Featured Stories
MAYA GONZALEZ
BRIANA CARLSON-GOODMAN
SHAWN GARGAGLIANO
NAMI YAMAMOTO
JESSE PHILLIPS-FEIN
MAYA GONZALEZ | former BAX student
(originally published June 1, 2011)
I am currently a Senior in HS at LaGuardia HS, and we were assigned a creative project in my AP Lit class to create a portrait of ourselves as young artists, in any creative form we desire. So i decided to write a poem about my growth and life as a dancer thus far, and I have so much to thank BAX for in terms of the role dance has played in my life. So here I will post the poem I wrote, and dedicate it to this beautiful place that I will miss with all of my heart:
Buried in a sea of multicolored tutus that itched and scratched and squeezed and poked but oh it was so worth it she thought as she pulled tugged at the rough stiff fabric that hadn’t been touched in years. The thrill she got parading her proud 4 year-old self around mommy’s dance studio showing off her razzle-dazzle to the grown-ups who could touch the clouds and shake hands with the constellations was like nothing she had ever experienced before. In photos I see her gripping a ballet bar too tight and arching her little back much too far and pointing those toes like there’s no tomorrow. This was the birth of a whisper that would soon become a sigh that would soon become an inaudible word_____an audible word_____a coversation_____a theory_____an inspiration_____and that is still becoming a voice. A lifestyle. K 1 2 3 4 5 twirling jumping traveling lead & following rolling skipping in blue pink green striped long-sleeved shirts that had sparkly lines too that would leave itty bitty sparkles on your arms and tummy for days on end. She didn’t know then and there that in this utopia of movement and no movement the sparkly stuff never actually goes away. It sinks into your skin and your soul and accumulates over time and ever once in a while it’ll explode out of you in a kind of perfectly poignant elaboration of silent and deafening passion.
4 nine years old. Monologues becoming dialogues. She begins to create her own moving pictures and to speak the most foreign language of all: her own. Through this discovery of her own personal language, she begins to open doors that she didn’t know existed until after she had opened them. She finds herself immersed in a world that she does not know. Yet. This World is Hers. Is Mine. World becomes meaningful, significant.
5
Heavy
Tangible
Real
6
World tugs on her fingers and nudges her elbows and kicks her feet out from under her while she watches with wide, seeing eyes. World mocks her, isolates her, challenges her, questions her every move. 7 World taunts her. 8 World grabs her. 9 World blinds her. World stops her and starts her. World talks to her World ignores her World embraces her World drops her World asks her World helps her. Her World.
10 Breathe.
One summer she breathed. She saw breath in motion and fell irreversibly in love with it. Breath caught her throat on a hook and tugged only it wasn’t painful. She woke up, sat up, inhaled, exhaled, and repeated. This was her religion. But then it became more than a religion it became more than a language it became a style and it became her style. This new mentality
This new physicality
This new ideality
This new actuality
This new reality spoke through her. Spoke to her. Spoke for her within her without her.
Thank you, was all she could say to them. Because they taught her how to breathe.
Thank you
Thank you
Thank you
11
New phenomenons. Epiphanies. Continuously putting two and 2 together over and over again and again. Angles? 3-Dimensionality? Juxtaposition. Yes and. Atmosphere. Layers. Attempt, Fail, Practice. Attempt, Fail, Practice.
__________________
The people that lived in her little world alongside her changed her. They moved her mind and moved her body and moved her life. She believes in them and jostles them around and tests them and then believes in them even more. Together they reached a tipping point. They established limits and then pushed beyond them. They ran into walls and let themselves fall because some things will always defeat you. They defined themselves and defined each other and re-defined everything else. They painted their names on the floor and on the walls and on the ceiling and in the sky and filled every empty, colorless spot with the color of passion. This is their language.
12
It’s not good-bye because it is goodbye. She learned how to fly but then so did time. She won’t believe it because it’s true, but it’s true because she believed in it every moment that it existed.
Waltzing zebras and faulty picture frames and sparkly face-painted stars and tacky over-sized dresses and X-Factor and cliché tears, you won’t be forgotten.
______________
They threw crackers and broke crackers and crumbled crackers and stuffed crackers in their mouths and down their shirts and choked on crackers and sang ACDC until their voices were shot and their throats and lips were dry and chapped from all the crackers. Then they wiped their mouths and fixed their hair and cleaned each other up and cleared their throats and exchanged awkward glances and coughed in the silence and pulled and tugged at their clothes and stood there____in a straight, uniform line, sweating through their nude leotards and shrinking into their over-sized white button-down shirts. They stood there in their boxers, stock still and out of breath, and stared blindly forward at a darkened audience until the lights went out. And they all smiled_____and bowed_____and exited the stage.
BRIANA CARLSON-GOODMAN | former BAX student
I took my first dance class at BAX when I was 4 years old (back when it was located on Douglass Street) and continued to take class and be involved in projects like The Kid’s Outback (now YOUTHWORKS), up until I was 16. I studied Musical Theatre at Emerson College in Boston, and have performed on Broadway in the revival of Hair and on tour with The 25th Anniversary Production of Les Miserables.
BAX provided me with some of best opportunities I had as a young performer. I had so many incredible teachers at BAX and I felt that all of them appreciated who I was as a person and a performer. BAX knows that all young people are dancers and choreographers already and that it is about providing them with the environment where they can be nurtured and challenged so they thrive.
