Local Movement: Five Decades of Dance in Ann Arbor - Directors' Cut

Sat, 09/21/2024 - 5:06pm

When: 2024

"The national 'dance boom' of the late 1950's through the 1980's expanded audiences and support for dance. Federal grants supported the development of college dance programs and touring dance companies. The University Musical Society brought dance to the University of Michigan’s Power Center for the Performing Arts, built in Ann Arbor in 1971. Both at the University and in the community, Ann Arbor became a destination for dance. Low-cost performance and rehearsal spaces, community support, and grants helped create and nurture a vital dance scene, and Ann Arbor became home to numerous modern and jazz dance companies including Dance Theater 2, Hydra, Whitley Setrakian’s People Dancing, The J. Parker Copley Dance Company, Jazz Dance Theater, and The Peter Sparling Dance Company. Recurring community dance showcases, such as Spring Dances, Fall Dances, Dancing in Summer, and others took place throughout the year, allowing many choreographers to share their work. The film Local Movement, by Aimee McDonald and Terri Sarris, explores modern dance in Ann Arbor from the 1970's through today." - Terri Sarris

This is the directors' cut of Sarris and McDonald's 24-minute original created for Ann Arbor 200.

Transcript

• [00:00:01] WHITLEY (SETRAKIAN) HILL: One of my most admired teachers said go to Ann Arbor. It's a cultural mecca.
• [00:00:06] SUSAN ISAACS NISBETT: It was the dance boom. The big boom of dance. It was just remarkable.
• [00:00:10] AIMEE MCDONALD: There was so much dance here. There was a regular dance scene, and there was an audience for it. People were used to going out and seeing dance.
• [00:00:17] SUSAN ISAACS NISBETT: It was largely modern dance. We had really interesting people working. [OVERLAPPING]
• [00:00:21] SUSAN ISAACS NISBETT: The local dance scene was so vibrant. It was exciting.
• [00:00:50] NOONIE ANDERSON: It was really exciting. The very first day I came to Ann Arbor, I walked down State Street, 1976. I heard African drumming. I followed the sound, and there was a space called Canterbury Loft on State Street, and I walked up the stairs, and there was this wonderful African dance class going. I just walked up and entered the class. It was taught by Biza Sompa who also had a company here in Ann Arbor. He was from the Congo and had only been here about three weeks. He was the first dancer I met. That was my first introduction to dance in Ann Arbor. Then, actually, it was Peter Kentes, who encouraged me to start dancing and teaching.
• [00:01:35] PETER KENTES: Graduated undergraduate from Eastern Michigan where I started dancing about age 20. One thing that motivated me at the time was Eastern Michigan did have a strong dance department, sort of superior to Michigan's at the time. They brought in Alvin Ailey Dance Company to perform at the Pease auditorium. As a result, my first experience seeing professional dance was Alvin Ailey, which was a very life changing event for me. It really motivated me to see if I could give dance a try. Lots was going on in the community. There was an active scene Christopher Watson, started a modern dance group around that time. Actually, my first modern teacher, one of my first modern teachers was Liz Bergmann. She was head of the Department at the University. She was bringing in a couple of guest choreographers. She really needed male dancers, and on the spot, she offered me a full ride scholarship. At the time they called them male dancer grants. I was teaching the jazz dance to the general population, so I was a graduate instructor at Michigan going 8:00 A.M. Ballet classes, but I'm going to start my dance company at night and I bit off more than I could chew. We didn't have an official board, but there was an unofficial board, contributors. I think, what is important is community support, finding good people to help you that you can trust. My uncle, he owned the Capitol Market on Fourth Avenue, so I had a school, I could teach.
• [00:02:50] NOONIE ANDERSON: Fourth Avenue. Above Capitol Market.
• [00:02:52] PETER KENTES: That would support the company, and also give me a rehearsal space. The first place my company performed was during Art Fair in '78. It was well received. While there were a couple of U of M dancers that didn't become regular company members of the group, it was a nucleus that we wanted to continue.
• [00:03:10] NOONIE ANDERSON: I performed for Art Fair quite a few times. Graceful Arch was a beautiful performance tent that was built by the engineering students. When they tore down the engineering building, that was lost.
• [00:03:22] PRISCILLA (LOZON) WAGNER: I arrived in Ann Arbor at 17-years-old to attend the University of Michigan. Late 70s, I was teaching quite a bit, mostly at the Ann Arbor Y. Then I elevated that program so that they had all idioms of dance. I also was dancing with Hydra, with David Marshal and Peter Kentes. The two of them were directing it. And then that's where I also met two of my mentors, Deborah Sipos, and Noonie Anderson.
