In this episode, we welcome engineering major and film minor, Jessie Jia as a co-host on the show, Jessie and Chris Christensen met with assistant professor of the practice, Danielle Russo and visiting lecturer Olive Prince, to explore the many aspects of PMA's upcoming dance event. Share In / Share Out, end of semester PMA dance showcase. Share In / Share Out, is a showcase of predominantly student devised dance works, specifically featuring Cornellians in the PMA dance studio courses this semester. This compilation of projects and portfolios is a part of MOVING FORWARD, new futurism in installation, intermedia, interactive and immersive dance.
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Transcript
00:00 Music.
Chris Christensen 00:11
Hello. I'm Christopher Christensen. Welcome to Episode 63 of the PMA podcast. In this episode, we welcome engineering major and film minor, Jessie Jia as co-host on the show, Jessie and I met with assistant professor of the practice, Danielle Russo and visiting lecturer Olive Prince, to explore the many aspects of PMA's upcoming dance event. Share In / Share Out, end of semester PMA dance showcase. Share In / Share Out, is a showcase of predominantly student devised dance works, specifically featuring Cornellians in the PMA dance studio courses this semester. This compilation of projects and portfolios is a part of MOVING FORWARD, new futurism in installation, intermedia, interactive and immersive dance. Happy to have Jessie on board today, first time in the podcast studio. Welcome aboard, Jessie.
Jessie Jia 01:05
Yeah, thank you.
Chris Christensen 01:06
Yeah, absolutely.
Jessie Jia 01:07
Excited to be here
Chris Christensen 01:08
And you've worked together, yeah, collectively, all three of you?
Olive Prince 01:12
We just met yesterday.
Chris Christensen 01:14
Oh!
Danielle Russo 01:14
This is a beautiful progression.
Chris Christensen 01:16
Nice, nice. Do we want to start out with that a little bit kind of talk about what yesterday looked like and why you were present in the dance theater.
Jessie Jia 01:20
Yeah. So I was at Danielle's class yesterday, and I was mostly shooting the trailer, so I was able to see two runs of each performances of the students. And it was honestly really focusing the lights and the choreographies of the students and the last one like some sensual elements for smell, and that was like something that I've never experienced before, and it was really awesome.
Danielle Russo 01:52
Thank you. So it was fantastic to have you there, and also, I think, really productive for the students to have you there as an audience that was archiving their process and as an opportunity for them to not only feel and share space with an audience, but also to have a document for them to reflect back on as they continue to develop their work. The course is called 'Choreography for Site Specific to Immersive Dance Theater', and it's a brand new course that we've introduced to PMA this fall 2024 semester. And it is a culmination, a convergence of a lot of our dance theater and also just overall multi and interdisciplinary curriculum here at PMA. And that particular project that Jessie was present for was the culmination of their immersive module. And the project assignment was to extract from either the three little pigs or Little Red Riding Hood, and to extract a character, a scene, a element, such as a set piece or an environmental piece or a feeling, and to blow that into some sort of experiential proportion, and to create something either literal or abstract or combination of both, that could have still some sort of narrative arc, which is something that we've been studying in various capacities, but also to consider, since it's the immersive module, either passive or active or interactive spectatorship. And so this was an opportunity for also the students to have an audience. Olive was also there as a participatory audience, and they got to, like, try out some of their skills that they've built on folks who are not just themselves and each other. So it was fantastic to have that experience.
Chris Christensen 03:44
Okay, yeah, so help me, or help paint a picture of what we're looking at for this. Because I'm on the outside, I'm seeing a little bit of this.What am I trying to say here? Tell us a little bit about what Share In / Share Out is going to look like, what, the what the creation of it is, the inception of it. And also, as you described it, I noticed that Kirah had a piece that was video and audio. But then there were some other students who were going to be, they were actually going to be performing within the dance space, yes?
Danielle Russo 04:19
Absolutely.
Chris Christensen 04:19
And this is all going to be included in the concert itself, yes?
Danielle Russo 04:24
Yes. So the concert is a culmination of our curriculum, and so with that, we are still advising and guiding our students through their projects. And so it'll become a combination of both intermediate dance as well as live performance composition.
Olive Prince 04:41
Yeah. So there's four classes, Danielle's class that she just referred to. There's also the dance composition class, 'Contemporary Movement Practices and Improvisation' that are all participating and culminating into this end of year, showing and sharing. It really is about the students having an experience in the classroom throughout the semester, and then we really bring it into some sort of fruition of form that they are really helping to design and devise, and that is what we're sharing with you. So it you know, we are having some through line, but the through lines are happening through the classes, and they are all taking shape based on what the what we're bringing to them, but also what the students are craving and wanting and desiring for this performance experience. And for many students, it's a first performance experience, or maybe the only performance experience, along with people who have been dancing and training in in a variety of practices that have been dancing for most of their lives. So we'll see a see a bit of both of those.