I am so grateful for the opportunities that I got at BAX. Not only did I get to grow as a dancer, but also I was able to collaborate with my teachers, my classmates, and work on my own to choreograph dance pieces. There was never any question in my mind as a young person that I was capable of creating new work and it is because of the environment that BAX has created. Very importantly, I am also grateful for the friends I made during my years at BAX. They are still some of my best friends to this day.
Especially being away from it, I realize more and more how special BAX is. BAX provided me with opportunities that I didn’t get anywhere else, and I consider it to be a part of my roots as a performer and a person.
SHAWN GARGAGLIANO | parent of 2 former BAX students
NAMI YAMAMOTO | former Artist In Residence, current Parent Space Grant recipient
I think the first time I came to BAX was to audition for a showcase back when it was called the Gowanus Arts Exchange. I think it was 1992. I was an NYU student at the time, studying dance and dance education. I really wanted to show my work outside school. I was not planning to stay NYC after graduating, but I needed NYC experiences outside of school. At that time, the Gowanus was one of few places that I could go and audition my work. So, without knowing anything, I just went.
Choreographers I was working with had rehearsals at BAX. Soon after graduation, I too was rehearsing there. I don’t know why but something was always easier at BAX. Somehow, there was an open welcomeness that made me feel that I could try out new territory without pressure. This feeling only became stronger when I became an Artist In Residence at BAX in 2006. This has a lot to do with Marya’s strong leadership. Marya has seen my most of my work in the past 20 years. She has seen my growth as an artist. I am very fortunate for that. It is very rare to have someone who has witnessed a long creative process as an artist.
My relationship with BAX has evolved over the years. I was AIR, panelist, facility manager, and now I am a guest teacher/choregrapher for BAXco.
There are so many memories at BAX it is hard for me to single one out. The Annex was my favorite rehearsal space. It was cold in winter. I laughed, cried, screamed in my rehearsal, but no one cared because the space was so private. Nobody was around. There were also many performance that I did in the BAX Theater, not only my own work, but also others. I saw so many beautiful moments in my rehearsal at BAX. I love rehearsing. In wide open space, dancers moves and they tell stories to me. Working with dancers always makes me feel very humble.
When I applied to be a guest choreographer, honestly, I was not sure that my creative brain could work like it did before becoming a mom. Spending most of my time with my one year old is very special. All my brain work goes to Momiji. Reading her mind, talking to her and playing with her … it’s a lot of work, but it is very satisfying and I feel lucky that I get to spend a lot of time with her. But then, I felt that I was losing interest in making dance. I always loved dancing, but creating a piece is not exactly loving dancing. I do love what I have made and I am proud of myself, but now having Momiji … I didn’t want to do the same thing as before. I feel different and my values are different. So, of course, my dancing and creative process are going to be different, too.
I always loved working with young dancers. I always learned so much from them. I wanted to try it again, so I applied to be a guest choreographer.
When I came into my first rehearsal, I was amazed at how talented and lovely these young dancers are. But most of all, I was amazed at how much they love BAX. All of them said, they have been dancing at BAX for a long time. For teens a long time is most of their life. BAX brings up dancers who are so full of life that I immediately felt that I wanted to deepen my involvement here. There is some really great things going on at BAX. I am choreographing with them and sometimes I feel that I can offer something to young dancers, but most of the time, they are teaching me about dance, being present and being full of life. BAX brings up these young stars through their dance program and it is awesome. Education is not separate from being creator. Teaching is really learning. I feel that BAX teens have been teaching me, and have made me excited about dance again.
My creative brain is constantly working and thinking about a piece. BAX is always a place to come back and find to myself or come back to challenge myself. BAX is a place for me to be cozy and bounce back.
JESSE PHILLIPS-FEIN | former BAX student
My earliest memory of BAX is the blue velvet sign in the downstairs studio, Saturday mornings cold on my barefeet, and a feeling of deep freedom in my body. Marya (Warshaw) was my teacher and I thought she was a goddess.
I danced with many folks, and still dance with Kate Lieberman and Rachel Lane, who were part of the founding Young People’s Performing Workshop. The strongest bonds I have formed in my life have been with other dancers. There is something magical and mysterious about dancing together that connects people in profound ways.
My teachers were Marya, Jessie Levey, Dani Nikas, Linda Mensch, Ellynne Skove, Christopher Beck and many guest artists. I’ve taught at Linda’s studio in Warwick, and visited Jessie’s studio. I sit on the Board with Marya, and I’m great friends with Ellynne, whose daughter is now dancing with me. Christopher Beck and I have been pen-pals for almost 20 years, since he moved to the Netherlands. I’ve brought some of those same guest artists to teach my students. A picture of Dani sits above my desk at work. She helped me so much as a teenager, and inspires me to keep teaching my own students with curiosity.
I would not have been connected to dance and my body if I had ended up at traditional school of dance. BAX gave me confidence. It gave me safety. It gave me an expansive idea of what dance is and the room to explore that. And if I hadn’t found my love of dance, I don’t know if I would have survived the challenges of my own young adulthood. So in that sense, at the risk of being corny and over-the-top, BAX gave me a life worth living. I feel most alive when I am creating, and BAX continues to nourish that through its programs for artists.
One story I’ll share is about when I was choreographing on adults as part of the Young Choreographers Project. Fernando (Maneca) had conceived of the program, thinking that “well, we have adults choreographers on kids, kids choreographing on kids…how about kids choreographing on adults?” I ended up creating a dance on Fernando and Christopher Caines. They were so patient and generous with me, including creating music that I didn’t end up using in the end. That kind of trust in the process, the successes and failures, of a young artist, is what BAX is for me.
