{"id":17458,"date":"2016-02-26T00:29:23","date_gmt":"2016-02-26T08:29:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=17458"},"modified":"2016-02-25T21:42:44","modified_gmt":"2016-02-26T05:42:44","slug":"millers-urgency-to-create","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2016\/02\/26\/millers-urgency-to-create\/","title":{"rendered":"Miller\u2019s urgency to create"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gallim Dance performs the Canadian premi\u00e8re of Wonderland<\/em> at Chutzpah! March 10-13. (photo by Yaniv Schulman)<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Gallim Dance\u2019s Wonderland<\/em> premi\u00e8res in Canada at the Chutzpah! Festival March 10-13. It was inspired by artist Cai Guo-Qiang\u2019s Head On, which is an awe-inspiring installation even when viewed only in photos. Ninety-nine wolves run into the sky, an arc of animals intent on moving forward and fast \u2013 right into a glass wall.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like this dance very much, which isn\u2019t true of all my earlier works,\u201d Andrea Miller, Gallim Dance founder and artistic director, told the Independent<\/em>. \u201cIt\u2019s the first of my works that I built like a story. It\u2019s an absurdist narrative but a story nonetheless. I created four archetypal characters that depict the dangers of pack mentality. I use a broad range of music, from the Chordettes\u2019 1954 \u2018Mr. Sandman,\u2019 to Chopin, to indie singer-songwriter Johanna Newsom, to minimalist electronic music inspired by the circus.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeeing Head On at the Guggenheim Bilbao consolidated my mixed feelings about the war in Iraq,\u201d she added. \u201cAs I was looking at the installation, I was making the dance in my head.\u201d<\/p>\n

The archetypes are \u201cthe fool, death, the lovers and Cassandra,\u201d according to Gallim\u2019s website. They \u201cevolve in a universe influenced by the imagery of the American atomic age. Behind the smiles of an Esther Williams dream world, Wonderland <\/em>reveals psychological and physical episodes of a herd acting as a unit through the uncoordinated behavior of self-serving individuals. Although pack mentality is a natural and ongoing strategy in the animal kingdom, among humans it can indicate a vicious, desensitized brutality and disregard for humanity \u2013 a concept that is at the core of Wonderland<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Head On was part of Cai\u2019s first solo show in Germany, at the Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin in 2006. While communicating a universal message, the danger of people blindly following others, among its themes are the rise and fall of Hitler \u2013 Wolf\u2019s Lair was one of Hitler\u2019s headquarters \u2013 and the rise and fall of communism, as symbolized by the Berlin Wall.<\/p>\n

Such heady source material is not unusual for Miller. The writings of Raymond Carver and Albert Camus, for example, were inspirations for Fold Here<\/em> and Sit, Kneel, Stand, respectively.<\/p>\n

\u201cI used to read a lot,\u201d said Miller, \u201cbut now I feel like I\u2019ve replaced books with work emails and video. I\u2019m currently in a literary desert, but I love reading. Anything can inspire me, not just books; I\u2019m available for being influenced and inspired by what I live and see happening to people in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mama Call<\/em> was directly related to her Sephardi heritage.<\/p>\n

\"photo
Gallim Dance founder and artistic director Andrea Miller. (photo by Peggy Jarrell Kaplan)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cI grew up in a Conservative Jewish home. My father grew up Orthodox and eventually became atheist and my mother was Catholic and converted to Judaism,\u201d she said about her background. \u201cBecause we lived in Salt Lake City, one could feel, as Jews, like we were in a minority and the synagogue became a really important place for feeling part of a community. I guess because of that, Judaism has always been a strong presence in my life. I currently attend Shabbat services with my two children whenever we aren\u2019t on tour. We also attend Catholic services with my boyfriend, their father. Truthfully, I can\u2019t exactly delineate the contours of what is exactly Jewish in me, but I feel that it is a latent presence in my life. In any case, that\u2019s ultimately a personal circumstance; everybody has their own personal circumstances.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel that, in order to relate to humanity, to each other, to art, we must understand that our personal circumstances are just departure points, which we should be ready to transcend. In this sense, I am more drawn to the universal human condition than restricting my artistic research to my personal circumstances, whatever they may be (nationality, age, cultural background, ethnicity or spiritual beliefs). Mama Call<\/em> began its inspiration with the Jewish Diaspora and eventually became a story of home for any immigrant or displaced person.\u201d<\/p>\n

