We were lucky to catch up with Michael Spencer Phillips recently and have shared our conversation below.
Michael Spencer, so good to have you with us today. We’ve always been impressed with folks who have a very clear sense of purpose and so maybe we can jump right in and talk about how you found your purpose?
I think that throughout the years of living and working as an artist, I have had multiple purposes. My purpose at 45 years old, isn’t the same as it was at 35, 25, or 15. More specifically, in my world of dance, I have been a dance student, a professional dancer, a choreographer, and now a co-founder/artistic director of the interdisciplinary arts company, Site-Specific Dances. Throughout this journey, I have stayed close to what I loved, and that is movement. The understanding of dance – of the technique, then of the power of performance, and then of the craft of creation, and now of the legacy, business, and sustainability of my art. Although my purpose has shifted slightly as I’ve grown, it has always been rooted in exploration and learning.
Why dance? I find it to be the language of humanity. It is the language of the heart. Every human lives within their body, and the body is the instrument that dancers use to perform and express with. Every dancer can communicate through their art form in any corner of the globe; it is a space where we can actually all understand one another without a language barrier. I discovered dance at the age of 11, and was hooked. The rest is history, or moreover a scrapbook of where I have been physically, emotionally, and mentally. As I look forward, I see that my purpose has evolved to a place of “saying something”. It’s funny yet cruel that as an artist and human being, I have more to say as my body begins to have more limitations. Enter Site-Specific Dances. Our company creates site specific performance works that activate landscapes, both wild and urban. We take on environmental and social issues while engaging with communities and collaborators; giving opportunities to artists and compensating them in a way that honors their talents. I never knew the intentional and purposeful joy I could get from paying artists to do what they love.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
After a 22 year career as a professional dancer in NYC, working with dance luminaries like Merce Cunningham, Robert Battle, Pascal Rioult, and Bill T. Jones, I began my journey as a choreographer. I originally began making more traditional stage works, but when the pandemic hit, I found myself lost…for a few months. I moved swiftly, and received my first commission from the Traverse City Dance Project to create a video/dance work for an online performance in August of 2020. My husband, a talented architect and conceptual artist, bought me a drone and said, “let’s make a work where the landscape is not a backdrop, but a protagonist”. We were in northern Michigan with my family, surrounded by beauty and theatrical potential, and we began making our first work – “TO/FROM”, collaborating with composer, Darian Donovan Thomas and editor, Emma Kazaryan. Sitting around a bonfire after the premier of that video/dance work, my husband said to me, “we can build on this and maybe even have a company that pushes the boundaries of interdisciplinary collaborations.” I looked at him, and I knew together, with our different skill-sets and artistic references, we could and we would.
It’s hard to believe that that summer evening, during such global chaos; the tiny seed was planted. In less than four years, Site-Specific Dances is gaining momentum at such an astounding rate. It sometimes feels like a tiny snowball was on top of a hill. I turned around for a moment, and now we are chasing after it. We have since made 5 additional works in Redwood and Sequoia groves in California, an intergenerational performance piece with Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland, a community engagement performance in Tjaro, Sweden, a day-long durational site specific dance work at the Olana State Historic Site in Hudson, NY, as well as being named the Horger Artist in Residence in 2024 at Lehigh University, where we created an immersive choral/dance/media work for a 40 person choir, four dancers, video installations, and a small music ensemble. We recently received a grant and residency for this summer of 2024 from the Charles E. Culpeper program of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund for the development of a museum installation honoring landscape painter Frederic Church.
There isn’t a moment that goes by where I don’t feel gratitude for the opportunities we are receiving, and the fact that I get to be on this journey with my partner in crime, Dino Kiratzidis. Sometimes all it takes is planting the seed of creativity with someone you can truly trust.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
I would say that empathy, acceptance, and remaining teachable are the most important qualities that keep me on the beam mentally, emotionally, and creatively. There can be a lot of toxicity in the art and performance world. I made an oath to myself that I would never make our collaborators – our dancers, composers, musicians, volunteers, researchers, technicians; feel the way that I felt sometimes through my career as a performer. Artists to be at their best need to be recognized as people first. They have families and lives that occur outside the creative space. Those lives need to be honored, and our artists deserve respect for their sacrifices they make to be brave enough to wake up every day and declare themself an artist.
