A Career Deep-Dive with Alum Jessica Tong

“Sometimes we get so strict and focused on certain types of forms and what [they’re] supposed to look like. I think that they can become roadblocks in our dancing,” U Dance alum Jessica Tong recently told us.  

Tong in Counterpoint by Kyle Abraham. Photo by Todd Rosenberg.

While Tong was referring to her transition from classical ballet to contemporary dancing, this statement sums up many of her beliefs surrounding dance. Tong has gone from conservatory ballet training to performing with Hubbard Street Dance Chicago for over a decade, to being a rehearsal director for Kyle Abrahams’ AIM, and whether it’s the movement itself or navigating a career, Tong has come to emphasize resilience, adaptability, and empathy in her practice. As Tong reflected on her dance career for us here at U Dance, she shared valuable advice.  

Jessica Tong grew up in the Salt Lake City area and began studying at the University of Utah while she was still in high school through concurrent enrollment. “I was very serious. I was in the zone. It was like ballet, ballet, ballet, ballet,” Tong said, adding that her decision to pursue concurrent enrollment answered the question: “How can I dance more within my day?”

Tong recalls that, even though she was a high school student, the community at the U was very welcoming and she noticed herself improving. “I felt like I was getting really great training,” she said. “I really think back very fondly about that time.” Among her favorite memories was studying with Bené Arnold and Conrad Ludlow, as well as performing in Utah Ballet in “The Snowmaiden” and “Concerto Barocco.”  

After graduating from high school, Tong enrolled at the University of Utah as a freshman — though she ended up not staying for long. By the end of her first semester, she had been hired as an apprentice by Ballet Met in Columbus, Ohio, and decided to leave the U. 

Though of course she can’t say for sure if she’d do it differently now, Tong did feel that perhaps her decision was short-sighted. “I was in a big hurry to get my career started,” she said. It was one of the first auditions she had been to, and the first job she had been offered. "Patience is very important…” she said later. Looking back, Tong feels she was operating under assumptions that we’re necessarily true: that a dancer’s career is short, and that career opportunities wouldn’t appear later if she passed anything up at the time.    

Tong in Cloudless by Alejandro Cerrudo. Photo by Todd Rosenberg.

In the end, the artistic director who had hired Tong left the company, and the interim director didn’t hire Tong at the end of her apprenticeship. “I was pretty devastated,” Tong said. “I thought it was really the end of my dance career.”

Tong ended up moving to New York City, at first working for a company called Ballet Tech that was founded by Elliot Feld. Unfortunately, the company folded less than a year afterward. “That was hit number two.” After that, Tong freelanced for a year. “I snuck into shows. I had zero money…. I still really, of course, loved it. I was just feeling a little hurt and scared.”

While these first few years were tumultuous, they also gave Tong the opportunity to truly explore the world of dance and expand her horizons. Tong recalled that the last program she performed with Ballet Met was a contemporary repertory program. “One of the pieces was by… a dancer who had been at NDT (Netherlands Dance Theater). This piece was called ‘Heidi’ and the whole floor was covered in this canvas. And there were packing peanuts on the floor and the whole first movement is this women’s dance [where] we’re dancing and blowing these packing peanuts around. I was like, ‘This is so awesome, this is so nice, everything about it feels right to me.’”

Tong was able to use her freelancing gigs to explore different kinds of dance. “The freelance work helped me formulate… this is what I love, but I'm not so good at it, but that's okay. I can work towards something. So, it was really, really informative.”

Additionally, in New York, Tong was able to see all sorts of dance, introducing her to genres and styles she had never known. “It was the first time I'd ever seen Batsheva perform. I was like, ‘Oh my God, what is this?’ It was such an incredible show.”

It was after seeing Hubbard Street perform that she decided to audition for the company. She auditioned twice — and didn’t get the job, both times. However, Julie Nakagawa, who was the director of Hubbard Street 2 at the time, had left a handwritten note on Tong’s rejection letter, asking her to keep in touch. Tong did get in touch, and Nakagawa invited her to spend the summer doing work-study in Chicago. “Two days before I was supposed to come back home, she offered me a job,” Tong said. “That’s how my Chicago life began. It was just like, ‘oh, I guess I’m moving here next week.’”

Tong in Petite Mort by Jiri Kylian. Photo by Todd Rosenberg.

