Julie also has these bruises from scoliosis. Just kidding! We are just stepping on her thigh repeatedly.

THAT ONE HIGH SHOULDER
By Julie McMillan

As a dancer, I sometimes get the question:  “have you had many injuries?”  All dancers have had them – and some continue to plague them well after they’ve happened.  I’ve been fairly lucky.  A foot injury in college left me on crutches for a couple of weeks, but I was up and dancing full a couple months later.  Anyone who knows me well, however, knows that my big “injury” doesn’t really qualify as an injury at all.  I was diagnosed with moderate scoliosis in the 8^th grade and have been working with it ever since.

Scoliosis is a generally harmless sideways curvature of the spine.  Doctors have debated the causes of it for years – no one can quite agree on whether it’s genetic or idiopathic (no one in my family has it!).  Much to my dismay, screenings are mandated for scoliosis in California public schools.  I distinctly remember being one of three pulled aside and told to have a doctor check it out.  That piece of news at the age of twelve…clearly, I thought my life was over.

Luckily, parents always know what’s best.  The first doctor we saw was ready to put me on the operating table to stick metal rods in my back.  No thanks.  We visited three or four separate doctors (and took several rounds of full spine X-rays displaying a 45 degree curvature) until we heard a solution that could keep me from having surgery.  The answer:  I would be braced for an undisclosed amount of time and referred to a physical therapist twice a week.  Not really what I, personally, wanted to hear – but certainly better than the metal rod approach.

So there you have it – braced for about three years.  Kids in high school were baffled by my rock hard abs – it was plastic.  Summers were unbelievably uncomfortable – 100-degree heat with a plastic skin-tight thing.  Ugh.  I was pegged as the girl with good posture – but that’s only because it was impossible to slouch.

Years later, there’s no brace and my curvature is just as extreme as it was then.  But this is good!  It means that it hasn’t gotten any worse.  I have learned how to manage scoliosis from a dancer’s viewpoint and I wouldn’t ever wish to take it back.  So when you see Summation pictures where my one shoulder is higher than the other – yup, that’s the scoliosis for ya.

Once we were done standing around admiring all the spider monkeys we got ourselves settled and strapped in, and I was the first one to ascend. I made it about halfway up the wall and that’s when I started to feel it in my hands and forearms. Holy grip strength. My comrades down below encouraged me to continue up to the top, and so I did, but only after stopping several times to shake out my hands and figure out where to put them next. I felt very accomplished after climbing the first wall, but I was also pretty certain I was done for the day. I couldn’t feel my hands or much less use them.

Sumi was not surprisingly pretty good at climbing. I think her weird hips allowed her to get really close to the wall which seemed to help. Taryn couldn’t climb because her broken big toe is still healing, but she provided great moral support! We decided not to pansy out and did end up climbing a few more walls before calling it a day.

As it turns out, rock climbing is really hard! You’d think being a dancer I’d be in shape, but climbing takes a different kind of shape and strength. I could barely click buttons on my phone for the rest of the day because my hands were so tired from gripping the holds. I suppose March is a little late to make a resolution but this year I want to try new things, and specifically new ways to be active. The gym bores me, and yes I do pilates and dance but I want to do new and exciting things! Climbing was the start to that resolution. We all had a blast and I definitely plan to head back to the rocks, but I do think I’ll hold off on pursuing it more intensely until our season at BAM is over.

For you folks out in the interweb: How are you staying active? Do you have any exciting suggestions for new things to do? Do you want to come with us? Let us know!

xoxo
Allie

Cate Cox, Singer, Actor, Philanthropist 
Summation Dance is one of those rare companies where you see the intersection of highly curated projects, individuals interested in the education and advancement of their art and a work ethic often unseen in the art world.  I attend Summation Dance performances for the intelligent choreography and excellent talent, but I keep bringing others with me because I hold a flag for the mission of the company.  I could not more whole-heartedly endorse Summation Dance or their philosophy.

David Hsia, Partner, Tjong & Hsia LLP
Sumi and Taryn are not just creative artists, but creative entrepreneurs who have been strikingly successful in expanding their vision and doing what many young creative artists have struggled with, finding and growing their own audience!   Sumi and Taryn have struck out on their own, built their own company and artistic vision, and created the infrastructure and audience and non-glamorous back-breaking work on the nonprofit business side to make things happen for them and their team —  Sumi, as a young choreographer, has also created moving pieces that are deeply affecting; my friends and professional colleagues to this day still talk to me about how affecting “Keep Your Feathers Dry” was to them and how relatable it was to their own experiences as women.   They have been equally inspiring in their collaborations with other young and promising choreographers and dancers, including The Anata Project and the award-winning Andrea Miller; how can you not be inspired by Summation Dance?

JJ Kasper, Associate Partner,
McKinsey & Company
Summation Dance makes my body move.

