Peter is the Artistic Director of Peter DiMuro/Public Displays of Motion and the Executive Artistic Director of The Dance Complex. Recent commissions have included a 21st century take on  Aaron Copland's "Rodeo," with permission granted by the Copland estate, and dances for Commonwealth Shakespeare Company's production of "Romeo and Juliet." Peter will be the 2018 Choreographer in Residence at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. 

Monday, October 23

10am:

I am headed home from Chicago, where I was taking part in Elevate Chicago Dance. There were 40 performances over 3 days! Twelve of these artists were part of a New England Foundation for the Arts’ RDDI – Regional Dance Development Initiative – a project brought in by Elevate’s organizer, Chicago Dancemakers’ Forum, and for which I was one of the faculty. So, good to see a grand ending to that chapter…it’s hard to feel that things really have strong endings and beginnings in our dance world. 

10:30am:

Get text with a pic from Colleen, who subbed my movement class I teach for Opera Students at New England Conservatory. She taught them an energetic Afro-centric phrase, and the video is very sweet!

3pm:

Hit Boston, erase and deal with emails on the shuttle, drop off the luggage and head to the site of a site specific tour my company is developing as a part of a festival called Illuminus – where several video and projection installations have been curated/commissioned – and will be held in Boston’s Downtown Crossing, a historic site near where the original Filene’s Basement existed (way before TJ Maxx was born!). Kara (rehearsal director) and Michael (administrator), and I navigate a new route based on our meeting with the organizers.  

6:30pm:

I have a Johnny Walker. Deal with emails. Yes, I now and again believe I have turned into my father.

8:00pm:

Bed early.

Tuesday October 24

8am:

I mistake arthritis cream for a tube of toothpaste, and almost brush my teeth with it. I make note to buy a new toothbrush. I do laundry. I do emails on the phone on the train to work.

10am:

I have mismarked the new staff meeting time (at The Dance Complex), so while on time for that, I am late for a check in with our programs manager. We talk immediate and 12 month out needs – a milestone for us to think that far ahead.

11:30am:

Staff meeting is in its second hour, and I wonder if we are accomplishing things the best way. Can we focus after 60 minutes? We spend time discussing an upset studio renter/teaching artist – and someone says we need to remember the 50 or so very happy campers, not just the bombast we are sometimes dealt. 

12 noon:

I sign a few hundred letters asking for support for our year-end appeal.

1pm:

I rework the hour-long dance tour for the Illuminus Festival and then get interrupted by a call and forget to send it to the organizers.

1:45pm:

I catch up with emails.

3:00pm:

I talk with one of our consultants, in preparation for our board meeting tomorrow night.

3:15pm:

I design two posters for upcoming shows, using a template we’ve developed for the Fall into Winter Series…and then send them off for proofing.

5:00pm:

A call for an upcoming gathering of cultural organizations that present dance, that is being held for a group of us here in New England; I am helping to think through some of the content in my dual role as “artist” and “presenter."

6:30pm:

More emails and then leave work, forgetting again to send the Illuminus tour route to organizers.

7:00pm:

Make it home. Watch Property Brothers.

8:00pm:

Review finalists who’ve responded to our proposal's request for a new website design for the Complex. 

11:00pm:

One last pass at emails.

Wednesday, October 25 

9am: 

I teach my opera grad students at New England Conservatory – a 50  minute movement class. My colleague Colleen has subbed in while I was away – and they loved her. I have an a-ha moment when they tell me she had them improvise using the letters of their names and I see the kid-like joy they have executing these little studies. 

10am – 5pm:

Emails

Phone calls

Phone calls 

Emails

Prepare for Board Meeting

A cherished employee lets me know she has gotten another job – a full time job in design/graphics, which she had been seeking. She will need to leave in just under two weeks. 

I meet with our general manager to re-arrange coverage for the departing employee’s responsibilities, sketch a job description, set a plan to let others know and ask their help in absorbing tasks.

Make a detailed communications/development timeline for staff and board to come together on our end of year giving campaign, conscious I need to “translate” for different eyes/ears.

5pm:

Short break before board meeting. I take a walk around the building and outside.

6pm:

Board meeting: we discuss new website, end of year campaign, board recruitment, and chair/leadership transitions. We discuss the need to be a bigger board.

9pm:

I sing at a Broadway Hump Day at a piano bar. I do this from time to time now (after not singing in public for 25 years after leaving college) as a replacement for having more movement/performance in my life to balance a day like today. It keeps me a little nervous, a little on the edge, and yes, even if I suck, I get a round of applause.

