How do you use your dancers, and what do they contribute to your choreography?
I’m fortunate enough to get to choreograph on dancers that I work with every day. So every piece I make is usually created around what I already know my dancers can offer me. I picked these four particular dancers Kelly Korfage, Lieneke Matte, Antonio Morillo, and Nathaniel Santiago because they each show a light and delicate energy, without compromising their strength. And with a piece all about birds, that was an important quality to have.

Can you take apart a piece of the music and explain how that was countered to your choreography?
Actually every piece of music in the piece can be broken down to a different meaning. I wanted to show a similarity between human and animal emotions. Each song has a different situation, or a different story, that portrays an emotion that any human can relate too. For example, the first variation, done by Kelly Korfage, is supposed to represent a baby bird jumping from the nest for the first time. I played on the already clumsy and displaced nature of the song to show a weak, uncoordinated bird building up the bravery to make a scary jump. Each song has a different tone, and therefore has a different emotional situation attached.

You designed your won projections. Do you have a background in the visual arts also? How did you go about creating those?
I have absolutely no background in visual arts. In fact, I was a straight A student, except for art! For my projections I wanted to keep things minimal, so as to compliment the dancers and not overshadow them. I went on to Microsoft paint and played with the already made shapes to make some geometric and visually impactful images.

What influences your own inspiration?
I am a very internal person, and tend to spend a lot of time stuck in my own head. Because of this it has always been difficult for me to communicate emotions, ideas, and even just regular conversation. What inspires me the most about choreographing is that, through body language, I am able to say these things that I’ve had bottled up for my whole life! It’s almost like finally learning how to speak English after living in an English speaking country for two decades. Now that I can communicate through choreographing anything and everything inspires me! I have hundreds of playlists on my phone all dedicated to different ideas for future pieces. My main inspiration probably comes from emotional health, and different mental phenomenons. They have always been an interest of mine and there are so many different ways the mind can work.

What is something you learned from the field trips involved with the choreographic research project?
I learned that technology really is the future of the dance world. In an ever evolving technological world, the theater process is becoming outdated. I was able to learn all different ways to take dance from the stage, to peoples living rooms.

Whats my biggest dance wish?
In a perfect world I would be the new Head Master in Chief  of New York City Ballet. But in the real world I would love to be a resident choreographer or a ballet master/rehearsal director of a ballet company. As long as I get to continue to choreograph I will be happy!

What does the title of your new work mean?
en·vis·age ~ contemplate or conceive of as a possibility or a desirable future event.

How would you describe your movement style? 
Swirling movement cast upon a geometric structure (with some groove thrown in).

How do you begin making a dance?
Finding music. I believe the relationship between music and movement is sacred and indisputably interdependent.

You are utilizing video projections in your work. How did you go about creating those? 
I filmed footage of the dancers in the studio, outside, and in the theater. I then used various movie editing apps to slow them down, adjust their coloring, crop them, and reverse them. Finally, I imported them into iMovie and edited the full projection into one cohesive file including all 3 music tracks.

How would you define innovation? 
The golden stuff that comes from using an unconventional perspective as the source for thinking/doing.

Which of the field trips involved with the choreographic research project inspired or sparked creativity? 
As much as I loved going to NASA, (outer space is the neatest🤓!) working with Gary Galbraith at Case Western Reserve University was the most inspiring for this specific dance/tech mission. One of my favorite things is finding out how much I know absolutely nothing about. It keeps me humble and thinking. Holograms in dance? Infrared light sensors? …So much to discover!

What you are looking forward to in 2018 as a dancer and choreographer? 
As excited as I am for the continuously innovative dance scene of the future, the thing I’m looking forward to the most remains consistent and grows in intensity with every passing year—and that’s my love of dancing! I genuinely can’t wait to be immersed in another full year of movement, choreography, and performance. Every additional year I get to dance is a gift in countless ways. Cheesy but true!

