IMPROVISATION TECHNIQUES
JENNIFER KAYLE, NOVEMBER 2019
INTERVIEW WITH PAM VAIL
INTERVIEW WITH PAM VAIL
Pam Vail is Associate Professor at Franklin & Marshall College and a founding member of critically acclaimed New York City-based Yanira Castro / a canary torsi, with whom she has performed, toured and taught extensively since 1995. You can find her bios here:
The Architects | Franklin & Marshall College | Yanira Castro / a canary torsi
In this discussion, many dancers will recognize themes from their own histories and encounters with “technique.” That’s right – I put that word in quotes! (Some College Dance Departments are replacing the word altogether!) I hope this conversation inspires us to keep asking what that word means in practice, what our movement techniques are supposed to support, and how we should pass-on what we think we’ve learned. Can we look back at our so-called-training and make considered decision about what to do now - with our own practice, with our students, and with our art form? Together we wonder about the relationship between traditional technique and improvisation, consider the idea of improvisation as technique, and wind up proposing new terms (and new courses!).
In characteristically humble, direct, and generous ways, Pam combines personal story with pedagogical musings, notes for the professional field and from her upbringing as a dance technician.
[JK]: Can you say a bit about your technical background and upbringing and your pedigree as a technician. Let me just say that the reason I want to ask you that…
[Pam]: ok.
[JK]: …I perceive you as having this amazing grasp on what we consider conventional techniques, meaning like, ballet technique and different modern techniques. Throughout your career you’ve continued to invest in that…
[Pam]: mm-hmm.
[JK]: … both as a practitioner, which is important, and as a teacher. And that’s partly because you’ve continued to perform and it’s partly because you’ve continued to teach across the technique curriculum.
[Pam]: Right. Well, without going into too much boring detail… Yeah, I started taking classes at age six and as you know, went deeper and deeper into ballet.
[JK]: And because I’ll be transcribing this for the nice people out there just say, if you want to, you can say where you went to dance school.
[Pam]: Oh, well I don’t know how interesting that is but I was in Irvington New York and I studied at Ballet Theater Westchester, which is in Tarrytown, New York. I went to, Windhover which is a performing arts camp for four years, from like, ages 12 to 15 or 16 or something. And you know, thought, for that time that, that’s really what I wanted to do, be a ballerina. Like, “I don’t even care if I’m in the corps I just want to do ballet.” Then went to Walnut Hill for two years, my last two years of high school and really struggled there.
[JK]: Is there a way you could summarize the nature of that struggle?
[Pam]: Still hard for me to put it into words, but I didn’t shine there and that’s partly because I was shy and was in this very new context. For the first time in my life I went through this huge change and I guess that’s where I started to learn that I’m not, like… I don’t sell myselfas a dancer. I’m not the kind of person who stands front and center in every class and makes sure that the teacher sees me, you know?
[JK]: Yeah. And this is a boarding school, yes?
[Pam]: It is, yeah. So, I’m not flashy in that way. And that’s when I learned- if you don’t do that (sell yourself) then they’re not necessarily gonna see that you have any chops. That and, me and another group of girls (it was all girls that she took aside, there were some boys in the class in that school but…) we were all told to lose weight and that we wouldn’t be allowed to perform unless we lost a certain amount of weight. So, then I tried stupid diets like don’t eat anything after 3pm. I remember going to dinner and making iced coffee and having that. You know, stupid things that never lasted and I didn’t really lose weight and I don’t think I performed my first year there. Then the beginning of my second year, my last year, I was fooling around in the dance studio, it was early in the year, showing my friend what we did in ballet class earlier in that day—we were about to go into jazz and I was doing really fast brises and fell on my foot and I broke it.
[JK]: Ah, I remember this story.
[Pam]: Yeah, I broke my fifth metatarsal and you know, went to the hospital, got an x-ray, got a cast. It was kind of a blessing in disguise because then I couldn’t dance, I couldn’t be criticized by this teacher. (That teacher) just was not nurturing at all.
[JK]: Well, and not nurturing of your talents either. Like, not a nurturing personality but not nurturing your potential either.
[Pam]: Exactly, exactly. Yeah, so I kind of feel like I got worse as a dancer, like even before I broke my foot because I was just categorized as not a good dancer and my potential was not nurtured at all.
[JK]: That is so tragic and funny to me now (knowing how outstanding your talents are). I wonder in all of this… I’m curious because your story about breaking your fifth metatarsal, being told to lose weight, having a terrible time with unhealthy eating, like these are all very typical stories for dancers, and I’m just wondering was there ever any explicit message that was somehow connected to technique? To being good at the dancing? Or was it all about appearance? Do you see what I’m saying?
[Pam]: Yes, it was all about appearance. And so, my confidence just got completely shot down. So that’s what I mean when I say I got worse. I’d be in class and I just wasn’t as good as I was before I got there, when I was being nurtured and pushed and challenged but also encouraged. At Walnut Hill, I didn’t get any of that.
[JK]: You were dismissed because your body didn’t fit a certain type that they had in mind.
[Pam]: Right.
[JK]: And then, can you say a little bit about what happened—what was your idea of technique, like your pedigree in technique after that, because it’s been a long, long life since you left Walnut Hill.
[Pam]: Well, you know, I went to college thinking I’m done with dance, understandably. And, as you know, sort of--"oh, I guess I’ll take a class.” Actually, I dropped the first course that I took after the first class because it terrified me, because it wasn’t like “oh, we’ll tell you what to do and you will execute it.” That’s what I thought was technique.
[JK]: And instead what was it?
[Pam]: As you know, it was: “you’re gonna make stuff, you’re gonna improvise.” I was like, “oh no, I’m not”. No, I was scared of it. I decided to try again and it was a different teacher, and I stuck with it and I still thought that modern dance was weird and improvisation was terrifying. The fact that ballet wasn’t even offered was a true blessing for me. I didn’t know it at the time, but just to not be around (ballet) at all was exactly what I needed to be able to keep dancing. And then, just over time in college, I grew to value this other kind of dance and improvisation and see the virtuosity in that. That was just so different than what I had always thought to be the ultimate goal—to be in ballet.
[JK]: I wonder if—do you remember our teachers saying anything about what this technique was? Like, whenever they did use that word or talk about that word, did they ever talk about technique? Do you have any stories to report, or any things that you remember about, “this is such and such technique,” or “this is what technique is or what it does…”?
[Pam]: Not general things, I mean I remember Penny (Campbell) giving us tastes of Cunningham. I remember Andrea talking about Limon, and breath, but not details, not specifics and not like, “this is what technique is.”
[JK]: Yeah, they referenced it, they translated and offered some of it in small doses. But they did not present in their original forms any codified named techniques.
[Pam]: No.
[JK]: And this is back in the day. This is back in the late 80s or the early 90s.
[Pam]: That’s right, and one story I do remember, and I think you’ve heard this one… We were at ACDF, and we went to an audition. I say we, it was me and Katherine and I don’t know, maybe Matt Brown and—I feel like you weren’t there but maybe you were…
[JK]: No, I wasn’t. You all were the class ahead of me.
[Pam]: We went to the audition for ADF or something, I don’t even know why we went, cause none of us were gonna go to ADF (hahaha). But, you had to wear a number, and ugh, there was a ballet barre and center- you know, it was “technique in ballet and modern.” And I think we were told, like second hand, whoever gave the audition told our teachers that they loved what we were doing, what they saw us do on stage, but we needed more “technique.” That was their feedback after this audition.
[JK]: Wow.
[Pam]: Yeah. And I remember thinking, “what the hell?!” I have so many years of frickin’ technique that I have been trying to undo or…
[JK]: And what is this dancing that they love that’s not technical, that’s not technique? And if they love it then why do you need the technique they’re talking about?
[Pam]: Right. It’s these mixed messages, like okay so I guess you’re supposed to have both. Like both the creativity that you see us having on stage and technique for doing grande battements and triplets.
[JK]: Right and then do you recall what your teachers said about it? Were they rolling their eyes or were they saying “no you guys have to work harder” or what was their deal?
[Pam]: I don’t remember, but I feel like they kind of rolled their eyes and laughed.
[JK]: Yeah, ok. Cause they weren’t really invested in that idea in the same way.
[Pam]: Nope, they didn’t buy into it. So, they were like “sure whatever, we’re not changing our curriculum.”
[JK]: More like “We’re teaching the students something else which they can’t get in another place,” which is—well that’s a different article.
[Pam]: Right, what the program valued at Middlebury was finding one’s own voice—as a mover, and that everybody’s voice was different and everybody’s voice is valuable. And so…
[JK]: Especially, if you also apply some craft and creativity and maker’s knowledge…
[Pam]: Right, and that kind of translates to movement invention in some ways- to not be a recognizable technique when you make something.
[JK]: Right, I’ve always struggled with the tension between these: we’re supposed to be inventive and yet, we’re day after day conducting these embodied rituals that are creating this habitus, this habitualized knowledge and how are we supposed to do both? That’s not exactly how it works.
[Pam]: Yep, and I think then, it was a question of mine as a student and was definitely a question of mine as a teacher, you know, mentoring students’ creative projects and then also teaching them what a tendu is… and repeating it, you know, establishing these neuromuscular patterns.
[JK]: Which are necessary.
[Pam]: Which are—yep.
[JK]: For injury prevention, and clarity and... So you got through that program and did many interesting things. You went to New York, you went to grad school, you went back to New York. In that whole season of life, what is of note? Like new things that you encountered, things that you added to your sense of technical preparation, or technical thinking.