• [00:03:56] PETER KENTES: We would find dancers and go club dancing. That's where I ran into Deborah Sipos-Roe at Rick's. As far as Deborah goes, she ended up teaching at Community High for many years. Actually, one year I taught for her, she took maternity leave, and so that year I took over and taught Community High classes and dance body, and it was a great experience to work with local creative kids.
• [00:04:21] AIMEE MCDONALD: I was fortunate enough to go to Community High School where we had a really strong dance program that was led by Deborah Sipos-Roe, and we had daily technique classes. We had composition class. We learned how to structure our own rehearsal schedules. We learned all the elements that you need to know to make your own dance concert. A lot of us that went through that program went on to become dancers, professionally, dance teachers. I realized looking back now that I had access to dance training that not everyone had back then, but certainly not everyone would have now. I had basically free dance training as part of our high school program. Then I had really affordable, high level dance training at the Ann Arbor Y. Priscilla was one of my teachers. She was my jazz teacher, and I just thought she was the best. I was probably about nine or ten when I had her class. Wendy Dubois was teaching the ballet, so we had really good ballet training. She went on to run Ballet Chelsea, a really successful pre professional ballet program.
• [00:05:35] PETER KENTES: My company was going for more commercial in the sense that what I saw living in Los Angeles is that dance needs money. I would look for opportunities, my group would do performances with Ayla fashions. So we'd do dancing fashion shows. We did a production at Travis Pointe Country Club. We did private parties. We did a private party on a tennis court for a big party. They wanted entertainment. They were mostly not paid. We had some paying jobs, some of the private parties we got paid and so the dancers would mostly probably get $25 show at that. Well, at the time, that was probably not bad money, but certainly not equal to regular wage. I've always fought for dance to be paid more because I know musicians always they claim their money. If you're involved with the show, the musicians will get paid, otherwise, they won't show up. I think dancers need to be more demanding in that way, so don't sell yourself cheap.
• [00:06:33] NOONIE ANDERSON: Peter got a job, and I think moved to New Mexico, and that's what disbanded his company.
• [00:06:38] PETER KENTES: I was offered a teaching position in New Mexico. That's why I left Hydra, and then Scott Read and Noonie, I think, did Hyrdra too and kept on with it.
• [00:06:48] WHITLEY (SETRAKIAN) HILL: I was a student at State University College of New York at Brockport, '75-'77. I loved it, but I could tell that it wasn't the professional track that I thought maybe I needed. I spoke to one of my most admired teachers, and I asked him where he thought I should go, and he said, go to Ann Arbor. It's a cultural mecca. I didn't apply anywhere else. I got there in the fall of '77, and then entered the dance department there, which was fantastic. It was just wonderful and I loved Ann Arbor. I graduated in '79, and I went back to New York, which is where I'm from. I just started taking class and going to auditions. The end of that year, I produced an evening of my own work. It was my first taste of just doing it all. I just really enjoyed the process so much. Then I got pregnant and skipping a lot. I married David. We moved back to Ann Arbor. I was working at Artworlds, which was upstairs on Main Street. That was one of my teaching places, and I loved teaching there. When did Parker come to town? Because Parker's part of this for me.
• [00:07:57] NOONIE ANDERSON: Parker came to Michigan through Jackson. He was working with Mel Wong in New York, and then he did San Francisco Moving Company, I think. Parker was teaching in Jackson and just happened to come to Ann Arbor and do a workshop. I happened to take the workshop, and I met him, and I was just like [GASPS] His movement was just phenomenal. We went for ice cream, and we talked about it. I remember saying, would you ever think of Michigan? Sure enough, he did.
• [00:08:27] WHITLEY (SETRAKIAN) HILL: Parker came to town and I started taking his classes, which I loved. He's teaching at Artworlds as well. The Dance Gallery people. What was it called then, the space above Drake's? Dance Theater Studio -- said they wanted to start a company. I think they knew they wanted Parker to be that person, but they couldn't really say that, so they opened it up, and I applied. They did not hire me. They hired Parker. I'm not a competitive person, but I felt competitive at that moment.
