What are you working on right now?
I’m working on a new piece for my company that is just beginning. I recently got back from the Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in September, and I was doing a lot of work with dance-theater integration, and how to look at them not as two separate mediums, but making them more interdisciplinary. I’m thinking about a new project based on a poem by Margaret Atwood.
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In addition to sharing her “health food” snack with us, Rose Pasquarello Beauchamp also revealed her “junk food” answer: “Peppermint Patties.” |
What were you doing just before we called?
I just got home from work, and I’m watching my young son eat his toys. I was instructing a modern dance class at UVA.
Tell us about your day job.
Right now it’s been kind of a struggle to integrate my work at UVA and my work at my company, but in both places I’ve been interested in collaborating with lots of different people—not necessarily dancers, but musicians, engineers, scientists. At UVA, I’m trying to make it so that my students get to collaborate with a different group of people each semester. This fall, my students are working with engineers. Because we’re exploring the concept of ability and disability in dance, and how can people with disabilities still make art, we’re playing with the idea of giving ourselves limitations. Like not being able to use our arms, or legs, and trying to build a piece out of this in collaboration with the engineering students. [Read the Feedback blog on c-ville.com for more on this piece.]
Who would you like to collaborate with?
I actually would like to collaborate with Doreen Bechtol, a theater director. She just directed a show at UVA, and I’d really love to work with her.
What is your favorite tool of the trade?
The first thing that came to my head was “space.” I guess I feel like I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how space can affect things, how I’m creating movement in space, how my body is moving through points in space, but also how if something just isn’t working, I can probably fix it by changing the space.
What’s your favorite snack food while you’re working?
The health food answer, which I’m trying to go for lately…actually, I take that back, it isn’t health food at all, but my decaf soy latte. It’s the going out aspect of it that’s so important. Like if I’m in a creative rut, it’s good to take 20 minutes to decompress with a walk to the coffee house.
Plans to see any upcoming local events?
Possibly planning on buying a ticket to a ballet for the holidays. Probably The Nutcracker.
What music are you listening to?
I’ve been listening to The Dixie Chicks lately, but also getting back into classical music again, to help put my son to sleep with. Personally, I tend to be more into Radiohead or more along the lines of electronic music, but this has been a nice shift lately.
What single article of clothing would you take on a long trip?
I have this thing for boots. I think they would need to come with me wherever I went, except for the beach. I have a couple pairs, but I like tall boots. A pair of boots can really transform an outfit, make something casual feel less so.
What do you carry with you at all times?
An idea notebook, journal, something like that. I’ve also been carrying around colored pencils and markers lately. Also, tennis balls to roll on, in case I have something that hurts. And kneepads, because I tend to fall on them
a lot.
Guilty pleasures?
I love really bad, really cheesy movies. Like teenage made-for-TV movies with Lindsay Lohan. That, and I love this new TV series called “Glee.”
Do you have an iPhone? Any killer apps?
Yes, and I’m addicted to it, but I don’t really have any applications. I thought of an app, though—there are so many weird insects in this town, that wouldn’t it be cool if you could take photographs of them and have the app identify them for you?
