#268: Emily Haussler (Dance) (pt. 1 of 2)

This week on the podcast is part one of our interview with Emily Haussler.She’s a director, choreographer, teacher and the founder of RESILIENCE Dance Company—a nonprofit dance company based in St. Louis, MO. Her work centers on building healthier dance communities by equipping dancers with resources for their mental health, physical well being and artistic success. Emily’s choreography draws on contemporary, modern, and improvisational techniques that reflect the contemporary human condition and our relationships to one another.  If you want to hear an in-depth account of what it takes to create and maintain a nonprofit, you won’t want to miss this interview! https://www.emilyhaussler.com/ and https://www.resiliencedancecompany.com/

Chapters

• 0:19 Building Resilience Dance Company
• 12:21 Prioritizing Artists
• 26:27 Requirements for Resilient Dance Performers

Transcript

Announcer: 0:19

Welcome to the Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast. Making art work. We highlight how entrepreneurs align their artistry, passion and vision to create and pursue opportunities to capture value in the arts. The views expressed by guests on the Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast are solely their own and do not necessarily represent the views of the podcast or its hosts. The appearance of a guest on the podcast, the venture they represent or reference to any product or service does not imply an endorsement or recommendation by the podcast or its hosts. The content provided is for entertainment and informational purposes only and does not constitute business advice. Here are your hosts Andy Heise and Nick Petrella.

Andy Heise: 1:01

Hi Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast listeners. I'm Andy Heise and.

Nick Petrella: 1:04

I'm Nick Petrella. Emily Haussler is joining us today. She's a director, choreographer, teacher and the founder of Resilience Dance Company, a nonprofit dance company based in St Louis, Missouri. Her work centers on building healthier dance communities by equipping dancers with resources for their mental health, physical well-being and artistic success. Emily's choreography draws on contemporary, modern and improvisational techniques that reflect the contemporary human condition and our relationships to one another. We'll have her website and Resilience Dance Company's link in the show notes so you can read more about Emily and all of her activities. Thanks for coming on the podcast, Emily.

Emily Haussler: 1:47

Thank you for having me, Andy and Nick. I really appreciate being here.

Nick Petrella: 1:51

Please take a minute or two to introduce yourself to our listeners.

Emily Haussler: 1:55

Absolutely so. I grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio, and I actually trained at a primarily ballet studio. In high school. I danced about 25 hours a week in addition to going to a normal high school, and mostly in ballet. So growing up that was really my focus in dance.

Emily Haussler: 2:16

I wound up going to college at Washington University in St Louis, so that's what first brought me to St Louis and I came to Wash? U because I could do a double major there in dance Louis. So that's what first brought me to St Louis and I came to WashU because I could do a double major there in dance and biology. Washu's dance program is really split between modern and ballet, so it was the first place that I started to learn more about modern dance, learn more about contemporary dance, start to practice improvisation and choreography as well, um, and really just started to develop a love for those movement forms in addition to ballet. So I did my WashU degree from 2014 to 2018 in those two majors, um. After leaving WashU, I danced professionally for a little bit, um, and then wound up starting resilience, which is kind of a whole other story that we'll get to in some later questions, but right now I live in St Louis with my partner and our dog, marco, who is about 10 pounds, and it's about five years since I first imagined this company.

Andy Heise: 3:16

That's great. Yeah, that's amazing. So, as you said, we'll talk about Resilience Dance Company and starting that. So, as you said, we'll talk about Resilience Dance Company and starting that. But did you always want to start your own dance company or did that come later?

Emily Haussler: 3:31

Absolutely yeah. So I never imagined that I would do this. I went to college with this double major in dance and biology, wanting to dance professionally for about three to five years, primarily in ballet, because that's what I had grown up in and trained for. I was ready to take that college degree and go apply it to a regional professional ballet company. I imagined my career being, you know, this sort of three to five year length and then I was going to go back and get a PhD in some form of biomedical science. I actually did three years of cancer research in undergrad at WashU. Yeah. So I took my GREs and everything. I had the test scores saved.

