Clean Pair Of White-Soled Sneakers
It shouldn't surprise you that I have no idea what to expect for the audition.
I don't even know what to wear.
The only guidance from the email was a "clean pair of white-soled sneakers". It also said there will be no nudity in the audition so I should probably wear some clothes too. I opt for a pair of breathable trousers and a plain dark v-neck. For the clean white-soled sneakers I choose the white pair of Asics that I wore to officiate my good friends Brady & Shelby's wedding last summer. Maybe they got some magic in them yet.
I arrive to ADF's Samuel H. Scripps Studios at quarter to 6 and check in with Kelsey, who hands me number 170 to pin to my shirt. Which can only mean one thing: I'm going to be the dancing equivalent of Josh Allen, only 10 times better. They snap a quick picture, ostensibly to get a photo with my number, but most likely because my headshot was so amateurish.
I drop my bag on a bench in the reception area and tentatively stroll into the studio. A dozen or so people are scattered about in various states of stretching and mild calisthenics. I find a vacant patch of studio real estate and do as the Romans do. To even the most generous of observers my stretches would be considered half assed. I have to admit the Duke softball stadium right outside the window has me wishing I was crankin' dingers and turnin' double plays.
Right around 6 PM our choreographer Mark Haim gathers everyone to ahem put us through our paces.
I remember from my film study it's a constantly flowing series of 8 step down & backs. I think I can handle that.
Mark partitions the group into three roughly equal clusters and watches everyone walk 8 step laps without music.
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8 pivot
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8 pivot
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8 pivot
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8 pivot
A continuous series of
"ope I forgot my keys, oh no they're in my pocket"
"ope I forgot my keys, oh no they're in my pocket"
"ope I forgot my keys, oh no they're in my pocket"
"ope I forgot my keys, oh no they're in my pocket"
Mark then turns on some music & tells us to lead with our right foot on the 1 & pivot with our left on the 8.
right-left-right-left-right-left-right-left pivot
right-left-right-left-right-left-right-left pivot
right-left-right-left-right-left-right-left pivot
right-left-right-left-right-left-right-left pivot
right-foot odds, left foot evens
right-foot odds, left foot evens
right-foot odds, left foot evens
right-foot odds, left foot evens
After zigzagging in amorphous blobs Mark lines us up in groups of 8 to walk it in unison. It takes me about three laps in the line to kind of get the hang of it. A slight hubristic feeling of y'know what? maybe I can do this overcomes me as I smugly walk back & forth with my compatriots.
Then Mark hits us with the gallops.
The gallop is an easy enough maneuver to execute on its own. A variation on the skip where you raise your front leg for a little hop instead of bringing your other leg through. I could gallop up & down the studio no problem.
The thing about the gallop, though, is that it switches your feet. Instead of right foot odds, left foot evens we've entered the unfamiliar and depraved world of left-foot odds, right-foot evens.
I cringe just thinking about it.
What's more, my comfy world of RFO-LFE is further upended by the fact that switching feet means we switch the direction of our pivot.
But only on the laps with odd numbers of gallops.
I stand no chance.
We do a few laps in our blobs before Mark lines us back up to do it in unison. I take one step and my brain freezes. I hop, I lurch, I trundle. But I sure as hell don't gallop. The once steady count in my head violently sublimates, forever lost to the perpetual, growing chaos of the universe. My grasp on the very concept of numbers has become unsettlingly tenuous.
After a few rounds of gallops I glance over at the woman who is galloping with the ease of Secretariat, my eyes as wide as saucers,
"I have NO idea what I'm doing."
"You're doing pretty good!" lies Renay.
"I've never auditioned for anything before so all this is completely new to me"
"Oh my god, are you serious? How did you hear about this?"
Before I can reply Mark rounds us up to explain a couple more maneuvers: the Shirley - a jaunty, carefree frolic of a strut that's so fun to do you can't help but smile. The Lewiston - a stiff, lumbering gait that reminds me of a wrestling coach.
