Rebekah Hampton

Audra Harvey and Rebekah Hampton discussed artistic process and modern and aerial dance at their other office, otherwise known as Ugly Mugs. Unrelated bunny trails in the conversation have been kept to a minimum for your reading pleasure.

 

A: Tell us about your background in the performing arts, specifically dance. What drew you to the art form?

R: This is kind of a cliché thing to say, but I have always wanted to dance, even when I was little. There are videos of me dancing to my mom’s classical music and putting on shows with my siblings with homemade costumes… I can only think of a couple of times in my life when being a dancer for all of eternity wasn’t something that I thought about.

 

A: You spent a majority of your life in the Midwest. Has the environment you grew up in affected your approach to creativity?

R: Interesting. I think that in the beginning, maybe growing up it was more of a stifled artistic environment, and so once I left I was kind of in awe of everything – all the different options and potential for [styles and genres of art]. And then from there kind of learned to narrow down what I actually liked, and wanted to participate in.

 

A: If you could encapsulate your artistic approach in one sentence, what would that be?

R: Finding inspiration in everything.

 

A: What drew you to aerial dance?

R: I’ve always loved climbing on things. If I’m at a park, I’m usually climbing trees. I mean, really, I saw Perpetual Motion perform (an aerial & modern dance company in Oklahoma City) and was totally amazed. I went up to the director after the performance and asked to audition. About 15 minutes after my audition, they threw me onto a trapeze, and the rest is history.

 

A: What/Who are your primary artistic inspirations for your work?

R: I really am constantly looking for things to inspire me. It could be a song, a painting at a coffee shop, a short film, a commercial, a facebook post, taking a class and the phrase of choreography and one movement in the phrase inspiring a whole piece, a word – I’ll find a new vocabulary word and look up the meaning and develop a piece from that. My favorite quote is “Good art should inspire you to do that yourself” – anything that makes me feel inspired and excited to make something on my own and work from that inspiration. I’m really inspired to work with other artists, in other genres. I don’t create from scratch as well as I do taking something that already exists and modifying it or changing it to make something else.

 

A: Tell us about what styles of movement you are currently working with.

R: Aerial dance, primarily fabric and invented apparatus. A lot of contemporary ballet. Modern dance, exploring weightiness and gestures and more technical styles such as ballet and Horton, also incorporating athletic and acrobatic elements. I feel that all of that will help to tie together any movement that is done on the floor with the movement done in the air.

 

A: What challenges do you face in incorporating so many diverse styles of movement into your choreography?

R: Pretty much finding people who can and are willing to try to do them all! It’s been the biggest challenge – I’ve worked with a lot of great people and great students and when I suggest movement that is outside their comfort zone they sometimes resist. Also, constantly challenging myself to have all of my boxes of styles open and able to be used at any time – it’s very easy to get stuck in my ballet box and resist switching gears, instead of pulling from everything at my disposal. But I believe this approach is the best way to create the most interesting choreography.

 

A: You seem to be willing to perform anywhere. How do you determine who is your audience, and where they are?

R: How high are the ceilings? But really, I think – and I am biased – that dance is something that can be enjoyed by absolutely anyone. It may not be a deep, life-changing thing to everyone but if it’s interesting they will at least find enjoyment in it. You have to know the venues and situations that you are getting into and create content that is appropriate for your audience – you have to know their interests.  The thing is… for many dance companies part of their whole approach is to put people outside of their comfort zone, and that’s a very important aspect of dance as an art form. But it does depend on the goal of each individual performance. I guess that basically my ultimate desire is to make art accessible to anyone, which doesn’t mean dumbing it down, but understanding the entertainment aspect of my art to enable my audience to develop a more lasting interest in the art of dance. I don’t just want to be a circus company, or be all about entertainment and pretty dancers, but I also don’t want to be so abstract that my audience needs to be highly educated about the art form to enjoy it at all… I’m trying to find the balance between the two. I want to be always inspiring, and always entertaining, at the same time.

 

A: If there was one thing that you could personally contribute to the artistic community of Nashville, what would that be?

R: For people to not be scared of art. That it is something that – I would love for Nashville to get to a place where having art around in everyday life that it just becomes who we are – to invade the city with art.

 

A: In your childhood you developed severe scoliosis, causing your spine to curve in a way that should make even walking difficult for you, yet here you are, an acclaimed professional dancer, aerialist and I hear you even train in the Brazilian martial arts style, Capoeira. Your successes have inspired many. What made you keep going when odds were stacked against you?

R: It sounds kind of weird – but it’s never really occurred to me that anything else was an option. I’ve definitely dealt with a lot of frustration and anger and bitterness and pain – but it never occurred to me to let that be something that made me quite dancing and do something else. It’s just something else to deal with.

If art is something that you truly love… for a true artist, art is not something that you do, it’s who you are. Not doing it simply isn’t an option. There is always something difficult that gets in the way – you may have to be creative in the way that you approach it – the difficulty might put parameters on what you do and how you do it – but these parameters can be the best boost to creative. Once you eliminate all the things that you can’t do, then you move forward with what you can.

 

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