Getting to Know Max Pollak -- Part II

by Nicole Harris

In this next segment of my conversation with Max Pollak, he talks about the importance of all of his dance training from tap to ballet to theatre as he creates work.  Thanks again to Melissa Dollman for her help in this process!

All the dance styles that I studied sit in my body, so they inform my decisions. Even my ballet background, which is not huge, but it’s there. And I’m really happy it’s there, because it gives me an edge to other people who only tap dance, or only do Cuban music. So I always try to look at everything I do from several vantage points—from the vantage point of the musician, the oral side, from the vantage point of a tap dancer, the tap technique and the movement, from the point of the ballet dance as far as spatially, and arrangement-wise, as far as who goes where, from the modern dancer as far as background and thought, like what am I trying to say here? From the acting point of view, how are we expressing ourselves, what is our motive, where are we going, where are we coming from, how are we getting there, what are we feeling in the moment? Are all the dancers expressing that while they’re dancing? Because, to me, the most important thing in dancing are your eyes. If your eyes don’t dance, you are not dancing. If there’s anything I’ve learned, especially in Cuba or in Brazil, it’s that dancing is not physical. Dancing is metaphysical.  So if somebody doesn’t dance with their face or their eyes, they’re not dancing. And I don’t care how much they jump up and down, and how many… that’s not what dancing is about. It’s the translating of your thought through your aura I even want to say. If your aura doesn’t dance, your body doesn’t dance.  It’s not sport. It’s a HUGE beef I have with competitions, and the whole competitive tap jam session thing, where everybody has to out-do each other. Where a lot of times, I just have to say, well, these guys or these girls are really amazing technically, and they’re out-doing each other, but they’re not speaking to me at all. They’re not speaking to anybody in the room except for themselves. And soliloquy is not what dancing is about to me.  It’s a communal experience. So I try to look at everything from all these vantage points and get a rounded product that will satisfy all my prerequisites—that needs to be done, that needs to be there…

Rozann Kraus on Mentoring

My fellow mentor on the 2011 Winter Emerging Artist Program at Green Street Studios was Rozann Kraus. In addition to working as published author and poet, Rozann is the founder and President of the Dance Complex where she created the landmark Shared Choreographers Concert series. She has served on the faculties of the Yale School of Drama, New England Conservatory of Music and Boston University. Winner of an Artists Foundation Choreography Fellowship, a Choreography Fellowship from the State of Ohio, the Paul Robeson Award and Arts Lottery Grants from five cities, her work has been commissioned by a wide range of sponsors, including the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, The Yale Art Gallery, Composers in Red Sneakers and (for nine consecutive years) Boston's First Night. Touring throughout the country as teacher, choreographer and performer, Ms. Kraus has been a guest choreographer at MIT, the Cambridge School and Tufts University and was an Artist in Residence at Clark University's Center for Contemporary Performance and many other institutions. As mentors, Rozann and I really clicked in ways I was not expecting and I was curious to hear her philosophy on the process.

by Rozann Kraus

I think of mentoring like tending a seedling.  The roots are there and the core is emerging. What's needed is the right amount of water, nutrients and sunshine. Too much or too little, the right or wrong timing can be painful and harmful; understanding the nature and having the experience to modulate the support is crucial to a viable outcome.  With dance, where the medium is the message, gentle teaching is needed because the seedling is the artist's ego.

Mentoring is a deeper partnership than the one that comes from teaching because, at its best, it is sensitive to and responsive to the unique needs of someone. As a mentor, the challenge is to be able to offer insights from your own gleanings, without smothering the others' vision or confidence.

I began the Shared Choreographers' Concert series to provide choreographers  crucial feedback and support that only exists in a conservatory setting. But dancers, too, gain insight into their roles by being privy to the discourse and getting additional information about their choreographer's motivations and goals.

Applications are now being accepted for the next Shared Choreographers' Concert which will occur on October 21 & 22 and will be part of the Dance Complex's 20th Anniversary Celebration

Echoes: Emerging Artist Concert

by karen Krolak

Yesterday's David Parker post mentioned the Emerging Artist Concert at Green Street Studios this weekend. This session was mentored by David and Lorraine Chapman, one of my favorite local choreographers. (If you attend the Mass Dance Festival in August, you can check out one of her zany creations. I am quite certain that you will be instantly smitten.)

I am most excited to see Josh Hilberman's quartet. Shannon Sullivan, who teaches with me at both Impulse Dance Center and Springstep, is performing in it. She  filled me in on Josh's process for building a tap piece in a space that normally does not allow style that might harm the stage. Also, after each mentoring session, she shared insights on the different ways that modern and tap choreographers think. Keep your fingers crossed and maybe I will coerce her into sharing these observations on the blog.

Jason and I are really curious and have made our reservations for the show tomorrow night. Perhaps we will see you there?