[Pam]: Certainly, an expanded knowledge of the body, you know, taking kinesiology in grad school, and anatomy with Irene Dowd in New York…I was able to, in grad school and then beyond, go back to ballet with a sort of new attitude about it. And that’s not what I wanted to do with my life anymore but it helped to keep me strong and flexible and kind of thinking about it more holistically in that way. And that obviously felt much healthier. And realizing there’s a whole population of dancers who aren’t professional ballet dancers in New York, who take ballet every day. Just to move their bodies and again, keep a kind of clarity in that.
[JK]: You can get strong, and you can pursue flexibility in all kinds of ways- in modern dance classes and in yoga and other practices. But, what do you think it is about ballet, maybe just from your perspective, that keeps drawing you back to use that modality instead of other modalities just as a form of practice?
[Pam]: Well, I’m starting to wonder… because, I mean how old am I? And I’ve gone through stages. But I’m going through another stage now where I’m like, “I’m really tired of this.” I don’t wanna teach it, I don’t wanna do it, I don’t wanna watch it, like I’m tired of it. But, I think I keep going back because there is something predictable about it, very much. The structure of a ballet class is like a given, you do barre, you start with plies, you know blah blah bah, and some teachers will start on the floor, like in New York— You know, if you can find good teachers they can really see things in your body, like imbalances—because ballet is so balanced, right and left--
[JK]: And right and wrong. And you’re doing it or you’re not. And that gives a way, a certain kind of set up or back drop through which to see what people are doing - It’s a way to get a certain kind of information.
[Pam]: It’s really about the teacher, depending on what you’re looking for. And luckily there’s an adult class here in Lancaster—and it’s all teachers in that class, so we—and the teacher herself who’s over 80 years old, just has a great eye. The twists on things… sometimes she’ll have us hold our arms in a certain way that not balletic but it helps us to find / access other muscles. A whole host of things. And it’s less about, “oh no the shape…” and “you have to do it like this.”
[JK]: Not about matching external shapes.
[Pam]: No, it’s really about pathways in the body, and movement rather than shape.
[JK]: Shocking.
[Pam]: Yeah, yeah—so the teacher just makes a huge difference. That was I think my biggest lesson at Walnut Hill- what I got out of that was, “OK, now if I’ve learned—if I ever become a teacher that’s not how I’m gonna teach.” And so that was a gift.
[JK]: This next question, both from the perspective of being a student in a class but maybe from the perspective of trying to teach technique or pass it on in any kind of a way, is about identifying pivotal moments when your ideas changed.
[Pam]: Gosh, did I have pivotal moments?
[JK]: Or was it more like a slow evolution?
[Pam]: Yeah, I feel like it was a slow evolution. My memory is also getting worse by the day so there may have been a pivotal moment that I just don’t remember.
[JK]: Well, it’s interesting that you say that because this is something I’ve been thinking about too; the time it takes to establish these skills in the body and the time it takes for an idea to cook and for an idea to take hold or become manifested in your practice. And I’m very interested in this report that you make—that you were grateful that there wasn’t an option to take ballet at our college because perhaps that would have muddied the waters in a way that would have prevented you from moving into other ideas.
[Pam]: Totally, yep.
[JK]: That’s something I struggle with because I currently teach in a program where the ballet technique curriculum is on offer every day and there definitely is an attitude in my colleagues’ minds about needing to take it daily and that if you’re not taking it you’re not doing technique or you’re not preparing yourself properly. But you and I never got that message in college.
[Pam]: Nope. We didn’t but I think it’s still—it’s definitely still out there and very strong as an idea that ballet is foundational.
[JK]: Yes, we hear this from a particular colleague here that ballet is “the base.” And it’s an idea that’s very easy to debunk; it’s not an idea that you can state nowadays without manydance professionals looking at you sideways. Especially in this era of looking at dance from a global perspective, how non-european dance forms have been demoted or invisibilized or made to be other. And so, if we say ballet is the base of the balletic - OK. But there are many dance forms that are in some way related to ballet (and others that came out as a reaction against ballet and yet, incorporated something about ballet sooner or later - but still are NOT ballet) and have their own distinct movement values. So can we still say ballet is a basewithout qualification?
[Pam]: No. I think I believed that for a long time, even in my college years and maybe even in my grad school years, I’m not sure. I think that was a slow evolution coming to believe: actually it’s not, and actually it can work against you if you’re trying to improvise or make your own dances and have any kind of movement invention. Because if you have those neuromuscular pathways drilled into you it’s hard to move past them. That’s why I think it was really advantageous to me that Middlebury didn’t offer it, and so I wasn’t doing it and that’s maybe the only way I could’ve found other ways to move. Which is—not do ballet, not see it, not even—you know, in my life at all.
[JK]: Right. It’s like, you close that door so that you can open another one for a minute. Something I see in my classes a lot (because alongside that “ballet is the base” idea) nowadays, there’s this idea about being able to do everything, right? And so, you have to do everything and then there’s this pressure, like “just take everything, you know, grab onto it with an open mind, throw yourself into all these forms.” But what I do see often with students in my technique class is that they can’t let go of the tone that’s in their bodies from ballet. They practice the ballet and they’ve practiced it a long time and in a certain way and it’s about overt effort and muscularity and a specific relationship to gravity. That basic tone and body set-up, beyond vocabulary, is really really hard to let go.
[Pam]: It is, and I think that’s what kids today are getting trained in and I also think it’s maturity. I mean, well just to back up a little bit, I do love assigning the article that’s called “Ballet as an Ethnic Form of Dance” or “A Form of Ethnic Dance.”
[JK]: Joann Kealiinnohomoku!!!
[Pam]: Yes! Love that one! It blows so many students minds- I just love that moment.
[JK]: Yeah, it’s a classic.
[Pam]: And I just was overjoyed when I first was exposed to that article… “like, yes!!”
[JK]: It’s not the universal base of all dance, it is an ethnic form!
[Pam]: Yes! Think about it… if you want to do one of the many African dance forms, do you really want to train in ballet first? No! Think about it people. Anyway, I love that so much but now, I think just what you were saying, the students I’m seeing it’s less about, “oh they’re all coming from ballet,” but they’re all coming from competition and this idea that you just have to be able to do everything. Thank you so much, So You Think You Can Dance, TV show. Which isn’t a bad thing to want to be versatile, to be versatile—great!
[JK]: And to be able to pull off tricks and whatever.
[Pam]: Do tricks matter?
[JK]: But the tone, I think there’s a tone that you’re talking about. I remember back in the day when I collaborated with Megan Bonneau McCool and we set that ballet on pointe on Pioneer Valley Ballet company and it got into this gala at RDA and we looked at our dance in the context of what other people were dong and performing; the director of our regional studio looked at us and told us, “your dance was the only one that didn’t try to sock everyone in the eye.” And I really am curious about this attachment to a certain tone in the body.
[Pam]: Yes, I think that’s absolutely true. And I also think there are muscular pathways that are drilled in and it’s hard to get them out. And that’s back to the idea about, “it takes time.” It takes time for ideas to sink in but also for the body to be able to expand its range of what it can do and wants to do.
[JK]: Wasn’t it Aristotle who said, “you are what you habitually do”? I’ll have to look that up.
[Pam]: Yeah look that one up.
[JK]: Um, well what about this next question: What do you see as the relationship between this conventional training and technical preparation and your improvisational practice and performance? You know, these things can help each other but how does that play out for you as a practitioner, first of all. Just talk to me about your own practice.
[Pam]: I feel like the—the way I think about it that, technique and the fact that I still take ballet every week, once a week, gives me again, strength, agility, flexibility, coordination, musicality, you know all that stuff. It helps me to practice that in a certain way. And all of those things I bring to my improvising practice. I don’t really care how high you can kick your leg, that’s not why I’m working on flexibility, but having more flexibility gives me more options as a mover. Being stronger gives me more options. Being more agile gives me more options. That’s the spiel I give my students too about how we use technique in improvisation without just regurgitating steps that you’ve seen and done a hundred million times.
[JK]: Yeah, what do you say?
[Pam]: We use technique—I forget, it’s from Free Play— you use the bigger ideas that you learn in technique as an improviser, rather than regurgitating the specific moves that you learn.
[JK]: so, the difference between exploring some movement and – boom- out comes the arabesque with the arms and the whole trope, vs. just being able to explore the backspace with your leg.
[Pam]: Right, right, yep! And this is what can be really hard for—what I observe—really hard for students to get, you know? And by that, I mean understand, comprehend, put into practice, however you wanna word it. But it takes time, it took me a long time to understand that, no, I don’t throw away my technique when I improvise, it actually—it helps me if I can utilize it in a broad sense, as a bank of possibilities rather than a bank of moves I could pull out of my pocket. (I’m not interested in that.)
[JK]: I always kind of roll my eyes at this, even though I know and appreciate what she means, but Jan Erkert, in her book “Harnessing the Wind,” (and you have to put your hand on your forehead when you say the title, and shake your hair, ha ha), she says- I can’t remember it exactly - something like, “technique is for smoothing out the rough edges and improvisation is for cherishing the courser textures,” and then there’s this illustration of a person with their bent up arms and legs doing some weird pose and it’s just like, “ok I see where you’re going with that” and maybe I don’t disagree but it just seems like kind of a crude way to formulate the relationship between technique and improvisation.
[Pam]: Yeah, I think it’s sort of elementary, an elementary way to understand it—I don’t know if elementary is the right word but—yeah I don’t like that either and I’ve been trying to figure out too, in my technique classes, how to bring in ideas that bridge technique and improvisation or technique and composition (creativity, you know?).
