The Science of Dance
If you were to cross Science with Dance, the result would be something akin to Kathryn Posin, a choreographic star of quite some magnitude who successfully blends artistic whimsy with calculated exactitude. Initially trained in a mélange of modern techniques, she strayed far beyond her boundaries to take on the ballet galaxy. She likes, it seems, dissecting its complexity.
"It's a science, ballet...Just look at what the body needs to do to make it work. That part of it, the fact that it's a technical science like building a building, appeals to me." Hers is an analytical mind, and no wonder. Her father was a nuclear physicist. "He taught us about the stars and about physics and molecules and atoms, but I never went out of my way to study it...I think I rebelled against it." All evidence to the contrary.
It's true that Kathryn didn't follow
science as a career, and yet it surfaces in her approach to dance. She graduated from Bennington College and went on to get a Master of Arts in interdisciplinary multi-cultural dance from New York University. She studied composition with Louis Horst (where she said she learned discipline), Merce Cunningham (the use of chaos theory in choreography), Anna Sokolow ("you must drag it out of your soul") and Hanya Holm (perpetual motion
and stamina).
She has choreographed works for Ballet West, Netherlands Dance Theater, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, The Feld Ballet, Ballet Pacifica, the Extemporary Dance Theatre of London, the Ohio, Sacramento and Louisville Ballets and Taiwan's national company, Cloud Gate Dance Theater. Even so, no one predicted her success. "I have bow legs and hyper-extended everything and my toes are too flexible to stand in pointe shoes. So I already had a body that was so eccentric and a brain that was so eccentric that I wasn't ever a professional ballet dancer."
No, but what she was was unstoppable, an expanding universe on its own trajectory. "Martha Graham said, she said two really good things. One of them was, 'You're only in competition with yourself and the person you could become.' What she means is, when you stand in class and someone else is thinner and they're prettier, but you know you want to do it more than anything, I promise you that if you really want to do it and you really have a gift, some kind of talent, in five years she'll be married with children and out of shape and you'll be doing it. There were lots of girls who were better than me. Their feet pointed; they were prettier; they had bigger boobs and smaller hips and longer legs, and their legs were straight. And they're all married. They're all housewives. And I'm doing it. So it's not what the moment appears to be that will determine whether or not you dance; it's what you have in your heart."
"And the other thing that Martha Graham said. She said, 'Darling, if your creative fire can be put out, then it should.' In other words, if part of you really doesn't want to dance - too much work; too much competition; no money; no boyfriends; no fun; can't buy clothes because you're always buying leotards - don't do it...The only reason you should dance is because you just can't stop."
So Kathryn danced until it occurred to her that she'd rather be creating than interpreting. "I was glad when I knew I couldn't do it any more because I like the ideas in the forms and the shapes and the stories better than being it. I'd rather think it up than be it."
Taking that vision around the country, Kathryn recently restaged Nevada Ballet Theatre's production of "Scheherazade." "It's exciting and surprising to work with Nevada Ballet Theatre because they have very international dancers. Dancers from Korea, Russia, Armenia, plus America. So there's an intoxicating blend of styles and training."
It's a rich palette. "You look at the texture of the people," give them a framework and creative permission, and then make good use of the innuendo they bring to the performance. For example: Principal Yoomi Lee. "Yoomi has this kind of a mask and it's very intriguing. I was about to say, 'Can you look in his eyes more' because she was looking down, but I thought, 'For Yoomi, you don't look in his eyes.' Because Yoomi is like a mystery. It's very shifting and Eastern."
How apropos that Kathryn, modern dancer turned ballet choreographer, would be intrigued with an enigmatic look, one that suggests secrets yet to be deciphered, the fundamental driving forces of a body in motion. For Kathryn, dance is a scientific world with undiscovered realms, a place of vast mystery and celestial beauty - and a good place for unlimited exploration, both mental and physical.