You have a reputation for having risen

early and gotten to the gym by 5:00 a.m.

for two hours, day in after day out.

Tell us about that ritual. And uh do you

still enjoy it?

>> It's not a ritual and I never enjoyed

it. It's a reality. And uh you do it

because you need an instrument that you

can challenge. Just set the mechanism

for the day you're going to have to do

it. It's kind of boring and it's kind of

losome. Could you give us a bit of

insight into your inner dialogue around

days when you don't want to go? Is there

a selft talk or have you learned to push

aside the the voice that says maybe not

today?

>> It's simple. It if you don't work when

you don't want to work, you're not going

to be able to work when you do want to

work.

>> Welcome to the Huberman Lab podcast

where we discuss science [music] and

science-based tools for everyday life.

>> [music]

>> I'm Andrew Huberman and I'm a professor

of neurobiology and opthalmology at

Stamford School of Medicine. My guest

today is Twilight Tharp. Twila Tharp is

a worldrenowned dancer and

choreographer. Her onstage and film

works easily place her not just in the

top 1% of all choreographers of all

time, but also among the top tier of all

creative artists, past and present. I

knew I wanted to host Twilight on this

podcast after listening to her book, The

Creative Habit, where she spells out how

to build a schedule, habits, and

routines that make your best creative

expressions come to life. What I love

about it is it's direct and it's

actionoriented. There's nothing mystical

about it. She explains in her book how

even for people that have just one hour

a day to write or sing or draw or paint

or whatever to get the most from that

time in terms of creative output. Then,

as I learned more about her, I was also

super impressed that even in her 60s, by

the way, she's 84 now, she could

deadlift more than 200 pounds, which is

more than twice her body weight, bench

press her body weight for three clean

repetitions, and was taking up boxing to

keep her movement and reflexes sharp. As

you'll see today, she is a phenom, and

it comes by way of hard work. She's

still in the gym every single morning at

5:00 a.m. for two full hours. Today we

discuss how to build self-discipline in

and around your creative mind. And we

discuss movement as a language. There's

this new idea emerging in neuroscience

that bodily movement, then music, and

then speech is how humans came to

communicate with each other. We

discussed that and how movement can help

us process and explain our emotions and

our ideas. We also discussed Twilight's

life growing up on a farm and how that

shaped her mindset about work and

community. And we also talk about what

it means to have and express your unique

creativity and how to evolve your sense

of taste. Oh yeah, and we also discuss

telepathy. You'll notice the rapport

between Twilight and I is very different

than is typical for other Hubberman Lab

podcasts I've done. She is a real

firecracker and we had a ton of fun

exploring and challenging ideas, mostly

her challenging me. It was a true honor

and pleasure to learn from such a

virtuoso of the arts and frankly of

life. And as you'll soon learn, we can

all learn a lot from Twilight. Before we

begin, I'd like to emphasize that this

podcast is separate from my teaching and

research roles at Stanford. It is

however part of my desire and effort to

bring zero cost to consumer information

about science and science related tools

to the general public. In keeping with

that theme, today's episode does include

sponsors. And now for my discussion with

Twilight Tharp. Twilight Tharp, welcome.

>> Thank you.

>> Huge fan. Huge, huge fan. and

[clears throat] love love love your

book.

>> Thank you.

>> The creative habit. It's just an

incredible book and it's taught me so

much and I want to talk about that

today. But I want to talk about a bunch

of things.

Let's start with

what a spine is. I think this is such an

important component of the book and this

concept of a spine. And the way I think

about this is that many many people

feel they might have something inside

them that they want to put into the

world. They want to access their

creativity or they're creative and

there's so much information out there

about how to go about that.

But this notion of a spine is really

critical because it keeps us on track.

Otherwise, it can be a wandering in the

desert. Suddenly, you're swimming in the

ocean. And suddenly the phone you get a

text and please explain what a spine is

and why this is such a vital concept for

anyone that wants to create anything.

>> Spine means focus. Spine means

concentration. If you think about it

geometrically, spine is the center both

laterally and vertically.

So if we're talking physically, you have

a right and a left side. You have a top

and you have a bottom. And these

elements are connected through the

center, right? So, uh, they have to be

coordinated. You simply cannot function.

