- Welcome to Kalamazoo Lively Arts.

The show that takes you inside Kalamazoo's vibrant creative community and explores the people who breathe life into the arts.

- [Announcer] Support for Kalamazoo Lively Arts is provided by the Irving S. Gilmore Foundation, helping to build and enrich the cultural life of greater Kalamazoo.

- [Announcer] Today is all about Wellspring.

We cover their professional modern dance company and their educational efforts with the dance academy.

But first, the history of Wellspring/Cori Terry & Dancers with Cori Terry herself.

(birds chirping) (peaceful music) - Well today I'm talking to Cori Terry, who is the founder and artistic director of Wellspring/Cori Terry & Dancers.

Thank you so much for talking with me here today.

- Oh, thank you for having me.

- So let's start at the beginning.

Where are you from?

Where did you grow up?

Tell me a little bit about your parents.

- Yeah.

I was born in Brooklyn in 1952.

And my parents were kind of political activists and very, very into the arts.

They were lifelong New Yorkers.

So of course, they thought New York City was the greatest city in the world.

And one of the reasons they thought that was because of the arts and the cultural scene.

- And what turned you on to dance?

How were you exposed to it?

- Well, my mother loved modern dance.

Actually, my very first dance teacher was a modern dancer.

She was an ex-company member of the Martha Graham Dance Company, and she had opened up a studio in Brooklyn.

So I started taking modern dance classes when I was three years old.

I didn't really decide that that was gonna be my thing in life until I met Erick Hawkins when I was about 20.

That changed my life when I met him and I decided to drop everything and moved into the city and devoted myself to the Erick Hawkins Dance Company.

- Wow.

Wow.

What brought you to Kalamazoo?

- Right.

That is a question I get asked all lot.

(Cori laughs) Back in, I think it was 1978, right after this gigantic snowstorm.

- Yeah.

- Erick told us all that we were gonna do a six week winter tour, cause we toured all over the country and abroad.

First stop was gonna be Miller Auditorium in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

And I laughed, to be honest.

I was that kind of New Yorker.

I thought that I had never heard of Kalamazoo.

It sounded like Timbuktu to me.

And he said, "No, that's a really nice city.

And they have a great dance department at Western Michigan University."

We came in, we made it in through that snowstorm, and I met my then future, now ex-husband, and we carried on a relationship from a distance.

I was in New York.

He was here in Kalamazoo.

During that time, I developed a relationship with the dance department at Western and they hired me as artist in residence for that first year of 1980.

And so I met some really great dancers that year.

We did a concert and I asked them if they wanted to have a dance company with me and they all said yes.

And that was the start of Wellspring.

- How wonderful.

- And I was told by many people when I first announced that I was gonna do my own modern dance company in Kalamazoo, that it couldn't be done.

Because this is a small city and somewhat conservative.

They were like, "A modern dance company?

I don't think you're gonna make it."

But that just made me dig my heels in even more and say, "Watch me."

I really, really wanted to introduce modern dance to Kalamazoo audiences and the Kalamazoo community, and make it available just like going to a show or a music concert or anything else.

You could also go to a modern dance concert.

So I did it somehow.

I mean, it wasn't straightforward, linear path.

It was kind of a battle, but there were a lot of different factors that I think helped me along the way.

- Like what?

- For instance, having a very strong board of directors and I've always had.

That was really important.

They did a lot of fundraising and a lot of support.

And of course, a lot of great dancers right from the beginning.

Although I think these days, it's even better.

One of the other really big factors was that the Epic Center opened in the year 2000.

They probably came to me in 98 or 99 and said, there's a lot of arts organizations in Kalamazoo that are looking for a new home.

And we had been, cause the place we were performing in was the old Park Trades Center.

And there was a column in the middle of our dance space and we danced around that column.

I mean, people loved it cause it felt like a New York locked space, but we were outgrowing that as a theater.

And so they said, "We're gonna open up this place.

If you could have your dream theater, what would it look like?"

And I sat there with the architects and I told them exactly what I wanted.

And they started work on the Epic Center.

We were the first tenants at the Epic Center with the Wellspring Theater, and we have our beautiful theater up on the second floor.

And that was a real turning point for Wellspring because we became a lot more visible.

(Take Back The Sun) - Well, they are both from Wellspring/Cori Terry & Dancers.

It's Marisa, she's the associate artistic director and dance academy coordinator along with Kate Yancho who is the executive director.

Their job titles, right?

But I wanna know what you do on a daily basis.

So go ahead and tell me - Yes.

So as you said, I am the associate artistic director as well as dance academy coordinator.

So I spend my morning, afternoon, and evening in the theater given both of those rules.

Monday through Friday, we rehearse and I have been leading company class.

So that's working with our professional dancers as well as some other advanced dancers in the area.

So I lead them through our technique with a little bit of my own flare to it.

Outside of that, I'm in board meetings, executive committee meetings, going into the community, doing a lot of outreach.

