“Who Has What It Takes? (Part 4 of 4)”
By: Keith Johnson & LouAnna Valentine – Seattle, Wash (USA)
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Last month we concluded our coverage of Cirque dancer auditions that took place in Seattle. After the day was over we had the opportunity to speak with two of the artists who were selected as active candidates to go into the Cirque du Soleil database. They kindly spent a few minutes to talk with my wife LouAnna and I.
Morgan McConnell is a 30 year-old graphic designer from Vancouver. His work can be seen at his nifty website, www.dangerboydesign.net.
Janine Teidi (Juh-neen Tee-dee) is 33 and originally hails from Buffalo, New York. She dances with Lingo Dance Theater in Seattle (www.lingodance.com). She also teaches “Slo-Body” movement, a Yoga-based technique (www.slobody.com) and “YogaBeans” a movement program for children 3 and up (www.yogabeans.com).
KJ: How long have you been dancing?
MORGAN: 4 years.
JANINE: 30 years. I started when I was 3 and now I’m 33, pretty much the whole way through, some times more than others. For the last 10 years I’ve been trying to figure out how to be an artist and make a living from my artistry. And that’s part of why Cirque du Soleil is so enticing. My skills as a dancer/gymnast – I don’t really like to call myself a gymnast anymore – but as an artist I feel I would fit with them, so it’s worth training and coming to auditions, seeing what I need to do and training some more. It’s worth it, totally worth it.
KJ: What’s your background?
JANINE: Mine is dance.
MORGAN: None. Never done gymnastics, martial arts, anything really. I started out with fire dancing. I went to a club and I saw this guy spinning fire, I’d never seen that before. Just this little guy with this big stick spinning and rolling around on the floor – and I thought, “That’s the coolest thing I’ve ever seen. I could do that!” So I picked it up and went from there.
KJ: How did you find out about Cirque du Soleil?
MORGAN: I met an ex-performer when I was in Australia. She saw a show I did and said, “That was great. You really should send Cirque an audition tape.” So I sent them a videotape, I never would have otherwise. And they invited me to this audition in Seattle. I was in Australia at the time but thought, “Why not? I’m going home [to Vancouver] anyway.” It was easy to adjust my schedule a bit.
JANINE: This isn’t my first Cirque du Soleil audition. I auditioned [for them] first in 1998, in Atlanta; I flew there from New York. It was just a one-day audition, and I got all the way through to the end and they put me on their active files. But I didn’t send them a shred of information and sort of wrote it off. Five years later I got an email saying, “We want you to come to an audition in Vegas.” And my boyfriend said, “You have to go!” I was almost going to delete it but then I started thinking about it, and yes, I had to go. And I went to Vegas and I was cut in the first cut. I was mortified.
KJ: Did you find out why were you cut?
JANINE: Actually, they weren’t up front about giving feedback to the people who were getting cut at that audition. There were a lot more people and the space wasn’t arranged very well. There was nowhere to go and sit, we had to go outside, and everybody was kind of smushed together. That created a completely different atmosphere. But it was eye opening because we just did an hour of ballet and I got cut and I thought, “Oh, this is what I need to be doing.” It kicked my butt. But I came back and went to ballet class every day until this audition. It shows, and I’m so glad I did it. I was thinking, “Damn it, I’m better than that!” Ballet isn’t my strong suit.
MORGAN: That’s where having specialty skills comes in handy.
JANINE: Yeah. I can walk on my hands, but I didn’t get to do any of that. We didn’t get to anything else; it was just straight-up ballet. So I wrote [Artistic Scout Anne-Marie Duchène] an email as soon as I got back saying, “After all that arranging and flying there and [other things] my audition sucked. I know you’re going to be in Seattle, can I come to that?” And she let me and I made it all the way through. So I’ve been through it three times now, and I would do it again if I had the chance.
KJ: I assume you’ve both been through several auditions, how does this audition process compare to other auditions?
MORGAN: This is my first audition.
JANINE: I love that you (Morgan) have only been doing this for four years and you might get a spot in a show like this.
MORGAN: I love it too! (Laughs) I’ve done shows before but it’s never been through an audition. It’s been more like, “We need dancers, we need volunteers, quick, come!” Community productions, stuff like that. When I was in Australia I did a lot of those but never anything like this.
JANINE: This is a lot longer than other auditions I’ve been to. I’ve gone to auditions where you can’t even ask questions. They show you something and you do it across the floor four at a time – “OK, we’re cutting.” That’s a different situation, a cattle call, where they’re auditioning you and you are dancers, and they don’t break down that barrier [like they did here]. You see it in Backstage Magazine, grab your resume and headshot, go in, there are 150 people – it’s a whole different situation. Here you’ve already auditioned to be invited to the audition. They’ve done a first cut. They’re not going to see a lot of people. They’re being particular about who they’re going to see in person. And that’s different from a lot of others.
But I don’t audition a lot. I did when I was in New York, but not a lot when compared to others I knew who auditioned all the time. They would have three auditions in a day and I would have one. And one was enough! But I don’t think I got as much out of those auditions as I got from this one. I really think they’re learning experiences, especially as I get older.