If your right side is going one way and

then your left side's going this other

way, you're going nowhere. So, you have

to move off your center in terms of how

you organize information. There's also a

center to it. It's like okay over here

you have this and this and you can

transfer what you understand from this

arena to inform this side but it has to

pass through a common point and that

common point is the center and until you

feel that or one anyone working either

physically or let's just use the word

very broadly and generically

artistically until you know where you

are grounded where you feel the most

confident

that you are what you said you're at sea

you could be going this way that way

unless you know how to navigate from the

stars which few people do anymore you're

screwed

>> so when I think about a spine in a like

a scientific paper I was taught there

can only really be one major conclusion

maybe two but one major conclusion of

any paper even though the data set

probably points to 50 different things

that are potentially interesting in

terms of a podcast or a movie or a book.

It's sometimes not obvious to the reader

or to the listener or to the observer

what the spine is, but my understanding

is that the creator has to understand

what the spine is going into it. So

could you give a couple of examples from

your own work and maybe if they come to

mind a couple of examples from visual

arts or movies or something where

it's clear to the creator what the spine

is but it might not be entirely clear to

the person watching or consuming the

content.

>> I am a great fan of Agatha Christie and

Jonathan

Car. Okay. And the reason why is because

from the get-go, you know, there is one

conclusion,

but that their job is to keep you away

from that conclusion for as long as

possible.

>> Who did the crime?

>> Who did the crime? Who's the killer?

Who? What a what a what is the crime for

starters? and they'll delay as long as

they can in their singular, you know,

style

definite

u modes. I mean, Agatha Christie has her

format is practically that of a sonnet.

I'm I'm sure you could actually count

words and I've never seen a study that

show a long Okay, she's going to do red

herring number one X words in and this

is where she's going to throw in the

extra crime to push the tension up to

get it to go to here. But we all know

we're playing the same game. Uh I think

that anyone who is successful in

communicating to other people gains

their trust, gains their confidence that

you're not going to screw them. How much

do you think it's important to get into

the audience's mind about what they want

or is the spine coming from the solely

from the creator? Is it is it about the

creator's relationship to the work or

are you thinking about what the audience

wants and what they need?

>> The question about audience and

intention is a is sort of sensitive one

because it's okay. Are you manipulating

the audience? And are you there just to

take advantage of them? Or at the other

extreme of that spectrum, are you doing

it because you're in an ivory tower and

you're off here doing your own

investigations? And maybe they connect,

maybe they don't. Who cares? Right?

Those are the two extremes. Total

manipulation of audience, total

disregard of audience. And depending on

who I'm working for or with, I do both.

To me, it seems like it's one of the

toughest things as a creator to both

want to honor your audience's wishes,

but you also have to have something that

you want to communicate. And

we never know how things are going to

land. But for somebody who wants to

create something, maybe we could orient

them toward their own spine like or to

the o the spine of the work. What where

does that start? Well, I think that uh

the word intention which is you know so

vague these days uh but why are you

doing this? What is your purpose in

doing it? What's your interest? Why do

you want to do this? What's what's in it

for you? Are you to learn? Are you uh is

this a contract signed? Do you have an

obligation to be successful to a

producer who's investing a lot of money?

And that's a given going in. that's

going to determine a range of

possibilities

for you, right? And unfortunately, the

bottom line controls a lot of this

issue. At least for me, it's given if

I've signed a contract to deliver a

specific result. That's what I'm doing.

It doesn't matter what I want. It's do I

get that accomplished or not. It's in a

way a kind of sacred bond. Okay. you

honor your contracts. On the other hand,

if I am not in a singular position of

earning any money, I can do anything I

want or anything not that I want but

anything that I think is important.

Okay. So, how do you determine the

parameters of important because that

helps with intention in the olden days

which dates as in before 1979.

Anything before 79 is the olden days. In

the olden days, that would include the

60s. We did things because we wanted to

change the direction the earth rotated.

End of story. Good luck.

>> Tell me more about that.

>> It simply meant that whoever the

practitioner was was completely exposed

to everything. Say you're a painter.

you're completely exposed to everything

everybody is doing and you see another

way of going about it and you do that

everybody is plugged in to that same

mechanism and if they swerve into your

area you shift again you have to

continuously be altering perception as

an artist that notion does not seem so

relevant these days perhaps

>> why do you think that is because

uh you could live cheaper in the 60s.

You could live very cheap. Now you

cannot live very cheaply as a as an

artistic force. You're paying bills,

lots of bills.

>> I've long thought that the best work

that people do is at the beginning when

they don't have any feedback yet and

they're just being themselves. It's hard

to stay connected to that early

energy of uh just being one oneself

without the notion of contracts and

feedback and per you know perception of

feedback. Do you think it's important?

>> I've never been of the persuasion that

my understanding was the greatest when I

knew nothing as when I knew more.

>> I've always been of the persuasion that

the more you know, the bigger your

challenge.

