Dance Studio Dreams

“No house should ever be on a hill or on anything. It should be of the hill. Belonging to it. Hill and house should live together each the happier for the other.”
Frank Lloyd Wright

Dance Studio Dreams

Several years ago my sister bought me a lottery ticket. Of course, I didn’t win but I did get her money’s worth out of the ticket by imagining what I’d do with mega-millions.

I imagined a farm with a retro-fitted barn to be a dance studio. One with a sprung floor and just two rows of seating, maybe like you’d see at a little league ball park. The farm house would be housing and the farm itself would have pathways to walk through the fields or trees.

It would be a choreographer’s dream, I believe, to have six weeks of uninterrupted work with their dancers. Let them all be paid well and enjoy some luxury. My millions would need a curator and house person and someone to tend to the space.

Let them come to my dance studio in the country and work without distraction. Let them find rest in the quiet and see a sky full of stars at night time. Where the work may go would not matter, it only mattered that they worked.

Yet, what if, if we are playing at what if, why not billions of dollars?

Imagine now three studios. And choreographers from all over the world. Over-lapping six week sessions so people get to meet and also see other people’s work. Jazz, Modern, Ballet, Tap, Flamenco, Balinese, Javanese, Martial Arts, Hip Hop, Traditional and National dances from all over the world.

Imagine documentation with three cameras in each studio with uploads each night to review the work but, better yet, create an international dance archive for people to look and see how this choreographer worked or what that kind of dance looked like.

Imagine ambassadors from each country, probably from the United Nations, coming to the compound to see their people’s work. The State Department would have to become involved and it would be a great thing of good will. Maybe we could get Marie Yovanovitch to work with us as our ambassador, she needs a job right now.

Think of the three week overlap of the Rasta guys and the Perth, Australia guys. Now that would be a party for all! Dancers meeting dancers, in one long continuous run for years. The studios would be a showcase promoting the arts.

Why not? It would be fun.