The Casual Dance Teacher's Podcast

Maia
Welcome to the Casual Dance Teachers Podcast. I'm your host, Maia. No matter who, what, or when you teach, I'm here to share all my best tips and tools, along with real and practical conversations with fellow dance educators to help you be the very best dance teacher you can be.

Let's talk about it.

Hello, everyone. Thank you so much for being here.

I know every episode, I say I'm excited. It's not a lie. I do get very excited about doing this podcast in general and sharing and talking to guests and talking to all of you.

But I have to say, genuinely, today's topic is one of my favorites, a topic that I'm most passionate about as a dancer. So I am genuinely so, so excited today to share with you a very special conversation with a very special guest about a very special topic, improv. I love delving into improvisation as an artist, myself, in my own performative work, in my own choreography, and with my students, because I think it's a great foundation to just artistry and creativity in general, no matter what direction our students take in the future.

And I believe that today's guest has a very similar outlook on that and is very, very accomplished as a choreographer, as a dance educator, and with incorporating improvisation into her own work. So I'm super excited to announce on the show, today's guest, Angela Gallo. With her company, Sapphire Moon Dance Company, Angela has performed at White Wave Dance Festival, the Dance Now Downtown Festival, Dance Theatre Workshop, Williamsburg Arts Nexus, Atrium Theatre, and others in New York City, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland, and in Canada at the Fringe Festival of Independent Dance Artists.

Angela has performed in the works of José Limón, Doug Varone, and Christian von Howard, and has danced with Dance Art Technology, Eisenhower Dance Ensemble, the Power Company Collaborative, and others. She's also been a guest choreographer for Dance Now Miami, Columbia City Ballet, Columbia Repertory Dance Company, and many more. She's an instructor at the Joffrey Ballet Summer Intensive in Miami and has taught at Perry Dance Center, New York Dance Center, the Hartford Ballet School, and others.

Angela's dance for film work has been shown in the Opine Film Festival, Optica Film Festival, and more, and she's been awarded the South Carolina Dance Association's Advocacy Award and Honor Award, as well as numerous grants. She's also a nationally certified Pilates teacher, and a certified travel coach, and founder of Hemisphere Dancer Wellness and Travel. Now, let's get right into our talk all about improv.

Angela, thank you so much for joining me for this topic today.

Angela
Yeah, thank you for having me.

Maia
Yeah, I am so thrilled to talk about improv.

It is one of my favorite topics. I've loved improv, particularly since I was in college is when I was sort of introduced to like really improv as a true practice, and not just like, oh, make something up. And I love passing that knowledge on to my students, and I'm really excited to learn more from you as well.

So I kind of wanted to start just by hearing about what your process was of being introduced to dance in general, and also specifically to the practice of improv, and how you grew to incorporate that into your own choreography and even teach improv now.

Angela
Yeah, so like many students who are probably hearing this, I danced at a local studio growing up, and then when it became time to go to college, that's when I considered a dance major. And that's probably when I also first encountered improvisation as a practice, as something as its own art form, as again, something besides just make up a few movements to put in this dance right here.

And that practice deepened. Surprisingly, my graduate program at the time was much more classically modern and ballet, and I didn't have as much improvisation in graduate school, even as I did in undergrad. But after graduate school, I went, I lived in New York for a few years, and I was dancing and choreographing there.

And that's where a lot of my practice with improvisation really deepened. I worked a lot with David Dorfman, I did some of his summer intensive. And so, you know, working with him, there was a lot of improvisation in that practice.

I attended Bates Dance Festival and American Dance Festival. And at both of those, my practice with improvisation deepened as well. But while I was living in New York City, I went to movement research.

And, you know, they had this Wednesday, every Wednesday night, there was a contact improv kind of class where they've focused on some different kind of different principles about improvisation. But also then there was an open jam as well. And so I really think that's where I really started to thrive and love and really have a great practice of improvisation.

And that's continued in a lot of ways. When I moved to South Carolina, which is where I am now, I worked with a dance company here that also uses a lot of improvisation. It's called the Power Company and now called the Power Company Collaborative.

But we use a lot of improvisation in the work with them also. Yeah. So I think in terms of choreography, when I use it in my choreography, you know, sometimes I'll use it in choreography as a set score where it doesn't end up being set movement, but we have kind of these ideas.

You know, maybe it starts as some movement prompts for the dancers and kind of let them explore that. And it kind of changes each time to a degree. But also the way I probably use it more is that I'm using movement prompts or movement, like different movement qualities, or maybe playing with like timing or use of space and letting them, you know, giving the dancers these prompts to kind of play with.

