Bowen McCauley Dance

Lucy Bowen McCauley

By Anne Pierce

October/November 1999

The Washington Review

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Back to Home It was a music appreciation instructor who taught Lucy Bowen McCauley how to sit around and listen. As she tells it, her high school teacher in Indianapolis would put something on for the class. She'd hear the music and start to sweat. Now, every dance she crafts starts there, inside of what she hears. Teaching and choreography would come later on, after she spent time on the stage in ballet and modern companies. She worked for several years with Eric Hampton and with the controversial Washington choreographer, Daniel West, who now has dropped out of the dance scene to work construction
Lucy has freckles red-blonde hair, and a square frame, and she hints that her appearance could have something to do with why she was given so many character roles as a ballet dancer. ("You know gee, you've seen me, my legs, my feet. I'm adequate, hut not designer-made for dance.") She found that she grew with the Daniel West company and isn't sure she would have left it had he gone on. Though he could be tough at times, she says: "There are a Lot of good reasons for discipline I really had a good time with him. What Danny and Eric liked about me, I think, is that if I go on stage for something, it's because I really believe in the work"
She has an enthusiastic board. One board member loves her so much that when she found out about this interview, she submitted a hand—penned letter of appreciation of all things Lucy. Her most discerning supporters take some extra delight in the idea that she will add a new dynamic to the dance community. A ballet-based choreographer who takes the standard ballet vocabulary beyond its predictable shape and pulse, she consistently hires quality dancers and confesses a full-out commitment to live music. Washington dancer and ballet veteran, Peter Stark, says that her best pieces show enormous craft and don't feel at all tight, but free and fresh. His favorite Lucy Bowen McCauley material is so kinetic that he gets a vicarious experience from performing it — "sort of as if you are living inside the music."
She depends on local, regular collaborators: among them Stark, who worked with the Washington Ballet. Boston Ballet, and the New York City Ballet; the lighting designer Martha Mountain; and pianist Laurie Bunn. John Williams, that former high school music appreciation teacher, is now looking for funding to bring her company to the opening of the new facility at Park Tudor sometime in the future.
Then there is her famous stretch class, the one that got her work with the Olympic team staff. Gymnast Dominique Dawes took open stretch classes from her and eventually USA Gymnastics discovered her, and seduced her into working for them to help prepare for the games in Australia; they just gave her a new contract. She actually teaches the same stretch technique to Kennedy Center staffers, who once a week throw on sweats during their lunch hour and let down their guard. "I Love that job. I keep telling them I'm going to be at the Kennedy Center in a different way someday. Just wait." The Washington Post did a story a few months ago on her connection to the Olympic coaches. "That interview was three days after my 40th birthday Why don't I just be who I am? So we've got that one covered."
Some people suggest that the change in administrative staff of the Washington Ballet may invite them to work with local choreographers more; whether this would open doors for her is up in the air. Something like this and other locally based support would be especially good given that all the requirements for success over the long haul (more financial support means more time, which means she will be able develop her craft better, which would give her a larger audience, and then more money to give her more time, and so on—a typical Washington artist's story.) "Lucy," says Peter Stark, "has been unfaltering in her determination…never seen a sense of disappointment, persevering regardless of any obstacles. That's her strongest suit. She has her goals and is going to achieve those goals."

AP: Maybe first thing to do is to give me a little bit of your history. Do you want to keep performing?
LBM: Yes. Minimally. I usually try to do one cameo appearance on a program. I have been out of some programs where I felt I just couldn't dance and I had plenty of dancers who were gorgeous and wonderful and I did not do anything. Actually the show Danny West did come to was one where he was disappointed because it was one that I wasn't dancing in, but hey, he came anyway. Getting him out to a concert is tough—he is like a vampire out in daylight now. I remember that the music was Burleycue—a burlesque overture, something that he said made him think he was going to have to leave. Afterwards, he told me I won him over. My work is very different from what he did but he was an influence — because what I do isn't always pretty or easy, and I do use the floor a lot. Still, my work is pretty different from his cutting-edge style.