[JK]: How are you doing it?
[Pam]: Well, I kind of get more explicit: “ok, we’re doing this because—,“ I’ll just throw in quote, unquote, weird stuffwhich isn’t ground breaking, certainly not new…
[JK]: Weird, how? What do you mean weird?
[Pam]: Just like: brushing our feet, doing tendus, and I’m actually trying to stop using ballet vocabulary, um - foot brushes. And then like on count seven you have to immediately lie down and do one in the air and then get up and start on one again, or something. You know, to get out of expectation.
[JK]: Yeah, you’re disrupting the norm or the way that those practices were handed down and then you’re throwing in or modeling a creative use of that skill, right?
[Pam]: Exactly. And so, trying like--
[JK]: That’s good stuff Pam!
[Pam]: Yeah, and trying to disrupt that. And also for myself. Because it would be so easy for me to just keep teaching the same class that I know teach really well at this point. But a) I think it’s outdated and b) that’s boring for me and c) I think it gets boring for students and it doesn’t help them expand anything really.
[JK]: Do you remember when Peter Schmitz would teach us a barre?
[Pam]: Oh god, barely.
[JK]: So, I just have these distinct memories of like trying to figure out this sort of classical stance without pushing your ribs forward and without making these affectations I’d seen—I’d never practiced any of it, but I’d seen it. And then he wanted us to be grounded but he also wanted us to be clear. I think he wanted us to be familiar with it - putting your hand on the barre and doing things on one side and then the other. ‘Cause I think he knew some of us never had any of that training. But so, we would do, as you say, foot brushes or plies, sorry - bending of the knees! And then he would interject, “and now for 8 counts you melt to the floor, you roll away from the barre, you roll back, and when you stand up you wipe your nose with your sleeve and your hand comes out here and then you begin.” And in retrospect I’m pretty sure he probably made us wipe our noses cause he saw someone doing it, you know how he used to do that? He would just incorporate things you were doing into the sequence.
[Pam]: Yep, yeah.
[JK]: I just remember thinking, “this is working somehow - this is getting us grounded, this is steering us away from affectation, getting us connected to gravity, and when we stand up and open our arms to the side - there’s some kind of realness there – it’s not just a pose.”
[Pam]: Yeah, yeah. I don’t know if I was in that class, I don’t remember...
[JK]: You were too advanced for that. You were the year ahead of us.
[Pam]: Yeah, always questioning “why are we doing this?” And then putting that on students too, like why are we doing this? Why are we doing leg swings? Why? So, that they think about it too, cause it’s so easy to just be mindless about it. Like, “oh we’re finding the weight of our leg, we’re finding our standing leg, you know, we’re figuring out balance with a moving body part…”
[JK]: And then based on what else you’ve said, if we have that skill we can apply it to vocabulary we haven’t seen yet.
[Pam]: Right. Applying knowledge. And that’s—isn’t that what college’s all about, like that’s what you learn how to do? Or that’s the hope – in any discipline really. It’s not about regurgitating facts anymore.
[JK]: What is – I’m trying to remember the name of a school, it’s in your ACDA region and it’s ballet focused.
[Pam]: Point Park?
[JK]: It’s not Point Park.
[Pam]: Oh! Uh, out in Eerie – Eerie, PA. Marymount, no, Mercyhurst!
[JK]: Mercyhurst! It might be… Honestly, I can’t remember! We were having a discussion over a meal with faculty and I said something about viewing technique as more than just perfecting these stock moves, because then where are you if new vocabulary comes up? And this one professor said, “oh well I completely disagree, technique is perfecting stock moves.”
[Pam]: Really? She said that?
[JK]: Yeah! Oh yeah, I mean she didn’t say “stock moves” but she was all about prescribed vocabulary, the codified stuff, and she was really committed to that view. And I just remember being shocked that she didn’t see the usefulness in broadening out. It was more about narrowing down and this is in, and this is out, and this is technique, and this is not. And that sort of cuts against the idea of improvisation as having anything to do with technique, but I think we certainly learned something else, a different philosophy.
[Pam]: Right. Absolutely. There’s a technique in working with technique! One that isn’t regurgitation but rather about using it as a tool for new territory.
[JK]: Yeah, that.
[Pam]:That, I think, is a learned skill.
[JK]: Yeah, say more about that. I agree with you!
[Pam]: Yeah—that’s a technique. And one that doesn’t have a name, like “oh I’m taking intermediate modern”, but maybe “oh I’m taking intermediate applied technique in improvisation,” or whatever you wanna call it.
[JK]: But that’s genius! Applied Technique, like taking the technical skills and then try to apply them to something new—isn’t that what we call improvisation? Maybe this is the new name for improvisation, its applied technique.
[Pam]: Right. Maybe that would attract you know—other kinds of dancers.
[JK]: Movement research is another way of saying it. Taking these body-based skills and conducting research with them. Like what do they do, what does this or that do if I explore a bit?
[Pam]: Exactly. And that, I think, takes practice, it takes maturity. I know it did for me. And that’s what I see in my students. You can only go as far as you’re ready to go, you know? You can only hear as much as you’re ready to hear. And you don’t even know what that means when you’re 19 but, I just have to tell myself like, you have to be really patient and they just have to keep practicing. And we keep offering different frameworks and prompts and ways to practice, and either—they ultimately realize, “oh this is applied technique,” or they don’t.
[JK]: But maybe if we start calling it that, I mean I,—totally side conversation but I mean I’m trying to propose to my home department here that maybe I could have more time with the entering class, and that instead of waiting until they’re sophomores to teach them this so-called Improvisation 1 curriculum, which is really about ensemble composing, that maybe I could have them for a longer time when they first arrive. And that I could teach them, I guess based on this conversation, what I would call Introduction to Movement Research including Applied Techniques, Improvisation and sort of, Creative Process. I don’t even wanna call it Composition because even there we get into stock forms, which is more about—well anyway, that’s a different conversation.
[Pam] It is, but it’s an exciting one.
[JK]: I would be so happy to teach that.
[Pam]: Yeah. I’d be excited to teach that too.
[JK]: How do you see improvisation practices AS technique? How would you describe that way of looking at it? The techniques of improvisation.
[Pam]: I think it’s a technique in presence, and attention, and that those things are, I mean here we get into semantics, a little bit, those are skills, those are practices, those are techniques, but it’s not something you master, necessarily. But we are always calling it a practice, right? Because it’s ongoing, and there’s not an end point, and maybe there’s something about the word technique that implies this potential of ultimate mastery or something. Which is why–maybe talking about improvisation as a technique might not compute for some people. And then yes, it’s semantics but I totally believe that there’s a ton of technique in the practice of improvisation, and listening, seeing, paying attention, presence and then of course, in terms of how you are moving the body. Just – range.
[JK]: Yeah, say more about range, because range means something in a ballet class or a modern class, but range means something else in an improvisation, and is it a technical practice to work on it?
[Pam]: Totally. It means so many things in improvisation, like what is your range as a mover? And then even as a mover there’s a ton of different levels you can look at – like what’s your energy range? What’s your range of using your limbs vs. your core? What’s your range in terms of how you focus on things? And then of course, what’s your range in terms of initiating, following, role-playing, you know, what roles do you tend to play? And then we get into shtick and always wanting to—embracing our shtick—but always wanting to expand the ranges that we tend to inhabit and a whole host of levels.
[JK]: And here’s where we get one of those funny opposites that maybe in the end doesn’t turn out to be so opposite, but in conventional thinking about technique… Repetition is a big deal and actually trying to get something to be predictable and the same over and over– if you can just do it this way every time then you’ll be able to predict how to do it, like how can I get on my leg, how can I make this balance or do it in the proper sequence, etc. And then in the technique of improvisation it’s all about practices that expand your modes, expand your approach, expand literal vocabulary, and so not repeating—what is the technique of not repeating yourself?
[Pam]: Yeah, that’s really it.
[JK]: Like, what do you do? What do you think? What do you pay attention to? What do you do to avoid it or to create some other possibility?
[Pam]: Yeah and that’s a really good point—and so it kind of does stand in opposition to established forms, techniques and established forms that do use repetition in order to master standing on your leg and doing an arabesque or whatever. Because you don’t wanna do the same thing twice much less over and over. And that’s—one thing I was thinking about and one thing I talk to my students about that I think is related, is this idea of virtuosity and that there are different kinds of virtuosity, because when we think of virtuosity and dance I think there’s an assumption that it’s a dancer who can lift the leg really high and do multiple turns and splits and jump really high and just sort of wow you with their technique.
[JK]: Yeah, athleticism and tricks and superhuman feats.
[Pam]: Right. What I try to impart to my students is that there’s other kinds of virtuosity too—and I think that’s easiest maybe to see it in improvisation. The virtuosity of being able to stand with utter attention on something. Like your attention can be virtuosic, your presence, and I always tell them about this Trisha Brown piece, I think it’s called 4MG the Movie? And for the whole dance there’s one dancer who’s standing with his back to the audience, and there’s all this movement going on around him and he never, ever moves. And it’s captivating. You know, he’s “just” standing there, and it seems he’s radiating energy out of his back. If you’re paying attention to it. And when I saw it he turned around to bow, and the audience went wild. There’s virtuosity in that, that’s a technique, that’s a skill.
[JK]: So for you what is this list of essential capacities that are improvisation techniques are supposed to build or enlarge. And I guess I wrote you earlier to ask: are they physical capacities are they perceptual capacities? Are compositional capacities something else?