And then we'll stop and they'll go back and kind of maybe repeat if something they felt it really was organic or worked really well. We'll go back. We'll do that again.

And then kind of continue on to see how it grows and evolves. And so a lot of times in my practice, choreographically, it ends up starting as improvisation in the creative process, but then it often ends up more a set movement. Again, occasionally it's more of a score where, you know, there's kind of landmarks and things are different and kind of change a little bit each time to a degree.

But I think overall, I probably use it, like I said, where it starts as kind of movement exploration that turns into set choreography by the time we're finished with that.

Maia
Nice. Now, as someone that just personally has a terrible memory, and that's always been one area where I really struggle as a dancer, are you using video when you're using improvisation to create set movement? Is that one way that you help set it and bring improv ideas back later? Or is it just more of an organic process where it's like, "oh, I liked that. Let's keep that in here and then keep building on it?"

Angela
Both, depending on the process. Right now I'm working on a piece I'm setting on some dancers locally, and I'm not dancing in the piece.

And so I'm helping them kind of guide through the improv process where I've given them some different movement qualities, some different kind of movement ideas to focus on as they start the improvising. And then if something's working well, I'll be like, yeah, that looks really organic. That looks good.

OK, let's pause right there. Before you forget what we did, let's go back and repeat that. And then we'll continue on and see where it keeps growing.

And so when I'm kind of the outside person and watching the dancers, I'll have them do a little bit of stop and start to kind of keep it building so that they are able to remember what's happening before we go, oh, that was two minutes of beautiful things. Let's go back and do it again. And nobody knows what exactly just happened.

I also, with this particular group of dancers, before we started building like that, we had days where we just played, where I gave them the same prompts and had them just explore and see what came out. And I did record those sessions, even though we didn't specifically go back and use those when we decided to create the set phrase work. But it was something like those prompts, those ideas had already been in their body, and they kind of moved and shared that together before going back where we started to kind of build piece by piece to it.

For myself, I do a lot of solo work. And so for myself, sometimes when I'm improvising, I will record myself so that I can go back. And again, you know, when I find things that felt like that worked really well, I can go back and kind of learn from the video for me for my own solo practice.

Maia
Well, that makes me feel a little bit better, because I often need a video. I'm just terrible. But I just love using the process of improv, even if I don't remember exactly what it was that I did.

But to build on that to create something is so valuable. And again, I love passing that on to my students. But it's not always something in a dance studio setting where we have a designated improv class.

I know that you teach some designated improv classes. So I am curious to hear maybe some of the foundations that you would recommend for students that would be valuable for them to just start learning how to successfully improv without getting stuck in that rut of like, oh, improv is just stringing together steps that we know in a different way. And it's actually a whole separate practice of reimagining how to move our bodies.

Angela
Well, I think if instructors are looking to kind of integrate it into especially instructors in a studio setting, like where you said, there's often not a designated improvisation class. In that kind of situation, I would encourage instructors to even just five or 10 minutes at the beginning of class, the end of class, using the improvisation as part of a warm up, using it as an activity to help close out class. There's certain ways you can work on that.

I think trust building is really important. Like when I'm working on a semester long class, I spend a lot of time with the students working on trust building. So even things just like sitting back to back and breathing against each other's back, sort of partnering exercises where they might in groups of two or three, or even a little bit bigger, they might create little tableaus or shapes together where they're just kind of learning to see what each other are doing and react to what else is happening around them.

And kind of like, well, if they're making this shape with their arms going in this direction, what, oh, maybe I could make a similar line with my leg. So they start to kind of see and recognize what's going on in the patterns of the other dancers around them. I'll do things like working with a group kind of in a clump, things like flocking, where as the group moves around, whoever's in front is the leader.

And as the group turns, that leader shifts. Even things like following the leader, just learning to pick up movement that's happening so that even though somebody's making it up, if they're trying to follow them, that it looks almost like they're doing it at the same time. It doesn't have that delay.

A lot of shadowing and mirroring. So mirroring like face to face, shadowing one standing behind the other, that kind of thing. Easy ways to start to share weight where, again, just kind of leaning, sitting back to back and starting to lean to get comfortable.

I think especially now we are with society, we don't contact with people. We don't come into contact. And it's really a special thing that with contact improvisation that the dancers develop.

