Meet the Writers: Kirsten Kaschock

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.

Share this article

Kirsten Kaschock

Kirsten Kaschock is the author of three books of poetry: The Dottery, A Beautiful Name for a Girl, and Unfathoms. Sleight–her novel about performance, artistic responsibility, and atrocity–is available from Coffee House Press. She is currently on faculty at Drexel University. She is a former staff writer and Editor-in-Chief with thINKingDANCE.

PARTNER CONTENT

Keep Reading

Mujeres in Motion

Caedra Scott-Flaherty

Ballet Hispánico’s 56th season is an exciting women-led tour of the Latine diaspora.

Three dancers, two men and one woman, stand on a stage covered in bright autumn leaves. The background is black. They stand in a wide stance, holding thick black rolls over their heads. The man on the left, in gray pants and a t-shirt, looks up at the roll. The brunette woman wearing green pants and a brown tunic stares directly out. The man on the right, dressed in a red suit and white dress shirt, also looks straight forward.
Photo: Steven Pisano - Courtesy of Ballet Hispánico New York

Douglas Dunn’s Post-modern Pastoral

Brendan McCall

An intrepid choreographer examines classical forms through a post-modern lens

Douglas Dunn stands wearing a bright yellow mask which covers his eyes. His right arm is extended to his side while his other rests on a wooden chair painted with yellow flowers. He wears a grey vest, red tie, and dark pants--a contrast to dancers Dongri Suh and Janet Charleston who stand behind him weaering flowered garlands around their heads and wear tulle skirts. A video of two waterfalls is projected onto the wall behind them.
Photo: Jacob Burckhardt