Thank you Chicago

I started this blog about three years ago, when I left San Francisco, my home of six years to go get my MA in London. When I returned the US rather than go back to San Francisco where I could probably now only afford a shoe box to live in, Mike and I decided to give Chicago a try. I had only spent a weekend of my adult life there, stopping by on a trip home to Michigan to see my grandma and explore with Mike. I think we were there for about 48 hours and pretty much only doing the typical touristy things.

Chicago made sense though, as the closest major city to my parents and sisters. It had all the things the two of us required -dance, pilates, a big body of water and major league baseball teams. (Can you guess whose concern that was?) It was nice after more than a decade away from the midwest to not be immediately called out on my accent, although that still happened here too.

I had an idea when I finished my MA that I might not be done with school and last fall I started the process of applying to PhD programs. At that point I’d been in Chicago about 9 months and although I liked it, I didn’t love it and certainly didn’t feel like it would be that hard to leave. Somehow between then and now Chicago really began to feel like home. I ended up working at two great pilates studios where I had amazing coworkers and really enthusiastic clients. I decided to produce a dance show -the first I have ever completely self produced- and in the process I met the most wonderful talented group of artists. Even just the process of looking for a theater was fun. I’d visit venues and if they weren’t right, they’d give me suggestions, point me towards other resources. Although I don’t have a Chicago show on the books now, I would love to do another show there because it was such a great experience the first time around. Thank you to everyone who was part of that process.

During this year in which Chicago really became my home I got accepted into the Critical Dance Studies PhD program at University of California Riverside and got engaged. So here I am, once again, with big changes on the horizon.

I read this article a few months back as I was getting ready to leave. It was written by someone leaving London which made me nostalgic for my brief time there but even more so made me think about my upcoming departure from Chicago, -particularly this quote “You will never be completely at home again, because part of your heart will always be elsewhere. That is the price you pay for the richness of loving and knowing people in more than one place.”

Thank you Chicago. I will miss you because of all the kind, fun, loving, wonderful people I met or reconnected with. (Polar vortex is not on this list.)

Reframing Bodies presented by Kelly Bowker and Dancers

Want to hear thoughts about my work from someone other than me? Here it is- the review of my latest choreography in an evening I curated!!

Chicago Stage Standard

Dance Review by Sarah Osterman Myers, July 12

Rating 3 Stars Out of 4

Revolutionary dance is often born in unlikely performance settings. Take the Judson Dance Theater of the early 60s for example; they performed at the Judson Memorial Church in Greenwich Village, New York City, and while the venue was seemingly unobtrusive, the work within was experimental enough to form the basis for postmodern dance.

Sitting before dancer Francisco Avina, listening to him recall the night he contracted HIV, it’s hard not to feel like a witness to today’s trailblazing equivalent of the Judson-era work. His performance of A.r.T (Anti Retroviral Therapy) is one of six works in Reframing Bodies presented by Kelly Bowker and Dancers at the Fasseas White Box Theater. The space itself is a gym turned performance space, but with some Bread and Roses Production lighting design and acoustic guitar by Teddy Ribbens, it transformed…

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Inside Reframing Bodies

This gallery contains 12 photos.

I can’t believe we are less than two months away from presenting Reframing Bodies. Not in a scary overwhelming way, because I am really happy about how the piece is shaping up. More in a sad way, I wish we … Continue reading →

Half-Marathon; Or, How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love My Body

Wow, so this woman sums up much more articulately than me some of the thoughts I’ve been having about the importance of discussing body image and how to present body image through dance. As dancers although there is a high incidence of eating disorders and demands for perfection I think there is also respect for our bodies -for all we ask them to do. I believe this makes dance an ideal tool for addressing the topic of body image but I might be a little biased.

The Z-Axis

I’ve never told anyone these things. My parents, my sister, my friends – no one. So heads up. You’re the first to know.

For the last few years, I have grown, slowly but steadily, to despise the way my body looks.

