Elizabeth Schmuhl

Falling for Yoko

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For me, September is a month for reflection. It’s when the peach fuzz of summer is only an itchy memory, and the cold, dew-filled apple orchards crowd my days: the last harvest of the season. Monarchs, birds, and other creatures begin to move to new locations, readying themselves for the deep freeze of winter, a season which will eventually cover almost everything living in white dust. It’s also the month in which I was introduced to Yoko Ono’s Acorn and ever since, I’ve been falling.

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Awake, Alive, Curious: An Interview with Arika Yamada

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“It began as the one way I could speak for a time during my childhood. I first stepped foot into a dance studio as a seven-year-old. During that time I was mute for a few months from the culture shock of moving back and fourth between the United States and Japan. My mother thought that perhaps expression through the body would help me use words again since I didn’t want to talk in either English or Japanese.”

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“I Want to Be a Long Dirt Road”: An Interview with Bobbi Jene Smith

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I met the dancer Bobbi Jene Smith at the Batsheva Intensive in New York City last year. Bobbi is a beautiful force, an intensely gorgeous, honest, and strong mover. And on top of all this, she’s intelligent and insightful. The Batsheva repertoire she taught at the intensive, as well as her words, will not leave me, and her presence and influence continue to circulate.

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Ian Spencer Bell at the Poetry Foundation: An Invitation

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I subscribe to the Poetry Foundation’s “Around The City” emails that contain information about events happening in and around Chicago. It was in February when, two-thirds of the way down the list of events, I landed on a name I had never heard before who would be coming to the city in March, performing at the Poetry Foundation, and doing something that for years I had struggled to do: integrating poetry with dance.

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An Interview with Jordan Sullivan

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“I was an athlete growing up, and many people don’t associate athletics with art, but I found athletics to be a very visceral and emotional world that in many ways informed my art later on. There’s a certain intuition an athlete has and this intuition is invaluable to my creative process. Of course there’s a team in many sports and I always was drawn to more solitary endeavors, so naturally I was drawn to writing and art.”

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Remaining Open: Iván Pérez

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* Elizabeth Schmuhl *

Spanish choreographer and former member of Netherlands Dans Theatre Iván Pérez will set his piece “Flesh” on eight dancers from River North Dance Chicago for their 25th Anniversary season, which takes place on October 10th and 11th at the Harris Theater. This will be his first time his work will be set and performed in the United States. Pérez graciously allowed me to interview him before he sets out on this important voyage.

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