Suspended in a Beautiful Place: an interview with Margie Gillis

 

Margie Gillis enters a room and it's as though a match has been struck: the entire

room is illuminated with warmth and light.

I had the opportunity to interview Gillis -- Canada's contemporary dance icon -- when

she was in Vancouver to perform her piece Thread. We rambled over topics

including the state of dance and art in Canada, the situation in Libya and the Middle

East, and the recent announcement of her being honoured with the Governor

General's award for lifetime achievement in the performing arts. Across these and

many more subjects Gillis was passionate, effusive, intelligent and even visionary --

that is, she clearly has a way of seeing, understanding and expressing things that is

extraordinarily sensitive and unique, and I can guess that it is her rich imagination,

as well as her uncommon graciousness that has assured her of her reigning place

among the pantheon of legendary Canadian artists.

I begin the interview by telling Gillis a bit about Plank Magazine, and she seems

immensely excited by the idea of a local, grassroots publication covering the arts on

its own terms. Her enthusiasm and passion for all things artistic sets the tone for

the interview. And so we launch the state of the arts in B.C. and comparing it to the

way things are in Montr饌l -- my hometown and hers.

M.G. -- The situation for the arts here is awful, financially, that has to be taken into

account, nobody dances better if they can't eat or get on the stage.

In Montr饌l the public sees the value of culture the value of arts and it's not

considered extraneous, and also within English Canada there's a government that

strongly puts out the message that the arts are of no value. Even if you can't supply

money, you should not devalue a sector of your community, but we're not seen as

having value. And as such, that's the message going out to people.

Also, if you're going to the theatre to be entertained, that's another thing from going

to be enlightened or educated or to be transformed or to go into a realm where you

are engaging with culture and with art and with who you are, so in Montr饌l there's

a sense that if I go to the show, I'm part of the show, I bring energy to it, not just take

energy from it.

It's part of the vocabulary -- j'ai assist -- dans le spectacle.

And of course you are part of the show -- yes, of course you're in the show, you're

part of it, and it's a very different attitude in the art of sport, the art of life, the art of

love, the art of cuisine but obviously not the art of governance right now in Canada.

J.G. What would you like to tell Stephen Harper or any of the ministers involved in

funding for the arts?

M.G. About the value of arts to society -- it is who we are, it is what we do. What

happened in Egypt, with getting people out, there was nobody in our embassies to

take care of them and that was because there Harper cut the budget to the

embassies, so there's no staff, so in this case, it's absolutely affected people's lives,

it's affected communication. Before our artists would go abroad and our

government would help and diplomats would help, and it would create liaison

because often you can understand a thing intellectually, but you can't make the

transformative process and in order to make the full, embodied transformative

process you need experiential experience. The arts can give that, they can make that

happen they can push that forward and put that out there, so in many ways I see

that as a very similar thing -- the arts to the diplomatic service. It is that which builds

bridges, that which makes connection, that which communicates. I think the reason

Harper doesn't value it is because artists are also there to tell you what you should

not do and he is so small, he's a shrub, Bush -- like, there is no controversy about it, he

puts forward any lie he wants to and leaves it there and it's swallowed because "our

leaders would not lie". As a population we have a faith that here this is not possible,

so surely he's not doing it, so I think there's an incredulity around it and it doesn't

surprise me that it would not be valued or seen as valuable. Luckily, people coming

from other cultures understand the value of their arts and culture and are brining

that back. There's going to be a lot of intercultural events in Canada, the arts is

cross -- cultural fusion, and this sort of thing is also all over the world as well. But

what the arts have to teach us about who we are and what we can be and where

we're going and also how they celebrate us and let us see ourselves, but no one

becomes a better artist if they can't practice their art. So it's not valued and it hasn't

been. In Quebec it's seen as a necessity, and it's valued. It's an entirely different

view that it's my soul, it's who am I. But I don't buy it, I live it. People are important,

ideas are important, the soul of a thing is important, nature is important, our bodies

are important. There are things that are important that we can't purchase. So, those

things which we do not purchase must be valued. Those things which are inherent

to who we are and how we transform -- experiential things, I think there has to be a

marriage between the scientific and the soulful side to who we are, the spiritual side

of who we are, it doesn't have to be something outside of oneself, but in the body.