Emily Haussler: 4:14

There was a plan laid out and what happened was I did this first year out of undergrad at a dance program where I was dancing. It's called a traineeship. It's a sort of semi-professional position where you are not being paid to dance. You are actually paying to dance at the program with the sort of promise or expectation that you're being considered for potentially higher positions. So it's a sort of transitional program and during that program I was really encouraged to create and produce my own independent dance concert. The program was not really fulfilling my need for creativity and like an outlet for for choreography and creation, and a really close friend of mine encouraged me to create this concert, um, on my own, and that's that's what really brought it together. For me is this process of just uh attempting ground up to produce a show for the first time.

Andy Heise: 5:24

Yeah, yeah. So the, the traineeship, uh, kind of like an apprenticeship, I guess, is what you would like. You're working with a dance company, but you weren't on the company yet and they were showing you the ropes, so to speak.

Emily Haussler: 5:38

Yeah, it's supposed to be a professional um experience so that you see what it's like to be in a professional company without Right. You know, you haven't made it there yet. Yeah, yeah.

Nick Petrella: 5:51

Is that a common arrangement in dance?

Emily Haussler: 5:54

Yes, it is a very common arrangement in dance. You see them predominantly in ballet companies. Often you'll have a company structure. I don't know if you're familiar with ballet company structures.

Emily Haussler: 6:08

You have like yeah, you have principal dancers at the top. They're the ones that take the lead roles and sort of the classical ballets. Underneath your principals you'll have soloists, Sometimes you'll have demi soloists and then you have your core, which is the ensemble of dancers. That's all the main company. Occasionally as well, you'll have an apprentice to the main company Underneath the main company. Ballet organizations often have a second company which are younger that they're specifically training for the role. A lot of times second company dancers will take on outreach work. I know like St Louis recently had, like Ailey2 come to St Louis and perform, and that's an exceptional example of a second company. Underneath the second company you have trainees who are in this transitional space, and underneath trainees you would have the academy or the school. So it's a complex structure. There's a lot of levels.

Andy Heise: 7:04

Yeah, but it's all. It's all a pipeline that eventually leads to the best dancers being in their companies.

Emily Haussler: 7:10

Correct, yes.

Andy Heise: 7:12

Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, um, yeah and uh, you said you, you were sort of lacking creative outlet and so you decided your friend helped, encouraged you to. You had this idea and your friend encouraged you to put on your own show, which eventually okay.

Emily Haussler: 7:30

Yes, which then eventually sort of led to the idea to start a company. I wound up having just a amazing experience producing this show and it blended these elements of research and community building and, uh, creativity and dance and being able to leave my own space, and I received a lot of positive feedback from the experience from my cast and my crew members and all my collaborators. And you know, I just kind of sat back and asked myself, you know, if I could have made this much difference as a person, just a person putting on a concert, what could I do with the company?

Nick Petrella: 8:06

Sure.

Emily Haussler: 8:06

Yeah.

Nick Petrella: 8:08

You're about six years out of college, at least that's what it looks like. What have you been spending most of your time on professionally since college?

Emily Haussler: 8:17

Absolutely so the most time or I guess where I've spent the most time is really building the company ground up. So the artistic and the administrative work of building a new organization. For me it kind of includes choreography, because the company doesn't have an artistic voice without choreography in the community. So when you look at sort of teaching, directing, choreographing, even the professional dancing I would say that most of my time has been in that director and choreographer space. There's been a lot of administrative work that I've learned how to do over the past six years.

Emily Haussler: 8:59

Early on I did dance semi-professionally. I actually completed two trainee programs with different companies. I apprenticed for one contemporary ballet company and then I worked as a freelance dance artist for a couple independent projects in St Louis roles after college because I was a young director and I needed to. I needed people to see me as Emily the director and not Emily the dancer, and so I kind of wanted to transition that space and and it was easy for me to step back from the performance element.

Emily Haussler: 9:38

I will also say I have taught pretty frequently. That's a position that I think was heavier. You know, took up more of my work schedule early on after college and as the company has grown, I've been able to decrease those teaching hours. I think I started around 25 teaching hours a week, both dance teaching, and I actually have a position as an academic tutor as well. So I that was my side gig to help support growing this company as I was building it ground up and now I am sort of down to about nine hours a week of teaching and next year I'll only be teaching one day of the week, really just three to four hours one day, and it's it's transitioned mostly to this full time directing and choreographing.