When I was a kid, I was always told how skinny I was. I didn’t break fifty pounds until I was eight years old. In high school I was always the smallest – height and weight – of my friends. I grew up knowing, somehow, intuitively, that ‘being skinny’ was something good, that it was something I should maintain. In high school, that belief was confirmed and reinforced by magazines, friends who were constantly ‘dieting’, and my school’s insistence on athletic rigor and social ostracism of students who didn’t fit the body ideal. But I was always warned that, as a woman, ‘my time would come’, I would have kids…

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Making a dance

Somehow here it is almost the end of April and I haven’t honored my New Years Resolution to write more AT ALL, yet… but that’s partly because I’ve been so busy working on building my newest performance Reframing Bodies. The concept of this piece has followed me around for a few years now and I’m excited to finally be back in the studio fleshing things out into movement.

I remember a day, probably about three years ago I was in the Pilates studio working with a new client and the first thing she told me about when she came in were all the “problems” with her body that she wanted to “fix”.  Although this wasn’t the first conversation of this nature I’d had, this one stuck with me. Perhaps it was because even while making a series of self-deprecating remarks she kept her sense of humor. It seemed clear that her negativity in regards to a few specific aspects of her physical appearance didn’t mean that she devalued herself overall.

As this nugget has been cooking somewhere in the back of my mind the conversation about body image and its being portrayal by the media has grown. Or maybe its only that I’m tuned into it now but the number of articles about who has and hasn’t been photoshopped to what degree seem to fill my Facebook newsfeed.

I’ve tried to figure out what it is I want to SAY about body image for the last few months and its such a broad daunting topic with so many possible avenues to approach from I am beginning to feel that this is the first of a series of pieces on the subject, as I will never be able to figure it all out in the next few months.

I don’t know that I actually want to SAY anything but maybe just put it out there as a topic I think is worth discussing. After all, as a dance maker I am constantly putting together different images of bodies, playing with the angle I want to present them from. Here’s a little snippet of some of the video work we’ve played with in the studio.

reframing from Kelly Bowker on Vimeo.

When I say I am making a dance about body image what do YOU envision?

Writing / 2013 FLIES by

I’ve never thought of writing as one of my strengths so I’m finally doing something about it and taking a writing course. One of the first things my teacher said is that the best way to improve is practice. Pretty obvious. But then I thought, hey, I could practice writing on that blog of mine that I haven’t been on in a little while… try a really long while. I haven’t posted anything yet this year!

So what’s new? I’m in Chicago, teaching pilates at Harmony Mind Body Fitness and Spring Wellness Center. In March I became certified to teach TRX which I’m already doing at Harmony and have a class starting soon at Spring. At the end of this month I’ll get certified to teach cardiolates. After a year of focusing intently on making dances this past year has been more about getting back into my teaching.

I did take some time to choreograph a new piece which I performed in June. I’m trying to continue to develop the skills I started working on integrating video into my dance making.

Shift from Kelly Bowker on Vimeo.

In the process of developing this piece I remembered how much I hate choreographing on myself and I think not being able to see it from the outside compounds the problems when trying to add the video element. Goals for 2014 (aside from posting to my blog more than once) include finding some dancers to work with in the Chicago area.

Nice was Nice

Nice was gorgeous. It was still warm enough when we were there that we could go lie out on the beach… not quite warm enough for going in the water though. Maybe I’d say it was wonderful or amazing and not just nice if that hadn’t been when both Mike and I came down with colds. His came on first and mine followed the day after. So in a way, a perfect time to be in a city where the main activity involves just lying around.

Not a bad view

The day we arrived we nearly murdered each other trying to find the hotel, an activity which we would repeat in almost every city we visited. I would say arriving into a new place -often without a map or clear directions, usually hungry and tired is a good way to test your patience.

