Photo: Bill Hebert

I’ve been living and working in Philadelphia as a professional dancer and choreographer for fifteen years. From 2000-2005 I was a member of Group Motion Dance Company. I left the company after five years so that I’d have time to focus more on my own choreographic work, but I still love dancing for other people and join pick-up projects as often as I can. I started my own company, <fidget>, with my partner Peter Price (who is a composer and video artist) in 2008, and that same year we moved into a large warehouse building where we could both live and do our work. Colleagues and friends started asking if they could rent the space for rehearsals or put on their own shows there, and before we knew it we were running a venue, and curating events regularly. In 2011 I joined a new initiative for web-based dance writing called thINKingDANCE, and this year I became the director. In addition to all of the roles I play related to dance (dancer, choreographer, curator, writer), I also teach Pilates a little bit and I have two kids, ages 4 and 8. So…my schedule is pretty complicated and no two weeks look alike. 

At the beginning of this summer we did a lot of traveling. The kids came along, and we did small performances of our work (I performed a 15-minute solo excerpt of one of my larger works, Peter did a solo lecture/performance on a musician he’s been researching, and we did some improvisations together) in Vienna, Berlin, and Poznan, Poland. In between gigs we tried to stay on top of our email from home, networked with new colleagues we were meeting, explored the cities we were visiting, and tried to take some time off at the end for a true vacation in the mountains of Switzerland. 

When we got back from our travels, there was a ton of work to catch up on! I’m going to take you through the week I got back, from Monday, July 20 through Sunday, July 26. There was very little actual dancing happening that week, but that’s the reality of many of my weeks…sometimes the life of a dancer is about doing all of the running around and catching up that supports my ability to go out and perform, rehearse, write about my work, or put together shows for myself or other people. We tried to squeeze in some catching up with friends and family after our trip, too. Here we go….

Photo: Bill Hebert

Monday, July 20: 

9am: 

My son has music camp all week, and my husband drives him back and forth, so I’m at home with the little one, Freya, and no car. I couldn’t get babysitting for this morning, so I buckle Freya in to the child seat on the back of my bike, and we ride about 3 miles to my Pilates client’s house. I teach her three mornings a week. Freya entertains herself with some games. It’s a shorter lesson than usual because of the four-year-old. 

11am: 

Pilates over, we hop back on the bike and ride all the way across town, another 5 miles, to Freya’s pediatrician. It’s just a routine shot appointment. She is brave. 

12noon: 

Back on the bike, we head towards home but stop halfway there, and I take my brave girl out for lunch. It’s her nap time and the shot made her a little grumpy so she is whiny and cold in the air conditioning (I forgot to mention that this is a 95 degree day), and she tries unsuccessfully to snooze in the booth at the restaurant. 

1:30pm: 

We get on the bike again and ride towards home, but go out of our way a little bit to meet my friend Zornitsa and her little boy at one of the public pools in our neighborhood. Zornitsa is a dancer and choreographer too, and also did a bunch of traveling earlier in the summer. We catch up a bit while our kids splash and jump into the water holding hands. 

4pm:

We ride home, chill out for a bit and get ready to make dinner. My husband and son return home, and one of our best friends, Mauri, joins us. Dinner, family time…We put the kids to bed and try to watch a movie but we are still jet lagged so we go to bed on the early side. 

Tuesday, July 21:

I have a babysitter from 9-4. <fidget> has a company manager, Lauren, who comes in about five hours per week to help with some administrative stuff like bookkeeping, grant research, scheduling, marketing, etc. 

9am-1:30pm:

Lauren and I work on follow up admin from the trip and figuring out what the most important tasks are that we need to catch up on. A lot of it revolves around planning for our fall season at our space. We sort photos and other documentation from the performances in Europe, and I try to blast through some email.

2pm:

I have a conference call with the marketing and communications team at FringeArts. FringeArts is a theater and presenting organization in Philadelphia; they also have a huge performance festival that takes place in September every year. They presented my choreography earlier this year, but this conversation is about a different project. I’m trying to set up some writing workshops as a partnership between thINKingDANCE and FringeArts, that will take place after some of the performances at the festival this year. We talk about the details of how it will work. 

3pm:

Catching up on email and taking advantage of one last hour of work time before the babysitter leaves. 

4pm:

Freya and I hop on the subway and bus and ride out to my mother-in-law’s for dinner. It’s an hour away, but public transportation makes it take twice that long. My husband and son meet us there, straight from camp. His sister and her family are down from Massachusetts and this is our only chance to see them. 

Wednesday, July 22: 

I have a babysitter from 9-3.

9am:

I bike to my Pilates client’s house. Teach for 90 minutes. She is a pianist, in her 70s. She’s pretty brilliant. We have great conversations. She also has her own studio reformer (the central piece of equipment in Pilates training), and I’m very fortunate that she lets me use it whenever I want for my own workouts. After her lesson, I do my own Pilates workout. 

12noon:

Brief stop at the grocery store. I load up my bike with as much as I can carry, which is usually enough for about 2 or 3 days worth of groceries. I’ll have to stop again on Friday. 

