Several years ago I decided I needed more balance in my life. Now, people seek balance in a variety of ways; running a design studio and working as a professional dancer and executive director of a dance company on the side is probably not one of them. It may seem nuts to some of you, but it makes perfect sense to me. I’m a designer incapable of sitting still—dance is essentially “designed movement”…it’s kind of perfect.

Plus, my history with dance (and fine art too) happens to be why I got into design for the arts in the first place—to draw audiences to support the things I love. It never ceases to surprise me how often I get to tie theses two sides of my life together. From client work for Dance at the Music Center, where my knowledge of dance technique is the best tool in the box for art directing a photo shoot, to using my design skills to build an identity, costume dancers and market my dance company.

For the past few months my evenings and weekends have been dedicated to Nancy Evans Dance Theatre, the aforementioned “my dance company”. We’ve been busy building new work, and rehearsing, rehearsing, (and have I mentioned rehearsing?) for our annual show that opens this Friday, June 1st at Porticoes Theatre in Pasadena—a brand new performing arts venue we’re pleased to share with other local performing artists Arroyo Repertory Theatre and Pacific Opera Project. We’ll be presenting pieces from our repertory as well as premieres of five new pieces, the highlight being “Vigil”, a dance drama from NEDT’s Artistic Director, Nancy Evans Doede, that centers around the complex web of attachment between a death row inmate, his family, the family of his victim, and between the families themselves. Ok, it’s not a happy-go-lucky romp (we do have those in the show too), but it’s a stunning work that you can’t help connecting to regardless of how you feel about capital punishment. @jennfuse

Now I’m a good designer when it comes to things like conceptual thinking or composing the printed page. Space-planning however is a muscle I inherited from my Dad, but have yet to develop. Thankfully Dad, Richard Logan, being a recent retiree had a little time on his hands to devote to making the new office look and function great with smart design, limited budget, lots of sweat… and just a few expletives.

Who better to talk about the process than the designer/builder himself….

Anyway, I got completely sucked into Guillaume Duchenne’s electrophysiolgy research from the 1840′s. He believed that expressions were the gateway to the human soul, and that the way muscles work to create them could be codified. How you ask? Localized faradization — he electrocuted people. Using electricity he was able to map the muscle groups used to form different expressions and capture the results with photography (new at the time). Documentation of his torture…I mean work are in Duchenne de Boulogne’s Le Mécanisme de la Physionomie Humaine (ca 1876). See images from the index here. @jennfuse


It’s been said that at least one of Duchenne’s patients (the man pictured above) had no feeling in his face so the procedure was painless. What about the rest of them? Ouch.


It’s been said that at least one of Duchenne’s patients (the man pictured above) had no feeling in his face so the procedure was painless. What about the rest of them? Ouch.


It’s been said that at least one of Duchenne’s patients (the man pictured above) had no feeling in his face so the procedure was painless. What about the rest of them? Ouch.