Interview: Li Starts Downtown Dance Alliance

By Kevin Lynch, The Capital Times
November 21, 2001

Internationally acclaimed dancer-choreographer Li Chiao-Ping is organizing a new collective, the Madison Dance Alliance, to help nurture, promote and develop local dance.

The organization will be open to all groups and individuals of the dance community, she said.

"I've been mulling this over as long as I've been here, wanting to have an association that would serve my needs, professional advancement and career -- and to address the needs of others in the community," said Li, who is an associate professor in the UW-Madison dance program.

"We need to do this so we can network, lobby and be a voice for dance. I want to help dance have more presence, and to voice our needs, but also to celebrate dance."

"We also want to uphold a high standard and work to nurture more of that," Li said.

To that end, established dancers would mentor young and emerging dancers and choreographers, Li said. She also said that connecting with more experienced artists and groups would also be crucial.

"We can't be at odds with each other," she said. "We need to be working with each other to make dance an important aspect of cultural life here."

Li plans to open a dance center downtown that would "belong to the whole dance community and be run by that community, with classes taught by and for everyone."

"Everything is in still the planning, but we're hoping to offer workshops as soon as this summer," said Li, who joined the UW-Madison faculty in 1993, and has toured worldwide as a soloist and with her company to consistent acclaim.

"I hope to have a really bustling place with all kinds of dance -- yoga, Asian, African, modern -- so we can keep developing our dancers."

Li stressed the importance for dancers to have regular workouts, classes and facilities.

"They need be like athletes, but it's very hard because if you're not a member of a certain group -- a company member or a student -- you have to work quite hard to get your classes in and get the information you need," she said.

Li also envisions a service-oriented collective, to disperse information and offer grant-writing workshops. She said the planned organization -- independent of the UW-Madison -- would need to network for fund raising, and to plan for an endowment. She has already sought support from artistic directors of Jazzworks, Kanopy Dance, Cycropia and Smartdance.

Smartdance's director Maureen Janson moved to Madison in 1993 and attempted a production-oriented dance collective, called the Madison Dance Project, which lasted a few years.

"It's very difficult to do when you're just scraping by," said Li of the project, which she supported.

Janson, who has been discussing the idea of an alliance with Li for years, agreed. She said Madison's "transient nature" also contributed to the lack of commitment to the Madison Dance Project.

"But things have changed now, there are meetings going on among artists that are stimulating energy," Janson said.

"Since Sept. 11, I've felt like I need to make art," Janson said. "I suspect that part of the timing of this comes out of that whole idea of people coming together after Sept. 11. I think making art is more important than ever now. Dance is about people and life. We are in the mood to work and there's power in numbers."

However, Janson said that Madison lacks sufficient dance venues and dancers.

"None of us can employ dancers full time," said the choreographer. "How do we expect to keep dancers in town? There are so few professional dance classes. We want dancers to be part of a community that's accepted and visible as an art, as it is in bigger cities, because the caliber of dance here is really high."

Li envisions a dues-paying membership that would provide benefits, such as discounts to certain shows or classes, shared mailing lists and e-mail resources for promotion and information.

There are no plans to acquire an alliance facility until financial resources are built up, Li said.

For information, or to offer services or help to the alliance, contact Li at 263-5735.

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