Nick Petrella: 10:34

That's great.

Emily Haussler: 10:35

Yeah.

Andy Heise: 10:36

What are some of those? You said you you've spent a lot of times learning those administrative skills necessary to run the organization. Do you have some examples of what some of those skills are?

Emily Haussler: 10:46

Yeah, absolutely so. I learned what I call baby accounting, which was just like how to keep track of expenses. Originally I used Airtable and Excel to keep track of expenses and categorize things. I learned pretty quickly that different people, different organizations, will want different types of reporting, so we'll get to this later. But we had a fiscal sponsor and our fiscal sponsor wanted to see our expense data different than how our donors wanted to see our expense data. Our donors wanted to see our expense data, so I was kind of, you know, playing with tracking and reporting and tagging expenses saving receipts.

Emily Haussler: 11:29

As we grew bigger, I learned how to use QuickBooks more fully to be able to track a larger and wider budget. I learned how to use a fundraising CRM to track donor growth over time and to construct outreach and like donor solicitation emails that are segmented and targeted to interests and populations. I've learned how to create ticket platforms, how to work with contracts, how to do my annual filing, how to run payroll with the help of a partner. I don't do payroll all by myself, but all of these different tasks that were required that you know I didn't have any sort of formal training in beforehand.

Andy Heise: 12:21

Yeah, that's amazing. I mean, that's a, it's a, it's a huge list of things, so yeah, yeah, yeah, I say often that I wear about 19 hats well, and I, yeah, I believe it and I think even with as we're going to talk about non-profits here in a second but yeah being a non-profit and being a dance company that relies on a bunch of people to make productions happen. Like you've got a lot of people that you need to that you need to be um communicating with and sharing.

Andy Heise: 12:53

What would you say, nick? Corralling, corralling On both sides and they want different things. Yeah, yeah, I think, I think that's. Yeah, let's, we're gonna talk about that. That's amazing. So resilience, you say you put artists first. What does that look like for you and why is it so important to you?

Emily Haussler: 13:14

Absolutely. I love this question. This feels like the heart of my organization and the why I do what I do. So when we talk about putting artists first, the first place this applies is financially. When we construct the budget for the year. Artist compensation is our starting point and is our absolute first step and it is not an afterthought.

Emily Haussler: 13:38

This is a wider issue in the dance industry. I think a lot of people will know that the arts frequently face funding challenges and funding shortages, particularly in sort of recovery from pandemic and COVID, like many other people. But with these funding challenges, dance companies often have to deal with really expensive production demands, really expensive theater rentals, really expensive like costumes or sets or backdrops or something like that, where it's a high production costs and the funding feels a little unreliable. So often this means that dancers can get paid little to nothing and because the dance world is such a competitive field, these dance artists can also be made to feel like they're lucky for dancing for free and sometimes they really have little power or position to self-advocate. So we really wanted to challenge that sort of old model, old idea that because dancers get to do what they love, they should be willing to do it for free. And we said, no, we're going to flip this on its head and we're going to start by financially prioritizing artists and then we're going to create these really innovative programs that are flexible and adaptable to different production circumstances. So I will say you know, I don't care if I have $500 or $50,000, around 60% of that is going to be going to the artist, no matter what. We kind of had this percentage that we operated on and we've been able to maintain that as we've grown over time, where that same percentage is going to go to artist compensation. So that's really like the core of putting artists first.

Emily Haussler: 15:30

We go beyond that as well. We have a pretty robust set of resources to support dancers in their careers. It's not an easy field. Dance is very wearing on your body and your mind. You have to show up and be sometimes emotionally vulnerable in a space and give of yourself emotionally and creatively and physically to make artwork. So we want to be sure that we're supporting that and we're sustaining that in a very human way.

Emily Haussler: 16:00

So we partner with Athletico Physical Therapy to get free PT for the dancers every other week. We have a big focus on mental health, which is something you don't see often in dance company structures. So we partner with about four individual therapists. One of them offers free group therapy to the dancers once a month, which is actually group is required for us, and because it's required it's therefore paid. So the dancers actually a month, which is actually group, is required for us, and because it's required it's therefore paid. So the dancers actually get paid to participate in this resource, and then they have access to subsidize individual mental health counseling for only a $15 copay twice a month, and on top of that we do a once a month free massage therapy through another community partner.

