How would you describe the past 5 years?

Exciting, fulfilling, stressful.

What would you say is the most major change in your dance career, or the role of dance in your life, since you wrote the profile?

When I wrote this profile, I was splitting my time between Now Next Dance, teaching Pilates, and adjunct professor-ing, and I had just had my first child (I now have two). My main goal was for Now Next Dance to become my sole, full-time job. I achieved that a few years later. It was truly great and a little lonely. Working full-time, we were able to develop programs including after school classes, a leadership institute, more summer programming, and we reached many folks. I’m really proud of that work.

After a few years, as an organization, we reached a point where we needed to merge with another nonprofit, get absorbed by a larger organization, or do a giant fundraising push to develop more programming and really grow as an organization. Personally, I had a conundrum: I didn’t want to keep running programs, so I didn’t want to go work for an organization we would merge with, and I had begun using the NND framework (Action, Support, Curiosity, Challenge, Resilience) in all my writing, so I certainly didn’t want to lose that intellectual property.

I deeply believe in the work we’ve developed. I want folks to do it — to merge mentoring, dancing, creating, developing, teaching, emboldening — all into one messy, magical, immersive experience. I kept returning to an axiom my mentor Dr. Edith Lawrence uses: “False power holds it tight; true power gives it away.” Embodied, this is like Abby Yager’s tool when introducing Trisha Brown’s release-based philosophy. She asks students to clench a fist, then asks them to release the tension, but not relax: the hand remains in a fist, but grows three-dimensionally, taller and broader.

True power expands.

I began to wonder how it would feel to just finish the curriculum and sell it. Not to manage satellite programs, or approve who could buy it, or develop partnership agreements, but just sell the curriculum and let it live on whether people use it or modify it, or just take a few ideas. People always ask to buy the curriculum, and I realized it was time to say Yes.  I also attended a Braindance™ workshop with Anne Green Gilbert where she said (paraphrasing here): “Use this work. Go use it with students. Just please give me credit.” That spirit of generosity really resonated with me.

Working with college dancers, my top priority is blowing up the notion of what it means to be a dancer. So often college dancers have the narrowest of definitions of success (i.e. touring with an international company). While I cheer that desire, I also know there are many paths in, with, and around dance. Like the college dancer, I began to define success narrowly: 501(c)3 , full time ED position, 40% earned income, 40% individual giving, 20% grants. When I opened my definition of success, and dug into my true values and needs I realized how limited I was becoming by that definition: our work reached a small number of students; much of my fundraising was for my own salary; and I was missing opportunities to develop the work by spending time learning Quickbooks and 990 forms.

So the 501c3 is officially closing. I’m reclaiming the curriculum and am compiling 8 years of notes, timelines, checklists, emails, and to-dos into a Now Next Dance Playbook which people can purchase.

In some ways that’s a big change from 5 years ago — and in some ways it is a totally logical pivot.

I’m approaching 40, and the role of dance in my life continues to evolve. I just finished a choreographic project with my creative partner Peter V. Swendsen and several dancers with whom I’ve been collaborating for 10 years (and a few new, stunning ones), and that was both amazing and depleting.  

coldness & lightness by Ashley Thorndike/Peter Swendsen. Photo credit: Mark Hoelscher (mwhphoto.com)

My current work:

Now Next Dance Playbook

The Now Next Dance Playbook will be available by December 1. It includes the program curriculum, philosophy, checklists, protocols, planning timelines, and a how-to for creating your own version of the program. I’m really excited to begin selling the Playbook and engaging with folks on social media and in consultations as they develop their own dance mentoring programs.

Dance in Community

I’m also hard at work on a new book titled Dance in Community. Dance in Community is a visual textbook and teacher-diary designed to be used in dance teaching methods classes or as interactive text for dance educators at all levels. The book focuses on teaching dance in diverse settings and is a mix of teaching skills focused on Context (who and where you teach), Approach (how you teach), and Content (what you teach) and planning guides. The book is interspersed with glimpses into the lives of dance teaching artists teaching in a huge variety of contexts and with incredibly diverse populations.

I’m also chewing on my next professional adventure. I’ve started doing some leadership & strategy consulting, which I love as well as continuing to work in the Pilates/yoga/wellbeing sphere. So I’m trying to make some decisions about what I want my income, lifestyle, and time to look like in the next stretch of my life.

Playbook planning

What is on your calendar for the fall?

I’m cranking out the Now Next Dance Playbook, and I’m so excited about it. Anyone interested should reach out to me. (It really helps me work faster. I’m like Mike Mulligan and Mary Anne!)

I’m slowly working on Dance in Community in a more systematic research and writing process. I’m scheduling interviews, collecting resources, and creating tools. I’ll devote my Spring to organizing and writing.

I just got back from the newly formed Dance Studies Association meeting (CORD and SDHS have merged). I shared some of my work and sat on a panel giving career advice to dance PhD students.

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Related posts: 

Artist Profile #8: Ashley Thorndike-Youssef

A Modern Dancer's Guide to….Washington, DC (written by Ashley Thorndike-Youssef)

Program Spotlight: The University of Utah's Department of Modern Dance

The View From ADF: With Anne Green Gilbert

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