I’ve been
looking at it in rehearsal, and when somebody else comes in and looks at it,
that changes completely how I look at it. Of course, having people talk about
it helps me figure it out, and that changes my whole perception of how I work
and where I’m going. It is a learning experience for me. The reason I do this
is that it’s teaching me something about my life. The things that appeal to me
to work on — relationships, love, death, hate — I’m learning something about
them. That’s the thing. If I wasn’t learning anything, I’d go, `Well, I don’t
need to make any more dances.’ Why would I want to? It’s really not very
glamorous. It’s a lot of hard work for the return.
Andrea Ariel: For me, that process includes producing the work. Developing a
work all the way through the production — that part of the process is how I
keep growing. Then I can come back to that work and produce it again and go
further with it. And I think you can bring the audience and the community along
with you.
Lisa Fehrman: It’s about where you are, about how clear you are in your vision.
I think clarity is the really important part, because dance can be so
mysterious and non-literal — especially alternative dance. My husband has been
seeing it for years and years, and he says, `I still don’t have a clue.’ For
me, that is part of the goal: trying to be clear without pantomiming it.
Margery Segal: Part of my interest in focusing on process with the festival was
to educate audiences — the idea that if you bring someone into your process
they’ll understand more. Because I’ve felt that a lot of dance is reviewed here
by what it’s not, or it’s reviewed from a theatrical perspective, or it’s
viewed from another dance aesthetic. The movement will be trying to present a
theatrical roughness or sadness or insanity, [and the reviewer will say], `It
wasn’t lyrical.’ Well, yeah. That wasn’t the intention. Can we talk about
content? I think a lot of times people are afraid to ask dancers, `What is it?
What are you talking about?’ They’re afraid. That fear of not knowing is a
horrible feeling. `I don’t know what’s going on and everyone else in the room
does.’ Then they feel bad about themselves and they’re really mad at you. So my
idea is just a way of trying to talk about what is it, and bring people in so
they have a chance to ask that. Beause I haven’t seen that develop in Austin.
We have the information and we don’t know how to share it. I really don’t know
how to, but I would like to.
Andrea Ariel: Audiences always want to know. I have a lot of students, and I
always engage them in conversations. When enough of them have gone to a
performance, I open the class up to talk about it. Their first response is
trying to figure out what the choreographer wanted them to understand. I’m
trying to teach them their response is valid. `What did you
think? Where did this take you?’ I say, `Don’t even try to think about what
they want you to get. What did you get?’
Lisa Fehrman: I think that’s difficult, too, in terms of how you get feedback
from your audience. You can do after-performance discussions, but the people
who tend to stay are not necessarily the people you need to hear from. I won’t
stay for [post-show talks] because it’s not very comfortable, and it doesn’t
seem like a deep or clear dialogue. My company did an informal performance
outside in November, and people really loved that. People who are intimidated
being in theatres were really open and not fearful of it and had a different
experience than they usually do.
AC: It’s the same difference you see between people at a production of
Shakespeare inside a theatre and in a park. Outside, there’s a sense that they
can relax, they can eat, they don’t have to pay attention all the time if they
don’t want to, they aren’t trapped. Sometimes you find they actually get the
play more because they’re out of that rigid box with all the expectations
attached. And sometimes that’s the problem with talkbacks: It feels like a
classroom and you have to raise your hand and be called on, and your answer is
going to be evaluated or judged by everybody else in the class.
Lisa Fehrman: That’s the reason that I don’t do those. I would like to hear
what people say and I’ve tried to do it in a more informal setting, but people
still tend to leave. I haven’t figured it out. I’ve tried to talk before, to
give a little information about it, but I can also see that as a [problem].
Heloise Gold: It’s important for us as performers to treat these questions. Do
we want to come out before and talk about the work? Do we want to come out
afterward? Or in the middle?
Margery Segal: I did that in my performance the other night because the
audience wasn’t with me.
Andrea Ariel: You broke in the middle and started talking to the audience?
Margery Segal: They really weren’t with me. And I was just, `Okay, I’ve been
naked for 20 minutes up here, and I can’t get any more naked.’ I was thinking,
`I’m tired of this.’ So then I talked to them because I needed them with me.
Heloise Gold: It shifted the energy. It was smart on your part.
Lisa Fehrman: But sometimes I’m afraid of what it could be or what it will be.
I want to tell people what I’m doing, but I don’t want them to think that I
have to explain everything.
