Calling the shots

“Everyone has a negative voice inside them that, on a bad day, just surrounds the mind,” dancer Joshua Manculich says. “‘You’re ugly, you’re not good at this, you’re blah-blah-blah.’ I’m 22 years old and I want to tell it, ‘Look: I know that you’re there, but I need to do this right now, okay?’”

Manculich, sandy-haired and eager, is describing his inspiration for a piece of choreography he’ll debut following eight weeks of rehearsal and extensive technical support from Thodos Dance Chicago’s (TDC) “New Dances.” The program marks its tenth year with performances Friday 16 through Sunday 18. This is the Pennsylvania native’s first season with TDC; he’ll also dance in four other works made concurrently by his colleagues. One of these—Danielle “Didi” Scanlon’s Heart Strings for Manculich, Jessica Miller Tomlinson, Wade Schaaf and Natalie Williams—has just finished a run-through. He’s slightly winded when we start talking outside the company’s Lincoln Park studio.

Professional dancers jonesing to develop their own moves don’t find opportunities just lying around, but the conditions of “New Dances” are downright luxurious. In addition to casting from among their 15 fellow company members, the budding choreographers cull talent from open auditions that draw freelancers and pros on summer break. Up to 40 hours are budgeted for each creation, studio space is provided, and all involved receive honoraria for their work. Even costumes are covered.

Key to the program is artistic director Melissa Thodos’s inclusion of a panel to provide feedback to the dance makers during two seven-hour Sundays. (Disclosure: I served on the panel in 2009.) The dancers’ advisers this year are Michael Anderson, a former Joffrey Ballet dancer, now associate vice president for institutional advancement at Columbia College; Hubbard Street Dance Chicago artistic director Glenn Edgerton; choreographer/teacher/costume designer Jeff Hancock; and Anna Sapozhnikov, artistic director of MOYAMO DANCE. Thodos and others sit in and offer their impressions as well. In the corner of the studio is a table of fuel: baked goods, fresh fruit and lots of coffee. Manculich showed his work first that day, at 10am.

Of the panel’s advice, he notes, “Choreography is the one place in my life where…I don’t ask for a lot of input about what to do. [The panel] is great, though, because they don’t tell you what to do. They ask you, ‘What are you trying to do? This is what I saw.’” Manculich describes his work as ten dancers collectively drawn from right to left in a single visual crescendo. The panel, he says, “reminded me that stillness can be powerful, too.” He then launches into a rundown of their personalities.

Anderson “always has a really strong sense of [a dance’s] emotional content.

“Glenn’s just like [Snaps his fingers]. In Jessica’s piece, there’s this really hard bit of partnering and he told her, ‘Make them do it over and over. It’s going to be spectacular, but you’ll have to drill them a little bit to get there.’”

Hancock’s intuition impresses him. “Jeff was able to clearly describe what Didi’s trying to do, when I had trouble doing that myself, and I’m in it!

“Anna always has a 180 on everyone else’s views. My mind never goes to the same place hers does, and I love that.”

Before he heads off to another “New Dances” perk—a “Lighting 101” seminar with TDC production director Nathan Tomlinson—we ask Manculich if the process feels like a future. He looks into the distance before answering.

“I don’t think I’ll be Josh the Choreographer when I’m done dancing,” he predicts. “More likely I’ll go the dance-therapy route.… My piece is healing for my dancers and for me—put this stuff behind you and go to a better place. That’s what I want the audience to feel.”

“New Dances” begins Friday 16 at the Dance Center of Columbia College.

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