Faculty Profile: Madeline Cantor

Madeline Cantor, 他今年春天从布林莫尔舞蹈项目主任的职位上退休了, 1989年，在被琳达·卡鲁索·哈维兰教授聘用后，他来到了推荐全球十大博彩公司排行榜, with whom she had a long and fruitful collaboration. Cantor developed several signature programs at the College, including the School Performance Project, 通过它舞蹈学生在费城地区的学校进行表演. 康托尔还为古德哈特音乐厅带来了保罗·泰勒经典现代舞作品的重现, Martha Graham, and others. 康托尔于2019年成为该项目主任，几个月后，新冠疫情爆发.

What was the dance program like when you came here in 1989?
这个小组很小，只有一个人——琳达·卡鲁佐·哈维兰. She did everything. She taught, she administered, she made costumes. She really established it. She was here when the office for the arts was founded, which is what brought together dance and theater, and the BiCo program in music. That established the identity for the arts on campus. One of her first acts was to hire me as an associate. We had this long partnership, a rare collaboration. We were “work married.”

What makes the Bryn Mawr dance program distinctive?
The heart of the program is the actual dancing. This is about the life of the body, so it's not just talking about dance or looking at it, it's about doing it. Over time, 我们开发了一个包含四个部分的项目:舞蹈技巧, which is what most people think of when they hear the word dance; performance, with an annual big deal concert involving the more advanced student dancers on campus and professional guest choreographers; theory and practice of dance making; and dance studies, 哪些学术课程从多个角度看待舞蹈作为一种社会力量, a way of knowing the world, a science.

你认为在女子学院教授舞蹈的价值是什么?
There’s less gender noise here. 另一件事是，在舞蹈中，女性可以做一些传统上只有男性才能做的事情，比如举重.

Tell me about the students you’ve taught.
这是一个你可以致力于在学术和舞蹈方面取得卓越成就的地方. 我们找不到那些想直接去音乐学院学习，一天上16节课的学生. Our students want to do lots of things. Some of our most advanced dancers are biology majors, history majors, and that's the great thing about being here. 来到这里的人，他们中的一些人接受过非常重要的培训. 还有一些人在高中时做了一些事情，并被吸引住了.

What has impressed you most about them?
It's their energy and interest, their intellectual strength, their ability to juggle multiple interests. 我特别欣赏他们的是他们在更大的背景下看待舞蹈的能力. 我们通过其他课程给他们机会，他们也会接受. It's not just how high can you get your leg. It's far beyond that. Dance is a way of understanding the world around you, a way of understanding yourself, a way of understanding others. 它以一种非常独特的方式与社会和情感学习联系在一起，因为身体是它的中心. 整个身心的分裂是我们作为舞者所要抵制的. The body is a mind. The mind lives in the body. It's not a shell. 它是信息、知识、洞察力和联系的源泉.

How was your experience during the pandemic?
所有人都在2020年春天和秋天离开了, 由于设施办公室的非凡努力, we were able to come back live and full. 据我所知，这个国家没有其他项目能做到这一点, that early and that fully, and it had to do with the way systems work here. We were initially told the studio was offline. 我上诉了，他们做了一些严重的缓解，然后我们回来了. 我很感激你在这里需要帮助时人们的关心.

In general, things just work well here, like housekeeping. 例如，你必须以特定的方式清洁舞蹈工作室的地板. 有一种特殊的溶液，里面有一点松香粉，所以它不滑. 但你不想让它太粘，所以你必须做得恰到好处. 所以我会留个便条说，你能再加一点吗? Maybe another capful?’ And they do it. They’ve come to care about it. This is not typical in institutions.

What are you most proud of having accomplished at Bryn Mawr?
I’m proud of the praxis courses that I developed. 我创建了一个叫做“学校表演项目”的项目，我们在费城地区的学校里表演. We did over 200 of them. The project had at, at its core a narrative dance, a story dance based on obscure or even invented folk tales. 那些为年轻观众设计的作品，已经成为我教授的一种利基. 我曾在西雅图、新泽西和新墨西哥担任客座编舞. 这是一个不寻常的小众的舞蹈设计，有点需求. 我非常致力于把高质量的艺术品呈现在孩子们面前.

我也为我们聚集的优秀教师感到自豪. 费城是一个非常富有的舞蹈城市，所以我不用走很远就能找到很棒的人. 作为导演，我的工作就是给他们所需要的，然后退后一步，让他们做他们该做的.

我不得不说，我为我们在这里完成的一系列重建工作感到自豪. These are restagings of classic modern dance works. Just two weeks ago, we did a Paul Taylor work. That was my seventh reconstruction. I also did a Martha Graham reconstruction. These are licensed works, so you have to get the rights to perform, 教授他们的人都是认真从事这项工作的人, 通常是公司里刚退休的人. 我想让学生们有机会跳舞他们的历史. 一个学音乐的学生可以打开乐谱演奏1680年写的曲子，没有问题. We can't do that in dance. 不仅是因为符号的不同，还因为它是身体对身体的教学. 当我还是个年轻舞者的时候我就跳过了，这是一次非凡的经历.

When did you first know that you were a dancer?
I was very young. I don't know that I would have described it that way, 但我知道那些图案和动作对我很有吸引力. The way movements fit together. When my father came home from work, he wanted me to get his glasses from his bedside table, 所以我设计了一种跑到楼梯上的舞蹈, run up two at a time with a certain pattern, run to the bed, dive on the bed, grab them, and come back down. That was my first piece of choreography. 我不是那种上了无数节舞蹈课的舞蹈宝贝. 我在大学里跳舞，但没有主修舞蹈，后来我遇到了一些非常出色的老师，他们对我的影响很大.

What misperceptions do people have about dance?
他们认为这只是一种表达，一种模仿，一种锻炼. They think it's just running around mindlessly. It's not helped by programs like, So You Think You Can Dance. In the mass market stuff, it's all about tricks. In reality it's an art form, a way of framing the world.

而且，认为舞蹈只适合某些人的观念是我们必须反对的. It’s for everybody, 包括坐轮椅的人、帕金森氏症患者、5岁和80岁的老人. 舞蹈是一种社会事件，一种社会活动，也是一种艺术能力.