Comment on this story What: Back at the Bijou, Circle Modern Dance Spring Show When: Friday, April 23 and Saturday, April 24, 8 p.m. Where: Bijou Theater Cost: $15 general, $8 students/seniors. Available at the Bijou box office.

Mark Lamb performs his last show with Circle Modern Dance and looks forward to finding his place in New York City

by Paige M. Travis

When Mark Lamb returned from a trip to Tokyo in 2003, it was clear to his friends that something had changed. More than his newfound appreciation for black silk robes and the Japanese words that littered his speech, something had shifted in his mind or being. He spoke eagerly of returning to Tokyo the next year, and it wasn’t long after that he started talking about going to—moving to—New York City.

For a dancer and choreographer of Lamb’s drive and talent, the Big Apple is a natural destination. Many fans of Circle Modern Dance, the company he founded soon after moving to Knoxville 14 years ago, will wonder—and have wondered aloud to him—why he hasn’t already fled this small Southern city where the appreciation for dance can be rewarding, but the economic reward is limited.

Making what would seem the obvious decision wasn’t easy. Like many transplants, Lamb—a native Kentuckian—had become attached to Knoxville.

“Originally, I thought I would be here for three years, and then I would go on to New York,” Lamb says. “I always imagined that I would end up in New York; that was the plan. And then once Circle began, and other dancers moved here—Kimberly Matibag [whom he knew from Murray], Wendy Nash, Claire Barrett, Audrey Pickett—all these dancers came to work together. I felt kind of this responsibility to keep the company going. There was always one more project, one more new, exciting collaboration, one more grant to write. And before I knew it, I turned around and 14 years had passed.”

Lamb is approaching his move as multidirectional, a chance for career advancement and an emotional necessity. He knew that dancers who had performed in New York carried more cred in the dance world. This truth was confirmed when he was in Tokyo to teach a workshop for In the Moment, an improvisational performance company. Although his resume was impressively dense with experience, education, training and application, the absence of a New York credit hindered the company’s ability to promote the workshop. The workshop was ultimately a success, but the glaring lack of that New York notch on his CV echoed in Lamb’s head. He’d heard this kind of comment before, in particular from one of his champions, Suzanne Carbonneau, dance critic for The Washington Post and resident historian of Bates Dance Festival, where Lamb has studied for the past six summers. She watched videos of his work with Circle and tempered her praise with advice.

“Wow, these dancers are incredible, and your choreography has such merit and brilliance,” she told Lamb with the caveat: “You’ve got to go to New York. You’re not going to get any further until you go to New York.”

“I’ve spent years hearing this,” he says. “I always said, well, they don’t need me in New York. They need me in Knoxville.”

But when Lamb visited the city in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, he perceived a fundamental change in the city. “People in New York started to see each other again. That was something frightening to me before about New York: the pace and how you’re everyone and you’re no one there. But after the 11th, I felt there was a shift.”

Even as he saw a place for him opening up in New York City, he had unfinished business at home. His father, a former teacher and sports reporter for the Union County Advocate who had long been ill with Alzheimer’s, died in October 2003.

“After he died I felt part of his dying process, part of letting go, was for me to let go of Knoxville and go on to another place. I don’t think New York is heaven by any means, but there’s another part of my journey.”

Lamb’s ultimate goal in the Big Apple is to found his own dance company that will strictly perform his choreography. Mark Lamb Dance won’t be a remake of Circle Modern Dance, but it will contain some of the elements Lamb has introduced to the company and that are woven through every performance.

“To me, dance—and I’ve said this many times before—is like breathing; it’s the heartbeat, the orbit of the planets, the rising of the sun; it’s all these things. And I want to continue that mission.”

Where Circle has always been a showcase for an ever-changing influx of dancers and choreographers of varying degrees of training or technical ability, he envisions a new company as a place to develop his singular vision of movement with a cohesive and constant set of people.

“I want to really delve into working with just a specific group that I can work with for years and that could really understand what I’m trying to say, understand my style of movement,” he says. These dancers will probably include the same range of abilities showcased in Circle’s works, as well as some guest performers from Knoxville. Particularly those Lamb feels are intricately connected to the dances he’s choreographed for them, like wheelchair dancer Adam Manookian.

“The work with people with disabilities has changed my life incredibly, and really made me take stock of what I’m trying to say and what I’m trying to do. Not only as an artist but as a social activist and advocate.”

Lamb is mainly an artist. And part of the New York dream is that artists can go there to find a support network of fellow artists, patrons and audience members eager for a variety of cultural experiences. It the fantasy of Big City as savior: a place that will nourish, nurture and boost an artist, helping him discover his ultimate talents. None of this is guaranteed of course; we’ve all heard plenty of stories in which the Big City chews up and spits out hopefuls. But, ideally, artists flock to New York because the city and its people not only allow artists to be artists; they pay them to be artists. That kind of financial support is hard-won in Knoxville, for a variety of small non-profits, not just arts organizations. It’s an old philosophy that society benefits when artists are financially supported as they make art—instead of having to juggle jobs and administrative duties and fundraising and all the trappings of paying for art. Individual artist patrons seem few and far between these days, which is why New York is a mecca for artists like Lamb who want—and deserve—the time, space and support to create works of dance. It’s not impossible for artists to have “day jobs” while they create art on the side, but it would be nice if they could be compensated equitably for what they contribute to our communities.

