Today we’d like to introduce you to Alaina Wilson.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I have been a dancer and performer my entire life — I literally put a tutu on at three years old and never looked back! Growing up, I trained mainly in ballet while taking my fair share of contemporary dance, modern, jazz, and tap classes. While dance was always deeply important to me, it remained in the “extracurricular” category, and it wasn’t until I was in college that I started to seriously consider a professional career in dance. During my junior and senior year of college, I began choreographing my own dance pieces. More than performance ever had, choreographing gave me a new feeling of ownership over the art form of dance, and I knew passionately at that point that I wanted to continue my work as an artist. Directly after college, I was accepted into a Dance MFA program at Sarah Lawrence College, just outside of New York City.
While pursuing my MFA, my perspectives on dance and choreography went through a total metamorphosis. I shifted from creating pieces that fit firmly within the dance styles and genres I had trained into making more theoretical and research-based dance works that play with experimental movement sequences, the integration of set design and visual art, and site-specific performance venues. Over the past five years, I’ve been able to steadily grow my choreographic practice as an independent artist. Connections in New York City, as well as family hubs in the Northeast and Pasadena, California have allowed me to start growing a presence across the country. Today, in addition to continuing to build and present my own artistic work, I keep busy in the dance field performing with other choreographers, teaching dance, writing, and providing company management for other small companies and dance organizations.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Breaking into the professional dance field has certainly never felt smooth or easy, and I still feel a long way off from my long-term career aspirations. Honestly, self-confidence, in both my abilities as a dancer and the quality of my artistic work, have been such large hurdles to get over. I’ve never had the experience of feeling like “the best” or the most gifted out of a group of dancers, whether taking class or participating in a performance, which has definitely made me question my future in dance at many points in my life. In any art field, the amount of rejection you face is intense, and you have to find the motivation and self-assurance to keep going. Largely due to the guidance and advice of certain artistic mentors I’ve been lucky to work with during graduate school and my professional career, I’ve been able to shift my mindset and latch on to the belief that it’s really up to me, my ingenuity, drive, creative problem-solving, and ability to promote myself, that will set the limit for what I’ll achieve in dance, rather than the judgments of any creative directors, producers, curators, etc. Obviously a more specific, recent frustration has been Covid-19 and the pressures and setbacks that the pandemic has placed on the dance field at large. Dealing with such a destructive yet completely external and uncontrollable factor has been quite a challenge, and in many ways, I’ve felt the pandemic has brought the forward momentum of my artistic career to a standstill. One silver lining has been my new explorations into dance film during the pandemic as a new medium for my choreography that I likely wouldn’t have explored otherwise.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
First and foremost, I’m a choreographer, dancer, and visual artist, though I’m constantly wearing other hats within the dance field including teacher, arts administrator, company manager, and even producer. My choreographic work is contemporary and experimental in nature, and I love to cross artistic boundaries with my projects—combining elements of visual art and installation with choreographed dance movement to create totally encompassing performance environments. Over the past five years, my work has explored themes that are personally significant to me, including expressions and presentations of female identity and experiences of tension and anxiety as a performing body. I am extremely interested in the experience of audience members during my dance performances and often play with performer/audience dynamics in my work. Some of my past works have encouraged the audience to move within the performance space that the dance is simultaneously taking place in.
Additionally, I majored in classics and art history while in college, so many of my works reference subject matter within those fields, such as a 2016 work I created titled Apotheosis. I find it an exciting and rewarding challenge to re-conceptualize the themes and aesthetics of the past to inspire contemporary choreography and performance. I am most proud of the range of works and types of performances I have been able to create so far in my career, which, in addition to theatrical performances, have included large scale choreographed installations, site-specific works for outdoor performance, gallery performances, and now multiple dance films. With every new choreographic project that I take on, my end goal is always to maximize my given available resources to present dance in new and exciting ways. Every new work is a chance to growth artistically, explore new mediums, and continue pushing boundaries! Recent choreographic works of mine include Perfect Zero, Site and Seen, Europa, and Anonymous Visibility.
Before we let you go, we’ve got to ask if you have any advice for those who are just starting out?
For any aspiring dancers or artists, I would say do your research! The more knowledge you have of the field you are trying to break into the better, and it will only help you make decisions regarding where you can find your niche or break into a professional career. That being said, it is also important to keep an open mind with an eye towards the unexpected experiences or people you might come upon along the way. You never know what small encounter might be the key to your next career move. Having the confidence and wherewithal to seize opportunities and run with them is extremely important! Most if not all of the opportunities and successes I’ve had so far in my career have been the direct result of the artists and arts professionals I have met, sometimes at random, and the relationships I’ve cultivated with them.
My other advice is something I’m still working on for myself, which is don’t be afraid to ask for what you what from the people that can give it to you! Waiting for opportunities to be handed to you, or even awarded through open calls or applications, isn’t always reliable for moving forward. If your teacher or mentor has a connection with an artist you’d like to work with, ask them to introduce you! If there is a venue that you’d like to show work at, email the venue a proposal! Don’t be afraid to initiate conversations and network with other people in your field because using this strategy to create and sustain your own opportunities will give you much more control over your work and your career than always waiting for other people to offer you something.
Contact Info:
- Email: [email protected]
- Website: https://www.alainawilsondance.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alainawilsondance/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/alainawilsondance/
- Other: https://vimeo.com/user84191893
Image Credits
Photos by Ian Douglas, Flynn Larsen, Justin Patterson, and Eli Percy.