Chris Christensen 05:53
Okay,
Jessie Jia 05:55
Um, yeah. So the showcase, as you guys, you guys all mentioned, has like, multiple works from different classes. And so, could you walk us through the main themes and styles students have explored in each of these classes?
Olive Prince 06:09
Sure, each class is different and distinct 'Contemporary Movement Practices' we have, like, had a really full technical approach to movement, in being grounded, moving in and out of the floor, moving with momentum and ease, and really, like challenging the ways in which the students can move through the space. And we we have, like committed to, like the practice of what that is for the entire semester, and we are now just layering together pieces that have developed throughout the semester, that students feel connected to, but also we're layering in ways in which the students are also making small pieces of the full piece that will come together kind of their own little signature movement expressions based off of prompts that have been given in class, and that should be, you know, that has a lot of students in it, so a really full energy contemporary piece. In 'Improvisation,' we are investigating what we call movement modes, which is a very clear physical parameters that the students are making based off a variety of prompts, but also things they're curious about. We have a duet that the students became very interested in light that just came from the space that we were making in. Like there's really beautiful light that funnels into studio 321, where we're making and we would get shadows on the floor. So they started to develop ways in which the body could respond to being in the light or out of the light, and how, how the duet form versus solo form exchanges those ideas. And it was really beautiful. And we had the chance to do it with live violin music, which I don't think we'll have for the actual performance, but they're like trying to bring that sort of aliveness to this space. Students are also investigating different themes, but really it's kind of an embodied they're all coming up with the different realities and ways of moving their body, and it's improvisational, which is a really beautiful, brave challenge that students get to perform in. And we have students who have are coming from, like a martial arts background, coming from a hip hop background, coming from a non dance background, but like, there's, there's a combined love and energy for being together and moving in the space. And 'Dance Composition' will be presenting some work. We have some things that are coming up on film and video. We have a few things that will be presented live. And they've they've started their investigation from the prompt about what does it look like to move forward, what does that mean to them? And they've all brought images, visual images, into the space that are personal and relevant to them, and that's where their work is coming from.
Chris Christensen 09:25
Okay, thank you. Question from that, so you were talking about the prompts, do the students generate the prompts? Do you generate the prompts? Is it collaborative in that way?
Danielle Russo 09:38
I think it depends per course, but I think given the general prompt for not only this semester this year, we have set a year long theme that is sort of driving our curriculum, individually but also collectively speaking, both in the fall and the spring semesters. So our--the theme that we're driving into the 2024-2025 school year is called Moving Forward. And we're sort of the subtitle to that is 'New Futurism and Installation, Intermedia, Interactive and Immersive Dance'. And in doing so, we are circling back on these themes of what does it mean to move forward in terms of what are the stages for dance, and not only in academia and in, you know, in the in the study and the practice and the also the development of new dance philosophies, methodologies, techniques, practices and experiments, but also in the very field, in and of itself, in ways that not only engage with these professional spaces of dance and theater and the performing arts, but also with skills that can apply to any field, to also to being a person in the world, to that these skills of collaboration, of choreography, which is really just a practice of organizing, of mobilizing and of storytelling. How could that be of equal substance for lifelong practices of self expression, community building, ways of collaborating, regardless of whatever major or minor program that you're coming into PMA from, which is what makes our community so rich and so beautiful and so I think, you know, we're all developing our assignment prompts individually, but we have these weekly meetings to connect and to engage and to also like inform one another about where the momentum is growing and how, not only are we seeking to support and advise and inspire students, but how they're also inspiring each other, okay? And what are the ideas that are really on their minds with this idea of, what does it mean to move forward in today's world? And also, what does it mean to move forward in our art making practices in today's world?
Chris Christensen 11:54
Okay? Thank you.
Danielle Russo 11:54
Yeah.
Jessie Jia 11:56
Yeah. Sounds like there's like, a lot of collaboration between the students, including, like, when I was seeing it, there's like, the soundtrack and the dance, and then interaction with audience and even light. So how are they able--how are the students able to, like, interact with each other and work with each other in developing their own piece?
