“I feel like this is the beginning of the new MoMing,” says Chicago choreographer Jan Erkert, who has called the MoMing Dance & Arts Center her artistic home for the past ten years. “It’s very exciting.” Amy Osgood, another Chicago choreographer who has performed and taught at MoMing for many years, adds: “There is so much nurturing of creativity in that building right now. I just want to be there.”
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Tumbelston began his career by pursuing a dance degree, first at Temple University and then at SUNY-Purchase. Once he realized that, as he says, he was not going to “shake up the world” with his choreography, he turned to arts management. In 1987, after a year there, he became the associate general manager of the Brooklyn Academy of Music, arguably the most important progressive venue for contemporary performance in the country.
Tumbelston has initiated open-mike sessions after some performances, in which audience members are encouraged to discuss their responses with the artists. He has also been presenting some brief video documentaries–perhaps interviews, rehearsals, or performances–of choreographers and dance companies; these have been screened in MoMing’s lobby before performances and during intermissions. “People are fascinated by the videos,” he says. “It gives them a unique perspective, makes the choreographer a little more accessible and human.”
Erkert’s commissioned work, tentatively titled Journal: Chicago 1989, is something of a dance diary. She went into the studio every day, and whatever came out of a three-hour session became that day’s entry for the piece. She then put all the entries in sequential order to create Journal.