After finally wandering into a convenience store to try to find an English speaker to ask for directions we discovered we were on the right track, we’d been stuck only a few blocks from the hotel. After checking in we found a restaurant right around the corner where we ate a huge lunch and then hiked up the hill where we took these pictures.

I think we look good considering when we came back down the hill we tried to find a restaurant for dinner but unable to agree on anything that sounded good we headed back to the hotel and were both asleep before 9pm. Like I said, we were getting sick. I’m not sure how Mike managed to hike up that hill as his cold was pretty much full-blown at that point, mine just creeping up on me. I’m glad we made it though.

worth hiking up that hill

waterfalls

The second day we slept in and when we finally got ourselves together wandered down to beach for a lazy morning. That afternoon/evening we wound our way through all the narrow little streets of the old town and managed to even eat dinner. I think we again went to bed ridiculously early but at least we could blame our 5am wake up call the next morning for calling it quits so early.

so many shops down those narrow streets

Nice was nice. Maybe I’ve been spoiled by going to so many amazing places and Nice had gorgeous scenery but I think the best of our trip was still ahead of us. However, I did love every single meal we ate in Nice and it was a beautiful start on the path towards a very glutenous vacation. I can’t really say anything about the night life but if you want to hang out on the beach and eat tons of yummy things, head straight to Nice.

Magic Circle

Probably some pilates practitioners will disagree with me, but I don’t think the magic circle is the best prop. As I’m getting settled into Chicago I’m working on finding my home in the pilates world here and I taught my first class in two months last night.

Mat class. Use a prop.

With the foam roller or the bosu or the little squishy ball I can develop a whole lesson around the prop. I use the prop to add levels of progression, make some things easier and other things harder. Maybe I just need to get more creative with my circle (or more brutal) but stick that thing between your ankles or knees for 5 to 10 minutes and you pretty much never want to see it again.

Ok, you can use it for abduction too or arms or as aid to extension but there are other props that I prefer for all of those things. Does that mean I never use the magic circle? Certainly not. For some reason people seem to love being tortured by it and it’s always a good way to change things up. I just think it gets too much love. It’s a useful prop, but so can a theraband, a set of weights, big balls, little balls… Probably we could work just about anything into a pilates workout but if you go to a gym for a mat class and they only have one prop I will bet money that it’s the circle of doom. I just want more equality for the other props.

Precursor to the circle??? I’m really not sure what Joe’s up to in this photo.

Want to see my props in action? Please visit my website to find out when and where.

Starting in Switzerland

So, to begin the recounting of Mike and I’s epic European adventure we return to the most expensive country I’ve ever been to, Switzerland. After finishing up in London I met up with Mike in Zürich where we spent two days, followed by two days in Geneva. It’s a good thing we didn’t plan to stay any longer because we’d have run out of money on that first leg of the journey. A hot chocolate at Starbucks cost about seven US dollars. Yup, hot chocolate $7. Yikes! Despite the cost it was beautiful.

Looking out over Zurich

cute little town in Switzerland

Lake Zurich

Mike’s new friend

When I destroyed a small village in Lichtenstein, or something.

Clock in Zurich, they like their clocks in Switzerland

on the river in Zurich

Cops on Rollerblades interviewing the man who just purposely fell into the fountain

Fountain in Geneva

One of the highlights was taking the train from Zürich to Geneva and seeing all the gorgeous scenery along the way. Mike hated all the clocks continually chiming at all hours but I enjoyed it.

Back in the USA

I am so grateful that I was able to do all the traveling that I did this past year and look forward to posting about all the awesome places I visited over the next few months as time allows. For now though I’ve been back in the US just under two weeks and am focusing on getting organized here.  I haven’t been in one place for an entire week since leaving London, so I think it will take a bit for it to hit me that being here is anything more than another temporary stop. Once I start working or own more than two pieces of furniture it might start to seem real.

For now its nice to have my cat back and that I will be able to drive home and spend Thanksgiving with my parents and sisters for the first time in almost a decade!