[Pam]: Well, I think all of the above. Physical, perceptual capacity, absolutely, attentional capacity for sure, which—and that’s probably at the top of the list – attentional capacity, which is just central to everything. It’s central to a frickin’ ballet class (like you have to deeply pay attention!).
[JK]: Well, and isn’t this the base? Isn’t attention the real base?
[Pam]: Yes! Right.
[JK]: Like, the kind of virtuosity about ways of paying attention to yourself, to the environment, to what you’re doing, how it interacts with everything, noticing differences, noticing all those different sensory channels and kinesthetic modalities. Without that where would you be as a dancer, as a performer?
[Pam]: Right. And connecting inner experiences to what’s happening around you.
[JK]: And isn’t that the foundation of improvisation?
[Pam]: Yes.
[JK]: Otherwise isn’t it just like going through the motions?
[Pam]: Mm-hmm. Which is easier. I mean the motions might be really challenging, but it’s easier to just do that.
[JK]: Easier than performing as a whole person - awake to what you’re doing and engaging in it in a sophisticated way while doing it.
[Pam]: Mm-hmm. And I think that’s why it’s scary to a lot of people.
[JK]: Yeah, it’s not as concrete, how to work on it, when to know that it’s working or it’s not working or if you’re doing it quote unquote right, or is there even such a thing? And that’s harder to get students to buy into.
[Pam]: It is. And also, it exposes a person more- to find a technique. (Not, “I’m just doing the adagio that the teacher taught me.”) But, in improvisation you don’t have that to sort of hide in. It’s all you.
[JK]: Yeah, that’s so vulnerable especially when you’re not sure of anything. Of what your next move is, or whether or not anyone else thinks it makes any sense, or it even makes sense to you. Coping with uncertainty. I mean this is harking back to the beginning of the conversation where you sort of said one of the reasons why you continue to practice ballet is its predictability and there’s a comfort there.
[Pam]: Yeah and there’s also a boredom. Which I go in and out of. In doing it and teaching it. Just trying to find new ways to approach it. But, yeah that’s the downfall of predictability is boredom. And the thing about improvisation is like, if you’re bored with what you’re doing, change it!
[JK]: [Laughter], yea, just stop doing that move!
[Pam]: Which I love, that’s something I find myself saying a lot in my improvisation class as a reminder because sometimes, and I might be reading them wrong but they look bored, or they just look like they’re not paying attention.
[JK]: I mean there’s a great freedom on offer in improvisation practice–but it comes with this edge of uncertainty, maybe anxiety maybe vulnerability, maybe lack of focus maybe chaos. What’s the list of the “shadow sides” of all that freedom? I think what we learned was that by being given this space of uncertainty over and over and over, you learn how to construct order for yourself. I honestly don’t know where I’d be in life without that lesson.
[Pam]: I know. I know. It just comes down to, I think, being empowered as an individual person. And also finding empowerment within an ensemble—a collective. Andas a collective. Both.
[JK]: Right, and I guess we might have our own ways of talking about - when an order is imposed on you - like let’s say in the form of a codified technique - what is the challenge there? In terms of finding your own voice or your own freedom? And that’s a whole other talk--
[Pam]: That is a whole other thing and let me just say, for years you’d be in a technique class and the teacher would say, “make it your own!”
[JK]: And what does that mean to this teacher?! Aaaahhh!!!
[Pam]: And I never knew what that meant! Should I just be more flashy? But that’s not really me. And I never knew what to do.
[JK]: Right, what are the techniques of making the movement your own? And are there keys and practices to be found for this in improvisation?
[Pam]: Even when you’re doing a choreographed dance, professional dancers bring themselves to it, they’re not just executing the moves, at least in the kind of dance that I like to watch. And that’s what I try to say about my professional performance as creative scholarship to the school, to the college, that I’m not just an automaton doing what I’m told. It’s a very collaborative process. And I bring my creative voice, my choices into the mix and that’s improvisational choice making, in the moment.
[JK]: And then even after you do that and the material gets “set,” seasoned professionals know that you make a spontaneous decision about how to treat these moments.
[Pam]: And every moment is alive in that way. And that’s improvisational training. Yeah. That’s how I got it. I started to learn who I was as a choice maker in the moment and what that felt like and then slowly, oh! I can apply this in technique! Oh!
[JK]: Yeah, just because there’s this set material, you don’t lose that opportunity to decide who you are in that moment and how you’re going to approach it. These moments are inflected with who you are. And decisions you’re making. Now, when the material isn’t set, there are more decisions to make, but even when the material isset you can approach it as if this moment has choices in it for you.
[Pam]: Yes, and that’s what’s exciting about live performance, that a video can never do. And watching those choices get made even if they are within a set vocabulary, you know that those dancers are paying attention and making choices in every second.
[JK]: Yeah, making choices about milliseconds, and about modulating energy or how to connect with partners or the space or the particular audience members who are there or that weird little detail that was off this time. I mean that’s something I find myself doing in technique class even when I’m repeating a phrase.
Well, we’ve been talking for about an hour. I just wonder - what is this bringing up for you? Does it bring to mind an anecdote or a story you wanna tell or any other notes?
[Pam]: Well, it makes me excited to talk to you about it and just make connections—or verbalize them in a certain way that I haven’t ever, or in a while.
[JK]: Me too. And it’s this spontaneous dialogue that makes these points come out in just the way they do and I love that.
[Pam]: Yeah, I love that too. And that’s exciting to me. I’m not teaching technique this semester but next time I do, just to think about that and how we talk about it to our students and how I think about it for myself. It makes it fresh.
This is just a whole other story. But often in the mixed level technique classes I teach—the more mature ones can often teach the less mature ones— But often times in improvisation, people without a lot of formal training (or any formal training) can often have an advantage in
some ways. And that’s another thing that comes up in my class as evidence:
look, ballet is not the base of all of movement practice.
[JK]: Yeah, what are these so-called untrained movers able to do?
[Pam]: They don’t have these preconceived notions about how they should look. And they don’t have preconceived patterns that are so ingrained- like their “go to patterns.” And that, I think, frees them to explore more. And I wouldn’t say that’s the rule across the board but I have often observed that. But then they can be limited by flexibility, or their bodies aren’t as articulate or something.
[JK]: Sometimes clarity is an issue.
[Pam]: Yeah, being clear in the body. But there can be a real advantage to going into improvisation without having had a lot of formal dance training in a specific technique. And sometimes I’ve been envious of that. At Middlebury, I remember being kind of shocked that these non-dancers were getting into the company and I wasn’t. I’m just remembering this now!
[JK]: And when you say non-dancers you mean people without previous training?
[Pam]: Correct. And so, I quickly learned, that’s not the end all be all. So, yeah that was
important. But then I saw, over time, I recognized what they had to offer.
[JK]: Their skill.
[Pam]: Their skill. That I couldn’t just snap my finger and do what they did.
[JK]: What they did was explore and invent and do something different and manipulate what came up or treated it in unique ways. Flip it on its head. Show up to yourself and let the uniqueness of that moment emerge.
[Pam]: Yeah - couldnotdo that.
[JK]: And that’s a kind of virtuosity, right? That’s kind of what you’re talking about.
[Pam]: Yes. And that was the beginning of my lesson in different kinds of virtuosity
and different values that at first, I was like, “wait what?” and then grew to really embrace.
[JK]: Well, this question is to close our talk: I just wonder- we all have our narratives and our biographies with regard to how we came into dance and what happened to us and how that either advantaged or disadvantaged certain trajectories in the field. And I just wonder, are there ways that you think about your various forms of preparation and experience in training and education that make you feel grateful? Are there things you think to yourself: “oh, thank god I had this,” or “oh, thank god I had that,”? Cause I think I see you using it all.
[Pam]: Oh that’s nice. Well, I mean I really at this point I’m so grateful for the improvisation
practice, and it took me awhile, longer than anything to fully embrace it as a primary thing that I do.
[JK]: And yet you’re like the best one at it.
[Pam]: [Laughter]. Oh, god, hardly. It’s sort of embarrassing almost that it’s taken me so long. I mean you guys were like, “hello?” But I’m so grateful that I was exposed to it in the first place and that I’ve had peers like you that have kind of kept me doing it. I don’t know if I would have kept doing it without you and Katherine and Lisa.
[JK]: Well, because the world doesn’t have any messages that say you should be doing it. And our field even doesn’t have any, the values of our field don’t necessarily, say well, “Oh, you need to improvise on a regular basis, it’s the foundation, you know.” And yet, we see what a lifetime of doing it has produced for us both inside and outside the studio.
[Pam]: Exactly. And that’s where it’s irreplaceable. Like, no technique could do that, enhance
this way of being in the world.
[JK]: Well and this belief, this commitment that we both hold keeps me going as a teacher
because it’s so hard to teach this form and that’s a whole other conversation but it’s also an
amazing privilege to pass it on. And I sometimes think of you, Pam Vail, when looking at a class
or a student who is just not engaged and I am tempted to take this personally or get
offended on behalf of improvisation. But I remember standing at the threshold to the studio
doorway in college while the class before me was happening, and you were in it, and in this class you were improvising with the group and you were so clearly not into it. You were just like half-heartedly doing some moves and then you would kind of stop and sigh, and then carry on. It was just so clear you were not fully engaged and the fact that you went from there to being a brilliant improviser and teacher and someone who is just as much an evangelist for
improvisation as any…I just have to look out at the room full of students and whoever’s doing
whatever and imagine: the next Pam Vail could be in here.
