Student/Teacher/Performer/Admirer: A Correspondence with Ramona Kelley of Twyla Tharp Dance

Many years ago, dancer Ramona Kelley was a student of mine in a teen modern class in Berkeley, California. Over the years, it has been exciting to see her head off to college at NYU and then launch into a professional career. Ramona merges technique and joy onstage and is magical to watch. Knowing that she will come full circle and be back in Berkeley in October 2015 to perform with Twyla Tharp at Cal Performances at UC Berkeley, I thought it would be fun to correspond over a few months prior to the performances. This correspondence, shared on the blog, offers a window into the world of Twyla Tharp as well as following a young and talented dance artist based in New York City.

Ramona Kelley is originally from California, where she began her training at Berkeley Ballet Theater under the direction of Sally Streets. She is a National Foundation for the Advancement of the Arts (NFAA) scholarship award winner and she holds a BFA in Dance from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. Ramona danced the principal role "Betsy" in the North American/Japanese tour of Tharp’s “Come Fly Away.” A current member of Twyla Tharp Dance, she has also worked with Cherylyn Lavagnino Dance, Oakland Ballet Company and The Phantom of the Opera 25^th Anniversary Tour among others.

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This week from Ramona:

Tharp company class plays a big role in how we get ready for rigorous rehearsal days and performances. Many of Twyla's dancers are also incredible teachers who rotate teaching daily class. This warm up is based on a ballet class structure, with insertions of Twyla's Treefrog technique class. I find this combination very helpful in preparing for the day — ballet technique is required to execute many complex turns or rapid petit allegro sequences in the choreography, and the Treefrog exercises both help ground us and work in parallel positions. We also incorporate lots of strength building exercises, such as push-up/abdominal sequences. When Al Brady (our incredible company manager and longtime dancer) teaches, he uses the (long!) time we spend holding a plank position to tell jokes — the combination of laughing while holding the tough pose is hilarious and extra challenging. I love our company classes because everyone works incredibly hard! We are all constantly pushing each other to get stronger, jump higher, build our endurance — this warm up is not a passive one!

The two works we are rehearsing for our upcoming tour have a bit of everything in the movement range. In certain sections of the new piece I never stop jumping/bouncing around, and maintaining the stamina required is always one of my first challenges. There are also complicated turns four of us must execute in unison — we need to change positions three times while rotating and land in a controlled plié on the standing leg with the working leg still in coupe. This is hard enough to accomplish smoothly as is — let alone with three other people!

I think one of the toughest things about Twyla's choreography is also something that makes it so interesting for the audience — we as dancers have to change our rhythms and movement quality in an instant. For example, at the end of one of the new pieces (when we are exhausted and dripping with sweat), my partner Dan Baker and I have a section that begins with loose, jazzy jumps almost like swing dancing, and we go right into a technical lift in which he basically throws me above his head. We can't let the loose movement preceding this lift bleed into the throw — we both need complete control and precision in the highest point and the descent to the ground or I will go flying and fall dangerously to the ground. Luckily Dan is a superb partner! I always feel safe getting tossed around by him, or any other of our incredibly strong and skilled men.

The challenge of daily rehearsals is made engaging and fun by the amazing group of dancers I work with. Not only are they incredibly talented and inspiring, they are all kind and generous. We get along very well as a company and love spending time with each other outside of the studio. The bond we all share will make for a great touring company.

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