1pm:

Back home. Conference call with <fidget>’s agent, Damian Sinclair from AccelART. He is representing us in trying to book gigs for our current project, Dust, which is the piece that we premiered at FringeArts earlier this year. (Dust is also the piece that I was performing a solo excerpt of in Vienna, Berlin and Poznan.) Damian wants me to go over the budget with a fine-tooth comb. The project has five dancers (including me), a video artist (Peter) and a stage manager (essential since Peter and I are both performing in the work). We look at all the costs associated with traveling with a company of 7. I need to go over the budget on my own and figure out what is the absolute minimum, the “floor” for bringing this project on tour. He also wants me to update the tech rider. He’ll start promoting the work to presenters in the next month or so. I write down all my homework, but I know I won’t get to this for at least another week or so. 

2:30pm:

I head to the public pool in our neighborhood (a different one…Philly has 70+ public pools, apparently more than any other city in the states. This is saving my summer this year, as our air conditioning has been broken!). I have a bit of time for swimming and girl talk with my friend Nicole, also a local choreographer. A bit later Daniele — the babysitter, one of my best friends and yet another brilliant Philly choreographer (with a 2-year-old son of her own!) — shows up with the kids. 

4pm:

Back to my place. We get dinner started, Daniele and her son join us for dinner. 

5pm:

My son and husband arrive home. Dani and I head back to the pool with the kids while Peter puts the finishing touches on dinner. 

6pm:

Home again, dinner, bedtime, guests go home, we watch a movie and crash. 

Thursday, July 23: 

This is a big day for me — a ton of meetings and events for thINKingDANCE, and no babysitter, so my husband takes Freya with him for the day. 

8am:

Morning coffee on the porch (it’s such a treat to have a few hours to myself in the morning). I practice the guitar (my new hobby) for about 20 minutes or so, then head to my computer for some desk work.

11am:

Hop on the bike for a relatively short ride to Old City and the FringeArts building, for a press conference. The full programming for the September 2015 festival is unveiled. This is my first time at one of these as the director of thINKingDANCE, and it’s pretty cool. I feel much more prepared for the festival this year than I have in years past, and I’m excited to share all the info with our team of writers in tD. 

1pm:

Another short ride to the (recently dubbed) Loft district. I meet with the editor-in-chief of thINKingDANCE for lunch. We discuss the recent call for new writers, some fall projects, and catch up in general…we haven’t seen each other for a while. She tells me about her new sci-fi book, which she hasn’t even sent to her agent yet. I am thrilled that she agrees to send the draft to me. I love sci-fi, I love her work, and I’m a pretty good proof-reader. 

2pm:

Kirsten and I walk about 2 blocks to Vox Populi, a collectively run art gallery. We meet with the director, Bree Pickering, who tells us about a project that Vox is initiating where they are looking to bring in writers to respond to works on view in the gallery. We are all for it, and encourage her to reach out to our team of writers for some dance and body-based perspectives on the work. 

3pm:

Another short ride to center city. I hit the Barnes and Noble and try to restrain myself from wasting my entire 2 hours of free time on poring over books. I sit in the cafe and send a few emails, get some birthday shopping done for my husband, and buy two new sci-fi books for myself (definitely inspired by my meeting with Kirsten). 

5:15pm:

Quick stop at the store to pick up some food for dinner. Then rush over to El Vez, where I’m having a margarita with one of thINKingDANCE’s board members. Norma Porter Anthony founded Black Dance Magazine, she’s been on tD’s board for a few months, and it’s high time I sat down and got to know her a bit. She accepts the role of board secretary, and she tells me that she’s really excited to participate in the tD discussions on educating our writers and helping to shape and diversify content and voice on the site. 

6:30pm:

Back on my bike for the 3-mile ride home. We are having a dinner guest tonight, who’s already arrived. Peter has started the appetizers, the kids are running around, and we have great conversations, as always, with Manfred Fischbeck, the artistic director of Group Motion Dance Company (the one I danced with from 2000-2005). We love Manfred. 

9pm:

Manfred heads out, we get the kids to bed. Reading, a little guitar practice, bed. 

Friday, July 24:

8:30am:

Babysitter arrives, I bike to my Pilates client’s house. Teach 90 minutes. Workout. Grocery store. Bike home. 

Noon:

Quick lunch with Peter. We take advantage of the babysitter being there until 1pm, and have a scheduling meeting for the next week. So many logistics to work out with juggling the kids! 

1pm:

Babysitter leaves. I hang with Freya.

3pm:

Peter, Freya and I leave to see Tristan’s big show…the string camp orchestra has a culminating performance. Everyone comes…our good friend Mauri rides down with us, my parents both come, and my mother and father-in-law. We all go out to eat afterwards. It’s very warm. Tristan certainly had the biggest fan club in the audience. We are proud. 

Saturday, July 25 and Sunday, July 26: 

We’ve had such a busy week, we’ve been traveling so much, and we have so much to catch up on. Peter and I literally divide our time in half…he takes the kids from 9-1 both days so I can get some desk work done, and I take them in the afternoons. We swim a bit in the public pool, clean the house a bit on Sunday. 

——–

To read more about the Philadelphia dance scene, check out the Modern Dancer's Guide to….Philadelphia.

——————————