It was great to go to that audition in Vegas though it cost me a lot of money. It really changed things for me as an artist. Because I live in Seattle, and Vegas dancers are a lot different than Seattle dancers. There’s not a lot of competition dance here or real contortion-ey or jazzy dance. It’s a very modern scene [in Vegas], where it’s very ballet here. So all these competition dancers and cruise ship-type dancers and Vegas contortion-like dancers were there, and I thought, “Oh yeah, I remember this scene.”
And then we did ballet, and I hadn’t been to ballet class in months. And I thought, “Oh yeah, I’m supposed to remember how to stand in fifth position if I’m going to call myself a professional dancer.” It just was an eye opener. I want to call myself a professional dancer; that’s what I do, I dance with a company. And I want to be more proficient. I would like to be able to teach a ballet class if this is what I’m doing to do. So it pushed me, and I knew I had this audition [in Seattle]. I wanted to come in and have them say, “Wow! That was the same girl?” And that’s what happened. (Smiles)
KJ: (to Morgan) You’ve not been through an audition process before, what did you think of this process?
MORGAN: It was extremely challenging. (Janine agrees.) It pushed me so hard. There were times I just wanted to leave. But you can’t turn around after coming this far and say, “I can’t handle it.” I’ve been in situations where I’ve done shows and I tell them I do fire dancing and they tell me, “Well, this is the choreography, and we’re doing [this].” And I’d tell them, “No, I don’t do that.” And I felt that with this audition. But I knew I was here for a reason, they want to see what I can do and I’ll just fight my way through the discomfort, and there was a lot. I’ve never done acting, never done character stuff or anything like that, so that was a huge challenge. A tree? How do I become a tree?
KJ: What do you take away from this audition? Anything you felt you learned? What impressed you most about what you did, other than the fact that you were picked and made it to the end?
MORGAN: I was impressed by the level of talent. I expected it – to get this far you have to be good at what you do – but I had no idea what to expect. I didn’t expect so many dancers, I was expecting jugglers and acrobats and contortionists and unicyclists. People did some really amazing things. It made me feel really humble just to see the amount of time [people have spent at their art], like 30 years [as Janine has done]. And I’ve just been in it for 4. (Laughs) The commitment people have is astounding. And for lots of people who put that amount of time into their work this is the pinnacle of their careers.
KJ: I’ve heard from many people that if you want to work for somebody in a circus arts/performance type of situation, Cirque is the one. And everybody else is somewhere below them. But I also keep tabs on chat lists and places where 15-16 year-old kids write, “I want Cirque to be my first job.” And I want to say to them, “Go out and get more experience.” (Both nod.)
MORGAN: It is that type of circus. They don’t take the fresh faced.
KJ: I’ve been told they only hire about 200 artists per year.
JANINE: Of course that’s not what we want to hear right now. (Laughter)
KJ: But they also replace 20% of their artists each year.
JANINE: Makes sense though if you look at the caliber of performers. You wonder how long they can possibly do that. The tumbling is hard core. Even though in Alegria they are on tumble tracks, [which lessens the intensity on your joints] you’re still compressing, compressing, you’re landing, landing, landing. You can only do that for so long, I learned that from gymnastics.
Fortunately in this day and age and with technology people are doing things longer. I see people dancing into their 40’s. And I remember when I was 23 people said, “Aren’t you getting kind of old?” And here I am 33 and still doing it and I feel better than ever. I feel strong and I’m not in pain all the time. I heard some [of the younger ones today saying], “What are you going to do when you’re 34?” And I was laughing because I was doing a handstand on the wall and I was thinking, “I’m 33 baby, and you have no idea.” (Laughs)
KJ: So what happens now?
JANINE: My dance troupe is doing some great things. The company I’m working with is just starting to take off. They’re bringing some French presenters to our rehearsal today, right now in fact. When our Artistic Director told us I was concerned because I had this audition today. So they had to put someone in my role for the segment they were going to show. And I would love to go to France, so I was torn. I wanted to be here, but I also really wanted to be there with them. And we just found out that we’re doing another showcase for presenters in Dusseldorf, Germany. So it’s possible we’ll do a European tour.
I was hoping I would make it all the way through [here], and it would end with, “Here you go, you’re on our active files, send us a copy of your passport.” But I’ve been on their active files for five years. For them to call me back is an honor in itself. It makes me think there must have been something they liked. And for me to do really crappy in Vegas, ask for another chance, and for them to let me try again, they must have that sense that they believed I had something to offer.
KJ: What about you, Morgan?
MORGAN: I do graphic design. That’s my primary occupation, this is just secondary. I just moved to Vancouver about a month ago and my business is just kicking in. I’ve got a couple of clients there plus some I got in Australia. And I’ll explore the performance community there.
Most of the time what I’ll do is at 11 o’clock at night I’ll take my sticks out and put on my Walkman and go spin for an hour. Though now that I’ve seen what’s expected I wouldn’t mind taking some flexibility classes or some martial arts classes to make my body more flexible.
At that point we had to call our interview to a close so we could all go home and rest after a hard, heady day of discovery. And they, like the others, will go on with their lives and hope for that phone call from Cirque du Soleil.
If you’d like to see some of Morgan’s graphic design, check out www.dangerboydesign.net. The dance company Janine works with can be found at www.lingodance.com. She also teaches, check out www.slobody.com for information on Slo-Body Yoga movement, and www.yogabeans.com for her yoga and movement program for children.
Our sincere thanks to Janine and Morgan for spending time with us.