• [00:08:58] WHITLEY (SETRAKIAN) HILL: I thought, well, then I will start my own company. Then I did. That's why I started a company through this moment of pique and a little bit of competition, and also, I just wanted to. I had a young child, and my husband was a dancer, and it just seemed possible. The initial company was, as I recall, Me and Davey, Susan Cowling, Lisa Dershin, Jeanette Duane, a woman named Lee. I'm not sure when Giles Brown entered in, but that was the first core group. But it was really fun and really affirming and a great balance to my life as a mom, because I had been told by one of my parents that I would never amount to anything if I had a child, and I would be barefoot and pregnant for the rest of my life so I felt like I had something to prove. Happily, it really dovetailed with my desire to choreograph. It was just so much fun to have that community. There'd be a baby on the ground crawling around while we rehearsed. My daughter, Maya, took her first steps at Artworlds into the arms of someone else, I might add, but that's okay. I'm sure it was incredibly difficult, but all I remember is golden tones and happiness.
• [00:10:17] PETER SPARLING: My high school years were at Interlochen Arts Academy where I discovered dancing. I got so enamored with movement and dancing that by my senior year, I was dancing full time. Went to the Juilliard School in New York, joined the companies of Jose Limon and Martha Graham, traveled the world, touring, had my own company in New York City for five years. I was living in New York City and decided to take a university position in 1984. That's what brought me to Ann Arbor. The dance scene at that time was somewhat separated between the University dance program and the local scene. I immediately felt the need to have a foot in both realms. In '85, I and other members of the University of Michigan Dance faculty formed Ann Arbor Dance Works. That was a resident collective. That was happening mostly within the university setting. In the local dance townie scene, I was struck by the determination and just the sheer presence of dancers such as Whitley Setrakian. Parker Copley, whose company was thriving.
• [00:11:33] NOONIE ANDERSON: There was so much dance. It was so rich.
• [00:11:36] PRISCILLA (LOZON) WAGNER: We all supported one another. We went to each other's concerts. We went to each other's fundraisers.
• [00:11:43] WHITLEY (SETRAKIAN) HILL: Everybody was just in love with everybody else's work, and supportive. That's my memory of it.
• [00:11:49] SUSAN ISAACS NISBETT: I don't think that there was one aesthetic that dominated.
• [00:11:54] NOONIE ANDERSON: Generally speaking, modern dance was the main vocabulary, but all very different.
• [00:11:59] SUSAN ISAACS NISBETT: There were commonalities because a lot of people trained together.
• [00:12:03] WHITLEY (SETRAKIAN) HILL: Parker's company. He certainly had a style, which was really lovely and swoopy, and just a lot of curves and flowing groups that would merge together and separate.
• [00:12:15] SUSAN ISAACS NISBETT: Whitley liked telling a lot of intimate stories.
• [00:12:18] WHITLEY (SETRAKIAN) HILL: I used a lot of words. I had people talking in pieces.
• [00:12:24] WHITLEY (SETRAKIAN) HILL: Rachel eats rice.
• [00:12:25] JEREMY STEWARD: Wild rice.
• [00:12:26] WHITLEY (SETRAKIAN) HILL: At night.
• [00:12:28] JEREMY STEWARD: In the moonlight.
• [00:12:29] WHITLEY (SETRAKIAN) HILL: I was a little bit more, this word it is so widely used it's lost its meaning, but maybe a little quirkier and weirder.
• [00:12:37] SUSAN ISAACS NISBETT: The movement was very intimate, too. I often thought when I would try Whitley's movement out on myself, it was turned in. It would turn in on itself.
• [00:12:47] WHITLEY (SETRAKIAN) HILL: A woman came to one of our shows named Diane Rosenblatt, and she approached me about really doing this as a nonprofit. She took it over. We formed a board, and she just took over a lot of the administrative work and was endlessly supportive. But she was amazing. She made that company happen. I didn't know how to apply for grants. I don't think it had even occurred to me. That was definitely a priority. That's what the grant was for. Were they paid enough? No. I was taking a small salary, but I was like I cannot believe someone is paying me for this. It was unbelievable.
