MOVING PEOPLE: Jonathan Hollander on Battery Dance Festival, His Connection to India, and What He Misses about Lower Manhattan in the '70s

skipping and dancing and jumping on the furniture up and down the stairs as my mother played a song called the "Skipping Song" on the piano. I must have been about 4 or 5.  It was a joyous experience that I can feel and picture even now as I write this.

I went to University of California/Irvine and thought I would be a visual artist.  But I didn’t like the classes I signed up for and saw dance students frolicking on the lawns and stretching and doing routines and I thought, “I want to do that.” Of course that was a pivotal moment of switching focus, intuitively, with no idea how momentous it was until later.

Within 6 months, Merce Cunningham and his company members came to Irvine for a one-week residency. I was enthralled. I couldn’t get enough of it: the classes, the talks, the lecture-demos, the performances. A few months later, Merce invited me to become a scholarship student (no doubt encouraged to do so by Sandra Neels with whom I was carrying on a correspondence) and after finishing the dance performance at Irvine — a brilliant original work that Eugene Loring created on the students called ‘Folkdances from a Mythical Country’— I packed up my car (the one and only time I ever had a car) and drove cross country to pursue a career in dance, leaving academia behind.

in 2006 – in Freiburg, Germany, Battery Dance and Drastic Action were engaged in an experimental program titled Dances for the Blue House, that became Dancing to Connect. We were working with groups of high school students, giving them tools to use in choreographing their own dances.

The underlying theme was that of facing history and addressing the oppression of one group, minorities, by another. I had been skeptical of students without prior dance training taking on the task of choreography. However, what I saw in the workshops made me realize how wrong I had been. The students’ authenticity of movement, their passion and their creativity brought tears. That moment defined much of what I have done ever since in over 50 countries and here in New York public high schools with my incredible team of teaching artists.

the Battery Dance Festival. Especially in these days of home-bound sequestration, it gives me pleasure to reimagine the unique pleasure of sitting outside, watching the dancers against the water and the sky, and experiencing the feeling of community, surrounded by thousands of people of all ages and places.

interacting with my friends and colleagues and sharing a good laugh.

the leadership in this country, the corruption and lies in plain sight, the chipping away of the pillars of democracy and freedom and human rights, the disrespect for expertise, and … yes, the lack of compassion.

how to become more fluent in technology, but I know it is too late. I am relying on my younger colleagues to help me function.

social service.

how to take care of the staff and artists of Battery Dance and our extended family of beneficiaries at this time that might stretch on for months where live interaction is impossible.

the engagement of the corporate community. When we launched our summer festival and arts education programs, the banks, law, insurance and consulting firms were all engaged in supporting us. It was a team effort. Everyone played a role – financial, yes, and advisory too. Now only American Express and Goldman Sachs have been there for us among the downtown corporations.  Now more than ever we will need that fabric of support to coalesce in order to shore up the arts community that is being decimated by the coronavirus pandemic.

wherever I happen to be in New York or around the world. I have learned to adapt and with a team of production designers and dancers who are ready for anything, I feel assured that there is no challenge we cannot face and that we’ll end up feeling at home anywhere.

I had the privilege of working with talented and well-trained dancers at ASWARA and Sutra Dance Theatre, under the direction of Joseph Victor Gonzales and Ramli Ibrahim respectively. One of the most incredible experiences was teaching some of the ASWARA dancers how to conduct Dancing to Connect workshops with UNHCR refugees from Myanmar and Sri Lanka. I will never forget those wonderful days. I wish them all good luck in facing the virus head-on.

I lived as an Indian with an Indian family as an AFS Exchange student when I was a teenager.  My DNA was intertwined with theirs and the relations have grown throughout my life in so many ways. I was first introduced to dance at the highest level by the leading dancers of Bombay: the Jhaveri Sisters and Guru Parvati Kumar and his senior disciple Sucheta Bhide Chapekar. My love for and connection to the world of Indian dance has likewise spiralled and evolved, allowing me to enrich my own artistry, and to support the two-way exchange of dance between the U.S. and India for decades.

supporting the integration of refugees into their new home communities in Germany; and in past years, in South Korea for refugees from North Korea and China; and in Malta with Africans who arrived on boats and were saved from drowning by the Maltese Navy.

interweaves stories of Battery Dance’s work around the world. ‘Moving Stories’ was created by the brilliant team of Cornelia Ravenal, Mikael Södersten, Rob Fruchtman, and Wendy Sax. I owe them a huge debt of gratitude for helping us tell the world about the beautiful young people whose lives have been changed by dance; and revealing the dedication and skill and passion of Battery Dance’s teaching artists.

Sean Scantlebury. His quiet, egoless artistry has so many layers and his partnering is like the best engineering coupled with the generosity and care towards his partner that I can only compare to Rudolf Nureyev partnering Margot Fonteyn.

"vital."

humility only goes so far, and it was time for the public to recognize that our small, under-resourced but hard-driving dance company was the engine behind it – not a government agency.

counting my blessings that I am surrounded by artists and administrators who are public-spirited, undaunted by enormous challenges, and ready to explore new ways to share their light with the community at home and abroad in view of today’s health and safety precautions.

the conquering of the coronavirus and the elections in November 2020.