top of page

The stage is set and the dancers are in place. Lily Gelfand, the cellist for John Bohuslawsky’s piece “Rukh” has taken her seat. Dressed in black, bow in hand, Gelfand looks like any other musician, except for one thing.

 

She isn’t wearing shoes.

 

Putting on shoes would have added an extra step she didn’t have time for in the minute she had to prepare to play, not to mention the fact that, like any modern dancer, Gelfand likes being barefoot. It helps her feel the floor and the loop station pedal under her feet.

 

The audience will recognize Gelfand, but not from seeing her play. She performed as a dancer in the previous piece in the concert “Quiet Dance.” While the crew was setting up Gelfand’s cello, Gelfand was taking her bow and dashing off stage to quickly change not only her costume but also her mindset – from dancer to musician.

 

The relationship between music and dance is complex, but necessary. Whether the musician is on stage driving the dance or in the pit relying on the conductor to give the cue, the two must co-exist in harmony to create art that thrills both the audience and the artists.

 

Gelfand began playing the cello when she was 5 years old, about a year before she began taking dance classes. Both her father and grandfather were string musicians so it was only natural that she was encouraged to begin at a young age.

 

She started on the violin, the same instrument her grandfather played, but it didn’t stick. She switched to the cello because she liked the idea of sitting in a chair while playing rather than standing up to play the violin.

 

She started playing in the school orchestra in the fifth grade and played all the way through high school. She played in the chamber orchestra, in the pit for school musicals, and in the Youngstown Symphony Orchestra in Youngstown, Ohio.

 

During her first semester at Ohio University, she auditioned for the orchestra, but after finding out the rehearsals would interfere with dance rehearsals, she didn’t think she would be able to play at all.

 

During spring semester 2015, she took an Honors Tutorial class with music professor Andre Gribou that changed her mind about putting the cello down for good.

 

“I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted to do in that tutorial,” she said. “I had played an instrument for the longest time and I didn’t want to lose it. We started by looking at the relationship between music and dance and how to communicate with musicians if you are teaching a dance class.”

 

Gelfand said that for the most part the tutorial focused on analyzing music and movement and she rarely played, but it inspired her to start thinking about the ways music and dance are intertwined.

 

As part of her tutorial, Gelfand started watching YouTube videos of cellists such as Zoey Keeting and Rachel Lander using loop stations. She started imitating the videos using a small loop station she borrowed from her brother.

 

The loop station allows Gelfand to record herself playing a line of music by pressing down on the loop station pedal connected to her cello. When she takes her foot off the pedal, the line is saved and she can then play live along with the recorded line, creating a layering of sounds.

 

Large loop stations with three or more pedals can record multiple lines to create more complex compositions and can also be used to create effects and distort the sound.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Right: Gelfand borrows a large loop station from the College of Fine Arts to play for class. Center: Gelfand prepares to play for Javian's modern class. Left: Cords from the loop station attach to Gelfand's cello as well as a speaker that projects the sounds into the dance studio.

 

In order to buy one of these larger loop stations, which can cost upwards of $500, Gelfand applied for the Provost’s Undergraduate Research Fund (PURF), which awards up to $1,500 to support the research and creative activity of undergraduate students on Ohio University's Athens and regional campuses.

 

Her research question for the PURF Award was centered around how to use electronic devices to create music on the spot for dancers. She was also interested in finding out how to incorporate breath and phrasing, two common concepts in modern dance, into an electronic device.

 

“It’s hard to match the dancers breath with a single-line instrument, like the cello, because I can only play so much at a time,” Gelfand said. “You want a fuller, bigger and more complex sound because it gives more for the dancers to feed off, creating that breath.”

 

Playing for Class

 

Dance class, ballet in particular, is a ritual. There are specific movements that must be done, combinations of steps that are traditionally put together, and music that must be played. For Tyrone Boyle, music director at BalletMet in Columbus, Ohio, the company’s morning ballet class is like practicing scales. But sometimes he likes to put in his own flare.

 

Ballet classes generally feature piano music, mostly classical or music from famous ballets themselves such as Tchaikovsky’s “Sleeping Beauty,” “Swan Lake” or “The Nutcracker.” But when Boyle is playing for class, the dancers might be doing their pirouettes to Britney Spears, Katy Perry or Rihanna.