• [00:13:26] PRISCILLA (LOZON) WAGNER: I had the opportunity to be a part of Dance Theater 2 the modern company. I loved my time there. I saw that what was referred to at the time as concert Jazz or modern Jazz was my niche after J Parker Copley left Dance Theater. I was approached by Judith Khan. Thank goodness for Judith, who was a co owner with John Durbin at Dance Theater. She said, we would like to have a company in residence. Without Judith Khan, there would be no Jazz Dance Theater. Judith became our company manager. We received free rehearsal space, and she could have booked classes. We settled on "Jazz Dance Theater" because that was what Dance Theatre Studio's forte was becoming. I think people at first expected it to be "jazz hands." It wasn't. We were doing a concert version of jazz. The dancers had a contract. They were paid for performances only. I taught approximately 8-10 hour and a half classes per week. When Judith Khan left the studio, I became the studio manager. I received a fairly nice hourly rate that was about 20 hours a week. I think back then, you could make 15-20k a year, and you were doing okay. The world has changed greatly.
• [00:15:06] NOONIE ANDERSON: Parker and Dance gallery, probably one of the richest times of my life, spiritually, physically, emotionally, and just developing friends. We were lucky enough to have a group of dedicated individuals who were dancing that were willing to help build a space, who were willing to go out into the community and ask merchants, ask construction people. Much of what we built into dance gallery was donated or given in-kind. Funding, state grants, local grants, a wonderful board of directors. Our board of director's president for many years was Linda Greene. Linda Greene was tireless in recruiting funding. She was tireless, she had connections, and she wasn't afraid to ask. She was a major person that built a community around the dancers and the studio that really helped support us financially. We had a very good board of directors. We had good community support. We had adult dancers who were connected to the community that didn't have a problem asking.
• [00:16:22] PETER SPARLING: Parker's company was great. They were strong modern performers and real interest in choreography.
• [00:16:28] NOONIE ANDERSON: I was lucky enough to continue to work with him. We were paid with love and adulation. No. We were not paid. The last year that we were together as a dance company before Parker left, we were able to be paid for performances, which were $50 a performance. We knew it wasn't very much, but it was definitely appreciated and needed. There was a while where we got a minor rehearsal stipend. But it was something to have a small community dance company being paid for performance and being paid for rehearsal was really special.
• [00:17:05] NOONIE ANDERSON: For most people, most of the dancers in town, the biggest challenge was, how do I feed myself and get to dance? I found my niche in making my living as teaching. I'd rehearse during the day, and then I'd go off to teach. I'd teach on Saturdays; I'd teach on Sundays.
• [00:17:20] NOONIE ANDERSON: The work was challenging for your soul. It was challenging for your body. It was phenomenal. I think back on what he built in a very short amount of time, and the belief he had in his vision and in his art and in his dancers. He gave his dancers a lot of responsibility.
• [00:17:44] NOONIE ANDERSON: It's at the core of who I am. I don't know how else to say it. Parker's Company is at the core of my soul. It's a core of the friendships that I've developed over the years. It was a gift. I knew in my heart this was a huge gift.
• [00:18:07] WHITLEY (SETRAKIAN) HILL: People Dancing would have a showcase with everybody, spring dances or winter dances, which could be anyone joining in. One show at Performance Network and one show in a bigger venue. That was our schedule for a while.
• [00:18:21] AIMEE MCDONALD: When I was first perceiving the dance scene in the Ann Arbor area, whether it was these showcases or studio performances. There was always something happening. There was always the autumn dances showcase. That is what became dancing in summer when Terpsichore's Kitchen took it over, and so there was always that option to present choreography. You always knew there was a project that you could be working towards because there was an outlet. There was a place to do it.
• [00:18:52] PETER SPARLING: The challenges for any dancer in Ann Arbor was first of all, studio space to rehearse, then spaces or stages to perform.
• [00:19:03] SUSAN ISAACS NISBETT: By the time I came to Ann Arbor, at least in terms of visiting companies, Power Center had been built. A lot of dance was performed in loft spaces.
• [00:19:14] PRISCILLA (LOZON) WAGNER: A space called Dance Space.
• [00:19:17] SUSAN ISAACS NISBETT: State and William upstairs.
• [00:19:19] NOONIE ANDERSON: Canterbury Loft was a performance space very small, literally like being in someone's living room.
• [00:19:25] PETER SPARLING: The local dance scene at the time gravitated around the old Technology Center, which is now the YMCA.
• [00:19:32] WHITLEY (SETRAKIAN) HILL: Technology Center in which the Performance Network had their theater. That became our home for People Dancing for quite a long time. It was affordable. It was not a safe space. It was a really rundown rickety fire trap of a space, and anybody who was ever there knows exactly what I mean. It was a warren of hallways, really hard to find your way through clearly a large factory space that had been subdivided into smaller studios, a hot sauce company, a futon company, lots and lots of spaces. Parker's company, Dance Gallery, took over the space adjacent. It might have been across a hallway from us, and it was absolutely gorgeous space.
