ABOUT THE BLOG: Tiny Dancer | Big Words

I originally started this blog ten months ago as an Independent Study in my last year of graduate school at Hollins University. While earning my MFA in Dance, the amount of complexing and perplexing information packed into my brain and body is quite overwhelming; a few years will certainly pass before it all stops bubbling and settles in for, hopefully, good. But one thing I know for sure, in this moment, here at my desk in charming Main Hall on the steamy Hollins campus, is… I LOVE WRITING.

Like making dance, scribing about it has become a craft of curiosity; I rarely know what will happen when I sit down at my laptop or step in the studio, even if I have a small seed planted. What started out as a project has turned into a passion, and I must shout out to the incomparable Elizabeth Zimmer for igniting my spark. Creating this blog, curating its content, and navigating through the rocky terrain of being a dancer / maker / director / educator / critic / writer / generally friendly person in the cozy arts community of Charlotte, NC hasn’t been easy, but it has been a labor of love. Through conducting an assortment of dance reviews, previews, and interviews over last near year, I’ve collected a few gems, like…

• Men in tights can be super smart, thoughtful, and funny.
• There is more to UNCC than frat parties and highway pedestrian strikings.
• Charlotte is lucky to have caught a few talented transplants, but let one go recently.
• Unapologetic classicists are some of my favorite people.
• Art and faith just MIGHT have to save the world after all.
• Sometimes you’ve got to kick off your heels and step out of line, no matter what.
• Race relations in dance is risky business, but thankfully, someone is doing it in our community.
• Dance in Charlotte, just like anywhere, can be a mixed bag of hits and misses.
• Durham, NC is the bees knees – for dance and food co-ops.
• A well-organized and -executed dance festival is NOT a mythological creature.

It’s hard to summarize the landscape of dance in Charlotte… it’s always shifting. Some days I’m super stoked to be a maker and a mover in the Queen City; other days I’m ready to throw in the towel and start a goat farm somewhere off the grid. But generally, I’m honored to be one cog in the evolving, learning, and growing machine of performing arts under the 704. We’ve gotten a bad rap over the past few years – what with that disgraceful HB2, the Keith Lamont Scott shooting and subsequent riots, and a (thankfully gone) douchebag of a governor and all. But if I can contribute just a little nugget of insight, intellect, and reprieve by making / performing / watching / talking about / writing about dance (especially on the days it’s REAL hard to be a Carolinian, much less an artist in the semi-deep South), that’s enough to keep me in motion.

I certainly plan on continuing this blog beyond this Independent Study, and I hope you continue to read. There will be a brief pause while I present my (yikes!) thesis in a few weeks and consume a lot of bier and brezels next month. In the meantime, do me a solid and keep watching / taking / reading about / thinking about dance as much as you possibly can. Catch CPCC’s Summer Theatre, go see a show at the American Dance Festival, or subscribe to the Dance section of the New York Times. You might just see something you like… or not.