 

“A good accompanist can walk into the studio and gauge what the mood is like in the studio, what mood the instructor is in and what mood the dancers are in, and they can cater their music accordingly,” he said. “The dancers are so familiar with all the classical stuff and they get it all day, so they may want to hear some pop music.”

 

Boyle was adopted at age 17 and when his adoptive parents asked what he wanted to do, he said play piano. He began listening to students play at a college up the street from his house and after about a month began taking lessons. He had no intention of becoming an accompanist for dance; he didn’t even know such a job existed.

 

During his senior year as a piano major at Grand Rapids Community College in Michigan he entered a competition playing a recital in front of a panel of judges. Afterwards, a few people from Grand Rapids Ballet came up to him and asked if he had ever considered playing for dance. Since then, playing for ballet has become his “bread and butter.”

 

At BalletMet, Boyle is in charge of playing for various classes in the academy and for the company, music licensing, and assigning accompanists to the academy dance classes. Boyle said it is important to be mindful of which teacher is paired with each accompanist because it can make a difference in the energy of the class.

 

As a dance accompanist, Boyle said he had to wipe the slate clean and think about playing in a whole new way because the structure of the music for a ballet class is much different than for a solo pianist.

 

At first, he felt very limited.

 

The music for ballet classes is usually played in phrases of eight and must be able to be counted easily by the dancers and teacher. But once Boyle became more comfortable, he discovered new opportunities inside of those parameters.

 

Giving the dancers what they need in terms of energy, quality, and tempo is the most important part of being a dance pianist for Boyle.

 

“Dancers aren’t robots. They aren’t going to dance the steps the same way twice,” he said. “A smart accompanist knows what the combinations are and knows innately what needs to happen for the dancer and they are going to be able to play their music accordingly.”

 

Above: Gelfand playing for Javian's modern dance class in Putnam Hall at Ohio University's Division of Dance. 

 

Live musicians are typically used for ballet classes more often than modern classes, but the benefits of dancing to live music carry throughout both styles. At OU, drummer, Aaron Butler, accompanies modern technique classes but on Fridays Butler travels and classes must be taught to recorded music. When Gelfand heard that on Fridays, her class would be without live music, she asked Gribou if he would play.

 

He suggested she accompany the class instead.

 

“I said, ‘No, I’m going to vomit all over the place or have a heart attack,’” she laughed.

 

The two ended up accompanying the class together, and after getting over her nerves, Gelfand found accompanying the class to be fun and exciting. She set up an independent study with Ani Javian, visiting dance professor, to play for the freshman-level modern class every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday during spring 2016.

 

“It’s a good way to try it out because it’s a freshman class and no one is that judgmental,” Gelfand said.

 

Freshman dance majors Emily Vizina and Rebecca McNay had never had live accompaniment for a dance class before coming to OU, and both said having live music has brought out dynamics in their dancing that recorded music at their previous dance studios did not.

 

“When Lily is playing, I feel like everyone is very fluid and circular, and when it’s just Aaron on the drums, our movements become much more staccato and rhythmic because there isn’t a connection between the notes,” Vizina said.

 

Javian was excited to bring a different type of sound into the classroom for her class.

 

“Percussion is great and absolutely necessary in a dance class, especially in a modern class, because drums are weighted and strong and can be bold in a way that string instruments aren’t always, “ she said. “But she (Gelfand) can do the melody and make it soft in a way that Aaron on drums can’t.”

 

Being a dancer herself has given Gelfand more empathy for the dancers as an accompanist. She is able to ask herself how she would do the movement and provide a composition that will meet the dancers needs.

 

“If Ani is counting a three or a waltz then I don’t want to play a march,” she said. “As a dancer, I would want something that I can sink into, and I wouldn’t want to feel rushed.”

 

She also understands the modern dance concepts that Javian is using in class, such as the idea of spiraling movements in the body.

 

“I like to do a lot of Philip Glass-y stuff that creates this kind of rolling effect that feels more atmospheric,” she said.

 

As in any live performance, there are bound to be mishaps in a class with live accompaniment. But Gelfand has learned to roll with the punches and stay on her toes.

 

One Friday, Gelfand was playing class just like any other day until the hairs on her bow broke. Not wanting to cause a scene, she slowly put the bow down by her side and began to pizzicato and use her hand to drum against the cello for the remainder of the class.

