30 Years of Dance

from Thacher Magazine Spring/Summer 2022

by The Thacher School

The Best We Can Do

30Years of Dance

A Look Back on the Creation and Growth of Thacher’s Dance Program

By Gallia Vickery

A LOOK BACK

16 Spring/Summer 2022

1993

Dance becomes a fall afternoon activity

1997

Dance Ensemble becomes a spring afternoon activity allowing for choreography of multiple pieces and off-campus performances

The Thacher School 17

“I take a group of young people interested in or passionate about dance and I build an ensemble. They come into the studio and they feel like it’s their home and they work hard at creating art and performing it for you.”

W hen I arrived at Thacher in the fall of 1991 as a sabbatical replacement for math teacher Tom Foster, the plan was for me to run an extra-curricular dance activity. That year I had six dancers, three of whom were volleyball players because the audition was held in the gym directly after volleyball practice. While the first Dance Ensemble performances were a success, working on a piece for performance without dance technique classes is a bit like playing soccer games without ever practicing. It took me two years to have Dance approved as a fall afternoon activity and five years to have Dance Ensemble become a spring afternoon activity. Fall dance was open to all and the spring group was by audition only.

My training in ballet involved strict dress codes, classes taught at specific levels, and an atmosphere of competition and intimidation. Developing the program in the early years gave me the opportunity to evaluate my dance experiences and decide how to create a welcoming environment while still maintaining high standards.

Each class, whether beginning with a ballet barre or modern center floor work, included strengthening and stretching exercises in warm-ups and proceeded to jumping and turning techniques. Short across-the-floor combinations built into longer combinations and sometimes these combinations developed into Dance Ensemble pieces. The more experienced dancers led the across-thefloor work and had opportunities to push themselves by adding multiple turns or executing a combination at a faster tempo.

My goal has always been to help students see dance as both an artistic and athletic endeavor.

The first thing many students say when I encourage them to try dance is “but I’m not flexible.” Training one’s body in a particular dance technique or towards a specific aesthetic is one piece of the puzzle, and I try to help each student understand more about the architecture of their body and how to appreciate their strengths. Building musicality, developing an understanding of the nuances of performing qualities and expression, and working as an ensemble are all vital parts of the process.

The Lamb Years

In my first decade, the Lamb Auditorium served as the dance studio. We had rolling mirrors and ballet barres and often walked into the space to find it full of chairs from an event the evening before. Sometimes the stage was full of tables and platforms, so the dancers got accustomed to moving furniture. I began to build a schedule around separating dance classes and Dance Ensemble rehearsals, so twice a week dance class was only an hour and the members of Ensemble stayed longer and were sometimes joined by dancers who ran from the barns or from other sports or activities. We also started rehearsing Sunday afternoons, one of the few sacred times in the schedule. I worked persistently on communicating the importance of commitment to the group. Dance rehearsals had to take priority over club meetings, advisee dinners, and dorm activities or I would never have had the full group present.

For performances, we “warmed-up” in the old infirmary hallway, and the tradition of taking a hallway picture became established.

The small stage determined the nature of my choreography and with no crossover except if you went outside; entrances and exits were usually from the same side of the stage.

From 2003-2005, with no Lamb Auditorium and our new theater in the building process, dancers were driven into town three times a week to Sacred Space Studio and also rehearsed in the Outdoor Theater. I created

2000 Class of 2000 Dance Award established

Awarded Gold Medal and Choreographers Award at the Dance Educators of America Convention

2001

Dance Spring Extra Day Trip to Oakland and San Francisco

2002

Dance Spring Extra Day Trip to Los Angeles

a piece in which dancers wore their camping headlamps and we used light as part of the creative process. That spring we performed at the Zalk Theater at Besant Hill of Happy Valley School. .

“My goal has always been to help students seedance as both an artistic and athletic endeavor.”

A Beautiful New Home

When the Milligan Center for the Performing Arts opened, the dancers and I had a beautiful new home. While this felt like an important validation of the program, not much changed as far as what we worked on in there. Despite the wonderful dressing rooms downstairs, the pre-performance make-up party happened in our studio sitting on the floor and using the mirrors. Crunches may have evolved into planking, but piqué turns and grand jetés across the floor were still a part of most classes.

In 2004 I submitted a piece to Dance Magazine’s video of the month competition and we won. A phone interview for the short blurb that appeared in the magazine was enlightening. Explaining to the writer what The Thacher School Dance Program looked like was surprisingly challenging. We are not a dance studio. We are not a performing arts high school. We don’t do much jazz or any hiphop. We don’t perform The Nutcracker Suite. We don’t have a competitive dance team. We are a student repertory company; we are The Thacher School Dance Ensemble. Our dancers come from a variety of backgrounds and geographic locations. They live here at school. No one takes classes off-campus when school is in session. They have one teacher: me.

