Banning Bouldin is the Founder and Artistic Director of the company New Dialect, based in Nashville, Tennessee. To read her full artist profile from January 2016, please click here.
From Banning: My break down for last week is below. We're performing our HEAP Project in multiple site-specific iterations throughout our 2017/2018 season, and just received word that the piece was voted Nashville's Best New Dance work in the Nashville Scene's Best of Nashville 2017!
To watch the trailer of HEAP, please click here.
Saturday, 10/14
10am- Run to the coffee shop for a black coffee and lemon chamomile tea for my husband, Kevin, and me. (We're still building the kitchen in our new house, so cooking has been a challenge this month!)
11am-12pm- Prepping volunteer materials for our afternoon HEAP Pop UP Installation
12pm-1pm- Quick gluten-free, dairy-free, sugar-free lunch with Kevin at home
1:15pm- Trying to leave the house at 1pm (I always leave home later than I mean to!)
1:30pm- Arrive at Church Street Park in Downtown Nashville and connect with New Dialect on some last minute spacing before our show
2-3pm- New Dialect gives a fantastic performance of HEAP on Church Street (literally, on the street)
3pm- Pack up costumes and set pieces and head back home
4-10pm- Unpack, work on the kitchen a bit, eat dinner, and go to bed early (I have MS, so rest is key!)
Sunday, 10/15
Sundays in general are a mix of admin work for ND, catching up on emails, laundering dancers costumes from the show yesterday, doing some housework, and this particular Sunday, 10/15, one of my dear friends came over for dinner with my favorite green curry and a bottle of sake.
Monday, 10/16
9am- I realize I'm having an MS episode, so I cancel rehearsal for the day.
10am- Get up and do my routine – make a vegetable smoothie, take an arsenal of supplements, and do my PT exercises and nerve stretches.
11am-1pm- New Dialect bookkeeping, emails, Winter Intensive registration, more emails, coordinate with the presenter of our show on 10/21, and update our website
1pm-1:30pm- Gluten-free, dairy-free, sugar-free lunch (I'm eating medicinally to keep the inflammation in my body at bay.)
1:30-3:30pm- Sketch new staging for ND's HEAP Pop Up at Plaza Mariachi and rework the soundtrack
3:30pm- Becca picks me up to take me to PT
4-5pm- PT at P3 (Heather Herod Cole is the co-chair for Dance USA's Task Force for Injury Prevention and my knight in shining armor… She's literally helped me knit my nervous system back together.)
5:30pm- Emma picks me up from P3 and we have a lovely drive back to my house
6-10pm- Dinner and lots of laughing at Between Two Ferns with Kevin (because when I'm having an MS episode, laughing with him is the best medicine)
Tuesday, 10/17
7am- Wake up
7:30am- Stop by the coffee shop on my way to PT
8am-9am- Pilates private lesson at P3 (with Dawn who is ALSO my knight in shining armor)
9:30-11:45am- Payroll, bookkeeping, catching up on ND emails, also scarf down breakfast and supplements at some point in there.
11:45am- Windship, Manon, and Agathe, the phenomenal French artists and friends who've been leading our Afro-Contemporary Community Workshops, pick me up for rehearsal so they can say goodbye to the company before heading back overseas.
12-3pm- Reworking HEAP with New Dialect for our Pop Up at Plaza Mariachi
3:30pm- Meeting with the powerhouse Director of Metro Parks and Recreation Dance Division, Kathryn Wilkening.
4pm- Kevin picks me up. We head to my favorite Green Market, the Turnip Truck, for groceries and dinner.
5pm-6:30pm- Finish up emails for the day
6:30pm- Dinner, rest, and some writing
10pm- Bedtime
Wednesday, 10/18
8am- Wake up
9am- Breakfast routine (same as Monday)
9:30- Stop by the coffeeshop on the way to PT
10am-11am- PT at P3
11:15am- Lunch meeting with Julia Marx, who leads Dance with Parkinson's at Centennial Performing Arts Studios, in preparation for our workshop with her class on 11/3.
12-3pm- Rework HEAP with New Dialect for our upcoming Pop Up
3:30pm- Kevin picks me up to take me home
4pm-6:30pm- New Dialect admin and emails, emails, emails
6:30pm- Dinner at home with Kevin
7:30-10pm- Downtime
10pm- Bedtime
Thursday, 10/19
8am- Wake up
9am-10am- Breakfast and self-PT routine
10-11:30am- New Dialect admin, bookkeeping, and data entry
11:30- Drive to Centennial Performing Arts Studios
12-3pm- Run our new iteration of HEAP and work notes. Students from Watkins College of Art visit rehearsal. We have a short discussion about creative process and site-specific performance.
3:30pm- Phone meeting with Lauren Vogelstein about our physical thinking project and using movement to experientially learn the basics of mathematics. (We're a part of her PhD research.)
4:30pm- Early dinner at home
5:30pm- Kevin drives me to Antioch (about 45 minutes from our house in Nashville)
6:30-8:30pm- Support group meeting for people suffering from chronic illness
8:30pm- Kevin picks me up to drive me home
10pm- Bedtime
Friday, 10/20
7am- Wake up, breakfast and PT routines
8:30am- Drive to Plaza Mariachi
8:45am- Meet with the Director of the Hispanic Family Foundation
9-10am- Dancers space new iteration of HEAP at Plaza Mariachi
10-11am- Coffee with New Dialect at Cafe Maderas to talk through the logistics of our workshop and performance on 10/21
11:30-12:30- Acupuncture at Nashville Healing Arts
1pm- Lunch with an old and dear friend
2pm-3pm- New Dialect admin, bookkeeping, emails, and prep meeting at 3:30pm
3:30pm- Meeting with the Director of Harpeth Hall Dance Program re: future outreach and performances at their all girls school
5:30pm- Fight rush hour to get home
6:30-7:30- Left over New Dialect admin and emails
7:30pm- Dinner
10pm- Bedtime
Saturday, 10/21
7am- Wake up, breakfast and self PT routine
8am-9:45am- Prep for workshop at Hispanic Family Foundation, pack supplies, New Dialect admin
10am- Drive to Plaza Mariachi
10:30am-12pm- Curtis, Rebecca, David, Emma, and I lead a creative process workshop based on HEAP with 20 teenagers from Hispanic Family Foundation's Baila Program
12-3pm- Break, lunch, go home, pack HEAP set pieces, costumes, and volunteer materials
3pm- Drive back to Plaza Mariachi
3:15-3:55pm- Last minute spacing and talk through of HEAP with New Dialect before the show
4-5pm- New Dialect gives another inspiring performance of HEAP
5pm-5:30pm- Pack up and load out
5:30-8pm- Dinner and drinks with the dancers
8-10pm- Rest and quality time with Kevin
10pm- Bedtime
Sunday, 10/22
Sleep. In.
Spend the day laundering costumes, cleaning house, catching up on New Dialect emails, and packing for our residency in Sewanee, Tennessee next week. (I'll be researching an ongoing project with sculptor Greg Pond that uses motion capture technology to build abstract sculptures of the dancers' movement histories AND creating a new work for the University of the South's dance program.)
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Related posts:
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Life as a Modern Dancer 
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