Andrea Ariel: There’s something very raw about the people who do linger after a
performance. I try to get out there as fast as I can, just to be able to talk
to people. Granted, after a performance it is difficult to talk about work
right away. You need to savor it and think about it. But one format I’ve tried
is a reception, where I actually am offering food and drink and a chance to
hang out. Then I can hang out with them and they can relax for a little while.
I’ve found that to be really good.
Lisa Fehrman: I’ve done that, too, but all I get are really positive comments.
Which is great, but what I want to hear is what they’re saying on the ride
home. I really do.
Margery Segal: That’s brave.
Lisa Fehrman: I don’t think of it as brave. I think of it as necessary for me.
It’s necessary to go to the next place. Of course, it’s nice to hear people
slobber on you, but it doesn’t feel like it’s a real thing. They want to be
nice to you, they want you to feel good… you know, you go see one of your
friends, you don’t want to go, `Oh… interesting.’
AC: You want to peel back a layer from their reaction, to get beyond what they
liked or didn’t like to why they liked or didn’t like something, until you
reach whatever meaning they found, the inner understanding of why they
responded a particular way.
Andrea Ariel: I work with a community group of kids between the ages of 8 and
12. They had never gone to see any kind of dance performance, so I took them to
one, and we did a talk after. A lot of adults stayed, but the kids were the
ones who had a lot of questions. We adults analyze what we’re going to say, and
we have so much stuff before we can even get to peeling those layers, whereas
kids are like, `What was that?’ `I was confused about this.’ `How did
you do that?’ They could ask those questions. It was a really good learning
experience to have this horde of kids with a zillion questions.
Heloise Gold: You got a lot of direct feedback?
Andrea Ariel: I got a lot of direct feedback because they’re so honest. It’s
interesting to me because they don’t have any experience that they’re bringing
with them to understand it in the first place. But I’m interested in that raw
response. I’m interested in those people who come to a performance who have
never gone to see something before. I’m interested in how they got my work on
the value of what happened that moment, without explanation. Where did they go?
What did they see? Sometimes I find if you talk to them long enough and ask the
right questions, you can get that information. You as the artist can create a
dialogue. Maybe that’s because I teach and I practice that a lot with students,
try to talk in a way that will help get them questioning and commenting from
themselves and not trying to please or compliment me.
Heloise Gold: Often after a performance, I’ll call people I know were there and
get feedback. I try to make it a lot of different kinds of people — people who
are other performance people to people who never go to performance, the gamut.
I love it! It’s fascinating because it’s so varied, and it gives me a lot of
information.
Lisa Fehrman: I think the thing about reviews that have to be different than
that and the thing that has frustrated me is that they’re not in any larger
world context. When Pina Bausch was here, several of my students went to see
her and they were so upset about it, so we talked about it. Well, they had some
expectation that it was going to be ballet or something. And after we talked
about it, they calmed down a bit and started to think about the things that
they enjoyed in it. Sometimes that’s the way reviews seem, like is there any
other kind of place where you get this information? Once, a reviewer referenced
all my work to Merce Cunningham because somehow that person got the idea that I
had studied Cunningham, which I never have. But the whole review was from that
point of view.
Andrea Ariel: I agree that reviewers should have an understanding of dance
historically and of the dance they’re writing about. People look to that to
help them understand and know how to look at work.
Margery Segal: It’s interesting to take that heritage. It’s nice to feel part
of something, and it’s nice for the audience to feel that they’re watching
something that is part of something. And I feel like not doing that keeps
Austin out of the national scene. That’s sad. Not referencing the reviews in
terms of historical perspective… last year, a promo [article] for Personal
Dances was very offensive to me because it kind of bad-mouthed performance art.
Performance art is many things, some very beautiful and some about people
telling their own stories. People have been doing work with multimedia for 30
years — deep important work about all kinds of issues use multimedia, so why
are reviews still saying, `This is a genre of work that bears no respect,’ and
people can talk to you about it by telling you how bad people are at it? I was
so offended by that; that’s a small-town mentality, which is unnecessary. That
doesn’t educate the audience at all. The writer could be saying, `Look at Bill
T. Jones. Look at Pina Bausch. Look at Butoh. Look at all these places where
different people use different mediums to get across their message from their
soul, or from their bodies.’
Heloise Gold: The early Eighties was a ripe time of educating reviewers.
Deborah [Hay] would do performances, then there were others of us that sort of
came out of that, and we would do our performances, then whoever it was at the
time who were the dance reviewers would come and give us horrible reviews. Then
we’d talk to them and give them information, and it would change. And then the
next review would come…. But some of them got it. And it was exciting. All of
that was out in the open, about new performance and what it means and how we
look at it. I think the reviewers were really trying, they just didn’t
understand. When they understood, it got better.
