Critical Correspondence

University Project: Renée Wadleigh, Professor, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

in conversation with Levi Gonzalez

Interview 7.24.09

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Levi Gonzalez: What do you teach at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign?

Renée Wadleigh: I’m a Professor in the Department of Dance. I recently stopped teaching the technical training but I continue to teach composition courses for graduate and undergraduate students. I’ve been the MFA Program Director until this year, I work with the thesis candidates on their projects, I teach a course called “Contemporary Directions/Contemporary Dance” and a course called “Viewing Dance… Dance for Camera…” We all do a lot of different things. It’s usual in Dance Departments that you do work in a number of different directions – academic courses, studio courses, and so forth.

Levi: Is that a situation due to few teachers?

Renée: I think that in the beginning, because dance departments were small, it was an economic thing. They didn’t have a single person that specialized in composition or technical training. The more things faculty could do, the better it was for the department. But I think most dance people are interested in a lot of directions.

Levi: In that way, it mirrors the field outside of the universities, where dancers tend to be pretty well rounded, partially out of necessity, but also out of interest.

Renée: Yes, I think that’s true. I also think it’s a part of our history. Whatever needs to be done, we’ll learn how to do it. And it’s approached with interest, not just to get the job done.

Levi: Is that how you started building the DVD or video library – out of a personal interest? I’m curious about the impulse behind it.

Renée: I was in New York for 30 years before I came here. I came to academia at 50. I was a performer in New York, a teacher, and eventually at 40 I choreographed my first work. I was a single parent and I felt torn always about throwing my hat into that ring – I didn’t think I could continue to pursue choreography. I have been able to do that here, which is one good thing about the shift. But while I was in New York, a great pleasure was in going to all kinds of different dance events. I loved looking at dance. I didn’t mind looking at something that wasn’t so good while searching for that thing that knocks your socks off. I just loved that process. Also the VCR came into being, and I don’t really know why, I copied to VHS everything that came on TV about dance. In that period, Pina Bausch’s 1980 was performed on television. There was a lot more dance on TV-Eye On Dance, Alive from Off Center, Great Performances, all of those things. I really don’t know what I was thinking as I did it. I just did it. And then when I came here, I realized that pleasure of looking, searching through dance, thinking about dance, where it was going, who’s coming along, and all of that, was no longer as possible. There’s the Krannert Center, and it does bring wonderful dance events, but only a few every year, certainly not broad enough to represent all that is going on, especially with younger choreographers. I felt the students really didn’t know anything about the field they were entering, particularly the undergraduates. So, that was really the beginning of trying to contact artists in the United States, in New York, San Francisco, Chicago… mostly New York, but I really did try to think more broadly than that. I tried to get tapes from Canada, from Australia, from Europe. And at the beginning contacting everybody was a little bit more difficult than it is now. I used the Stearn’s Directory and word of mouth and friends, but now with the Internet and people having websites and so forth, it’s easier to find artists. And also people are more willing. In the beginning artists seemed suspicious and even I worried-why should they want to give me a videotape? What they really want from this Dance Department is to be booked. Then I realized, actually it’s good for them for these students to know who they are, to attend their concerts, go to their workshops. So, it continues from there. It’s become a passion-it’s almost impossible, but the more I can collect, the happier I am!

Levi: A lot of those early videos from shows on television are hard to find now. So much of dance disappears after the performance. I know in New York we have the Performing Arts Library and I think it’s a great resource. People now seem very interested in representing themselves and we have Youtube. It’s a much more video-literate and video-saturated culture.

Renée: I do protect the collection I have. I don’t let students copy works. It’s more common now that artists don’t ask a fee, but in the beginning more did ask a fee and often asked me to sign contracts saying that the video would be used for educational purposes only and that students and others could not copy work. I think there was much more worry that people would take steps or the whole dance, but the more commonly known these artists are, the less possible it really is to steal, if that was the worry. Speaking of stealing, I protect the collection myself and I think of it as protecting because we don’t have a dance library or a librarian, and I believe things would walk away. Even our own archives – recordings of different concerts and events – end up lost. I don’t know if it’s deliberate or if people borrow them and forget to bring them back. Anyway, I don’t know how artists feel about wanting works protected, not copied and so forth, but that’s my own policy.

Levi: I’m curious about what you look for when you’re looking for work-just a broad representation of the field?

Renée: I’m looking for a broad representation of the field although I’m sure I have a little bit of my own biases. But I ask. Michelle Boulé was an undergraduate student here and she’s gone off and worked with a lot of different companies in New York, and she continues to be a resource. And I think you gave me some names… So, like that. I’m not so interested in those companies that the students know about or the companies that tour often. I’m interested in what’s going on now, things that are having an impact now, or that are just beginning to. Those are much harder to find and usually it is by talking to people, or reading reviews or articles. The thing too is I go in spurts of being able to really devote a lot of time to the collection, of going into collection mode. I do direct students to look on Youtube and websites for excerpts, but I don’t use excerpts in my courses. I want them to look at entire works. I think you can’t tell from an excerpt exactly the ride of the dance.

Levi: Yes. It’s so much about the experience over time. Excerpts can be very misleading.

Renée: It’s always a surprise to me that for some people it’s not easy to look at dance on video. But I feel like I’ve done it so much, I can really go there. Even though I know that you miss a lot. I have the students research the artists and the work, and look for mission statements or artist statements so that it isn’t just looking without the support of other information.

Levi: It also seems very important, especially in the U.S., because the national network of touring is pretty limited. And I think if anything the financial support for touring has actually decreased, so you end up getting a separation from the work that’s going on at the local level, which usually is the more experimental work, younger artists, artists that don’t quite have that big of an infrastructure. This is a way for that work to start to cross the country.