Danielle Russo 12:18
For that particular course, the 'Choreography for Site Specific to Immersive Dance Theater,' we-- so, first of all, that course is in many ways kind of founded on the history and the excitement of interdisciplinary intermediate dance, which is uniquely how PMAs is sort of situated in that very history as well, like we are department of both live and mediated art forms. And how can this course be a space to invite students who might have more of a history with text and theater or, you know, technology? We have one particular graduate student in that space who works with AI, right? And then we have some students who have been like lifelong dance and dance makers, and so in terms of ways of engaging these different mediums, and also it's a space that can create, like an equitable point of entry for everyone. Each module is structured per week to build upon different school skills that are also founded on ways in which we already kind of exist, and kind of, you know, serve to be performers and choreographers in our everyday life, in the mundane. So we start off with, what does it mean to be present, and therefore how and what stimulates us to move, and how does that make us feel? All that, how can we expound upon that we do from responsive movement then into like, relational movement, like, how do we already flock in today's world, or divert, evade, carve new pathways? Concepts of like architecture and engineering, which is such a profound practice here at Cornell, and we have a lot of those students as well applying those skills to dance making, and also this idea of, you're not just choreographing movement, but you're crafting world making. And then that brings us into the very question that you're talking about, which is okay for that assignment that you were, that you got to be an audience to yesterday, part of it was you have to choreograph a movement, like an actual five minute movement choreography, something that is fully thought and practice and available to to really, kind of, again, be repeated, like it's, it's, I hate to use this word, but set right. It's been cooked. It's been baked, it's been experienced, right? And it's still live, but it's there. The scaffolding has been, you know, structured, and then you have to choreograph your world. So we have modules that bring in object, object, play, animating the inanimate from their sound and vocalization, and then from their dialogue with the inanimate. And as well as using those various skills from sound, sound work, time and duration, traces that you leave through time and duration, memory, recall, sensory activation through those very objects. And then we also talk about film theory. How can these very skills that you might be learning in Professor Palmer's class, such as, like, you know, setting the scene with a wide shot versus a close and like playing with proximity and distance, and you can apply that to the live space, right? And then thinking about, therefore, from there, like interaction light, lighting design, what's in and out of frame, so they start to choreograph perspective in a way to enhance their storytelling, but also in a way to also enhance the, again, the expression to which they it's on their surface that's important to them, that's vital to them, with these very themes of what it means to move forward can be abstracted and then multi layered into this, hopefully an experience that also can be, therefore more equitable and more available to also a really diverse audience. Sometimes we kind of joke about this, but sometimes with dance and contemporary dance, you know, it has, like, a reputation of being, like, esoteric and therefore inaccessible, or sort of like, you know, the idea of like, quote, unquote insider baseball. Like, understand it you have to be a part of the community, which is frustrating, because when you think about it, like body language is really the most innate ways of communicating with one another, and we all can connect on this emotional you know? Yeah, it's instinctual, right? And so how can we use those very tools, but also invite different points of entry in terms of supporting different comfort levels, different curiosities, and hold space for all of our stories through this sort of shared experiential stage. And so they're exploring that. They're finding out what works for them and also what works for each other, sharing individual feedback, collective feedback, trying it again. All right, you got that feedback. Let's try it part two. Let's try this out. Does that work? Does that not work? And then hopefully that being said is that 'Share In / Share Out' can be that experimental space, because at the end of the day, we are an educational space. So it's about trying out ideas. And we're trying to hold that again, that I that concept very sacred in terms of how to produce the evening. Is that, well, yeah, of course, it's a show. We want people that come, but it's also a sharing. It's curricular, ideas, experiments, ideas and process, and that the exchange with an audience as a part of that process, and we want to facilitate that, to allow students to have an opportunity to produce their work with lighting and with audience and with community, but that it's not about putting it up on this quote, unquote stage, but opening up the door to a shared space so that they can continue to develop their ideas and also continue to hopefully be with us in the spring semester as well, or next year when they have, like, some opportunity in their schedule, because it's really about that's that's the beauty of dance and art making and art programming in universities, is that it's a space where hopefully people can try to allow themselves to feel safe and vulnerable, to try out ways of moving, being, communicating that might not feel available in other nooks and crannies around campus.
Chris Christensen 18:28
Wow, I love all this. There's so much coming at me, and I'm like, I can't grab a hold of it. I have more questions. One of the pieces that really jumped out for me is the idea of introducing AI or leveraging AI. I'm really curious, what have these students come up with? What have speaking of prompts? Do you do happen to know, like, what sort of prompts they used and what sort of things were generated as a result?
