19.08.2016

Featured Student Spotlight: Rossi Lamont Walter

• Description

  Featured Student Spotlight: Rossi Lamont Walter

  Dallas, TX
  2nd Year Student, 2016-2017 
  
  

   

  Why did you decide to attend the Training Program?

  I pursued the Training Program at the recommendation of one of my mentors in dance and close personal friends Casey Lee Thorne, herself artistic director of Inside Out Contemporary Ballet and LINES BFA alumna. She and I met initially in the city of Jerusalem, then again in Tel Aviv, where we practiced Gaga Movement Language and Classical Ballet for nearly 12 months. After some time, Casey felt that my energy, curiosity and open-mindedness would be well received and equally nourished at LINES. She was correct.

  2) Has the program met your expectations thus far?

  My expectations were that I would receive an education that served to a) deepen my understanding of the vernacular, physical and ideological, of Classical Ballet and to b) realize my desire to dance in what could be called "a dynamic ballet". The Training Program has indeed fulfilled these two expectations.

  3) What about the program has surprised you or differed from your expectations?

  I did not expect the caliber of faculty and the level of investment that each would be willing to make. The mental and psychological hurdles greatly surprised me. The first year felt like something I read in a book centered around spiritualities and symbology of North American Indigenous groups. I read that, as a sort of rite of passage, members would be challenged to spend a night in their own grave. A hole would be dug in the depth of the woods, a blanket thrown atop, and that individual would spend the night inside at the bottom. The imagination and our human capacity for thought are as much our enemy as they are our ally; the darkness, wild sounds and pure unknowing was believed, to my understanding, to activate one's fears and weaknesses so that they could be confronted and subdued or succumbed to. For me, this kind of intense crucible of "pure experience" happens during ballet training. Such was not expected.

  4) Do you feel like you have grown or seen a change in your dancing after your first year in the program? If so, how?

  It goes without saying that change occurs; whether it is dramatic or not, who can say... In my case, however, the growth was indeed dramatic. With thanks to my teachers for modern, contemporary, Horton, Alexander Technique, Gyrotonic and Gyrokinesis, the understanding of my own personal tensegrity structure (my body) has deepened. My muscles have lengthened and gained elasticity. The acute muscles have been realized and strengthened, my weaknesses identified for further work. My understanding of the wide range that any classical step exists within has similarly magnified, thanks to my teachers. A pas de basque, temps lié, or battement tendu exists as a spread of options from which I am to discern it's value for the dance and choose accordingly, rather than a single given option. There is always information...
  
  The information ("corrections") given in class is and perhaps always will feel overwhelming. After all, the concepts and sensations of moving and dancing are unlimited and ever-changing, while the body itself is relatively limited (and also changing). The job of a dancer - a professional mover - therefore includes the exploration not only of these sensations of movement but also their limits as experienced by ones OWN body ("YOUR second en l'air", "YOUR turnout", and so on).

  5) What is one lesson you have learned that you will keep with you as you dance in the future?

  The most important advice I have EVER received, from my ballet teacher Tai Jimenez: "I can see that you love to dance. Guard that with your life." With. Your. LIFE.
  
  Advice from my director at Harvard, Jill Johnson, that continues to serve as protection against the mortal shortcomings and evils of "the dance world": "DANCE WITHOUT EGO."
  
  The rest is just for fun and research: 
  Listen to your body. Touch and grab your body. Watch others in class and learn from them what is possible or what has been forgotten. Ask questions about steps you have trained and thought you understood. Trust your body when it is in motion; analyze after - but definitely analyze. Watch the teacher's entire body, with a soft focus to see everything in relation; focusing on the feet or legs sets you up to miss the bigger picture. Smiling is not only emotional, but also it is physical. You can practice it. A "fake" smile on the face can trick the body into a more relaxed and joyful state. Preparation is preparation: standing IS dancing. Dance your fifth positions. Breathe them, too. Perfection is an illusion; we are animals with amazing machines moving through consciously and unconsciously through Time and Space ALL AT ONCE. Just look at birds or dogs or bugs or pedestrians up close and then think about that... Then get to work. Remember that with your movements you can sculpt how Time moves or doesn't, illustrate emotion, activate the bodies of others and magnify or collapse Space. It is REAL. Notice when you need to let the day of dancing go, with all it's mistakes or frustrations. Learn to revel in the moments of courage, personal beauty and exhaustion. Take everything, but pick one and then investigate it. Guard your love of dancing with your life. Dance without ego.

  6) What are your aspirations for after your completion of the Training Program?

  More practice. Less ego. More joy. Living. I want that my mother will see my dancing. She never has, and time is always precious.

   

  Photo: Robin Jackson