ECHOES

features the work by Jennifer Hardy, Josh Hilberman, Jessica Howard, and Rebecca Midler
Mentored by

David Parker and Lorraine Chapman 

Each performance will be followed by a Q&A session moderated by the mentors.

Sponsored by the Green Street Studios Emerging Artists Program:
Green Street Studios' Emerging Artists program is designed to provide infrastructure for choreographers to create new work, and to provide deep, ongoing mentorship between experienced and early-to-mid-career choreographers. For more information: GSSEmergingArtists.blogspot.com

Friday/ Saturday July 8/ 9th @ 8pm
Green Street Studios
185 Green St. Cambridge (Central Sqaure)
Tickets $20 and $15 for Students, Seniors, GSS and BDA Members.
For Reservations:
Email: info@greenstreetstudios.org
or call 617 864 3191

My Favorite Things -- OnTap

by Nicole Harris

Last night, after a day of wandering the city and a visit to Degas' dancers at the Met with longtime Monkeyhouse supporter and dear friend Laura Scanlan, we headed up to SummerStage in St. Mary's Park to see On Tap.  Created by Novisi Productions' artistic director Awoye Timpo, the show was a diverse collection of choreography from across the tap community.

The show opened with choreography by Michelle Dorrance, performed by our new Blogger in Residence Ryan Casey, Claudia Rahardjanoto, Carson Murphy, Tamii Sakurai and Elizabeth Burke.  Extraordinary Machine showcased the dancers' ability to communicate with their bodies-- not just their feet and Michelle's skill at creating distinct characters within her choreography.

At Against the Odds this spring I premiered The Shed, which I had the pleasure of learning from Lynn Schwab.  As you might remember, it was an adaptation of an excerpt from a larger work she is creating with Chikako Iwahori.  Probably Maybe Know, is an excerpt from that larger work and was the second piece in On Tap.  These two amazing women have a true gift for combining the physical storytelling of dance theatre with beautifully complex tap rhythms.  I can't wait to see the rest of the piece!

You might remember Ray Hesselink from the interview he did with Kelsey Griffith a few years ago, or from his fabulous performance in Derick Grant's Imagine Tap!, or maybe from his work with those sensational young dancers in the Broadway hit Billy Elliot.  Last night he shared his tribute to "man's better half" with Red Hot, performed by five red hot tap dancers, Claudia Rahardjanoto, Carson Murphy, Lisa LaTouche, Pam Lenker and my good friend Megan Bartula.

The whole evening was hosted by Dewitt Flemming and he took a moment to share a few of his own thoughts with us.  Soon he was joined by Patrick Mangan on electric violin.  Talk about exciting!  I'm pretty sure I could have watched another hour or so of the two of them!

If you do not know who Dormeshia Sumbry-Edwards is please drop whatever you are doing, go to YouTube and start watching.  Once you've collected your jaw from the floor, come on back and I'll tell you about her Michael Jackson tribute.  It started with a fierce version of Smooth Criminal performed by an outstanding group of dancers who managed to make Dormeshia's incredibly challenging footwork look like a walk in the park.  The second half was performed by Dormeshia herself to Gone to Soon, a song Michael Jackson originally dedicated to the young Ryan White.  Used now to remember her relationship with Michael Jackson, Dormeshia's dancing was as beautiful and awe inspiring as ever.

To close out the show Dormeshia, with her brand new baby on her hip, explains the history of The Track, a traditional number where each dancer gets a few bars to step out and say their thing, then hurry back into the line to keep time for the next.  As always, I am astounded by the diversity, talent and strength of the tap community.

For all of you that missed On Tap, don't you worry!  You'll have a chance to see most of these dancers and many more at  

Salute to the Copasetics, 

Saturday, July 9th at  

Symphony Space.  See you there!

David Parker on Mentoring

This July,  David Parker will be influencing choreographers all over Boston. He's mentoring the Echoes, Emerging Artists Concert at Green Street Studios this weekend, and then he will scoot over to Concord to guide Summer Stages Choreographers' Project. He seemed like the perfect man to kick off our series on mentoring. Monkeyhouse's Nicole Harris shot off one tantalizing question. Just reading his well- crafted response reminds me why I emulate him so.

Nicole Harris: Unfortunately, it seems that lately so many programs like the Green Street Studios Emerging Artists Program are having to fold due to lack of funding, lack of resources or simply a lack of understanding as to why they are so important. As someone who has supported programs like this in the past I was wondering if you could take a minute and send me your thoughts on mentoring and why it is important to keep these programs alive. 

David Parker: I serve as mentor to dancers and choreographers on many levels.  Being a mentor, as I understand it, goes beyond teaching and extends to providing opportunities and strategies for success including more personal things like how one speaks, dresses and carries oneself and assessing what kinds of psychological barriers may be providing interference. It’s a much more intimate role.