Danielle Russo 18:52
We have in two weeks, we're working with screen. So I've been playing with different concepts of stage for the 'Site Specific Immersive Dance Theater' class and screen as site will be kind of the accumulation of the semester. So we'll be getting to that in two weeks. Okay, but the graduate student that was referring to is coming out of a PhD program in which she herself is on this multi year journey of playing with archival so we've been meeting once a week to talk about, you know, as part of her overall and ongoing research of of how can XR and AI serve dance and live performance as archival methods? And she's somebody who's coming from outside of the dance community, entering in. And we talked a lot about, you know, well, most you know, historically for dance and performance, archival has been body to body transmission, oral histories, and that that is quite important, and we don't want to lose that when you get into these virtual spaces or these virtual doubles. And then her argument, which I thought was really fantastic for me to hear, was just like, well, but also why not have this information available as well? And so she's been working with the Martha dance-- Martha Graham Dance Company based in the city, and she's in part with the Milstein program in Cornell Tech who has a relationship with the company, and she's been sitting in on rehearsals, working with the company members to put historic works through this like vector for having this virtual double to have a three, 3D kind of archival of the choreographies that otherwise are not on the record or you only have like these sort of, you know, both antiquated versus more contemporary film footage pieces, and so for her, she's been entering into this course from a very different, very scientific perspective, which I think is refreshing, because also it's good for us to be no pun intended, but put on our toes a bit and kept on our toes in terms of thinking about different ways and not being resistant to other methodologies or technologies and innovations that could either serve or the challenge is also equally productive. We had an opportunity. Michael Byrne this semester has been introduced to us from Cornell Tech, who's really a generous and fabulous energy, and you know, had a life as a professional dancer and then found his way into technology, is now the head of research of Culture and Arts and Technology at Cornell Tech, and invited Olive and I to this fantastic symposium this fall that was with Cornell Tech, NYU Tandon and CUNY, and it brought pedagogues as well as choreographers, performers, theater folks, designers, scientists, and it was with the National Science Foundation talk about, how can AI be a part of the contemporary dance performance scene, specifically in New York, which is where they were starting. This they were gathering, essentially data points to present back to the NFS, and how can and then we were like, well, yeah, how can PMA, or how can, like, you know, as we also as pedagogues, think about incorporating these very questions and also ethics into our curriculum, because many of our students are already working with this technology or thinking about it, and it's the future. So even this, with this with this concept of new futurism, like, well, here it is. Like, here we are,
Chris Christensen 22:23
Yeah, in practice,
Danielle Russo 22:24
In practice,
Chris Christensen 22:25
real time.
Danielle Russo 22:25
And so this particular graduate student is going to be doing some of utilizing and applying and playing with these, some of these very technologies with her final project, which I think will be exciting and curious and critical, and also push us to think about other ways of engaging movement, because it's not necessarily going to be her body in space moving, but ways of engaging the audience, which is also of equal substance and choreography. Like, yeah, who is the performing body? And then how are we already as a public how have we already been choreographed by things such as AI?
Jessie Jia 23:06
Okay, yeah, that's awesome. I also come from, like, a computer science background, and I'd be interested in film and all those theater things. So I'm always, like, curious to see what the future leads us to, like the combination of art and technology and all those. Yeah, so I think the next question is that I see that all of these classes are really like tight classes that interview collaborated between the faculties and guest artists and also the students. So I just wanted to ask, is there any specific moments or pieces that really stood out from your memory as, like, a faculty perspective?
Olive Prince 23:44
Yeah, that's a great question. You know, to me, especially in my improvisation class and also contemporary class, there's been, like, a beautiful community that's been developed through the practice of sharing. Through especially improvisation, there's a sense of play and experimentation that is very real to the practice of improvisation, and it's essential. And the students, they just they come out of the room like really knowing each other. They come out of the room with a sense of community and belonging that, you know is something really special about art making, and also very particular to the practice of dance, because a lot of it happens in our bodies and in those shared spaces. So for me, like the community sense, I feel like is is becoming a product that is being made in in both of these, these classes, and there's just some like, really outstanding students. So to see like for me, to have a student who starts at the beginning of the semester, who is not quite comfortable even moving in their body yet alone, moving in front of somebody else, yet alone, moving in community with people, to have them all of a sudden, evolve to like commanding the space and like choosing what they're making about, and then really investing time and energy into like figuring out what that is thematically and thematically is really profound. So it's like, it's as a teacher, it's those sort of moments, and yeah, it'll come through in the work, I hope.
