A question for the AD ... “How do you acclimate new dancers to the Ballet Memphis family and to the larger community of Memphis?”

I start the assimilation process by watching each dancer carefully during auditions. I am not just watching technique and body type. I am closely looking at faces to see what I can discern about a personality—how one listens, observes, processes, thinks and puts personal spirit into his or her presence. After auditions, I always have conversations with the people I’ve kept in whom I feel are of interest. I also talk with them about the things that make Memphis an interesting city, still being honest that we have challenges to work on as a community. So the first parts of assimilation begin the moment a dancer walks into an audition. When it comes time to offer contracts to my first choices, I learn more about these dancers through additional conversations. I also encourage them to talk to dancers in the company about who we are, how we work, what we believe in.

With new and returning company members alike, I just try to keep the exchange of ideas open—to talk with them about values of thinking; giving our talents to our community in ways that are meaningful; and why particular roles they are dancing matter in our human conversations. That is, after all, what performance is: a conversation about life with our audience. And as public people, we have to possess sort of a sixth sense about what matters to others because we serve them, even if we aren’t “talking” when we dance. Whether onstage or off, we are still talking with our bodies, and we have to be intuitive and feeling enough to “hear” what others’ responses are to us.

I always want dancers to understand that they live in the world, not to think that dance is the world. We have talents we bring to others, and we need to be curious, thoughtful and respectful of people who may be different or have chosen different ways to be in the world.

This photo was taken the first day of contract before all the dancers took their first class together. It's been a great two weeks thus far, and looking forward to a wonderful anniversary season.

-- Dorothy Gunther Pugh