[Pam]: That’s really funny.
[JK]: And I’m gonna keep teaching this class like she’s in here.
[Pam]: Right. And I don’t forget that that’s where I was with improvisation as a student. And I tell my students that, too. I went to college and I was like “improvisation is a) weird, b) terrifying c) I never wanna do it.”
[JK]: Please, next time you teach you have to put me on speakerphone and let me tell the story.
[Pam]: Yes, totally!
[JK]: They’ll love it.
[Pam]: I’ll have them read this interview.
[JK]: Well, thank you so much for this talk. It’s really great to talk with you about all this. And I
know there’s so much more to say but I think this is a great place to begin.
[Pam]: ok.
[JK]: …I perceive you as having this amazing grasp on what we consider conventional techniques, meaning like, ballet technique and different modern techniques. Throughout your career you’ve continued to invest in that…
[Pam]: mm-hmm.
[JK]: … both as a practitioner, which is important, and as a teacher. And that’s partly because you’ve continued to perform and it’s partly because you’ve continued to teach across the technique curriculum.
[Pam]: Right. Well, without going into too much boring detail… Yeah, I started taking classes at age six and as you know, went deeper and deeper into ballet.
[JK]: And because I’ll be transcribing this for the nice people out there just say, if you want to, you can say where you went to dance school.
[Pam]: Oh, well I don’t know how interesting that is but I was in Irvington New York and I studied at Ballet Theater Westchester, which is in Tarrytown, New York. I went to, Windhover which is a performing arts camp for four years, from like, ages 12 to 15 or 16 or something. And you know, thought, for that time that, that’s really what I wanted to do, be a ballerina. Like, “I don’t even care if I’m in the corps I just want to do ballet.” Then went to Walnut Hill for two years, my last two years of high school and really struggled there.
[JK]: Is there a way you could summarize the nature of that struggle?
[Pam]: Still hard for me to put it into words, but I didn’t shine there and that’s partly because I was shy and was in this very new context. For the first time in my life I went through this huge change and I guess that’s where I started to learn that I’m not, like… I don’t sell myselfas a dancer. I’m not the kind of person who stands front and center in every class and makes sure that the teacher sees me, you know?
[JK]: Yeah. And this is a boarding school, yes?
[Pam]: It is, yeah. So, I’m not flashy in that way. And that’s when I learned- if you don’t do that (sell yourself) then they’re not necessarily gonna see that you have any chops. That and, me and another group of girls (it was all girls that she took aside, there were some boys in the class in that school but…) we were all told to lose weight and that we wouldn’t be allowed to perform unless we lost a certain amount of weight. So, then I tried stupid diets like don’t eat anything after 3pm. I remember going to dinner and making iced coffee and having that. You know, stupid things that never lasted and I didn’t really lose weight and I don’t think I performed my first year there. Then the beginning of my second year, my last year, I was fooling around in the dance studio, it was early in the year, showing my friend what we did in ballet class earlier in that day—we were about to go into jazz and I was doing really fast brises and fell on my foot and I broke it.
[JK]: Ah, I remember this story.
[Pam]: Yeah, I broke my fifth metatarsal and you know, went to the hospital, got an x-ray, got a cast. It was kind of a blessing in disguise because then I couldn’t dance, I couldn’t be criticized by this teacher. (That teacher) just was not nurturing at all.
[JK]: Well, and not nurturing of your talents either. Like, not a nurturing personality but not nurturing your potential either.
[Pam]: Exactly, exactly. Yeah, so I kind of feel like I got worse as a dancer, like even before I broke my foot because I was just categorized as not a good dancer and my potential was not nurtured at all.
[JK]: That is so tragic and funny to me now (knowing how outstanding your talents are). I wonder in all of this… I’m curious because your story about breaking your fifth metatarsal, being told to lose weight, having a terrible time with unhealthy eating, like these are all very typical stories for dancers, and I’m just wondering was there ever any explicit message that was somehow connected to technique? To being good at the dancing? Or was it all about appearance? Do you see what I’m saying?
[Pam]: Yes, it was all about appearance. And so, my confidence just got completely shot down. So that’s what I mean when I say I got worse. I’d be in class and I just wasn’t as good as I was before I got there, when I was being nurtured and pushed and challenged but also encouraged. At Walnut Hill, I didn’t get any of that.
[JK]: You were dismissed because your body didn’t fit a certain type that they had in mind.
[Pam]: Right.
[JK]: And then, can you say a little bit about what happened—what was your idea of technique, like your pedigree in technique after that, because it’s been a long, long life since you left Walnut Hill.
[Pam]: Well, you know, I went to college thinking I’m done with dance, understandably. And, as you know, sort of--"oh, I guess I’ll take a class.” Actually, I dropped the first course that I took after the first class because it terrified me, because it wasn’t like “oh, we’ll tell you what to do and you will execute it.” That’s what I thought was technique.
[JK]: And instead what was it?
[Pam]: As you know, it was: “you’re gonna make stuff, you’re gonna improvise.” I was like, “oh no, I’m not”. No, I was scared of it. I decided to try again and it was a different teacher, and I stuck with it and I still thought that modern dance was weird and improvisation was terrifying. The fact that ballet wasn’t even offered was a true blessing for me. I didn’t know it at the time, but just to not be around (ballet) at all was exactly what I needed to be able to keep dancing. And then, just over time in college, I grew to value this other kind of dance and improvisation and see the virtuosity in that. That was just so different than what I had always thought to be the ultimate goal—to be in ballet.
[JK]: I wonder if—do you remember our teachers saying anything about what this technique was? Like, whenever they did use that word or talk about that word, did they ever talk about technique? Do you have any stories to report, or any things that you remember about, “this is such and such technique,” or “this is what technique is or what it does…”?
[Pam]: Not general things, I mean I remember Penny (Campbell) giving us tastes of Cunningham. I remember Andrea talking about Limon, and breath, but not details, not specifics and not like, “this is what technique is.”
[JK]: Yeah, they referenced it, they translated and offered some of it in small doses. But they did not present in their original forms any codified named techniques.
[Pam]: No.
[JK]: And this is back in the day. This is back in the late 80s or the early 90s.
[Pam]: That’s right, and one story I do remember, and I think you’ve heard this one… We were at ACDF, and we went to an audition. I say we, it was me and Katherine and I don’t know, maybe Matt Brown and—I feel like you weren’t there but maybe you were…
[JK]: No, I wasn’t. You all were the class ahead of me.
[Pam]: We went to the audition for ADF or something, I don’t even know why we went, cause none of us were gonna go to ADF (hahaha). But, you had to wear a number, and ugh, there was a ballet barre and center- you know, it was “technique in ballet and modern.” And I think we were told, like second hand, whoever gave the audition told our teachers that they loved what we were doing, what they saw us do on stage, but we needed more “technique.” That was their feedback after this audition.
[JK]: Wow.
[Pam]: Yeah. And I remember thinking, “what the hell?!” I have so many years of frickin’ technique that I have been trying to undo or…
[JK]: And what is this dancing that they love that’s not technical, that’s not technique? And if they love it then why do you need the technique they’re talking about?
[Pam]: Right. It’s these mixed messages, like okay so I guess you’re supposed to have both. Like both the creativity that you see us having on stage and technique for doing grande battements and triplets.
[JK]: Right and then do you recall what your teachers said about it? Were they rolling their eyes or were they saying “no you guys have to work harder” or what was their deal?
[Pam]: I don’t remember, but I feel like they kind of rolled their eyes and laughed.
[JK]: Yeah, ok. Cause they weren’t really invested in that idea in the same way.
[Pam]: Nope, they didn’t buy into it. So, they were like “sure whatever, we’re not changing our curriculum.”
[JK]: More like “We’re teaching the students something else which they can’t get in another place,” which is—well that’s a different article.
[Pam]: Right, what the program valued at Middlebury was finding one’s own voice—as a mover, and that everybody’s voice was different and everybody’s voice is valuable. And so…
[JK]: Especially, if you also apply some craft and creativity and maker’s knowledge…
[Pam]: Right, and that kind of translates to movement invention in some ways- to not be a recognizable technique when you make something.
[JK]: Right, I’ve always struggled with the tension between these: we’re supposed to be inventive and yet, we’re day after day conducting these embodied rituals that are creating this habitus, this habitualized knowledge and how are we supposed to do both? That’s not exactly how it works.
[Pam]: Yep, and I think then, it was a question of mine as a student and was definitely a question of mine as a teacher, you know, mentoring students’ creative projects and then also teaching them what a tendu is… and repeating it, you know, establishing these neuromuscular patterns.
[JK]: Which are necessary.
[Pam]: Which are—yep.
[JK]: For injury prevention, and clarity and... So you got through that program and did many interesting things. You went to New York, you went to grad school, you went back to New York. In that whole season of life, what is of note? Like new things that you encountered, things that you added to your sense of technical preparation, or technical thinking.
[Pam]: Certainly, an expanded knowledge of the body, you know, taking kinesiology in grad school, and anatomy with Irene Dowd in New York…I was able to, in grad school and then beyond, go back to ballet with a sort of new attitude about it. And that’s not what I wanted to do with my life anymore but it helped to keep me strong and flexible and kind of thinking about it more holistically in that way. And that obviously felt much healthier. And realizing there’s a whole population of dancers who aren’t professional ballet dancers in New York, who take ballet every day. Just to move their bodies and again, keep a kind of clarity in that.
