Unstructured time helps me manage jetlag...

The excitement of actually being in-country when starting out a Fulbright project, or any international project for that matter, can lead to mis-adventure in the first few days. This is especially true when dealing with a time difference of more than 4 hours for me. Having spent almost fifty years travelling professionally for work, I learned to accept my responsibility for mishaps and distracted concentration over my first few days. Addressing jet lag for me is about realizing that what my brain thinks I should be doing is not aligning with what my body might be telling me should be happening. 

Now that I have more control over my scheduling for international projects, I make an effort to keep meetings and teaching/coaching obligations as light as possible for the first few days I am in-country. As a dancer, the companies I worked for dictated how much time performers might have to acclimate to a new time-zone and environment. But as an independent agent, I have only myself to blame when it comes to my schedule of work obligations. Still, knowing that I have a meeting for just one or two hours my first day, does help me let my body know there is a structure to what my days will become.

Insects are pollinating spring flowers all around Auckland right now.

With a 17 hour time difference between New Zealand and the east coast of the US, I want to be forgiving of myself these first few days, and having unstructured time to myself has been a huge blessing. It takes more time for me to acclimate the older I get, and listening to my body helps to focus my cognition. My body has no sense of what time of the day it is, irrespective of the sun being out, and the days being warm while the nights are considerably cooler. So I go for walks in the neighborhood, attempting to get my geographic bearings, allowing myself to get lost, when I forget to look behind me so I know where I came from when I attempt to return to my residence. Yesterday, I totally missed a walking pathway that would have saved me a quarter mile backtrack along the road where I am staying.

The walking pathway I missed completely yesterday, after looking for it repeatedly.

I did schedule to meet with my host institution, Black Grace Dance Company and many of the dancers and staff with whom I will be working throughout my time in New Zealand. Thankfully, I was graciously met by one of the production managers at the airport where I arrived at 6:00 AM NZ time, following an 18-hour non-stop flight from NYC. Then I had the whole day to settle in to my accomodations and manage business in small increments as concentration allowed. I was picked up at 4:30 PM to head over to Black Grace's offices and rehearsal space, to meet with everyone. 

And I have to say, it is such an amazing feeling to be welcomed in person to begin this phase of a project that has been in the works for many years! The timing for bringing everything together, was serendipitous in being able to take advantage of my active Fulbright Specialist status, which is set to expire in January 2026. 

While Auckland feels very much like a city in which to have a car, I love what I get to discover as I walk around the neighbourhood where I am staying. 

Yet, I can tell that it will be a few days before I will be feeling entirely comfortable both physically and mentally. So taking advantage of unstructured time each day is my way of acknowledging what feels out-of-synch. The structured time of meetings, interviews, social gatherings, and very soon, teaching and coaching, will be draining at first, but I know to give myself time alone each day for at least a week, with the sole agenda of self-care. 

Every country has its own special qualities, and in some countries, regions can feel radically different from each other. It is often hard to put into words what these difference might be, maybe it's the humidity, the change of seasons, the architecture and materials used in the buildings and roads, the interactions with people on the street, so many things. For me one distinguishing factor is always the vegetation. Here in New Zealand there are many endemic species of plants and animals, but I think it is the mix of both the familiar and the exotic that makes walking around feel subtly different than anywhere else in the world.

Today, on my walk, there was a period of bright clear sunshine and I wondered through a small park with a huge oak tree shading a grassy corner. I took this picture looking up through the leaves and had a vivid memory of visiting Hobbiton in 2013, where I wandered around the location set that had been built for filming the Hobbit trilogy and The Lord of the Rings movies.

A living oak tree in Auckland that struck a memory.

As it turns out, the oak tree that sits atop Bag End, Bilbo's home, in Hobbiton, is completely artificial, and each leaf on the tree had to be manufactured and attached. The story I was told was that a live oak had been planted in place for The Lord of the Rings scenes in Hobbiton, but it died by the time the Hobbit trilogy was scheduled to be filmed, and so the artificial tree was built. It was also scaled down from the original tree because the Hobbit movies take place sixty years earlier than the first trilogy.

The oak tree atop Bag End in Hobbiton.

