Rachel Tess

Rachel Tess is a Portland native and began her dance training at the School of Oregon Ballet Theatre where she performed professionally from 1998-2000. She received a BFA from The Juilliard School and was a member of the Lar Lubovitch Dance Company in New York City. She is a Princess Grace award winner for modern dance and was presented with the Martha Hill Dance Award by the Juilliard faculty. Rachel has been a member of Les Grands Ballets Canadiens de Montreal, Gothenburg Opera Ballet in Sweden, Adi Salant Dance in Denmark, and currently holds a permanent position with the Cullberg Ballet in Stockholm. She has premiered her choreographic works in Stockholm, Montreal, New York City, and Portland. She was part of Dance Magazine’s 25 to Watch in 2010 for her work as co-director of Rumpus Room Dance in Portland. She has taught ballet, contemporary dance, and improvisation at Svenska Balletskolan, The Portland Ballet, Oregon Ballet Theatre, Conduit Dance, and DOCH where she is a current faculty member. In 2013 Rachel received her masters in choreography from the New Performative Practices Masters program at Danshögskolan in Stockholm.

When you were little, what did you want to be when you grew up? Did you always want to do what you’re doing now?

Looking back, I cannot pinpoint a specific moment where I decided to be a dancer. Dancing, performing, and training were integral parts of my growing up beginning at age 5. I grew up in a professional ballet school but was also exposed to other dance forms at an early age. Dance was consistent, challenging work, so multifaceted that once I began I couldn’t stop. But no….I didn’t have dreams of being a ballerina if that’s what you are aiming at. I didn’t have dance paraphernalia in my room growing up. No pointe shoes hanging on the wall, no tiny ballerinas spinning in boxes, no dance posters. I liked to spend time outdoors. That was perhaps the other big interest in my life. I worked at a science camp in the desert of Eastern Oregon during the spring and summer from age 15-20. We took kids back-packing, camping, hiking. So an alternate career might have been teaching environmental science, working outdoors. Over the years I have discovered that if I want a new challenge, rather than changing careers (and I have thought about it from time to time), I can simply turn in a different direction within the same field and just keep plugging along.

Favorite Things to eat?

I have to answer this question in two parts. The first category will make me look like a junk food junky but it is not indicative of my daily food intake. I have been living in Sweden for 8 years and I have not had a good donut here once……so:

Category 1= things I will eat when I get to my home-town Portland, Oregon on August 31st, 2014:

-A GOOD OLD FASHIONED BUTTER MILK BAR (and I don’t need a fancy PDX donut shop…..no line at Voodoo Donuts for me……Dunkin D will do, or better yet Helen Bernhard’s Bakery right in the Portland airport terminal the second after I get my luggage)

-Anything with just a little extra sugar and some pink or red icing….a really disgusting birthday cake with too much lettering on it. I could have some sprinkles also.

-A midnight run for a frosty at the Wendy’s drive through.

-A midnight run to a 24-hour, appropriately questionable looking diner and all that that entails….dollar-sized pancakes and more…hashbrowns, bad coffee, and creamer.

Category 2 = what I enjoy about living on a farm in the South of Sweden:

-fresh berries picked right off of the bushes in my yard

-the grapes I plan to make juice from this week in my green house

-Leafy greens from the kitchen garden: swiss chard, kale, and beet greens served with soy sauce and a little brown sugar.

-yellow wax beans with butter, salt, and lemon

Favorite Books?

Raymond Carver’s What We Talk About When We Talk About Love

Favorite Movies?

Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, Easy Rider, Paint Your Wagon

Favorite Dance Piece or Show/Musical or both?

Drawing a blank here…….the distinction“favorite”, or my opinion about a particular show or musical often depends on my interest at the moment when I see it. My interests have changed so much over time. So what I can say is I value works that are consequent and challenging. I also value dance works where the performers have a specific physical investment that takes me beyond form and technique, that makes me want to jump out of my seat or sway along slowly.

I like dancers who…

take initiative, are critical thinkers and doers, are not afraid of failing.

I am afraid of…

sculptures in man-made bodies of water…like the Apollo Fountain at Versailles or the one in Mariatorget in Stockholm.

A dance piece should…

activate

Something you like to do other than dancing?

Hiking, climbing, and I have recently been gardening more on my farm…I enjoy simple physical labor… repetitive tasks that can be completed concretely.

One of the happiest moments in your life?

It’s hard to think of just one. There are too many moments and all of those moments are subdivided into mini moments…I may be having one right now.

One of your most unusual or coolest expierences?

The context: Wanås Konst/Foundation/Estate is a castle, sculpture park, and dairy farm in the South of Sweden. Wanås Konst produces and showcases contemporary art with a specific focus on site-specific installation. www.wanas.se

The Project: My current project Souvenir has been part of an exhibition at Wanås Konst in the South of Sweden this year. Souvenir is a mobile choreographic architecture purposed for performances in a variety of contexts and long-term choreographic research. The motivation is the exploration of different geo-political contexts and how those contexts interact with choreography. With a team of dancers I did upwards of 150 performances in the structure this year including a solo, which I danced for audiences of up to 15 people 5 times a day. The structure was installed in a large hay storage barn on site.