If one looks at lives uh of artists uh

for example Beethoven take Beethoven

early work take Beethoven late work very

different different challenges um there

is argument to be made depending on your

particular

set uh of the coherency of the

classicism of the earlier quartets as

opposed to the late quartets and the

total disillusion that he was able to

accomplish at the end of his career

totally taking the sound world apart

uh that he could only actually do

because he was deaf. He had developed uh

during the course unfortunately of a

very long time, decades, the awareness

that he was losing his hearing and by

the end he genuinely basically was

completely deaf which forced him into

his own world and there he looked at

himself across the ages.

So in a piece I think of the Diabelli uh

which is the last thing he wrote for

keyboard after the sonatas and he

actually had started the diabelli 15

maybe even I'm forgetting my details

here but 15 years earlier than when he

came back to complete it and he got

bored with it initially because to a

younger composer it wasn't challenging

ing enough

when he came back to it later. He had a

humility about him that said that theme

which I used to poo poo because it's

like you're kidding

up yada yada up count in half drop it

back down ya da de he's going what and

later he comes back and he says

right not stupid simple I could never

have written anything that simple or

that useful full and he finished it and

it's arguably the greatest set of

keyboard variations in the entire

repertoire.

Which do you want? The earlier

Beethoven, the Beethoven who has passed

way through many different works, a

mass, an opera, many quartets, and

returns to it with this new information

to look at it again.

>> Fascinating. There's something about the

more you know the bigger your challenge

but

>> totally

>> if I may from what you just said maybe

also the bigger the opportunity.

>> Totally.

>> But the more kind of distracting it is

and the harder it is to focus. Part of

that's physical

uh but part of it is also that there are

many more options available

uh with accomplishment if you will but

you have to be selective about what you

have available to you to work with. In

the earlier phase, you'll take what you

can get. And now, if you take what you

can get, you will be very wildly

distracted by everything.

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Recently, I listened to a conversation

between my good friend Rick Rubin. We

were talking about earlier, who's a big

fan of yours. You inspired his book and

he wanted me to tell you that.

>> Thank you. and he was speaking with um

Gwennneth Paltro who's a you know of

course an actress and um has done

incredible things in health and wellness

business etc. And she said something

very interesting. She said, "People

generally like to keep you where they

found you." And it's an interesting

statement uh that I think taps into

something that again that as a creator

or as a consumer of creative content

feels very true that we encounter

somebody like somebody goes to one of

your dances or we see a great movie with

Gary Oldman in it or something. You see

a Bos for the first time and it either

impacts you or it doesn't. But if it

does, there's this tendency to want to

keep that person and the work they do in

that place. It's like we we think we own

the creator in some way and the work and

in this very naive and selfish way.

Do you think that that creates a real

problem for anyone that's trying to put

things into the world? Because as you

stated, with time the creator gains

knowledge, you evolve your craft, but

your

fan base, the people that love you, they

love you for something that you're not

really any longer. You're evolving

>> cuz Somewhere over the rainbow syndrome,

right? Uh Garland always was asked for

one song or Elvis John anyone is always

asked for their hit because everyone

wants to touch upon that which seems to

somehow be their greatest

accomplishment. Um it's aggravating. I

mean obviously it's called cubby

hauling. Um and you for the person doing

the work

there are artists who work serially

right who work in series and who make

incremental changes and they kind of

have in a way a stab at the best of all

possible worlds. But there are others

who feel that okay you got that I got to

go over here. Uh and that's because in a

way they're right because if you want to

constantly be gain it's a game. You want

to be gaining the attention you do it by

change. You don't do it by reinforcing

that just creates a comfort zone and it

can build a reputation. It can build a

career that it it it gives you more and

more of what you expect. Uh, but for the

person who's making the work, that can

kind of be deadly.

>> Did you know Jean Michelle Bosia? You

>> No. Okay.

>> Uh, a different generation. I I knew the

painters, the downtown painters in the

60s.

>> Could you give me some examples of

>> Oh, you want to know the famous names?

>> No, I don't want to know the names. I I

just have a question about

>> Tony Smith, Frank Stella, Motherwell.

>> Okay. I The reason I ask is

>> Reinhardt. The reason I I ask is that um

earlier you were saying that there's a

time or there was a time when a given

field everyone knew each other and what

they were doing and I I like Boss. I'm

not like obsessed with them or anything

that there's a wonderful scene in the

movie Bosia with him and Benicio del

Toro or the actor playing him and Benio

Del Toro about this notion of fame.