Well, that's my first couple of days musings here in New Zealand. There's much more to come...

This blog (FNZdance25.blogspot.com) is not an official site of the Fulbright Program or the U.S. Department of State. The views expressed on this site are entirely those of its author (Richard Chen See) and do not necessarily represent the views of the Fulbright Program, the U.S. Department of State, or any of its partner organizations.

Global travel can feel surreal.

By the time I write my next post, I will be in New Zealand on the opposite side of the world from my home in NYC. Given the current state of global telecommunications, I have already booked both social and work appointments starting this weekend, as though getting there just means walking around the corner. I have no idea if my flight will be delayed, or worse, but life dictates that I operate on the premise that I will get there. So onward... with the realization that I won't be grabbing coffee in the morning at my usual neighborhood haunts for the next month or so, nor will I be paddling in my own kayak... 

The autumnal colors are out in the USA, while I am heading into Spring in New Zealand.

As a performing artist, it was natural to imagine the worst right before stepping out on to a stage for an audience of just a few or of thousands. "Curtain up" is a deadline unlike most others in life, and being prepared as a performer is typically the best method of managing what is to come once the curtain is up (this may just be a spot light or any beginning of a performance).

To be honest, preparing for a project where I will be far away from my day-to-day familiar can feel very similar to stage fright where I can imagine all kinds of things going wrong. I have to remember to breathe and not panic about all the unknowable things in store for me. After all, I know I am not the only person who has done a Fulbright project in a foreign country (sic: what Fulbright was designed to do). Somehow, as I age, I spend a lot more time talking to myself, and reminding myself that my apprehensions are often driving factors in my research, preparations and resultant faith in having done my best to prepare for both the known and the unknown.

Fulbright Specialists have been vetted by their peers, and approved for grants based on their expertise and accomplishments in their fields. I take this endorsement quite seriously, and realize how little objectivity I have with regards to my own abilities. In dance, such abilities can feel intrinsically attached to my physical and mental abilities, and I have to approach my body and mind for what they are in the moment. I have not only survived in a notoriously insecure field, but sustained a professional involvement throughout my lifetime. Yet the constant question I keep answering is, "Why is Art and performance" something important to society?"

Linguistically, how a society communicates within and without is far from static, and new words and phrases get introduced, while others fall out of use. Still, spoken language is important to communicate ideas amongst us as humans, and how we do so is subject to everything from context to intonation. Music is another construct for communication and can encompass so much more than words, whether heard by itself or in conjunction with lyrics. Diving a little deeper into this line-of-thought is where movement in conjunction with music can also transcend spoken and written languages to communicate both explicitly and subliminally.

"I Shot the Sheriff" original song by Bob Marley, most successful cover by Eric Clapton

I have occasionally listened to reggae songs written by Jamaican artists being sung with non-Jamaican accents, with mixed results for my ear. I was born and grew up in Jamaica, and have often been noted for how my accent defines my pronunciations in spoken English. So when lyrics are written to sit on music, the choice of words are often designed to fit with the musical rhythms, rendering them in harmony and understandable. Changing the emphasis in how words are pronounced mostly defines an accent versus a dialect of a language where grammatical structures and words might differ. 

Conversing with individuals who have strong accents that differ from our own, often brings attention to the beauty of language, while differentiating how it is used to communicate. As a listener in such a conversation, it is essential to remain open to hearing words differently and allowing their meaning to be understood. I think of dance in a similar fashion, where dances that are performed by different and differently trained bodies may transcend words for a global audience.

But returning to the insecurities I wrote of at the top of this post, my work is to place the choreographer, Paul Taylor, and his dances into the context of his life and time; while also being open to the life that the New Zealand dancers infuse into the steps as individuals with their own histories and culture. My role is no longer being the performer on stage in front of audiences, but in guiding and supporting the performers of this generation to make Art out of their self expression within the structure of the choreography created by Taylor. My role here too feels filled with responsibility for the privilege that my career has provided to me, and the fear of failure is a constant that keeps me attentive to all that I do. I will feel the success or failure of performances borne out of my efforts to be on my shoulders.

Curtain call for 2025 production of Chess on Broadway, in previews.

