THE DANCE ENTHUSIAST'S A TO Z: P for David PARKER and Mythali PRAKASH
David Parker
Biography
David Parker is a 2013 Guggenheim Fellow in choreography and, together with Jeffrey Kazin, leads The Bang Group, which they founded together in 1995. Parker grew up in Lynnfield, MA, and began studying tap and ballet in Boston as a teenager where he launched his career by tap-dancing on city sidewalks with Maureen Cosgrove in 1978. He later attended Bard College where he studied ballet, modern, and post-modern dance. It was there where he began to build a polyglot form that used all he knew. His early work, Bang and Suck, was a finalist at the 4th International Competition for Choreographers of Contemporary Dance in the Netherlands in 1994, following which The Bang Group was launched. Follow him on Instagram at @frandpapa.
Both images of David Parker courtesy of the artist.
Mythili Prakash
Biography
Mythili Prakash has toured her own solo productions in the UK, Scotland, France, and Singapore, the United States and Mexico, been featured on NBC’s Superstars of Dance, and was cast in Director Ang Lee's award-winning film Life of Pi. Raised in Los Angeles, she grew up in an environment filled with dance and music, under the watchful eye of her mother and teacher dance exponent Viji Prakash. She began her performing career at the age of eight and has performed extensively in prestigious venues and festivals throughout the world. The young Bharata Natyam dancer-choreographer's repertoire is an embodiment of narratives of the many worlds that shape her. Follow her on Instagram at @mythiliprakash.
Head shot of Mythali Prakash by Kamala Venkatesh; Action shot by Teresa Elwes.
What made you decide to enter this profession?
Parker:
Television variety shows. It wasn't just show dancing either, it was Nureyev and Fonteyn, Edward Villella and Patricia McBride, Alvin Ailey, Geoffrey Holder and Jacques d'Amboise, along with movie stars who could really dance, like Astaire, Kelly, Sammy Davis Jr., Ann Miller, and my favorite, Debbie Reynolds.
This brought on some consternation from my parents who beheld a burgeoning sissy smartly snapping his head round in ersatz chaine turns rather than playing baseball with the other boys.
Prakash:
Destiny! From my earliest memory I wanted to be a dancer.
Who has been the biggest influence on your life and why?
Parker:
Given my previous answer it may seem strange to say this, but my father was the biggest influence on my life. He was a popular writer of detective fiction — his most beloved character being Spenser — and he was brilliant and witty. Like Spenser, he was preoccupied with the development of a personal code of honor and masculine comportment, but he was also enormously erudite. He lovingly responded to my artistic and cerebral tendencies while recoiling from my queerness. Our grappling with this was a defining conflict of my life, and I'm happy to say we moved haltingly but steadily to full reconciliation.
The other person who has influenced me profoundly is my dance partner and muse in The Bang Group, Jeffrey Kazin. I built my work on his ardent, vivid dancing and at the center of our repertory stands a series of duets which lign our connection at various phases over the last 34 years.
Prakash:
My mom. She is a dancer and was my first role model and teacher. She is crazy about dance, like, literally lives and breathes dance. Just growing up around her made me fall in love with it too. The path she forged and boundaries she pushed became the jumping off point for my own creative trajectory.
I can always rely on __________ to cheer up.
Parker:
MGM musicals though I also love the Astaire-Rogers musicals by RKO Pictures.
Prakash:
Dumb jokes with friends. And dark chocolate :)
I practice self-care by __________.
Parker:
Cooking. It's a creative act in which every choice made during preparation shows up in the final result. Just like making a dance.
Prakash:
Finding ways to enjoy the things I do, even the un-enjoyable! That way, everything I do feels like a conscious choice, and I derive pleasure from it (sometimes involves pairing with a piece of chocolate!).
Pets or plants. Either way, why and what kind?
