Author: mceste

I grew up in a small town in Connecticut where it was impossible for me to get lost. In a place where 95.7 percent of the population is Caucasian, Asian stands out in a crowd. My school, my dance studio, my friends all reflected that demographic. As a result, I was my differences. My black hair, my dark skin, my almond-shaped eyes defined me. And from a young age, they defined who I portrayed onstage. The first featured role I ever got was in The King and I.  I played the Spanish dancer in my dance studio’s Nutcracker. The next year, I was an Arabian princess. When we did Swan Lake, I played the black swan, not the white one. The list goes on.

The performing arts world I knew growing up was an isolating one. I believed I was always going to be the one that was not like the others. I was always going to play “exotic,” or I was going to be at the keyboard by myself. On top of that, there was a belief in my house that the arts were not a career. Both my parents grew up in the Philippines. My mom and dad immigrated to America to give their children a better life. They come from a culture where a career in the arts is virtually unheard of and essentially impossible. To them, the idea that their child might grow up to be an artist was so far-fetched it was almost absurd.

I was sixteen when I was accepted to the summer program at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre in New York City. My life changed entirely. It was my first experience living entirely on my own. My first experience living in a big city. My first experience immersed in an arts community made up primarily of people of color. For the first time, I was surrounded by other artists who looked like me — artists that were my peers, my teachers, my mentors. I was actually a bit invisible. I had to work to be seen in a sea of brilliant artists, amazing story-tellers, incredible humans. For the first time, I felt what it meant to really be lost in a crowd of people. That freed me.

I was going to be a dancer. I craved my parent’s approval. I wanted to excel at everything I did because I didn’t want to let them down. I imagined myself as a doctor, a lawyer, a diplomat, a marine biologist, because I knew my mom and dad had moved across the world, away from their moms and their dads and their sisters and brothers and cousins so that I could have a better life. I have always wanted to make their hard work worth it. I have always wanted to make them proud.

Comprehension is the key to pride. My parents could not comprehend why I would want to be a dancer when I could be something else that pays better and more consistently. They could not comprehend how being a dancer could be sustainable, how being a dancer required using my brain, how I was not throwing away those years of hard work they both put into raising me. Even in a well-developed country with a vibrant arts scene, the arts are treated like a frivolity. It’s the only mindset my family has really known. My parents could not be proud of me because they could not comprehend the arts. They could not comprehend me.

I wanted to become a dancer for selfish reasons. My life was already a performing art. For most of my life, I didn’t need to be on a stage for people to stare. But I wanted people to look at me the way I looked at those dancers at the Ailey School — I wanted to command space and time and respect because of what I did, not because of what I was. I wanted to be strong and fierce. Elegant. Sensual. Beautiful. Intensely smart and incredibly generous.

I’ve come to realize, however, the pursuit of dance or any art form cannot be a selfish one, especially for a person of color. There’s a responsibility that comes with inviting people to look at you, to look at your body. At its simplest, that’s what watching dance is. Watching bodies. What they do, what they create, what they say. As dancers, we are inextricably tied to our bodies. We are what we do, what we create, what we say. We are what makes us different.

I can list every time a person of color has impacted my dance career, a timeline of every time I’ve seen or heard someone who looked like me. A little notch in the line every time my life has taken a different direction. Every time my views on dance and art and life have changed. I can list those moments because they stick with me, they define me. Pursuing dance means I might define other people’s timelines, other young Filipino girls and boys that grew up knowing themselves only as the kid with dark eyes and jet black hair.

There’s an importance, then, that’s inherent in the way I move now and in the future. I would be lying if I said I could even begin to comprehend what that responsibility might mean. But the beauty in art is that comprehension isn’t the goal. It’s just the beginning.    