And I think a lot of times when I've had conversations about dancers too, when they're watching, when there's a contact performance and there's a lot of partnering and it's intricate partnering, and then they talk to their friends or family afterwards. And sometimes they notice, they're like, why does my family or my friends think there's this sexual nature to the partnering? And it's like, well, because people don't get that close to each other in life unless they're often in an intimate relationship, except for dancers. I think for, again, for teachers trying to integrate it into their class, doing things like a body part warmup, how can you move? How many different ways can you move the head? How can you move the rib cage and the shoulders? Different timings, playing with timing of what if you're doing this arm movement? What if you did it really slow? What if you did it fast? Different qualities.

What if your body was all jittery? What if you're jittery in your whole body? What does that look like? What if it's just your arm? And just kind of getting them to explore ways to generate movement. Yeah, because I think like what you're talking about, a lot of times when students end up improvising, it ends up, sometimes it ends up looking like tricks or like, look at how high I can kick my leg as opposed to showing more of their artistry and how they can be using the improvisation to create new movement vocabulary that maybe is kind of, that in itself might be more interesting than the look at this kick or this flip thing.

Maia
Yeah, this might be completely just replicating everything that you just said.

And you can tell me if so, but I did want to specifically address the fact that if dancers are looking to audition for collegiate programs or professional gigs or even theater, those types of things, I know many auditions can have an improvisation component. And again, I think everything that you said applies to that. But is there anything else that you'd like to add when it comes to preparing students for an audition where they would be asked to improv?

Angela
Sure. Yeah. Again, I think a lot of times if students don't know what to do, then they fall back on what they think the panel might be looking for, which they assume is going to be the big, the leg, the kick, the leap, the roll into the floor. And I think a lot of times from having been on the side where evaluating students and looking at students and what they're doing with their improvisation practice, that's not at all what we're interested in seeing.

But we want to see their artistry. We want to see, is this person, are they using the improvisation to come up with new movement vocabulary? A lot of times I talk to my students about even with their own choreography in terms of generating movement, using the improvisation to help generate movement. Because if we're trying to make dances, we have this basket full of steps that we pull from, and there's only so many times we can see some of these certain steps.

And how many different ways can you do a pirouette? How many different ways can you do a battement? How can you use the improvisation to move the body in a new way, initiate movement with a different body part than you might normally use? How can it help you with transitioning in and out of the floor in a new way that, again, is more not trick focused, but just more about showing your artistry and your voice as a dancer. Who are you as a dancer? Yes, you learned these steps from your teachers, but when you take all of that and you start to have your movement come back out of you, what does that look like? And how does that make you unique as a dancer, as opposed to just doing these steps that everyone looks the same doing?

Maia
Yeah, I'm curious. I think you've already, again, kind of segued into this next segment, but you're the dean of the dance department at Coker College, correct?

Angela
Yes. Yeah, I was the dean of visual and performing arts. And actually, I will say, I was. I recently took early retirement.

So it's given me the opportunity to do a lot more guest teaching and work with my own dance company some more.

Maia
Oh, congratulations.

Angela
So yeah, no, it's a really lovely change.

Maia
Yeah, wonderful.

Angela
Yeah, I worked at Coker for about 20 years from dance faculty through department chair and dance program coordinator up to dean of visual and performing arts. And like I said, they were offering some early retirement options to faculty and staff.

And so I said, this is a time I want to be moving more. I really loved what I was doing as being dean, but it got me behind the desk a little bit too much. And so I'm happy with this change to be able to be back in my body a lot more.

Maia
Yeah, and I want to hear about that next, like what you're working on now and what you have coming up. But I do want to touch upon the university and the college dance scene and some trends that you're seeing as far as the students coming in where there are certain areas. And we're talking about improv and you've given so much already as far as like practical things that teachers can implement in the classroom.

So whether you want to focus specifically on improv practice or also how that kind of ties into performance quality and being able to just make choices as a dancer and show faculty or potential employers who you are as a dancer. Are there certain areas where you see across the board students are lacking in general and maybe some things that you've tried or some ideas that you would like to see teachers in the high school, in the studio setting implement to counteract that?

Angela
Sure. Well, I'll say a couple things. In general, I would say the more versatile a dancer is, if coming into a college setting, the more successful I think they will be. Again, if somebody is looking to go into a certain technique, like I'll use ballet as an example. If you're looking for a ballet program, I mean, there are certain specific ballet dance programs that, you know, they're going to be really looking for ballet and those are going to be a different thing than what I'm talking about.

The program that I led was definitely more of a modern contemporary based program. It had a lot of composition and improvisation. And so for that kind of setting, we were looking for dancers that were open to new things.

We were looking for dancers willing to try something they hadn't done before. And so I think even in your studio or school setting, just encouraging the dancers to do things outside of the box to, you know, if someone comes in with a crazy idea to not, you know, freeze up. And I think in improvisation, a lot of times the students are really nervous at first because they don't necessarily know what it is.