We'll put a link to it in the caption so

people can see it. And it's just a

wonderful example of how people will

love you, then they'll hate you for how

you change, then they'll love you for

how you were, and then it it's a

hilarious and and um again, for a

consumer of content, it's it's perhaps

even more interesting than somebody

who's a creative. But uh the point being

that nowadays, I feel like there's so

much stuff out there, art and music and

dance and Instagram

puts it all on, you know, smorgesborg

display for us.

And it's kind of harder to know where

one sits in a community of creators. And

so to what extent do you think that

being surrounded by other creators like

visual artists or other dancers

then versus now was was or is useful?

>> Yeah, the early era also age is a factor

here. I was very young. I was just out

of college. Um and uh I felt very much

the student.

Uh it's a different deal now and it's a

different kind of responsibility

and the work's going to be different. In

the early era went to see absolutely

everything. Now I go to see absolutely

nothing. Uh and it is

partially a matter of time

but more importantly it's an awareness

that you want to

feel isolated in a way because you are

and that's the truth. So you need to

operate from a truthful place. Um, and

when you talk about this plethora of

information that is out there, I do try

to inform myself to some degree about

different areas of

culture. Uh, but I do it through a media

perspective because that's how the

consumer is receiving it. Consumer is

not at the individual exhibition or at

the individual performance. They're

getting it through media. So in looking

at it through media, I already have a

double perspective on it. I have the

artists perspective, but I have the

journalists, if for lack of a better

word, we'll call podcasting journalism.

Will we be forgiven?

>> Sure. Podcasting is a weird thing. We

could talk about later what it is and

what it isn't.

>> Okay. We'll wait till this is off to

discuss that, right?

>> Sure.

>> But the uh the challenge for me becomes,

okay, in all of this swirl of stuff,

what do you believe?

>> Forget who. You can't believe anyone.

But what what can you believe? What is

really grounded uh in a way that's

productive? Um and uh in thinking I you

know I've just come off if you'll

forgive me for diverging here for a

moment two really hard years of working.

uh a 60th anniversary tour uh that uh

was a very big culmination

of a long long working process um which

put a lot on the line and which was

unfortunately very successful because

success is much harder to follow than

failure. So here you said, "Okay, babe,

you've done it all. Now what?" And so

where do you go?

And you don't go around asking other

people for the answer to your question.

One has to find a way of rerouting

without abandoning

who you are and what you believe in

order to just make change. Really, how

does that work? So it's an extremely

um

attenuated place to be.

Not many people make it this far. Not

many people are looking at their 61st

year of work,

right? So that's like, okay, so show us.

Well, maybe I don't want to.

Maybe I will. Who knows?

>> You said that um coming off of a success

is much more challenging than come off

coming off of a failure. I think that uh

will surprise a number of people uh

because people myself included probably

feel like when you do well you get the

confidence that you can do well again.

There's that also whereas when you fail

you're like uh like

>> you can do that again too. [laughter]

>> Do you tell your dancers that?

>> No, because my dancers don't fail. M

>> that's why I work with dancers who want

to work as hard as I do.

>> Let's talk more about that process. In

your book, you talked about failure

being critical, failing a lot a lot in

private.

>> Yeah.

>> That had a big impact on me.

>> Uhhuh.

>> I think that the this notion of making

lots and lots of failures and mistakes

>> Yeah. privately. When you're working,

you don't know if it's a failure or not.

You only know if it's useful. You know

if it's exciting. You know if it

generates a next question. That's

useful. You don't know if it's good or

bad.

>> Let's go back to your dancers and and

how you put them through uh the paces,

so to speak, because I think it also

frames up this notion of rituals very

very nicely. For the uninformed like

myself, give us an example of your day

and a day in the studio. the top contour

of that

>> it depends on where you are in this

wonderful word called process if you are

uh at the beginning it's all more fluid

um and while the one key ingredient I I

have always found to doing work is you

got to be able to do a schedule you got

to be able to tell people what time

they're coming and what shoes to bring

okay that's already actually made a lot

of choices is for you. Uh, and that's

that I think is a good thing. I mean,

there's no point in just saying, "Oh,

we'll work whenever you get here and you

know, bring whatever." Whatever is not

my favorite word.

So, choices get made. Uh, and a schedule

gets done. And ordinarily, uh, again, it

depends on what the project is, but, uh,

if it's, let's just give as much range

here as possible. If it's uh me making a

new piece, I will set a schedule.

Dancers come in, they will have done

class themselves. They will come warm.