This week, the Dance Department moves into the theater as tech rehearsals for our annual Power Center show begin. These next two weeks are a time of intense rehearsals, long days, and tons of homework. Moving into the theater, though, makes everything worth it. Here’s why:

1. Feeling like a diva. It’s such a rewarding feeling when we first sit down in our assigned dressing rooms, one lightbulb lined vanity mirror per person. Seeing our names laminated and taped against the glass, switching the lights on so that they illuminate our faces. Even if it’s just for a couple weeks, getting to sit in front of those mirrors is so incredibly validating. Getting ready for the show is almost as fun as performing itself!
2. Spending hours in the theater. Technical rehearsals and cue to cue can be long and tedious, but each moment spent in the theater on the stage is a blessing. Standing at the front of the stage, looking out into an empty house, imagining the performance nights ahead. There’s something magical about just standing onstage, something that is irreplaceable.
3. Getting to hang out with your cast for hours. Because our department is so small, we are all pretty close. However, during Power tech week, we spend so much time together between technique class, rehearsal, warm-up class, getting ready for the show, and performing that it’s basically a two-week sleepover with your favorite people.
4. What we work all semester for. Even if the dance is one that we’ve rehearsed countless times, doing it in front of a sold-out house makes every movement new again. The energy is higher, each gesture more precise, the intention more clear. The high that comes from audience applause and self-pride is one that cannot be reproduced.
5. Knowing that you’ve improved. Each show comes with its own set of distinct challenges and responsibilities, and each show pushes every performer to discover something new within themselves. The knowledge that after you’ve closed a show, you’ve pushed yourself to a new place in your dancing is priceless.

At first glance, the University of Michigan’s Department of Dance seems to be nothing more than a nondescript building. Tucked away in a small, semi-residential cul-de-sac in a corner of campus, our building’s brick façade is marked only by a small bulletin board and an even smaller blue sign. Our department spans just one hallway, peppered by open doors and illuminated by florescent lights, leading the way to each of our four studios.

That hallway is home.

At any given time, there are students talking, snacking, napping, or working before class and between rehearsals. Faces that are more than familiar: they are family. Faces that have seen you at your very worst, covered in sweat and tears and occasionally blood.  Faces that have seen you under pounds of stage make up and none at all, faces that have seen you succeed and fall flat on your back. Faces that change the way you dance, the way you think, the way you live your life.

The way the carpet feels under your socked feet beings to feel familiar. The way the space between the walls fills to the bring and empties again like clock work. The way you feel when you leave for the summer, the way you feel when you walk back through the doors at the beginning of each year. Dancing in college means finding a home.

To say that I was unprepared to be a dance major when I arrived on campus freshman year is a gross understatement. At surface-level, a dance major dancers. I was expecting hours and hours spent in class and late night rehearsals. I knew my muscles were going to be so sore it was hard to climb up the stairs to my dorm room. I anticipated blisters and bruises and bleeding.

I was not prepared to fall in love with the community I was fortunate enough to find in my small 16 person class. I didn’t realize the extent to which I would be inspired each and every day by their work ethic, imagination, and virtuosity. I did not expect to find a family, one that was made just for me.

As with any family, we are incredibly dysfunctional. We laugh as well as cry, fight for each other just as we fight with one another. And yet, we are inextricably joined together by a single hallway, and a single passion.

Recently, as I was sitting on the bus on the way to my next class, I overheard two students talking. They had just come out of an introductory level non-majors dance class, and were speculating about what a day in the life of a dance major might look like.

“I bet they never have homework.”

“Yeah, and I bet they start at, like, noon.”

“I wonder if they even need that many credits to graduate.”

“What do you think they even do after college? Will they just, like, not make money?”

I was taken aback. I will admit that as a dance major, the majority of my friends are other artists within the School of Music, Theater, and Dance, and, as a by-product, I am surrounded by their ideas of art all the time. However, this conversation caught me by surprise. While the role of art and artists in society are generally misconstrued and misunderstood, there is no question: being an artist is a job. A real, legitimate, challenging job, just as being a banker, or a doctor, or a teacher is a real, legitimate, and challenging job. Similarly, being a student in art school is just as challenging, sleep-depriving, and difficult as being a student studying liberal arts or science.

Many of us are pursuing second degrees or minors. Many of us juggle full credit-loads on top of rehearsals, performances, and crew hours. Many, if not the majority of us, have stayed up into the early mornings to finish papers, lab reports, and readings.