Nick Petrella: 16:46

So yeah, so do you think that that therapy brings you closer together as an ensemble?

Emily Haussler: 16:54

Yeah, good question. Um, so I would say, like the group therapy practice definitely does. Uh, part of why it exists is to sort of catch things before they simmer and they, they overflow. So if there's conflict in the space which is, I feel, like I have a really realistic view of conflict in an art space You're not going to avoid it, you're going to bump into one another. We're in there being our full, messy human selves. Something's going to hit at some point and that's okay. That's part of the process.

Emily Haussler: 17:27

But the group space then allows us to catch that and talk about that in a moderated sort of professional way, so that nothing really like simmers, no resentment builds. You know it's dealt with. And then, when there's not conflict present in the space, it is more of a bonding experience that dancers you know, I actually participate in this space as well so it sort of removes the hierarchy of the company Everyone's sharing in response to the same questions. We're able to see ourselves which we say often as humans first and dancers second. And yeah, I mean, I believe it helps the artwork in the end and it definitely feels like it helps our professional workspace day to day.

Nick Petrella: 18:14

Yeah, I don't remember hearing that before actually People were getting nude.

Andy Heise: 18:20

Well, and it's something I've referenced a few times in the podcast, but there's this episode of this American Life where they talk to the pit orchestra members of Les Miserables on the last night that it ran on Broadway and some of these pit musicians have been playing together for 20 plus years, the same music, night after night for 20 plus years, and there was such resentment between some of them Like they wouldn't even look at each other, they wouldn't even, they wouldn't talk to. So I'm thinking, hey, what if they had some some of this type of these types of resources available, like what? What might've that work experience been like?

Emily Haussler: 18:55

Yeah.

Andy Heise: 18:57

Anyways.

Emily Haussler: 18:58

Definitely, and I think it's something I think societally, like people are realizing the importance of mental health care and like the destigmatization is still sort of in process. And you know, I'm not going to say we're the only space that offers this. I do know a couple other dance spaces that have mental health resources, but I think we're rare for it still and I would love to see that change over time, that it becomes a more central piece of companies' resource offerings, because, yeah, I think it does make a difference.

Andy Heise: 19:30

And I would think especially for a dance company of your size and scope. I mean those types of resources.

Emily Haussler: 19:37

Definitely.

Nick Petrella: 19:38

How many people are in the company?

Emily Haussler: 19:40

So there are seven company dancers right now. We actually just completed our audition process. We'll have eight next year. We had 70 people audition for that one spot.

Nick Petrella: 19:51

Wow.

Emily Haussler: 19:53

Yeah, so it's an intense process, but yeah.

Nick Petrella: 19:59

How did you build the board for the dance company? Were you purposeful in your invitations or did it grow organically? How did you approach that?

Emily Haussler: 20:09

Yeah, absolutely. So I thought about my board pretty intensely for about six months before I started reaching out to people. So in the setup of that question you know we're definitely an invite model what type of board did I want to have? How many people did I want on it, what their roles were going to be?

Emily Haussler: 20:37

I spent a lot of time investigating the composition of other boards and I knew that I was going to need a working board as a small and growing organization, and I knew I wanted a board that would truly be responsible for governance. I was less concerned about a board that was going to be an investor board or like a far reaching like, kind of like wide, wide board. So I I found five people who I had some sort of like adjacent relationship to, uh, but who I could all trust. To be honest with me, Sometimes in small arts organizations you see boards that are constructed where the board members are all just like the best friends of the director and it's this interesting situation where the board is supposed to be oversight for the director and and, and you know that director could get away with anything because the board just has this really tight-knit relationship with them. So I wanted board members who I knew I trusted, but I also trusted they were going to be honest with me. I had this situation in my head where I was like, would they kick me out if I became a tyrannical dictator? And I needed to be able to answer yes to invite them on my board.

