GP Dance

How to make art…  

I find myself searching everyday for objects, people, music that inspires me to create.  It is not a outright search, but more of a curiousity that draws me into a subject.  It might be an emotional conversation that inspires me to move or just the way the waves break on the beach (and, yes I do live in a place where I get to see the waves almost everyday, which is a blessing).  I also give myself challenges.  Especially with the video component.  I might improvising with the camera using a hand held technique, or locking down the camera having the dancer move within a certain part of the frame.  Exploring is the most exciting part of the work.

It is great to make the work, but I also enjoy reflecting about the work I have created.  Being critical artistically about what more could I have done to make this piece have deeper impact.  Sometimes I don’t get that perspective for a couple of years down the road from when it premieres.  I have a tendency to fall in love with the creative process of the work.  That is really what I love to do as an artist is CREATE.  

For me, dance is at it’s best in the rehearsal studio working at a movement until it feels just right.  For me, many great performances have happened in the dance studio with an audience of one — myself.

At the end of the day, I have to be happy with my work, and I am.  I stand by my work, it reflects my life, my morals, and being a young American woman making a statement of emotion, beauty,  and depth. 

Enjoy the show!

Grounding Point Dance Company’s Artistic Director, Carrie Smaczny, states ” I am really excited about our new project.  I am shooting footage of the company for the flash banner for our website.  This is another avenue of choreographing”.  GPDC’s forsees to have a new 25 second short every month.  

“It is a fun project to create and at the end the year, I will create a full-length work based on these improvisation pieces.  Grounding Point Dance Company wants to push the boundaries of what a dance company is.  People don’t always want to go into the theater to watch a production.  I want to give people a chance to see work quickly and on their own time”, states Smaczny.

“Madonna is my idol,” states Carrie Smaczny, Artistic Director of Grounding Point Dance Company,”She is a great master of changing looks and is on the cutting edge of style.  Her newest album HARD CANDY, had me quite disappointed initially I thought the music lyrics/ style for someone more like Brittany Spears.  However, Madge has won me over.  I now am completely addicted to using her sweet and sticky beats in my Contemporary Jazz class.  The more I listen to it, the more I get inspired to move, create, and play on the dance floor.  She may not be the best singer, but there is something so captivating about her work.”

“Everything that happens in my personal life affects my art.  I would not call my work a direct literal expression of my life, but daily challenges and triumphs surface through the work.  I am really happy with the place I am at creatively, personally, and professionally.  I thank God everyday for that” states Smaczny.

“Music is the biggest inspiration for my work”, states Carrie Smaczny, Artistic Director of Grounding Point Dance Company.  ”I love all types of music from Country, Classical, Pop, R & B, Hip Hop, Jazz, Blues, Alternative, Indie, and Punk.  I first discover my love of music and dance as a middle schooler listening to Run DMC and Young MC.  I learned all the cool moves on MTV, and I especially loved Paula Abdul.  My tastes shifted in High School when I was immersed in Phoenix, AZ local music scene going to concerts and enjoying alternative music.  My friends and I went to many concerts Red Hot Chili Peppers, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, Courtney Love, Cranberries, REM, Blind Melon, Gim Blossoms (AZ Band), Phunk Junkies (AZ Band), 311, Sound Garden and this could go on and on.  We even got to meet some of the bands too.  What struck me most about this time of my life was being drawn to the performance of live music.  It was great to listen to music on a tape then cd, but being in a space with a group of people who were excited to listen to the music as a community was so uplifting.  These artist influenced my dancing.”

“Recently I decided to go to a concert with a friend and we saw Cold Play’s opening tour of Vida La Vida in LA in July of 2008.  It was absolutely incredible.  I was swallowed up in the sound and completely absorbed in the energy.  I am still feeling the effects of that concert in my work.  What I like to do is use a piece of music especially Cold Play, anything Cold Play, to inspire the dancing then change the music when the choreography is created to a instrumental abstract piece and change the phrasing.”

More to come on Carrie Smaczny’s music inspirations.

Grounding Point Dance Company is currently re-staging Red, which premiered in 2002. Dancer, Crystal Truesdell, California State Fullerton dance alumni, is learning the piece from Carrie Smaczny, Artistic Director.  

Smaczny states, “As a contemporary dance artist and screen dance artist creating non-linear movement sequences interests me most.  I am shooting this piece with the HD Canon Xh-A1.  Shooting dance in High Definition gives the viewer a real time experience, which is what I am looking for.  My intention is to draw the audience in to the dancer’s intimate space and use unique camera perspective.  I love getting close to the movement, in order to capture the dancer’s kinesthetic sense of weight, space, and time.”

Red will be premiered in November on Grounding Point Dance Company’s new website.

As Artistic Director of Grounding Point Dance Company, I feel very blessed to have the opportunity to teach and coach dancers.  Having the discipline to go into the studio and work out a combination that later becomes art is very satisfying for my soul; however, my body is always really sore the next day.  I usually spend about 4 hours of preparation for a class, thinking about intention of the movement and the music I want to use.  I feel really lucky to have the time available to continue my artistic process in hard economic times.

Besides dancing I am a devoted teacher of Pilates (STOTT Certified) and I am learning yoga from (YogaWorks).  I plan on becoming a certified yoga teach through YogaWorks.  I love the balance of Pilates, Yoga, Dance, and long walks on the beach.

So when I wake up with a sore body, I know I have pushed myself to the edge, isn’t that what it is all about?

Grounding Point Dance Company has hired Every Angle Media to design and implement website with videos from Grounding Point Dance Company’s premiere season in 1999 through 2008.  The website will also be a source for weekly videos of GPDC’s current projects.

Grounding Point Dance Company’s Artistic Director, Carrie Smaczny, is currently working with Crystal Truesdell ( principle company member since 2006) on a re-staging of an excerpt of a piece entitled, RED, premiered in 2002.  Smaczny is re-creating the piece for video specifically geared to premiere on GPdance.com in November of 2008.  Stay tuned for more great work