A
dance company is a living, breathing entity. It grows, moves,
experiences loss, and changes shape. I am part of that. I’ve been a
core company member of 4 companies, a guest in many more, and this is my
first season with Mordine & Company Dance Theater. My new dancing home.
Every
time I join a new company, there is a period of transition--testing the
waters, getting to know the artistic depths, seeing how far I can push
before getting pushed back (we all get a little pushy now and then), and
how close I can get to the other dancers. How fast this process is
depends on how open the other dancers are to each other. Thankfully,
most modern dancers are very open and loving. It must be in the somatic
training that inhabits most modern-based college programs these days.
Every
time I’ve left a company, because my life has taken me to another state
(Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Florida, Illinois) it’s a little brutal.
I’m forced to leave a bit of myself behind, but I also get to take some
of my past with me into my new company. I feel like that’s why the dance
world is so small. We all are connected by these strands of
experiences. A movement of a foot here, a saying there, and a warm-up
exercise from my old company bleeds into the new. You can’t help it
when you put so much of yourself out there every day in the studio.
What
this means to me is that when I join a dance company, I become a part
of it at the moment and in its legacy. Every dance company changes slightly
in texture and tone depending on who is onstage. We all contribute to
the work, so each work is a part of us. When I learn a piece of
repertory, I inhabit the body of a former company member. I slip into
their skin and move the limbs around in my own way. It’s quite
intimate. Mordine & Company is doing this now with the repertory
piece Life Speak. What a way to plunge into a new work environment!
In Mordine and Company’s new work, All at Once/Acts of Renewal, my
artistic voice will sing alongside the other company member’s voices. Once the piece is put into repertory, we’ll have all left our little
legacy on the company and new company members will be slipping into our
roles and movements long after our individual lives have taken us on to
new states.
-Katie Sopoci Drake
Company Member