Parker:
Pets, absolutely. For much of my life I've had a dog, many of them Pembroke Welsh Corgis. We lost our last corgi, Millie, during the pandemic. She was 12 and I look forward to getting another one soon. Here is Millie dancing with us for The Dance Enthusiast in 2011: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3oGhNun36Q
Prakash:
Pets because of the cuddles! But to be honest, I've never owned a pet. Don't think I'd be responsible enough to care for it. No idea how I'm a MOM!
Cooking or eating out? Either way, what is your favorite meal?
Parker:
I can't choose, as I love both. But I will say I notice that my favorite meals are often restaurant lunches while on vacation. Having an elaborate meal with wine in the early afternoon in some faraway spot can't be beat.
Prakash:
Eating out! Nachos (good ones) and Mezcal with one large ice cube.
If you could relive the past or catch a glimpse of the future, which would you pick and why?
Parker:
I often wish I could show the teenaged me a film of my current life. I think it would soothe some of his angst, because I have actually done what he set out to do. But now I would like to go back and relive some of my past and have a bit more fun with it. I was often preoccupied with building a career, and I wish I'd enjoyed the people around me more along the way.
Prakash:
Past. I love memories — relive them all the time. I have no interest in knowing the future — I'm going to find out anyway, and why ruin the fun?!
What is your personal approach to handling challenging people or situations?
Parker:
One of the central features of my work is rhythmic counterpoint. Two or more rhythms which interlock, complement, contradict, negotiate, or otherwise entwine. But they are anchored to the same underlying beat — same groove, different patterns. I try to find that underlying groove in conflicts in my life. I also think levity is important and I have learned that unison is not necessary for cohesion.
Prakash:
Handle each one with specificity of what is needed in that particular circumstance. Empathy is a part of it, although that doesn't mean that my behavior is always soft.
How has your personal life changed since the pandemic?
Parker:
I give my personal relationships more time and enjoy them more. Performances reach me on a deeper level and I no longer evaluate them through the lens of my ambition. Now they get my undivided attention. This has been a boon.
Prakash:
A lot more self-reflection and desire to take action. It's changed the intentions in my art-making too, particularly in its relationship to identity and society.
How has your art or approach towards art changed since the pandemic?
Parker:
I have been able to work more intuitively on my own dances because I have less fear of making a "wrong" choice. I have uncoupled what I love from what I think is good and gone with the former. I can love something that isn't "good," and be indifferent to something that is, and I couldn't care less about what is "cool."
Prakash:
Hah! It's funny and telling that I answered that in the previous question. My personal life and art-making are completely enmeshed — don't think of them as separate!
What is the last show you saw and loved?
Parker:
I was very excited by an evening at the New York Public Library about Agnes De Mille's Broadway and ballet works of the forties and fifties. This was a mix of live performances by dancers I know and love from the New York Theatre Ballet and archival films. I saw how astute she was about characterization through movement and how her sense of humor was also fully embedded in her choreography, often through rhythm. There was also a duet I'd never seen from Paint Your Wagon that was agonizingly poignant.
Prakash:
The Jungle at Anne's Warehouse in New York.
What is your pre-performance (as a spectator or a performer) ritual?
Parker:
I had a total knee replacement almost 5 years ago and that has altered my preshow ritual from barre to a combination of PT exercises, balance work, fitness training, and tap dancing. I didn't know whether I'd be able to dance again after the surgery, but I have been dancing pain-free and with gusto. Also, after so many years of training in so many kinds of dance, how come I didn't know my glutes from a jelly donut?
Prakash:
A good night of rest, then on day of performance: dance, meditation, balanced foods, and being QUIET.
I wish I could be a fly on the wall for this moment in dance history: __________.
Parker:
This is my favorite question. I wish I'd been at the premiere of Anthony Tudor's Jardin Au Lilas at the Mercury Theater in London in 1936.
I wish I'd been in rehearsals when Frederick Ashton was creating his pas de deux for Lynn Seymour and Anthony Dowell in A Month in the Country in 1978.
