Pointe Magazine:
Company Life: Don’t Get Cut!
Theresa Ruth Howard dancing with Armitage Gone! Dance
Photo by Julieta Cervantes
I remember it clearly: I was 8 years old, on the way to audition for Dance Theatre of Harlem’s two-week engagement of Doin’ It. While pulling on my tights in the back seat, to my complete horror, I discovered an inch-wide run on the upper thigh.
For 188 of the 200 children who tried out, the audition ended in heartbreak. Yet despite my holey tights, I made the cut. Oddly, I wasn’t nervous that morning. It may well have been one of the last times that pinning on a number didn’t fill me with anxiety.
As dancers, we train to dance, not to audition. You worry about the height of your leg, your weight and how many turns you do. But you seldom think about your “energy” or authenticity as a person. Yet years later, when I helped run auditions for Karole Armitage, I learned that these elements are what make you stand out in a sea of bodies.
Let me let you in on a dirty secret: So you think you can dance and that is what it’s about; well, it is, but that’s not all it’s about. While I wasn’t stunned by the politics behind the table, what surprised me was how many of the deciding factors had nothing to do with the dancing. You’d be shocked at what gets discussed in those hush-hush huddles. There is the girl who, despite the “general” comment to stop looking in the mirror, keeps peeking at herself. Then there’s the guy who thinks he has an “in” because he knows someone in the company, but forgot that the last time they worked together he got fired for partying too hard.
T’ruth, thanks for the cut tips:) I’m with you, my eye usually gravitates to the intelligent dancer, the one who can be seen working out the details of the combination, figuring out how their particular body can correctly process the information and shows improvement each time they execute the combination. My eye also gravitates toward the dancer who is (in their own way) already attempting to perform a combination or section of choreography; that’s a great way to see their personalities. I’m just sayin’
Linda-D
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