Critical Correspondence

University Project: Sara Hook, Associate Professor, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

in conversation with Maura Donohue

Interview: 04.14.09

Sara Hook, former soloist with Nikolais Dance Theater, has also performed with Murray Louis, Pearl Lang, Jean Erdman, and Stephan Koplowitz among many others and is an occasional guest artist/ collaborator with David Parker and The Bang Group. Hook has been on the faculties of Princeton University and the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center and guest faculty of the Paul Taylor Summer Intensives in NYC. She holds an M.F.A. from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and a B.F.A. from the North Carolina School of the Arts. She is also a Certified Movement Analyst from the Laban Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies.

Maura Donohue: How did you come into your current position? How do you view the relationship between the professional world and the academic one?

Sara Hook: I was doing a lot of adjuncting and became frustrated that I couldn’t make much of a mark or have much influence on the curriculum development. Here, as a full time faculty member, it feels like I’m relevant and providing contribution. This department has a history of being a leader in the field at large. It feels like I’m doing work that matters in addition to facilitating my own work. I’m ultimately facilitating a lot of work for other people, which contributes to the profession as a whole. That includes collaborations with other departments – planting seeds. It feels like a better balance for me. I’m not viewing it as having a job in order for me to keep going as an independent choreographer; the set up here actually is helping to facilitate my work. I get to work with professional level graduate students, but also I know I am actively contributing to the field at large by working with students who are going to go out there and make a sea change. It only works when that person has a large vision about their role as an educator. Tere O’Connor doesn’t view his work here as a sacrifice, or The Day Job. He’s using it as an extension of his work. That’s the best way for it to work. Because we’re a research institution, it’s set up philosophically from higher in our institution. Our work is not put in the context of “service” but as research collaborating alongside students. That makes having a group of professionally active choreographers on the faculty an imperative; they aren’t separating their work as much between here and there. There are practical considerations, yes. But, there are service things you do to keep your company in existence, right? When people can do the activities they are engaged in in academic and professional settings the cross pollination is fantastic.

Maura: What kind of shifts have you seen in your time there?

Sara: I can talk about the pushing for the shift. This department has a long history of great leadership and innovation. A shift happened when Cynthia Oliver and I came, at the same time. We both insisted that we have time to participate in professional activities that we had set up. We became advocates for the idea that the dance department should begin operating in line with the philosophy of the larger institution. Previously, the faculty was expected only to serve the needs of the student. We were insistent on noting that we were in a research institution and we should operate that way, as the research of professors had that priority previously. It was our belief that this would ultimately be better for the students; they would be exposed to the working processes of artists. The stakes seemed higher when they’re investing in an artist’s research at a different level. This also matched a prioritization on their creative research.

Maura: How are you preparing your students to be part of the field?

Sara: We graduate people with a sense of mission and initiative because of that and that is feeding the field differently. I’m very opposed to the notion of a dance department trying to model itself after the profession, we don’t want to create a curriculum so that they can just go out and do what’s hot. It assumes that what is happening in the profession is that much more monumental and it’s hard to keep up with that; our field changes rapidly and dramatically. So, to try to make our students fit into a paradigm that isn’t working, doesn’t make sense. I want to train students who can develop their own paradigms. I do think that’s different. I think years ago departments were trying to keep up with what was current in the field. For instance, there’s a lot of technology in dance, so let’s make lots of technology curriculum, or now we have to give this technique because that’s what people are doing, etc. That privileges a trend instead of privileging what an individual artist can contribute sooner rather than later. I like educating students based on their appetites for learning. It’s important to know about what kind of work is going on out there. We have courses that address that very well, but I don’t want to chase after the field and try to train our dancers for specific companies. They need lots of skills and they need to uncover their own personal mission. It’s good to avoid the thought that there is one standard out there that they must conform to.

Maura: Why do you think academia is relevant for dance artists?

Sara: I think people used to view accepting the appointment in academia as the end of the line, or that there was a feeling in your personal life or career that motivated you to that place. But, I think that there are a number of people who are looking at it as a new way of opening up their resources and having influence. We as faculty are so aesthetically different, but we hunger for a dialogue with one another and though in conflict sometimes that keeps us sharp. You might not get that working so hard to survive in NYC where you can end up isolated from one another. I’ve found that as a benefit. I would also emphasize that people often assume that the academy is often so hard to move, so fixed. However, higher education responds to creative thinking – if you tie your ambitions to the higher strategic mission of the university. I think the two unusual programs on the graduate level in Milwaukee and at Hollins reflect the growing entrepreneurial thinking available. Our hire of Tere was largely motivated in remaining competitive on the graduate level. Schools are in pursuit of prestige. Here, I made the argument that having an artist with the international recognition that Tere carries would raise our profile. I also made his tie to our alumnae population in NYC as part of the strategic plan tie-in. That was very compelling to the university – raised profile, outreach and alumni contact.

Maura: You mentioned academia as changing how you work. Could you provide examples of what you get from your current situation that you couldn’t previously?

Sara: In a larger university, we get a lot of opportunities that we wouldn’t think of. In 2007, I received a grant from the university that enabled me to bring David Parker and The Bang Group to campus. David and I collaborated on making a piece together entitled “You Too.” The cast was made up of both undergrad and grad students from UIUC, alumni from UIUC, current UIUC faculty and members of The Bang Group. This mix of populations was quite unusual and made for a fertile creative process. We collaborated with the Integrated Systems Laboratory of the Beckman Center here. They commissioned a super high-resolution film of microscopic level cell division. We projected this film onto the cyclorama and it made a magnificent and unusual background for the piece, which we could have never afforded to obtain without the help of the Beckman Institute. These are the kinds of things you’d need thousands of grant dollars to make happen – but as faculty looking towards interdisciplinary opportunities they can be easily available, once you start looking.

Maura: The opportunities for crossing forms and collaborations seem very rich across college campuses.

Sara: We have had gradate students do innovative projects involving motion capture or involving virtual performance with other institutions like UC Berkeley. Jen Monson works with the Environmental Council here. Tere has co-taught a course in dance composition with a professor from architecture. Jan Erkert has collaborated with folks from Art and Design to create a beautiful short film incorporating dance. Cynthia Oliver made a piece a few years ago with a 50 member Black Chorus from campus. We are reconstructing Trisha Brown’s “Astral Convertible.” We have been given permission to re-imagine the technical aspects of this piece and so we are collaborating with folks from the Seibel Center for Computer Science and outside experts in Dance and Technology like Thecla Schiphorst from Vancouver. Money to support this project was obtained through New England Foundation For the Arts, Dance USA and several campus level grants. Without the campus support it could never happen.