AP: The times that I watched him I picked up that he got a lot from the dancers, and I have heard this from others, too. Some people would take that as a criticism, but I think borrowing from what your dancers can do doesn't take away from your talent.
LBM: Oh, it's a plus. Draw out from your dancers what they do best. I come in with ideas, and I get a lot of help. You always need a leader, someone with the overall idea. I still give him a lot of credit—he choreographed the stuff We did experiment, but he threw a lot of things out too.
AP: Let 's get back to you… and your background
LBM: My mom took me to ballet class at age seven and I hated it. I took ballet for two years, and then she let me quit. I was a real tomboy. This was in Indianapolis Indiana which is not the hub of the dance world either. I hated the pink tights and all that .
At about age 12 my best friend was doing dance at a different place and I went to classes with her. I just got hooked and this was IT and with every summer camp, all summer long, it was dance. I started getting out of high school early to take extra classes, and that's all I wanted to do. I went to the Joffrey school the summer after my junior year, and they asked me back. Mom said I had to finish high school, so all I have is a high school diploma. I did go to a private school and got a good education, but that's it. When I graduated I went straight to the Joffrey school on a scholarship. I got into the Joffrey concert group. So I got some great training, and played catch up and had one really neat experience.
I started going out for auditions. I was a real ballet-head, a real pointe dancer. 32 fouettes and all that. My first big New York audition at David Howard's School for the Maryland Ballet, now defunct. It paid $250 a week. I lived two blocks away from the Charles Street studios, at the Business Girls Lodge, a place run by Indian women who wore jewels on their heads and dressed in saris—just amazing. Back then, it was like 100 bucks a week with two meals a day. My life has never been that charmed—I get my very first New York audition and there were 500 girls, they picked five and I stayed on a full year. I got to dance some classics. I went back to New York because the company folded and my next gig was the Virginia Ballet located in Newport News. We did all sorts of classical stuff it was a small company of 12 dancers. and we performed all over the tidewater area.
I went back to New York and that's around the time when I met Jean Paul [Mustone], who developed the stretch technique with me and also on me. I started teaching because I had a knack for it and danced with various projects in New York. Then a car ran over my (left) foot, a terrible accident, and it took a full year to rehab it. The doctors did say I wouldn't be able to go on pointe again, that the ankle would never again be in sync. It was a crush wound. I was getting out of a car, and another car drove by and this threw me out of it.
Hey, but life goes on, bad stuff does happen. If they had done surgery I wouldn't be able to point the foot as much so I said no surgery, and as long as I can dance that's all I want. I was kind of drifting and taking modern workshops so I still took ballet class but I started to open the dance scene, with people like Nina Weiner, Doug Verone. I just started trying to get some modern technique while teaching stretch. In 1987 I moved down here to be with my sister and for a contract with (Mia Hisaka's) DC Contemporary Dance Theater and a job with George Washington University. I danced there a couple of years, and also got a job teaching at Washington Ballet as a modern teacher for three years. I choreographed for the kids at Lisner and I was asked to choreograph a piece at GWU at the end of the year. It was the first time I was asked to choreograph anything of significance. I was 27 or 28 years old.
So it's not like you wake up one day and say I'm going to be a choreographer. It's a progression. To be a good choreographer you need to keep choreographing. It's like writers and stories, you know? After my first year here in Washington I also got the gig with Danny West, so I was pretty busy. I'm always busy, it's true, but that's okay. I also helped found Eric Hampton Dance and stayed six to seven years with Eric and then Danny gave it up during that time. Occasionally I'd do guest artist things, and I started to have the urge to make my own dances.
Three circumstances made me take the leap out on my own: Number One was John McCauley. He is a very supportive husband, and the company is called Bowen McCauley Dance for a reason—he does my press kits, helps with publicity, and runs sound for my shows. He is in there two days early helping the lights go in with the lighting designer. He's a systems analyst for a small company but they do subcontract to the government, so he doesn't work directly for government, and he' s just a whiz at the computer. I barely know how to turn a computer on. Opposites attract. He also loves what I do and has encouraged me to do it, to follow my dream.