Acceptance is the answer to all my problems! When something doesn’t go my way, I inspect to see where I am responsible for the outcome and where I’m not at all responsible for the outcome. I measure the weight of the disappointment. I allot a certain amount of time to be angry, sad, unreasonable, questioning, or confused. I then move on. In 2012, I suffered a terrible hip injury during a performance, and had to crawl off the stage. The doctors said I would never dance again. They said I would walk with a limp for the rest of my life. A dear friend told me to give myself a week to feel sorry for myself and ask why over and over. During that time, I found a surgeon who was willing to take a risk and perform a surgery that could “maybe, just maybe” repair the severe damage. After a 7.5 hour surgery, and a year of physical therapy (which was some of the loneliest time I have ever experienced in my life), I was back on stage and dancing better than ever. I had a new lease on life in performing, and was able to continue performing until March of 2020.
All of that sets up “remaining teachable”. As Site-Specific Dances enters this new period of becoming a 501(c)3, non-profit arts organization, there are a handful of things every day that I have to learn. I listen. I take notes in notebooks like I did in college. I read and reread applications and fill out forms and permits. I also ask for help, and allow people to help me. People like to be helpful; it’s in our nature. I try to learn at least a couple new things each day, and ask for feedback on how to do things more efficiently and better for those around me.
Who has been most helpful in helping you overcome challenges or build and develop the essential skills, qualities or knowledge you needed to be successful?
OH BOY…..EVERYONE! People have entered my life because I needed them to, or maybe they were placed there for both of us to grow. I can’t explain it, but when I have needed love, support, guidance; it has always been there when I was brave enough to expose myself for needing said love, support, or guidance. My parents have been the most loving and supportive parents I could ask for. They took me to dance classes. They’ve been to so many performances over the years; and always have uplifting words to say. Most importantly, they have never made me feel anything but wholeheartedly correct in choosing a path that I love and can’t live without, even if it’s not necessarily the path that they would have chosen for me. My husband Dino, for working even harder than I do – for our success and our joy in having the gift of creative and life partnership. My little group of best friends from college allows me to be transported back to our freshman year at the University of Michigan, where we dreamed big almost daily. It’s as if I can hear Colin, Heather, and Kelly’s 18 year old voices of encouragement when I think something is too big for me to dream. My siblings – for loving each other from afar and sometimes missing milestones, yet they still make me feel a part of the family no matter what. My sober community; without them I would literally have nothing. “My Logical Family” – the artists and collaborators, the mentors, the patrons and supporters; they are the group of people I have met along the way who I also consider my family. We are always looking out for one another. We attend to each other’s triumphs and tragedies. We check on each other regularly. We laugh and we listen. We create. We try to change the world. We cry…sometimes a lot. We’re honest with one another about how we are truly feeling on the best and worst of days and all the days in between. These special connections are what keep me feeling seen and held, and that is what makes me feel prepared for days in the studio, on site, in the theater, at performances and events, or even the days on the laptop. Without a community that I put energy into, I wouldn’t feel deserving of receiving the gifts that I have.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.sitespecificdances.com
- Instagram: @michaelspencerphillips @sitespecificdances
- Facebook: Michael Spencer Phillips
- Linkedin: Michael Spencer Phillips
- Other: Vimeo Michael Spencer Phillips https://vimeo.com/user61380026 Site-Specific Dances https://vimeo.com/user28304609
Image Credits
Artist Photo – Jessica Rasmussen Image 1 – Emma Kazaryan Image 2 – Michael Spencer Phillips Image 3 – Emma Kazaryan Image 4 – Lezah Yeow Image 5 – Emma Kazaryan Image 6 – Jessica Rasmussen Image 7 – Emma Kazaryan Image 8 – Aydin Arjomand