 

And even when nothing goes wrong, Gelfand gets only a few snaps, claps, or a “5,6,7,8…” to figure out what she is going to play and sometimes she has to figure it out as she goes.

 

“It’s a lot of problem solving and creating on the spot, which is fun,” she said.

 

Improvisation is a common compositional tool in modern dance, one that Gelfand has become more familiar with in Javian’s dance improvisation class. She has applied two improv techniques in particular, furthering and tracking, to playing the cello.

 

Tracking is when the dancer is aware of what his or her body is doing and is able to recall the movement to repeat later on, while furthering is a technique that allows a dancer to explore a idea or phrase in new ways to push it beyond what it was originally. 

 

“With furthering, I’ll start a loop and I’ll just keep going with it and see where it goes and I’ll find something inside of it and keep adding layers,” Gelfand said.

 

However, Gelfand also understands that she has to be careful with her musical improvisations because the dancers are counting on her for consistency.

 

“You have to keep going back. You can’t play whatever you want,” she said. “If you have an eight count, you can’t just play over it because then everyone will be really confused and they won’t know where the beat is or where the phrase starts and stops.”

 

Playing for Performance

 

Above: Gelfand accompanying on cello for John Bohuslawsky's piece "Rukh" for the Ohio University Dance Division's 2016 Winter Dance Concert at Templeton Blackburn Alumni Memorial Auditorium in Athens, Ohio.

 

Sitting downstage left for “Rukh,” Gelfand’s petite frame is almost completely hidden by her cello but once in a while, the audience's attention is drawn to the spring of her bow as it bounces of the strings.

 

She watches the dancers closely, their movements reflected through the tiny gestures of her head and the slight sway of her body. When Gelfand dances, it’s as if she is floating, gathering the air around her body and releasing it into the room. Even sitting down with the instrument covering most of her body, there is the same breathiness about her.

 

The three pieces Gelfand performed in for the Winter Dance Concert ended up being consecutive so she had to dance in Kyle Abraham’s “Quiet Dance,” play for Bohuslawsky’s “Rukh,” then dance in Javian’s piece “After Monk, in Five Parts.”

 

“The idea of performing back to back was really nerve racking at first,” Gelfand said. “There was no time to think about it, which is honestly best because when you have time to wait around and think about it, you psych yourself out.”

 

She was actually glad to have been on stage dancing before playing because it got her warmed up to play.

 

“You kind of get into an internal groove,” she said.

 

Playing for Bohuslawsky’s piece happened by chance. He wasn’t able to get the copyrights to the music he had planned on using but saw similarities to what Gelfand had been playing in the freshman technique classes.

 

When he first approached her, about two weeks before the concert, she asked for the sheet music. “No, I want you to improvise,” he said, laughing.

 

Gelfand’s understanding of movement and her ability to come to rehearsals to practice with the dancers made this experience better than previous collaborations with musicians, Bohuslawsky said.

 

“She came to a couple of rehearsals and saw the structure of the music I was hoping to use and I gave her free rein, besides two or three markers I set within the dance,” Bohuslawsky said.

 

The piece was performed differently every time, which is the effect Bohuslawsky was hoping for. He wanted Gelfand to challenge the dancers and the dancers to challenge her. 

 

“Some days she followed them. Some days she led them. Some days they didn’t want to lead so they followed her,” he said. “It changed every single time, and I really liked that.”

 

On a different stage, Cleveland Orchestra violinist Alexandra Preucil is also getting ready to play. But unlike Gelfand’s audience, Preucil’s can’t see her and she can’t see them ­­– or the dancers for that matter. All she has is the swish of the conductors’ baton to tell her when it is time to begin.

 

For the most part, Preucil plays in the pit for performances that involve dancers and most recently performances with the Cleveland Ballet. In the pit, Preucil said the musicians are at the mercy of the conductor because they can’t see what the dancers are doing. It takes the responsibility off her, but she prefers to be in control.

 

She began playing the violin when she was three years old. She went to the Cleveland Institute of Music and participated in the young artists program and got her Bachelor’s of Music from the Institute. It was during her time in the young artists program that she first discovered ballet and started taking classes. She fell in love with the collaboration between music and dance.