[JK]: You can get strong, and you can pursue flexibility in all kinds of ways- in modern dance classes and in yoga and other practices. But, what do you think it is about ballet, maybe just from your perspective, that keeps drawing you back to use that modality instead of other modalities just as a form of practice?
[Pam]: Well, I’m starting to wonder… because, I mean how old am I? And I’ve gone through stages. But I’m going through another stage now where I’m like, “I’m really tired of this.” I don’t wanna teach it, I don’t wanna do it, I don’t wanna watch it, like I’m tired of it. But, I think I keep going back because there is something predictable about it, very much. The structure of a ballet class is like a given, you do barre, you start with plies, you know blah blah bah, and some teachers will start on the floor, like in New York— You know, if you can find good teachers they can really see things in your body, like imbalances—because ballet is so balanced, right and left--
[JK]: And right and wrong. And you’re doing it or you’re not. And that gives a way, a certain kind of set up or back drop through which to see what people are doing - It’s a way to get a certain kind of information.
[Pam]: It’s really about the teacher, depending on what you’re looking for. And luckily there’s an adult class here in Lancaster—and it’s all teachers in that class, so we—and the teacher herself who’s over 80 years old, just has a great eye. The twists on things… sometimes she’ll have us hold our arms in a certain way that not balletic but it helps us to find / access other muscles. A whole host of things. And it’s less about, “oh no the shape…” and “you have to do it like this.”
[JK]: Not about matching external shapes.
[Pam]: No, it’s really about pathways in the body, and movement rather than shape.
[JK]: Shocking.
[Pam]: Yeah, yeah—so the teacher just makes a huge difference. That was I think my biggest lesson at Walnut Hill- what I got out of that was, “OK, now if I’ve learned—if I ever become a teacher that’s not how I’m gonna teach.” And so that was a gift.
[JK]: This next question, both from the perspective of being a student in a class but maybe from the perspective of trying to teach technique or pass it on in any kind of a way, is about identifying pivotal moments when your ideas changed.
[Pam]: Gosh, did I have pivotal moments?
[JK]: Or was it more like a slow evolution?
[Pam]: Yeah, I feel like it was a slow evolution. My memory is also getting worse by the day so there may have been a pivotal moment that I just don’t remember.
[JK]: Well, it’s interesting that you say that because this is something I’ve been thinking about too; the time it takes to establish these skills in the body and the time it takes for an idea to cook and for an idea to take hold or become manifested in your practice. And I’m very interested in this report that you make—that you were grateful that there wasn’t an option to take ballet at our college because perhaps that would have muddied the waters in a way that would have prevented you from moving into other ideas.
[Pam]: Totally, yep.
[JK]: That’s something I struggle with because I currently teach in a program where the ballet technique curriculum is on offer every day and there definitely is an attitude in my colleagues’ minds about needing to take it daily and that if you’re not taking it you’re not doing technique or you’re not preparing yourself properly. But you and I never got that message in college.
[Pam]: Nope. We didn’t but I think it’s still—it’s definitely still out there and very strong as an idea that ballet is foundational.
[JK]: Yes, we hear this from a particular colleague here that ballet is “the base.” And it’s an idea that’s very easy to debunk; it’s not an idea that you can state nowadays without manydance professionals looking at you sideways. Especially in this era of looking at dance from a global perspective, how non-european dance forms have been demoted or invisibilized or made to be other. And so, if we say ballet is the base of the balletic - OK. But there are many dance forms that are in some way related to ballet (and others that came out as a reaction against ballet and yet, incorporated something about ballet sooner or later - but still are NOT ballet) and have their own distinct movement values. So can we still say ballet is a basewithout qualification?
[Pam]: No. I think I believed that for a long time, even in my college years and maybe even in my grad school years, I’m not sure. I think that was a slow evolution coming to believe: actually it’s not, and actually it can work against you if you’re trying to improvise or make your own dances and have any kind of movement invention. Because if you have those neuromuscular pathways drilled into you it’s hard to move past them. That’s why I think it was really advantageous to me that Middlebury didn’t offer it, and so I wasn’t doing it and that’s maybe the only way I could’ve found other ways to move. Which is—not do ballet, not see it, not even—you know, in my life at all.
[JK]: Right. It’s like, you close that door so that you can open another one for a minute. Something I see in my classes a lot (because alongside that “ballet is the base” idea) nowadays, there’s this idea about being able to do everything, right? And so, you have to do everything and then there’s this pressure, like “just take everything, you know, grab onto it with an open mind, throw yourself into all these forms.” But what I do see often with students in my technique class is that they can’t let go of the tone that’s in their bodies from ballet. They practice the ballet and they’ve practiced it a long time and in a certain way and it’s about overt effort and muscularity and a specific relationship to gravity. That basic tone and body set-up, beyond vocabulary, is really really hard to let go.
[Pam]: It is, and I think that’s what kids today are getting trained in and I also think it’s maturity. I mean, well just to back up a little bit, I do love assigning the article that’s called “Ballet as an Ethnic Form of Dance” or “A Form of Ethnic Dance.”
[JK]: Joann Kealiinnohomoku!!!
[Pam]: Yes! Love that one! It blows so many students minds- I just love that moment.
[JK]: Yeah, it’s a classic.
[Pam]: And I just was overjoyed when I first was exposed to that article… “like, yes!!”
[JK]: It’s not the universal base of all dance, it is an ethnic form!
[Pam]: Yes! Think about it… if you want to do one of the many African dance forms, do you really want to train in ballet first? No! Think about it people. Anyway, I love that so much but now, I think just what you were saying, the students I’m seeing it’s less about, “oh they’re all coming from ballet,” but they’re all coming from competition and this idea that you just have to be able to do everything. Thank you so much, So You Think You Can Dance, TV show. Which isn’t a bad thing to want to be versatile, to be versatile—great!
[JK]: And to be able to pull off tricks and whatever.
[Pam]: Do tricks matter?
[JK]: But the tone, I think there’s a tone that you’re talking about. I remember back in the day when I collaborated with Megan Bonneau McCool and we set that ballet on pointe on Pioneer Valley Ballet company and it got into this gala at RDA and we looked at our dance in the context of what other people were dong and performing; the director of our regional studio looked at us and told us, “your dance was the only one that didn’t try to sock everyone in the eye.” And I really am curious about this attachment to a certain tone in the body.
[Pam]: Yes, I think that’s absolutely true. And I also think there are muscular pathways that are drilled in and it’s hard to get them out. And that’s back to the idea about, “it takes time.” It takes time for ideas to sink in but also for the body to be able to expand its range of what it can do and wants to do.
[JK]: Wasn’t it Aristotle who said, “you are what you habitually do”? I’ll have to look that up.
[Pam]: Yeah look that one up.
[JK]: Um, well what about this next question: What do you see as the relationship between this conventional training and technical preparation and your improvisational practice and performance? You know, these things can help each other but how does that play out for you as a practitioner, first of all. Just talk to me about your own practice.
[Pam]: I feel like the—the way I think about it that, technique and the fact that I still take ballet every week, once a week, gives me again, strength, agility, flexibility, coordination, musicality, you know all that stuff. It helps me to practice that in a certain way. And all of those things I bring to my improvising practice. I don’t really care how high you can kick your leg, that’s not why I’m working on flexibility, but having more flexibility gives me more options as a mover. Being stronger gives me more options. Being more agile gives me more options. That’s the spiel I give my students too about how we use technique in improvisation without just regurgitating steps that you’ve seen and done a hundred million times.
[JK]: Yeah, what do you say?
[Pam]: We use technique—I forget, it’s from Free Play— you use the bigger ideas that you learn in technique as an improviser, rather than regurgitating the specific moves that you learn.
[JK]: so, the difference between exploring some movement and – boom- out comes the arabesque with the arms and the whole trope, vs. just being able to explore the backspace with your leg.
[Pam]: Right, right, yep! And this is what can be really hard for—what I observe—really hard for students to get, you know? And by that, I mean understand, comprehend, put into practice, however you wanna word it. But it takes time, it took me a long time to understand that, no, I don’t throw away my technique when I improvise, it actually—it helps me if I can utilize it in a broad sense, as a bank of possibilities rather than a bank of moves I could pull out of my pocket. (I’m not interested in that.)
[JK]: I always kind of roll my eyes at this, even though I know and appreciate what she means, but Jan Erkert, in her book “Harnessing the Wind,” (and you have to put your hand on your forehead when you say the title, and shake your hair, ha ha), she says- I can’t remember it exactly - something like, “technique is for smoothing out the rough edges and improvisation is for cherishing the courser textures,” and then there’s this illustration of a person with their bent up arms and legs doing some weird pose and it’s just like, “ok I see where you’re going with that” and maybe I don’t disagree but it just seems like kind of a crude way to formulate the relationship between technique and improvisation.
[Pam]: Yeah, I think it’s sort of elementary, an elementary way to understand it—I don’t know if elementary is the right word but—yeah I don’t like that either and I’ve been trying to figure out too, in my technique classes, how to bring in ideas that bridge technique and improvisation or technique and composition (creativity, you know?).
[JK]: How are you doing it?
[Pam]: Well, I kind of get more explicit: “ok, we’re doing this because—,“ I’ll just throw in quote, unquote, weird stuffwhich isn’t ground breaking, certainly not new…
[JK]: Weird, how? What do you mean weird?
[Pam]: Just like: brushing our feet, doing tendus, and I’m actually trying to stop using ballet vocabulary, um - foot brushes. And then like on count seven you have to immediately lie down and do one in the air and then get up and start on one again, or something. You know, to get out of expectation.