Okay, that is not a part of my day. I

have my own work to do in preparing for

that rehearsal, but in in also

maintaining my own physical instrument

to the degree that I can because the

more I can bring into the studio, the

more I can give them and the more I can

expect them to bring in. So I have a

tandem path going on here with the

dancers and we meet up, we join um and I

usually will come with a certain preset

sense of where we're going with this

thing and then see how it actually works

in real time in real space which is a

very um useful and tough mistress

uh and eliminates a lot of fantasy very

quickly.

Who decides who gets to work with you?

>> I do. Well, that's actually not true. In

a way, they do. The dancers that uh I

work with, I obviously audition, but I

also screen from the perspective of who

wants to work with me,

>> who's going to come and say, "Yeah, I'll

go through that wall. Is that what we're

doing? I'll go through the wall." And

you want to know that you have that in

the room. you're not going to ask them

to go through the wall all the time, but

you know, if it seemed like it was an

approach that was going to be useful,

you got to know that that commitment is

really solid and that's best indicated

by their desire, not your finding them

totally appropriate, but their desire.

>> Are most dancers uh living with the

understanding that it's going to be very

very long hours and probably very little

pay for a while?

>> For sure. very little pay and forever

>> wild world

>> crazy crazy and to my way of thinking

not acceptable because you know I'm all

in favor of the folks who do the work

and the training to accomplish

physically and I don't make a clear

distinction between either folks who are

in business or athletes to me it is all

the same enterprise but dancers have

nowhere near the uh possibility ility of

uh earning a living that a great athlete

has not even sort of kind of in the

ballpark, not even in the parking lot,

not even on the highway to the ball

game.

How did this happen and why does it

continue?

>> It raises interesting questions how we

support the arts or don't support the

arts. I think

>> are we taking over your show for the

next two and a half years? if if if we

must, you know, this conversation no

doubt will draw some additional

attention to dance. But the the larger

issue of

>> of you know, people being able to make

it in the arts as not just as a as a

luxury, but as a like critical piece of

culture and life. I mean, I love

beautiful things. I love beautiful dogs.

Most all dogs are beautiful. Um, even

the bulldogs. Uh, but I love beautiful

things. And it and it enriches life in

more ways than just feeling delighted. I

think there's immense carryover from uh

the arts to other areas of of culture.

And uh so we could make an economic

argument about that, but it's part of

the reason you're here. But just sort of

return to the this business of of of

ritual.

>> Can I interrupt you before you go there?

Because I'd like to take up two things.

One is the notion of the reality being

that when we do a successful

performance, I measure it by did that

audience leave in a better frame of mind

than it came in with. In other words, we

provide a service

>> and we provide a service that gives them

a sense of optimism

uh yay verily I might even go to joy uh

to the belief that they have that they

too occupy this body that does these

phenomenal things and thank you Lord

>> okay that's a service

[clears throat]

>> I think dancers should be paid more for

that service and that it needs to be

acknowledged the other point that I want

to bring up is you've used it twice now.

I didn't stop you the first word.

Beauty. What is this?

>> It could be something I see or hear that

um it stirs a some set of emotions in me

that carries forward. And what you just

said a moment ago about the audience

leaves in a different state. I mean,

it's the word that came to mind was like

it's like really great therapy, but it's

in some sense it's better than that

because um

I was also thinking that perhaps in the

top 10 of all my favorite memories are

several live performances that I which I

was the observer. It's like those things

really stick with us and I think they

change us in in in meaningful ways,

especially when we're in the audience

with other people, not just watching on

a on a screen. They can be

transformative for sure. And in a live

audience becomes of course a whole

another thing about cost and and

expenditures, but that it confirms that

that not only do you feel a new

righteousness for yourself by a

performance, but that you sense others

do as well. And that creates a community

uh bonding. And you know, okay, football

games, you know, everybody is very rowdy

about it. Uh most performances people

are not. But that doesn't mean that it

still doesn't take that hold of people

who are experiencing the same thing in

real time. We tend to dismiss that which

is familiar

[clears throat]

>> and that that sense

is actually not all that familiar but it

feels very intimate and it is uh but it

actually is quite rare and the rarer a

piece of art and I will call a

performance a piece of art is the more

value it has and the more that is

compensated for culturally and

economically. There should be a price

point on beauty. Let's put it that way.

>> Well, there is for everything else.

>> Well, I know.

>> Yeah. You know, there is a price point

for beauty in terms of people could say,

"Well, the sunrise is free and the

sunrise is beautiful, but seeing it in

certain locations costs a lot more money

than seeing it in other locations."

That's for sure.