Tell us a bit about your piece? 
Like most choreographers, I like to leave the interpretation up to the individual audience member.  I had many ideas roaming around in my head as I created the work, #1: a work using the Verb Ballets Trainees , #2: a work interpreting the music,#3:  a work relating to a famous painting (Botticelli’s “Three Graces”). Then I added the ball which took the work to another level: is it an energy source, is it the sun, are the goddesses creating the universe represented by the ball? The ball could represent money, greed, family tensions, the earth (making it a piece about global catastrophes) almost anything depending upon who you are and where your thinking is on the particular day you watch the dance.

As a long time established dancer how did you transition in the role of choreographer? 
Choreography is hard for me, it is like turning your insides/out and saying to everyone, THIS IS ME!  I am a private person, and exposing myself by choreographing is a way of expressing who and what I am.

What’s your approach to creating work – do you have it all worked out before going in the studio? 
Yes and No:  I have it worked out like a storyboard for a movie, the general idea of how the work should flow is there, and most of the individual steps are created beforehand, but as the work progresses and I see how the dancers react to the piece, I change things to make it “read” better for me, and also to make it more organic for the dancers.

How has technology been an inspiration and accomplice in the development of this work? 
Technology came as an after. How can I make technology work? It has developed from using a drone (which a choreographer consultant said not to use); to using a video. There was no ball at the beginning and now there is. I try not to place myself into a pigeon hole and say that’s the end. Things can grow and develop as they emerge into a solid work.

Do you feel like a ballet choreographer?  Or a choreographer? 
I choreograph.

How does your work connect to the larger world? 
As Balanchine said, “The work isn’t a success until the audience says it is.” So I’ll wait and see. What is a larger world?  Is there a larger world? I am my own mandala, which is the center of my world and we go out from there. Metaphysical thinking, I see your mandala is part of my mandala.

We spent a couple of hours at Verb Ballets’ studio recently, watching rehearsals of Adam Hougland’s K281, a dance set to Mozart’s Piano Sonata No. 3, K281, which will be part of Verb’ upcoming performance at Akron’s E.J. Thomas Hall.

Hoagland originally set K281 on Cincinnati Ballet where it premiered in 2007. Setting K281 on Verb is Jill Marlow Krutzkamp who danced in the original cast. Our visit was early in the rehearsal process, so we set up a phone interview with Krutzkamp to get a more complete idea what to expect of the actual performance.

CoolCleveland: Does the dance use all 14 minutes and all three movements of Mozart’s sonata?

Jill Marlow Krutzkamp: Yes. There are three couples and each couple is the lead for one of the movements with the other couples coming in and out. For the first movement it’s Kate Webb and Nathanael Santiago; for the second movement, the adagio movement, it’s Kelly Korfhage and Antonio Morillo; and for the third movement it’s Lieneke Matte and Michael Escovedo.

CC: Is this dance a music visualization?

JMK: Yes, very much so. Adam is super musical. He often finds a really good way to match the dancers’ movement with the music. Sometimes he makes the audience laugh with matches that are particularly quirky or witty. This dance is very thought out and a lot of effort has gone into making sure that a certain leg movement goes with a particular musical note, something that distinguishes this piece from many others. It makes sense to the audience but during rehearsals we often have to say, “Do you realize you were a count late?”

CC: Any narrative content in this dance?

JMK: Not much, but I think that Adam did want the audience to pick up on the emotional differences between the three couples. The second couple is having trouble — she goes to him and then turns her back — but the first couple is playful and the third couple is comical, like a couple of kids going after each other on the playground.

CC: You were starting to say something more about the music.

JMK: Once I started counting the music I noticed that melodies often repeat with slight variations. For instance, there’s transitional music between the first and the second couples and that same music repeats — with variations — between the second and the third couples. So Adam uses that transitional music to bring the couples in and out.

The ballet also assigns each of its 3 couples their own personalities. The first couple says Marlow Krutzkamp, has a fun, free relationship, the second couple’s music is slower and the mood is somber, and the third couple, the music gets faster and they have a funny relationship where the woman moves like a rag doll.