University Project: Bebe Miller, Professor, Ohio State University

in conversation with Maura Donohue

Interview: 03.30.09

Maura Donahue: How did you end up in academia?

Bebe Miller: Timing and economics. They made me an offer that I couldn’t refuse. I got my Master’s here in the 70s and taught in the mid-80s. I’d remained in contact, and the long-time chair, Vicky Blaines (who was my Advisor), had a policy that if you are going to be teaching, you need to be here all the time. When Karen Bell came in, we talked about coming and going opportunities. I’d lost funding and touring, and hated the traveling-and-doing-commissions-by-yourself work. I started as visiting artist over two successive winter quarters and then, by the third year, we were figuring out how to make it more permanent. Since then I take the fall quarter off (and don’t get paid), and teach January to June. It gives me a living.

Maura: How do you use that time off?

Bebe: I was just married last year. For the last three fall semesters I’ve spent time out in Seattle with my husband. I tour from there. Before that I did different things. When I do tour—there have been two or three projects since I’ve been here—that mostly happens in the fall. I gave up my place in NY a long time ago; my quality of life is hugely different and better, though there is plenty to miss. I’m hitting a point in my career where I find myself being physically out of the work I make more and more, and that changes my creative calendar. The work doesn’t depend on me being able to last in it. It’s opening something new for me.

Maura: How did you negotiate the time off in the fall?

Bebe: These days, I wish I’d negotiated better. But, I feel fortunate. I came in as a full professor, with the highest salary ranking for the department. I have no complaints. But, luckily, artists can now ask for that time off as part of their compensation when they’re hired. I ask for the time off every year and every year they say yes. It gives them my money to work with for other projects. We recently started discussing retirement—I’ve been here ten years and I’ve got another five to go. I’m positioning myself with a sabbatical. It’s very refreshing to look at time and resources in this way.

Maura: How does the school partner with you as a working artist?

Bebe: I wouldn’t have considered this move if the Wexner Center wasn’t here, because of my work and the work that comes here. It was important that there was an artistic viability that was part of this. Verge was a co-production with the Dance Department and Wexner Center. Since then, Wexner has presented both of our recent pieces. We’ve also hosted residencies and use the OSU rehearsal spaces openly. Kathleen Hermesdorf recently held a five-week guest artist position. We don’t officially plan for integrated residencies, but I think with my next project that has come up a bit.

Maura: Do you have access to other resources in addition to space, time and more financial stability?

Bebe: Funding wise, universities are fabulous—particularly here at Ohio State where other foundation support comes through the University. And, I can look at what other resources there are that allow me to integrate my creative research into university structures. I’m just beginning to tap in and I’m really excited about that. I feel as a creative artist that my horizon has expanded—just how I think about work, what the end product is—is it a product, is it a process, is it an artifact, or an experience? I’m thinking back to 2002 when I was part of a think tank about technology in the arts and really skeptical. Basically, seven years later, I’m deep in it. Both in terms of working with collaborators with visual imagery and the work behind that doesn’t show up in the performance itself. I’m talking about how we might think about choreography and digital systems—all this geeky information that impacts how I approach the work and envision, not the product, but the process. Can I use the technology to find out more about the work I make? Motion capture taught me something about how we use our weight. It’s an archival system of process. Most of my technology work is developed through the University though we reach out and ask for things. I found Maya Ciarrocchi by asking around and then I put her in the room with an OSU digital animator out here and learned after the fact how different these processes are. But, the interest was there in figuring out how to make something visible in the production—getting a really creative conversation in the room. The University helps provide the room and how to call different kinds of people in so you can reach for real interdisciplinary, plus a Xerox machine.

Maura: How do you think about growing the program?

Bebe: If we are going to be creative about this, we have to think about how we are limiting our own view. We often don’t consider how we can reach people who are not in the Dance Department. What is creativity and where are we looking for it? How else do we find those people—maybe there’s a geeky post-grad we should be connecting with somewhere. Also, it starts simply with space and things like that. Susan Van Pelt Petry is in her second year as Chair. We started a summer residency in connection with a Movement Research artist. It’s the beginning of an exchange, and I’m really happy about that. It’s great when there are some institutional people who can move nimbly and access space. For myself, I want to recruit really strong artists to our MFA program.

Maura: How has your situation changed your career?

Bebe: I have to admit, at first, I was completely worried that they’d forget me. But, one of the things that occurred to me is that now that I have financial regularity, the nature of my work has changed. I can go to APAP without being afraid or trying to sell. My basic sense of myself as an artist has changed through academia. I’m better able to make the work I want to make versus the work that I think will sell.

Maura: What do you think your impact is on the students?

Bebe: I got here because of my history. The students can read about me and then they can see me. But its kind of humbling when the younger students don’t know who I am at all. On a good day, I’m an example of a working artist and what it feels like to be still out there. How I teach? I don’t teach a lot of composition here. I teach a graduate seminar in current issues. I’m a conduit to a lot of people in the field. We’ve had conversations with all my friends. This is what it looks like: I feel my responsibility as an artist and visually that is to continue to mess with boundaries… and to fail. I’m not looking for ways to fail, but they can see risks taken and the results. I have to keep myself viable for myself. I think that’s what I’m here for. I don’t always feel like the ‘artist’ here—sometimes I’m an adviser—but I feel that on the bottom line, I’m here for that. I feel like I have to continue proving it. There are days I want some glory, “Yup, I’m an artist.” But, being in the field for so long has built a kind of restlessness. I don’t have to go out and search for gigs anymore, but I’m always trying to figure out what am I going to do? What am I going to make? The life of an artist has a basic unease. I want to help redefine what “making it” is. Is it the release of a DVD journal of my work or a DTW concert? That’s still so new a conversation that we don’t know what to do with it yet. But I get to prove it to my department—this counts. This visibility counts too.

Maura: Why is this conversation about academia important to you?

Bebe: Let’s talk about fear for a second. One of the things I realized when I got here was about not making it, not staying visible, which was a driving force through my career. I feel good about that, about how that’s worked out and I’m at another threshold now of what’s next for me, and I have a new fear factor—the last two works, Landing/Place and Necessary Beauty, took lots of time, effort, and money. Wouldn’t it be nice to make just movement, just small? So I want to pursue that, but I’m realizing that there’s another aspect of research that I am now turned onto that will take me away from the proscenium. It’s less about will they forget me and more about how will I do this? Even on a resource level, I’m turning more and more to the University or different foundations for funding. What does that mean? I don’t know. I also feel like I’m an older choreographer now and I’m entering into a mentorship phase which I really like. In a way, I want to figure out what to do energetically. I want to help find connections with academia for other artists.

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