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DAY IN THE LIFE OF DANCE: Gloria McLean on the 2024 American Dance Guild Festival and Her Dance History
By Christine Jowers/Follow @cmmjowers on Instagram
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Published on February 19, 2024
Gloria McLean. Photos courtesy of the artist
The American Dance Guild Performance Festival Presents Leaps and Bounds
February 22-25, 2024 at The Ailey City Group Theater
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Thursday, February 22 @ 7:30 PM ($30 / $25) *Opening Night Gala honors Joan Miller, Ronald K. Brown, and Celia Ipiotis with Lifetime Achievement Awards
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Friday & Saturday, February 23 & 24 @ 8 PM ($25 / $20)
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Sunday, February 26, 2024 @ 7 PM ($25 / $20)
Tickets: Visit https://adgfest.ticketleap.com/ or call 877-849-5327
*Group discounts for 4 guests and more
**Tickets will also be available at the box office one hour prior to curtain
For Festival Schedule, click here.
Gloria McLean has a lot on her mind. First, remembering off the top of her head all the names of the companies and artists performing at the American Dance Guild’s (ADG’s) Leaps Beyond Bounds Festival this weekend — it’s a challenge. So many artists. From February 22nd through the 25th, 30 contemporary choreographers and their dancers will be part of ADG’s eclectic dance smorgasbord weekend.
If you’ve never been to an American Dance Guild Festival performance, know that variety and quality are the names of the game. One can experience 20th century historical gems, set alongside contemporary pieces and emerging solo talents, followed by vibrant dance companies. The presiding feeling governing all performances is one of togetherness and community. We are all dancers. We are all working in the field today. And we are here to support one another and our collective histories.
Says McLean, who is president of the guild, “The mission statement that is driving us now is to be a window to the past, and a pathway to the future. Embracing the past as the guild has done so beautifully, but developing young artists, making a place for for new work, for emerging and current choreographers.”
While McLean adds finishing touches to the festival line-up, she also considers her own choreography. Her trio, Archaic Intrusion inspired by a visit to the Egyptian collection at the Metropolitan Museum, will be presented on the festival’s last night. Working on steps and phrases with her dancers, playing with relationships to the music, McLean imparts lessons learned over a lifetime as an artist.
Highly regarded as an independent choreographer and proponent of Erick Hawkins’ technique, one might never associate Gloria McLean with pointe shoes and tights, but she began her training as a ballet student in Falls Church, Virginia, dancing with The McLean (no relation) Ballet. “Actually my big debut was at age eight with the New York City Ballet who came down to audition kids for The Nutcracker in Washington D.C. It was BIG… I just loved dance and kept going…”
As she matured, McLean decided to forgo a dance career and attend Connecticut College. She wanted to be a scholar. “I thought I wasn’t going to dance… But, at this time, Martha Meyers (renowned dance educator, who developed the dance program at Connecticut College) had just arrived. She initiated something called the Tuesday Night Movement Lab and got us crawling around on the floor and making strange sounds, you know, improvisation. I'm like, ‘This is not dance!’ But I hung in there anyway, and started crawling on the floor and making strange sounds, AND I started to like it! I was inspired by all of the modern freer and more liberated ideas about dancing. I considered this sort of like losing my virginity — losing fifth position. I took the toe shoes off and tried not to look back. I was fired up to become an artist.”
After college, McLean moved to New York City where her first dance gig was with Twyla Tharp as part of Tharp’s “farm club.” “The farm club was made up of fifteen or so people in addition to Twyla’s then, six person company. We worked every day at her loft down in Tribeca—Monday through Friday from 10 to 12 for four months. Then we did a little four college tour, drove station wagons, slept on people's floors, and made like $44.” The experience with Tharp led her to choreograph and perform with a friend from the “club,” Bill Setters. The path was enjoyable, but the incessant theme of dance as difficult driving work began to get to McLean, who needed a break.
“That underlying ‘just work aesthetic.’ Just keep doing it, keep doing it, keep doing it, somehow broke down at one moment, and I found myself on the floor in San Francisco not knowing what to do. Finally I took a walk on the beach. On the edge of San Francisco and Golden Gate Park I went, ‘Okay, this is my dance. Give me back to the waves of the ocean. Give me back to walking in the sand and being …my own light.’ I began to create a ritual for myself. I had one week left in San Francisco before I was returning to New York, and everyday I walked, I stood off the ocean, I did a little yoga on the beach, I moved, and I went home. This transformed my approach to choreography.”
