Artist Story: David Dorfman

David Dorfman

I was born at Cornelia and Diversey Streets. I lived there until I was two and a half, and then we moved to Lincolnwood. I lived there until I was 17, then I went to college. I never came back to live again in Chicago, but I would visit quite often.

What was it like living in Chicago as a teenager back in the '60's?
I  have an extremely visceral memory of the 1968 Democratic Convention which occurred when I was a teenager here . There were a lot of protests - against the war mostly - and a lot of contentious dialogue. I observed all this on TV as a kid. I remember being affected by seeing all that violence and realizing it was violence towards pacifism, and being confused by that. 

I also felt a little bit of suburban apathy or ineptitude or guilt, for not being the sort of tough young kid that would go to any lengths. As I got more and more confident over the years, it took me a while until I could say to myself: "I can be an artist, I can make my statement that way."

Do you still have family here?
My parents are both gone, unfortunately. But my sister lives in Northbrook with her husband, and her two kids live in Deerfield and Evanston. They have three children and one child respectively.  I come back here every year for Thanksgiving. Also, Lisa (Race) and I got married in Chicago. 

What was your relationship to dancing  like here?
I feel that my physical movement roots really come from Chicago, and the movement I did when I was living here was mostly athletic. We had really great baseball teams in my high school and my community. I loved to move, and I loved to win games. But more than the winning was this idea of just putting your body in service of something. The more I started taking dance classes I realized that the shapes, feeling, the sensation became more important than the win/loss column. I remember as a kid playing football in the snow for fun, and dodging tacklers. And so that’s what I love about movement. I just love that athletic risk and freedom you get from it.

While I was in college, I came back  and took dance classes here, mostly Jazz classes at Gus Giordano in Evanston. As one of my first jobs I assisted Lea Darwin teaching disco to senior citizens. I went heavily into the disco scene around ’75 and ’76. I had big hair and big heels. I went to every conceivable club in Chicago and in St. Louis where I was in college. Club dancing was my thing. I have the highest regard for a good old kick-ball-change through Jazz and through Disco. I think it also got me into partnering and the aspect of the social interactions relating to dance. I feel really strongly about Chicago, even though it wasn’t here where I had all of my early dance training. When I did start to get wildly interested in dance, I was still pretty much associated with Chicago.  

Did you have any experiences with Chicago dance teachers that you remember?
I think his name was Mark Alford. I remember him at Giordano. I liked his class, but also beyond his class, it was a time that I was struggling with identity. He was a Chicago dance artist. He would ask if anyone wanted to go downtown and see this thing or that thing. I saw a life in art with him. That excited me. Even though I didn’t end up having my adult artist life in Chicago- it happened to be in New York - but I remember being inspired in a way amiably envious of someone who made their living and got excited about dancing, and in an urban setting which appealed to me.

I did take class with Lee Darwin who was a big dancer with Giordano and she asked me to assist her and so she was very influential. Shirley Mordine and Nana Shineflug were also teaching at that time. I took class with them once in a while but I wasn’t here often enough to really study with them. They have always been very kind and encouraging.

How old were you when you first started dancing?
I took my first modern dance class when I was about 19 or 20 at U of I in Champaign-Urbana. I went there for my junior year.  I got my undergraduate degree at  Washington U in St. Louis. I also took a dance class at UIC and just loved it. The most beginning level- there were a lot of theater majors- and they were just hilarious. And I thought, “Wow, you can combine a lot of stuff with dance."

In Chicago  I had been seeing  experimental theater works produced by  Steppenwolf when they  were just starting out and other repertory theaters in Chicago like the Organic Theater Body Politic. They were just beginning their rise in the early ‘70s.

Experimental theater was something I was really excited about. I had no idea what dance was yet. I did every little social dance when I was a kid and I danced with my sister who was eleven years older than I at sorority parties at U of  I. I loved to move. I was an athlete. I would imitate James Brown. I played baseball mostly and football too. I would use a baseball bat as a microphone and imitate James Brown  every chance I had.

A friend of the family in Chicago was studying Limon technique at the time and we would go out dancing a lot, and she would encourage me. She had studied ballet at Stone Cameron studios too. She went to Barnard, Brown and ended up in New York. She was my first taste of a person that danced in New York while I was in college. We would meet up in clubs in Chicago and dance. She said to me, “You know David- you really love this and you’re doing okay.” It was really those kinds of encouragements from early teachers and friends that said, “You know you should think about this a little more.”  Even though I knew it at the time I took the first dance class, it took me about four years to decide to really devote myself to dance. I finished undergrad, went into business (mostly retail management) for two years and then I finally said, “I’ve got to try it out.”

I went and got an MFA at Connecticut College, where I now teach. I met Martha Meyers who became my mentor and dance-mom. She was teaching as a guest at UW Milwaukee, so I drove up and auditioned for her. She tried everything in her power to dissuade me: quoting Paul Taylor, quoting everything about how dance is so difficult and you’ve got to really love it, there’s no payback, whatever. I listened politely and I said, “I still want to do it”.

