Driven
Kate Watson-Wallace throws dance theater into overdrive with Car.
Kate Watson-Wallace is exhausted. She keeps yawning. It's late--after 10 p.m.--and nearing the end of eight hours of rehearsals for her new dance piece, Car. By the time we meet she's been in the backseat of a car driving up and down a garage 20 times already that day. Thing is, she gets carsick.
As we ascend in the elevator at the Fresh Grocer at 40th and Walnut, another woman lingers in the elevator. It feels a little awkward.
I flick my eyes toward the girl and back to Watson-Wallace as if to ask if she's one of the dancers or just someone radiating bizarre energy. Watson-Wallace smirks and looks away.
The elevator splits open and I'm led to a silver car with a PhillyCarShare logo. We climb into the backseat, buckle up and get ready to roll.
Kate Watson-Wallace isn't the kind of artist churned out of fancy art school meat mills.
A 2007 Pew Fellow in choreography and director of one of the most anticipated shows of this year's Live Arts Festival, Watson-Wallace became a rising star of modern dance by dropping out of school and discovering that Philadelphia is a cool place for a young, stubborn and broke-as-a-joke dancer to land.
A Massachusetts native, 30-yearold Watson-Wallace moved to Philly for Temple's dance program in 1996 then figured out pretty quickly she wasn't cut out for four years of homework. So she cut the cord and, at 20, dipped a classically trained pointed toe into the world of contemporary dance in Philadelphia, a scene different than most.
Unlike other major American cities, we don't have a dedicated dance stage that books and promotes full dance seasons. Instead, we're packed to the gills with dance organizations, residency programs and more financial support opportunities--the William Penn Foundation, the Pew Charitable Trust and the Independence Foundation, to name a few--than most cities.
These dynamics help explain why Philly's dance scene is the land of pickup dance troupes and loose assemblages of performers, like Watson-Wallace's own company Anonymous Bodies. As Watson-Wallace describes it, except for a few companies like Rennie Harris Puremovement and Koresh Dance Company, everybody dances with everybody.
"That's what's awesome about Philly," she says, "though I think in a few years there will be a dance space because there are so many people in the community trying to make it happen."
As everyone knows, the kids'll do it either way.
"If you want to make art, you make it any way you can," says Watson-Wallace. "If you're not being presented at a certain moment, it's like, 'Screw it. I'll do it in my living room or in a warehouse or in the street.' There's been tons of that going on Philadelphia for years. That's the big thing: working with what's in front of you instead of waiting for someone to present you."
COMMENTS
ADD COMMENT
MORE
Article:
The Faces Issue: Celebrating Black History Month
Article:
Iraq War Veterans Turn to Marijuana for Managing PTSD Symptoms
Article:
Photographer Zoe Strauss Took This Photo 10 Years Ago. Here Is the Story of "Mattress Flip"
Article:
"Star & Buc Wild" Shock Jock Troi Torain Wants You to Start Snitching
Article:
The Big and Small Moments of 2011
Article:
"Deadbeat" Father Questions the Effectiveness of the Child-Support System
Article:
Philly Artists—Sick of the Mainstream Gallery System—Revive the Alternatives
Article:
The Gift Guide
1. toronto escorts said... on Mar 2, 2009 at 05:09AM
“That’s what’s awesome about Philly, though I think in a few years there will be a dance space because there are so many people in the community trying to make it happen”