“When I came back to New York, I went to the Hawkins School, a couple of people had said my movement reminded them of Hawkins. [At that studio I realized] Okay, there’s an ocean here for me — a place for me to continue my training. Hawkins’ work, at its deepest place is really quite different than any other, he had a unique perception of what drives dance. It was a whole revitalized approach and one of the original integrations of ideokinesis in technique. It has enabled me to to keep going, you know, and I really want to honor Erick for that.
At the moment, McLean is helping one of her dancers work on a spiral jumping turn using her Hawkins' background. “It just takes setting your mind in a slightly different way… to get that kind of inner lift, that inner toss of the pelvis, the hanging of the legs — these are very specially notated in Hawkins’ technique."
"This piece has been an effort to teach through choreography." says McLean. "It’s interesting, you know, Archaic Intrusion asks about how the past and the present collide. Well, they collide every single minute, don't they?”
MORE ABOUT AMERICAN DANCE GUILDS LEAPS AND BOUNDS 2024 FESTIVAL
In addition to the this year’s bountiful performances, the guild will be honoring dance field innovators, Joan Miller, Ronald K. Brown, and Celia Ipiotis with ADG Lifetime Achievement Awards — Miller (posthumously) and Brown for their distinct bodies of dance work, and Ipiotis for her intrepid journalism on the groundbreaking dance TV program “Eye on Dance.”
Joan Miller, who was born in Harlem of St. Lucian and Jamaican heritage, is of particular interest especially because her work spanning the 1970’s to the early 2000’s is rarely seen today. A student with the greats of 20th century ballet, modern dance, and the avant garde, Miller danced with (speaking of eclecticism) José Limón, Anna Sokolow, Ruth Currier, Rod Rodgers, Rudy Perez and the Judson Dance Theater. Her choreography, known for its bold social commentary and political satire, makes Miller a perfect dance ancestor to reflect on as many of today’s artists devote their craft to developing themes of social justice.
On Saturday evening, audiences will be fortunate to hear her voice in the film, “Pliés, Puns,and Politics” which includes excerpts from a 1975 WNYC interview and repertory performed by her original company, Joan Miller’s Dance Players. Another highlight, will be an excerpt from her 1970’s creation Pass Fe White a commentary on colorism and as stated in the program “one person’s journey towards self-esteem and ‘a multi-dimensional’ self.” Again, with identity as a theme, Miller’s work speaks to the interests of today’s artists. The past and present collide.
American Dance Guild Performance Schedule (not in performance order and subject to change)
Thursday, February 22 @ 7:30 PM
2024 Honoree Award Presentation with Reception to Follow Performance
Isabelle Evans
Peter Stathas
Zehnder Dance
Torens L. Johnson
Red Clay Dance Co.
Joan Miller
Celia Ipiotis
Ron K. Brown
Friday, February 23 @ 8 PM
Tina Croll
Xiang Xu
Claire Porter
Catherine Meredith
Celia Ipiotis
H.T. Chen & Dancers
White Wave/Young Soon Kim Dance Co.
Saturday, February 24 @ 8 PM
Eddieomar Gonzalez/ CJ Johnson
Douglas Dunn
Elizabeth Keen
David Parker
Jin-Wen Yu
Robenson Mathurin
Joan Miller
Norberto Collazo & Abraham Texidor
Marisa f. Ballaro
Sunday, February 25 @ 3 PM
Special Event: Stephen Vendola Memorial and Reception (Ailey Studio TBA)
Stephen Vendola was a board member of ADG, a dancer with Hadassah and the New Dance Group and Alwin Nikolais Co., and also served on the boards of Nikolais/Louis and Mary Anthony Dance Theater.
Sunday, February 25 @ 7 PM
Sean Curran
Gloria McLean
Amy Pivar
Maxine Steinman
Marques Furr
Ron K. Brown / Evidence
Nancy Zendora
Ara Fitzgerald/Clare Byrne
Dance Fusion/Mary Anthony*
*Dedicated to Stephen Vendola