It's scary. A lot of times they're used to being told this step on count one, this on count two, this on count three, you know, and so they are always having that choreography dictated to them. And so I think even getting the students to have time to explore, put on a piece of music and just say, what does this music make you feel? How do you want to move to this particular music? And then just like let that play for a minute or two, switch the music to something drastically different.

And just even, I mean, and it seems in some ways very elementary to do that, which it is great to do that because even young children, you know, elementary school children can do that. But I think that helps to get the students to think about how they would move versus how you're telling them to move. Because there is so much more back and forth between, especially dancers who want to go on to work in maybe a company setting or even to be teachers.

I mean, even working in the public schools, you know, I know we were training students to be dance educators in the public schools at our, in our programs. And even there, you're going to be using so much more creative movement aspects of dance rather than like your five, six, seven, eight technique. Not that you won't do that, but you're doing it in a different way in that setting.

And so having dancers be comfortable with figuring out how they move and how they feel comfortable and, and not always being told, well, you know, this is put your leg here on this count. I think coming into college with even just a little more comfort of that would really help serve a lot of the dancers. They get very focused.

I know competitions are a huge thing and not saying anything negative about that, but I think sometimes coming back to the artistry, and that was something we would always try to instill in our first year students. That is just different. It's not, you know, there's no, no assigning value to that.

That is different. We are trying to work a little more on dances and artistry towards, you know, concert or commercial dance. And even in the commercial dance setting right now, dancers are being asked to improvise.

And so, you know, it's, there's a lot more dialogue between dancer and choreographer than it used to be. Even, even in ballet, frankly, you know, at this point, a lot more ballet dancers are being asked to improvise. And it's funny because I work with one of my friend's companies here in South Carolina.

And one of the dancers in it was one of our ballet companies, like Prima Ballerina, and asking her to improvise. Even as an adult, you know, she kind of like panics even, and, you know, she's been doing it enough now where she looks lovely doing it, but she's still in her head is like, ah, I can't do this. And so, yeah, just being comfortable generating your own movement and being open to new ways of moving and creating movement.

Maia
Yeah, I, once you started saying that, I realized, you know, I didn't grow up, I had never seen a competition or anything. And there were definitely some technical deficiencies that I had to contend with when I entered college, for sure, as a dancer. But I did notice mentally, because I also attended a program that was more contemporary.

And there was a composition track that every dance major had to complete as well. And I think mentally, the dancers that grew up in that competition circuit had a much harder time kind of coming to terms with what that was and how that fit into their knowledge than some of us that hadn't been exposed to that. So again, not that there's anything wrong with that, but just making sure that every teacher, whether you're teaching competition kids or rec kids or what have you, incorporate some improvisation, creativity, and, you know, different practices in all our classes.

Angela
Yeah.

Maia
Awesome. So now tell me a little bit about what you've got going on. We didn't even really get too much into your company, Sapphire Moon Dance Company.

So I really would love to hear what you have going on. And also, you know, how folks can connect with you and find out more.

Angela
Yes, so I have a dance company called Sapphire Moon Dance Company.

It's based here in Columbia, South Carolina. Right now, we've been doing a lot more, since the pandemic, we've been doing more dance for camera work. And so some of that work has been in some film festivals, you know, around the U.S., around the world.

I'm collaborating, like I said, there's another company here called the Power Company Collaborative. And so I feel like there's been a lot of Sapphire Moon and Power Company collaborations. Collaborations.

We've been working a lot together on some local performances and kind of site-specific installation type work. So that's where I haven't been doing as much dance for the proscenium, you know, with my own company. Right now, it's been kind of more project-based, kind of site-specific or dance film work, which has been a lot of fun because it's different.

And it definitely, you know, depending on whatever site we're doing, it totally changes the work. We've done a couple of things at art museums recently regarding the solstice. And then we're going to be collaborating with some dancers in North Carolina for a site-specific work that's going to be taking place on the beach near Wilmington, North Carolina in a few weeks.

And so kind of a lot of fun work like that, that's just a little bit, you know, not as confined to the stage, which can be really exciting. So additionally, since I left the university, I also started a wellness business. And so I'm also Pilates instructor.

So I'm teaching some Pilates, but also part of my wellness company is using Pilates and dance and somatic movement to help people who feel like they are burned out in their lives or careers or they're like, kind of like how I was feeling in my position where you're stuck behind a desk and you're not moving enough, how to get movement back into their lives just to help with their overall vitality. Also, one of the things I did at the university as well was lead a lot of study abroad trips for our dance students and connecting them with arts communities internationally. And so I'm now I'm leading wellness retreats.