As an audience member at a performance of a musical, a play, a dance that touches something within me, no matter how momentary or how long, I find myself in awe of the performers. And while I know that individual artistry may highlight performers I find enthralling, it is everyone and everything around them and all the factors that led to that show, that gave me a transcendent experience. I can be as avid a fan of shows, performers, and companies as the next person, and I can be equally incredulous that I could play a part in such an experience for another audience somewhere.

I imagine that it is my own self-doubt that has kept me ever curious about new projects and ongoing research into how Performance Art has always been a part of human culture.

This blog (FNZdance25.blogspot.com) is not an official site of the Fulbright Program or the U.S. Department of State. The views expressed on this site are entirely those of its author (Richard Chen See) and do not necessarily represent the views of the Fulbright Program, the U.S. Department of State, or any of its partner organizations.

An exercise in hindsight... informs culture of the future.

I recently read a dance review that opened with the statement, "All reviews of live performance are an exercise in hindsight." In context it was apt, for the performance in question was about dancing personal reflections of choreographers and dancers on their lives to that point in time. However, for me the statement spoke more broadly to the fact that I am in the thick of the chaos that leads into a live performance. 

2003 - starting to warm-up on the outdoor stage of the Spoleto Festival in Italy.

The very nature of reading words on a page is knowing that the intent has been considered and edited. The exposition is no longer an immediate, spontaneous response to something or someone in the moment of being read. Yet good writing can feel as though whatever the words are about is unfolding as we read. Watching a live performance is obviously unfolding in time as we perceive it, but its intent has been equally considered and edited; then it must be practiced and coached so that the event appears to be a spontaneous exposition unfolding in the moment of every performance.

Every bit of carved, painted or printed piece of writing preserves its moment in time through its replication, translation, and reading well beyond the lifetime of its author. It could be a physical document un-earthed by archaeologists, referenced in a library, or even replicated digitally with aid of electrical impulses coded in 1's and 0's. However, humans evolved a culture of communication long before they had words. And the most precious of age old non-verbal communication in the world lives mostly in an infinite number of moments that we might call Performance Art, and be lucky enough to experience such Art in our lifetime, knowing that future generations will never encounter the same. We can hope that future humans will have their own transcendent experiences with similar Performance Art within their cultures, but we know that their live performances cannot be the same as ours. That is the nature of live performance's ephemerability. 

2003 detail of Spoleto with ghost of performance.

So why bother to consider that which is past, especially ephemera? I don't think there is much doubt that if you are reading this, you have an interest in how words communicate events and history. And I add that those very words have evolved based on, and because of their own etymology. Within our own cultures words communicate in different ways, but they carry with them a very human history and evolution.

In the mid-1980's, when I took a course on modern (1850-1950) European history, my professor gave me the option to do my research based on the Art of the times, and to analyze how the Art reflected, subverted, and predicted the ethos of those times. Ultimately, Art helps us memorialize meaningful events, gives us voice when our individual existence seems insignificant, and helps us imagine a future of possibilities. Performance Art in particular, may well be the most defining voice of the zeitgeist of any era. The performers are people to whom their audience can relate, they speak, sing and dance in the vernacular of the culture. Yet what they perform may have originated in a near or distant past. 

Black Grace - current promo shot for upcoming performances, 2025.
Photo: Toaki Okano 

The gift of creatives who imagine and bring a live performance to fruition, is a combination of both being of their own time, and of creating Art that speaks to future generations as well. When an original performance work continues to engage and stand up to critical scrutiny through generations of different performing casts, I think of that as a work of genius. Not because I imagine the creative to have thought through every possible interpretation, but because their instincts and perspectives were not limited by their own human mortality. 

Black Grace in Esplanade - detail from current promo, 2025.
Photo: Toaki Okano

The responsibility of re-mounting dances of legacy choreographers, is to honor as best we can the essence of their intent, while acknowledging a contemporary perspective of how the dance is being seen. Fifty years of continuous performances, somewhere in the world, of Paul Taylor's Esplanade is evidence enough that the work itself has maintained meaning for its audiences. It's ongoing life, is in the humanity of this generation's performers to find themselves within the framework of the dance. It is my pleasure and honor to have the mantle of shepherding Black Grace Dance Company in New Zealand to perform Esplanade. In the spirit, and with the support of, Fulbright, this is just as much about international exchange as it is about furthering cross-cultural understanding through Art.