>> Right. And that that brings up another

thing because in a way it's a kind of

horrible thinking to go, "Yeah, it's a

privilege. You know what? You can't pay

me. you can't bite me. I don't have a

price. And that I'm sure is one of the

things in great dancers who are

certainly not paid as I've said before

and I'll say at least 300,000 times more

commensurate with a great athlete. That

is probably one and I've never actually

I never brought it up directly with a

great dancer. How much is it your own

sense of independence and liberty that

makes you the artist that you are?

>> I think the name that most people

probably associate with dance is

probably Berishnikov. If they don't know

much about dance, they know that name or

it they it's familiar to them. What was

it about Mikuel Berishnikov that sort of

had him break through the common

consciousness that way?

First of all, Misha uh Moore these days

actually is remembered by younger

generations from his later cultural

input, i.e. Sex in the City than he is

as a classical ballet artist. All right,

let's just start there

>> because he showed up in Sex in the City

as a as a character.

>> Yes.

And that's and that's how he is often

recognized by younger audiences,

younger, you know, folk. Uh what was he

in the beginning? He was actually there

was a chalice, then there was Nuraf and

then Misha. He politically he came

across the line. It was Russia, America.

He chose America. He's our hero. Plus

which he was gorgeous.

He's unquestionably, in my opinion, in

that era, the

possessor of a technique that was a

culmination of the 20th century and that

will never be matched. And to see him

work at the bar or to see him in the uh

absolute interior realm of what the

classical ballet was was an unbelievable

privilege.

But not many people saw that. Not many

people saw him at the bar. Uh which is

where you build your your chops. Okay.

He also was capable of taking those

chops and expanding on them, breaking

through their boundaries, trying it this

way, do it that way, but utilizing the

power that he had from that simple

classical base to take it outward. Lots

of inventiveness in that regard. And the

guy was gorgeous. What can I tell you?

>> His his looks.

>> What does that mean? But what does that

mean? It means a

wide ranging interest that you feel

includes you as you the spectator. You

feel he's including you in his wideness

of vision. Where does that come from?

from the intellect, from his musicality,

from his training, from his personality,

uh from his cultural breeding, Latvian.

Uh and it is a singular commodification,

one of my favorite words that drives

people up the walls when I use that word

in relation to the arts of performing.

Um but he was very very very

astute in many different areas starting

from uh an athletic ability through to a

poetic sensibility.

>> It's interesting you said that because

uh he was attractive that people felt

that they were a part of it in a way

that was not

>> we all want to be godly. We all want to

be a part of the sublime.

Few can give us that.

>> So when they say, you know, artists or I

include dancers, I just broadly speaking

artists are are like portals.

Is that what you mean?

>> I would accept that.

>> Years ago, I went to a Philip Glass

concert at UC Berkeley. I'll be honest,

I didn't understand it. I left there in

a different state mostly of a confusion

um that people were willing to pay for

that. I'm sorry if I'm insulting any

Philip Glass fans, but this is my

podcast. I'm going to be very direct.

>> Okay.

>> I was told I maybe hadn't seen the right

Philip Glass concert. I was very

confused.

>> Why?

>> You know, I'm not a musician. I'm not um

but when I like something, I I know I

like it and I tend to really like it.

But it it's rare for me to encounter

something that's like it just felt like

um it felt extremely experimental at

every at every part of it. And I and I

couldn't tell whether or not people were

telling themselves that they liked it

because it was him

or whether they really liked it.

>> What year is this that you went to this

concert?

>> Gosh, this must have been 200

>> eight. 2007 2008

>> that's very late okay so Phil obviously

has been working uh since the 60s and

I've done one major collaboration with

Phil and one recent collaboration

um and in the beginning uh the audience

for minimalism

right uh Reich Riley glass uh came

gradually

and so when the initial piece called in

the upper room was done. Uh it had a

power and a force that involved also

discovery. Now the later piece which is

called slactide

fills a known commodity and

was addressed slightly differently uh

rather than I mean you know Phil

it's percussive the lyric element has

been reduced okay and you're a sensitive

soul you think of the word beauty and

that does not mean total elimination

Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. It

means inclusion. Uh, and so the later

glass work was done in conjunction with

a Chicago percussion group called Third

Coast, who Phil's worked with a lot and

who he trusts to do iterations, if you

will, on the work. And we iterated with

a flute. Flutes don't do this.

[applause]

>> Flutes do this. So we put a stream on

top of that that's in the music. I mean

iterations are a study in and of

themselves, right? What makes something

different from and yet still the same as

Good luck with that one. Uh but that

that was the different range. I dare say

if you go and look at because Third

Coast is uh produced a recording of this

work, you listen to Slack Tide and then

tell me your response to Glass. But but

basically minimalism took uh the lyric

element uh and reduced it to just the

temporal passage in time. What's

interesting, because of all the concerts

I've seen, this one still sticks with me

as like a a stimulus to learn more.

