PREVIEW: INTERVIEW WITH TERENCE MARLING, HUBBARD STREET DANCE CHICAGO ARTSITIC ASSOCIATE AND REHEARSAL DIRECTOR
2010-01-18 10:32:47 AM
By Sid Smith:
"Dancers are my people," Terence Marling says, bluntly and persuasively. "They're who I've been surrounded by since I was a kid. They're who I feel most comfortable with. I hope that I'm open and honest and that that's what it takes. I do see amazing work going on around me right now, and my intention at least is to get the best dance on stage here in Chicago that we possibly can."
Since joining Hubbard Street Dance Chicago in 2006, Marling has very much been a factor in the best dance in the city. His smooth, suave style and noteworthy athletic ability made for fiery solo moments, while he was also a sensitive, supporting partner, whether more typically matched with a woman, a la Penny Saunders in Lar Lubovitch's "Cryptoglyph," or with Kevin Shannon, for whom he provided a combative foil in Doug Varone's "The Constant Shift of Pulse." Blessed with matinee-idol looks and a build more typical of a halfback, Marling has been one of the more charismatic talents of the last four years.
But Marling gave what may well be a farewell performance in December, and this month he assumed new duties as Hubbard artistic associate and rehearsal director. Though a tad young to retire--he turns 34 this week--Marling, who has been studying dance or dancing for the past 28 years, is ready for new frontiers.
"I didn't want to show any decline on stage, I didn't want to feel bad or that my work was suffering," he says. "And that's inevitable. There's a constant wearing out as you age. And I'd done an incredible amount of performing. There comes a point where you realize you've got a lot of information to share. I want to give back."
Marling will be heading straight into the choreographic headwinds right away. A veteran of Hubbard's "Inside/Out" and other choreographic programs, he'll unveil "At'em (Atem) Adam" in a preview this Saturday when Hubbard performs at Governors State University in south suburban University Park. The piece will get its official premiere at Hubbard's next Harris Theater engagement in March.
"The music is all over the place," he says of the score that includes Billie Holiday, Edgar Meyer, Luciano Berio, Ella Fitzgerald and Moon Dog. "Up and at'em is a common phrase, but, until I was 32, I always heard the phrase as 'Up and Adam," he adds by way of explaining the work's triple homonym title. Atem is a German term for "breath," in part reflecting several years he spent dancing in that country.
"You take a breath when you say it, and I guess part of what I want the piece to feel like is that pleasure of an exhale, of a relief. I'm trying to give the dancers a lot of freedom, to keep it an enjoyable experience. So much dance has become hard, heavy and dark. This piece has a dark edge, but it's not particularly heavy."
Marling grew up in the Chicago area, his time split between the city and Wilmette. His mother, an avid dancer herself, urged his older brother to take class, but it was Marling, at age 6, who took to the art and never left. He credits the late Larry Long as one of a number of crucial Chicago teachers. At 18, he joined the Pittsburgh Ballet Theater, where he danced roles in "Don Quixote" and Glen Tetley's "Le Sacre du Printemps," but he's unusually frank on the limitations he felt made him a better fit with modern dance.
"Classical dance is increasingly about extremes, extremes of line and turnout and arch," he says. "Some bodies just can't do it all, and I have limited rotation and limited arches. I'd look in the mirror and think, 'I just can't do that to perfection.'" While with Pittsburgh, Marling met his wife, Lauren Schultz, a dancer who has since retired and now works for the Art Institute of Chicago.
In 2003, Marling went to Germany to work with Kevin O'Day and Dominique Dumais and the Nationaltheater Mannheim.
"But one place I always considered I'd end up is here at Hubbard," he says. "Because of the repertoire and the amount of creativity that goes into it."
He's joining the administration at a tricky time. Jim Vincent, who hired him, is gone, taking such lights as Jamy Meek and Shannon Alvis with him, while Glenn Edgerton is just beginning his stint as new artistic director. Budget issues have reduced the troupe's size this season to only 16, down from a high of more than 20. Marling, not surprisingly, sees challenges fraught with possibility, opportunity and excitement.
"Everyone is pulling their weight, everyone is picking up more work, like you have to do in a tough economy," he says. "We're working on something like 10 pieces in February. Sure, I'd love to have more dancers, but we're all pushing as hard as we can to move forward, and, while our numbers are low at the moment, hopefully, we'll fix that."