Lisa Fehrman: And it doesn’t have to be just, `Oh, now I got it. It’s a great
performance.’ I know that’s not what you meant, and it sounds like we’re
bashing reviewers, and it’s not that. I don’t think that perception is based
on, `Well, gee, I got a bad review and now I hate reviewers.’ I wouldn’t mind
at all a bad review based on some clarity of what they were talking about.
Andrea Ariel: That goes back to talking about the content. In reviews of my
work, everything has always been, `My dancers are not as good as me’ or
`Technically, yadda-yadda…’ and that avoids what the work’s about. I agree,
it’s not that it has to be a good review. It’s that it talks about the work,
that it gives a context to explore how that’s working or confusing or not
working.
Margery Segal: It educates the audience.
Heloise Gold: That’s what I was saying, that’s what happened. Actually, those
early dance reviewers were very open to hearing more from the artists, so that
they could write and help educate audiences. Then audiences came with different
kinds of expectations, and I think it got exciting.
AC: I know that it is a lot of hard work, and that artists are undervalued in
this town, and so many frustrations rise up against you. What inspires you or
keeps you going as an artist in the face of all that?
Jason Phelps: I have to say visiting artists. My experience here is that the
people who come here come into contact with people who have a commitment to
their work in a place where they feel they can comfortably live, and people
from other cities almost immediately get a sense of that from the artists here.
And that kind of validates what I do and what other people do here. And when
people come here and see that, I think it helps them open up more, and in a
sense, I feel fed because they’ve opened themselves here and I get to see that
in a place where I am. Then they leave and I get to take that and do that for
myself, reach deeper into my experience. Then I want to give that to the
community that exists. It’s also going out and seeing people in the community
who inspire me, seeing them grow and seeing what they’re exploring now, where
they are in their process. I want to be a part of that. I want to say, `Hey,
I’m growing, too,’ and share my experience with other people who are doing
that, too.
Andrea Ariel: It definitely starts with a complete drive to make work. I think
that’s inherent. I don’t know where that started and if it will ever stop, but
that’s always there. In addition to that are people — not just the audiences
but the people who are part of the productions that I create. I always find
that when I have a seed of an idea, and I begin working on that idea with the
dancers and other artists, and I have all these people working with this idea
that I started with that is now not just my idea any longer, it’s all of ours
— that to me is the most powerful, magical moment. All of this is happening
because of that one seed that has been unleashed. To me, that is a thrill. To
see everybody all of a sudden owning a part of it. And then that builds with
the audience. That’s when I go, `Ah, it’s the people!’ It is the people that
really, really keeps me going.
Heloise Gold: For me, I love art and I love the energy of art, so even if I
don’t see what everybody is doing, knowing that art is always happening is
incredibly exciting to me. And amazing. Artists keep doing this all the
time. It’s that essence of the energy of art and creativity, that’s what
keeps me going. When I commit myself to making art, I am so fulfilled. It’s
breathing and it’s eating and it’s being creative. It’s all part of living.
Lisa Fehrman: For me, it’s a desire for wisdom. I want to be wise, and I can’t
figure out any other way to get that. I think in a lot of ways it would be
easier to go through an eight-hour or a
10-hour day to survive instead of
a 16-hour day. At the end of the day when I’m crying because I’m so tired and I
want to sleep and I have to wake up at six, I’m sorry. But then life really
wouldn’t be very much fun. It would not be very exciting.
Margery Segal: Everything keeps me going: the water, the air, the sky,
everything. Someone ignoring me, someone pissing me off in the newspaper keeps
me going. Everything drives me to something else. Since I’ve been here, the
fact that nothing has been going on here was fantastic for me. I had to learn
how to work alone after being in a really intense community in New York, and
that was great. Going through feeling like my work wasn’t understood to being
called the best dancer in Austin for 10 minutes — going through each thing has
kept me going. Each step has helped me grow and I continue to grow.
Beverly Bajema: I grew up on a dairy farm, and my brother and I would stand by
the road and do performances for people driving by at 50 miles an hour. Why?
Because we wanted to play and communicate and have fun and do stuff together. I
have these ideas of doing. I love getting ideas and doing them. And the
relationships with people that are really meaningful to me are all based in
doing work together. Those people are my best friends. We create this history
together that is so rich and beautiful and meaningful.
This article appears in February 28 • 1997 and February 28 • 1997 (Cover).