Although Lamb is idealistic, he knows Mark Lamb Dance is probably a few years down the road. In the meantime, he’s feeling complicated about Knoxville.

“It’s very bittersweet right now,” he says. “I went through a phase where I was becoming disgusted with Knoxville, but I recognized it and labeled it and compartmentalized it and realized, OK, you’re just doing this. I think it was helping me push to get out.” Anyone who has ever sworn to everyone within earshot that she was leaving Knoxville, by God, for real this time, understands Lamb’s desire to justify his relocation. Even with so many increasingly exciting reasons to live here, this city has its own quirks that can keep anyone—particularly an artist—frustrated.

“I love Knoxville,” he attests. “I’m passionate about it and want to see it grow. There are things about it that frustrate me and bother me.... But ultimately to gain the recognition and the accolades on a larger level of my career, I need to go to New York.”

Lamb’s departure begs the question: What will happen to Circle? While its board (of which this writer is a member) is considering some changes, including hiring a part-time administrative assistant, the show must go on.

“I have faith that [Circle] will live on. I think it will change, which is not a bad thing. I think in a lot of ways it might change for the better,” Lamb says. “I equate it to a relationship. I’ve loved it. It’s loved me. I’ve been there for it. There’s been magical, romantic times. There have been times when I was so angry and hurt and upset that I just wanted a divorce and to leave, screaming from the room. It feels like a child at times. Sometimes it nurtures me, but most of the time I’m nurturing it. It’s best that we part on good terms. It’s 14, it’s a teenager. Now it needs some independence, it needs to make some new choices on its own.”

Kimberly Matibag, one of the company’s founding directors will take over as executive artistic director and the main face continuing to present Circle’s work. “She has vision for the company. I’m really excited to see what direction she’ll take it in. I hope that what I’ve brought to it, the residue from my work, will be part of that growth. There are certain things that I say, that I know will always be there. Above all: be honest about the work. We’re not trying to trick anybody or fool anybody, but we also want the bar to be very high.”

Circle Modern Dance has come a long way since its beginning in 1990.

“When we started, we had no idea about non-profits,” Lamb admits. “We had no idea how to run a dance company. We knew how to choreograph. We knew how to put on a show.” They started out with $100, rehearsing in a racquetball court at Alumni Gym—and not exactly with permission. The reminiscence sounds like a pitch for Fame: a group of earnest young people who just wanted to dance. Looking back, he seems simultaneously proud and amazed. “We were doing performances at Trumps for AIDS Response Knoxville, and we were doing performances out on the concrete at World’s Fair Park at music festivals—just any way we could get the work out there. With no money, no resources. Just faith and passion for dance.”

Now, fueled with that same faith and passion, Circle has weekly classes, a strong local reputation and two yearly shows—including the upcoming spring concert which marks the company’s return to the Bijou Theater, a favorite venue. It’s fitting for the stage that has held so many of Circle’s spring shows to host Lamb’s final performance as the director of this seminal dance company.

His final work is both a solo piece and collaboration with a colleague he met at Bates last summer. Vong Phrommala was born in Laos; his parents fled as refugees to the center-state town of Murfreesboro. Phrommala told Lamb about the piece he had choreographed about his family’s journey to Tennessee, which sparked Lamb’s idea to bring Phrommala to Knoxville to dance for Circle audiences and his family, who have never seen the piece. Ultimately, the work became two solos on either side of a duet of their co-creation called “Godspeed Tennessee Boys” after Lamb’s father’s favorite salutation. For non-dancers, the notion of choreographing via email sounds virtually impossible, but the two dancers corresponded about their movement ideas, eventually meeting again in San Francisco to work out the duet in person.

Lamb finds a synchronicity in meeting Phrommala, a 32-year-old dancer who is also developing his choreographic voice and performing on an international basis while still influenced by his Tennessee roots.

“It’s an old connection because we have relative experiences, but then ultimately it’s a new connection and a new beginning,” Lamb says. Such alliances are comforting when facing a huge city with so many opportunities and unknowns. The piece covers a lot of territory, both geographically and emotionally.

“So we’re trying to honor his family since they’re coming to see the show, honor my family and also honor the wonderful audiences that we have in Knoxville that have been behind me and supported me for so long.... It’s a new beginning, but it’s also a quiet goodbye.”

The moment when the entire Circle company joins the duet on stage will be emotional for everyone involved, onstage or off. More than a few tears will be shed. Just as it’s impossible to foretell what the future holds for Mark Lamb in New York City, it’s impossible to measure his influence on the countless dancers and audience members he’s inspired to think and feel differently about their bodies’ relationship to dance. “Everyone is a dancer,” goes the Circle motto and founding philosophy. “Everyone has the right to dance.” The words imply a responsibility inside us all—to dance, to live, to breathe. This is Mark Lamb’s legacy in Knoxville. Sure, he’ll be back to visit, but while he’s gone, we’ve got some dancing to do.

April 22, 2004 • Vol. 14, No. 17 © 2004 Metro Pulse