By: Alison Gerardot
This is how it always starts. I can’t go to sleep and I wake up throughout the night dreaming about what I’ve forgotten, who needs comp tickets, what else needs to be done….the guest dance company is coming! Ah! KEIGWIN + COMPANY will be here in less than 48 hours!
So I had the pleasure of chatting (via radio interview on 89.1, our local NPR affiliate) with Larry Keigwin last Friday about his dance company, how it started, his inspirations, his thoughts about the general state of dance these days and the fact that they would be here, in Fort Wayne, this coming weekend.
Now, I have to tell you, I’m a little selfish when the dance company comes each year. Yes, I love that the community gets exposure. Yes, I love that all of those students at North Side and South Side High Schools and etc, etc. get these amazing experiences with professional dancers. Yada yada. But what I really love is that I get to carve out a tiny bit of time to chat with a director of a professional dance company all by myself. And ask them whatever I want (last year it was over a beer at Henry’s). And pick their brain. And get…inspired. And although I only spoke to him via phone, and although he won’t be here with his dancers this weekend (that’s pretty normal for large, well-known dance companies), I was totally inspired. I felt like I was talking to someone who gets it and feels exactly the way I do about the current culture of dance right now. Nevermind that he started a dance company for the sheer need to create and used all of his friends (I just did that!) and nevermind that his newest passion is dance on film (so is mine!) AND nevermind the fact that he loves riding the line between pop culture choreography and more esoteric “dance for dance sake” pieces (as do I). Nevermind ALL of that. It’s that he just gets that dance is for EVERYONE. And ANYONE. And that it should ALL be appreciated is what I love the most.
Because I feel exactly the same.
From dancing in your room by yourself, to dancing on Broadway, to dance team, dance studios, collegiate dance classes, from the tricks and leaps and fancy stuff all the way down to the movement fundamentals and the basics of how the body moves. ALL OF IT. Dance is for everyone. Even if you’re dancing in the club, or in your car (which I just did yesterday), or for 2.2 seconds because you’re worried someone might see you….we all have bodies. And we all can dance. Plain and simple.
This engagement is supported by the Arts Midwest Touring Fund, a program of Arts Midwest, is generously supported by the National Endowment for the Arts with additional contributions from Arts United of Greater Fort Wayne, and made possible by Lincoln Financial Foundation, Charles Kuhne Charitable Trust, and other generous funders.