And that sort of segues into my other role, which is the dance academy coordinator which is where I'm at in the evenings.

So that is when I manage our dance academy.

And we have found that it's really awesome being able to cater dance to youth and adults.

Most places around the area only cater to youth dance programming.

So it's really awesome to have that little pocket that we have that's our own of adult dance, and then seeing how we can mold both our youth and adults to just being more empathetic, more judgment-free, more creative, authentic community members.

- And what about you, Kate?

- As an executive director, I'm a lot of behind the scenes.

That's what I do.

So I'm attending most of those meetings with her, working with our board of directors, working with our executive committee that really steers the ship for Wellspring/Cori Terry & Dancers.

I'm also our development director.

So I'm our primary grant writer and fundraiser.

I am our HR department, I am our volunteer coordinator, all of those things, but I have an outstanding team that allows me to really give them the space to do their work.

And I'm just here to challenge and support as they need.

- And it must be pretty amazing working with Cori Terry, right?

- Extremely.

It feels like a blessing.

Most of the time.

- She's a legend.

- Yeah.

That's what I mean.

- Yes.

- A legend, right?

- Very much so.

(melancholic fast paced music) - What are the styles of dance at Wellspring?

- So we only do modern dance for the company.

Some people call it contemporary.

I describe it as barefoot ballet, although we don't use classical music and there's no tutus or anything like that.

We don't wear toe shoes, it's barefoot.

So we're very grounded and use our feet a lot, and the music is more contemporary, new music.

- I loved your quote.

I loved your quote.

"Dance bypasses the intellect and goes straight to the gut."

It's so true.

- It really is true.

If you can get there, it takes a little bit of practice.

Because your instinct, I think, as a modern human is to sit there in the audience and try to figure out what does it mean?

- Yeah.

- But I always say to people, what does the sunset mean?

It doesn't have a narrative or an intellectual meaning, it's just what you experience when you see those colors, what you experience when you watch the sun go down.

And it's the same thing.

It's just dances and abstract art.

You're watching people move with each other and lift each other.

Don't look for meaning, just experience it directly.

(enchanted piano music) - It must be exciting to curate experiences, right?

Dance experiences.

- Well, and I love that you used that word, experiences, Kim, cause when I started at Wellspring, that was one of my first goals.

And I came in and as I kind of looked at what we were doing, did a little needs assessment.

I was like, I want people to come to our space and I want them to remember what it smelled like, what it tasted like, what it felt like.

I don't want them to just come in and watch a show, or come in and take a class and then leave.

I wanna create an environment that allows them to experience it sensorially, all of the senses taking it in so that it's something that they'll really remember and it will be something that will make an impact for them.

- We also always have a talk back with our concerts as well.

So I think that that really enhances the experience and the audience can connect with not only the artistic director, Cori Terry, myself, the associate artistic director, and then Alexis Harris, the rehearsal director, but they also get the panel, the full company as well.

So they can direct questions immediately to our one male dancer.

They say, "What's it like being the only guy in the group?"

Or things like that.

- Storytelling through dance.

That sounds so beautiful.

So tell me what that looks like.

- The arts are here to help people elevate and tell their stories and get their souls out into the universe.

And dance is no exception to that.

So I think for us, it's both having a stage where our professional company can do that and share that with our community and our audiences so that they can be moved in whatever ways that is when they come to our shows, but also then bringing our students into the classroom and helping them find their voice.

We really focus on creativity and educating the whole person.

That idea that you're not just this body that's coming in to move through these positions, but we wanna see you.

We wanna know who you are.

- Marisa.

You probably have firsthand experience with that.

How does it look when somebody comes in and they finally get it?

- Well, I've been doing this for 25 years now and I don't think it's fully clicked for me yet so.

That's actually a very common question that comes up in talk backs.

Like what was this piece about?

For me personally, and I know that this is where Cori and I align a little bit is that when we create works that we have a set idea or intention or mode or mood or narrative in mind, and we let that go on the stage, and the intention of the choreographer may be this very clear thing and it was this very distinct instance in my life, but someone else may see that and be like, "Oh, that's me and my brother when we were fighting when we were three and when we made up and now we're better than ever at age 50 or something".

- I think people are really used to going to the ballet or somewhere where the story is very clearly articulated.

We're gonna tell you the story of the Nutcracker.

We're gonna tell you the story of Peter and the Wolf.

Whereas modern dances, you're not getting that.

You're not coming in with a clear cut.

Here is the book that we're reading to you with our bodies, it's their stories inside.

And I think that that's what makes it particularly special is that you're getting to know these people intimately with the stories that they're telling with the bodies.

There is no right answer.

There's no right intention.

Feel what you feel, see what you see, live in that moment and just love that moment.

(melancholy orchestral music) - You just wrapped Unbound, right?

It's the Spring Concert of Dance.

Tell me about some of the highlights.

- Since the pandemic, it's been kind of interesting for me.

