Sarah Michelson

Why are you so interested in working with young girls?
I wish I knew the answer to that. When I had a residency at Arizona State University last fall, the ethics teacher said she knew why I was working with girls after she saw a video of Shadowmann. I think she thought I was abusive or something. It was really funny. She was like, “Everyone is so deadpan, everyone looks so unhappy.” It was about my inner child or something gross. I know that I think girls are incredible. They’re so interesting. My interest in dance—I was watching Dancing with the Stars last night and I had a glass of wine and I was like, “I love dance!” and then I started crying. I think that I love dance, and when I’m struggling to figure out what a dance is, I can look at somebody like Jennifer Howard in one way, Parker Lutz in another way and Mike Iveson in another way; Adrienne Swan [the lead girl in Shadowmann] and Non have intense similarities. The same color hair and the same kind of way of looking out in the world. I think that I am interested in the form. What form is when it’s known and controlled, when someone like Parker controls it, and also when it’s not known. And I’m endlessly moved and fascinated by it.

I think this is your most formal work. Do you agree?
Possibly. I’m not in it, and I’m working with a formal composer, so I have a distance. I’m not in it and Greg Zuccolo is; Mike Iveson was in the version in Wales. But apart from that, the crew is not [my regular] crew, so I have this distance from it. There are characters like Rebecca who I don’t really know but who is definitely a dancer in a professional sense. So I have this distance, in a way, where I am perhaps making something that is not in that sweeping way of Sarah Michelson’s style—of “here is Greg Zuccolo and Parker Lutz on a stage”—but is a dance.

Still, you’re making new personalities, too.
I know. I can’t seem to help that. I have this drive. It wasn’t so different in Lyon where I rehearsed for hours and hours with dancers on the same movement to try to get to something that I call “them.” Even though that’s very assertive and arrogant of me to say, I think they would agree. It was like trying to get somewhere, through dance, to the essence of the person, who will then dance. It’s kind of approaching them through the structure of the movement tasks. Then they use the same structure.

Could you talk about Non Griffiths? What appeals to you?
Oh my God, I love that girl.

Does the way she instinctively moves affect your choreography?
I don’t think so, exactly. Of course, I’m inspired by everybody, but I don’t think so. Non has a phenomenal memory. She has an incredible ability to understand performative details. That’s one thing that must be said. So she is very quickly able to represent details that seem to be very particular to movements that I make. Two, she is very able to look out of herself. She is unafraid. She is able to be present, naturally, and that is something that I find inspiring about her. I can’t quite remember this, but in Wales it was a two-year struggle to find and create movements that would suit those girls. And I definitely was working around that. It was very different for each one of them, and it felt mammoth. It was a huge task; during that time, their dancing changed and grew and now they’re all incredible.

It’s hard to imagine what I saw on that very first day of class. When I started working with Rebecca a year and a half ago, I had the movement that I started creating with Non and Laura, but then started developing it more with Rebecca and some of that went back to Non and Laura. The movements across the whole show, most people do—there are several that most people do. They’re strongly coming from something I’m trying to do, and then I’m imposing them on each dancer, and it’s inspired by Non in that I would take anything out that was absolutely horrible on her or not possible. But there’s a type of a style or some kind of movement quality that I’m interested in that is throughout the whole show—potentially dull because it’s too much. It just keeps going on.

Is that why it’s hard?
One of the ways.

What are the others?
That it’s very dense and I don’t know how possible it will be to watch it or understand it. It’s different than the show you saw in Wales. That exists in its entirety, but there are other aspects.

How has the piece changed since Wales?
Well, there’s a whole load of New York dancers in it that shifts the shape of it completely. Why did I bring Dover Beach from Cardiff to here? Or why didn’t I just make a show with some New York dancers? Because I’m an asshole! Because I want to kill myself! Dover Beach was really perfect in Cardiff; I thought it was very beautiful and I thought I did a really good job with those girls. I wanted to give them the opportunity to come to New York. But for some reason, I just can’t stop. How can I challenge myself more? I guess that’s what I did. I always risk ruining everything by making it harder.

Is Dover Beach taken from the name of a poem?
Yes, by Matthew Arnold. [Laughs] A while ago, I started reading classical English Romantic poetry. I remember I started to talk to Mike about whether it would be possible for me to orate a poem on the stage. Could I get away with that? I really wanted to do it and then a bunch of stuff happened where I wasn’t going to be on the stage and I was making a show and thinking a lot about the ridiculousness of that poem and the beauty of it and my own Englishness and my romance with that. Anyway, in looking for a title for the Cardiff show I really struggled, but something about Dover Beach was the right one all of a sudden. There are all kinds of difficulties in the relationship between English people and Welsh people, so calling it Dover Beach was problematic. I was attracted to that, of course. And then at the last moment with [composer] Pete Drungle, I actually inserted that poem into the show. And there it lies. It’s a poem about life and love and the difficulty of human existence really. It’s sappy.

When you raise the issue about whether or not you can make a good dance, do you mean a timeless dance? One that doesn’t grow old?
Yes. Unassailable. Everybody has to think, without any doubt, this is a dance. That’s a joke. I think when you see a good dance—dance is such weird form—but it’s so untouchable. I hope one day to make one of those.