Chris Christensen 25:29
I've met a few of the guests who have been here over the last couple of weeks, and it's been great. I don't normally get to cross paths with people. It seems that our timing is just right in the hallway here and there. Do you want to talk a little bit about the guests and their interaction with the students and how that's all played out. Sure.
Olive Prince 25:46
Do you want to start in?
Danielle Russo 25:47
Sure!
Olive Prince 25:48
Yeah,
Danielle Russo 25:49
Yeah. We've had a really delicious semester. It's been really fruitful, and we've been really lucky to have a very generous roster of guest artists. We've had Christopher Matthews, who's a UK-- American!-- but UK based interdisciplinary artists who whose work and whose practice has been, you know, born out of dance, and, more specifically, classical dance, which I think was a really fantastic example for some of our students who have a similar trajectory. And he presented on his body of work in a formal artist talking Q and A, followed by an improvisation jam. And Christopher works with also, you know, being a dance historian, a lot of ideas around dance history, lineage and icon, and how he incorporates that in his performative practice, as well as his history and theory practice, so also a beautiful bridge between scholarship and applied practice, which I think is really exciting for our department as well. And echoes our ethos here. I had a project in residence a few weeks ago, and was thrilled to have a really generous roster of guests, of artists, performing artists who also served as our guest. We had Jerome Javier, who is a Brazilian artist based here in the US right now, and he taught a Brazilian fusion class, which was really exciting and also echoed a lot of our history and theory courses at the same time, Kevin Shannon, who is for many years, a principal dancer with Hubbard Street Dance Chicago taught a really, really thoughtful and healthy classical ballet class, which I think is important for the forward, moving, forward trajectory of ballet in today's world, not only in academia, but also In the field. We had Kayla Farish, who was really just one of the foremost kind of exploding contemporary choreographers coming out of New York right now. And she talked about her practice in our dance history course in terms of how her work is embedded in legacy as much as it is also in futurism. And then she also being somebody who was a part of the Punchdrunk 'Sleep No More' NYC cast was in our choreography for 'Site Specific and Immersive Dance Theater' course. And she gave individual, personal feedback to student projects, which was really special. And then Alexander Anderson, who was a principal with Nederlands DansTheater taught a really beautiful contemporary dance class, and Olive was really she was the host of that, which was, I really appreciate. And the students had a lot of fun engaging with a guest in that capacity. We also were in olive welcome us into their composition course. So we got to share process, which was great. So we had process, then we had the live installation later that week so students could see from studio to quote, unquote, stage. And this past week, Ingrid Kapteyn was in residence. She just left this afternoon on a bus! And also, she is a veteran performer with Sleep No More NYC, and also was one of the stagers for Sleep No More Shanghai, as well as some other Punchdrunk productions, but she's currently the resident director of Sleep No More. And so that was a really exciting conversation around you know, what does it mean to be a performer inside of a work and like a steward of like a worker project versus that of a director and and to be also at sometimes wearing both hats, which is what the students are doing when they're in our design studio courses, their director, their dramaturg, their performer, more often than not. And they're also thinking about these other elements which are so important. And we have this, these excellent resources for here, which is like, Okay, how are you gonna light it? What? What props do you need? I'm like, emailing Tim, like, I need a couch, you know? Or what are your have?
Chris Christensen 29:46
This one? This one?
Danielle Russo 29:48
Exactly, right? No, it was a nice one. And then also, like, costumes, and just like all of the other parts of the world that are just as effective and and also help propel movement generation. And so it's been a really oh and Ryan Pliss. Ryan Pliss was also here. We have done a lot this fall. Ryan Pliss was here. Ryan is-- the story with Ryan is actually really beautiful. Ryan grew up here in Ithaca and took classes here at PMA with our predecessors as a high school student, and so reached out about, you know, wanting to heat was going to be in town for a few weeks, taught some classes, and then also took our students to Beebe Lake and did an adaptation of Merce Cunningham's 'Beach Birds' at our own Beebe lake here on campus. And we brought our improv students together along with the 'Site Specific to Immersive Dance Theater' students, and they worked together. So there was like a moment for also the students to perhaps meet some of some new folks for the first time. And it was also a little bit of a teaser for the spring semester in which the Merce Cunningham trust is going to be setting work on our students, Patricia Lent, who is part of the trusts, and the stager of the trust, lives here in Ithaca as well. So we've also been trying to really lean into not only the invitations, but the opportunities, to think about our community outside of Cornell, there's a lot of dance and dance history and dance community here in Ithaca and in central New York. And how can we engage with that too? We've gone on some field trips. We've driven
Chris Christensen 31:29
Where to?