 

After graduating from the Cleveland Institute, Preucil began playing for the Cleveland Orchestra. The Orchestra, which features about 100 musicians, is world-renowned for its performances and programming. They play a new program almost every week and have collaborated with various opera ensembles, the Cleveland Ballet, and the Joffrey Ballet in Chicago.

 

Preucil also works outside of the Cleveland Orchestra, directly with the Cleveland Ballet as the music artistic advisor to come up with the musical vision to go along with the director’s vision for the movement. She is also able to help facilitate collaborations between the orchestra and ballet.

 

Her role in the Cleveland Ballet gives her access from the very first rehearsal all the way to the final performance on stage, an experience that most musicians don’t get.

 

“To me the thing that is exciting about dance is when it expresses the music in a really organic and natural way and it makes the music more interesting than it would be on its own, “ she said.

 

For Cleveland Ballet dancer Lauren Stenroos, having live music makes the performance more real. She said it keeps her in the moment because she constantly has to listen to what the musicians are playing.

 

Some of Stenroos favorite performances to live music have been those that included singers as well as an orchestra such as in “The Nutcracker” and “Carmina Burana.”

 

“It’s incredible to have all that energy from the other musicians and singers on stage with you,” she said. “It just makes the performance that much more magical.”

 

In some of her roles as a soloist, such as the Snow Queen in “The Nutcracker,” Stenroos has also gotten to collaborate with the musicians and conductor to set musical cues within the piece.

 

“Being able to connect with someone in that way is a very special thing,” she said. “It just makes you a more sensitive artist if you can feel whatever the music is trying to convey and show that through your body.”

 

A Collaboration of Two Arts

 

Collaboration isn’t always an option due to time, distance or circumstances between one artist or the other, but when dancers and musicians are able to work together the two artists can create a piece that is cohesive and benefits both art forms.

 

For Javian, working with a musician while choreographing her work instead of finding music to fit the dance or choreographing to fit a particular piece of music helped her to clarify and refine what she was creating during the process.

 

She choreographed “Elsewhere” in 2015 as part of her Masters in Dance at The Ohio State University. She collaborated with New York-based sound designer James Lo, who is known for his experimental sound scores.

 

Both came in no expectations or a set plan in mind for the music or choreography.

 

“It was a back and forth and we didn’t necessarily know the end goal, but we were working towards something and clarifying what that was as we went along,” she said. “We could make it anything we wanted, and we didn’t have to stick to anything.”

 

Javian created the piece to be shown in an art gallery so she needed Lo’s help understanding how the sound would travel in the large, high-ceilinged, open space. Lo placed speakers in places where the audience would be able to hear the sound without it overpowering the dancer’s movement.

 

What came out of the collaboration was an atmospheric sound score with just enough drive to propel the dancers through space without putting too much emphasis on one element or the other.

 

“The joy of it, though, was that we were figuring it out together and I didn’t have to know and he didn’t have to know, but together we knew better,” she said.

 

As she has become more comfortable playing for dance and using her looping station, Gelfand has been experimenting with collaborations with her fellow dance students, playing the cello for different class projects and events outside of class.

 

On April 2, she played for a site-specific improvisation in Whit’s Frozen Custard in Athens with fellow dance major Matthew Keller. Crowds of moms visiting their students for Mom’s Weekend paused in slight confusion to see a live cello performance and Keller maneuvering his body through the small shop, as they waited for their ice cream.

 

Gelfand said the performance was very interesting because the audience had no obligation to stay and watch like they would at a concert or other formal performance.

 

The music and dance were both improvised so both Gelfand and Keller had to listen and watch eachother carefully to create something cohesive.

 

“It became an interesting challenge for Matthew to navigate the space, and to decide how he wanted to experience the music,” Gelfand said.

 

For the audience and the artists to get the best experience, everything must flow – costumes, lights, music, and choreography. Each element brings something new to the production as a whole but can't take away from the others.

 

“I want the music to help me see the dance and I want the dance to help me hear the music,” Javian said. “They have to fold into one another.”

 

Like the chicken and the egg, dancers and musicians often ask, what comes first: the music or the dance? Which element has more significance? There is no clear-cut answer. But hearing the two come together live and feeling the energy of both makes something click, and can send a shiver down the audiences’ spine.

 

 

Hayley Ross is an aspiring journalist and recent graduate from Ohio University. She hopes to someday work in Marketing and Communications for dance. Learn more about Hayley by visiting the About page. 

bottom of page