Jody Sperling is a dancer, choreographer, and dance historian. She is the founder of the Time Lapse Dance Company and has produced her own shows. She also proved to be an expert on Loie Fuller by giving a presentation on her, showing the historian element in her repertoire of talents. As she came to give her presentation, her passion for the dance was very evident. She was excited, and delivered the media presentation with enthusiasm for her work. Though the topic of modern dance, its evolution and Loie Fuller may seem distant from the crowd of college students she was presenting to, she tried to relate to us. She shared the fact that a poster advertising a dance that Fuller was in was used as a prop in “Friends,” a show many of us have seen. It was creative information that I found enjoyable because I had that “a-ha!” moment of realization when I knew what poster she was talking about.
Her presentation on Fuller was very informative. Fuller had a huge part in creating modern dance and she revolutionized the skirt dance. She made the focus more about the dress and fabric rather than the body of the dancer. She performed in white dresses with long sleeves of silk and held long sticks to extend the sleeves. This way when the dancers turned and moved, the extra fabric would turn around the dancer, creating an eye catching silk vortex. Fuller also developed the Serpentine Dance. This new dance was like an evolved form of the older skirt dance, but with stage light cast onto the skirts and fabrics at different angles. At first, the dance was not appreciated, but Fuller moved to France where she was able to impress crowds with her new technique. The combination of the spinning fabric and lights around a dancer attracted audiences and the dance became popular.
Photo Credits to Wikipedia
Jody Sperling went on to show us a portion of one of her own dances, Dance of the Elements. She did both the choreography and the dancing for this dance, which represents the elements like water and fire. Her spinning movements created a sense of timelessness that mesmerized me and probably any other viewer. Her motions and the colored lights that matched the elemental dance (a blue-ish glow for water for example) made it so that time was still and all you could focus on were the shapes and patterns that the spinning fabrics made. The changing piano music in the background I thought complimented her elemental movements and the feel of the dance perfectly.
Photo Credit to Joyce Soho/Copyright Nan Melville
Fundraising is key to any performance. Sperling shared with us that in order to get her company out there and known, she produced shows. But in order to do that, she needed to fundraise. She reached out to many different people, especially family and friends, for money that would help put on her first production. The American system makes it very hard for dancers and other artists because everyone is competing for a limited amount of public funds. Corporate funds have dwindled and this discourages people from the arts. However, there was hope. She told us that the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs gave more money to arts and productions than the national program did. In our economic times, it was reassuring to hear that NYC still supported the arts, since they are usually the first programs to be cut. I know that back in my high school and in my sister’s school, cutting back on dance and arts residencies was the first thing the schools did when their budgets were cut. But I appreciated those programs when I had them and it is uplifting to see the city still supporting them. It is even better to see that Jody Sperling and her company continue to fundraise and work with their budget, producing great works that many viewers, including myself enjoy.