What are some examples?
I’m going through my mind: I think that Quintett by William Forsythe is a very beautiful dance. Twyla Tharp’s In the Upper Room. Two Lies by Lucy Guerin. Excessories by John Jasperse. Well, obviously, there are very many by Balanchine. Serenade is a very amazing dance and so is The Four Temperaments. I feel like I’ve seen so many very special, amazing dances. I think that DD Dorvillier’s Dressed for Floating was a very amazing dance. And also what we when we by Yasuko Yokoshi. I think I’m a total sucker for structure. That’s the thing I am very moved by: infallible structure.

In Dover Beach, you’re taking structure and going deeper. What I find interesting is that, instead of moving away from dance, you’re moving more deeply inside of the form itself.
It’s because I’ve figured out that that’s the hardest thing. I’m a reductionist, and the thing I’m interested in is what’s the hardest. And the hardest thing to do is to make movements when you’re not relying on the performer’s virtuosity or performing skills or music even. In Dover Beach, I’m relying on the music and on all those things, but I feel clean of consciousness that the skills of the performers and the skill of the composer are in addition to the movements. They’re not creating the movements. Because somehow I need to know [Laughs] what’s the value of a movement and time. But it can make for a real boring thing because it’s just a real crazy exercise. I don’t think you will be bored, but I think a lot of people might be bored.

Why does dance hold your grip when you could do anything?
That’s really nice that you think I could do anything. I don’t know. That’s what made me cry during Dancing with the Stars. It was really funny. Laura just cracked up. Somebody was doing a routine, and I was like, “Wow she’s a really good choreographer, she’s making him look so good,” and I was sobbing. Sobbing. I think that it just must be that old-fashioned thing that it’s my calling. There I was in that freezing room in Cardiff on crutches, it was totally damp, sitting on the floor, and I was there for four hours watching ballet class set to a tape. And not because anyone was watching me do that. That’s where I felt alive. It felt like food and I suppose it’s like that in the studio. It feels like hell and it feels like food. It’s very questful.

And there’s nothing antidance about it.
I don’t know. I think it’s antiagreement, which sometimes seems antidance. It truly is this: I am always trying to justify for myself or understand for myself: What am I doing? What on earth am I doing? So everything is that, every minute. What am I doing? What is that? It’s a quest. Somehow in here, there’s some truth for me, or there’s an answer for me, some unfindable answer, and I think that’s archetypal too. People, whatever their field is, have questions. They are seeking to make sense of being alive and for some reason that’s dance movements for me. It’s very weird. It feels impossible. And then there are just very beautiful things along the way, like potentially changing Non and Lolly’s [Latysha Antonio] lives—they have a trip to America for three weeks. That’s somehow a benefit from my true interest and my true interest is them, so I’m not faking it and that feels very sweet. It doesn’t feel totally self-indulgent. It feels, like, okay—I brought Alice [Downing, who is also in Dover Beach] and Laura. I’m bringing them again. I’m helping people have different relationships with life and their dancing lives a little bit.

Do you do it on purpose to justify being a choreographer?
Maybe, partially. At least I’m doing something useful that has a kind of impact on a few dancers.

How old are the girls now?
Non is 12, 13 in November. Lolly is still 11. Allegra’s 13 and Sophia is 12. It’s like the cast of millions.

Is there a company you’d like to make a dance on?
[Laughs] I would like to make a ballet on a ballet company. I think I might suck, but I would love to try that. I don’t know what that would be. I hope one day that I will get the opportunity to do something like that and work in that kind of structure. I’d have to do a lot of advance preparation on my own. I’d have to know exactly what the fuck I was going to do before I went in there.

Why are you ready to do that now?
Because it would be so hard. Because I don’t really understand that form well enough. What is that kind of dancer? I have a million questions about it, I suppose. And also what is that form to someone like me? It seems like that would be some kind of test. Can I make something that could hold up in that scenario? Potentially, no. So I guess I’m going to keep going until I get the no: “You’re not a choreographer.” And I keep pushing for it and making it so impossible that the no must be coming.

I see your pieces as developing very clearly, closer and closer to dance. As much as I loved Group Experience [from 2001], I doubt I would want to watch again.
No. But I’m sure it would be sweet to look back at that. [Pauses] The first person who really knew I was a director was Julie Atlas Muz. I remember being in a rehearsal with her for [their Dixon Place collaboration] Blister Me, and we didn’t know where to start. She was sitting at a windowsill and she got up and I said, “No, no—sit down and do that again.” I think we were there for an hour and a half with her not able to get up and move from the windowsill because I was automatically trying to direct her. We cracked up about that. That was the beginning, and I think I have tenderly moved closer and closer to the hub of my interest, which is directing. I think I’m afraid of it. And I had to defend it to that ethics teacher, too. I told her, “Yeah, of course, the dancer has to be on board but it’s quite invasive.” It’s old-fashioned. It’s patriarchal. That kind of directing the dancer’s body and not just being interested in what they’re bringing. The truly objectifiable body is potentially the body of a ballet dancer. It’s allowed, expected. And, also, I don’t know: What would a truly contemporary ballet be in my hands or in my mind? Would it read well and challenge that form with my idea of modernity or not? I also have a fear of doing the same. Meaning I have a feeling that it isn’t part of my natural path to return in a few years to BAM with the same group of people to do a different dance. My questions about the form itself are different than that. It’s like I’m looking for a new paradigm all the time.

How do you view beauty and bring it into a modern setting and how is that important to your dances?
I don’t know, but I feel in pursuit of beauty all the time. I feel like I’m trying to represent beauty when I make something. How I view beauty is…it sounds very hokey, but it’s very close to truth.

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