Meet the Writers: Kirsten Kaschock

What are you most excited to cover through TD?
I want to talk about the ideas that dance makes happen--how dance can be an impetus for thought as well as everything else it can be.  I want to discuss the intersections dance has with the larger world--politics, philosophy, art, music, chemistry.  Dance resonates with all that moves: that's where I want to start.

Which part is challenging, scary, difficult?
Word counts. 

Finish this sentence "Good writing..."
Good writing tastes good.  Or, it hurts.  Good writing is efficient: let's call it "goo-ting."  Or, it engages in chaos--entangles.  Remembers.  And never fragments.

Finish this sentence "Good dance....."
Traps I tell you--these are all traps!  Just... I think good dance ("goo-nce") moves you.  I am moved by commitment--a committed approach to training the body (in myriad ways), to choreographic vision or process, to conceptual work, or commitment to the audience.  Any or all of these.  In my opinion, only apathy and anemia are the enemies of goo-nce.

How did you learn to type?
I type with three fingers.  I'm not lying.

What is your "desert-island" publication?
The Oxford English Dictionary.  Totes.  It is an interdimensional, timetraveling lullaby.  

What would your parents say about your work in the arts?
They would say, have said... that their parents/grandparents came to this country to work in the mines and factories, so that their children could go to college to become professionals, so that their children would be able to become scholars and artists.  Love them.

If you were to write a dance love-letter, it would be to:
Taryn Kaschock-Russell, ex-Joffrey and Hubbard Street Dancer, now director of Hubbard Street 2, and my little sister.

By Kirsten Kaschock
January 26, 2012