Kerry King
Summation’s incredible shows allow viewers the opportunity to lose themselves in the performance at hand. I love the experience of interpreting the choreography, music, and physical movement into a cohesive message.

Meryl Hoeft,
Legal Intern, Fersch Petitti, LLC
I have been a fan of Summation since their opening season. I will never forget Julie McMillian’s lengthy, wavering, one-legged squat, which left me wondering if she was trying to throw herself off balance just for the personal challenge of it and if she intended to make the audience uncomfortable.

Michael Sterchak, Associate,
Federal Reserve Bank of New York
I have been continually impressed by Summation’s innovative choreography, which is consistently stunning, sometimes comedic, and always memorable.

John Suhar,
Development Associate,
The Urban Ecology Center
I am fortunate to have been introduced to the art of dance through Summation Dance. Over the last 3 years, Summation Dance has showed me rich and rigorous experiences. Firsthand, I’ve learned that dancers train like athletes and perform with effortless grace. I’ve learned, like painting a portrait or writing a play, choreography is a craft. Summation Dance inspires you to feel. Summation Dance inspires you to question. Summation’s pieces are an invitation for interpretation which require us to take an open-minded leap into the great unknown. In paraphrasing Norman Maclean, to me, all good things come by grace; and grace comes by art; and art does not come easy. Enjoy the show!

Andy Teirstein, Associate Arts Professor, Dance Department, Tisch School of the Arts, NYU
Artistic Producer, Animal Stone Productions
Summation Dance is a fiery group of women who are impassioned about dance and new choreography.  Sumi Clements makes dances that speak to the audience because of their subject matter, their intensity, and the deep commitment and community spirit of the dancers who make up this remarkable, spirited and edgy company.

Jackie Topol, Clinical Dietitian, New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center
I love going to Summation’s performances because they are innovative, unpredictable, and raw. Using the dance floor as their canvas, this incredible group of dancers fully expose their emotions without inhibition. Taryn and Sumi always have something up their sleeve and I cannot wait to see what they have in store for their BAM performance.

Cassie Valentin, MBA Candidate 2014,
NYU Leonard N. Stern School of Business
I love Summation Dance because you never know what you’re going to get when you go to a show but you always leave happy and inspired. Their shows are surprising, engaging, and impressive and they demonstrate how powerful modern dance can be. Summation’s mission to bring modern dance to those who aren’t normally exposed to it is something we all should get behind.

Kurt Wubbenhorst, Owner, Architekt Music
Summation Dance creates beautiful work that is accessible to everyone by combining great dance, excellent set and lighting design, and a deep musical score.

Host Committee Members not pictured: Jody Gottfried Arnhold, Melissa Coluccio, Sabrina Dax, Paul Evans, Sasha Kipka, Adam Nashban, Kate Nintzel, Joe Parkhill, Jake Pratt, Tim Sebunya, Brigitte Vosse.

Where are you from? I am from Keene, New Hampshire. Although its certainly not an exciting, cosmopolitan place, its dear to my heart because of its natural beauty and the strong New England values it instilled in me. Growing up, I learned the importance of frugality, self-sufficiency and hardiness, things that have served me well in my life.

Do you have any siblings? I have an older brother Sam who is a PhD student at UCLA in cultural anthropology. He is a true gentleman and a dedicated, gifted scholar.

Favorites:
Authors: Roberto Bolaño, David Foster Wallace, Ralph Ellison, Joan Didion, and Milan Kundera.
Movies: I just saw the Godfather and loved it. Too many great movies to name.
Music: James Blake, Frank Ocean, Kendrick Lamar, Flying Lotus, Fleetwood Mac, Retro Brazilian stuff like Os Mutantes and Tom Zé too. Beyonce and Rihanna always.
Dessert: probably pie of some variety. Blueberry, apple or pecan. I also like brownies a lot.
Dance Companies/Choreographers: Trisha Brown, Kyle Abraham, Tere O’Connor, Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, Ohad Naharin, Pina Bausch, Forsythe, Eiko and Koma, Rodrigo Pederneiras of Grupo Corpo are some of my fav choreographers.

Dance Career Highlight so far?
My dance highlight so far was performing at the Park Avenue Armory with Shen Wei Dance Arts in the company’s Tenth Anniversary Season. Performing in a world premiere in front of hundreds of people in a 55,000 sq. foot room where my great uncle had once marched with the Knickerbocker Club in the 1930s was pretty great.

What would you do if you had a whole day off to yourself? I would definitely sleep in. Then I would have a leisurely bagel breakfast with my great roommates. Then maybe a sweaty dance class followed by a nice bath. After that I think I’d like to spend time outdoors walking around New York, go to a museum or a movie in the afternoon, cook dinner for friends in the evening and then go out dancing.