In this next chapter of Tong’s career, flexibility and adaptability were once again valuable skills. Working at a contemporary company took Tong even further out of her comfort zone, leading her to come into her own as a dancer. “I feel like the environment at Hubbard Street really cherished everybody's individuality,” she said. “We had common intentions… But I think how you approach that and how you can internalize it and make it your own and bring your own humanity and your own perspective to things was very new for me.” She added, “I think there was something in just feeling more comfortable in my skin and my capabilities.”

Tong loved her time as a Hubbard Street performer. One of her favorite performances was a triple bill, with pieces by Jiří Kylián, Johan Inger, and Ohad Naharin. The Naharin piece, in particular “really changed how I approach my movement in general… textures and the smells and the feeling of my skin and trying to be more present in the moment.”

Tong says the thing she misses most about dancing in a full-time company is the community. “The people that you experience all of these ups and downs with day after day in the studio, all of the little tiffs and fights and disagreements and the triumphs and the sadness and the pure exhaustion and joy of dancing together… to me, that’s really what I miss.”

Tong danced in Hubbard Street for over ten years, but at the end of that time she was ready for a change. “I was pretty tired… I was just ready to experience something different and to challenge myself in a different way.” At the same time, moving away from performing full time — “It's scary,” Tong said. “But also, there's so much possibility.”

Tong transitioned from a dancer at Hubbard Street to a rehearsal director for the company, and “there wasn’t that much lag time in between,” she said. “It was hard. No one really ever teaches you how to be a rehearsal director. You just sort of assume, based on being a dancer, that you know how it goes. But it's a lot of personality management. You need to be organized. You have to have logistics planned. You have to have an outlook for not just the day, but the week, the month, the year for all of the things that are, coming down the line. You have so many people that you're trying to get into the room, to get them on the same page, to move forward. Everyone's coming from their own lives, their own, mornings of whatever annoyances or very personal things that are happening to them.”

Tong took inspiration from Lucas Crandall, who was a rehearsal director at Hubbard Street and is now a rehearsal director at Netherlands Dance Theater. “[He was] an incredible influence in my life. He really had always led with such honesty and passion… Something that I had learned from him was you take the work seriously but you don't take yourself too seriously… You just want to like treat each other the way that you want to be treated and lead by example.” 

Tong was a rehearsal director at Hubbard Street for three years, was an Associate Artisitc Director there for 2 years, and is now a rehearsal director at A.I.M. by Kyle Abraham. In addition to her day job and being a mom of two, Tong has worked on additional projects advocating for better Asian-American and Asian representation in dance — including a project called “10,000 Dreams.”

When asked how students can engage in activism of their own, Tong suggested choosing a cause you feel passionate about, and then starting small. For example, “get boots on the ground and see things,” she said. “Whether that be art shows or dance shows or theater, music performances, readings… There’s always something where you can promote online, but really you need to be there. That's what's important. To be able to experience the presence of other people and to connect in that way is the first step.”

Tong also emphasized that the first step to activism is community. “Sometimes you just put so much pressure on things getting done, to accomplish some sort of show or feat,” she said. “To have that community for yourself and for the others, and just being present — I think that those are the roots in which you can have a strong foundation.”

Jessica Tong. Photo by Todd Rosenberg.

Tong continues to thrive in her career but remembers how hard and scary it could be in the beginning. To U Dance students, she had this advice to share: “Don't feel you have to have it all figured out now — or ever, really. Goals are great, but I also think that it's okay to do the work, keep following your passion and your instinct, and different things will come along. You'll have setbacks, of course, everybody does. Just be patient. If you keep working at what it is that you love, you'll find a relationship to dance in some way, whether or not you are dancing. Dancing on stage, or if you're in an administrative role, or if you're in a backstage role, or if you're in the audience, that love will always stay with you.”

And most importantly, Tong says, “Don't think you're old!” There’s always possibility and opportunity no matter your age. “When young people think they're old and they say ‘oh, well, I'm already 25, this isn't going to happen for me,' or ‘I'm already 28,’ ‘Now that I'm in my 30s.’ Whatever it is — that's not a real thing. Everyone's journey is going to be their own individual journey.”

No matter what she is doing, Tong finds that it often comes back to dance, whether it’s playing with her children or administrative work. “Dance really gives you discipline, resilience, problem solving, [the skill of] working with others, how to share space with others, how to compromise,” she said. “Dance has taught me so much."