This blog (FNZdance25.blogspot.com) is not an official site of the Fulbright Program or the U.S. Department of State. The views expressed on this site are entirely those of its author (Richard Chen See) and do not necessarily represent the views of the Fulbright Program, the U.S. Department of State, or any of its partner organizations.

The double-entendre of "Current Events"!

Lately, events from all aspects of life seem to be breaking over our consciousness, and as I get older, the topics often feel familiar, if unwelcome, like an eddy of deja vu. I have always loved moving water and playing in the currents of a river or the open ocean. So it isn't a big leap when I imagine the news cycles to be like ocean currents circulating through time, natural disasters, political upheaval, infrastructure failures, technological advances, celebrity dramas, and all of it. The delivery might be different, but the only certainty seems to be that nothing stays the same. And yet we all live in the moment hoping that our singular existence might affect a future outcome, a sort of legacy.

I'm the blindfolded jumper! 1983 with Mario Alonzo at Oakland Ballet Company. Photo: Marty Sohl

If I accept that I can't predict the future, I might imagine myself to be leaping into each new adventure blindfolded and each step forward is an act of faith. The benefit of age and experience is knowing that I have lived through many unimaginable moments and events in my own life, and that my stories are just one perspective of multitudes. So how do I stay the course of taking on new ventures like re-staging an iconic work of performance art on a new generation, internationally?

I focus on the details. This can be tedious and time consuming work, and in looking at reconstructing a thirty minute dance, if I were starting from scratch, it might take upwards of three hundred hours of research, documentation, and implementation. And this is only looking at my specific role as principal stager and artistic representative of Paul Taylor's intellectual property, for just one dance.

Detail from a Labanotation score of about 5 seconds of choreography...

I do have my methods to address these projects knowing the amount of work to be done, and that there is no short-cut, because we are talking about how we learn as humans. Much of my preparation is about making sure that I can conceptualize each and every step, role, costume, lighting cue, sound cue, and everything for how I believe it was intended. This is a tricky statement, that is not intended as hubris, but rather as accepting the responsibility that producing dance as an Art is a form of an expressed intent. And if that intent is not clear expressed from me as the artistic representative, then the result may well suffer under public scrutiny. I would also like my diligence, and belief in detail and intent to somehow mark my legacy in times when I am no longer around. 

My rough notes for the same 5 seconds of choreography...

Setting an American choreographer's dance on a company of dancers in a completely different country is also about finding common ground with both the dancers' and the culture's embrace of the creative content. Dance is a language of communication, even though it may not speak in literal terms, yet it can be a touchstone for human emotions made visible, even evoking descriptions like "grotesquely beautiful" or "sublimely terrifying". 

My digitized version of my notes for the same 5 seconds of choreography...

I mentioned above the fact that for humans to repeatedly perform the same choreography with integrity, musicality, and conviction, rushing the process of how individual dancers learn is counter productive. To account for different learning styles (a whole other topic about which I love exploring), my preparation does need to be ready to answer the performers' questions, which generally start from making sense of how to conceptualize and execute the intended movement or patterns. Yet this is only the beginning of the process, and it often takes about an hour of concentrated work in a studio to just learn a single minute of choreography, whether working with an individual or with a group.

Technological advances in video make it infinitely easier to view and analyze choreography, both as it is being created, and in reconstructing a dance. However, like oral traditions that have been recorded and transcribed to a written document, the root of a word/idiom/phrase may still be missing, because its beauty may lie in its pronunciation/accent/lexicology. Most video replications highlight the exceptional and unique talents of the performers being filmed, and if those performers are truly exceptional, the viewer might be trying to replicate the performer rather than the intent of the choreography. 

