Why make a dance pod?
This is a story about my life from 2011 to 2016. But, in order to help you understand why on earth this project exists, I’d like to explain my life as a dancer and then tell my EcoDance story. Here it goes…
Anatomy of a Dancer
It is 1994. I am a trained actor, fresh out of the UCLA Theater Department. Even though I have signed on with both a theatrical and a commercial agent, I leave Los Angeles and return to Vashon Island, my hometown. I fall into an amazing modern dance class in Seattle. In the morning I commute to class, dancing five days a week. At night, I wait tables (Emily’s, Fork in the Road, Stray Dog), bake bread (Sound Food) and coach high school springboard diving teams. I live in a school bus (Mu Kai Gardens) in exchange for $50/month of gardening labor. It is 1999. Five years later, I start getting professional dance jobs, paying about $300 - $700 per project. I attend about eleven rehearsals a week. I choreograph my first piece. I get a job at Pacific Northwest Ballet as a Pilates instructor for $20/hour. In short, FINANCES IMPROVE! DANCE CAREER BEGINS! It is 2001. I move to Seattle’s Central District. I travel on tour to California, France, Canada, Ecuador. I start two Pilates studios, one on Vashon, and, later, one in Japantown. I make enough to pay bills and make dances, but it is a VERY fine balance. In 2006. I have a big break! I am hired by Scott Wells & Dancers in San Fransisco. I move there, and land a great Pilates job at the Presidio YMCA. I get offered an interim position as Managing Director of Joe Goode Performance Group, gaining exposure to the inner-workings a large, nonprofit dance organization. Money and dance begin to overlap. It is 2008. After eight years of teaching Pilates and eight years of making more grant packages than dance works, I’m about to jump off the bridge. Don’t get me wrong— I love my clients and the arts organizations that fund dance, it’s the cultural discountenance of dance that burns me out. I apply to graduate school at UIUC’s dance department. I am accepted, with a creative residency and a teaching assistantship! At UIUC, I am paid $1200/month (approximately) to work under what I call the dance umbrella: to teach dance, write about dance, perform dance and make dance. It is amazing! Amazing because I sustain myself as a dancer, 100%. It is 2011. Just before the last semester, I realize that, soon, I am to return to a life of separation— jobs to make money, and dance for free. Enter, Sarah Haas: dance grad, movement artist, writer. Sarah and I decide change the world-- or, at least, our world. |
Anatomy of EcoDanceIt is January, 2011.
Sarah and I develop the idea of dance commerce and give it a name, EcoDance. In short, we construct dance commerce plans. A dance commerce plan is similar to the standard business plan, but the commerce plan highlights creative sustainability rather than financial profitability, which is the purpose of a business plan. First, we determine that the top challenge is money. Most money in our lives go toward rent and venue costs. We explore our curiosity about the tiny home movement, and how building a tiny structure on wheels might help us. We hook up with an architecture professor who helps us develop tiny home ideas that reduce these costs. In other words, we start designing dance pods. Dance pods are travel trailers that have both livable space and danceable space. Dance pods reduce our costs because a) we own them, b) they have low operation costs and c) they are mobile and can travel with us. To the left, is a video of the whole plan. It is the first video, not the best! |
Sarah's Build Begins
It is August, 2011. Sarah and I start to build. No school. No advisors. Just two artists-turned-into-builders. Sarah, myself and some valiant helpers build the shell of Sarah’s pod in the sweltering prairie heat of Champaign Urbana, Illinois... Her story is amazing as she tells it. Read Sarah’s story Hallie's Build Begins
It is August 28, 2011. I drive my truck, my flatbed and my pod materials from Urbana, Illinois to Vashon Island, Washington. I begin my lifestyle of choice… to establish a home base while building my pod. I start a Pilates/massage business to pays bills and building costs. Then, when the pod is finished, I plan to take the pod and my work on regional dance tours. It is Labor Day, 2011 Building begins!! Pod building happens for a long, long time. The building location moves eight times, I go through ten months of massage school, and relocate my business once. The building years will be detailed here in images rather than words.... If you like long stories, See my blog |
Posing in front of the art in my newest Pilates & massage studio, 2016.
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DANCE POD BUILD, AN IMAGE DIARY, 2011 -2016
It is January, 2016! What next?
I want to complete my commerce plan! For the pod part of the plan, I want to complete the final punch list of various small fixes and detail work. For the home base part of the plan, I am looking for land to rent, to call home, temporarily, until I purchase property. For the dance commerce part of the plan, I promised myself a three-week mountain wilderness residency with the pod once it is finished, and I promised myself I would not decide on a plan until I have done it. I am looking forward to this time in the near future, and to what I will plan to do next!
Where am I emotionally, physically, mentally?
Emotionally, I am excited and exhausted. Excited, because the moment to initiate my dancing life as I designed it is finally here. Exhausted, because all I want to do, after 260 weekends of the laborious, expensive, lonely work of inventing something out of nothing, is to make good food, play with friends, plant a garden, and nest in this pod.
Physically, I am five years older. To the public, this sounds like an untenable problem for a dancer (if I told you just how old I am, that is!!), but this is not so, thankfully. My ballet and acrobatic moves are less flashy than years ago, but my focus has always been improvisation. Like a jazz musician, a dance improviser improves with age, so I am not in the least bit dismayed by my wrinkles. I just have to warm up longer!
Mentally, I am so grateful. To Sarah who shared both my blindness and my faith, to all the builders who taught me and helped me, to my clients who funded my food and building costs, to the landowners who hosted my pod as I built, to myself for being stubborn and determined.
I want to complete my commerce plan! For the pod part of the plan, I want to complete the final punch list of various small fixes and detail work. For the home base part of the plan, I am looking for land to rent, to call home, temporarily, until I purchase property. For the dance commerce part of the plan, I promised myself a three-week mountain wilderness residency with the pod once it is finished, and I promised myself I would not decide on a plan until I have done it. I am looking forward to this time in the near future, and to what I will plan to do next!
Where am I emotionally, physically, mentally?
Emotionally, I am excited and exhausted. Excited, because the moment to initiate my dancing life as I designed it is finally here. Exhausted, because all I want to do, after 260 weekends of the laborious, expensive, lonely work of inventing something out of nothing, is to make good food, play with friends, plant a garden, and nest in this pod.
Physically, I am five years older. To the public, this sounds like an untenable problem for a dancer (if I told you just how old I am, that is!!), but this is not so, thankfully. My ballet and acrobatic moves are less flashy than years ago, but my focus has always been improvisation. Like a jazz musician, a dance improviser improves with age, so I am not in the least bit dismayed by my wrinkles. I just have to warm up longer!
Mentally, I am so grateful. To Sarah who shared both my blindness and my faith, to all the builders who taught me and helped me, to my clients who funded my food and building costs, to the landowners who hosted my pod as I built, to myself for being stubborn and determined.