And so I had one in Asheville just a couple of months ago. I'm going to do a one-day retreat in October, but I'm looking to do some international retreats next spring, looking at some sites in Italy. And so, you know, again, for people who are feeling just kind of overwhelmed, burnt out, want to get some, start to get a wellness practice, you know, a lot of journaling mindset work on, you know, how to get some of these habits integrated into your life a little bit more incorporating the Pilates work, somatic movement.

I'm also, I also partner with some of my other friends and colleagues who do different types of body work. For example, when we had our Asheville retreat, I had a colleague who does Thai yoga massage. She came and did some sessions on that as well.

And so just kind of using these different body therapies, I felt before at the university that I was helping the students with a lot of these things. And now I feel like I can take this on a broader scale. I'm also working with a colleague who's also a former dance professor.

Her and I are looking at opening a community arts and wellness space here that'll have it's going to have a dance studio that offers classes for adults, not, not for children, but you know, the kind of thing where, oh, I danced when I was 20 and now I'm 35 or 40 and I miss it. And I want to take ballet class, or I'd love to take a jazz or modern class or improvisation. And, you know, also we will have some yoga and Pilates and that as, as well as what we're doing.

So we're, we're embarking on that and I'm doing a lot of guest teaching. So I am available as a guest teacher. I have been doing a lot of workshops in the school systems and working with some local studios and schools, guest choreography for some companies nearby.

In the summer, I also work with Joffrey Ballet. So I'm getting ready to work with them at their Miami intensive in just a couple of weeks. And so, yeah, it's, it's really, it's been a lot of fun because it's like all of these different things that are, they're kind of taking all of what were the good parts of my other job.

And now those are the main parts of things. And I feel like, you know, I was doing a lot of good there, but, you know, higher ed is kind of entering a funky phase right now. And it was just for me, it was, it was time to make a shift where I could get more into my body again.

And yeah.

Maia
Wow. It's so great to hear about everything. I mean, I, I read your bio, obviously, like I'm familiar with your work, but just hearing you talk through it and everything that you have actively going on and you're working on and creating new things is really, really exciting. So I hope we can stay in touch about it because I'm so excited to see where it all goes. Awesome.

So I do close every show, um, asking if you have a favorite quote that you could share with us.

Angela
I do. And I, so I will say, I spent a lot of time working, um, with the Jose Lamon Institute and, um, I studied, uh, my mentor there, Alan Danielson.

He passed away in 2009, but like he, he was such an inspiration to me. And so, so a lot of when I teach more modern classes or even I'll teach kind of a, I call it contemporary Lamon where it's taking those Lamon principles and then kind of infusing them with other things like the improvisation or other people that I've studied with. But I just, Jose Lamon has an article.

If anyone has ever read the book, The Vision of Modern Dance, he has an article in there called On Dance. And he just, it's a beautiful, beautiful article that talks about the body and how he's so expressive. If you've ever seen him, like old videos of him perform, especially his hands and his arms.

And he's in this article, he talks a lot about how the body, he calls it an orchestra and all the different body parts are, you know, how they can be so expressive. I'm going to read, it's a little bit of a long quote, so I apologize for that, but it's, it's from the end of the article. And it says, "Dance can remind us of the greatness of man's spirit and of his creativeness, not his destructiveness. The dance is many things. It is a power. It can help stem the putrefaction and decay growing at the heart of human courage. It can withstand the philosophies of doom and surrender. The dancer can use his voice to call for reason out of unreason, order out of disorder. And that has always been the high task of the artist. The contemporary artist can do no less than dedicate the power of his spirit and the flame of his art to bring light to the dark places."

And that's like one of my favorite, and especially just right now, I feel like it is just, yeah. Yeah. And so that's from Jose Limon.

Maia
Could not be more timely.

Angela
Yeah.

Maia
Thank you for sharing that. I really appreciate that.

Hi, it's Maia again, back just to wrap things up with my usual thank yous. Once again, huge thank you to Angela. I will be sharing her information in the show notes.

If you want to check out more of her work and follow her, you can find links in the show notes for today's episode. As always, thank you to GB mystical for the theme music for the casual dance teachers podcast. And thank you to everyone who is part of the casual dance teachers network on Facebook, as well as following us on Instagram at the casual dance teachers podcast.

Feel free to reach out to me there to share your feedback, your insights, any questions, topics that you want to delve more into. And don't forget to leave a review for the podcast wherever you're listening. Thank you so much.

Bye bye.