• [00:20:19] PETER KENTES: That was available to everyone. Rehearsal space could be rented, and it was a beautiful space, beautiful studio. I used it to teach classes, to rehearse things. The availability of inexpensive, good rehearsal space/performance space, because it was used for performances.
• [00:20:38] PETER SPARLING: Most other dance performances that I recall at the time were in Performance Network.
• [00:20:44] NOONIE ANDERSON: The Performance Network was a gold mine for dancers. Even though it was a small space, it was hard to work in. We had to lay our own floor. We had to lay a sub floor, and then we had to lay the floor, and then you got to do the concert.
• [00:20:57] SUSAN ISAACS NISBETT: The Performance Network. That was a place where I danced and went to performances and slopped through halls which were soggy with water cause when it rained, you couldn't get to the bathrooms except that way.
• [00:21:11] PETER SPARLING: It was a relatively small space, really funky, that had, of course, that central downstage column.
• [00:21:17] SUSAN ISAACS NISBETT: That was painful. I mean, the sight lines. Oh my God.
• [00:21:21] NOONIE ANDERSON: But it gave us this opportunity to have a performance venue that was theateresque enough, but not prohibitive financially and they were very open to having dance, and it was a rich schedule for most of the companies in town. They did a lot of performance.
• [00:21:41] PETER SPARLING: Not a lot of other options.
• [00:21:43] NOONIE ANDERSON: We had tremendous amount of coverage for the arts in general in Ann Arbor. It was one of the bigger sections in the paper. One of the things Ann Arbor prided itself on was having that rich arts community, so consequently, that was something that was advertised, reviewed, and discussed. Ann Arbor News was the local rag, and you read it.
• [00:22:06] WHITLEY (SETRAKIAN) HILL: There was an arts reporter. There was an arts beat. They had a logo for arts. What a resource that was. And people read the paper.
• [00:22:14] SUSAN ISAACS NISBETT: It was good to have different voices.
• [00:22:17] WHITLEY (SETRAKIAN) HILL: Vicki Engle.
• [00:22:17] SUSAN ISAACS NISBETT: Marianne Rudnicki.
• [00:22:19] WHITLEY (SETRAKIAN) HILL: Joanne McNamara.
• [00:22:20] Susan Nisbett, Stellar writer with a really deep understanding of dance.
• [00:22:25] SUSAN ISAACS NISBETT: I started writing for the Ann Arbor News in 1975. I was at the paper in what I think was a golden age for arts and feature writing. It was really a pleasure to be a part of that. I applied to go to the critics conference at the American Dance Festival. I was accepted, which was "wow." I was pretty excited, and I studied with Marcia Siegel and Deborah Jowitt and Anna Kisselgoff came, and it was really a great education in how to write about dance. We started doing previews, as well as reviews. That was wonderful because it gave me a chance to let Ann Arbor audiences share what I could find out about different choreographers and the works they were performing. I loved doing that.
• [00:23:12] NOONIE ANDERSON: Previews were an incredible help to draw audiences because most everybody got the paper. The previews were wonderful. They'd come in. They'd interview the choreographers, they'd talk about the pieces. You'd find out who the costume designer was, or was there a set designer. Where was it going to be? How many nights?
• [00:23:30] WHITLEY (SETRAKIAN) HILL: Almost every time someone would reach out to you, assign a reporter, you would have a phone interview, and there would be a preview with a photograph that you would send through the mail, and you would get many inches of preview followed by a review, often by the same person that did the preview.
• [00:23:50] NOONIE ANDERSON: There was always a review, it wasn't always positive. Which was fine because then you knew it was honest, but it was always very thoughtful.
• [00:23:57] SUSAN ISAACS NISBETT: Usually, I would have somewhere between 12-14 column inches, and that would be 1,000 words. When you are writing about a visiting company that's not part of the local dance scene, you feel freer to say what's on your mind. When you are reviewing the local scene, it was a more nuanced kind of criticism that one had to write, and that was not because what was being produced locally was inferior. We had really interesting people working. I had an inner voice saying "be moderate in what you write." The other thing was that because I was dancing, I could end up standing at the barre next to someone that I wrote about. I didn't want to get kicked in grand battement. Part of the great thing, and this affected us in Ann Arbor in lots of different ways, it was the dance boom. The big boom of dance, which affected people's abilities to get grants in Ann Arbor. Dance is always the poor sister. But people could get some grant money, and people were coming out and there were donors. It was a vital thing to cover. The paper was committed to covering local dance.
