Ryan Jolicoeur-Nye counts out the beats as he directs three dancers darting across the floor in a rehearsal room.
Earlier this year when Jolicoeur-Nye created a pas de deux for Kansas City Ballet’s “New Moves” showcase set to the music of composer Max Richter, it caught the eye of Kansas City Dance Festival’s co-artistic director Anthony Krutzkamp. The two decided to collaborate on a larger work for the festival this weekend that they’re calling "Richter Scales."
Jolicoeur-Nye says working with Krutzkamp has pushed him in new ways.
"It’s an interesting challenge and not something that’s done very often where two choreographers come together and make one piece that the end result has to be sort of cohesive and look like it was the same artist with the same vision that put it together," says Jolicoeur-Nye.
"And so as he feeds off ideas, and I feed off ideas. We kind of fell into this rhythm ... And the dancers always play a big part in that because they also have ideas and different dancers bodies move different ways."
During a break in the rehearsal, Krutzkamp jumps in to explain a complex dance step to dancer Morgan Sicklick, a member of the ballet’s second company KCB II. “Once you get down here, lock your knee, but don’t lock your hip so you can go 'rawrp,'” he directs. “See what I’m saying?”
Krutzkamp now manages KCB II after spending nine years as a dancer with the Kansas City Ballet. He says there’s a healthy give and take working with Jolicoeur-Nye, who joined the company in 2012.
“I think we have a lot of mutual respect for each other as choreographers and we’re not similar by any means, but close enough,” Krutzkamp says. "And we thought it would be really great because I do take inspiration from his work ... Because the piece now is going to have more ebb and flow then I could have ever given it because I’m only one artist."
For Jolicoeur-Nye, Richter’s music helps set the stage to bind their two visions together.
"The music we’re using has a very similar tone in all of the sections though the dynamic changes the relative feeling throughout is the same," says Jolicoeur-Nye. "Different choreographers hear music in different ways. He sort of heard his pieces the same way that I heard my pieces and it only made sense to bring those together and tell a bigger story."
And for both, the bond of friendship made working together a natural fit.
"We’re all buddies. So yeah, I think we pretty much knew it was going to be a little easier to work with each other than most just because we are artists in a city we weren’t born in and we hold that place as our home, but you don’t have family but what you have is your friends," says Krutzkamp.
"You know how everybody reacts in our little group and within that group, you know how far you can push yourself and how receptive somebody is to your input or when he’s in a groove and I like what’s happening, I just don’t interrupt. It’s easy. (laughs) Let him be. Let it be easy. But yeah, I think it's so easy to work with each other because we know each other so well."
Working with another choreographer can be challenging but Jolicoeur-Nye says there are unexpected rewards.
"You give up a little bit of your freedom,” he says. “You have to sort of let go sometimes of your own process, but in the end if you're willing to do that, your whole experience and the whole result becomes enhanced by the coming together of all the different ideas that are going in the room at the same time."
Krutzkamp adds that raising the bar each year and taking on new challenges is at the heart of what Kansas City Dance Festival is all about.
Kansas City Dance Festival, Friday, July 24 - Saturday, July 25 at 7:30 pm, at the Folly Theater, 300 W 12th Street, Kansas City, Missouri, 816-474-4444.