Olive Prince 31:30
We went to Geneva, New York to see RUBBERBAND Dance. We had-
Chris Christensen 31:35 -
Did you say Geneva?
Olive Prince 31:36 -
Geneva.
Chris Christensen 31:37
Smith Opera House?
Olive Prince 31:38
Yeah, Smith Opera House.
Chris Christensen 31:39
Where's that? Oh, fantastic!
Olive Prince 31:39 -
which was beautiful. We took 10 students in a van and got to go to dinner and see a really beautiful show that integrates hip hop, contemporary and ballet techniques. And the students got the opportunity to talk with the choreographer and meet with the dancers afterwards. And you know, just there's something about like having these practical experiences in the classroom, but then to actually get to go and, like, be in a theater, or be in, you know, wherever dance is taking place, and and get to witness, witness it that that just takes things to the next level, and also it gives a really beautiful intersection and crossover amongst classes. So students don't just feel like they're in a room with five people or 10 people, and that's dance at Cornell. They get to really have conversations and, you know, create community larger than just our classroom. And Danielle also went to Manitoba. Manitoba, it's-- It's far.
Danielle Russo 31:53
It was a journey. It was over by cold spring in New York. It was the Russell Wright center. And yeah, Trisha Brown. Trisha Brown Dance Company was restaging an historic work called 'In Plain Sight'. It's a series of her site specific dances, and it was again at the beginning of the semester. So the weather was also just delectable and wonderful, and it was a really, it's a really beautiful landscape to for the students to think about again. We're like, okay, because we have a beautiful landscape here at Cornell, yeah, like, we have these wonderful, I mean, we're so lucky to have so many stages here at PMA and these really fantastic, large, oftentimes available studios to play and experiment in. But also, gosh, like there's so many gorgeous, unique nooks and crannies on campus that could also be stages, and so that it was a very exciting to see, and also sometimes to hear that like these moments. There was one particular work where the company was in a quarry on rafts, and the moment where we turned the corner and the students saw the site for the dance, you could hear the like, kind of like a little bit of a gasp in the and I was like, Yes, this is a good stuff to be like, yeah, you could do this too. We have this too. Like, want to make a dance in a pod. Let's do it, you know, so it was, we're so thrilled and so grateful that the department gave us the opportunity to take these adventures with the students. And now we have a we've got our certification to
Olive Prince 34:13 -
go anywhere.
Danielle Russo 34:14
Go anywhere with the Cornell. We're ready for anything.
Olive Prince 34:18
Yeah, and the students, the improvisation class, we got to dance at Beebe Lake. But we also did the gorges, the Cascadilla trail here, where we spent the day, when it was beautiful, making dance out there, in on the rocks, in the water, all these different ways. And it was wonderful to like bring dance outside like, you know, frequently when we're upstairs on the third floor, like, I feel like we're making these amazing things, and nobody's seeing it. Nobody knows what's happening. And one day, we were like, we should go in the lobby. Let's just like, take our whole practice in the lobby, and we wanted to plan it, but I'm not sure we have time. But we, you know, seeing people come upon us and. Um, outside was really special, you know, for the students. But I just also felt like, you know, people were like, oh, there's dancers here and, and that just feels like an important message for the Cornell community.
Chris Christensen 35:15
Yeah,
Danielle Russo 35:15
Yeah, yeah. Similarly, I want to kind of, you know, speaking of, like, community building. Last year, when Eiko Otake was here, the Fine Arts Library opened up the Mui Ho stacks. Lenore Schnellner was just so generous, and she let us come back for the fall semester with a 'Site' class. And it was just like, I was really touched by the openness to just Yes, like, Let's keep it going. And so we've just been leaning into these connections. The Johnson Museum, Serafina, who's new there, has just been opening her arms up to our courses and our students to just, yeah, can we, can this be our classroom today? And so just like Olive was saying, it's like, we're here. We keep joking about it, but we're serious, like we're like, a small but mighty cohort, and we're just really excited about getting dance out there.
Jessie Jia 36:10
That sounds awesome. How did it seems like there's, like, guest artists or like, just people walking by the lobby? How did the students perceive these like feedbacks? Or did that influence their project, in many ways,
Olive Prince 36:22
That's great. You know, I don't know how it's influencing their final project, but how it's influenced their process. It's made them braver. I mean, it's like, this isn't stuff they thought they were going to be doing at the beginning of the semester, or like their self prior to taking these classes. So it's, it's made them interested. It's made them like wanting to try new things and just courageous in what they're making.