Because one thing that I'm totally

fascinated by and perplexed by is that

with the exception of comedy, the more

one learns about something, the artists,

what went into the art, the dance, what

went into it, typically the more one

likes that piece or that genre. Like the

more I I learn about something, then the

then I can listen to it with a different

ear. I can watch it with it with a

different eye. Comedy is the exception.

If it's not funny, learning about the

origins of the joke don't make it any

funnier. Learning about the comedian

doesn't make it funnier. It just it sort

of just like falls further and further.

>> See, I think that's true of your other

art forms, too. I think you're

confusing, forgive me, knowledge with

instinct. I mean, instinctively you're

responding to the humor, but

instinctively, uh, a a piece of art can

can reach you, but you can be baffled by

it. But we don't like confusion. So, we

might call that something we should

learn about before we can acknowledge

liking it.

>> That's one of the things that is, I

think, really difficult and something I

think a lot about, which is, uh, not

only protecting but refining instinct.

>> Tell me more about that. I know. It's

fascinating, isn't it? I can't tell you

about it because I could be writing a

book.

>> Oh, well, Rick Rubin, um, who I feel,

even though you haven't met yet, you

share a certain kinship with, talks

about taste all the time about this,

>> you know, a sense of taste and trusting

your own sense of taste as a consumer

and as a creator, right,

>> is so key. That's why I brought up the

Philip Glass thing because I'm not

writing off Glass on the basis of one

one concert. But I I didn't walk out of

there thinking like maybe I'm an idiot.

Maybe I didn't get it. I thought and I

didn't think they're all idiots. I just

thought I guess I'm just different

because everyone else here seems to

really love this. And this is like I

just doesn't hit me right. It's like a I

don't like sardines. [laughter] Never

like sardines. You give me a 100

sardines, I'm going to hate them 100

times more than the first sardine. I

promise. Because I've eaten a hundred

sardines. It's just But I don't care

that I don't like sardines. You just I'm

I'm over it. I was over it from the

first sardine.

>> Right.

Phil's on the cusp of the avant guard.

The avant guard is a smug place to be

and can be very aggravating and can also

be not that bright and very indulgent.

There might have been some sense of that

to it. The avantgard can confuse itself

with originality and vice versa.

>> Do you think it's important for dancers

to be classically trained before they

get into other forms?

>> To be classically trained, absolutely.

You want to be a musician and not

understand the circle of fifths, the

harmonies of construction of all music.

No. Ballet is a format for the human

body moving in space that has evolved

over many centuries and has got a head

start on us. And if you want to learn

about how you move, you might as well

try and jump a little further forward by

studying ballet. I don't care ultimately

if you're arabesque, which is one leg

behind, one leg under, right? if your

arabesque is aligned in a perfectly

classical manner unless it's a perfectly

classical ballet. But I do care you have

that gear and you can reference it in

terms of where's the leg going to move

from and does it get to that point. Can

it stop right on its center or not?

That's what ballet can do. If there's a

proper way for a movement to be done,

the limb, the every element within the

limb has to move from point A to point B

in a certain trajectory.

And people come in different sizes and

shapes and you've got multiple dancers

on stage. How do you reconcile that?

>> You don't. Uh, and the word is properly.

Properly. What What is proper? Uh

[sighs]

I had the experience of of working with

the Kira off uh in St. Petersburg and I

went to their school

and uh the children are lined up and

they are exact replicas and they have a

huge selection mechanism throughout the

country for picking those 10 or 12 kids

that are going to be in there of

whatever age. Um, and I saw one group of

little little boys, uh, less than eight

years old. There were probably eight or

nine of them in their little black

shorts, their little white shirts. And,

uh, I just came in briefly and they were

being, you know, as they do. It's a part

of the tradition. It's wonderful. Uh,

they're being very respectful and it was

like, oh, come in and you will sit here

and they will continue and then we're

getting moved to the next class. And one

little boy came out and said, "No, no,

no. We want to do more." So we went back

and they started jumping out of sequence

because the ballet class is very

carefully constructed to warm up the

body and also to develop the training.