2025 Programme booklet for performance in Vienna with dances by
George Balanchine, Merce Cunningham and Martin Schläpfer.
Audiences in USA may never see a dance by Schläpfer on account of what it takes to reconstruct a dance, but his work has been known in Europe for decades!
Dancers: Rashaen Arts, Javier González Cabrera. Photo: Ashley Taylor

I want every performance and performer involved to be building a new artistic experience. Videos of multiple interpretations, my written notes, interviews with dancers/choreographers/audiences all serve as references in my knowledge base to offer artistic choices with a unified intent.  Paul Taylor created his dances from his perspective with a specific cast of performers. His genius was in creating a visual language that can speak through generations of dancers with as much nuance and personality as the original cast. My responsibility is in helping to decipher ways to take advantage of Taylor's genius, so the craft, the finesse, the breadth of expression of future dancers and choreographers will support their inspirations to reach an audience.

Literacy in written language and music help us continue to learn and build on what came before!

Taylor was a unique choreographic voice who danced with and grew out of an earlier generation of maverick talents. As we struggle to experience some of those pioneers' works being performed today, I think of it like losing the chance to see a William Shakespeare play or listen to a Johann Sebastian Bach concerto. Just because we know it existed does not allow performance arts to drive the Art of expression and reflection of ourselves as individuals or representations of our current cultures.

This blog (FNZdance25.blogspot.com) is not an official site of the Fulbright Program or the U.S. Department of State. The views expressed on this site are entirely those of its author (Richard Chen See) and do not necessarily represent the views of the Fulbright Program, the U.S. Department of State, or any of its partner organizations.

Manifesting Fulbright's aspirations between New Zealand and the USA

Titling my post before I write helps me focus the chaos of ideas and approaches that often intimidate me from actually writing a post.

J. William Fulbright's aspirational "mission" is often stated as promoting peace through educational international exchange. There is nothing to replace getting to know how different or similar the life and perspectives of a foreign culture might be, than to experience it in person. I think that the educational component of Fulbright implies that the scholars being supported are looking to effect change through mutual understanding, example, and sharing.

2023 Studio portrait of me by Fabrice Herrault

To promote peace does imply a pre-existing atmosphere of conflict, whether between nations or within the culture of a country, and we should remember that Fulbright brought his program together in the immediate aftermath of World War II. Sadly, international conflicts continue to abound around the world, though I might argue that I don't believe there are more of them than a hundred years ago, only that global communications have made them more immediately felt and technological advances more deadly.

However, it is not my intent to debate conflict here, but to promote how my efforts to share exceptional works of Art between countries is my way of building mutual understanding. Performance Art has a unique quality of needing to be executed by artists and seen by audiences. Art distinguishes itself by both its creator's intent, and its ability to appeal. Music and dance have the added benefit of being able to bypass language barriers, as well as many political barriers. When a dance company performs the work of a dance created for a different ensemble, it gives the dance itself a new life by both the culture of the performers and the perspectives of its audience. Resultantly, when an American-made dance by Paul Taylor is performed by New Zealand dancers for New Zealand audiences the success of the exchange is in whether all concerned are somehow changed from the experience. 

There is something identifiable, if indefinable about how people from different cultural backgrounds move. In Taylor's oeuvre, dancers are meant to be individuals, and how they come together within a specific work speaks of the culture in which they live as well as from whence they came. New Zealand audiences will subconsciously identify with their own, and hopefully celebrate the nuances of expression that come with choreography generated in a foreign land. Throughout history, the creative Arts and artists of many different countries have been celebrated in lands not of their origin. So when cultural (national or organizational) natives get to perform great works of foreign (countries or companies) origin, both performers and audiences are exposed to an experience that can transcend words in mutual understanding.

As a regisseur (staging director), I have set dances by Paul Taylor in foreign countries such as Australia, Austria, China, England, and India. These projects have all resonated well beyond their performances, whether it was audiences that believed they had a better understanding of an American approach to dance, or dancers who persevere at seeking perspectives beyond their own training and native cultures.

2023 bowing with dancers of the Wiener Staatsballett. Photo: Ashley Taylor

A critical aspect of social interaction is based on non-verbal cueing, which includes things like being able to identify a loved one before you can make out their features, just by the way they walk; or whether you feel uncomfortable with how close another person is to you; or by smelling smoke and looking for a fire, and even how the inflection or accent of how someone speaks can trigger an unconscious bias. These cues are essential to building emotional attachments and empathy, and when we can feel for others, it drives us to understand how to at least live with our differences if not overcome them. 