Chris Christensen 36:49
I love seeing the joyfulness on both of your faces as you're recalling all of this or talking about it. A number of things are coming to mind, Olive when you were talking about moving to the different spaces. I'm curious, have you tried experimenting with the stairwells at all, particularly as you get closer to the sub basement, because the reverb in there is absolutely incredible, and you were talking about working with sound as well.
Olive Prince 37:13
Yeah. I mean, I haven't tried it with sound. I've had a handful of students try it with filming, because it is such a beautiful high to low or low to high perspective. And we did do a class assignment on that. So I've had people do it from a visual perspective, but not a sonic perspective. So that's good to know that that could be, that could be a fun place to go.
Chris Christensen 37:35
With the-- I can't remember when it would have been, end of last spring semester. Were you around when that happened, Danielle, there was just these. There were some singers that were there, and they just had these angelic voices. It was one of the most beautiful things I've ever heard in this building. And they just were singing in these harmonies for a good half an hour. So, yeah, you get down there, you're just sort of swimming in the reverb. So
Olive Prince 37:57
I love that.
Danielle Russo 37:58
Yeah, this building is, is quite a gem in terms of, like, there's a lot of A, it's huge and B, I feel like I'm always discovering, like, a new corner or room or resource, and so at the same time, as much as we're trying to explore outside the building, well, at least with winter now here, yeah, and there's like, a lot to to you, to explore and to unpack. And, yeah, well, we have sound next week. So you just gave me an idea. Okay, yeah.
Chris Christensen 38:34
So along those lines, thinking about sound, so you were saying that you had some violin in one of the class was that Max?
Olive Prince 38:41
Max came in. So Max has been playing live with 'Contemporary' the entire semester, which we were hoping he'd be able to do the performance with us, but he can't, unfortunately, and that would have been really special. But he also came into 'Improvisation' twice and one time we built it up in responding to sounds and making sounds, where we had a class where the sounds were coming from us, and the sounds were the dancers and the movers in our bodies, but also what we found in space. So we had a unit on that, and then he came into the mix, and we were building, you know, duets and trios and improvisational modes, and then we like layered in sound, him responding to them, and them also sort of making Sonic requests. But we all just kind of trusted him, and it was really it was really powerful, and it just elevated everything in the room. Wow. So yeah, and he also had an amplifier that day, and we, like, just took it to different places that he normally can't, doesn't go to. So it was great.
Chris Christensen 39:47
What's the plan for music or some sort of sound within the performance itself?
Danielle Russo 39:55
It depends on the--
Chris Christensen 39:58
Yeah, okay,
Danielle Russo 40:02
For the 'Immersive Dance Theatre' course, they have to plant-- really they have to produce their work in full. So sound is a part of the assignment. So they're going to have to decide. And I, from what I gather, a few of them have been really leaning into text and recorded text, and also, at times, distorting those recordings, and I think creating interesting sound scores and scapes. And I'm hoping next week, we'll also maybe kind of expand their ideas or whet their appetites for, for that but, but also, I've been trying to we, you know, oftentimes, this is the thing. I mean, I feel like when we get into certain practices or traditions of of dance, I mean, like music is a part of that, and you can't separate it. And I think that's there's an importance to that, and importance to those relationships at times, but also the opposite that can be quite interesting when you're exploring the full scope of your practice. So I've been trying to encourage some students to like, remove like, maybe start with whatever inspires you, inspires you, but also start creating some dissonance or abstraction, or maybe remove that song, but stick with the movement, and then also playing with what sounds is your movement actually creating? And then, kind of like sampling some of that, thinking about sampling soundscapes from around campus, thinking about, you know, even we have such a delicious soundscape, even just here in our location, with the gorge right next door, with the traffic right outside, with people gathering at our front doors. And so trying to also encourage folks to consider the worlds that they're living in and how to apply sounds or play with sounds or dance to and against sounds and their dance making. So I don't know we're Yeah, like Olive said, circle back. Come to the show. The students will be devising that.
Chris Christensen 42:02
Okay were there any questions that we didn't ask you today? The things that you really wanted to talk about?