AP: How did you meet?
LBM: We met down here when I was 28. I was planning to move back to New York; I kept my apartment, I sublet it, fell in love, and got married. His work is really here. I miss New York, but I go up a lot and what I have is good here. In some ways I may be able to do it better here. I wouldn't have done the company without him, number one. Circumstance Number Two: the cultural affairs division of Arlington County has this great program. I'm an egg in their incubator's program it's great. It won an award from Harvard and stuff They give you in-kind things, like a theater for very little money, and now they have a publicist that helps out, and they're still doing more. I knew I could get some help there. Then the third thing is that there are just these gorgeous dancers who have made themselves available to me, who are of the highest quality. A painter needs paint. I need dancers in the studio who excite and inspire me.
Not all the big dancers in town like what I do. My dancers are good enough to be in full-fledged companies, but for some reason they're not, and maybe they don't have the perfect ballet body but I am a choreographer who likes technique, though I don't make dances just to show technique I mean, let ABT do that—I wouldn't call us the misfits, but for some reason they're not trainingsomeplace else or for some reason they're here and are making the best of it: Does that make sense? They're not exclusively mine. Next season I am hoping to actually contract them for a year: My dancers aren't right now contracted: Most of them stay with me year after year—there is a core group of founding members, and some take a leave of absence for six months and come back: I try to put up with all that. We take a little bit of time off around Nutcracker time: We are a little bit in the pick-up category, except I keep picking up the same people: We're not a revolving door, if I lose a dancer to pregnancy or injury then I replace them, but there's a company feeling in Bowen McCauley Dance.
AP: What's your typical day or typical week like?
LBM: I have cut back on my teaching, but I still teach at least eight classes a week: I love teaching. I'm a good teacher, but again, I'd love to go with the company a little more: I get about four classes in a week for myself When in season we usually rehearse three times a week which doesn't sound like a lot, but I also spend time in the studio on my own so I have ideas prepared when I get in with the dancers. Then there is all the management of the company. It involves a little too much, like laundry and costumes and dealing with the director about technical things, or getting the theater ready. I also help with kits we mail out, so there are business hours for the company involved. Some weekends I go out on gymnastics trips, and then my whole week hits me in the face again.
AP: I'm just guessing that something like the Olympics work would take away from the time you have for your art.
LBM: It is. The traveling is fatiguing. You see the gym, the van, the week, and then the weekends I'm gone. I have learned not to come in and take class. It really applies to all ages, all backgrounds, which is the beauty of it, though I have to say I've gotten more specialized with the gymnasts. The use of the shoulder girdle is so different because they spend so much time upside down on their hands; they sometimes jump from their arms. I've had to study up. I've created with another coach some body shapes for gymnasts. They have to have tremendous power with flexibility.
I've been less prolific this year in my creation of work, but this is just too good to not do, and I do want to help to get enough coaches teaching what I know. When I'm in these regionals doing this work I have to say there is a different feeling of doing something for the nation. Plus knowing I am helping the girls themselves individually. My goal is that I would get to go to Sydney for the year 2000 that would be nice for me, and John would go too: I had my life before, and they understand:
AP: Is it as tough as it used to be to be a dancer here?
LBM: Its still tough: Teaching doesn't pay that much.
AP: What do you see for the future of this company? Will you be the sole choreographer? Will you bring other people in?
LBM: I see this pretty much this is a venue for my choreography: I am buying Eric Hampton's Beethoven Bits, and we're presenting it in my fall show to preserve some of his works and he gets some money out of it. I've let Peter Stark choreograph one piece, so I'm not averse to letting a choreographer on the program—but I have never thought of it as a rep company. If I have dances I want to get out, I don't want to do all this work and just step aside. I hope that sounds right.
AP: Do you have ones that you consider the best you've done?