Renée: I agree. And I think it brings the field together. It can. A couple of thoughts come to mind. Mark Morris company has performed at the Krannert Center every year for sometime now. I appreciate his work very much but it can create an expectation. The community gets taught that that is modern dance and if it isn’t that… less accessible work may leave audiences scratching their heads because there is not enough exposure to it. And for students wanting to enter the field of dance, wherever they go, even if they go to a studio in Iowa to teach ballet to kids, I feel it’s important for them to have a broader idea of what the field is, because in some way they will bring that to whatever it is they end up doing. Last year, I asked you if I could show a couple of your pieces in this thing I did at the Armory Free Theater. My idea was, because dance collaborates in every direction-it has a long history of working together with other artists, people in other fields-I really wanted to do something outside the dance department that I called “Three Nights of Dance on Video.” I did email advertising myself and hoped to get people from across Fine and Applied Arts, and the Beckman Institute of Technology. That was my goal, but I just had a handful of people, 5 or so every night. I’m trying it again. I’ve gone to the Krannert Art Museum this time. Each area in the University keeps its students so busy-I know we do-even though cross-disciplinary work and collaboration is talked about all the time, it’s just very difficult to do because everyone is so busy in their own little niche. I’m going to try it again seeing if the publicity coming through the Krannert Art Museum helps. I love so many of the things I look at on video, I just can’t imagine that people in other areas where there is such a clear connection wouldn’t appreciate it as well. For example, Chunky Move’s Glow – I can’t imagine that people with the Beckman Institute of Technology wouldn’t find that interesting.

Levi: One of the things I think has been useful about technology is this democratizing force of things being less expensive to produce. For example, anyone can take a video of a rehearsal, put it into their computer and burn a DVD rather than higher a videographer and transfer it to a tape. It makes it easier for artists to take on some of that work themselves. Nothing replaces a skilled cameraperson, but there’s more access to video. Nothing can replace a performance either, but there’s limited resources to bring work to any given place. Technology allows us to see a real broad range of work on an affordable scale. And just like you said, I think it makes people much more fluent in the kind of work that’s being made now.

I’m curious how extensive the collection is now?

Renée: I must have 600 VHS tapes, and most of the tapes have more than one thing on them. Some are in extended play, multiple programs or works. I would have to count but I think it’s quite a lot by now. And recently, artists sending DVDs will include more than one work. I don’t know!

Levi: It’s large!

Renée: It is large. With certain artists because I’ve collected them for a long period of time, students could actually study the evolution of an artist and their work. There are a few artists who have pretty consistently given me their work.

Levi: You mentioned in an email that it is your collection, you’ve built it yourself with your own money and that it would be complicated to give it over to the department.

Renée: I have this thought that when I retire, whenever that is, that I would give the collection to the Department, but right now there’s no place, no person to oversee it, and those things concern me. I don’t like the idea that any student can copy these works without the artist’s permission. Or walk off with them. When I’m teaching the grad course “Contemporary Directions/Contemporary Dance” students are asked to honor my request that DVDs viewed in my office for research are not removed or copied. The graduate students here seem to have respect for this request. Also, in order to transfer the collection to the Department of Dance I would have to obtain permission to do that from each artist who has given me works. Right now the works would either be in a relatively open library impossible to carefully protect against loss or duplication or a library where materials are protected but can be checked out and therefore copied. How do you feel about having your works copied by students and others?

Levi: I wouldn’t want my DVDs to be copied.

Renée: I can’t imagine that any artist wouldn’t want control over where copies of their works are going. My hope is that in the future there will be a library in the Department of Dance that can preserve and protect this collection. Under the right circumstances I believe artists would give permission for their works to be transferred and housed in a library here. I think about the money I spent on VHS tapes, on cases, and then on DVDs. It would be a very nice gift if I approach all these artists and get permission.

Levi: Just one last question-how have the students responded? I’m curious to know how it has been to have this resource at their fingertips. What have you observed?

Renée: I teach a course called “Viewing Dance” for undergraduates, and it really takes younger dancers a while. If they see certain kinds of work too soon, they really don’t know what to think about it. They need to begin to look at work in order to get to the place of understanding. In the end, undergraduates really appreciate the opportunity because some of them head for New York and they feel they’ve had a terrific introduction – a kind of intro to the lay of the land. And I’m sure different graduate students feel this about different courses, but I have had graduate and undergraduate students say its the best course that they had. I believe it really is meaningful and actually an advantage for them to have the opportunity to see so much current work. Last year I got carried away with the first syllabus I made for my grad course. They had so many hours of outside viewing that I had to redo the whole thing. I realized it was just impossible. So, I can be that enthusiastic about what I would like them to see. And a lot of them will ask to see more. The collection is a great resource.

Levi: I can feel your enthusiasm and its really nice to hear. I agree that it’s an incredible resource. These video libraries are few and far between and are the only record that exists of all this work that has been happening. We had a screening recently in New York City, about a year ago, of dance from the 80s and early 90s because many people haven’t seen that work. They might know the artist but never saw their early work, for example. And it was really well attended and people were really enthusiastic about it. They’re trying to develop other screenings like that because there is a desire to see past work on video, almost like a record of the times.

Renée: Actually, I heard about that and it makes me think about Ralph Lemon’s Their Eyes Roll Back in Ecstasy, and I was thinking Ralph doesn’t do that kind of work anymore, and a lot of people might know Ralph’s work but not Ralph in that period.

Levi: Thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me.

Renée: It was fun and thank you.