Dancing Discipline
Boston, 1976
This year, when Gregg Lizenbery came back east for a summer dance residency, he came without his partner, choreographer Bill Evans. Since his technical skill and fluid grace on stage were only surpassed by his warm and generous teaching style, studying with him was a dream for us in Concert Dance Company. About my height, but lean-waisted, long legged and ruggedly languid as he moved around the studio, he was, I'm sure, the subject of much late-night giggling among the older high school girls who were allowed to take class with the company. And with his dark curls framing his square face and perpetual mischief in his clear eyes, I might have developed a serious crush on him, if I hadn’t been completely wiped out at the end of each day.
He came all the way from Colorado not just to teach our company class, but to teach us Bill's new dance called "Hard Times." His agenda also included polishing our performance of "For Betty," one of Bill's earlier dances they had taught us two years ago. It was one of the first pieces I'd attempted, but so far, failed to master. Even when it became a staple in the program of modern dance pieces the company had been performing around New England, I’d not been cast. The coming fall, our little company would finally be performing for the first time in New York City--the Big Apple, the hub of all things important in the dance world--an exciting and scary step for us. Barbara, our artistic director, insisted we were ready, and that it would be good for us to see how we stacked up with others. I naïvely believed her, not having a realistic idea yet what the competition was.
Midway through the first morning's class, Gregg called out a combination in rhythm, while his fingers snapped the beat. "Leap, turn, leap, turn, run, run, change directions. Leap, turn, leap, turn, run, run, change directions. Down to the floor and spiral back up, hop, hop, and run to the wings...and 5, and 6, and 7, and 8..."
In the flow of “For Betty”, this combination of simple, lively movements would follow other similar combinations in a relentless and bright articulation of a familiar Vivaldi concerto. This repeated movement theme, one I had been struggling with for months, now formed the basis for the class exercise Gregg gave us. After a thorough warm-up full of spinal curves and arches, careful leg alignment, foot articulations, and large swinging movements alternating with balance challenges, he'd encouraged us to fill this exhausting across-the-floor pattern with the qualities of ease and joyful abandon that he'd been showing us in the isolated exercises. And, he reminded us, we would need a high degree of efficiency in our movement to sustain our lifted energy throughout the entire ten-minute piece, a dance that never let the dancers pause for a breather.
When he reminded us that rehearsals for “For Betty” would follow class each day with only a short break in between, I inwardly groaned. I dreaded what were sure to be grueling rehearsals and recalled how far out of my capabilities they had been, back when I had first joined the company. But in the previous two years of daily work, six to eight hours each day, I’d improved my dancing significantly. My spine now lifted more easily into elongation, my arms coordinated better with my legs, and my feet had become strong enough that a series of leaps and runs like this tired me only a little. All the company members were better dancers now, but my improvement was probably more noticeable. I'd had so far to come, having arrived in the company with minimal technical dance training.
The first two dancers in line caught the downbeat with a leap out of the wings. Robb, with his 6'2" lanky frame, galloped like an unruly colt, covering so much territory across the floor with each leap that he didn't manage to complete the combination of movements before hitting the wings on the other side of the stage. Ann, at only 5'1", kept tempo with him and landed each leap in precise timing with the music as well. She executed the whole combination with the fluttery exuberance of a grasshopper. Her spatial precision left her plenty of room to finish the combination. As she dashed headlong toward the wings, Robb turned just in time to grab her out of the air and place her lightly on the floor in front of him. We all laughed and clapped. Gregg smiled broadly, then turned to the rest of us and, without missing a beat, called out, "5, and 6, and 7, and 8..."
Next up, Deb and I, matching each other in height and impulse, caught the downbeat and bounded onto the floor. I kept her in my peripheral vision, and did my best to place my landings to match hers. Even though I hadn't been performing the piece, only serving as an understudy, I understood the combination well enough not to get in Deb's way. In fact, I noted with a bit of inner pride, our strides were matched perfectly and all our landings kept an even distance. But executing that string of leaps with anything like the springy abandon the dance required still seemed just beyond my technical ability. All my best attempts in recent months had felt labored, sometimes even sloppy with struggle.
As we got to the other side, I expected Gregg to say something encouraging to me like, "Nice try," but he surprised me by saying nothing at all. He simply said "next" to the whole group, and called out the rhythm for Kitty and Jim who were still waiting in the wings on the other side, and then for Patrick and Peggy in turn.
