By Eva Stone, PNB Faculty, New Voices Instructor
Dance is weird. Agile bodies move through space with purposeful darts and slides and lunges. Movements are executed with thrusts, twists and turns, leaps and dives to the floor, while legs and arms carve the air with wild abandon or with resistance and tension. The choreography of dance is often specific and abstract at the same time. And all of this is the imaginings of one person’s passionate and innate desire to tell you exactly how they see the world by using a storytelling device that is both non-verbal and abstract. The person building the dance usually has a crystal-clear vision about this work they are meticulously creating and yet they inherently know that regardless of what that vision is, you (the viewer) are given free rein to absorb and reflect upon this physical extravaganza in any manner you chose. For me, choreography is beautiful and fascinating as well challenging and frustrating. For these reasons and more (too many for this short blog) they define why becoming a choreographer was inevitable for me, but it has taken a lifetime to figure out not only what I create, but how I create it. To get started on a road of reflection, it’s important to look at the start.
My love for making dances is directly related to my early choreographic education in high school (and, I admit, the pure fun of bossing classmates around for my artistic pleasure). My teacher was limited with the time it would take to technically train us to conservatory standards, so she focused on teaching us choreographic concepts. Counterpoint, unison, floor pattern, entrances and exits, shape, space, and design were the early building blocks of what would become a lifelong creative trajectory.
To talk about how choreography evolves over time and generations, we need to look at dance training at its core to better understand how dance making is explored and created.
It’s no secret that dance education is solely based on stories and hearsay. Every student of dance currently enrolled anywhere in the world is being taught the lessons that were taught to the teachers instructing them. And those teachers were instructed by their teachers, and so on. The archeological threads of dance training consist of memory, interpretation, personal preference, and subjective points of view, yet we share it and teach it as if it were gospel. Yes, there are books and manuals on pedagogy from both academic and philosophical perspectives, but the real work is done in the studio and in the moment. Every teacher teaches the class they wish they could take. From their own physical memories they pass on the very best of what they remember, what it made of them, and who they are, only to offer that as a gift for their students to learn from, grow, change, and (hopefully) prepare for the next generation of students who they will eventually instruct. It’s a beautiful lineage to be a part of.
I believe the same is true for choreographic education. We pass on the skills of how to make dances based on what we’ve learned, what we’ve failed at, and what we think works. The problem is that choreographic education is not as prolific as technical training (but that is slowly changing.) Many of today’s choreographers begin their journey after having had a professional dance career. They pull from experiences learned from time spent with choreographers they have worked with. Much can be explored and discovered this way, but this can (and often does) become somewhat problematic in who’s actual voice the choreographer is using. But this is how the language of choreography grows, expands, and stretches.
How does one improve choreographic skills? Practice. Study. Watch other choreographers’ work. Reflect. Deconstruct. Watch again. Practice again. Fail. Make another attempt. Study more. Watch more work. Study again. Take everything you think you know and do the complete opposite. Discuss. Review. Get help. Make another attempt. Note your successes. (For me, this is an audience member ending up in tears. A positive notion that I got something right.) Make another attempt. The more you choreograph, the better you get at it.
Some of dance’s choreographic lineages are fascinating and clearly observable. Alvin Ailey’s work was heavily influenced by Martha Graham. Chrystal Pite’s brilliance was fostered by her mentor, William Forsythe. The influential vocabularies of Ohad Naharin, Merce Cunningham, George Balanchine, Jiri Kylian, and Pina Bausch are still prolific and noticeable in many choreographers’ work today (including my own.) It’s true for any art form, really. We see something, or hear something, we take in that which speaks to us, and we retell it. From a joke, a recipe, a poem, or a ballet, the creative process is nothing without inspiration, opinion, and imagination.
I initiated the New Voices choreographic program to help our students form opinions about their artistic journeys. They are in the early stages of creating work about what they understand: friendships, family, emotions, academic subjects, ballet. I know that education (a deep understanding of the three elements of dance: time, space, and energy) and knowledge of the craft (choreographic frameworks and compositional structures) of making dance are important avenues to finding their own ‘thumbprint’. It allows them to expand upon their personal experience to dance and offers them the tools to make work of their own. I encourage them to research as much dance work as possible and I take them to see shows outside of PNB (Kidd Pivot, Dance Theater of Harlem, Batsheva, Camille A. Brown, Alonzo King/LINES, Mark Morris) to ignite a spark of creative inspiration for their own work. I do, on occasion, see my work in theirs, and I understand this a natural part of the development of discovering their own movement vocabulary and choreographic ideas. Each year brings new students to this unusual and sometimes frightening process. I watch them face it with bravery, confidence, and perseverance.
I have a particularly fond memory of heading out to the lobby after the world premiere of F O I L (a ballet I created for PNB in 2019) and finding 40 of my New Voices students waiting for me. I burst into tears as they congratulated me. During the process of creating that work, I shared with them the ups and downs that I was experiencing, giving them an inside view of what it’s like to have a commission of this size on a company of such importance. I had gone through all the challenging moments of the piece for them. I let them know that behind the glowing façade of that ballet were the same emotions they experience while honing the creative process: fear, lack of confidence, experiential trust, and an overwhelming deep love and respect for this art form.
Through this choreographic pipeline, the New Voices students are now telling new stories based on what they’ve gleaned from mine: an unorthodox tale of how making dances for the neighborhood kids ended up becoming a tenacious journey to the stage at McCaw Hall with one of the top dance companies in the world, inspired by so many wonderful choreographers and instructors before me. And what a weird, fantastic journey it has been, and continues to be.
Bio: Eva Stone is a professional choreographer and on faculty at Pacific Northwest Ballet School. She manages PNB’s NEXT STEP program, New Voices choreographic program, and teaches modern dance technique to upper division students. Eva’s piece, F O I L, which was commissioned by PNB in 2019, will be returning to the stage for their 26/27 season.
New Voices is part of RELEVÉ, PNB’s initiative to engage youth in the choreographic pipeline. RELEVÉ is generously supported by Allen Family Philanthropies. Their investment in this initiative enables PNB to focus on mission-driven programming for our community, which fulfills our guiding principle: to inspire, engage, and educate through dance.
