Dance magazine and News

As choreographer Gina Patterson puts it, her dance career "started with a bang!" And she seems in no rush to calm it down. Originally from a small town in Pennsylvania, Patterson now lives in Austin, Texas with her dancer husband Eric Midgley. Patterson admits that although she and Eric have a home in Texas, they haven’t been there much this year as a long list of exciting commissions has taken them across the country; one of these being a recent creation on the Atlanta Ballet for their Ignition program. In Atlanta, Dance Informa’s Deborah Searle spoke with Gina after a studio preview of her new work ‘Quietly Walking’.



How did you enjoy working with Atlanta Ballet?



I’ve so much enjoyed this experience. It really has been a wonderful thing! I really felt completely supported artistically by the Director, John McFall, and the staff. The dancers were really open. I felt like I could go into the piece really deeply and openly and the dancers went there with me wholeheartedly, physically, artistically and emotionally. It’s been a really complete experience. The dancers are so nice and I’ve just enjoyed every day in the studio with them.



What were the challenges when creating your breathtaking work ‘Quietly Walking’ addressing issues of deforestation and urbanization?



The challenge was taking all these major topics and distilling them down into something that people can comprehend. How do you offer a window into the piece and then how do you translate it to dance when it’s been just a concept for a year? I was a little bit overwhelmed coming into the project because I had so many pieces back to back this year. But it’s been a wonderful experience to follow the creative process and see where it takes me, because I work really intuitively. I’ve learned to trust my intuition over the years. The more I trust it the more fun choreography actually is, because it ends up leading me into all these places. It’s like a writer who talks about how the book writes itself. I always feel the same thing, if you’re really in-tune with the process it ends up writing itself potentially.



So tell us about your long dance career.



When I got into dance it was at full force and I danced with a company for a couple of years. Then when I was 16 I toured with the Pittsburgh Opera as a singer and dancer and I travelled around Europe and Switzerland. From there I went to the Pittsburgh Ballet. I was then in Ballet Austin for about eight years, then Ballet Florida for four, and then Ballet Austin again for another eight years. While I was at Ballet Austin there were three different directors, so the company kept changing. I’ve had a 25 year career as a dancer and it has been so rich and varied. I feel really fortunate. I got to do all the classical roles and I did a lot of contemporary work. I also had a lot of roles created on me.