J.G. Have you ever felt like life as an artist has been a fight, either outside of yourself

or within yourself?

M.G. Being a Canadian artist is very hard, and there were times when I thought I

should have stayed in New York. When I go to certain places in New York, I'm very

celebrated and it's a nice feeling. It's really a nice feeling. But, I am of service here, I

know I can pull open doors that other people can't open and once open other people

can go through. Now I may not get to go through, but I can open those doors. I know

how. So at the end of the day, that gives me a good feeling, that gives me a really

good feeling that I've pushed out, I've elbowed out room for creation and risk taking

and experimenting, for healing, for wisdom, for an understanding and a love of the

body -- so it's experiential, it's not just volume it's nuance, it's quality. That gives me

a great deal of joy. Performing can be very tough, all the organizational side of it can

be brutal and I do find that sometimes I feel terrible saying no to people, but I just

don't have enough hours in the day. And I've tried, and I've tried to do 6 in the

morning to 10 at night, and I did for many, many years, and now I just want to focus

on my art, I need to spend as much time as I can with my work. I have a great group

of people around me, I have finally found a group that's just heaven. Nobody works

full time, everyone works part time and everyone has their own story, their own

eloquence, their own strength and integrity separately and they come together to do

this. Often I think sometimes with the arts, because there's no pay, people often

need a kind of recompense that they expect compensation that they expect it

personally because there's no finances and often that can lead to lack of

discernment and the bleeding of borders of what is proper, what is kind, so I think

discernment is hard people for kind people to learn, Where that boundary is. But

the art itself, I've never run out of ideas. The world is big and wide. So I feel no, I

know this is what I'm supposed to be. Deep inside I know with every fiber of my

being that my life is supposed to be this way at this point, as an artist as a dancer.

J.G. When you think about your work, do you ever have a sense of urgency, things

you have yet to accomplish, a trajectory that you haven't gone down?

M.G. There are lots of things I haven't done, opportunities that I missed because I

was too shy. Because I was unable to ground, I felt overwhelmed, I have a strong

insecurity streak that I need to temper, and I let that get in the way sometimes, and

that's been a shame. On the other hand, it is what it is, I've gone where I've gone,

I've done what I could, and there's lots that I want to do, but a sense of urgency, I did

have, and then I think it's why I pushed the and spent so many hours doing it, but

now it's time to take my hands off, it's time to leave it alone, but now it's not my job.

It's funny because you get to a certain age and you can see and you can tell people,

"okay, everyone's gone straight for a cliff" and everyone gets really mad at you, but

sure enough, but everyone's falling off the cliff. But at some point, you give up, it's

not necessary, you have to keep your own integrity, and that's not what I was put

here for, to be the monitor. I think that where I am, the monitor is in my work and

soul, and I think the strongest part of it is the soul, is the art, is the work. I'm never

been the best technician. Maybe for one minute about 20 years ago on the stage at

Lincoln Centre, I was the best technical dancer, once for ten seconds.

J.G. Are you thinking of a specific moment?

M.G. I was doing an AIDS benefit and I was second to last on the program and it was

a solo and I started doing these turns that turn out into jumps, and the stage is huge,

it's 45 or 50 or 60 feet across and my legs just got voracious and I was able to cover

the space, I was blind, I saw video footage of it after and I thought "wow, look at my

technical skill, what is that ?" But overall, that's not my forte, and that's not where I

focus.

J.G. Is this the piece that you dance to the song by Sinead O'Connor?

Yes -- "Torn Roots Broken Branches". And the dress is really heavy, like having

seaboots, the boots will throw you, once you've launched, so it was the weight of the

dress, it made me a good technician.