What would you be doing if you weren’t a dancer? If I weren’t a dancer, I’d be in Rio de Janeiro right now, speaking Portuguese, conducting a research project, doing a lot of capoeira, traveling etc.

What’s on your bucket list? Go to Turkey, go to Cuba, learn French well, perform in Europe, have a backyard.

Odd fact about you? My feet are dyed red right now because I’ve been performing in a puddle of fake blood in Parsifal at the Met!

Get to know Tenaya!

Where are you from and what makes that place unique? I’m originally from Ojai, CA. A couple things that make it special: it is completely surrounded by mountains, and covered in orange groves and avocado trees. And you can’t go outside without running into at least 10 people you know.

Do you have any siblings? I have one 16 year old brother. He is an awesome bassist.

What would you do with a whole day off? Grab some coffee and head to the park with my journal and ipod.

Favorites:
Book- The Alchemist
Movie- Garden State
Music- The Beatles
Dessert- Anything chocolate
Dance companies- Batsheva, Hofesh shechter, and obviously Summation!

Best dance experience so far? Spending two summers in Israel studying Gaga.

What would you be doing if you were not a dancer? I would definitely be doing something arts-related and hopefully traveling.

What’s on your bucket list? Travel to every continent, go skydiving, have a family, return to Israel, conquer my fear of fish.

What’s a unique fact about you? As you may have guessed from my bucket list, I’m terrified of fish. All fish.

Hello all!

Today, for our untrained dance appreciators (since we seem to have a lot, which is A DREAM), I’m going to talk company structure.

There are generally two different kinds of companies in the world: Rep companies that commission works from multiple choreographers (say, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, ODC, Ailey) and troupes that primarily perform the work of their artistic director (LINES Ballet, The Forsythe Company, Stephen Petronio Dance). Summation is clearly the latter. The advantages of working with one choreographer is you quickly come to understand their nuances, artistic sensibilities and movement style. It’s fantastic to be a part of a continuing vision and find new ways to develop yourself within that. It’s also quite a challenge to constantly ask yourself how you’re going to approach something differently. What is different about this piece of Sumi’s as apposed to the last? And how is she using similar movements in different pieces to convey totally opposite messages?

Once year though, us company members get a chance to pretend we’re a rep company with Dancing Literate Project. For our inaugural DLP performance, we worked with Gallim Dance’s quirky Andrea Miller. This year, Sydney Skybetter of skybetter & associates is on the bill. When you learn rep, it means the piece has already been created and performed by another company. That means you’re usually learning straight choreography really quickly to turn it around and make it as whole as you can. This is, of course, what I expected when we stepped into the studio with Sydney and his Rehearsal Assistant/Dancer Kristen Arnhold. Instead, we were welcomed with a fairly collaborative process–a very unlikely thing when you have one week to learn a piece! Sydney and Kristen really helped us because comfortable in the work. He wasn’t about recreating something he’d already perfected, but shifting a work to mold it into something slightly new, suiting the needs of the dancers. It was great to work with a new style that was unknown to our bodies, yet in a way where we could accommodate our own styles.

Hope you all come to see the performance in December! It’s going to be a great show!

Love,

Kristin Schwab

[Show as slideshow]

12345►

It’s truly mind-boggling how much work goes into planning a little two-hour event.  I could use this blog post to tell you all about it, but I don’t want to bore you, so I’ll just say this—it’s quite stressful.

With that said, there is a moment, my favorite moment to be exact, of planning any event or performance that makes all previous stress melt away.  It is when the first handful of guests arrive and the event seems to take on a life of its own.  There is always a time when I pause to look around and realize that everyone is having a good time and I no longer have to do anything to ensure that this happens! All the preparation and organization has paid off and I can finally take that sweet, juicy, wonderful, and well-deserved sigh of relief.

Another wonderful part of hosting an event is getting to see all your favorite people in one place.  The Catch-22 is that I could have easily spent the entire 2-hours catching up with each and every one of you individually!  Even those of you who came who I don’t know, I’d love to know you, so friend me or Summation Dance on Facebook!  For those of you who I didn’t get to talk to as much as I would have liked, thank you for coming!! Your presence at the event and support means so much to me. Let’s get together soon! I have a lot of leftover Brooklyn Brewery and don’t like beer that much…

All in all the event went off without a hitch and Sumi, myself, and the company are all so grateful to those of you who came to celebrate the commencement of our 3^rd season!  We have BIG goals this year, including 2 performances in NYC and a San Francisco Tour!  Our necessary fundraising goal is $100,000 to make this all happen; our ideal fundraising goal is $300,000 to be able to pay the our talented dancers and the directors the amount they deserve for their hard work and dedication. Please help the company by making a tax-deductible donation to the company today.  Your support allows us to create art and perform it for audiences nationwide. Many thanks to everyone who has donated, allowing Summation Dance to exist and flourish!