Thursday, October 26

Am:

I work from home, where it is quiet. With 7 studios at work – with oft-times clashing sounds (flamenco music, drumming, classical ballet and modern all at the same time, the building hums and jumps on its own).

I run errands. Get my haircut. Try to squeeze in a meeting with my liaison at Boston Center for the Arts, where my own company is in residence. She has to cancel, and I use the moment to just have some downtime.

Do emails.

Afternoon:

Finish some graphics for upcoming shows

Do emails

Choose a website designer after checking references

Get a contract sent for a residency I will gladly participate in next year at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. I have spent too much time at the screen, so print it out in the hopes that I really absorb it before signing it. 

Michael (dancer with PDM and admin helper) and I navigate a box office form for December shows we’re sharing with The Bang Group. 

Try to schedule meetings for upcoming weeks to tidy up loose ends on our strategic plan, create verbiage about a special fund created in honor of a dancer killed as she was walking on her way to the gym one morning; start more graphics, this time for PDM for a regional gathering happening next week. 

6:00pm:

Break out champagne with some of our CATALYSTS artists (artists in residence) as we gather for the first time together, with one missing, one Face-Timing, and two late due to a funeral. Hip Hop, tap, modern, along with new music, text will be used in different combinations to create the works that will premier in January for a 3 week run in our theatre. I get excited at the prospect of all the “new” we are helping to create!

8pm:

Meet a friend for dinner. We pat each other on the back. I get to hear about non-dance stuff.

Friday, October 27

9am:

Teach my opera students

11am:

Visit the Pilobolus master class that’s midway through in Studio 1 at the Complex.

Noon:

Thank folks for coming to the class at the end of it; encourage repeat visits to our building. Snag someone for our new Advisory Council after a chance meeting.

1pm:

Prepare for our later rehearsal outdoors with Kara

Talk on the phone with Ballet Trocadero, about upcoming consulting I will do

More emails, more graphics

4pm:

Quick trip home to turn around to go to rehearsal onsite in downtown Boston

6pm:

Onsite rehearsal with 12 community members to acquaint them with the route for the tour next week for Illuminus. Kara keeps them going as I have to leave to get to the theatre.

7:30pm:

Curtain for Pilobolus at Celebrity Series.

9:30pm:

I lead a post show discussion with the Pils.

10:15pm:

 A date with Johnny Walker

Saturday, October 28

A no alarm morning.

10am:

Emails

11am:

Take a nap

1:00pm:

Head to work; shuttle buses replace trains on the subway, and I am delayed by 45 minutes; erase emails on my phone – easiest on my phone with a swipe!

2:15pm:

Stop into a rehearsal of a junior repertory company of the School of Classical Ballet, who resided at The Dance Complex but are performing in next week’s site dances to accompany Illuminus, as well as in our cabaret version of “Funny Uncles” (our alternative family Nutcracker) in December. Lonnie and Natalia are cleaning movment with the dancers, all ages 12- 15 or so. They are delightful. I encourage them that it is ok to let their hips go. And smile.…Lonnie and Natalia go much deeper than I do.

3:00pm:

Roll a shopping cart with a portable speaker/mic down the steps, get in a cab and head to downtown Boston for rehearsal on site. We get a taste of the folderol that will happen the evenings of these dance tours: one guy wants us to do Thriller, and then swears up and down the street when we can’t oblige. 

4:30pm:

First community group rehearses, then joined by my company, Public Displays of Motion. I stay til last possible minute, but then head to Cambridge to see our “Route 95 Dances," with artists from Salem down to New Haven involved. It is a good show. Attendance could be better. 

9:20pm:

I leave the Complex and go to dinner. It included carbohydrates. No Johnny W.

Sunday, October 30

9am:

Second no alarm day in a row! I will get spoiled. Grey day. I re-write the tour for the show this week from bed,  and learn to trust Google Docs – or learning to trust myself that I will find it on Google Docs.

1pm:

Brunch

2pm:

Tidy the calendar for the week; finish some of what is started on email, in graphics. Try to think long term and keep getting caught in minutiae. 

5pm: 

Head to work, to introduce the show – second “Route 95."

7pm:

Curtain. I welcome people. I celebrate the fact they’re here. I ask for their support…and I mean money. 

8:15pm:

Heading home. Early night. Graham Norton reruns. Maybe Johnny Walker.

—-

Related posts:

Artist Profile: Peter DiMuro (Artist Profile #53)

A Modern Dancer's Guide to….Boston (by Peter DiMuro and Audrey MacLean)

My Dance Week: Marya Warshaw, Founding/Executive Director of Brooklyn Arts Exchange

Blog Series: Becoming an Arts Administrator

————————