This is my perspective of how critical it was in driving forward a mission of mutual understanding, when Fulbright expanded its purview to include cultural institutions as well as research non-profits amongst their eligible organizations that might qualify to host an international exchange.

This blog (FNZdance25.blogspot.com) is not an official site of the Fulbright Program or the U.S. Department of State. The views expressed on this site are entirely those of its author (Richard Chen See) and do not necessarily represent the views of the Fulbright Program, the U.S. Department of State, or any of its partner organizations.

New Zealand is a long ways away... from New York.

Fulbright grants are all about international exchange between the USA and a multitude of other countries around the world. For the majority of the world's population, the freedom to travel is an oft unrealized day dream. Rarely do I forget the privilege I have to toil away at tasks that earn me a living, with knowledge I didn't always know I gained by being me, and the distance between countries has been an awareness nurtured in me throughout my life. Gratefully, travel continues to be a part of my work and life.

2008 detail from performance shot of me in "Esplanade"

I was born and grew up on the third largest island in the West Indies, Jamaica. Like many island born children, my dream was always to travel and see the world. As a member of the "baby boomer" generation I also benefitted from the advances in air travel and its growing global infrastructure. I remember being told by my parents that it took upwards of a month to travel between Jamaica and Hong Kong when they were children. As a child, my first time on an airplane was a relatively short flight from Jamaica to Miami, and the first time I flew to England, I clearly remember taking three flights: Kingston, Jamaica to New York, USA to Gander, Canada to London, United Kingdom.

By the time I was a teenager, trans-Atlantic flights were common place. The first time I flew to New Zealand from New York City, back in 1999, I was able to change planes in San Francisco and cross the Pacific in a single flight. I imagine that the 24 hour travel day for that excursion was probably similar to my first trans Atlantic crossing some thirty year earlier. For this project, Fulbright have booked my tickets through a partner travel agent, and my flight can only be described as a trans-world nonstop flight from New York City direct to Auckland! I can't say that I am looking forward to the estimated 17 - 18 hour flight, but I do appreciate that this is actually possible. To date, the longest single flight I have taken has been about 14 hours from New York to Tokyo. In under a hundred years, commercial passenger travel from the New World to the Far East has gone from an average of about 45 days by ship to under 24 hours by plane.

It seems like such a cliché to say that knowing our past is one of the best ways to appreciate our present and to guide our choices and understanding for the future. However, in my field of concert dance knowing the past, for creative artists striving to excel and to contribute to its present and future, is rarely as simple as picking up a well researched book. For me, dance as an expressive and performative Art, does speak about the historical eras in which it was created. And yet, legacy (of a choreographer that is no longer alive) works created in past times as performed by dancers today can connect with the zeitgeist of the now. 

As a performer, I benefitted from learning and performing early 20th century ballets and modern dances, as well as growing up training in Afro-Caribbean dance forms. All of that experience informed my participation in new creations, not only because of the technical articulation honed on my body by the varied demands, but for the dramatic clarity and specificity I learned from dancing those foundational works. To me, every dance I had to learn was a new experience, whether or not they had been created on (or for) a dancer before me. With age came confidence and efficiency to build new work and try new approaches as I came to understand what I knew, and what I needed to know more about.

The artistry that transcends skill in dance is no different than other performing arts, and that lies in the observer seeing both the role being danced as well as recognizing the individual performing. These perceptions hold space simultaneously, not only for individual performers, but for the uniquely evocotive works of Art themselves which speak of their creators, whether in the aesthetic of choreography, the brush strokes and colors of painting, the harmonies and tonalities of music, and even the words and phrases of written dialogue.

Advances in technology and understanding of our world and engineering sciences have given us a global transportation infrastructure which also furthers the reach of Fulbright programs as conduits of learning and diplomacy. These advances could not have happened without knowledge and application of all that came before, and they have also opened global access to interact in person.

Advances in technology have also pushed access and learning of dance choreography as an art, in ways not imaginable even forty years ago. In particular is the day-to-day use of video and a growing archive of recovered or AI enhanced footage. However, I have found that nothing replaces the critical eye and knowledgable coaching of an experienced teacher or "stager", working with as much historical data as is available. Staging legacy dances of Paul Taylor means honoring how we imagine the artistic choices Taylor would make seeing the current dancers in the studio, and pushing today's artists to embody a role (abstract or character driven) with all of their talent and abilities.

