Christine Chats with Catherine Miller before Launching

Catherine Miller Dances

It is always a pleasure to speak with the gracious, fun loving, observant, and adventurous Catherine Miller. I enjoyed watching her and some of her beautiful dancers in rehearsal last week, and wish her new company much success.

Excerpts from our post rehearsal chat at The Corner Bagel Market on the Upper East Side

Christine: Why now?

Catherine: I have been focusing my energies performing for other amazing choreographers for about 11 years since I have moved here to the city. (Doug Varone, Shen Wei, Mark Dendy, Fiona Marcotty etc.) I have been very fortunate to be paying my rent doing that.

I decided that I wanted to make a conscious shift and a conscious decision to focus on my own creative endeavors. Things that had been brewing in the back of my head for a long, long time and I just never had the time and resources to focus on them...so there was just a conscious decision to focus on my own creativity and see where that would lead.

Christine: Your rehearsals are very low-key…easy going… you don’t scream at anyone, not that I expected you to. (laughter) How do you work?

Catherine: My experience helps a lot….I know how it shouldn’t be done, and I wanted to do it how it should be done.

Christine: And how should it be done, at least for you?

Catherine: Working hard and playing hard—so the work is paramount and number one but enjoying ourselves and having a good time is very important. We give so much as dancers… we need to at least enjoy what we are doing while we are doing it and make work that is important and speaks to people. I don’t think those two (ideas) are exclusive.

Christine: I notice in your choreography you often really open your chest; to me it reads as very generous.

Catherine: My shoulders are very flexible, they are the most flexible thing on my body and I use that (laughter) I definitely use that.

I like opening up and expanding. There is so much vulnerability in the shoulders, the collar bone, and sternum and I like having dancers open up there…cause its something, in most of our technique that we don’t do everyday … there is some mobility there that (is) vulnerable and open …it reads as … uplifting openness.

Christine: Does your concert have a name?

Catherine: The name of the concert is “Launching”…we are putting it out there…
It is exactly what it is, a first run out of really energized dancers who really want to be doing this.