[JK]: Yeah, you’re disrupting the norm or the way that those practices were handed down and then you’re throwing in or modeling a creative use of that skill, right?
[Pam]: Exactly. And so, trying like--
[JK]: That’s good stuff Pam!
[Pam]: Yeah, and trying to disrupt that. And also for myself. Because it would be so easy for me to just keep teaching the same class that I know teach really well at this point. But a) I think it’s outdated and b) that’s boring for me and c) I think it gets boring for students and it doesn’t help them expand anything really.
[JK]: Do you remember when Peter Schmitz would teach us a barre?
[Pam]: Oh god, barely.
[JK]: So, I just have these distinct memories of like trying to figure out this sort of classical stance without pushing your ribs forward and without making these affectations I’d seen—I’d never practiced any of it, but I’d seen it. And then he wanted us to be grounded but he also wanted us to be clear. I think he wanted us to be familiar with it - putting your hand on the barre and doing things on one side and then the other. ‘Cause I think he knew some of us never had any of that training. But so, we would do, as you say, foot brushes or plies, sorry - bending of the knees! And then he would interject, “and now for 8 counts you melt to the floor, you roll away from the barre, you roll back, and when you stand up you wipe your nose with your sleeve and your hand comes out here and then you begin.” And in retrospect I’m pretty sure he probably made us wipe our noses cause he saw someone doing it, you know how he used to do that? He would just incorporate things you were doing into the sequence.
[Pam]: Yep, yeah.
[JK]: I just remember thinking, “this is working somehow - this is getting us grounded, this is steering us away from affectation, getting us connected to gravity, and when we stand up and open our arms to the side - there’s some kind of realness there – it’s not just a pose.”
[Pam]: Yeah, yeah. I don’t know if I was in that class, I don’t remember...
[JK]: You were too advanced for that. You were the year ahead of us.
[Pam]: Yeah, always questioning “why are we doing this?” And then putting that on students too, like why are we doing this? Why are we doing leg swings? Why? So, that they think about it too, cause it’s so easy to just be mindless about it. Like, “oh we’re finding the weight of our leg, we’re finding our standing leg, you know, we’re figuring out balance with a moving body part…”
[JK]: And then based on what else you’ve said, if we have that skill we can apply it to vocabulary we haven’t seen yet.
[Pam]: Right. Applying knowledge. And that’s—isn’t that what college’s all about, like that’s what you learn how to do? Or that’s the hope – in any discipline really. It’s not about regurgitating facts anymore.
[JK]: What is – I’m trying to remember the name of a school, it’s in your ACDA region and it’s ballet focused.
[Pam]: Point Park?
[JK]: It’s not Point Park.
[Pam]: Oh! Uh, out in Eerie – Eerie, PA. Marymount, no, Mercyhurst!
[JK]: Mercyhurst! It might be… Honestly, I can’t remember! We were having a discussion over a meal with faculty and I said something about viewing technique as more than just perfecting these stock moves, because then where are you if new vocabulary comes up? And this one professor said, “oh well I completely disagree, technique is perfecting stock moves.”
[Pam]: Really? She said that?
[JK]: Yeah! Oh yeah, I mean she didn’t say “stock moves” but she was all about prescribed vocabulary, the codified stuff, and she was really committed to that view. And I just remember being shocked that she didn’t see the usefulness in broadening out. It was more about narrowing down and this is in, and this is out, and this is technique, and this is not. And that sort of cuts against the idea of improvisation as having anything to do with technique, but I think we certainly learned something else, a different philosophy.
[Pam]: Right. Absolutely. There’s a technique in working with technique! One that isn’t regurgitation but rather about using it as a tool for new territory.
[JK]: Yeah, that.
[Pam]:That, I think, is a learned skill.
[JK]: Yeah, say more about that. I agree with you!
[Pam]: Yeah—that’s a technique. And one that doesn’t have a name, like “oh I’m taking intermediate modern”, but maybe “oh I’m taking intermediate applied technique in improvisation,” or whatever you wanna call it.
[JK]: But that’s genius! Applied Technique, like taking the technical skills and then try to apply them to something new—isn’t that what we call improvisation? Maybe this is the new name for improvisation, its applied technique.
[Pam]: Right. Maybe that would attract you know—other kinds of dancers.
[JK]: Movement research is another way of saying it. Taking these body-based skills and conducting research with them. Like what do they do, what does this or that do if I explore a bit?
[Pam]: Exactly. And that, I think, takes practice, it takes maturity. I know it did for me. And that’s what I see in my students. You can only go as far as you’re ready to go, you know? You can only hear as much as you’re ready to hear. And you don’t even know what that means when you’re 19 but, I just have to tell myself like, you have to be really patient and they just have to keep practicing. And we keep offering different frameworks and prompts and ways to practice, and either—they ultimately realize, “oh this is applied technique,” or they don’t.
[JK]: But maybe if we start calling it that, I mean I,—totally side conversation but I mean I’m trying to propose to my home department here that maybe I could have more time with the entering class, and that instead of waiting until they’re sophomores to teach them this so-called Improvisation 1 curriculum, which is really about ensemble composing, that maybe I could have them for a longer time when they first arrive. And that I could teach them, I guess based on this conversation, what I would call Introduction to Movement Research including Applied Techniques, Improvisation and sort of, Creative Process. I don’t even wanna call it Composition because even there we get into stock forms, which is more about—well anyway, that’s a different conversation.
[Pam] It is, but it’s an exciting one.
[JK]: I would be so happy to teach that.
[Pam]: Yeah. I’d be excited to teach that too.
[JK]: How do you see improvisation practices AS technique? How would you describe that way of looking at it? The techniques of improvisation.
[Pam]: I think it’s a technique in presence, and attention, and that those things are, I mean here we get into semantics, a little bit, those are skills, those are practices, those are techniques, but it’s not something you master, necessarily. But we are always calling it a practice, right? Because it’s ongoing, and there’s not an end point, and maybe there’s something about the word technique that implies this potential of ultimate mastery or something. Which is why–maybe talking about improvisation as a technique might not compute for some people. And then yes, it’s semantics but I totally believe that there’s a ton of technique in the practice of improvisation, and listening, seeing, paying attention, presence and then of course, in terms of how you are moving the body. Just – range.
[JK]: Yeah, say more about range, because range means something in a ballet class or a modern class, but range means something else in an improvisation, and is it a technical practice to work on it?
[Pam]: Totally. It means so many things in improvisation, like what is your range as a mover? And then even as a mover there’s a ton of different levels you can look at – like what’s your energy range? What’s your range of using your limbs vs. your core? What’s your range in terms of how you focus on things? And then of course, what’s your range in terms of initiating, following, role-playing, you know, what roles do you tend to play? And then we get into shtick and always wanting to—embracing our shtick—but always wanting to expand the ranges that we tend to inhabit and a whole host of levels.
[JK]: And here’s where we get one of those funny opposites that maybe in the end doesn’t turn out to be so opposite, but in conventional thinking about technique… Repetition is a big deal and actually trying to get something to be predictable and the same over and over– if you can just do it this way every time then you’ll be able to predict how to do it, like how can I get on my leg, how can I make this balance or do it in the proper sequence, etc. And then in the technique of improvisation it’s all about practices that expand your modes, expand your approach, expand literal vocabulary, and so not repeating—what is the technique of not repeating yourself?
[Pam]: Yeah, that’s really it.
[JK]: Like, what do you do? What do you think? What do you pay attention to? What do you do to avoid it or to create some other possibility?
[Pam]: Yeah and that’s a really good point—and so it kind of does stand in opposition to established forms, techniques and established forms that do use repetition in order to master standing on your leg and doing an arabesque or whatever. Because you don’t wanna do the same thing twice much less over and over. And that’s—one thing I was thinking about and one thing I talk to my students about that I think is related, is this idea of virtuosity and that there are different kinds of virtuosity, because when we think of virtuosity and dance I think there’s an assumption that it’s a dancer who can lift the leg really high and do multiple turns and splits and jump really high and just sort of wow you with their technique.
[JK]: Yeah, athleticism and tricks and superhuman feats.
[Pam]: Right. What I try to impart to my students is that there’s other kinds of virtuosity too—and I think that’s easiest maybe to see it in improvisation. The virtuosity of being able to stand with utter attention on something. Like your attention can be virtuosic, your presence, and I always tell them about this Trisha Brown piece, I think it’s called 4MG the Movie? And for the whole dance there’s one dancer who’s standing with his back to the audience, and there’s all this movement going on around him and he never, ever moves. And it’s captivating. You know, he’s “just” standing there, and it seems he’s radiating energy out of his back. If you’re paying attention to it. And when I saw it he turned around to bow, and the audience went wild. There’s virtuosity in that, that’s a technique, that’s a skill.
[JK]: So for you what is this list of essential capacities that are improvisation techniques are supposed to build or enlarge. And I guess I wrote you earlier to ask: are they physical capacities are they perceptual capacities? Are compositional capacities something else?
[Pam]: Well, I think all of the above. Physical, perceptual capacity, absolutely, attentional capacity for sure, which—and that’s probably at the top of the list – attentional capacity, which is just central to everything. It’s central to a frickin’ ballet class (like you have to deeply pay attention!).
[JK]: Well, and isn’t this the base? Isn’t attention the real base?
[Pam]: Yes! Right.
[JK]: Like, the kind of virtuosity about ways of paying attention to yourself, to the environment, to what you’re doing, how it interacts with everything, noticing differences, noticing all those different sensory channels and kinesthetic modalities. Without that where would you be as a dancer, as a performer?
