I had an inspiring talk with choreographer Elizabeth Shea, present to teach at Dance Italia, in a typically crowded Italian cafeteria from Lucca. While the world was moving around us producing a musicality of people and summer sounds, we engaged in a discussion about the current world of dance, dance-making, and its connection with somatic practices. I was very happy to have some snippet insights into the writing process of Elizabeth’s Shea book on dance practice. I invite you to join this discussion with Elizabeth Shea, Elizabeth Shea, ion through the following interview. “Can we all come together?”
Join this discussion through the following interview. “Can we all come together?”
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* First, let’s meet the choreographer: Elizabeth Shea’s choreography has been produced by the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and presented at numerous festivals and major cities across the USA, as well as in Australia, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and China. Liz won Sharp Dance Company’s inaugural choreography competition and has been a guest artist for many professional companies and universities, most recently Eisenhower Dance and as a collaborator with NYC-based Stefanie Nelson Dance Group. Liz was honored to recently present the site-specific work Ascension at the Eskenazi Museum of Art to over 1,000 people; she also creates extensively in new media and film, screening her work at film festivals internationally. Awards include Best Choreography for the Lens, Best Dance Film, and Best Ensemble. Liz teaches her self-developed somatic system, SomaLab®, yogic practices, and choreographic methods and mentorship at workshops in the USA and abroad, most recently at the Royal Academy of Dance in London, and Dance Italia, in Lucca, Italy. A Registered Yoga Teacher (E-RYT 200 and RYT 500), Liz serves as Director of Contemporary Dance at Indiana University.
Julia Sima: Let’s dive into your world of dance. Why dance? What made you choose this field?
Elizabeth Shea: I always danced. My earliest memories were in my mother’s house. Full on Isadora Duncan. I always moved. There is nothing in the world that makes me feel the way dance does.
In college, I discovered the world of modern dance. The Universe put me in the right place. My earlier studies were in the Limón technique where I explored this potential for evolution. I love other forms of movement too, swimming, yoga, and walking… And I do believe that dance is not a language, I feel that dance is this direct form of communicating, which does not go to a symbolistic form. It speaks to our humanity in a direct form. Dance is all that we all want to do. We all want to express ourselves.
- Julia Sima: Dance is deeply embedded in us but so many people are very far away from it. Why do you think we live in a society where dance seems inaccessible for so many of us?
Elizabeth Shea: This society is a society where cognition is privileged over the embodied form of knowledge. So embodiment is not valued. And in my opinion, the USA is a difficult place for art. Folks would be happier worldwide with a recognition of body-mind.
- Julia Sima: You are now in the process of writing a book. What is its core idea?
Elizabeth Shea: My core idea is that our nervous system is flexible. I discuss the flexibility of the nervous system and how we can develop it to reach our embodied experience. I present a system that I developed to get to the heart of conveying embodied knowledge. It is a framework. Is not a specific “do this, do that” ‘ but it’s an “understanding”. From this understanding, we find a way to build our practice that follows the path of the nervous system. The book is about the plasticity or the flexibility of the nervous system and how we can develop it to reach our embodied experience.
A lot of dancers are focused on form. And there is nothing wrong with the form, I would say “form” is not a dirty word, but the form is also language, made of symbols. As with all languages, some of the symbols speak to people, but there is also something even more basic than that: the way our nervous system embraces knowledge, and perception, which is followed by expression. My book is about the idea that we don’t need a privilege of one form above the other, there is room for all kinds of modes of human expression and movement expression.
- Julia Sima: Do you think that if many more people would get in touch with this practice and knowledge, we can then live in a society where we can all be dancers?
Elizabeth Shea: Yes! Because everyone is a dancer it is interesting to be around people who live in societies where movement and dance are part of everyday life. One can see the outlook; the approach is so much… bigger. Right? More encompassing, less narrow. It just follows the natural, organic nature of the body-mind. And is not my phrase, it comes from the translation of a Yoga text. This idea of body-mind wholeness comes from my mentor. That idea of non-separation helps us to still down…
- Julia Sima: How do you transfer this knowledge and your philosophy of dance into your choreography?
