Year in Review
SURGE by Anouk van Dijk | Photo by Todd Collins
Whether I wanted to admit it or not, I had many expectations embedded in moving to Utah for school. Most of those expectations were unformed beliefs in my mind, comprised of my life experiences, biases, and an incomplete understanding of our School of Dance. When people ask me about my first year in the Modern MFA program, I have many responses. (I've never been known for lacking an opinion.)
With a little bit of time away from the U, I have realized that the most important lessons of this year were not in studios or classrooms, or even in my preparation for classes. I often joke that no one warned me about how %&*$ing introspective graduate school would be. Maybe someone told me, but I likely was not ready to hear it. This writing is my year-in-review, documenting the experiences I did not expect to have, and the lessons that I did not expect to learn.
Part 1: Badass women. One of the incredible parts of the 2018-2019 year at the School of Dance was the guest artist* line up. It complimented the stellar faculty that we have at the School of Dance. Our guests were all women, which is appropriate because our full-time staff & faculty has a gender imbalance, a problem in the dance world that I hope the University of Utah is committed to actively rectifying. We need more female-identifying people on faculty, especially in positions of leadership, power, and direction to reflect and represent both the dance field and our student body.
Our first guests this fall were from the Bay Area, Jenny Stuhlberg and Lauren Simpson. The two modeled a female collaboration for the students, co-teaching and co-directing in a direct and inviting manner. Their distinct compositional style of precise, unmetered movements challenged our students and brought a new texture to the PDC concert in the fall.
In the spring, we welcomed Katrina McPherson and Anouk van Dijk, two international artists who are moving the dance field forward. Both women are mothers, and both are in their 40s-50s. McPherson is one of the founders and first innovators in Screendance, and van Dijk is the creator of Countertechnique. Both possess a quiet intensity, rejecting the traditional masculine models of leadership. Both are extraordinarily accomplished artists who continue to develop themselves, pushing their ideas and limits of what dance is, does, and can do. For me, van Dijk models someone who follows opportunities, digs in deeply with her collaborators, and then moves on when it's time to learn something else. She just left an incredible position as artistic director of Chunky Move in Australia to work on larger scale research outside of a company model. McPherson returns to the University of Utah next year, and I look forward to learning more from her about the relationship between the dancer and the frame of a camera.
The women on faculty here are all powerhouses as well. I haven't had a chance to get to know each one yet, but those I have interacted with are clear, articulate, and driven. Molly Heller continues to push her body of research, HEARTLAND, in many directions at once, creating multiple access points into the work. Sara Pickett produces BRINE, one of the only curated and produced modern dance platforms in SLC, and runs countless events for high school dancers throughout the year. Ellen Bromberg, founder of the University Screendance program, has an incredible eye for watching dance paired with an ability to distill complex ideas into potent, succinct comments. Satu Hummasti just premiered an independent show at SugarSpace with partner Daniel Clifton. Pam Geber-Handman spent her fall sabbatical traveling nationally and internationally studying dance and disability. Both Hummasti and Geber-Handman somehow manage young children, teaching, and serving in demanding administrative capacities for the School of Dance while furthering their creative and scholarly research.
While we have incredible women leaders in the School of Dance, I call upon the administration to continue hiring women for our school. Additionally, the University needs to actively seek out underrepresented faculty and visiting artists: people of color, women of color, queer artists, indigenous women, trans artists, disabled artists, to name a few. The University of Utah has the funding and the resources to bring more voices to the table than those who have been supported by the status quo. It is a responsibility that our school can and should actively embrace as we make choices now that will impact future cohorts and classes.
Part 2: Self-reflection.The first year of grad school has been illuminating, shedding light on the insides of me, on my beliefs and reactions, preferences and aversions, desires and fears. And perhaps that is what education is supposed to offer us. I know more about dance history because I was lucky to be Satu's assistant for Movement in Culture, but the most poignant gleaning of that class was understanding how each person's perspective of the world is steeped in their personal lens. All of the things that make us who we are inform our lenses, and many things that we don't realize contribute as well. Our lived histories and behaviors intersect with those around us, often affirming cultural agreements (don't change your clothes in the bathroom on the 2nd floor) or coming into conflict (why are there still hard copies of information in this building???). A deep and complex understanding of self, including the rough edges, is what education offers us. Self-reflection leads to acute self-observation, which leads to razor-sharp self-examination.
This is, quite possibly, the point of education. Not just to know oneself, but to know a changing self in relationship with an ever-changing world.
Part 3: Next steps. No one looks back on their past choices and wishes they had been less kind. A lot of kind people reminded me this year that shared vision is more powerful than tunnel vision, and softness is more powerful than resolve. As I prepare for a summer of intense Integrated Movement Study study, I have set some goals based on a desire to be kinder. 1) assume the best in people. 2) allow space for others to make decisions and have their own distinct experiences. 3) cultivate intentional friendships.
As we enter summer and prepare for the start of a new school year, (which is an extension of all the things we have ever experienced), I encourage students, faculty, and staff to examine how we can cultivate a culture of kindness in ourselves and by extension, our school.
*Note: There were additional guest artists on campus in the 2018-2019 school year that I did not interact with due to my schedule. Michelle Wiles, Chris McMillan, Rick McCullough, Chris Alloways-Ramsey, and Bruce Marks (and possibly a few more) worked with students in the ballet major. I make no comment on their contributions to the School except to note that while all are exceptionally qualified, the guest artists and faculty do not demographically reflect our student population.
Written by Hannah Fischer
University of Utah
School of Dance
Modern Dance MFA Candidate