It was a "there is a use of rage moment" as my friend Peter would say. I was so

angry about the loss of my brother and so angry about the political situation that

allowed there to be a stall on the monitoring of the products the things that could

have helped people to survive longer. My brother was on the list to receive AZT, but

he was on the placebo. It was heartbreaking. And of course at that time, Mulroney

and Reagan were fine about the work not being done because of course it was drug

addicts and gay men who were affected, so who cares about them? I was so angry. I

was so angry. And I learned that anger can be used very, very properly and I got

very excited about it for a while. I thought, okay, anger is just a volume of energy,

and instead of being destructive, which I always thought it was, here I could take

this huge ball of energy and use it for good. So after that when I would get upset or

angry about things I would phone the government, the Conservatives, particularly,

and tell them what I thought about what they were doing wrong. That's how I

would get it out of my system, get whatever I was angry about out of my system, I

would use the anger.

 

J.G. You danced with your brother for many years.

 

M.G. I did. He danced with Taylor, and I did dance with The Taylor Company and

when he was off season, he would come and dance with me. Paul (Taylor) was very

gracious, is very gracious with me, and he had asked me at one point to join the

company, and we kind of laughed, "Paul, really, I'm dyslexic, you're going to tell

everyone, go to the right, and I'll be standing there going which way?? Okay, right,

over there..." So there's too much lag time in that and also the way I count, they're all

just voracious counters, and I don't count. I don't count. James Kudelka can tell you

very humorous stories about my inability to count.

 

J.G. I remember taking your class. "Dancing from the Inside Out" a long time ago, and

one thing that stuck with me was what you said about holding the things that are

tender, the things that may hurt you more gently. Is there anything that you are

holding gently lately?

 

M.G. I have some arthritis in my knee, I had surgery on the meniscus, and I'm

working on getting that under control. You can't dance on cement floors for as long

as I've danced and not have that. There was definitely some abuse.

So, I'm trying to be gentle, trying not to hold on, yes, trying to texture very gently.

J.G. I also thought of it as a metaphor too, holding parts of spirit or heart more

gently.

 

M.G. Yes, I've had some struggles recently.

 

J.G. Somewhere in your heart do you still duet with your brother?

 

M.G. Yes, he's such a great guardian angel, and I spend time with him.

 

J.G. It was recently announced that you are a recipient of the Governor General's

award for lifetime achievement in the performing arts -- congratulations. What does

this mean or do for you?

 

M.G. Originally I was hugely thrilled, and then the shadow side showed up which

was the responsibility: "Me? No, no, give it to someone who's better equipped." But

then, We had to give a quote, and I noticed a lot of people had given quotes from

Shakespeare, and I thought "wait a minute, I'm an artist, I'm quotable. I have

something to say. " We have things to say, and I went into this huge responsibility

thing, and then I got way overblown about that. My pencil got bigger if you will. So

it all got too big, and then, I was talking to Yvon Deschamps, and he too experienced

it, because everybody's going "Congratulations, congratulations", but there's

another side to this, and that's the responsibility side. And I'm very lucky because

I'm getting the award while I've still got things to do in my life. Well, he does too, but

he's retired from stage, so that was very poignant watching him accept his

nomination. Very poignant. He's an absolutely gracious human being, so it wwas a

very touching experience. So there's the joy, but then there's knowing that there are

so many other Canadians that I think are really amazing that I think should be

getting it as well. I mean, there's a lot of really great people out there. James

Kudelka, Ted Robinson and others.

 

James writes to me as Rudy, and I'm Margo. So, I wrote to him and said, "Dear Rudy,

it seems I won the award for best male Canadian dancer this year, strange isn't it?"

Because I know he should be winning it, it's definitely an award that he should be

getting. He's one of the great choreographers that we've produced. I think the

National was a huge responsibility, I almost wish he'd not gotten the National,

because I think of him as a freelance choreographer, but he needed the support.

Now I think Karen's doing a remarkable job with it. It's a big job to run the lives of

all those people. And it's a short career, ballet.

 

J.G. Did you study ballet?