I wish I'd seen Buck and Bubbles' song and tap dance act live in the thirties and forties same for Coles and Atkins but in the fifties.
I wish I'd seen Merce Cunningham and Carolyn Brown dance together and Martha Graham live in Deaths and Entrances. I know, mostly duets.
Prakash:
I want to see what the original artists from the Hereditary dance community danced and sang like. The form that I practice, Bharatanatyam, comes from a complex history where the original community of generations of hereditary artists were illegalized from performing. The form, originally called "Sathir" was in a sense erased and then appropriated by upper-caste practitioners (I am one! :/ ), and the Bharatanatyam we dance today is very different from what Sathir was. I'd love to go back 250 years and see how it was performed.
I have / have had the most fun performing __________’s choreography or trying out this genre of dance _____________.
Parker:
In my own Nut/Cracked. It's so rare to have a piece you do every year for 21 years and even rarer to enjoy it. But enjoy it I do.
I also loved being in Doug Elkins' Fraulein Maria (as Liesl,) Christopher Williams' The Golden Legend (as St. Thomas of Canterbury,) The New York Theatre Ballet's production of Cinderella (as one of the evil stepsisters with Jeff Kazin as the other), one of Sara Hook's and my collaborations called Critical Mass, and recently, a solo by Catherine Tharin that allowed me to unveil a more pensive side.
I also really loved doing the two cabaret shows I did for Dance Now/NYC at Joe's Pub called Misters and Sisters and Head Over Heels, presented by the visionary Robin Staff. These were exuberant, unironic, song-and-dance shows in which I gave myself, Jeff, Nic Petry and Amber Sloan free rein to revel in all that we did.
Prakash:
Is there a book, podcast or TV program you recommend to others and why?
Parker:
I often reread Agnes Demille's two books about her arduous coming-of-age as a dancer and choreographer called Dance to the Piper and Promenade Home. Set against many of the big events of the twentieth century, they are meticulously written, high-velocity, dramatic memoirs that read like novels.
Prakash:
Ajaya by Anand Neelakantan. It's really niche and really probably only accessible to people who are super familiar with the Indian Epic The Mahabharata. It tells the whole Epic from the perspective of the antagonist, and flips things in the most profound way without changing any "facts" or "events" from the story. So it is all in the shading. It is a serious lesson in nuance and perspective. In some ways, conceptually, it reminds me of my first experience of Wicked, the Musical. I love that concept of seeing the other side of a story!
This city or country is the best place I have ever been to for art: __________.
Parker:
I'm going to cheat my answer here. I think art-making is hard in all places I've ever been or worked in. I don't think New York City is the best place for art, but I've lived here for 45 years and I love a lot of the art that's made here and many of the people who make it. It's my home and I'm not giving up on it.
Prakash:
London.
Which social media app are you most drawn to?
Parker:
My participation in social media is limited: ostentatious opining, despite what you may have heard about me, is not my metier.
Prakash:
Whatsapp. Get to communicate with my besties from all around the world!
What advice do you have for young people in your field?
Parker:
Answer your emails. Be willing to take infinite pains to make your work excellent.
Prakash:
PRACTICE. Learn, stay inspired, be obsessed! There are no shortcuts. Take the word "success" out of your vocabulary. Find what drives you and gives you purpose — and then use that as your compass!
How can we amplify the voices of overlooked and deserving artists?
Parker:
Generosity, attention, empathy and seeing and presenting their work.
Prakash:
By following them, sharing their work when you appreciate it, discussing it with friends, colleagues, and family. If you have access to presenting or creating opportunities for visibility, then create such a platform.
How do you spread enthusiasm about dance?
Parker:
I do that by making dances worth enthusing over and presenting the work of others that I'm enthusiastic about.
Prakash:
Feel it so intensely — and then it will spread! You won't be able to help it!
