Critical Correspondence

Univeristy Project: David Dorfman, Chair of the Connecticut College Dance Department

in conversation with Maura Donohue

Interview: 03.12.09

Maura Donohue: You are someone who is working in both the academic world and the professional world very actively. Could you talk about your own entrance into this academic pairing?

David Dorfman: I have to admit that I literally couldn’t see going to an academic institution to stay as recently as five years ago. I think that was typical among artists; but with the current economic climate think that is probably changing. My dad, who died in ’03, kept saying “when are you going to put that MFA into action.” Ironically, right after he died I applied for the job here. I think the writing on the wall came into very clear focus: the time of travelling most of the year had reduced because of fatherhood, but it still felt like too much time on the road. I credit the former chair, LanLan Wong, for orchestrating the Dayton Residency (which rotates between arts departments) for David Dorfman Dance. It was an extended residency in 2003 that gave us time with students and in the community. It launched me into a realistic assessment and I remember talking to several people and thinking very seriously about this. The reality of having a child and a dancing wife and being relatively close to NYC where my company was, made this make sense. I didn’t look for a job anywhere else. I had been offered other positions at other schools in the past. This felt like it was coming up for a reason.

Maura: Even though you went through a search & application process, you were able to enter at the Associate level, so the college was clearly aware of who they were bringing onto the faculty. That seems to reflect strong support for bringing an actively working artist to the school, which is wonderful. I see that you’ve had Nicholas Leichter, Jeremy Nelson, Tania Isaac, Alex Beller up in recent years as well. How do these situations work for those artists?

David: We have a range. Someone like Jeremy Nelson (this was before I was here full-time) was doing something 1 day a week or so. He was so popular at the college that he ended up being here a number of semesters in a row for couple days a week. He’d teach a couple modern classes and make a piece for the students. When I guest taught here, it was similar. But, we’re not doing as much now. For most of a semester the artist would come and teach two days a week (probably, 5 technique classes and rehearse one full evening 4-6, 7-9 and have one more session on Friday before heading back on a train to the city. So they’d get 3 days in NY and a couple in Connecticut and the students got consistency over the semester. That was one model. Our other model, is more like the 2 week intensive – a choreographer teaches 5 classes a week and makes work every night and then they come back for a touch-up rehearsal or technical rehearsal. We’re liking that model, it might also be 3 or 4 weekends.

Maura: Is David Dorfman Dance, a permanent company-in-residence at Connecticut College?

David: It is permanent, as long as I am here, which is incredibly generous. I don’t know that a lot of schools would be as trusting. So, I take it in high regard to work carefully and diligently with the students. This is our second year in that status. We have an actual budget line from the department. It was arranged to give 3 weeks a year of rehearsal, and to pay the company members for a performance a year as well. So, we might be able to stretch it to over a 4-week presence at the college each year. It’s working out with the Onstage Series in Palmer Auditorium, that we’ll do a performance every other year for the public. Then, every other year we’ll show work in the Myers Studio Theater with lights. Last year, we were able to do a work-in-progress showing of “Disavowal” and we used the studio and windows. We have that lab opportunity which is great. Being up here has affected the absolute consistency of rehearsal for the company, over a year’s period we’re probably in the studio for the same amount of time but more in fits and starts. With general economics and the way things were going, we were edging towards a new work not every year but more like every year and a half. This was before I got up here, but now we’re more at every two-years.

Maura: I think this model of a company-in-residence is a great model. Not that they have to be permanent, but this allows a choreographer to have their company with them as well. It gives them laboratory time in studios and theaters while also providing students with access and performance opportunities.

David: I think France is great with their choreographic centers, in allowing artists these opportunities. They weren’t necessarily connected to schools. But I think that we now as a college and university system in this country have an opportunity to learn from their success and try to develop some kind of form of that support. It certainly makes sense if a faculty member is going to be there for a really long time that they have a more permanent existence at the university, but I think that could happen for visiting faculty or those up for tenure. It would be great for the students to see the inner workings of a dance company, to see rehearsals and lec-dems and be in a rep project. I think more colleges could do that as well. Imagine if a student could have access to at least two companies really working-in-residence during their time at school.

Maura: I guess the big question is how to get the larger institution at large behind these ideas that I think most programs and artists would love. Which brings up the money questions. A lot of parents pay a lot of money for their child to go to school, so the issue of rising cost of tuition affects dance and arts departments, does that impact your department and how have recent budget cuts impacted you as well?

David: Connecticut College has a president who is working ceaselessly to secure the financial health at the college. I know it broke his heart to say salary increases will be on hold, but I am so thrilled that programs aren’t being cut and no one is losing their job. We’re also allowed to continue our searches for new faculty, which allows the college to expand. It is hard to put forward new ideas in this climate with private colleges seeing their endowments hit very hard and public schools seeing state and federal funding lessening. However, you know that new ideas are going to go forward and I feel that the arts should be there. I think things go in styles, and I agree with Garber, while there are a number of schools initiating fundraising for a new science building but there are others who are initiating fundraising for brand new arts centers. I think the legitimacy of artists of all kinds didn’t exist at this level in academia 30 years ago, and yes, while dance might be perennially the stepchild, I think there is more happening. I think that an inverse relationship has occurred – the hyper legitimacy of a career in the financial world may be losing its shine, and we’ve struggled for so long and are fortunate to receive a steady income and benefits. But, other artists are still dealing with what sells and who will hire or present them. The parents who bring their kids here, though, they’re self selected. We’re not a conservatory or a BFA, but we require an audition to major. So we offer the best of both worlds. We are putting the liberal arts into action with great interdisciplinary opportunities. And a lot of our students come in expecting to have dance in their lives for the rest of their lives. So, I don’t have to do a lot of hard selling on the study of dance in college. On the tuition level, colleges are not going to be able to raise tuitions at the level they had been occurring but, at the same time, we’re offering something people want – an education.

Maura: How do you realistically prepare your students for a life in dance?

David: I’ve thought of teaching a Business of Dance class. The students often ask for more preparation. I’ve been teaching the Senior seminar. It’s last semester course – a catchall – dealing with advising for their senior thesis projects and the written support of it. But, it deals with realistic questions of the next phase. There was a student once who asked: “Is there a form you fill out to have your own company?” And perhaps, it was naïve to ask. But, it was a question of achieving legitimacy in dance. When you do have practicing artists sharing their experiences of working, and getting rejected from grants, that’s really candid preparation. We try to demystify it all by putting something like a grant application in front of them or attaining internships for them. We have had students interested in grad school but with our proximity to NYC and the influx of working artists here, we’ve seen them heading to major cities. We want them to leave with as much interdisciplinarity as possible. We want our dance majors to intermingle their knowledge at every turn – and not just the arts, but economics or international relations. Dance is its own discrete, incredible art form that combines abstract and literal in ways that other forms can’t but also, it exists in the world and can comment upon what is happening and can lead or follow other trends in the world. So, they’re going to make the new world once they leave college and we’re trying to prepare them for that.