• [00:25:01] WHITLEY (SETRAKIAN) HILL: There was never any talk about not doing that.
• [00:25:04] NOONIE ANDERSON: That's something that really doesn't happen anymore.
• [00:25:06] AIMEE MCDONALD: It never occurred to me that that wasn't something that we would always have in the community.
• [00:25:12] NOONIE ANDERSON: Now, unless you're tuned into that on social media, you're not going to see that big broadcast.
• [00:25:20] PRISCILLA (LOZON) WAGNER: In '87, Judith Khan left with her husband. I became engaged to my now husband, Michael. We were married in August of '88. He had gotten a new position, and so we were relocating. Peggy Benson married in July, and they relocated. Then the company, I think it was dormant maybe six months, and then maybe lasted another year.
• [00:25:52] WHITLEY (SETRAKIAN) HILL: I think it was around 1990, the NEA did a study of American choreographers. What it showed was that. Even though there were far more women choreographers than men. The men were paid far more than women. Reading that study and absorbing what that meant globally may have been one of the things that set me on the path of saying, I'm not going to do this anymore. I mean, it elevated to the point where People Dancing would have full evenings in the Ann Arbor Summer Festival, which was fantastic. It was just really exciting to be in a space that big. There was a lot of collaboration with other artists moving back in time a little bit with Parker, before we lost him. We moved on into the 90s and Engler took over. The whole feeling that we would have support from the state changed very quickly. Two or three years prior to Engler, there was an opportunity for us to undertake, I believe it was a three-year process of funding to reach a really robust level of funding. It was a big deal. It meant trips to Lansing and incredibly hard work on the part of the board. It was a lot of work. Once Engler came in and gutted the council, it just ended. At some point, we became a core trio with me and Terri Sarris and Laurie Zabele. Laurie and her husband moved away, and I don't remember it being a decision. I just sort of stopped. Also, my physical injuries, I just couldn't, it just became too much. At some point, I moved from choreography to songwriting. When I moved to Nashville, I handed over the reins of People Dancing, including the 501 C3 status, to Christina Sears-Etter, and she ran it for a number of years afterwards, which was fantastic.
• [00:28:12] NOONIE ANDERSON: I've always wondered if Parker knew that his time was limited, and that's why he was so prolific that it was almost overwhelming as a dancer. I'm just glad that I got to bask in that flame and that I got to dance with the people that I did. I thank you, Parker, you were it. The biggest part of my performance ended with Dance Gallery. I had pretty much a full time load at Washtenaw at that point and was trying to develop their program. I didn't have the luxury of having time to rehearse.
• [00:28:57] PETER SPARLING: At about 1993, there was a major shift happening within the community. Parker no longer had his company. I reached a point where I was becoming so prolific and wanting to make so many dances that Ann Arbor Dance Works would not allow me that luxury. There were dancers at Dance Gallery, which was the studio at the Technology Center. I suggested to Linda Greene, who was one of the major supporters of Parker's Company that perhaps I come and assume the directorship of the existing company, and that we retool it, rebrand it. Also, I wanted the ability to raise funds that were available to non-profits versus being a university bound entity. In 1993, I held an audition. I hired some dancers who were with Parker, Lisa Johnson, other dancers, Julianne O' Brien Pederson, so that I formed a company of seven dancers plus myself, and we immediately began creating a full evening work for the 1994 Ann Arbor Summer Festival. The Summer Festival then became a regular summer venue for my company to premiere programs of new works or reconstructions. I made sure that if I was going to assume the directorship of this company, that we would be guaranteed, one, an executive director, two, the dancers, but more importantly, the ability to pay the dancers. Because I had lived hand to mouth for 15 years in New York City, and I knew what it meant not to be able to pay the rent, to work for hours and hours, weeks, months, years, crafting the skills and the experience for performance and not being paid adequately for it. I wish I could have paid them more, but with annual funding drives and with money from the Michigan Council for the Arts. Through a lot of fundraising efforts, we were able to pay the dancers. My company had been essentially booted out of the Technology Center. It was condemned, and eventually burned down.
• [00:31:15] SUSAN ISAACS NISBETT: I remember watching that building burn, that was terrible. I lived up the block from, and it's like, wait, we used to dance there.