I mean, it's been hard, but it's been interesting in the sense that because we had a little bit less time, we weren't able to really create new choreography.

But what we did was go back into the archives and look at all the old work.

And lo and behold, I have so many older dances.

- Yeah.

- That are really good.

And we've been archiving them and then teaching the older work.

So one of the things we did was a piece from 1992.

It was a duet that I choreographed for me and another dancer.

And my two dancers now, Alexis Harris and Carolyn Pampalone Rabbers did that duet.

And I was really worried about it.

I was worried that it was gonna be really dated.

- Yeah.

- But people loved it.

So many people told me it was their favorite piece on the show.

It just was amazing to me.

(fast-paced orchestral music) - You offer so much programming for the community as well.

I was reading though about something called Rad Fest.

- It happens in our theater, at the Wellspring Theater.

And we've been doing it for, I think it's 12 years now.

It came from a program we used to do called the dance forum which originally was created so that other dancers and including students of mine and at Wellspring would have a place to perform their own work.

Wasn't professional, but they were presented in a professional setting with lights and their own costumes and the use of our space.

But after a long time of doing the dance forum, we decided that we needed to make it professional.

And so we started an application process and got people from all over the country.

We do it every March.

We've been doing it for a really long time.

Wellspring always opens out the show, and then the rest of the show is people from all over the country and it's all modern contemporary dance.

- So usually we would do a little interactive section here where you show me how to do something that you do.

- So what I like to recommend first off is just making sure that everything is nice and loose.

So if you have a tennis ball that you can keep by your desk if you're working from home, you can put that under the ball and heel of your foot and just sort of rock it back and forth.

And that just helps loosen all the fascia that's underneath.

There's so much fascia that runs on the backside of our body.

So if you have a lot of lower back pain, that's really nice to do when you're sitting at a desk, specifically like working on emails in the morning.

Okay, well, I'm just gonna roll out my right foot while I do emails.

Left foot will be my first project sort of thing.

As far as some stretches that you can do.

I always find that rolling the shoulders back is a big one.

So making sure that you bring them all the way forward.

So feeling the shoulders coming to that midline.

- Ooh, that feels good.

- And you feel the sternum almost close off and then feeling the sternum open as you roll those shoulders back.

That's a big heart opening exercise that you can do.

And it helps keep if you have any issues in your cervical spine or anything up in that upper spine.

That helps just loosen up those vertebrae for you.

So that's really helpful.

- That's nice.

- Yeah.

I find another one that I like to do would be dropping my ear to a shoulder, and then taking the hand of the ear that I'm dropping to the opposite shoulder and just giving a gentle touch to that shoulder.

And you should feel a stretch in that sternocleidomastoid right here.

And that one's a really nice one, specially too if you're sitting vertical all of the time.

- That's nice.

- Yeah.

And then you can take that the other way, really trying to keep that nose square to the front.

Yeah.

And just that gentle pressure on that other shoulder.

Just so you feel that slight resistance coming away from that sternum.

- Yeah.

Right through there.

- Hmm-mm.

Yeah.

And then another one that I always like to do is just reaching up and then just doing a nice, easy bend back.

And that's just opening up the backside just a little bit, and you can do a soft bend in the elbows too.

So just finding how you can open that front side.

- That feels good too.

- Yeah.

With us sitting at desks all the time, we try to start with correct posture, right?

But then the more we type.

- I'm always think about that.

I was thinking like, sit up straight, you know?

- Exactly.

The more you condense, the more you work.

So finding how maybe like on the hour, every hour, you just do five shoulder rolls, maybe a little 30 second hold, 30 second hold.

Maybe couple breaths, three or four.

And that should give you a nice little refresh.

(somber music) - So if you had to sum up, if someone asked you, what's Wellspring's mission?

What's their purpose for being here?

What would you say?

- It has been my mission for all these years to help people understand the difference between a community group that is made up of, for instance, high school students, and a professional company which are trained dancers who get paid to do their art.

And we are professionals.

So we pay our dancers a salary which I'm extremely proud of.

It's very unusual to be able to have a dance company where people are actually on salary.

What Wellspring/Cori Terry & Dancers is about is about presenting modern dance to audiences all over from Kalamazoo and beyond.

- Oh, that's so beautiful.

Cori Terry, the founder and artistic director of Wellspring/Cori Terry & Dancers.

Thank you so much for talking with me here today.

You've lived an incredible life and I believe there's still a lot left.

You've got so much work to do here in Kalamazoo, huh?

- Thank you, I hope so too.

Yes.

- Thank you for joining us on this week's episode of Kalamazoo Lively Arts.

Check out today's show and other content at wgvu.org We leave you tonight with another spectacular performance.

I'm Jennifer Moss.

Have a great night.

(dramatic music) - [Announcer] Support for Kalamazoo Lively Arts is provided by the Irving S. Gilmore Foundation, helping to build and enrich the cultural life of greater Kalamazoo.