My Secret Double-life

I’ve been moonlighting for years, as a dancer. Get your minds out of the gutter. The economy’s had its ups and downs, but it’s not that bad. It’s modern dance people…“art”.

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