I continue to acquire, digitize, annotate, record any and all data that might support more than a reconstruction of a particular dance. Performances need to become a statement of Art in and of themselves. I want the data to help shape how the work is viewed compositionally, artistically, and ultimately in how it appeals or challenges today's audiences as the dance may (or may not) have been intended, and how it is performed.

One of my history teachers in college, encouraged me to look at world history through the Art that was created and consumed by different cultures through various eras. Taking this perspective provided insight to how stratified a community might be, or how Art might actually have foreshadowed a general understanding of physics/technology, or how a society managed itself through wars differently from natural disasters, and so much more.

Art and artistes in general are still vilified in many cultures, while revered in others. Yet it has proven to be an ever present factor of human civilization. Dance, while mostly non-verbal, is still most powerful and impactful when experienced in live performances, and it isn't always the new that transcends the need for explanation or understanding to have an impact or make a statement.

This blog (FNZdance25.blogspot.com) is not an official site of the Fulbright Program or the U.S. Department of State. The views expressed on this site are entirely those of its author (Richard Chen See) and do not necessarily represent the views of the Fulbright Program, the U.S. Department of State, or any of its partner organizations.

Fulbright New Zealand & Fulbright-Nehru in recent decades.

 One amazing thing about Fulbright grants is that no specific outcome is required for proposed projects. As a Fulbrighter, I have been asked to interact beyond my host institution with the country of my grant, and to share my experience as a grantee. Fulbright says it hopes that grants will spark longer term institutional connections between the USA and the host countries of its 49 Global Commissions by the personal relationships created and strengthened through their programs. This leaves open infinite potential for any funded project to evolve and reach beyond the imagined, original scope. 

2008 studio shoot, Richard Chen See. Photo: Lois Greenfield

In 2018, I received a Fulbright-Nehru Academic and Professional Excellence Award fellowship, and I spent six months in India visiting and teaching with more than a dozen different institutions. Earlier this year, 2025, I was back in Mumbai teaching an independently funded intensive workshop for an institution with whom I first connected on that Fulbright. The intervening years have included mentorship and ongoing professional networking, where I have seen dancers and teachers that I met in India, thriving on global stages, and coming to the USA to study. The remarkable thing is that there is no substitute for being in a country building relationships with people in person. No matter how much the worldwide digital infrastructure has improved, there is a warmth and a wealth of non-verbal, non-visual cues that is needed to build enduring connections and find common interests with people around the globe.

India was the first place where I understood how much Fulbright Fellowships could also bring families and generational curiosity together. A small percentage of the Fulbright-Nehru fellows, to which I belonged that year, were actually repeat Fulbrighters to India, under the same commission, with many years between their grants. Once you have received a grant, it is not possible to apply to participate in another Fulbright grant program for at least two years. The application also lets you know that preference is given to individuals whom have never received a Fulbright. Still, patience and dedication to their fields allowed a few exceptional individuals the opportunity to renew their ties between India and the USA more than once with assistance from Fulbright and a second project. 

Becoming a Senior Fulbright Scholar (under which the Professional Excellence Award falls) is a lengthy process in itself, and a few have had previous grants as Students and/or Scholars. In my case, before I received my Fulbright-Nehru Fellowship, I had completed a Specialist project with Fulbright New Zealand in 2011. I rejoined the Specialist roster in hopes of possibly doing a project back home in Jamaica. When that didn't work out, I put out feelers to Australia, Germany, Austria, India, Barbados, as well as to New Zealand once again. I could not be happier that Fulbright New Zealand approved this project which brings me back to Aotearoa, fourteen years later. This time I will be based in Auckland, whereas previously I was in Wellington. 

Approaching Fulbright for potential support for more than just research in the dance field, has meant thinking about how dance is studied in academia and why I might be a good candidate. Dance as a Performance Art in higher education around the world, is still a very young field. Yet it has long been included amongst the Fine Arts. I think that part of this "late blooming" acceptance into academia is the lack of a universal written methodology for recording choreography; added to this was how slowly film and video entered into the capturing and archiving of dance around the world from a critical, rather than entertainment perspective. Academia relies on a document or artifact to be left behind for future generations to analyze and critique, and maybe offer new approaches.

