Making a Name
Greg Sample is a dancer in Celine Dion's show "A New Day" at Caesars Palace Colosseum in Las Vegas. He's also a choreographer who's well on the way to serious name recognition.
Greg said, "I'm influenced by the works that I've performed in...It's the contemporary mixed with ballet. It's that 'technique meets falling off your center of gravity and then regaining it again' that interests me. Pushing limits."
Greg considers himself a contemporary dancer so it's interesting that many of his recent pieces have been choreographed for Nevada Ballet Theatre. He explained, "The trend I think right now, in a lot of companies, ballet companies especially, is that they're trying to balance their classical repertory with contemporary stuff and I want to be a part of that change and get my name out there and I know that...ballet companies are more apt to have the funding, rather than say a fledgling modern company. Not the only reason, but I'm going to send my stuff out to the companies that are known to be more contemporary as well and I might find dancers that will pick up movement a little quicker because they have that background and that training in contem-porary movement."
Switching between dance and choreography is an odd position for Greg: dancer performing someone else's steps and choreographer imagining the changes he'd make. "As a dancer you learn your own limitations. You learn to push those in your own body and you take someone else's vocabulary and try your best to be the vessel that that particular creator needs you to be. I feel like the choreographer has more stresses in some ways but also has more freedom in another way because you have creative control and that for me is a beautiful thing...You know, that's hard being a choreographer who dances for someone else because you have to step back and take those creative tendencies and just agree to whatever's coming at you."
"I love having those other bodies to create on because they can do other things that I can't do. I love seeking inspiration from a dancer. Not necessarily taking their movement, because that's a fine line that I feel a lot of choreographers walk - that they end up becoming a movement editor instead of a choreographer."
Greg's inspiration, besides the dancers themselves, is the music. "I listen to music all of the time and I'm constantly writing down and checking composers online and I'm trying to build my collection. And I have a particular folder in my computer that I call 'Choreography' and it's just music that inspired movement in my mind that I would like to go back and tackle at a later date. I'm highly inspired by the music I hear."
"I do a musical notation. Sometimes I make little rectangles that are the aerial view of the stage and just do the X's and O's and some little arrows as far as patterns, groupings...Then if there's certain pings or beats that I want to mimic and I want the audience to see that, that's like an exciting part of the music for me, and so visually I want them to feel it and see it at the same time. And I just try to in a very, very freehand way, I sketch it out on paper before I bring it into the studio."
"I also see stuff out there and I'm like, 'I know I can do that. I can do that better than that person.' Yeah, there's a bit of an ego but you have to have it. Otherwise you have no confidence and you won't get ahead. So there's that fine line of finding confidence without being cocky, and I hope that I sit on that fence and just continue to go into the right direction without falling dangerously on one side or the other."
"I will always find fault in my work because we beat ourselves up, probably way more than we should, but creators who are serious about creation are perfectionists. I can't say that I've ever achieved perfection or that I ever will, but it's the striving that will keep one going."
And winning a choreography competition is a good way to get recognition and validation, all at the same time. Greg's piece, "Their Song," chosen as one of twelve finalists (out of 125 applicants) in the McCallum Theatre's 9th Annual Choreographic Competition danced off as the Grand Prize winner with a $6,000 award.
So, as a young thirty-year-old, Greg's future looks bright. "In the arts, if you keep yourself open, I think it's a better thing than predicting where you're going to be...The telltale sign will be when my body finally says, 'Sorry buddy. This is it. Go tell other people how to move.'" Shouldn't be too tough. Success is on his side these days.