XL COVER

Choreographer's company uses new model of arts organization

Think globally, dance locally: David Justin stays grounded while bringing new ballet and music to Austin.

By Jeanne Claire van Ryzin
AMERICAN-STATESMAN ARTS WRITER
Thursday, July 24, 2008

David Justin speaks a symbolic language to the five dancers assembled in a mirror-lined rehearsal studio on a recent afternoon.

"Perhaps make it more like a government that's oblivious — oblivious but militant and determined," Justin says to Eric Otto, a dancer with American Ballet Theatre. "You're just a cog in the wheel, unaware."

Oblivious, militant — those words don't exactly describe the lively steps and flirtatious moves Otto dances with Laura Feig, a ballerina who most recently danced in Twyla Tharp's much-lauded Broadway show "Moving Out."

Feig flits en pointe around Otto while he brashly pursues her. The two couple together then dart away. Their teasing moves turn a tad silly when they coyly pat each other on the rear end.

Feig and Otto are rehearsing "Speed Dial," a new short ballet by Justin, artistic director of Austin's American Repertory Ensemble. Set to vigorous yet melodic music by contemporary composer Michael Torke, "Speed Dial" is just one of the dances that American Repertory Ensemble will present this weekend as part of "Passion at Play," the fifth full-length program that the Austin group has staged since bursting onto the arts scene in 2006.

"People might not see that 'Speed Dial' is built on an image of the tussle between government and the arts," Justin says during a break from rehearsal. "People might just see a relationship between a man and a woman through dance."

And that's all right with Justin. He's not interested in ham-fisted storytelling.

This weekend at McCullough Theatre at the University of Texas, where Justin is an assistant professor of dance, he really just wants to take people on a brief but intense journey.

For "Passion at Play," Justin has gathered eight dancers and nine musicians to perform a handful of short ballets — "The Dance House," a powerful expression of the devastation of AIDS, by hotshot British choreographer David Bintley; "Valses Poeticos" by Icelandic-born director of the San Francisco Ballet Helgi Tomasson; and Justin's own version of the ground-breaking 1912 ballet "L'Apres-midi d'un faune."

"Think globally, dance locally," says the 38-year-old Texas native who has danced on some of the greatest ballet stages on the international landscape. "There is just so much really great choreography out there that Austin really needs to see."

A new model

When Justin conceived of starting a dance company, he didn't plan to model it on a traditional dance company. Justin feeds off creative collaboration. And he didn't want a traditional dance company with a permanent troupe of dancers and the obligation to stage traditional, large-scale productions involving scores of people.

What developed instead was a more open-source, small-scale nimble arts organization that's in synch with the forward-thinking business models found in today's progressive high-tech companies.

American Repertory Ensemble currently stages two productions a year in January and July — essentially off-season from the traditional arts calendar. That scheduling dovetails with the downtime most professional dancers have, which in turn allows Justin to recruit from top international ballet companies: American Ballet Theatre, New York City Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, Dance Theater of Harlem and the Joffrey Ballet among others. Typically, he enlists about eight to 12 dancers for each program.

Justin's company has an annual budget of $150,000, most of which is dedicated to artist fees and production costs. The organization has no paid administrative staff, yet it has already built promising momentum. Its debut program traveled to the prestigious Edinburgh Fringe Festival shortly after opening in Austin. Earlier this year, Justin premiered a new piece at the 40th International Choreographers' Showcase in Europe.

Although Justin wanted the ensemble to in part be a platform to present his own choreography, he also wanted to showcase the work of the classical ballet masters along with today's rising choreographic stars. To that end, Justin has staged work by the titan of 20th-century ballet, George Balanchine, and also by Christopher Wheeldon, the reigning British wunderkind of young ballet makers. For the program in January, Justin got the rare permission to present a duet by premier Canadian choreographer James Kudelka.

"Contemporary dance can have so much resonance when it's seen in the context of what came before it," Justin says. "It's about presenting new work as part of the continuum of masterpieces."

Also unlike most dance groups, music shares equal creative billing with dance — philosophically and literally — at American Repertory Ensemble. Justin founded the company with composer and conductor Rob Deemer. (Deemer has since gone on to a university teaching position in New York.) Both shared a desire to see the convergence of music and dance highlighted and enhanced. Musicians aren't stuck in the orchestra pit. They share the stage with the dancers. And they also take center stage on their own.

In an American Repertory Ensemble program, a graceful pas de deux might be followed by a solo performance on cello of new music commissioned from a young composer. And those two pieces might in turn be followed by musicians and dancers together performing Justin's twist on the music of the great experimenter of modern music, John Cage.

Among other noted musical collaborators, Justin has snagged a new piece by composer Doug and enlisted the sought-after Austin ensemble Tosca String Quartet.

"David is an incredible creative force in the Austin arts community," says Michelle Schumann, award-winning pianist and director of Austin Chamber Music Center who collaborated with Justin on American Rep's first production. "He has innovative ideas and carries them through, which not all creative people can necessarily do. And everything American Repertory Ensemble has done has always been artistically top-rate."

Though he pulls material from often very different ballet choreographers and musicians, Justin builds a program into a fluid arc. Simply put, there is never a static moment. Set changes are choreographed. The individual pieces on each program are arranged to contrast and complement in mood and style. In fact, that seamless sense of continuity and creative trajectory netted Justin a special award from the Austin Critics' Table this year.