The rest of the class went like this--Gregg showing a combination taken from the dance, then thrusting us across the smooth wood floor with the sheer enthusiasm of his counting. Even though we were all getting winded, I never once heard him sigh with resignation as he had done so often two years before. With each new pattern, his eyes shown brighter and his voice grew lighter.
After almost two hours, he finally led us through some slow, simple, integrating patterns of big arm gestures timed with deep breaths. We would later call this a “Gregg-style warm-down” in his honor. Then he called us to the front of the studio. Dabbing sweat from our faces and glowing from our exertion, we sprawled in front of him. And for a long moment he just smiled.
"This is going to be easy," he finally said. "You all are dancing so well." He let his eyes meet mine briefly as he swept his gaze around the group.
"I don't think it will take much to get the piece in top shape for your New York season. I imagine we'll double cast most of the parts, so you can alternate roles depending on what else is on your program each night. Barbara, here, has told me some of the other pieces you will be performing. Sounds like an exciting and really varied program. And that you are already double cast in many of those, too, will make her job a lot easier."
When he turned to her, she beamed. But all I was aware of was how I had been specifically included in his "you all." That he thought I was ready to perform this piece gave a huge boost to my ego, and I couldn't hold back a big grin.
"I don't know what Barbara may have told you about the new piece I will be teaching you this month. It's a trio, two men and a woman, set to several pieces of bluegrass music."
The thought that I might get to dance one of those parts sent a thrill through me, followed instantly by a sniveling chorus of negative messages I'd stored away about my lack of training, my tight hips, squat torso, inelegant feet, merely moderate talent filled my mind. My body struggled not to sag even as Gregg continued.
"Bill just finished choreographing “Hard Times” this spring, so it will have its New York premiere when you dance it in October. Each of you will learn at least one of the parts. Then, by the end of the month, I’ll give Barbara my suggestions for a first and second cast. If, God forbid, any of you get injured or sick between now and October, the company will still be well covered."
So, the month with Gregg began, and we blistered through it in a blur of July humidity. The honing of "For Betty" was rigorous, athletic work, and as we said to each other every evening at the end of rehearsal, it really kicked our butts. But our New England audiences had loved its "up" energy, so there was no question that it would stay front and center in our program. All that leaping and landing increased my stamina even further and gave my legs and hips a sexier muscle tone. And as long as I was dancing, my mind didn't have space for my old distracting companions—self-criticism, negative body image, romantic longing, relentless erotic fantasies.
It also helped that, every day in class, I felt as if Gregg was taking a special interest in me, suggesting slight differences in the thrust of the movement, showing me how to relax into harder balances, how to get under Ann's or Deb's weight so lifting them didn't take as much effort. The more closely I followed his direction, the better my dancing felt and the more he seemed to pay attention to me.
When I commented on all this casually during a lunch break, my fellow company members confirmed that Gregg's teaching was inspiring and helpful, and insisted that he was taking an individual interest in them as well. How did he do that? I wondered. How did he make everyone feel so special?
I wanted to learn the magic of his teaching method as well as emulate his dancing. So, I started watching him even more closely. In class, in rehearsal, and on breaks I began to notice the moments of magic when he wove words of encouragement into the endless technique and phrasing corrections. What was going on behind the curtain of his mind? Had he planned a whole campaign to bring our performance up a notch? Was it some sort of magic only he had?
Little by little the simplicity of his approach dawned on me. It wasn't a complicated process, nor was he hiding some insecurity, resentment, doubt, or anger behind a curtain of pleasantness like other choreographers and teachers I had met. He was simply doing exactly what he was telling us to do, and not doing anything else. If he showed us a long, graceful leap that looked so easy we teared up with envy, or a turn that sailed around in a perfectly balanced arc, he’d explain where, exactly, the power was coming from. If he suspending himself in a one-legged balance, he’d explain in simple, clear language how strongly and in which direction he was pressing his weight away from the floor, all while hanging there with apparently little effort.
It took a while, but I eventually began to realize what he was doing, or actually what he wasn’t doing. He wasn't concealing some fancy trick, nor showing off, nor making himself the center of attention. Our learning was where he focused. He demonstrated everything with his full attention, beautifully, then took us inside his body awareness to explain what he felt, what that moment in the dance required. He had no need of all the extra effort I habitually used to hold myself and to move my body through space.