• [00:31:24] PETER SPARLING: We found another space that we thought we would be able to purchase within five years. Of course, because of what was happening in the economy in '07, we ran out of money. We could not raise the money to purchase the building, so I had to close the doors of Dance Gallery, Peter Sparling Dance Company. It was a major disappointment. I had assumed or thought that I had rallied enough support within the community such that I would have some help to sustain the company through the hard times, but that did not happen.
• [00:31:56] AIMEE MCDONALD: When I started to become aware as a choreographer and a dancer in the Ann Arbor area, there were just companies around, and I guess I took it for granted. I don't know how people were doing it. I really don't know how they were making it work. I started the original version of the company back in about 1999, and it was at that time, Terpsichore's Kitchen, and we were focused at that time more on doing independent choreographer showcases, and we did some informal showings, works in progress showings, and so I did that mostly doing our performances at Performance Network and the area studios like Dance Gallery.
• [00:32:45] AIMEE MCDONALD: In about 2000 Performance Network moved from its funky old space into a beautiful new space on Huron and Fourth Avenue. I want to say it seated about 170 people or so. There was no pole at center stage. It was a nice percenium space where you could present dance in a very polished looking way. And so I did that until about 2009 is when we lost our performance space, and I was left scrambling, and that was the last of that incarnation. I was scraping stuff together with my company. I would put everything on my credit card. I wasn't paying my dancers at that time. I just couldn't, and I would just try and pay myself back out at the box office as much as I could. That kind of worked for a while. It wasn't sustainable. I would have had to have moved to some more sustainable model had I kept going, but once we lost our venue, there really wasn't any way to carry on with it at that point.
• [00:34:00] SUSAN ISAACS NISBETT: I'm pretty sure it was 2015 or 2016 when the News had closed. The Ann Arbor News was closed for business, and then reopened, like, the next day as MLive. We were still doing previews and reviews. That pattern, do the preview, write the review, kind of continued. Toward the end, there was much less interest in using freelancers or in covering the arts, and I think that's true now as well. I think the paper just ignores it.
• [00:34:35] AIMEE MCDONALD: Unfortunately, because we don't have those reviews, a lot of times when you're trying to find funding, they want to see reviews of your work, and if no one's reviewing your work, that's really a big stumbling block for us. Publicity is pretty much entirely on social media, and it's a cool tool because we can do a lot more interaction with the audiences, little snippets of the process, profiles on the dancers, and I think people enjoy that, people engage with that. That's wonderful. But what we don't have is the legitimate dance reviews.
• [00:35:14] WHITLEY (SETRAKIAN) HILL: The opportunities are so much wider and more different, and you're looking for attention. And the people that watch dance in that way are looking for a quick hit, and then they move on. They might watch the first five, 10, 15 seconds, and then they move on and so the concept of going to a show and sitting there and making a commitment to be in that space with bodies that are moving through space. I don't know. Are people doing that anymore? Not a lot. Is that happening in Ann Arbor? I don't know.
• [00:35:55] SUSAN ISAACS NISBETT: Dance is ephemeral, and really when you're there, you witness it, and a second later, it's gone and so being present for that is the only way to capture it. Many people make dances for the screen. But there's an energy to being in the theater and seeing for real. There is a way that you are moved emotionally in the theater, that it's hard to do on a screen. I think that this reaching out that happens, that movement really affects you emotionally, really happens in the theater in a way that it doesn't elsewhere. I think one of the things that is probably concerning is I think there is a diminution in the number of spaces that are amenable to small scale performances. When I think of all the spaces that I could think of where I had been to dance or to perform or to see. I think we have many fewer. Not everybody wants to fill a giant stage or can or has the funds and so in terms of producing local choreography, I think that's an issue. These spaces don't exist anymore. Ann Arbor has gotten awfully gentrified, and a lot of these spaces are gone. I think that's, that's an issue.
• [00:37:30] AIMEE MCDONALD: Finding a space is a big challenge. We did our last big performance at Riverside Art Center in Ypsilani, and that's a wonderful, cool space, lots of potential here, lots of just good energy around this space.
• [00:37:46] SUSAN ISAACS NISBETT: Having a new affordable space at Riverside is wonderful. I think that's a huge start. So, I have every hope that things will blossom and thrive. I think there's an appetite for dance. I think that looking at what the musical society might bring, for example, people like to go. I think we're a little in trouble in terms of local producing.
• [00:38:12] AIMEE MCDONALD: In Ann Arbor, there really isn't anything that's available for a professional company to use. It would be possible to rent a university space. But if I pay my dancers, which I do, then I have to use their union tech crew, and that comes at the union rates, which, I'm all for the tech crew making the money that they can, but it puts it all out of reach for us.