I could talk for a long time about the legitimacy and difficulty of completing a dance major. I could talk about the fourteen hour days and the weekend rehearsals; the running across campus to make it to class and the dance clothes that I wear underneath my clothes at all times. However, the larger issue at hand is this: artist are people too. The arts is a viable career field. What we do is not easy, and what we do deserves the same respect as any other job.

I do not say these things as a criticism of the two intro students; I am sure they were legitimately curious and unknowing. However, the importance of continuing to educate the general public as a means to change how society views the arts is incredible. This is 2018. The year that the arts start to be recognized for what they are: essential.

There has been an outpouring of sexual harassment and assault claims in the media from women across generations against men of all races, careers, and ages.  Some of the most talked about have been against men in all genres in the arts: Louis C.K., Matt Lauer, Peter Martins. These men have been put under investigation, removed from their positions, and in some cases, fired completely. After they are gone, however, a question stands: should their art remain?

Can an artist and performer really be considered separately from his or her body of work? In my own personal experience as a performing artist, I have found that every project I work on has a little piece of myself in it, even if I am portraying a character with an entirely different personality. If this assumption is true, that a piece of art has at least a small part of an artist, then does art made by people who have been found guilty of sexual harassment and assault deserve to be easily accessible and shown?

One might say that what these men have done in their own personal lives does not reflect their work. It is true that each of these men and other accused have contributed a great deal to each of their fields respectively as well as the arts world as a whole. The argument could be made, then, that their art is still important, regardless of what the artist did. Their art deserves to be seen and heard and listened to because it is a stand-alone entity in of itself.  And what of the other people that might have been involved in the work—in removing, say, one of Louis C.K.’s movies from a popular streaming database, the goal of not supporting a sexual predator would be achieved, but at the cost of other artists whose work was also important in the movie.

On the other hand, it could be considered impossible to separate the artist from the art: how do you tell the difference between the dancer and the dance, the actor and the monologue, the musician and the music? In allowing art by men who have admitted to or found guilty of sexual harassment and assault, the message that these men’s voices still deserve to be heard through their work. The arts are a universal language, and one that should be utilized as such. But is it worth it to let an already loud voice perpetuate the arts world at the cost of silencing other voices out of fear, shame, or sheer volume? Or should the arts be a vehicle for quiet voices to finally be heard?

The role of an accompanist in a dance class can often seem to be a confusing one. Music is an integral part of almost any form of dance, and so the person or people creating that music must also be of importance. However, many accompanists are tucked away into a corner of the room, hidden behind a piano or drums. It can become easy to realize that they are as much a part of a dance class as the dancers themselves—they just aren’t dancing.

I began playing piano before I started dancing and grew up taking lessons at the University of Hartford, and decided last year to start training to become an accompanist myself. My time spent learning how to accompany dance classes has given me a whole new perspective on an art form that I spend every day immersed in.

As a dance major, I take dance technique classes daily, each with a live accompanist. Forming a relationship with the real, living, breathing person playing music for class is often passed over. Dancers take music and, oftentimes, the musicians that create that music, for granted. Recognizing the wealth of knowledge that each accompanist has about his or her art form as well as my own has opened my eyes to many new ideas. Often times, accompanists need to have a deep understanding of dance in order to play for it—they are a constant student, collaborator, and teacher in the dance classroom. Imagine having to learn how to understand playing an instrument just by sitting and watching day after day. That’s how an accompanist learns about dance.

My experience as an accompanist has been challenging, albeit exciting. I had to learn how to improvise to fit each exercise as the teacher gives it. Picking up movement and details quickly is a necessary skill for any dancer, and having to translate those details into a sound score appropriate for each combination has greatly helped my ability to pick up details in rhythm and musical phrasing. It has also helped me become very comfortable thinking of and trusting my artistic instincts and ideas. Having to constantly confront my improvisational habits has also pushed me to expand my musical and movement vocabularies.
Most importantly, my experience in accompanying dance classes has taught me how to not fear failure. In an environment in which you’re required to think on your feet, play something that fills the room, and set the mood of the exercise, there’s not a lot of room for second guessing. Sometimes, oftentimes for me at least, musical ideas don’t pan out the way you thought they would. Learning to accompany classes has allowed me to fail—and to pick myself up, start again, and succeed.