DANZ QUARTERLY Issue No 13 – October, November, December 2008
Gnarly Feet Part II - Moving the Spirit
By Lyne Pringle
As some of New Zealand’s contemporary dance pioneers continue to dance into middle age, I took the opportunity to talk to some of them about their practice and the physical changes that inform their definition of themselves as dancers. In this article, I conducted an email interview with Jenny De Leon and spoke to Kilda Northcott on one of her visits to Wellington.
Kilda Northcott continues to dance into her 50s with leading New Zealand choreographers, as well as developing work for her company Bipeds Productions. In 2008 she has, amongst other performances, danced with Daniel Belton in his new film Matchbox, danced for Shona Dunlop in a remount of one of her early works, and has developed the role of Lily Stevens for Bipeds' latest dance work Lily. She has a grown-up son and lives in Dunedin.
What does it means to be a dancer?
“There is something embedded and imbued in the flesh/bone and mind of a person that never goes away."
"Whenever you approach a project it is a whole new beginning on the body, a new start physically and emotionally, and you are going in with the body you have right now! There is a two way negotiation/exchange with the choreographer/facilitator/devisor.”
What is different about the way you perform now, as opposed to when you were in your 20s and 30s?
“I now perform in a much more relaxed way, not that I wasn’t relaxed when I was younger, but now it is relaxed (ironically) in a much more controlled way, with a greater body of knowledge supporting the work. I feel like I reach a new depth of physicality that is different from the unhindered physicality of youth."
"There are pain, injuries, degeneration etc which means that I must modify the physicality appropriately.”
What is your physical practice these days i.e. how do you maintain your body on a daily basis?
“My daily practice is whatever I can weave into my day,” she says laughing, “a shoulder roll, then an hour later the other shoulder!
"It is integrated with my daily work, which is more often than not outside the dance studio. Yoga forms the basis – and classical movement forms are slipped in occasionally."
"My practice also incorporates my teaching, which includes teaching the children at Port Chalmers and Sawyers Bay primary schools. It also includes teaching New Zealand contemporary dance syllabus to young adults for private sector teachers Shona Bennet and Caroline Claver. I also teach an open contemporary class at Otago University.”
Will you stop performing at some point?
“I will always be a dancer/athlete and the work comes in many forms which I embrace whatever it is. I would always like to maintain an existence as a performing artist, not the performing seal version, but someone who is involved in a process that is facilitating some sort of growth or change. Shamanic – conjuring transformation for the watcher.”
Jenny De Leon is a walking miracle; she has had 9 knee and hip operations and spent 7 years on crutches. Despite this, now in her 50s, she continues to dance and develop work for her company, Poyema, as well as experiencing “marriage, babies and divorce”. Her Master of Health Science degree entitled Dance and Stillness was a first-ever [for New Zealand] thesis-choreography, which she describes as a “phenomenological hermeneutic inquiry into the experience of stillness.” She has two children and lives in Auckland.
What does it means to be a dancer?
“My dance is my prayer. It is my way of celebrating, crying, talking, hoping; it is not separate from my life.”
What is different about the way you perform now as opposed to when you were in your 20s and 30s?
“Deeply intimate muscular, kinaesthetic, breath and bone awareness; mindfulness at an ever deeper place.”
How have you dealt with the changes in your body - child birth, pain, injuries etc?
“My father when he was alive called it "sheer bloody-mindedness". I call it determination, commitment, adoration, love. Also, about most things in life there are two choices: One - quit / give up; two - get on with doing what you most love to do. I have chosen two.”
What is your physical practice these days ie how do you maintain your body on a daily basis?
“I swim in the sea every day, winter included, plus a lyrical yoga-dance workout four to five times a week for about 60-70minutes. I eat mindfully and carefully; I love my children, I love my students, I love my psychotherapy clients; and hold a deliberate mental perspective of grace and thankfulness.”
Will you stop performing at some point?
“Yes, when I know it is embarrassing for others, or just before that.”
Would you like to add anything?
“I've had a lot of challenges to work with - major accidents and injuries, emotional trauma, spiritual plunging of the depths - so my dance is grace and thankfulness."
"For the past 19 years I have studied and am now qualified as a psychotherapist and dance therapist. My dance thus encompasses a new and broader dimension and its potential for emotional, psychological, and spiritual healing influences the direction of my choreography and the way I perform and present it. And, perhaps not necessary to say, my psychotherapy practice is linked in every way to my faith, and my belief that God has given me the dance and that any 'continuance' I have is due to Him."
It is not for nothing that I call my company ‘Poyema’ - God's handiwork.”
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