Storey telling

The latest from the Center for Dance Development

By Tanya Whiton

Kristofer Storey performs June 1, at the New Dance Studio, 61 Pleasant St., Portland. Call (207) 80-0554.

Emerging choreographer Kristofer Storey is a study in contrasts. He’s a Julliard-trained triple threat who isn’t terribly interested in classical technique, yet he has a reputation for making pieces that challenge even aggressively well-schooled dancers. He’s got definite political sensibilities — recent works include a hip-hop/dance collaboration on cooperative economics and a contribution to DRA, Dancers Responding to AIDS — but he also acknowledges that “[performers] are all in the business of entertaining, whether we admit it or not.” Storey doesn’t consider himself to be a dramatist, though he often finds his dances relating a distinct narrative with elements of characterization and plot. Even though he’s choreographed works for Hubbard Street 2, ýleo Parker Robinson Dance, Donald Byrd/The Group and others, Storey calls himself a beginner. In the fertile, frustrating, and inchoate zone of artistic uncertainty, this former Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater performer is attempting to “broaden the definition of concert dance.”

In Portland, as choreographer-in-residence at the Center for Dance Development — a collaboration between New Dance Studio and the Bates Dance Festival, designed to give up-and-coming artists space and time in which to develop their craft — Storey will end a two-week schedule of creating and rehearsing (not to mention teaching) with a premiere of a new work, June 1. The Phoenix found him in a rare moment of down time.

 

Phoenix: It seems like one of the biggest struggles for new choreographers (and I guess for artists in any discipline) is finding a voice that defines their work from that of their mentors — how have you dealt with the question of influence? Who’s had the most impact on your work thus far?

Storey: Well, my parents, especially my mother, have influenced [my work]. They met through their involvement with the Communist party in New York. They’re very politically minded, and humanly minded. And certainly the Ailey Company, Jawolle in particular [one of the many choreographers who come to Ailey to set works]. She’s founder and director of Urban Bush Women. As long as I continue dancing, I’m going to be influenced by whomever I’m working with. It used to really bother me — I could locate where the step was coming from! But I think you’re gonna be a product of where you’ve been.

 

Q: What was it like working with the Ailey company?

A: It was amazing — it was my first professional experience. I was with them for three years, from 1998 to 2001, and we went to South Africa, Chile, Brazil. It was really intense. They do up to 200 performances a year, rehearsing June through August with an international tour from September to November, then a break for Thanksgiving, and another six weeks [of repertory performances] in New York. It’s not process oriented. It’s product oriented.

 

Q: It’s hard to find regular work with an established, company, though — why did you decide to leave?

A: I wasn’t doing everything I wanted to do. I tried to let the artistic staff know I’d like to be doing more, and they let me know (in a more roundabout way) that they saw me as a type of dancer. They saw me as very theatrical, grounded, capable of the Ailey style, viscerally motivated. Judith Jamison said, “If you’d been in the company when Alvin was alive you’d be very happy.”

 

Q: So their aesthetic has changed? What kind of dancers are they looking for?

A: Now, they want technically proficient, extremely mobile dancers, with a classical aesthetic — but a lot of [Ailey’s repertoire] is not based in having classical ballet technique. I’m not interested in classical ballet — I don’t want to be a prince. Then I worked with Donald Byrd for a few months — I went from a company of 30 dancers to a company of eight. [Storey makes a face that indicates he experienced a dramatic shift in interpersonal dynamics]. Byrd’s work is based a lot more in technique, and it was gratifying to know I could be appreciated for the technique I do have, and use it. Also, to work intensively with one choreographer. Byrd is about the process of rehearsal.

 

Q: You’ve said your biggest challenge is to have a clear idea, and to build upon it to create a whole vision. What about your own process making pieces — do your ideas evolve mostly out of rehearsal, or do you start out with something you want to say?

A: I did a piece called NS to the music of Nina Simone. I started out with the intention of making a dance about nothing in particular, and then in the second part there was this duet, a man and woman, and the man is in jail for domestic abuse, and she visits him. Her mixed feelings, guilt, love, all of that came through. It was set to “I Love You Porgy.” I had no idea where it came from. Then it informed the next section, “Worksong,” about a chain gang. (He laughs) And NS stood for No Story.

 

Q: You felt the Ailey company saw you as a type — now, for your own choreography; do you find there is a particular kind of dancer you prefer to work with?

A: I’m looking for people who can bring themselves to the table. I need people that are performing my work to be dramatically involved. I’ll appreciate passion better than any number of pirouettes or any high extension. I want help in the studio, somebody who is interested in creating. A lot of dancers aren’t, or don’t feel comfortable with that. Like Alvin Ailey said: “I don’t like cookie cutter dancers.”

Tanya Whiton can be reached at twhiton@prexar.com.