Mark colors each character with a story of an interaction with that individual or an archetype of the character. With each story I know exactly the person he's describing. If I can embody that person is another question.
We do some Shirleys, we do some Lewistons. Some good (Renay, et al.). Some not so good (me).
Halfway through the audition Mark calls us all together again and drops a terrifying line that sends shivers down my spine,
"We're going to go ahead and cut some folks right now, I really hate to do this but we want to get some more looks at a smaller group."
This is the moment that I realize what an unbelievable opportunity I have. I can see the anguish on Mark's face when he has to deliver the bad news. He's genuinely uncomfortable. The choreographer could be an asshole. The choreographer could have taken glee in cutting people. But each number he reads pains him.
157
159
166
168
*gulp*
172
*phew*
176
He continues but I stop listening.
170 is safe.
For now.
One thing I might have going for me is we're now down to only 4 men at the audition. It could just be a numbers game at this point. And I will certainly not complain about getting let in on a technicality.
Durham Dance Mafia
We do much of the same for another hour or so, Shirleys, Lewistons, skips, gallops... the fucking gallops... until Mark has seen all he needs to see and releases us.
As we're all mulling about the reception area gathering all our belongings I say to nobody and everybody all at once,
"Anyone want to go grab a beer?"
"Yeah, where were you thinking?" Dana cheerfully replies.
"Hell I don't care."
"Well I'm headed to Accordion Club if you want to join, I think a couple others are coming. It's a great dive bar, I know all the bartenders."
"Oh I'm very familiar with Accordion Club. I love that place! See you there!"
Anticipating my condition I hitch up my 6 cylinder steed and set off to the saloon on foot. By the time I belly up to the rail my new friends Dana, Renay, and Matt halfway through their first sarsparilla. I order up a Fairground Balloons Pale Ale for a little catch up.
We exchange our thoughts from the audition. Nobody thinks they are going to get it. Everybody thinks everybody else is going to get it.
"This piece isn't about how much dance experience you have, it's more about your look, your vibe, how you mesh with the aesthetic of the group."
"Well let's hope there's a guy-who-looks-like-Jesus spot in the aesthetic mesh."
After my craft pale ale I switch over to a bottle of swill that's more fitting of an establishment of Accordion Club's class. The bartender pops the cap on my PBR then just stares at me.
"Uhhhhh?"
"You gotta guess the card," interjects Dana after a painfully awkward pause.
"The card?"
"Have you never gotten a PBR at Accordion?"
"I reckon not."
"The bottle caps have cards printed on the underside of them, if you guess the card & suit you get the beer for free."
"Oh how fun! Give me the 7 of spades!"
"Close, 8 of spades."
I resist the urge to explain that probabilistically it's just as close as any other card, assuming the caps are evenly distributed of course.
And then on my next beer I explain it anyway. Because I'm an annoying twat. I can't help it.
"So as someone who has never attended an audition I have to say that Mark was super nice and the whole audition was actually kinda fun. I'm assuming that's not how it always goes?"
Dana, Renay, & Matt all have a similar answer. Some choreographers are nice, some are assholes, and some fill in the space between. I'm positively chuffed that Mark falls on the nice end of the spectrum.
The PBRs are going down, well, like PBRs. They ain't smooth, they ain't drinkable, but that's what's good about 'em. Then Dana pours some coal on the fire and shows up to the table with a round of tequila shots. Oh sweet baby Jesus, I was not prepared for this.
"Here's to everybody making it. Here's to the Durham Dance Mafia!"
Callback
Thankfully I have a day to recover from the PBR and tequila, which is spent in a torpid state of lethargy. Or is it a lethargic state of torpor? Whichever it is my sofa sure doesn't seem to mind.
As I'm entering a deep, transcendental state of post-breakfast lounging my phone buzzes with an email from Kelsey. When I read the preview I feel a slight lump in my throat.
I tap the email fully expecting to see a big fat but right after "audition."
Thank you so much for attending the audition, but what the hell were you thinking?
I open the email & I'm relieved to find not a but but an invitation to a callback. I think that's good?
