Special Topics: Ballet Culture: Pleasure and Pain

Special Topics: Ballet Culture: Pleasure and Pain

By Raven Crosby, Emory Dance Program Office Assistant

Note: Mara Mandradjieff’s quotes have been incorporated into this story and have been edited for length and clarity.

As spring 2020 registration quickly approaches, if you are a student looking for an interdisciplinary, discussion-based course that combines dance and film, then look no further, “Ballet Culture: Pleasure and Pain,” taught by dance professor Mara Mandradjieff, might be the course for you.

Mandradjieff first discovered the relationship between film and dance at an early age, when her ballet teachers encouraged her to watch ballet-centered films, such as The Red Shoes, Children of Theatre Street, The Turning Point, and White Nights. She also recalled trying to sneak on set with a friend to be a part of the filming of Center Stage. During her undergraduate education, Mandradjieff began to research the connection between dance and film. This research was developed further once she read Adrienne McLean’s Dying Swans and Madmen: Ballet, the Body, and Narrative Cinema. This text from McLean, a graduate of Emory’s Film and Media Ph.D. Program, led Mandradjieff to create her first scholarly journal article on The Red Shoes in 2016. 

Mandradjieff’s course “Ballet Culture: Pleasure and Pain,” strives to depict the emotions of pleasure and pain not as binary opposites, but instead considers ways the two sensations may intersect. This continuing writing course encourages students to refine their critical analysis skills and gain confidence in their own voices and ideas. Some of the many topics discussed in this course include the body (looking at eating disorders, gender, and sexuality), film theory, pointe shoes, and probably most surprising, BDSM, which all can be seen in ballet films and ballet itself. 

Mandradjieff says that “Ballet Culture: Pleasure and Pain,” was inspired by the way media portrays ballet culture, and subsequently, how ballet students (and the public at large) absorb and reconstitute these constructed images. As a result of this, Mandradjieff designed and created this course in order to engage students with these ideas and further her own research into the topic, which she hopes to turn into a future book.

Julio Medina: From Graduate to Faculty

Julio Medina: From Graduate to Faculty

By Raven Crosby, Emory Dance Program Office Assistant

Note: Julio Medina’s quotes have been incorporated into this story and have been edited for length and clarity.

I recently had the opportunity to interview the Emory Dance Program’s newest faculty member, Assistant Professor of Dance Julio Medina. Medina is an Emory alum who graduated in 2013 with majors in dance and anthropology and continued on to obtain an MFA at UCLA’s Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance in 2016. Medina is currently a member of David Rousseve|REALITY, a dance company created by David Rousseve and based in Los Angeles. He has also showcased his work “I Gotta” at CONDERDance Festival 2018, the American Dance Festival Alumni Weekend Concert 2018, and the Dance Studies Association 2018 Conference at the University of Malta in Valletta, Malta.

Medina began his teaching career at Cal State Long Beach. When I asked Medina how it felt to return to his alma mater, he replied “It feels fantastic to return to Emory as a full-time professor. It also feels quite surreal. I cannot believe it, but it also feels meant to be. I love that I do not have to worry about where things are or who people are; it’s like I have a deeper understanding of Emory as a place, its history, and memory.” Since Medina is a graduate of the Emory Dance Program, returning to this program in a new position presented no difficulties. Medina described the transition in terms of his relationship to his former professors as follows: “I love that I get to work with my previous professors as colleagues now. They still remain mentors to me, each and every one, but now they are mentoring me as a peer and not as a pupil.” 

When it comes to choreographing works, Medina described his inspiration for movement as follows: “My greatest inspirations flow mainly from two main streams: my life experiences and music. Normally I am moved by the transformations I am undergoing as a human being (loss, vulnerability, empowerment, a sense of community) or I will listen to a song over and over again, sometimes for years until the vision is finally physicalized.” He believes that “Not every piece has a deeper meaning. Some do, and some just are.” Medina said that this ideology can be seen in his upcoming Emory Dance Company piece that he is currently in the process of choreographing. 

Medina’s Emory Dance Company piece will debut on November 21-23. When asked what the audience can expect to see, Medina stated “The audience can expect to see a piece that has no visible storyline or through-line. They can expect to see a group of dancers on stage playing and working with each other, responding to the music and molding elements of time and energy with their movement/personalities. In that sense, it is more of a movement composition than a story.” In terms of Medina’s movement quality, he believes that it can be described as “an amalgamation of skills and movement practices.” He goes on to state that “[The movement] is sort of round yet angular, driven by the clashes of flow and strength.” Medina tends to combine elements from his hip-hop, modern, and ballet training, alongside humor. 

In addition to Medina’s Emory Dance Company piece, he is also a pioneer in creating the first hip-hop course offered by the Emory Dance Program. Since he was an undergraduate student, Medina has strived to implement hip-hop techniques into the curriculum of dance programs. The first institution in which he created a hip-hop technique course was at California State University--Long Beach and now he has transferred this curriculum to Emory University. Medina sees the benefit of having hip-hop taught in the program because of his own personal training, in which he noticed “...these movement practices made me draw so many connections about how the body can move. I wanted to share this opportunity with others.” 

Meet Israeli Institute Guest Artist Dafi Altabeb

By Raven Crosby, Emory Dance Program Office Assistant

Note: Dafi Altabeb's quotes have been incorporated into this story and have been edited for length and clarity.

