The Importance of the Journey: Randy Duncan’s Tips on Teaching and Choreographing
At the heart of master teacher and choreographer Randy Duncan’s work is a journey and a story. This idea informs everything, from how he teaches technique to his award-winning choreography.
“When you tell a story to a child,” he explains, “the child listens to every word. Take ‘Little Red Riding Hood.’ If you don’t describe the whole journey to Grandma’s house, the child will have questions: ‘How did she get there? What happened on the way?’” Dance is the same. “You have to take us on your journey. I don’t want to see the ends of the movement. So a leg kicks up or you can turn five times. I need to know how you got there, what the movement means within the choreography. I need to know where the foot is going in a tendu, to see how you’re getting there,” says Duncan.
Duncan grew up in Chicago’s far West Side, Austin neighborhood. A historically rough neighborhood, his path to dance was not laid out for him. “It’s not a place that you would think someone would come out of who choreographs for the Joffery ballet,” he says with a laugh.
The choreographer of the teen favorite movie, “Save the Last Dance” starring Julia Stiles (nominated for an American Choreography Award for dance on film), Duncan was always interested in movement. He loved old dance movies and stars—“West Side Story,” Shirley Temple, Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly, and Public Broadcasting dance specials. With no gymnastics or dance program in the 5,000-student Austin high school, he joined the cheerleading squad. Early dance training with Geraldine Johnson and at the Sammy Dyer School of Theater led Duncan, at age 15, to join the Joseph Holmes Dance Theatre. He credits Holmes and company associate director Harriet Ross with much of his inspiration.
Holmes handpicked Duncan to be his successor as artistic director of his company, a position Duncan held for seven years. Duncan has won numerous awards including three Ruth Page Awards for Outstanding Choreographer of the Year. His many musical theater credits include, most recently, choreography for the 2009 Pulitzer winner “Ruined” by Lynn Nottage.
For the past 15 years, Duncan has taught his mix of Horton, Graham, ballet, jazz and African. He has shared years of accumulated wisdom, as faculty and now dance chair at the Chicago Academy of the Arts high school, as well as in master classes around the world. On a warm August morning, Duncan shared his ideas about teaching, performing and choreography, in a conversation that ranged from politics to the beauties of his home city.
Q. Do you have a specific teaching philosophy? A: Teachers need a passion for teaching. They should coach dancers, helping them connect to the movement, to understand the meaning behind what they’re doing. It’s not just about the steps; it’s about the journey, about going from A-B-C. Take us some place. Structure and technique are important, of course, but they’re only the beginning—a catalyst for where students need to go artistically. Dancing pretty—being able to kick your legs up—is important, but students also need to bring it from the inside out.
There is a part of a professional dancer called “artist” that cannot be taught. It is something that is within oneself, an ability to express yourself through an art form. As a teacher, it helps if you’ve lived the life of the professional dancer. To know dance from its insides, to starve living as a gypsy trying to find that job that keeps you dancing, discovering that dance is truly what I’m put here to do—that intensity is something teachers need to get [across to students].
And I think for good teachers, teaching is their passion, what they’re here for. They understand the form from the inside. It’s not just a job.
Q. Do you have any secrets that you think have made you a better teacher?
A: I’ve stopped calling them steps; it’s about movement. I introduce the idea of the journey. To me, that’s what dance is. It’s not a series of steps; it’s everything in-between. Dance has to breathe and live. Even when you’re standing still there should be energy, something going on so when you’re ready to go, you’re there, not getting ready.
I’ll use anything to get dancers to move the way I want them to. I use musical notes. For example—I’ve given a whole note, four counts—to come from a rounded position to standing and [sometimes they’re] up and holding on [count] two. I tell students, “If you were an orchestra, and you are the flute and this person is the violin, and you both are to fill out whole notes and one of you stops moving before [count] four, you mess up the composition. I need you to complete the entire phrase, complete it all the way before moving on to the next thing.”
Q. What inspires you when conceiving a new dance work?
A: I’m inspired by trains running, watching birds. Mostly my work has to do with people, and relationships—hate, anger, tears; looking at people in my life who are having challenges; talking to people I don’t know and finding out about their lives. Many people say, “I can’t believe I’m telling you this!” I’m very curious and really interested in why people do what they do.
Q. How do you begin? What is your approach to making work?
A: I get scenes in my head. I generally know how I’m going to start and finish. Then I dig into my vocabulary. Once I start, the movement just comes up like water out of a faucet, one after the other, like a sculptor molds clay. That’s how I work. I use dancers as a paintbrush.
Q. What advice do you give aspiring choreographers?
A: You don’t really teach choreography, it is something that is there inside of you; it’s you expressing your desires. If you feel you have something to say you need to get it out there; you need to play around in the studio, get the work onstage.
That’s where coaching comes in. When I see there is an anointed young choreographer, I offer comments and try to help the student focus on what they’re trying to say. I say, “Make sure you have a beginning, a middle, and an end.” I tell them to see their work as storytelling and take a journey.
There are skills: Pick a meaningful point on the stage to start, make sure you cover the stage, put in a leap or turn. Make sure your choices express your theme. If you’re stuck in a box and you can barely move, you want to express that using one little area letting us know you’re constrained and restrained. Contrast is important.
And you don’t want the audience bored and scratching their head; you want them to understand your content. If the audience can’t understand, they feel stupid [and] that’s a choreographer’s failure. It means you didn’t give them the information they need.
Q. You are also an activist. How does this impact your work, your life?
A: This is the 18th year we’ve produced Dance for Life. Dancers give their time and talent to an evening that benefits people living in the dance community with HIV/AIDS. It’s always a Saturday in August when companies are just coming back to their regular routine. The Joffery, Gus Giordano, River North and a few others, including a freelance dance artist, always present a piece from their repertory. I create a primer work to end the evening incorporating dancers from each company. It’s always sold out.
Q. You could have had a dance career anywhere but you chose to stay in Chicago.
A: In summer 1977, I went to New York for the first time to study at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center. It was my first time on a plane. New York then—I couldn’t believe how dirty it was, and the smell in the summer, the subways, rats—I didn’t want to be outside. I was ready to go home after the first week. The studio saved me. I stayed in the Ailey school and took five classes a day; Alvin told me to take as many classes as I wanted. I loved it, to be among those dancers from all over the world was amazing, but I was miserable coming out of the studio. New York is too congested; LA too spread out and superficial; I wasn’t happy anywhere else than Chicago. It’s central, I can easily fly anywhere for work. It has a wonderful arts community. And it’s a beautiful, comfortable city. I want Chicago to be a viable city for dancers.
Q. Clearly dance is your passion.
A: Dance is like chocolate; some folks can’t live without it. The feeling you get when you taste chocolate is like none other; it’s so scrumptious. If you don’t have that feeling, you’re not going to be in the business long. There’s a constant craving, it just oozes out of dancers who have that incredible passion and artistry. I could not see myself not choreographing. It’s a blessing to see the work being performed—watching what’s been in your head come out on stage. I’ve been blessed to be able to dance and choreograph in my life.
For more information on Duncan, visit www.duncandance.com.