I'll be honest I didn't expect to reach feelings of dread & relief regarding the fate of my participation in this performance. When I decided to apply it was with a feeling of sure why not? I think there was just something about the audition that captivated me. Have I caught the dance bug?
⬤ ⬤ ⬤
My alarm squawks the next morning and I feel bleary eyed and cranky. About halfway through preparing my morning coffee I realize I'm dealing with the effects of our delightful biannual daylight savings tradition that we have all allowed to happen in the Year of Our Lord 2023. Hopefully this pot of Little Waves Dinkinesh: Yukro Ethiopian medium roast jitter juice puts a little pep in my step.
Back at the studio we work through all the hits again. After about an hour we take a break and while we're all relaxing on the benches in the reception area Marks strides in with an announcement he delivers in the most understated tone possible,
"Ok so this is technically a callback but I like what I see and we're going to move forward with this group. So you've all made it. Is everyone comfortable continuing? We'll consider this the first rehearsal."
Everyone shares shocked looks of unexpected excitement and mild bewilderment. Of course we're comfortable continuing. The mood of the studio lightens and we spend the next two hours rehearsing and adding new elements to the piece.
I'm happy to report that all 4 founding members of the Durham Dance Mafia, Dana, Matt, Renay, and yours truly made the team. I'm glad we didn't have to resort to making Mark an offer he couldn't refuse.
So... I guess I'm going to be performing at American Dance Festival?
American Dance Festival
The American Dance Festival is a Durham-based dance studio and school dedicated to supporting, presenting, and teaching modern dance. From their website,
ADF ensures that modern dance remains a powerful and universal form of human expression and that this art form is accessible to all, now and for generations to come.
The festival traces its origins to the Bennington School of Dance, a summer program established at Bennington College in Vermont. The school provided choreographers and performers a venue to experiment and perform works in the rapidly evolving medium of modern dance. In 1948 the festival was relocated to Connecticut College before it's final move to the 36th parallel in 1978.
(Fun fact: one side of the road outside the Nasher Museum of Art where our performances will be held is at 35.99999°N and the other is 36.0°N. I'm comfortable admitting that I'm probably the only weirdo who finds that fact fun.)
The move to Durham was chronicled in the June 19, 1978 issue of The New York Times. On page 45, next to a photo from the South Lawn of the White House featuring George Benson plucking some impossibly smooth guitar riffs and Dizzy Gillespie leading President Carter in a rendition of Salt Peanuts, The Paper of Record details the 45th season of the festival. It feels poetic that ADF is celebrating its 90th anniversary this season, exactly 45 years after the first performances on Duke's campus.
That 1978 class featured a young 19-year old student by the name of Madonna Ciccone, a performer we know today simply by her first name. A story that ran in the Charlotte Observer detailing the festival began thusly,
"Her name is Madonna Ciccone, and her face matches her name.
Round eyes, arched eyebrows, finely drawn mouth – Da Vinci would have loved it. It is a theatrical face, a dancer’s face. And she has a dancer’s body – thin as a blade, lithe and agile. Doll-like, she looks as if she’d snap in a strong wind.
She wouldn’t."
Read more at: Madonna before she was Madonna - a dance student at ADF
This year's festival is dedicated to Gerri Houlihan, a colossus in the world of dance who is celebrating her 40th season teaching at the ADF summer intensive. A graduate of The Julliard School and former Dean of the ADF School, her accomplishments and accolades are far too extensive to detail here, but I encourage everyone to read about her magnificent career, and if you have the means, consider donating a few shekels to the Gerri Houlihan Scholarship Fund. I had the pleasure to meet Gerri at one of our rehearsals and look forward to attending one of her classes, where she continues to advance the mission of ADF.
This season features two companies who performed at the inaugural Durham festival, the Paul Taylor Dance Company and Pilobolus, the latter of which former president of ADF Charles Reinhart described as "a mushroom at the family tree of modern dance." In the final line of the 1978 article, the NYT described ADF as "one of the nation's most important institutions."
No pressure.