 

M.G. I studied from when I was 6 until I was 12, but really intensely and then I ran,

ran screaming out of ballet class. It did not suit me at all. I did not need to control

myself, I needed to release myself, this river needed to go downstream, so it did and

then I just started creating my own dance, I just danced for myself, and that's how I

started. I had a vision, and during the vision, I heard a voice. I was sleeping and the

voice said -- I was trying to figure out what to do with myself -- and the voice said

"dance" and I said "Well there's all those people out there, its' scary. " And then

there was a pregnant pause of silence where I just felt that the intention of the space

was "either you're with the program or you're not." And then when I woke up I

realized that I was either going to run towards this or away from this. I couldn't be

neutral about it. It was either you're going to do it, or you're going to run from it. It

was an obvious voice, an obvious cry from my soul perhaps, so I decided to run

towards it, frightened and conquer my fear.

 

J.G. How old were you?

 

M.G. Eighteen, maybe seventeen? Around there.

 

J.G. Have you always had that kind of spirit life or spiritual leaning?

 

M.G. Yes, having had a nervous breakdown when I was a young girl and having a

very difficult, amazing experience of watching my personality disintegrate and then

re -- integrate gave me a lot of gifts of understanding of what it means to be human

and what are the fundamental aspects of humanity and certainly the spiritual side

became very strong and very important.

 

J.G. When you dance and create are you dancing from spirit? The heart? The

intellect?

 

M.G. All of it, I'm watching the miracle. I'm certainly engaged in the miracle, when

you hit a transcendence, when you connect with a source, with your soul, the

moment you don't know what's happening, the audience doesn't know what's

happening, but it is going on, it is going on., there's this kind of bliss. A lot of people

think "Oh I had this experience and then it's over." for me it's like "Let's bring in the

furniture!" Look at all this space...I want to take my friends with me, I want to bring

people in, I want to share it, you know, I want to live there. I want to move in.

And so that source -- the experiential human, you put in the intellect, it's there, but

it's in its proper perspective within a totality, and the body wisdom is leading. And

the neuromuscular system is embracing the whole thing, and you get the whole

right brain left brain expansion. I love it, it's very important to me.

 

J.G. How do you create when you walk into the studio, what happens?

 

M.G. Well, there's a lot of things going on, on any given day. Joys, struggles, personal

struggles, struggles of those people around me. Of course at this moment, there's

Libya, there's Egypt, there's all sorts of things going around in the world. And that's

happening to people. Who are those people? Where are those people? I've been

hearing people crying at night and going and being with them in my dream life and

they're echoing into my work as I create. I'm creating a piece called "Disarmed" at

this moment with a painter, Randy Newman, from Winnipeg.

With Thread I was creating a whole bunch of works at the time and I suddenly

realized that they all had to do with threads or things that are woven or lines

pathways, so that everything was interconnected, so I started weaving them

together. I often work on a number of pieces at a time, and some of my pieces will

take years to create and others come quit quickly. So, I'm always engaged in

something. There's a dragon that I've been working with a lot. A lot of that has to

do with shedding the skin. It's now time that I shed a skin and take on a new mantle.

And I think the world is in transition. A lot of us are in transition, we don't know

what's coming, but we know we're being asked to go through soulful work and

download. Get rid of things we don't need. And the sparseness is frightening

because you can't say what's going to happen, you can't make plans. All you can do

is kind of follow some vague voice, if you will. And yet, I think it's such an important

thing to go there.

 

We are in a period of transition, there's a new paradigm being created, and in some

ways the hopeful thing about Libya and Egypt is that lying is no longer going to be

acceptable. Because that's what Gadhaffi does. And the lying is so apparent and that

is being ripped out. And people who are lying now will have to stop lying. People,

the young are satiated with it. We all want authenticity, we want reality. We want

to know the truth. And I think also the internet -- to a degree -- ' knowing' has shifted

so radically. For example, saying, "I know the Himalayas." Well, what do you know?

are you from there? Did you grow up there? Did you visit once? Did you read a book

about it? Have you seen pictures? Did you read about it on the internet? Do you use

Himalayan salt? What is your relationship to it? So knowing the Himalayas could be

a myriad of experiences. And the internet has accelerated this, so you can know at

thing without having any experiential knowledge about it. And that is scary,

because nature is not wrapped around it. And we're dislocated from nature so all of

this needing to use the body wisdom, the wildness of our soul, needing to integrate

back into an experiential, honest, global thing, each one of our own souls are aching

for that. And again the shopping that needs to be done is not external, if you will.

