It's here! Hot off the press, the December issue of Dance Magazine features this article I wrote about a niche genre of dance organization, the so-called "homegrown" company. These hyper-locally focused companies resist subscribing to the relentless societal push to expand expand expand, that bigger is better, volume is power and name recognition is a measure of validity and quality. Instead, they have proudly built top-tier dance groups by using and relying on their immediate communities: dancers and artists, audiences, supporters, residents and tourists. Lateral growth and connection with their surroundings are their super powers.

    What does that mean, exactly?

    It means that the directors of these organizations have strong personal ties to their locations, and while they do hire from all over, most of the performers have some connection to that particular city, state or region, too. It means creating and presenting work that directly relates to the community who'll be watching it, thereby establishing a sense of ownership and local pride in the audiences, too. Although any company would love national recognition and accolades, these ones want to occupy a place of honor in their city first and foremost, and they thrive on being an absolutely vital vertebra in the backbone of their area's cultural infrastructure.

    Banning Bouldin, who runs New Dialect in Nashville, TN, talks about nurturing the city's "dance ecosystem," meaning that through symbiotic partnerships with other area artists, funders, municipal government agencies, schools, New Dialect and its fellow Nashville creatives are all helping each other not just survive but thrive. Through an arrangement begun early in New Dialect's life with the city's Parks Department, New Dialect provides dance classes for youth in exchange for studio space in city-owned buildings. The education program now feels like an arm of New Dialect that is essential to its mission-- and the company has never paid for rehearsal space.

    That's just one example of how these companies that I profiled (in addition to New Dialect, I spoke with the directors of Asheville's own Stewart/Owen Dance, who readers of this newsletter already know about from my previous writing about their plight during and post-hurricane, Dallas/Ft. Worth's Avant Chamber Ballet, and Kansas City's Owen/Cox Dance Group) view the way dance can and should fit into our lives and our society. All four of these companies are fairly small in scale in terms of budget and employees, but their artistic output far outweighs their logistical footprints. The directors all had prominent, estimable performing careers and received acclaim in their own right-- and now, they look to give the dancers they hire just as much artistic and practical fulfillment. Proving that "regional" doesn't  have to mean "rinky dink" is a point of pride, and these companies are doing it!

    All four spoke strongly of their prioritization of dancers' financial stability and work-life sanity. Stewart/Owen pays above average wages for the area and is working to be able to hire dancers on yearly contracts, and Jennifer Owen of Owen/Cox Dance Group told me that when she hires her dancers for a performance project, they are on a weekly salary that enables them to focus 100% on their work with the company (no need for a side job, unlike the norm across the country.)

   As someone whose personality and demeanor gravitates to the "think little" ethos (thanks to Gavin Stewart and Vanessa Owen for turning me on to the Wendell Berry essay on the topic), this model of living, working and creating in the dance arena excites me. And in our world at large, and this country in particular, when it seems that the person who yells loudest gets what they want, no matter what they're saying, it thrills me to see artists making huge waves in small ponds, and for those same artists to be finding that their ponds are just as rich, rewarding, fulfilling and appreciative as any bigger sea. There's no place like home.

        Gavin Stewarts put it this way: “Your job as an artist is to tap into the honesty of your experience and communicate that as clearly as possible. And if you’re doing that, why does it matter if you’re in Asheville, versus Los Angeles, New York, or London?"

        Turning to a dance entity that is supremely local in its identity, inextricably associated with its home base, and yet undeniably imposing in reach and scale, here's this interesting piece on the Radio City Rockettes, specifically about the math and geometry that's used to make their performances so spectacular. Unsurprisingly to any of us who've spent much time on a stage (or in the wings or flies or light booth), the Rockettes' stage at Radio City Music Hall is marked out in a complicated grid of numbers and color-coded lines. Memorizing where to go, when to be there, how to move from one spot to another-- while dancing and precisely on the right musical counts-- of course adds to the difficulty of what these dancers pull off multiple times a day. If any shred of myth still exists about the intellect needed to be a successful dancer, let this statement from one of the Rockettes tear it down.

        “As a dancer, I challenge my body so much, but each Rockette has to challenge their brain so much as well, to understand where and what they’re supposed to be doing and the specificity of it,” says Morgan. “When you step into this position, then it’s a completely different brain game and a different brain challenge. It’s puzzles. It really is just a bunch of puzzles.”

        Maybe that's why I love crosswords so much! Filling out the grid satisfies just like being part of a perfectly arranged, synchronized corps de ballet or a lift coordinated just right.