Elizabeth Shea: For me, it’s basic. It has to have to do with “trust”. Trusting the embodied knowledge that I have, that my movement and my collaborators have. It’s not so cognitively thinking “what I want to do”, it’s more about trust and where the body wants to go. Can I trust that knowledge resides in the body, that intelligence, and use that trust as a basis for developing movement, for developing a narrative?
Dance making is to trust that (personal) knowledge as opposed to figuration.
- Julia Sima: Tell me more about your process of creation…
Elizabeth Shea: Of course, I come into the studio with an idea. And a lot of my ideas have to come from experience. I have to trust my own experience in bringing a personal experience into the work. For me, that’s the matter – “dance making” is to trust that (personal) knowledge as opposed to “figuration”. And then of course, there is also craft involved and how we have that trust and how we develop that environment, that stage, that world. From trusting the knowledge we craft and then how we use our tools.
- Julia Sima: Have you ever had transcendental experiences while dancing?
For me… performing is like a church. Something interesting that I found is moving less from the physical, and getting more equanimity in the spiritual body. Sometimes Yoga gives me the same, but when I dance, (the experience) is just right there.
- If you had to choose between doing dance movies and doing dance shows, what would you prefer more? What do you like the most?
Elizabeth Shea: I would say I prefer “the stage” for sure. I love making films, but I love being more in the studio with other people. When making movies, we are less in the studio, being on the site, filming, and it’s a different experience than being in the studio and discovering together. It’s the process that is so important. I also love working with my students – it is the highlight of any year. I love watching them grow and I love watching their new ideas while the field of dance takes shape.
I feel that we are in a moment when in the field of dance, change is happening. And it is a good change. I know that our students will be at the forefront of equity. In the old days dancers were trained to do as they’re told and not take care of themselves. And I feel that this new generation. Is saying “no, that’s not the quality of life I choose”. I think they are really brave; I think they will make a change.
I feel that we are in a moment when in the field of dance, change is happening.
- Julia Sima: From your experience, would you say that there is a difference between how modern and contemporary dance are being done in the USA, Europe and other places?
Elizabeth Shea: I think all dance is reflective of culture. We have very specific experiences in the United States, we have the horrific history of slavery in our country, and we have a broad immigrant population; because we live in a democratic capitalistic society, we have group inequities between people so that reflects itself in dance and art. But turning all that on its head, we have this great range of diversity in our country, so when I watch what is happening in our field in the US, it’s also very exciting.
Especially when we lift all voices to honor our field. Of course, I know less about other communities and cultures. I am always very happy to see in the European communities that there is better government support than others. That’s nice to see, so all around the world, dance is reflective of the culture, of the government, of the people and it’s very interesting.
I think that dance can serve us as a form of protest.
- Can dance be considered a form of resistance to Capitalism or a way to build healthier societies?
Elizabeth Shea: I think that dance can serve us as a form of protest. I hope that our global communities of dance would draw tighter together, like a thread, instead of being spaced apart, pull a little tighter. Can we all come together? And at the same time, difference is not bad, difference is good, we have to honor and not tolerate differences between people and cultures all over the world.
- Julia Sima: What changed in the way you see dance, during your career?
Elizabeth Shea: I think we all have something to offer, at different places in our life, and as part of growing older as a performing artist is first of all hard, because we live in this youth-based society and art form. Just recognize, and know what you have to offer, loving yourself as you move forward, loving all new versions of yourself.
- Julia Sima: What is your connection with Lucca?
Elizabeth Shea: I started coming here with Dance Italia. And I started to come here and teach somatic practice through Stefanie Nelson.
Every time we come back we see something else, we discover something else. I love Lucca, I love everything about it. I always feel like I could probably live in Italy pretty happily.
Visit www.elizabethsheadance.info to delve more into the dance world of choreographer Elizabeth Shea.