Composition Study, 9 May 1937. Collection Museum of Modern Art, New York

One of Pablo Picasso's studies for Guernica. 

Autograph manuscript of "Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ" BWV 639 from the Orgelbüchlein

A page of music written by Johann Sebastian Bach.

We are all familiar with how music can be notated, and plays have scripts. Most non-dance invested individuals have no idea that there are a number of dance notation methodologies, and most dancers and choreographers are not literate in the likes of Labanotation or Benesh. In fact, a lot of choreographers through the ages have devised their own personal versions of notation to help them both consider a creation (think of the sketches that visual artists do prior to starting on a major piece) or to record on paper how we move in space (think of a musical autograph where a composer has transcribed a tune he has played on an instrument).

I have the privilege of working for Paul Taylor Dance Foundation, and I am also one of the keepers of the archival documentation for dozens of Paul Taylor's dances which were created between 1954 and 2018, when Taylor died. 

A page out of Paul Taylor's notebook choosing and combining musical selections. PTDC Archives

Reconstructing one of Taylor's dances is a process of reviewing what documentation there is of his original concepts, the world premiere of the work, subsequent productions, and current documentation to not only reproduce the choreography, costume, scenic and lighting designs, and musicality, but to make it live in the performance of the artistes to dance the work.

Words and diagrams are only the beginnings of analyzing a dance for reconstruction. Dances live in the experience of both the performers and their audiences, and aligning unique qualities of individual dancers with their roles within a specific work, needs the directorial choices of an experienced stager. I don't imagine that many choreographers generate their early documentation with the thought of how future generations might use them. Such notes are just one factor in the creative process of choreographers, and many times these artifacts need more context to be constructively interpreted.

Paul Taylor's original map of a grid pattern for dancers to follow. PTDC Archives

When I was first asked to justify my career accomplishments by academic standards, I was asked for published writings and peer reviews. I considered each performance I gave in a dance to be as rigorous in its production as a published research thesis. Certainly, it had been taken from concept, to development (generating steps & phrases), through editing (rehearsals and coaching), layout design (costuming, sets & lighting), binding mounting production in a theatre or other site), and finally production (the performance(s)). There was never a dance in which I performed that had not had weeks if not years of evolution from its original genesis to its presentation on stage (or other venue).

Peer reviews were from those professional journalists whose careers centered on critiquing dance as seen by audiences with their considered experience comparing and contrasting dances of many different choreographers, cultures, and curators. The success (and evidence) of my participation was in being named and noted in critical reviews and articles. Ironically, these same evidences of exceptional contributions to our fields of professions, are also measures used to justify our professional credibility. 

I will write more precisely about my work and expertise as this project progresses and evolves. However, I wanted to shine a light on how Fulbright has been embracing that blogs and social media have become essential tools for educating the world about how their mission of global diplomacy continues to grow and evolve.

As a Fulbright New Zealand Specialist to Wellington, NZ, I was only asked for a final report on my experiences. As a Fulbright-Nehru Senior Scholar to India, I was encouraged to either write my own blog or share posts on a blog managed by the United States-India Educational Foundation. For this Fulbright NZ Specialist project in Auckland, NZ, I have been given a separate "communications packet" that outlines methods and tips for content creation to share my experience and support from Fulbright on all social media platforms. 

By comparison to other current Fulbrighters, this blog may seem a little out-dated, but it suits my temperament and comfort level of online sharing, while reminding me that letting others share in my experience is a bonus of my project. 

2008 performance of Paul Taylor's "Esplanade"
Annmaria Mazzini, Richard Chen See, Orion Duckstein, Parisa Khobdeh. Photo: unknown

This blog (FNZdance25.blogspot.com) is not an official site of the Fulbright Program or the U.S. Department of State. The views expressed on this site are entirely those of its author (Richard Chen See) and do not necessarily represent the views of the Fulbright Program, the U.S. Department of State, or any of its partner organizations.