She invited me as a part-time graduate student in 1979. That’s all I needed as an invitation. I moved from St. Louis to Connecticut having never been there before. I met Daniel Nagrin that first summer. He became my dance-dad. And he still is to this day. I am doing a project teaching some of my students two of his solos and an improv structure. We just asked Martha (Myers) to teach an old piece of hers to our students. Lineage is important to me.

Your dance-family
I always credit them (Daniel and Martha) on the program as dance mom and dad for giving me confidence and taking a chance on me.

So that was it, you just jumped right into a life in dance?
Not completely… I had gotten into Northwestern’s one year MBA program right before I left here so I wrote them a letter of deferral in case I kind of freaked out on dance and it didn’t work out. Probably two weeks into this first summer program at Connecticut College I said “This is it, I’m going for it."

What about your biological family? Were they supportive of your choice to become a professional dance artist?
I remember my mom wasn’t quite sure about it. She woke me up one early evening around 10pm- I had gone to sleep early- and she said “ I just saw a special about Paul Taylor on television and now I understand why you might be so excited about this- best of luck!”. And that was it. Perfect moment. My dad was in a few of our pieces as a character. He was always wildly supportive. He’d go on tour and room with me- stay up until two or three in the morning asking me questions. So I’m lucky.

Did your teachers encourage you to get into classical ballet class? Did you find it  difficult to begin studying ballet in your early 20’s, along side the little kids at the barre?
Did I ever. It’s kind of like skiing, which I still haven’t quite conquered.. me and the kids on the bunny hill.  I took a  ballet class a few times when I was at Giordano. I stopped going because I wasn’t good and I felt like it might discourage me. When I got to the program Connecticut I studied ballet. I remember Lance Westergard  was very nice- he took me aside and he said “David you don’t have to force your feet to turn out in that way-they’re never going to. You just work with your turn out and learn what you can.”

After I graduated with my MFA, I had a line of wonderful ballet teachers, mostly in New York, at the age of twenty-five I finally started to learn something about ballet. I take ballet twice a week in the mornings now at Connecticut College. I really enjoy it as a background and a means of lengthening and disciplining the body. I tell this to the students too. I think on some level the more technique the better- all kinds of techniques. Every kind of dance available. However, if there is one that is going to make you stop dancing- do not do that one. Keep dancing. Come back to it. It’s like taking problems on a test. If you’re going to spend a half an hour on one- come back to it.

Why do you dance and make dances? Do you feel like it’s a way of making sense of the world and your emotions?
Yes,  I feel that everyone has their own refuge---whether it’s cooking, a good book, or  friends. Mine was athletics first and then it became music and then later became dancing.   I felt like with dancing, I could combine it all. There’s music involved, there’s physicality, and there’s poetry and text which relates to  the kind of experimental theater that I love.  As a kid I loved reading and writing and writing songs. I do feel like that was my way to make sense of the world and comment on the world. Dance-making has  really enchanted me all these years. It took me a long time to get up the courage to do it- but then once there I was like “Wow. I’m lucky. I’m lucky that this is the way.”

Then there is also my interest in therapy, psychology, and counseling. All those things that I liked and studied in school.  I feel that I can employ that background in the dances I make. Not that it’s necessarily therapeutic, or dance therapy at all, but that hopefully it’s inspirational and that it can be transformational or cathartic for an audience.

Would you say that one of your goals as an artist is to create an experience of transformation? A catharsis?
Yes, absolutely. That is a major goal.

Do you feel like you can make a difference in the world as a choreographer and dancer?
That’s one of the main themes of Underground. The first words you hear are: “Does what you do make a difference?” One character says that, the other character says, “I don’t know what to do.” Then it’s repeated: “Does what you do make a difference…I don’t know how to be…Does what you do make a difference? ”That’s the premise. Hopefully the answer is:  “Yes.  What we do DOES make a difference.” Because it does.

Modern dance has always been a revolutionary art form.
It’s always been a marginalized art form. It’s always for me had strong political roots whether people feel they are intending to do political work or not. Take Martha Graham, for example. She in many ways separated herself from other social commentary dance-makers of that era, but her style of dance making and her guts and what she presented onstage was revolutionary.

Daniel Nagrin always said that, and I say this all the time,  “Everything you do is political. Every decision you make, whether  paper or plastic. Driving your car, walking, riding your bike. They are all political statements.” It could make you crazy. You ask yourself, “Should I have driven to work today?, etc.” You do what you can do. I think maybe I should be on the front lines somewhere (in many ways I should),  but we all have a range in which we can live and perform.  I don’t necessarily mean by that performing onstage.  I find performing to be going into a rarified state. I feel we perform all day long.

What other ways do you feel you are making a difference?
The act of performing itself - in the sense of a contract of a performance. I remember Daniel sternly telling me you can never control an audience. You can’t complain about what they got out of it. You just do your homework ahead of time. You conceptually, emotionally, prepare yourself and do your best piece, and then it’s theirs. That’s kind of a contract. They can walk out, they can talk, they can “boo”, it’s their right. Your homework is to be there with it, to present your best piece for that moment and time. I love the challenge of this contract. I’m feeling it now with this new piece. I feel that that’s what we can do that makes a difference. That every moment that we interact with people or the time you spend with yourself can hopefully be a little bit more depthful than the time before. That we learn.