I learned how to be a better person, a better man, from my mentors rather than just how to make my dances better.  I try to offer the same to those I mentor in my own company.   I want their presentation of self to reflect the best values we all share which is why we are a company and not a pick-up group.

Choreographic mentorship like at Green Street Studios or at Juilliard where I serve as mentor to selected Senior choreographers is a bit more discreet. I try to uncover where their actual aesthetic values lie and to make them aware of what it is they’re really doing and what potential it has. I also try to evaluate how successfully they are doing what they do and provide them with a means to get closer to what they’re doing.


As a teacher of dance composition I do different things.  I try to give them choreographic strategies and structures that they would never normally use on their own.  I don’t need to know their actual aesthetic values, I only need to give them more.  I try to expand their range of choices available to them by giving them assignments which challenge and stretch their own preferences even to the point of contradicting them.  This is, in some ways, at odds with mentorship but there is some overlap.  In a mentor-mentee relationship the mentee is offering something of this own and the mentor is using it and extending it. My mentoring of my own dancers is good for my art and my company. In teaching, I’m at once more controlling and more at the student's service.

Mentoring

by karen Krolak

Happy New Year...sort of. Like many organizations, Monkeyhouse just launched into a fresh fiscal year. We are really jazzed about the 2011-2012 season because we will be exploring the impact of mentors through our programs and projects.

Do ever feel lost creatively and wish someone could advise you? Do you have a mentor? How does she influence your life? Are they important? Have you ever been a mentor? How do you find one? What is the difference in your mind between being a mentor and a teacher? Or are those words interchangeable in your mind?

As we participated in the Emerging Artists Program at Green Street Studios this winter, Nicole and I began peppering conversations with these questions. People's responses were remarkably eloquent and passionate. Often, they often touched on how difficult it is to sustain these vital relationships in the dance world outside of school.  Around Monkeyhouse, our chats catalyzed ideas for new programs and directions, such as our new Bloggers-in-residence to help nurture another generation of dance writers. I can't wait to see how this evolves.

Throughout the year, we will be digging in to this subject. We welcome your thoughts, comments or questions about it. If you have an idea of someone we should interview or want to share a story from your own experience, please contact us.

Getting to Know Max Pollak -- Part I

by Nicole Harris

I once had a lovely chat with Max Pollak that was intended for this blog.  Because Melissa Dollman is such an amazing Monkeyhouse supporter (and overall person) and took the time to type out the transcript of said chat for me, I am now (over a year later) happy to share some of the incredible things I learned with you.

Max Pollak is the creator of Rumba Tap, a style as well as a music/dance ensemble that encompasses his unique melding of body percussion, tap dance and intense rhythm making.  In his own words, Max talks a bit about his personal history and the creation of Rumba Tap.

OK, the idea of RumbaTap really started with me studying music at Mannes College.  (At that point, I was part of the jazz program at the New School, but we were taking classes at Mannes College.)  As such, I was studying drum set and composition and arrangement, but mainstream jazz from ’93 to ’95.  While I was in my first or second semester I heard people taking about the Afro-Cuban ensemble led by Bobby Sanabria. So I ended up taking that class, and that’s what really sort of changed my whole outlook. He’s a great teacher, an amazing musician, very well rounded, and really knowledgeable about Afro-Cuban and Latin music history, development, all that. He taught the class not only as an ensemble where we could play different styles of African music, but also as a history class. So, first of all, everybody, all the instrumentalists, had to learn percussion—even the saxophone players, the pianists, they all had the basic percussion patterns, because if you don’t know it, you can’t play the music. Because it’s all based on the drums. He also show us videos of the full court dancing and singing. The way it is practiced in Cuba, and that’s something that most jazz musicians have no idea about and no connection with. And that’s what really sort of changed my outlook on everything, because when I saw the way they move in Afro-Cuban folklore, it really struck a very deep chord in me that I had not really connected with in jazz. I had been dancing jazz dance and tap dance since I was eleven years old, and that had always interested me and attracted me a lot, but it never struck this deep spiritual chord. And that’s really the point, the root, off all this music, and the intensity, and that’s what I connected with I realize now. So I started studying the percussion, the songs, and the dancing over time. And I started transferring the drum patterns onto my feet, and eventually onto my body, because I wanted the polyrhythmic aspect of the music to come out sonically.  And when you’re only tap dancing, and you’re only using the sounds of your feet, you are using one, maybe two levels sonically, but when you start clapping on top of it, you’re opening up a whole new range of sound and feel. And then by adding this, you’re adding more melody instruments. And then by adding the voice, you’re adding a whole other dimension.  So all those other dimensions I could I hear in that music, and I wanted to translate, to essentially do that by myself without any instruments. So that’s the thought behind it, and I wanted to make sure that I move in an appropriate way that would look authentic with the music.