Q: How did you begin your performing arts training?

I was adopted when I was two years old. My birth parents were Mexican and Sicilian and I was given up at 10 months old. When I got older, I saw my adoption papers, and my birth mother said all she cared about was that I wasn't adopted by Mexicans. But, because I looked so mixed race in the 60s, I ended up with a Mexican family in East Los Angeles.

My love of retro comes from the fact that when I was a child, I was an avid movie and music fan. My problem with socialization came from my uncle, who had an amazing record collection. He let me play his recordings and he put on comedy records such as Lenny Bruce when I was 6 years old. I went to junior college. I was in an Art History class and discovered French Art in 1802-1930 and the music that accompanied that. I heard The Afternoon of a Faun and decided I wanted to be a musician. At age 19, that is not the wisest thing to do. Fortunately. my parents didn't know better and didn't try to stop me. I was part of the punk scene in LA in the early 80s and by the early Reagan years punk was dead. The whole movement and excitement died off and became dull and very a “Reaganomic” base. The Reagan years really killed all excitement. It was the first wave of “Making America Great,” basically. Had I not discovered music, I don't know what I would have done.

Q: What was the transition from musician to arts administrator?

There hasn't really been a transition. I am never seen as someone looked to take over on an administrative level. I have had to figure it out because I was never tapped for being a leader or director. Being a dance musician means that, to the musicians, you are not a real musician and to the dancers you're not a dancer so you are never fully accepted in either camp.

Q: How have you implemented diversity, equity, and inclusion into the Department of Dance at the University of Michigan?

As co-chair there was no diversity, equity, and inclusion at first. As acting chair I am starting a brand new engagement model to work with students of color and less privileged backgrounds to learn about the arts and not start with them at 11th grade but rather at 7th grade. No one knows this yet, but it will become a required class for the dance department that you must be engaged in this class. We are trialing it this year and our plan is to make it a formal class starting in 2021. For me, I don't think we have succeeded at reaching students of color in this department. I basically put a stop to what we were doing before. I don't know why it has taken so long to get here. I think it is even more important now, post COVID-19, since no one will have any idea where the center is. I think we need to help people find their centers again.

Q: What has (performing art) taught you that you have applied to your everyday life and how you engage in the world?

I don't know. I started so late, I knew I had to succeed somehow. And I learned that failure is okay. I succeeded because there was no other option.

Q: How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected you as an artist and acting chair? (community, financially, initial reactions, company shift, online class, emotions, initial cancellation reaction)

Personally, it affects me the same way as everyone. It's the removal of all of the norms in everyday life. My first concern was on Wednesday the 11th of May that it would have to stop. I knew that it would not be liked. There is nothing to like about it and it took everything away from the seniors and grads. There was no end in sight.

Q: What is the Dance Department doing to support the students during the pandemic?

Academics continue online. Studio classes are not required as not every student has access to the internet. I am trying to keep the faculty and students informed. I cannot say who the new hires are, but I am working to integrate them into the department. We hired three new hires. The third person will work with me to design modules. This whole thing showed how unprepared we are. We’re designing modules for online learning that are free for kids and adults. Free community introductory classes. If the kids we work with in the engagement class get into it, it will be with them as well. I also want there to be true online dance classes and exercise classes. The other faculty will be working with me to make that a reality.

Q: What does a daily routine look like for you? What have you been working on during this time?

I am getting a number of new courses put through. I am working with soon-to-be new faculty already. I am planning three scenarios: 1) Qe get to come back, 2) We get to come back partially, 3) We are suspended further. 3 meaning we are suspended for a whole semester at the worst. We have to prepare for those three levels. I am confident it won't be 3, but if I don't prepare thenI will feel unprepared for whatever happens.

Q: How do you see people continuing to create and build community during this time?

It seems everyone is doing something online whether its engagement or teaching. I see everything from soup to nuts and I don't even see 1/10 of it. It seems like so much is offered. People are trying to be creative in new models and it is not expected. I have to focus on how we will get back and what we will be after this. How do we help students who have their sense of community and interaction taken away? This is a trauma for everyone and we have to treat it like that.

Q: Can you talk a bit about the feeling of preparing students especially seniors for an instrury that does not exist?

The presentation of it went away but the work didn't go away. The skills they learned and ideas they have did not go away, but we have to think of different ways to bring them back to action and back to reality. The presentation and ability to engage with presentation by choice went away. How do I feel about it? Anyone in dance knows there is no guarantee, so if you have always felt there is no guarantee, then you will be on your feet with that no guarantee. I always hate that narrative that I used to hear from teacher that, “There is no money in dance, it's all suffering, it is for the art.” That has always been empty because most of the people I've worked with in 38 years have been living in this fairly stable society, and now it is unstable. This generation of dancers will be the ones to transform dance. They will be the ones that have to think about what dance will now become. It is an opportunity to re-make the model.  

Q: Using the idea of “worldmaking” how do you imagine the performing arts world after the pandemic? (Worldmaking: How you can re-imagine the world in your own terms, the way you want it to be. Using this tool one can construct new worlds and write themselves into narratives that have excluded them and systems that have disabled them.)

I have always seen the arts as a luxury. It is a luxury to have a career teaching music. I never understood why people got so upset and said I'm so passionate. It is a luxury we see now what a luxury it is because we have a memory of what it used to be like. In the ideal world, most dancers I know are optimistic and upbeat and they have nothing to drag them down. Yes, there is self doubt, but they are so engaged professionally that it is like the most stable model you can imagine. I'd like to see more people like the people who aren't in the companies or at the shows. I'd like to see that attitude among the rest of us. People who get to dance the great repertory night after night know that this moment does not exist in reality but in this other world. I  want to see other artists adopt that understanding, because now we see what happens when you take everything away. We bring something that someone else can then connect to. If we remove our ego out of it, others can connect to it. We have a privilege to do what we do. Most people who are working to get to that level of success are so caught up in the “Will I get there?” without realizing in many ways you are already there. I find that when I hear from people I haven't heard from in 20 years, they talk about a performance of mine as so memorable and I don't remember it or I was too focused on the process of the “suffering” and “fighting” of it to enjoy it, but others did enjoy it. I feel that others have gotten to enjoy my music more than I have because I have been so focused on just “getting there.”