"David is completely responsible to his audience," Schumann says. "The mistake that too often happens is when artists make choices that benefit themselves and forget their audience and leave them behind. David is making creative choices that benefit his audience 100 percent. He creates a moment in time and a space for an audience to be totally transfixed. And puts music and dance together so you get the whole picture, not just a compartmentalized, fractured view."

For his part, Justin says he wants to take people on a creative ride.

"I want people to feel like they've gone somewhere and come back," Justin says. "It's enough effort for someone to show up at the theater these days. My responsibility is keep them engaged and take them on a journey."

Ballet and football

Justin was born in the West Texas town of Junction. "Saying that always makes a great sound bite," he says with a laugh. "But, really, my parents were on their way to El Paso, and I was early."

Justin grew up in the Dallas suburb of Richardson in a family that had no strong connection to the arts. He remembers the classic films featuring the stylish dancing of Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly as his first dance awakenings.

At 5, Justin noticed there was a tap dancing school across the parking lot from his day care and he precociously persuaded his mother to let him take lessons and precociously persuaded the school to give him free lessons. "I've always been a negotiator," he says.

After a few years of tapping his heart out, officials with the Dallas Metropolitan Ballet picked Justin out of class one day. The ballet bug bit.

"I loved the form. I loved the physicality of ballet," Justin says.

Of course, being a boy balletomane in Richardson, Texas, wasn't always easy, never mind that he also played on the football team.

"I accidentally broke someone's nose," Justin admits. "I just went off on this kid who was teasing me. I really didn't mean to do it."

At 17, he lit out for the Boston Ballet, where he joined the apprentice company as a professional. Justin quickly rose through the very stratified ranks of a professional ballet company to the top of the pecking order to become a soloist.

It wasn't too long before he was heading to San Francisco Ballet just as that company was beginning to send shockwaves through the international dance world with its innovative repertoire and slick, refined technique.

In San Francisco, Justin met and married another company dancer, Grace Maduell Holmes. The couple were sincerely happy in San Francisco when, in 1994, out of the blue came an invitation to join Birmingham Royal Ballet.

"British ballet always had that real connection to theater and character I wanted to explore," he says. "And we were both looking for growth opportunities."

The years dancing with the much-lauded British company — which has an intense international touring schedule — proved immensely rewarding. "I feel like really I found my artistry as a dancer then," Justin says.

Things went swimmingly for a while. Justin and his wife both danced in challenging leading roles. And they welcomed their first child, Miles David, in 1997.

But then in 2000, Justin went into the hospital for what he thought would be routine knee surgery — a clean-up to fine-tune a procedure that hadn't been quite right years ago.

The surgery was anything but routine. Justin got a severe staph infection — a super-bug virtually immune to antibiotics. He almost lost his leg. He almost lost his life. Dramatic antibiotic therapy eventually knocked out the infection and miraculously — and through sheer force of will — Justin returned to dancing. But it was never the same.

At age 30 — the age when most ballet dancers hit their professional and artistic strides — he made the decision to quit dancing full time. "I wanted to remember dance not by how much it hurt," he says.

Still, the desire to be on stage burned. After study at the Actors Studio in London, Justin embarked on a theatrical career for a few years and didn't lack for gigs. "There was a niche for American actors in London at the time, so I always had work."

But even that wasn't an ideal situation for Justin and his young family. In 2003, Justin accepted a position with UT — a good fit with his family still in the Lone Star State and his wife's family in New Orleans. In addition to teaching ballet technique and choreography at UT, Justin also coordinates the ambitious biennial New Works Festival that showcases emerging theater and dance work from across the country.

If a full-time faculty gig and launching an ambitious arts organization weren't time-consuming enough (as well as a second child, Evelyn Rain, born in December), Justin has found time over the past couple of years to present his own choreography in local showcases and fringe festivals — even if it means performing in warehouse theaters.

"Austin is on such a growth curve now, artistically, economically and socially," he says. "But there's not an underlying culture in America of participating in the arts. So if you're going to thrive in this culture, you have to figure out a way to do it in the environment you're in. It doesn't serve the community I choose to live in or me as an artist to remain insulated."

choreography and music

Back in the rehearsal studio, Justin asks questions of Otto and Feig. Does this move make sense to them? Do they feel where to go from there?

"The way I put together choreography and music and character comes from that sense of being a dancer first," Justin says. "What fascinates me is the tension between the way ballet pulls the upper body into the air while modern dance sends the direction of the lower body earth-bound."

Up and down. Near and far. It's kind like of the split that comes from thinking globally and dancing locally: Reach for the best that's out there and then bring it home.

jvanryzin@statesman.com; 445-3699

'Passion at Play'

When: 8 p.m. Friday, July 25 and Saturday, July 26 2 p.m. Saturday, July 26 and Sunday, July 27

Where: McCullough Theatre, 2390 Robert Dedman Drive on the University of Texas campus

Cost: $25 ($15 for students, seniors and with a University of Texas ID)

Information: www.americanrepensemble.org

Assisted listening devices are available for all performances. Audio description is available during the Saturday matinee.