Choreographer Interview

Elizabeth Dishman is one of our guest choreographers for the upcoming production, RE-VIVE (to live again) by Perichoresis, Redeemer's dance performance project. Elizabeth is the Artistic Director of Coriolis Dance Inc., a New York-based professional modern dance company. Originally from Colorado, Elizabeth earned a BA in music from Emory University and a MFA in choreography from The Ohio State University. She began choreographing professionally in 1996 and has developed a rich body of work that delves into the comic, poignant, and often messy splays of humanity, while maintaining a staunch commitment to aesthetic form and pure visual interest. Elizabeth and her husband David and son Leif live in Brooklyn and are members of Resurrection Presbyterian Church (Williamsburg).

Elizabeth choreographed two pieces that will appear in RE-VIVE, "dirt. air." and "Roux." The other guest choreographers are Amanda Brewster, Anna Hillengas, and Arron Masters.

Q. This is the second time "dirt.air." has been performed--you danced it yourself the first time. What was your original inspiration for it, and how has setting it on another dancer been different than performing it yourself?

E: Yes, I created the solo as part of an evening length work called Reflex Meditations that looked at human reflexes from many different angles--social, emotional and personal, as well as physical. "dirt. air." delved into the emotional responses of grief and joy and portrayed them as intertwined, even interdependent. My original inspiration was the process my mother-in-law went through in her fight against cancer, which she eventually lost. It was very meaningful to perform it just a few months after she died, and now resetting it is a wonderful way to relive those times and honor her life again. Working with Kimi (Nikaidoh, the dancer performing the piece in RE-VIVE) has been amazing--she's such a deep, thoughtful artist and has absorbed and transformed this dance to be her own. We're very different as dancers, so it's been interesting and exciting to bring this dance back with someone who can express it in a totally new way.

Q: "Roux" is an original piece that you created for this program, and is about the push and pull of friendship. What was the process of creating the piece?

E: The roles in "Roux" are very playful and technicolor, portraying relationships in a kind of caricature that's trying to get at something true underneath. Each dancer brings something unique to the piece and I want that idiosyncrasy to show through as they interact with each other in sometimes funny, sometimes painful ways. I think Molly (Knochel, the lead dancer in the piece) has had to make the biggest leap into her role because she's kind of the opposite personality of the character I've cast her in. She's super strong and positive and can-do, and the part she's playing is on the clingy, high maintenance side. Early in our process we began talking through some experiences from Molly's life which have helped her tap into qualities that are pretty far from her natural self. She has a big solo in which she goes through this neurotic internal journey in response to being rejected by another dancer, and I love what she's bringing to it from the strengths of who she is. Even though her character is expressing hurt and weakness, Molly draws on the feistyness of her personality to make the solo way more layered and interesting. Another sensitive, dynamic artist...

Q: How did you get interested in choreography?

E: I saw a group of dancers perform at a gospel choir concert in college and was inspired by the way they could express the deep feelings and ideas of the music on a whole new level. I began to choreograph dances at my church and decided to minor in dance to get a little training and that's when I discovered modern dance. I fell in love with its poetry and exciting new physicalities and have never looked back.

Q: What is your training and background in choreography?

E: I think my earliest training in choreography was being the child of an opera singer and conductor--I had some amazing early experiences in classical music that are still deep in my bones. I was always fascinated by harmony and counterpoint, and I think those concepts find a parallel visual expression in my dances. Once I realized that this was my path, I did everything I could think of to run down it: college dance minor, summer festivals, graduate school, going to a million performances, and creating many dances, big and small, that taught me so much about crafting ideas through movement. In 2001 I started my own company that has taught me even more about the production side of things.

Q: How do you create new pieces?

E: Sometimes many months before I'm actually ready to start rehearsing, I'll become fascinated by an idea, sensation or piece of music. I'll spend a crazy amount of time just daydreaming and letting my mind wander in and out of those things, probing to see if anything really compelling hangs around. If something lasts through those months and I still feel a drive to explore it, I'll figure out a way to start working on it for real, though this brooding process is maybe one of the most important and "real" things I do to draw out the ideas. Once that foundation solidifies, I get my cast together and prepare an initial structure or outline to begin filling in. I usually bring in a few phrases of movement that we manipulate and craft in various spatial patterns, theatrical scenarios and partnering situations. Sometimes the original conceptual seed stays intact and sometimes it blossoms into something unexpected by our process of working out ideas, asking questions and mulling over how things are coming together (or not). For a lot of pieces I'll draw on the dancers' personal experiences to help drive the creation. This gives me a lot of rich direction and I think makes the work more textured and palpable. There's so much more to say...

Q: How is modern dance a unique artistic “language”?

E: Modern dance is such an open, evolving form. There are no explicit rules or rubrics and yet, in skilled hands, it finds its own kind of grammar that speaks deeply and fluently. Like words in poetry, you can put very different kinds of movements together to say something on an aesthetic level that's a lot more than just a logical string of words. It's also like painting or sculpture in its visual elements, but existing in time like music, so the images wash toward the audience and must be absorbed and processed in the moment, often without any narrative hand holds. I think that is its particular challenge and beauty. And the human body is so amazing in itself, such an endless source of creative possibility.

Q: How does your faith influence your choreography?

E: The first thing that comes to mind is that I need divine help to get these projects off the ground! But that's actually a kind of creed for me as an artist, that God is all about making new and interesting things and that He loves it when we pursue those passions that reflect this primal part of who He is, and who we are as His children. So I believe that God inspires and helps me to play in the world of beauty and movement that He made, with the goal of connecting with the soul of my audience. On a more nuts and bolts level, my faith in a God of both order and exuberance leads me to explore these poles, if I can call them poles, in my structures and phrases. I am really interested in visual forms that interplay between balance and explosion, consistency and surprise. I love that the God who created DNA and physics also envisioned the fleshy and strange hilarity of two year olds.

Don't miss seeing Elizabeth's work in RE-VIVE! View a trailer for the production, get more info and buy your tickets now here.