And there's a new paradigm coming, so right now I'm spending a lot of time working

on that. I'm working with Linda Rabin on Continuum work, just doing these kinds of

things to get out of my own skin, and I could just smell this new world coming, and

it's so thrilling I have such faith in what it will be and such excitement for the new

generations and such hope, but it's scary on this side because you don't know what

it is and we're in the part where it's all falling apart, it's all crumbling down.

J.G. In a piece about you as the Governor General's recipient, you were referred to as

a legend. Thinking about all this shifting in the world, what does it mean to you --

your role as a 'legend'?

 

M.G. I think each one of us is a legend, don't you? Don't you feel your own myth?

Here we are walking on this incredible journey, we need more horizon in our brains.

We need to have a sense of ourselves moving through a distant landscape, you know

going across the moors, or a distant desert, an expanse, that we are moving, that we

are myth, each one of us is wonderful, pieces of uniqueness moving on a pathway

through life. I think that's really thrilling. I love being called legend. I think all of us

-- we're all a legend.

 

J.G. Is there responsibility that comes with that? A burden?

 

M.G. I think so. Each one of us takes that as we do and sometimes there are burdens

and sometimes there are gifts. I mean, if you're seeing it too much as a burden, then

I've got to lay down a few things at times. I have to leave, hold a place for joy. That

is very important. And I think for myself -- as a human being -- I've forgot a bit of joy.

I've just been pumping away at working so hard, and I need to find a place to play in.

Holding a place for joy, transformation, rest, possibility, play, curiosity, risk taking,

fun, you know and sometimes risk taking just means you have to underachieve. So if

we're always pushing the muscle to the end of its limit, it gets tense and it starts to

fight back or tear, where if you go underneath, you're releasing and releasing, and

you're giving the body the experience of release, and expansion, and play and you'll

actually get more room out of your body that way. So if you apply the idea of

freedom, to, say a joint, a hip joint, and you think of freedom and articulation, so

you're not tightening the joint it has more movement, you're freeing the joint so it

has more movement, more freedom, more range and articulation and discernment.

Freedom and discernment -- very Jungian.

 

J.G. Is that where you're creating from right now? Is that your motivation to keep

putting things on stage, is it a joyful place?

 

M.G. Yes, there's a lot of shedding. I'm really interested in this whole thing and I feel

better when I physicalize it. I feel like I understand it more than when I've got it

embodied. I've got a hugely demanding intellect, but it's limited -- we don't live just

in the intellect. And of course most of our experiences we don't get -- we can know I

should do something that is good for me, and you can't get yourself to do it because

the recognition of the idea is not enough. To be able to shift, and that's an

experiential wisdom. That involves soul, that involves body, and then the mind

understands it. So a lot of our problems we have, we don't figure out the solution,

and then go there. As people we move through and make these transformation and

then our brain goes on look and puts all the dots together.

So I'm very excited about that and also working with some people on using dance

for conflict resolution. Actually conflict transformation because we don't want

resolution because some conflict is good, and so as I was saying earlier, looking at

anger as volume, "How do I shift this and use it and work with it?" So far it's been

really exciting, I'm working with Michelle LeBaron and others here, and we've been

dong some work with that, so that's very exciting too.

 

J.G. What language would you use to describe the embodiment of your work?

 

M.G. Circular, nature, wild, soulful, source, somatic, savage, eager, compassionate,

emotional, human, human, human, human. Those are the things I would use to

describe my work from the inside out.

It's getting in touch, you could look at it as a prayerfulness or a psychological

soulfulness or a connectedness, I'm connecting with something and working my

junk out, giving it shape and form so I can even understand what it is intellectually,

but I need to live it, I need to experience the nuance of it. And it's in the nuancing

that I think is where we can tease out the larger volumes of energy. Some work that

I've had that's been very exciting is with young testosterone boys dancing with girls,

and how frightening it can be. You have this huge volume of juice and adrenaline

going through your body, and how do you not hurt anybody? The more you tease

away from it, the bigger it gets and it's threatening to explode inside you, but I find

that by dealing with the nuance, you have a texturing quality and a way of

connecting to it so it becomes teased out so it's not just the surface of the moon, it's

like little bits. It's not just a huge beach, it's like sand and water and so your vision

goes from, seeing everything to seeing one thing. From universal to necessity

visions. Horizon and detail.