I’ve taught the ballerinas who, like me, spent their middle school years completely immersed in their dance studios taking ballet classes, pointe classes, and preparing for the inevitable yearly Nutcracker. I introduced many of them to floor work and off-vertical movement. I’ve

taught students who have competed on dance teams, students who have been cheerleaders, gymnasts, or studied Chinese dance. I talked to the dancers about what I envisioned as true choreography, with contrast and cohesion, rather than routines that showcased their favorite moves. I’ve had students dance for all four of their years at Thacher, some who dance for a term or two and move on to other things, and students who come into the studio for the first time their senior year.

I have choreographed 137 dance pieces and 27 musical theater productions. My favorite

composers over the years have included Karl Jenkins, Ólafur Arnalds, Jami Sieber, Thomas Newman, and James Newton Howard CdeP 1969, who once wrote a piece for me to embellish two short musical selections from his score of the movie The Apartment. The highlights of my choreography in musical theater productions included the choreography of Steam Heat from The Pajama Game, the girls’ numbers in Legally Blonde, and the rake dance in Oklahoma!.

A LOOK BACK

18 Spring/Summer 2022

2003- 2005

With no Lamb auditorium and the Milligan Center in the building process dancers are driven into town three times a week to Sacred Space Studio and rehearse in the outdoor theater. Performances are in the Outdoor Theater and at the Zalk Theater at Besant Hill of Happy Valley School.

2004

Dance Ensemble piece Solace is chosen as a finalist in the McCallum Theater Choreography Festival

The Thacher School 19

Taking the Show on the Road

I really wanted to find performance opportunities for the dancers off-campus and provide them opportunities to take classes elsewhere. In the years when the lacrosse and baseball teams had playoffs and didn’t have spring EDTs, I was given permission to organize dance EDTs. Staying with parents and alumni, we traveled to the Bay area in 2001 and to Los Angeles in 2002. We took classes at local studios in ballet, modern, jazz, and capoeira, and visited and shared dance experiences at Crystal Springs, Lick-Wilmerding, Branson, Marlborough, Viewpoint, and Crossroads Schools.

I’ve choreographed some classical ballet pieces and had a few groups on pointe, and I’ve even done a few jazz pieces in my time, but my favorite type of dance to choreograph is my own modern dance style. My personal dance biography says: “Music is the driving force behind her work as both the inspiration and the basis of choreographic plan. She brings dance and mathematics together in the creation of abstract, yet expressive works that use patterns and canons to follow the textures she finds in the music.”

The decade from 2005-2015 was an especially full one. Afternoon dance grew, more dancers took fall-term dance classes who were also in Dance Ensemble, and more students came to Thacher with lots of previous dance experience. My choreography became more complex as their talent and dedication inspired me. We traveled twice to the Pasadena Dance Festival, before it was scheduled the same weekend as Senior Exhibitions. Beginning in 2016, Dance Ensemble was invited to perform in both the fall and spring at the Collective Collaborative, a dance concert organized by Tracy Kofford,

director of the Dance Program at Santa Barbara City College. Here I proudly watched Thacher dancers perform alongside college dance companies and a few small professional groups from Santa Barbara and Los Angeles.

Before performances I often fill time and talk to the audience. At my last performance at the Big Gymkhana Cabaret I said: “This will be the last time I stand up here on the stage to talk to you and, as I say goodbye, part of me wishes this was the best dance I ever choreographed with the best dancers Thacher has ever seen, but that‘s not the case. But actually that isn’t important, because that’s not what I do. I take a group of young people interested in or passionate about dance, and I build an ensemble. They come into the studio and they feel like it’s their home, and they work hard at creating art and performing it for you.”

Dance Companies and choreographers who have served as visiting artists:

• DIAVOLO DANCE THEATER

• LINEAGE DANCE Hilary Thomas

• LA. CONTEMPORARY DANCE Kate Hutter Mason

• BACKHAUSDANCE Jennifer Backhaus

• KIZUNA DANCE Cameron McKinney

• ACHINTA MCDANIEL Contemporary Indian Dance

• JANICE ROSARIO Modern Dance

2005

Dancers move into the Milligan Center Dance Studio

2012 Dance Ensemble

travels to the inaugural LA Contemporary Dance Festival