Miller\u2019s professional journey began in Salt Lake City at the Children\u2019s Dance Theatre, which was developed by a Doris Humphrey disciple, she explained. \u201cThe philosophy behind the training was in discovering movement through improvisation and dramatic play, and I loved it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe moved to Connecticut when I was 9 and, by pure coincidence, I ended up dancing with another Humphrey master, Ernestine Stodelle, and learned the technique and repertory of Doris Humphrey and Charles Weidman. At that time, I became sort of a young expert in pioneering modern dance, hungry to interpret the works of [Martha] Graham, [Jos\u00e9] Lim\u00f3n and choreographers of that era.<\/p>\n

\u201cI got into Juilliard, which baffles me to this day considering I had very little ballet training. In my first year at Juilliard, the director Benjamin Harkarvy would work often with me, imploring me to undo myself, my body, from the 1930\u2019s esthetics. It took a year of identity crisis and it was then that I started obsessing over living choreographers and contemporary art. I met Ohad Naharin at Juilliard and, after graduating, joined the ensemble Batsheva.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was during her time with Batsheva, she said, that \u201cchoreography changed from a passion to an urgency.\u201d When she left the ensemble, she started creating her own work. Back in New York, she founded Gallim in 2007.<\/p>\n

\u201cEarly rehearsals of the company were at Juilliard between 9 p.m. (when the students typically had to leave the studios to rest) and midnight,\u201d she said. \u201cMy first piece was a quarter evening called Snow<\/em>. I made it for a performance by video application at Joyce SoHo. It went well and they invited us back for a solo week for which I created my first full evening, I Can See Myself in Your Pupil<\/em>. After that, we were invited back for two weeks, where we repeated Pupil and premi\u00e8red Blush<\/em>. Ella Baff from Jacob\u2019s Pillow saw it and booked it for the summer festival. Everything started moving from there. The next year, we were asked to open Fall for Dance and perform at the Joyce.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gallim Dance has become an internationally renowned company. Miller has won multiple honors and her work has been commissioned around the world. Also of note is the company\u2019s financial viability and continued growth. According to its 2014 annual report, that year ended \u201cwith a balanced budget just over $700,000 and an increase in net assets of more than $46,000.\u201d In addition to looking after itself, the company invests in community programs in its Brooklyn neighborhood and beyond.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t feel I have any innate talent in the hard skills of business but I seem to have an intuition for the soft ones,\u201d said Miller when asked about her apparent business savvy. \u201cOne of my understandings for both my business and my choreography is that progress is incremental and incremental steps take giant leaps of creativity, risk, strategy, planning and commitment. I think I have a combination of chutzpah and common sense that helps me push us forward without threatening our sustainability. I\u2019ve learned a lot about leadership and business from my dancers, staff and board.\u201d<\/p>\n

Early in the company\u2019s history, Miller articulated her vision for Gallim Dance: \u201cto play inside the imagination, to find juxtapositions in the mind and body that resonate in the soul, to investigate our limitations and pleasures, and to realize the endless human capacity for inspiration.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt describes where everything begins for me and how I relate to all art, not just mine,\u201d she told the Independent<\/em>. \u201cI think this vision captures both the values I hold for the process of making dances, as well as the larger impetus for making dances at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gallim Dance performs<\/em> Wonderland March 10-13, at Rothstein Theatre. For tickets ($29\/$25\/$21), call 604-257-5145 or visit chutzpahfestival.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gallim Dance performs the Canadian premi\u00e8re of Wonderland at Chutzpah! March 10-13. (photo by Yaniv Schulman) Gallim Dance\u2019s Wonderland premi\u00e8res in Canada at the Chutzpah! Festival March 10-13. It was inspired by artist Cai Guo-Qiang\u2019s Head On, which is an awe-inspiring installation even when viewed only in photos. Ninety-nine wolves run into the sky, an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17423,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[785],"tags":[5374,5375,31,4924,5376],"class_list":["post-17458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-performing-arts","tag-andrea-miller","tag-cai-guo-qiang","tag-chutzpah","tag-gallim-dance","tag-wonderland"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17458\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}