During the fall semester, the Emory Dance Program has had the honor of hosting Israeli guest artist Dafi Altabeb. So far this semester, she has held a creativity talk with Dance Program Director Lori Teague, while also teaching the Modern IV technique course and choreographing a piece for Emory Dance Company. Altebeb’s impressive career includes performances of her work in major international venues. She is a three-time recipient of the Israeli Ministry of Culture Excellence Award. Although Altabeb’s schedule is fairly busy, she took some time for an interview about her life as a choreographer.

Background
While she did not envision growing up to be a choreographer as a child, Atlaben has always been interested in movement and dance. She was inspired at a young age by the Olympic games and movies with dance in them, and would imitate the movements that she saw. Altabeb, who originally wanted to be a veterinarian, began her journey as a choreographer by choreographing for a big festival in her town for many age groups, in which she won first prize awards.

Altabeb, who has been dancing for much of her life, began her training as a member of a folklore dance company that solidified her performance skills. In addition, she took daily classes in a variety of genres and techniques. Once she began college, she began dancing every day, with at least half of the day dedicated to technique classes.

Teaching and Choregraphing at Emory
This fall, Altabeb is teaching the Modern IV advanced technique course, which she has described as challenging and rewarding at the same time, as this is her first time teaching a full-semester course. She focuses on having students use the floor, the wall, and each other to experience support during movement, and how these supports an teach students to get power from it and use less force by themselves. She focuses on "leaning" in movement through combinations on the floor, using the wall, and in the center. For example, she has students perform a plie exercise while leaning on the wall.

Altabeb is one of the choreographers for the Emory Dance Company this season and when asked about how she cultivates movement, she responded: “Emotions drive me to create. It is usually what I and others feel about a subject. It is usually a topic that I am dealing with." Altabeb describes her movement process as bringing a theme into the studio and hearing what others have to say about it. Altatbeb and her dancers then work with improvisation games that will build the first material for the piece. She records these improvisations and watches them with her partner, Nini Moshe, and pulls movements that captivated them. Altabeb then chooses movements from the videos, and with the dancers, develops them, changes them, and works on their dynamics, tempo, movement qualities, etc. to ultimately create a piece that in the end is not improvised at all.

The Importance of Travel

Altabeb states: "Traveling abroad is the highlight if my career. I’m grateful that my art can be seen all over the world. It is really exciting to see how other people around the world react to my pieces. I love seeing how dance can communicate in such a global way, without using words."

One of Altabeb’s most exciting travel experiences was when she was commissioned to create a full-length piece to be premiered in an archaeological site on Naples. Six dancers performed sensitivity to heat, with a soundtrack based on Italian operas. The site had “a very special location on the sea and the audience came into the site threw a tunnel with lamps. It was a very important turning point in my career and a huge thing that happened to us.” 

See Dafi's new work for Emory Dance Company November 21-23, 2019. Tickets are available at tickets.arts.emory.edu or 404-727-7266.

 

Spotlight on "fence": An Interview with George Staib

fence runs October 3-6, 2019 in the dance studio of the Schwartz Center for Performing Arts. Tickets are available at tickets.arts.emory.edu or 404-727-5050.

By Raven Crosby, Emory Dance Office Assistant

Note: Quotes have been edited for length and clarity.

On Thursday October 3, 2019, at approximately 7:30p.m., dancers will take their places for the world premiere of fence, choreographed by George Staib and performed by his company, staibdance. This work is the fourth in Staib’s four-year unofficial saga of pieces that depict instances from his childhood in Iran and his experiences as a first-generation Armenian-American.

Fence is a journey into a messy world of power struggles and dismissed histories, and an examination of how "otherness" can rob our power or become its source. Staib's intensely physical movement vocabulary bonds with traditional Iranian dance, exploring unrest felt personally and globally. Through rich and compelling collaborations with musicians; composers; and scenic, lighting and digital designers; audiences become woven into the work, giving shape to the conversation around what takes your power and what gives you power.

I had the opportunity to interview Staib and ask him questions about the process of creating fence, his choreographic process, and his experience with intense collaboration.

In fence, the audience can expect to see digital projection, original music, set pieces, dramaturgy, brilliant lighting, and made-to-measure costumes. fence is the first piece of Staib’s that has been intensively collaborative and as he describes, “...not one decision was made without all collaborators chiming in.”

When asked the impact of cultivating a technically collaborative piece on portraying the personal story of his childhood, Staib responded by saying “The collaborators took the original story and abstracted it to such a degree that we believe there is space for viewers to insert themselves into the experience.” Staib described the collaborative experience as being phenomenal for himself and everyone else involved. He went on to state that “Having the time and space to meet and talk – experiment and play, has meant everything. It was a joy for us all to “respond” to what others brought to the table and also trust that our choices were thoughtful and intentional. Not one element works autonomously – there is agreement within the framework of fence and space for ideas to swirl in compelling ways.”

Alongside Staib’s movement quality, described as intensely physical and technical, fence will display elements of explosiveness, tenderness, and weighted movements. Drawing from the inspiration of memory and intimacy forming from specific life events, Staib explores how the kernel of an idea plants itself in other bodies and later merges with their histories.

Staib, who sees movement as a projection of the internal self, believes that this is only achievable when the brain is able to step out of the way. Dancers must access their internal drive, and be okay with whatever comes out. When this agreement occurs, Staib believes that dancers can be more connected to impulses, and train away judgement, analysis, description, and narrative and authentically move.

Staib is less interested in what the dancer does and is deeply interested in how the dancer commits to the material. He has shifted from creating works that suggest a deeper meaning, but still values that there is something always beneath the surface. As for the audience experience, Staib hopes that his works “...will wash over them, connect viscerally, and invite introspection as well as an opportunity to connect their own journey.”