[Pam]: Right. And connecting inner experiences to what’s happening around you.
[JK]: And isn’t that the foundation of improvisation?
[Pam]: Yes.
[JK]: Otherwise isn’t it just like going through the motions?
[Pam]: Mm-hmm. Which is easier. I mean the motions might be really challenging, but it’s easier to just do that.
[JK]: Easier than performing as a whole person - awake to what you’re doing and engaging in it in a sophisticated way while doing it.
[Pam]: Mm-hmm. And I think that’s why it’s scary to a lot of people.
[JK]: Yeah, it’s not as concrete, how to work on it, when to know that it’s working or it’s not working or if you’re doing it quote unquote right, or is there even such a thing? And that’s harder to get students to buy into.
[Pam]: It is. And also, it exposes a person more- to find a technique. (Not, “I’m just doing the adagio that the teacher taught me.”) But, in improvisation you don’t have that to sort of hide in. It’s all you.
[JK]: Yeah, that’s so vulnerable especially when you’re not sure of anything. Of what your next move is, or whether or not anyone else thinks it makes any sense, or it even makes sense to you. Coping with uncertainty. I mean this is harking back to the beginning of the conversation where you sort of said one of the reasons why you continue to practice ballet is its predictability and there’s a comfort there.
[Pam]: Yeah and there’s also a boredom. Which I go in and out of. In doing it and teaching it. Just trying to find new ways to approach it. But, yeah that’s the downfall of predictability is boredom. And the thing about improvisation is like, if you’re bored with what you’re doing, change it!
[JK]: [Laughter], yea, just stop doing that move!
[Pam]: Which I love, that’s something I find myself saying a lot in my improvisation class as a reminder because sometimes, and I might be reading them wrong but they look bored, or they just look like they’re not paying attention.
[JK]: I mean there’s a great freedom on offer in improvisation practice–but it comes with this edge of uncertainty, maybe anxiety maybe vulnerability, maybe lack of focus maybe chaos. What’s the list of the “shadow sides” of all that freedom? I think what we learned was that by being given this space of uncertainty over and over and over, you learn how to construct order for yourself. I honestly don’t know where I’d be in life without that lesson.
[Pam]: I know. I know. It just comes down to, I think, being empowered as an individual person. And also finding empowerment within an ensemble—a collective. Andas a collective. Both.
[JK]: Right, and I guess we might have our own ways of talking about - when an order is imposed on you - like let’s say in the form of a codified technique - what is the challenge there? In terms of finding your own voice or your own freedom? And that’s a whole other talk--
[Pam]: That is a whole other thing and let me just say, for years you’d be in a technique class and the teacher would say, “make it your own!”
[JK]: And what does that mean to this teacher?! Aaaahhh!!!
[Pam]: And I never knew what that meant! Should I just be more flashy? But that’s not really me. And I never knew what to do.
[JK]: Right, what are the techniques of making the movement your own? And are there keys and practices to be found for this in improvisation?
[Pam]: Even when you’re doing a choreographed dance, professional dancers bring themselves to it, they’re not just executing the moves, at least in the kind of dance that I like to watch. And that’s what I try to say about my professional performance as creative scholarship to the school, to the college, that I’m not just an automaton doing what I’m told. It’s a very collaborative process. And I bring my creative voice, my choices into the mix and that’s improvisational choice making, in the moment.
[JK]: And then even after you do that and the material gets “set,” seasoned professionals know that you make a spontaneous decision about how to treat these moments.
[Pam]: And every moment is alive in that way. And that’s improvisational training. Yeah. That’s how I got it. I started to learn who I was as a choice maker in the moment and what that felt like and then slowly, oh! I can apply this in technique! Oh!
[JK]: Yeah, just because there’s this set material, you don’t lose that opportunity to decide who you are in that moment and how you’re going to approach it. These moments are inflected with who you are. And decisions you’re making. Now, when the material isn’t set, there are more decisions to make, but even when the material isset you can approach it as if this moment has choices in it for you.
[Pam]: Yes, and that’s what’s exciting about live performance, that a video can never do. And watching those choices get made even if they are within a set vocabulary, you know that those dancers are paying attention and making choices in every second.
[JK]: Yeah, making choices about milliseconds, and about modulating energy or how to connect with partners or the space or the particular audience members who are there or that weird little detail that was off this time. I mean that’s something I find myself doing in technique class even when I’m repeating a phrase.
Well, we’ve been talking for about an hour. I just wonder - what is this bringing up for you? Does it bring to mind an anecdote or a story you wanna tell or any other notes?
[Pam]: Well, it makes me excited to talk to you about it and just make connections—or verbalize them in a certain way that I haven’t ever, or in a while.
[JK]: Me too. And it’s this spontaneous dialogue that makes these points come out in just the way they do and I love that.
[Pam]: Yeah, I love that too. And that’s exciting to me. I’m not teaching technique this semester but next time I do, just to think about that and how we talk about it to our students and how I think about it for myself. It makes it fresh.
This is just a whole other story. But often in the mixed level technique classes I teach—the more mature ones can often teach the less mature ones— But often times in improvisation, people without a lot of formal training (or any formal training) can often have an advantage in
some ways. And that’s another thing that comes up in my class as evidence:
look, ballet is not the base of all of movement practice.
[JK]: Yeah, what are these so-called untrained movers able to do?
[Pam]: They don’t have these preconceived notions about how they should look. And they don’t have preconceived patterns that are so ingrained- like their “go to patterns.” And that, I think, frees them to explore more. And I wouldn’t say that’s the rule across the board but I have often observed that. But then they can be limited by flexibility, or their bodies aren’t as articulate or something.
[JK]: Sometimes clarity is an issue.
[Pam]: Yeah, being clear in the body. But there can be a real advantage to going into improvisation without having had a lot of formal dance training in a specific technique. And sometimes I’ve been envious of that. At Middlebury, I remember being kind of shocked that these non-dancers were getting into the company and I wasn’t. I’m just remembering this now!
[JK]: And when you say non-dancers you mean people without previous training?
[Pam]: Correct. And so, I quickly learned, that’s not the end all be all. So, yeah that was
important. But then I saw, over time, I recognized what they had to offer.
[JK]: Their skill.
[Pam]: Their skill. That I couldn’t just snap my finger and do what they did.
[JK]: What they did was explore and invent and do something different and manipulate what came up or treated it in unique ways. Flip it on its head. Show up to yourself and let the uniqueness of that moment emerge.
[Pam]: Yeah - couldnotdo that.
[JK]: And that’s a kind of virtuosity, right? That’s kind of what you’re talking about.
[Pam]: Yes. And that was the beginning of my lesson in different kinds of virtuosity
and different values that at first, I was like, “wait what?” and then grew to really embrace.
[JK]: Well, this question is to close our talk: I just wonder- we all have our narratives and our biographies with regard to how we came into dance and what happened to us and how that either advantaged or disadvantaged certain trajectories in the field. And I just wonder, are there ways that you think about your various forms of preparation and experience in training and education that make you feel grateful? Are there things you think to yourself: “oh, thank god I had this,” or “oh, thank god I had that,”? Cause I think I see you using it all.
[Pam]: Oh that’s nice. Well, I mean I really at this point I’m so grateful for the improvisation
practice, and it took me awhile, longer than anything to fully embrace it as a primary thing that I do.
[JK]: And yet you’re like the best one at it.
[Pam]: [Laughter]. Oh, god, hardly. It’s sort of embarrassing almost that it’s taken me so long. I mean you guys were like, “hello?” But I’m so grateful that I was exposed to it in the first place and that I’ve had peers like you that have kind of kept me doing it. I don’t know if I would have kept doing it without you and Katherine and Lisa.
[JK]: Well, because the world doesn’t have any messages that say you should be doing it. And our field even doesn’t have any, the values of our field don’t necessarily, say well, “Oh, you need to improvise on a regular basis, it’s the foundation, you know.” And yet, we see what a lifetime of doing it has produced for us both inside and outside the studio.
[Pam]: Exactly. And that’s where it’s irreplaceable. Like, no technique could do that, enhance
this way of being in the world.
[JK]: Well and this belief, this commitment that we both hold keeps me going as a teacher
because it’s so hard to teach this form and that’s a whole other conversation but it’s also an
amazing privilege to pass it on. And I sometimes think of you, Pam Vail, when looking at a class
or a student who is just not engaged and I am tempted to take this personally or get
offended on behalf of improvisation. But I remember standing at the threshold to the studio
doorway in college while the class before me was happening, and you were in it, and in this class you were improvising with the group and you were so clearly not into it. You were just like half-heartedly doing some moves and then you would kind of stop and sigh, and then carry on. It was just so clear you were not fully engaged and the fact that you went from there to being a brilliant improviser and teacher and someone who is just as much an evangelist for
improvisation as any…I just have to look out at the room full of students and whoever’s doing
whatever and imagine: the next Pam Vail could be in here.
[Pam]: That’s really funny.
[JK]: And I’m gonna keep teaching this class like she’s in here.
[Pam]: Right. And I don’t forget that that’s where I was with improvisation as a student. And I tell my students that, too. I went to college and I was like “improvisation is a) weird, b) terrifying c) I never wanna do it.”
[JK]: Please, next time you teach you have to put me on speakerphone and let me tell the story.
[Pam]: Yes, totally!
[JK]: They’ll love it.
[Pam]: I’ll have them read this interview.
[JK]: Well, thank you so much for this talk. It’s really great to talk with you about all this. And I
know there’s so much more to say but I think this is a great place to begin.