Process Piece

Taylor Drury is a Canadian born dancer, choreographer, and sometimes line-drawing artist with WobbleWorks. She is currently a full time company member with the Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch. In this conversation we talk all about her path to becoming a dancer, which was full of the unexpected, as well as the period of doubting and questioning that often comes after graduation. We speak about conscious versus unconscious influences, the practice of improvisation and how it can be built into a full piece, and the life of being in a company as a dancer as opposed to working freelance. She also talks about her drawing practice, titled WobbleWorks, which is a series of one line drawings that she has expanded out into workshops and commissions.

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Sakina Saïdi is a French-Moroccan artist and illustrator based in London. Born and raised in France by Moroccan parents, Sakina grew up learning about different cultures and traditions. Her experiences nurtured her style and desire to represent this beautiful mix of cultures that now characterizes her personality and art. In this conversation, we talk about how she was raised to pursue “practical” careers, but how she eventually discovered her own purpose within the arts. We also talk about artistic validation, her thoughts on art and activism, as well as exploring identity as an artist, especially coming from a multicultural background.

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Created in response to the pandemic, ViVa marks the first collaboration  between two giants in the dance world, the Miami City Ballet and the Paul Taylor Dance Company. Choreographed by Amy Hall Garner, ViVa was choreographed remotely and filmed in two different cities, premiering and streaming on the companies’ social media channels. In this special, shorter-form conversation, Ruby speaks with the two dancers in ViVa, Samantha Hope Galler and John Harnage, all about the process of creating this unique duet and what it meant to them to be able to dance and make art again after 6 months in quarantine.

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Michael Novak is a dancer born and raised in Illinois. In 2018, he became the Paul Taylor Dance Company’s second Artistic Director after having danced for the company for 9 years. Previously, he also danced with Gibney Dance and the Daniel Gwirtzman Dance Company, studied at Springboard Danse Montreal, and has performed works by Bill T. Jones, Vaslav Nijinski and Stephen Petronio. In this conversation, Michael talks about his creative background, how dance and drama became languages for him, and his path to where he is today as artistic director of a renowned company. He also speaks about his own creative calling with his work, as well as how he believes in dance as a way of supporting cultural healing, now, during a pandemic, and moving forward into a more connected, globalized future.

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Dylan Frederick is an actor, writer and director who was born and raised in the Twin Cities. He has an MFA from the Yale School of Drama and a BFA from The University of Evansville. Dylan recently made his Broadway debut in Matthew Lopez’s 7-hour play The Inheritance. He also makes music and summer camps. In this conversation between two old friends, we speak about how performance has always been parts of his life, despite being a shy kid, and the relentless process of auditions. We get into his Broadway debut in The Inheritance and being a part of a 7-hour long production, as well as the nature of theater itself as a non-stop cycle of life and loss. Dylan also reflects on the strangeness of traditional theater simply not existing in this moment with the pandemic, and he talks a lot about why he loves camp.

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Cozbi A. Cabrera is a multimedia artist who lives in Evanston, Illinois. She paints, writes and illustrates children’s books, makes handmade collectible dolls, quilts, and designs clothing. In this conversation that weaves through the threads of all of her mediums, Cozbi and I speak about the senses and details of memory, how she took a non-linear path to becoming the artist she is today, and the importance of representation in the art world, not just for the people being represented, but for the consumers of the art to have their perspectives broadened. We each share big questions that are central to our work and Cozbi expresses how the little daily things enrich life and art.

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Tamisha Guy and Donovan Reed are both dancers within the renowned company A.I.M. by Kyle Abraham. In this in-depth conversation on process, I ask them about their paths to becoming the dancers they are today and how they joined A.I.M., as well as what real collaboration looks like within the creation process of the company. Tamisha and Donovan also share their insights and thoughtful reflections on issues in the dance and art world, such as defining safety, being an advocate for yourself and others, and an artist’s role as a change-maker in the community.

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Olaiya Land is based in Seattle and is the founder and editor of Lionesse, an online journal and community promoting connection, confidence, sisterhood & self-love. She also leads creative retreats and is a photographer. In this energizing conversation, we get deep into how to use social media as a creative person to create community. We also speak about about vulnerability, overcoming fears as a creative, and the relationship between food and art. 

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Ella Frances Sanders is based in Ireland and is an internationally-bestselling author and illustrator of three books: Lost in Translation, The Illustrated Book of Sayings, and Eating the Sun. In this conversation we speak about topics such as why and how she feels that asking questions is her love language, the constant connections she finds between words and images and how that relates to her book-making process, distilling down huge, universal ideas and scientific matter, perfectionism versus the inevitable chaos of the world, and quite simply, miracles.

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Farida Hughes is an abstract artist working in mixed media, oil, and resin paint on panel. She developed her mixed media style after many years of painting with oil paint and experimenting with oil painting mediums. She maintains her studio in Baltimore, Maryland. In this conversation we get deep into her process- both technically and thematically. We discuss what drew her to abstract art and how she has developed her ever growing body of work, her multicultural background as a leading force in defining her artistic voice, and being comfortable with having a different perspective of the world.

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