The Situation: I had begun the performance of a 30-minute solo inside of Souvenir. There was a guard/museum attendant standing in front of the barn to ensure that extra visitors did not walk in once the performance had started. I was dancing along the open windows at the front of the structure. The first view I had was of the calm landscape…a road leading over to the horse stable, a Tadashi Kawamata sculpture in a large oak tree outside of the barn…the wind blowing mildly through the branches of the tree…and the guard listening to music on his I-pod, bobbing his head to the beat. I can feel the wind on my skin. I am tired but I am ready to rock and roll. I turn my back to the windows for just a split second…when I turn back I see the children of the estate owner walking towards the barn with a miniature horse on a pink leash. What is going through my head at this point is as follows: “Will they bring the mini-pony inside?” “Where the hell are their parents?” “Why is the attendant doing nothing?” “I know the attendant is listening to that great Snoop re-mix he shared with mejust before the show…damn him…he’s not even paying attention…” “Are they paying him or is he a volunteer? Perhaps if he was payed he would dohis job better.” “Can the audience see the mini-pony? Of course they can…look at their faces…they are seeing it right now…..” And finally….the words of Deborah Hay….“My whole body the teacher….every cell in my entire body the teacher….notice the feedback and let it go. Here and gone…here and gone…here and gone…”The Juilliard School does not have a course titled“What to do if a miniaturehorse interrupts your performance.”

The Conclusion: I can’t get mad. I asked for it. I asked for a variety of contexts and all of the conditions that accompany them. And this is it…..thiscastle/sculpture park/privately owned estate/park filled with sculptures for “the people”, is interacting with my choreography right, right, right now.

One of the most embarrassing moments in your professional career?

“…………………………………………………….(same answer as last question)”. Perhaps the previously mentioned scenario was not as embarrassing as falling flat on my face while performing in pointe shoes and a pink dress in the Clarke Studio Theater at Lincoln Center in a pool of someone else’s sweat with Jermaine Maurice Spivey giggling audibly backstage. However, I am sure the range of emotions that crossed my face (I do not have a good poker face) could constitute an embarrassing professional moment. So I have to go yet again with the mini-pony on this one.

Who have been the most influential person/people in your Career? and why?

This is a long list….by pinpointing some I feel I will forget to mention many. But here you go: Andra Corvino (ballet teacher the Juilliard School): For changing my relationship to ballet… for making my career longer by teaching me to see what the physical conditions I am working with as a dancer are, rather than making me wish I had others. Benjamin Harkarvy (director the Juilliard School): For re-enforcing through his own practice and presence that work in the studio is as important as I always valued it to be. Lawrence Rhodes (director the Juilliard School): For long dialogues, for listening. Zvi Gotheiner (choreographer and teacher): For teaching me how to move across the room like there were no walls, no boundaries. Anna Grip (former director Cullberg Ballet): For supporting some of my most enormous failures and recoveries both professionally and personally and for teaching me to induce them. Benoît Lachambre (choreographer/performer and long-time collaborator): For turning everything I hold as true on its head every day that I know and work with him.

One of the hardest things about your job?

When I left Cullberg Ballet in 2013 I was worried about having work as a freelance artist. Anna Grip, then director, told me to remember t hat when you close one door other doors always open. This has been true consistently since I stopped dancing for repertoire companies and began choreographing more and more. But…the uncertainty of consistent financial subsistence always plays at the edge of my consciousness. The work is never the hard part. Or let me re- phrase: the hard parts about my “job”…maintaining a consistent focus, refreshing, and changing perspective just often enough, self-producing without enough administrative support……. these things feel like home to me. I venture to say that I delight in them. I like friction. It is what drives my work.

Where do you see yourself in ten years?

Choreographing and performing. I am also running a center for artistic research in Kivik, Sweden called MARC (Milvus Artistic Research Center). We invite artists with a specific relationship to performativity to work at the center for up to one month, three times a year. I would like to continue to develop this project. I also hope Souvenir will last for the next ten years in one form or another. The structure may age and need repair but the choreographic research has spawned other projects/pathways, questions to be problematized that I plan to stay occupied with. Oh yes, I plan to continue living on the farm in Sweden also.

A question you want to know the answer to:

What is home?

I have moved a lot as a dancer. I am sure that I have a specific attachment to Portland, Oregon as the place where I am from. But I am often unsure of what home is for me. It is certainly not a house. Not material items or rooms. Maybe Souvenir comes close as a physical structure. Sometimes I think home is work. So how can I sustain this in one form or another so I can always be at home?

A piece of advice for aspiring artists?

I always wished I had let myself fail more…..or fail more grandly. What I might have perceived as a failure would have simply been a change of perspective…a doorway to different knowledge. So….fuck up. That’s my advice.