With Gratitude,
Taryn

Summation Warriors: Julie McMillan & Erin Okayama

During the Q&A for last years’ Keep Your Feathers Dry, an audience member asked:  how do you prevent injuries with all of the falling movement?  I answered by saying that dancers are trained to manipulate parts of the body to make these movements look real.  For partnering, a lot is just trial and error.  Very rarely does someone actually get hurt.  Gearing up for this show, we must focus not only on the physical movement, but on intention and emotions as well – making everything look as real as possible.

But this past Saturday, we made things look too real.

In the piece, there is one section involving all of the dancers partnering in what we call, “the moving mass” (you’ll totally know what I mean next week).  It’s a section of unrelenting, subsequent movement where each dancer attempts to break free from the others.  I catch Erin on my shoulder, scurry to the back to pick up Allie, take a forceful step to the downstage and – WHAM.  The bridge of my nose to the crown of Erin’s head.

The confusion immediately afterwards literally contains blood, sweat, and tears.  A bloody nose, a crunched neck, two bags of ice, and thirty minutes later – the crew is back to work, figuring out how many “skis between the pauses”.  Regardless to say – sometimes those moments that look real on stage actually happen in the studio.  No need to worry.  Erin and I are just fine, if you don’t count a stiff neck and bruised face.  “Resilience” is Summation’s middle name.  Plus, I can totally show off this shiner.

You really don’t want to miss what has given us broken fingers, black eyes and all sorts of odd bruises next week.  We’re selling out fast!!

Julie

Kelsey Berry in Summation Rehearsal

I have two favorite moments in the creation of a new work. First, I love the very beginning of the process, where everything is new movement, sometimes hilarious experiments, and grand conceptual conversations about topics the piece could possibly address. In this stage, the movement is fresh and the possibilities are limitless. Certainly there’s a lot of new-movement related soreness and bruises, but we’re tough (it’s why we’re in Summation Dance).

Sometime after that, large sections of the piece start to take shape. For months, we develop chunks of movement in broad strokes. Some of it is performed in its intermittent state, some of it is kept strictly in the studio. In any case, none of it is quite done, and the novelty of possibilities being limitless starts to wear off.

I would lament that period of time, but it inevitably leads up to the second moment in dance creation that I love. This moment occurs the first time that we run the piece, starting at the beginning, and finishing at the end. The very existence of a “beginning” and “end” is gratifying – it means that somewhere along the way, we crafted, through broad strokes and choices among endless possibilities, one complete work of art.

Deep End is teasingly close to this exciting “completion” moment. It’s a bit bittersweet – on one hand, the trajectory of the work feels just right. On the other hand, we’ve definitely said goodbye to some hard-practiced movement that at one point was thought would form the core of the dance. It’s a stripping down that has to occur. We started with such a breadth of options, and now it’s all about depth. Good thing we named the dance appropriately.

Come see Summation Dance in Deep End on March 8-10 at 7:30 pm at the Baryshnikov Arts Center, choreographed by Sumi Clements and produced by Taryn Vander Hoop.

Love,
Kelsey

Amber jumping on the beaches of Mexico

Happy February everyone! I was lucky enough to end January in Zihuatanejo, Mexico on one of the best vacations ever….really, ever. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to top this one. My lovely boyfriend, Jamie, took me to a slice of heaven called Casa Fiesta which most of his 11 siblings have enjoyed visiting for many years. Only 9 of us made the trek out this time. Just imagine this place; 4 floors built into the side of a cliff within a bay off the Pacific. Carefully placed stone stairs lead you to one of 6 perfectly individual master suites (which are the only indoor rooms). The bar is just the perfect distance from the infinity pool: far away enough to avoid spontaneous cannon balls but close enough to exert the least amount of energy to grab a margarita. A wide deck is furnished with pearly white cushioned beach chairs, and within all of this is a perfectly shaded and decorated reading/relaxing/common area. The most unbelievable part of all of this is that it all belonged to us. It’s like vacationing at a 5 star restort that no one else knows about. It’s fully staffed with drivers, chefs, butlers, and bartenders. They even unpack for you! And they’re all so incredibly generous and kind.

The few times we could drag ourselves away from our paradise we shopped in the local village, where people make the most beautiful ceramics and pottery. We kayaked within the bay, mainly in search of migrating whales, (which we caught a glimpse of!) and jumped off rocks and shacks into the crystal clear ocean.  We also visited Casa Fiesta’s neighbor, Allegria, which is an equally impressive hillside compound. Oh, and I can’t forget the time we boated out to our very own beach where the Casa Fiesta staff were waiting for us with a buffet, volleyballs, and a mariachi band!

This vacation was like something I’ve never dreamed about being a part of. It’s a hard reality to leave there and come back to 2 weeks of jury duty. But really, no matter where I am I always miss my dance classes and rehearsals and can’t wait to get back to it!

Amber