J.G. What dancers are you watching these days:?

Dave St. Pierre, he's a great innovator, certainly Emily Molnar and what's happening

out of Ballet BC is of incredible interest to me. There's a lot of interesting stuff going

on all across Canada and I'm just hoping that the public will nurture and support it

financially as well. I think when it comes to patronage, the politicians need to value

the artists and need to be able to articulate it, even if they can't supply the money.

And I think that people who are patrons of the arts, they will start funding people as

well as buildings or architecture. But then they will be able to have a belief and a

faith in creating rituals and things that advance who we are, that there will be a little

more tree falling in the woods, that they won't need to leave their names behind so

much on buildings, that it can be a little more investment in what's possible for the

human spirit, the human endeavour.

 

J.G. Should the arts be funded regardless of quality of the output?

 

M.G. A choreographer is a benevolent dictator at best. You can work with your

population, but you're still steering it. The life of an artist is something deep and

profound, but if you box your definition, it will go outside the box. It will not live

there, it will not stay put. It's a living transformative quality. Some things are trashy

but that's fine, they'll go the way of the wind. And to not buy a bag of fruit because

one of the pieces might be sour, well then you don't get the fruit. Just like with

doctors, you need people who are going further, looking at what is possible. There's

a lot of different roles to be played out, yes there's a need for art to get out into th

school system and giving people a chance and getting it out on the streets, there's a

lot of need for that, and there's a need for play, for experimentation but there's a

need for dance as ritual, for dance as whole, finely crafted experience and for what is

possible for the human. There's a lot of ways to create and one has to choose from

amongst those things as a creator. And there isn't enough money to go around, so

one has to choose, be discretionary. But I'm definitely for guaranteed annual

income. I think that would be fantastic. But is the creation dependent on the

materials or on the person? There's a lot to be looked at, it's a very dense subject.

Something that could be considered crap in the hands of one person, could become

understood and transformative in the hands of another. That's the nature of art. It

is, I don't know to know. You have to go into I don't know to know. And you can't

know before you know. I can be very good at describing what my piece is going to

be about, but not any good at making it happen. So one has to use intuition, and one

has to use skill, and one has to look at the fact that we are human beings and we are

fallible. This is an experiment. A huge wonderful, juicy experiment. So what is

being funded, what is being cared for, and at the cost of what else? The life of an

artist is a trajectory too, it's not just one event.

 

J.G. At this point in your trajectory, if you could invite three or five people to have

dinner with you, who would they be? Who would you still like to learn from?

 

M.G. I knew Joseph Campbell and I never got to ask him any of the questions that

now, as an older woman, I would like to ask him. I would love to have dinner with

him again. Paul Eluard the poet, I would love, love to meet Paul Eluard. There's so

much, so many people I'd love to meet. Oh it's kind of a vast! The Dalai Lama, Yo Yo

Ma -- I've met him, but I'd love to have dinner with him. So many people. I've been

really lucky, I have had dinner with Joseph Campbell, I have spent time with William

Styron who wrote Sophie's Choice and is the father of one of my best friends and

helped me with peace, and I have had new year's eve with the great writer,

playwright, Arthur Miller, and Jessye Norman is just, she really is the real thing,

she's the goddess, she's so full of love and talent, it's mind boggling. I've had the joy

to meet -- and a lot of people who are unsung as well, who are doing wonderful work

as well, but are not known, so there are a lot of people. I would love to have dinner

with so many people, there are so many...

 

Musing on the ongoing adventure of greeting life with an open heart, we finish our

interview with a lovely, warm hug that reinforces my feeling of Gillis' abundant

radiance. It is not merely her dance that makes her the legend she is, but her

affectionate charm, her tremendous imagination and her grace are also Gillis'

hallmarks that carry her, suspended in a beautiful place, through this life.