LBM: I have about five favorites now, and I've done about 20. Some are going to be better than others and also some are meant to be different—you really shouldn't compare a thirty-minute work for eight dancers with a five-minute duet for two, because you're going for something very different, but yeah, I have my favorites.
AP: Who has influenced you?
LBM: I think you're always influenced by people you work with, no matter what, even if it's a negative. Like to say 'I'm never going to treat dancers that way' or I'm never going to approach choreography that way. ' I think you are always affected. I'm influenced by a lot of choreographers, not just around here, but here I've been able to work with Claudia Murphy, Alvin Mayes, Daniel West, Gene Hill Sagan when he was around, and Eric Hampton—and just in this area. I think you're always influenced in some way. Eric is very musical, and I've always appreciated that. Mark Morris also is just so wonderful. His vocabulary is maybe a little more pedestrian than mine; I think I use maybe a little more ballet technique. There is no right and wrong there, just differences.
AP: One of those people who use ballet and idiosyncratic movements together.
LBM: Yeah, though it's hard to blend and if you read my reviews you'll see that people seem to think I do it well.
AP: Do you have a background as a musician at all?
LBM: I played cello growing up; it's still one of my favorite instruments. I have a work called Cello Pieces which I haven't revived for a while. It's gorgeous. I played piano growing up, my mom made me, so I can read music. My sister was very good at piano. I gave that up. I played cello about five years, not much of a singing voice, but I do read music, so that helps when I collaborate with these singers. In high school I took some music appreciation courses, and I found that I loved that.
I also do get ideas from art, from paintings. My mother is now an art docent. She wasn't while I was growing up, and going to museums with my mother is really fun now. She explains the importance of the history, and why there is a diagonal line running through a painting. There's a piece called "It's About Time." It happens to be one of my favorites, and I have to say I love dancing it too. There is a point late in the piece where Peter does a step and each dancer duplicates one of those steps, so they're strung, and they freeze. It ends up looking like a dance sculpture garden. So sculpture has influenced me. I don't try to duplicate the sculpture, it's just an image, but the ideas tend to come first from the music. I fall in love with the music. I really study it inside out and then I have images, sometimes I'll even see one of my dancers dancing to a certain theme. I'll just see it in my head.
AP: I could see how each one might be a different inspiration.
LBM: Right. You try to pick up what they're best at, try to bring out of them what they need to do more of, like, in a nice way. That's another thing I love about Mark Morris' company. His dancers look like real people. They're allowed to have different hair color and hair cuts, and you feel like they have other lives, and there is something neat about that.
AP: Will you eventually hope to have a school or building, or is that too much to think about now?
LBM: It's good to have your goals. I have had somewhat serious offers to take over a space but I already run a dance company. I don't want to take on anything more where I would have to be in charge.
AP: What if the Washington Ballet called you up?
LBM: Oh, I would love to choreograph for them. I wouldn't drop my own company, but I could take three months off to do something like that. I doubt if they'll call me up I really understand ballet, and I think I could do something nice. Sometimes I want to just say, "but I'm not local, I'm New York." We are trying to get to New York next spring, to The Joyce. Anyway, we've applied and we'd like to get into a theater to see how we do and show work. My dream is not to have a huge touring company. Huge is not what I ever want. Twelve dancers. Perfect.
AP: One of the writers in your press packet calls you the Jerry Seinfelld of dance. What's that all about?
LBM: Well, I guess I do have a good sense of humor, and I can be sort of goofy. I'm not quite sure. In stretch class, it's a deep stretch technique, and it can be intense. I throw in a joke because it looks like people need one. A laugh releases a lot. I have some humorous pieces but I'm not a one-trick pony. I do have some serious pieces. My rehearsals are pretty up beat; that's how we are. I can get uptight, and I do sometimes get discouraged or disheartened. I don't want to do it if we stay on this plateau. For whatever reason I believe we can get beyond this. I wouldn't do all this if I just wanted to be rich and famous. I can go on believing in that. o