Danielle Russo 42:09
I wanted to maybe plug, for lack of a better word, or well, I wanted to to embrace the fact that we're much of our year long programming of like new Futurism and dance, and the different modulations and modes and stages per se for dance and dance making is also celebrating the introduction of two new courses into our dance course offerings here at PMA. You know this Fall course being, yes, the 'Choreography for Immersive Site Specific to Immersive Dance Theater,' but also our colleague, Dr Juan Manuel Aldape Munoz, who's on leave this semester, will be returning back in the spring, and we're stoked for his introduction of 'Screen Dance,' which also feels like a really important synthesis of our overall course offerings here at PMA, we have such a large student contingency for film and filmmaking, which is so exciting and so wonderful, but screen dance, both in terms of like dance on film and the history of that, but also like the moment that we're living in. Culturally speaking, like so many of our students are engaging with dance on screen through Tiktok, through Instagram, there's, like, been this, this really beautiful, like, I don't know, explosion of social dance practice in a way that is very unique to A) the generation of students that we have in house right now, but also the power of movement in dance and and how it can help propel social practice, social conversation, storytelling, build global community. And so he has, like, a really incredible curriculum planned, and that's going to be, it's going to be first semester that we're running it. So we want to also think of like we're really embracing our whole year long programming around the support, the kind of getting the word out, if you will, of these new courses that we also feel are relevant to the times, and also kind of really dig our heels into the questions practices, and also, just like ongoing momentum of relevance for dance in the world that we're Living in both professionally, but also just as citizens of the world. And so, yeah, 'Screen Dance' is coming up in the spring, and we're thinking about also like, how can we get, like, course, collaboration amongst, you know, how can our folks in modern and classical perform in screen dances? And the same way that we're thinking about, how can we, you know, get our students to cast each other in their projects for the fall too. So, yeah, new courses that dance is growing. It's moving forward.
Chris Christensen 44:48
I was just thinking that,
Danielle Russo 44:50
Yeah, exactly.
Chris Christensen 44:52
Are either of you dancing in the performance at all? Are you involved in any way? I know that in the past, certain instructors have been involved.
Danielle Russo 45:00
I mean, if you count, you know, the choreography of schedules.
Olive Prince 45:05
I mean, you know, I'm making in in the contemporary practice, but not actually performing. You know, that's a very physical class to be part teaching, but I will not be on stage.
Chris Christensen 45:17
Just curious, just popped up in my mind.
Olive Prince 45:19
'Continued,' That will be a different show--
Chris Christensen 45:20
Okay!
Olive Prince 45:21
Just kidding.
Danielle Russo 45:22
Yeah. I see, like, you actually pick up a really beautiful point though. I feel like, on the periphery of all of our curriculum, like we're working artists and we've been dance makers, yeah, in each other's practices and rehearsals this past year, and it's been, I think it's that's at the heart of it, like we were, like, the balance of our love for our form, and what brought us to the teaching of form, and how that nourishes back and how our students nourish our own practice.
Olive Prince 45:49
Like if we're not practicing, we have nothing left to teach, right? So that's where it all comes from.
Chris Christensen 45:57
Are there specific-- are there specific things that have nourished you, from watching your students, from being involved in this process that you can kind of put a finger on and say, 'Wow, that was a surprise to me, and now I'm going to integrate that into my own.'
Olive Prince 46:13
I mean, I always love the like new ways of looking at things that any community like that you come together with and approach a different idea, an idea, you know, within a creative discipline, I just feel like is always enhanced by the people in the room, so that that always happens in teaching for me, and also, you know, I always am amazed by the students at Cornell, who are, you know, we don't have dance majors. Everybody has a different major. Everyone has a different discipline of study that they are committed to. And then they are also committed to these classes and committed, you know, a great amount of time to producing these shows. And that's, you know, because of what it like gives them and what it does for them. So that's always very inspiring.
Chris Christensen 47:02
Nice. Danielle?
Danielle Russo 47:05
I just get so excited when I when there's these really, like, landmark moments of growth, when I'm like, Oh, wow. And what's one semester, yeah, like, you know, and then, and to be able to have the opportunity to also celebrate it and point it out and be like, Wow. Like, in six weeks, yeah? Like, remember six weeks ago, right? You wouldn't be feel able to do this.
Olive Prince 47:26
And I do think that's like, a great point of, like, saying what this show is, this is just a celebration of the work that we've done this semester. Like, it is not about being like a fully, finely tuned production. It is about giving the students this opportunity to throw like real paint on the wall and and make things and experiment and be in community in that way, but just to celebrate their growth and their work over the semester.
Chris Christensen 47:52
I love these answers. Wonderful. Thank you both so much for joining us this afternoon on the podcast. Jesse, nice to have you on the podcast today.
Jessie Jia 48:02
Thank you for having me.
Olive Prince 48:04
And you'll get to see more tonight, Jesse.
Danielle Russo 48:09
You'll be our-our- yeah, watch out, we're gonna give you a role, yeah, Assistant Director. Thank you so much. Thank you.