Emily Haussler: 21:57

I also really wanted a diversity of experiences and skills. So the skills that ultimately I brought in they had backgrounds in dance, education, production, design, marketing, community programming and mental health. All of them resonated with the mission, all of them resonated with the values and didn't just follow my sort of opinions or desires. I could see them connecting more deeply with the work that I was doing and being able to use these skill sets to further it in our community. So I did approach those five members. I had coffee dates with each one. I was really clear about the expectations and the time commitment of being on this board, especially as it is beginning and growing. We're really big about transparency in this organization Really clear communication up front, really clear mutual expectations set at the beginning. And I think as a result, you know, four of those five original board members are still here and we've been able to invite two more board members in the past two years who bring skills in HR and skills and finance, so filling two more gaps that we kind of needed yeah.

Andy Heise: 23:10

Yeah, that's amazing. So you looked at mission of the organization as well as roles that needed to be played and kind of found people to fit that. Yeah, that's great.

Emily Haussler: 23:20

Yeah.

Andy Heise: 23:22

So the dance company you said you just added a new member. How does that work? Do you have a set number all year long for your entire programming or does it kind of change based on the production?

Emily Haussler: 23:33

higher programming or does it kind of change based on the production? Totally so, first and foremost we are a regular company, like a season-based company. So the same eight dancers will be part of this company from when our season starts in August I think next year it will be August 5th through like May 24th. So those eight dancers are the ones who are coming to class and rehearsal every day, who are participating in all of our creative processes, who are doing the repertory works etc. We will have for the first time next season, a community project. It's going to be called Collective Realities and it's a company choreographed show. So six of the company dancers will actually kind of switch roles into becoming choreographers and create these new works. Those works will be performed both by the other RDC dancers, you know. So the dancers perform on each other's works and we have the funding to hire about 20 professional dancers from the community.

Emily Haussler: 24:32

So, we're going to do a really wide reaching collaboration dancers from the community. So we're going to do a really wide reaching collaboration. And, yeah, it's, it's a first for us. We're really excited about that.

Nick Petrella: 24:39

That's cool and that's a great way to give your team experience in choreography.

Emily Haussler: 24:45

Yeah, exactly.

Emily Haussler: 24:46

They are all yes, they're all choreographers in their own right. Outside of resilience, they came in with some of those skills and they work with them in the studio space in these collaborative processes but it is absolutely a form of professional development for them to, you know, see a professional work from beginning to completion in a community of support where you know we're going to do like proposals and we'll do mentorship meetings and uh piece review as it continues with a variety of different pieces. We work with a dramaturg who, uh, in the dance space, is really someone who will do outside conceptual research and ask really and thought-provoking questions to help develop that piece conceptually.

Andy Heise: 25:34

Yeah, and so you said those eight members will be with you all season.

Emily Haussler: 25:39

Yes.

Andy Heise: 25:40

But you only added one from last year. So the same seven plus one.

Emily Haussler: 25:44

So the same seven stayed. Okay. This changes every year. I have to, so, per our agreement, I let current company dancers know if they have a spot with us for the following year by January 31st.

Announcer: 25:57

Okay.

Emily Haussler: 25:57

And they let me know by March 1st if they're planning to accept that spot. Okay, so our current company all decided to stay, and then we knew on you know, in the auditions that were on March 3rd, that therefore we only had one spot to give.

Nick Petrella: 26:12

Wow, yeah, you know that that brings up a question what do you look for? What do you consider when sending an invitation?

Emily Haussler: 26:21

It's a great question. So we audition for a number of things. I would say baseline dancers wanting to dance with resilience need skills in modern and contemporary and improvisation and in partnering. We do quite a bit of contact based partnering work, um with weight sharing and leveraging weight. When you view classical dance, um, not always, but historically it's often gendered, with men basing and women being lifted, and the partnering that we do is equal, it is not gendered, it is weight shared and everyone goes in the air and everyone lifts everyone else. So we audition for those skills and that openness. We also look for what I'm going to call presence. Am I interested in watching you because you're interested in what you're doing, or are you just sort of you know, putting on your performance facade, or are you checked out and just going through the motions? We really want to see that presence, the deep interest and commitment to the moments of what those dancers are doing in the audition.

Announcer: 27:34

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