• [00:38:42] PETER KENTES: I think looking for community support, looking for resources in the community, so you don't have to spend your own money on renting equipment, lighting, sound, being able to provide all those for yourself, or find someone that will provide it for you. I think the public acceptance in this community is there. They're used to going out and looking for interesting things to see that are artistic.
• [00:39:10] PETER SPARLING: Envisioning a future for dance in Ann Arbor involves the whale in the fish tank, being the university and how our civic pride or the perception of our community looks at art making. Do they value local artists? At present, I say no, they don't. It's disappointing and infuriating in a way. That said, I'm seeing glimmers of promise in terms of younger dancers who are taking it upon themselves to rebuild the community to present choreographer showcases. I'm hoping that with younger people moving to the community, there will be new audiences developed. Audiences that want fringe activities that aren't as legitimate and as safe as mainstream. I don't know if Ann Arbor has it in itself to do that because it's become so gentrified. You don't have any of the rawness left that we knew back in the 80s or even 90s. Have we been gentrified out of local arts? That's the big question. I wish I could answer it. I wish I had a more positive view, but I will say though that I'm feeling very positive about those younger choreographers who are trying to bring it all back.
• [00:40:55] AIMEE MCDONALD: There's a lot that's starting to bubble up in Ann Arbor now. Sean Hoskins has started the Ann Arbor Dance Network to try and bring us all together. Amy Cadwallader has her project Dance Uprising, so there's a lot happening with that. We did a relaunch in 2023. This time, there's a re-envisioning of what we're doing and it's more geared towards showing primarily my own work. Then bringing in guest choreographers to set works on the company. Currently, Terpsichore Collective is completely unfunded. The only money that we have is through donations from our audience members and community members. We get some money that comes in through box office, but a ticket to see a performance would be over $80 if it covered all the expenses of actually producing the show and presenting the work. We can't charge that. We are really reliant on the donations that we get from the community. Our funding options are fairly limited. I really couldn't be doing this now if it weren't for the fact that I work outside of this as well. My husband is very supportive of me doing this project that currently costs us quite a bit to keep it running. It's really important that we pay our dancers, that we have a good tech crew. All of these things, I think are important to presenting professional dance to the community. I don't feel comfortable skimping on any of that. We don't pay the dancers a lot, but they are professionals, and they do need to be paid for their work. I do have a couple of people that help me out. Kari Becker. She does a lot of fund raising and more audience engagement. But other than that, the marketing and the costume construction, the rehearsal scheduling, booking studio space, booking venues, finding the composers, getting music licensing approved, graphic design, designing the logos, keeping the website running, keeping our newsletters going. This is all stuff that I'm doing and it really is a full time job just to do the work outside of actually being in the studio and making the work itself. I could just make work full time. There's enough work to make. But I also have all the aspects of running the company, all of the behind the scenes work that needs to be done. I wish for a future in which dance is valued enough in our society so that it is funded, and that I'm not having to scramble and ask the same people repeatedly over and over if they can give a little bit more. We joke about among the different choreographers that we're all sending each other the same $25 to our crowd funding campaigns, and we just recycle it around and around to whoever needs the $25 that month. I'm hoping that there's a time where we don't have to focus so much on crowd funding, where we don't have to ask the community for their $100 or their $25. That there are more grant opportunities for dance. It's just a tiny percentage of arts grants go to dance and there's just not. Their social media is about what they're doing and not requests for money because they have it, not that it's easy and perfect, but a lot of the obstacles to making dance are removed when you have funding in place. I think that dance is critical to culture. I think that we need dance. I think that dance bypasses language and goes directly to communicating emotion and in a society where words can be so loaded and so divisive, being able to bypass that and go directly to how do we feel is such a great value. For me, I really just have a drive to make the dances. I feel like I just need to say things and say things in this way.
• [00:45:14] NOONIE ANDERSON: Ann Arbor is a community that's rich in the arts. It's rich in a level of sophistication that allows dance to thrive. It has its ebbs and flows. There's a readjustment in interest, I think, and that's what I'm hoping for.
• [00:45:37] AIMEE MCDONALD: It really feels like we're at a point of growth. I'm hoping that as this resurgence happens, that we get the support from the community, that we get audiences to come back and that we build new audiences, and we expand our reach, because I think dance is something that can touch everybody.