In order to show us how to stay close together while moving fast, he demonstrated by shadowing Deb as she dove into one of the longer combinations. "That's what it looks like when you are paying close attention to those you are dancing with, not only with your eyes, but with your kinetic senses of movement and weight. Now let me show you what it looks like when you are more occupied with your own dancing or with the audience. Deb, would you do that same section again, please." We all laughed uncomfortably as he followed Deb around while preening, repeatedly bumping into her each time he mugged for the audience. "It's all about keeping your attention on what you are doing, what the dance at that moment is about. You can't fake it. You can't be thinking about something else, or concerned with something the dance is not concerned with."
This was the first time I identified the elusive quality in performers who grabbed and held my attention. I began to recognize what ‘stage presence’ was all about. I also realized I could be good at it--that such presence might be just the edge I needed to make up for my late arrival into the world of professional dance and my lack of the long, lean lines most choreographers preferred. And perhaps even more important for me, it felt great to be fully focused on the dance, as well as fully present without holding back. And still, it would take years to merge this unadorned, authentic mental focus and body confidence into the buoyant leaps, silky extensions and silent landings of a professional dancer. After all, these are movement patterns mastered only through decades of daily discipline.
What impressed me even more was realizing the similarity between who Gregg was as a person and what he was teaching. Without needing to strut or brag, he knew he was a beautiful dancer and moved like one whether dancing or just walking across the street. The feeling of his own dancing, the delight in dancing with others, the joy in communicating what he had discovered, the way he lived each day in his body—all of these gave him pleasure. He wanted us to feel what he felt. It was that simple. And he was willing to take the time we needed to help us find what he had found.
This compassionate intention seemed to live in him from the first slow, concentrated energy of the morning, through the determined repetitions of our long rehearsal day, and even into the tired slog toward closing time. He didn't need to be defensive when questioned (as so many less personally secure teachers were). He found answers to our questions--answers fitting our particular situation but built solidly from his own experience. He didn't need to inflate his accomplishments, performances he'd done around the world for over a decade, people he had danced with. His dancing and his uncomplicated communication right there in front of us spoke for itself. Demonstrating for us, and then dancing with us, was how he taught us the very sensitivity to space and partnership that lived fully in him. It was a treat to dance beside him.
“Hard Times” proved to be a good fit for me. Where "For Betty" abounded with athletic exuberance--a huge challenge for my non-athletic body, "Hard Times" focused on developing elements of character study within an otherwise abstract dance. My college acting training gave me an edge, I thought. And still, I worked hard for Gregg, watched his every move and facial expression as he demonstrated it, memorized the way he timed each gesture to the music. Getting dramatic motivation synced up with my natural musicality pulled something new together in my dancing. I really liked dancing the part that Bill had created for him, maybe because he had danced it, but also because it fit my personality and movement energy so well. By the end of the month, I was pretty sure I would be in the first cast for that one. And I wasn't disappointed.
That month I found a security in myself and my dancing for the first time since joining the company, but kept outright pride in check through the daily humbling of dancing next to Gregg. My growing ease with the many roles I had learned in the company's repertoire gave me access to an earned confidence. My position in the company had become firmly established through devotion and hard work. I felt ready to perform whatever combination of pieces Barbara chose to put me in.
After Gregg left, and as our October trip to New York loomed closer, Barbara announced the casting for our program. I gulped when I found myself in the first cast for all but one piece on the program. That would be a whole lot of responsibility for any young dancer, especially one like me who still worked way too hard to make things look easy. When I took Barbara aside to ask her about it, worried it might be too much for me to make all those transitions from piece to piece in the evening's program, she just smiled her tight smile and said, "You'll do fine, as long as you only pay attention to the dance you are dancing right then. Don't look back at what you just finished. Don't look ahead in anticipation. Don't harbor energy for later. Give your all to what you are doing in the moment."
Then she paused to consider something else. "We still have weeks to rehearse till we go to New York. I think I'll start having you all run the entire program in order some afternoons, so you can get used to the pace and all the changes. Would that be helpful?" I nodded and breathed a sigh of relief, relieved I’d have her support and sufficient rehearsal to hone the inner shifts and stamina this program would require of me. By the time we performed in New York, I would have brought all these levels of learning together enough to be singled out in the review from the New York times as a “natural dancer.”