So you're working both laterally and in

depth in every technique class. They

went out of sequence so the boys could

jump, which is usually not done till the

very end of class. And this little guy

had real what we call bowel. He could go

up and he could like for moments just it

seems like he's able to suspend. He knew

he had that and he knew I wouldn't see

that at the bar. So he wanted to but he

was [clears throat] what we call

pronated. His feet were hyperextended to

the outside. So he's not going straight

up through the metatarsal. He's going up

through the outside of the leg. And uh

you know I pulled the teacher out and I

said, "You know that kid's phenomenally

talented."

And he said, "Yeah, we know." Uh, and he

said, "But he's pronated." He said, "We

know that, too, but we have eight other

ones." Like, we if he doesn't figure

that out, he's out and we'll bring in

another one. And this can be the

difference between a child who grows

into an adult with a career and a life

and one who's lost. So, parents are very

protective of trying to get this

opportunity for their kids. And it's

heartbreaking. And the way they are

trained is they are wrenched into these

positions. And I saw in an older class

of young girls uh an arabesque and one

leg was not slightly behind. The teacher

came and literally pinned the leg behind

with one arm and drew the shoulder out

this way. Literally pushed her and then

released her. And that's how they teach.

You think that's going to happen in

America? I don't think so. And that's

what it takes to create a line of people

who at the bar hit exactly the same

arabesque.

It's both a thing of extraordinary

beauty and a thing of incredible

lack of choice because that arabesque is

going to be set for life in that one

angular demarcation, right? And you

know, heaven knows here in the west we

like to encourage all kinds of

wanderings around which is hard to get

through the head of a child who's been

trained in this way to stay within those

parameters. And it says something also

obviously about the political situation,

right? Those kids don't have a lot of

choice. They tow the line.

>> So is the goal to get that uniformity?

>> Absolutely. Uh and and it's a I mean for

a person who works sometimes to what's

called unison, there are times when you

want I don't do it that often. It's a

lot of work and I don't like what it

says about democracy. But if you need to

have unison, you want unison and that

means an exact agreement on time and

space. Now your other question about

what about different body types and so

forth. I can accommodate that uh because

I can gain my unison from the center.

What we're talking about the ballet here

it gains it from the periphery from the

exterior point from the broad reach.

I'll accept my broad reach is not going

to be actually in uniform but my center

is going to be and I'll make that comp.

It's a compromise of sorts. It's not

really a compromise. It's an agreement.

I'll make that definition because I want

them to work from an interior purpose

and the visuals of it are your problem.

>> By now, I'm sure that many of you have

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to get started. I'm going to ask a

couple of questions in the frame of

biology.

>> Okay,

>> that I think um I'm hoping you you might

find interesting, but I you certainly

have the information that I'm seeking

here.

First off, uh you may know this uh but

if you don't, there's a great Nobel

Prizewinning physiologist, his name was

Sharington, and he said the final common

path is movement. That basically the

movement of an organism, especially

mammals, is is really what the nervous

system is constructed for. And you know

more modern theories are that you know

movement came and dance came then song

then language you know but that that

movement is the foundation of of

everything

as it relates to evolution of a species

finding mates finding food.

>> Can I interrupt you

>> please? It is even more basic because

movement is the first thing we're going

to do. And you don't make any sound

until you can move parts of you. You

don't feed yourself until you can move

that hand. You don't write anything,

language, music or nada without

movement. Why do we therefore stick

movement way down here under the bottom

of our cultural heap as somehow shameful

or what? What is it with the aspect of

dance that makes it a less kind of

revered format than sculpture or

painting or music? A secondary

handmaiden to the arts really.

>> Well, I certainly appreciate movement

and I know that um and I like to think

that people's obsession with athleticism

in some sense reflects that too.

>> Totally. I've been wanting to ask you

this question for a very long time uh

since I heard your book even though it's

not about the creative process and and

here goes

uh I'm going to keep this as brief as

possible um just to give the the raw

materials for for your uh response. So

the motor neurons, the neurons that

control movement, uh they control

movement of the trunk, they control

movement of the fine digits of the

fingers that are the fingers, the digits

as we call them in science, right? Nerds

speak, the wrists, everything. So we say

from proximal to distal like from center

out there's this incredible thing that's

been discovered over the last 20 years

or so which is that the molecular

identities of the neurons that control

the movement of my trunk and your trunk

forward and back and side to side are

exactly the same as the neurons that

control undulation in a fish.

The neurons that control the movement of

the proximal limbs, like the upper arms

and the thighs,

are molecularly identical

to the neurons that exist to control fin

movement in fish. And that what evolved

was progressively more and more motor

neurons so that we as old world primates

can manipulate the fine digits in like

so. Okay, so that's fine. And that just

tells you that there's this kind of

primitive to more evolved structure of

neurons that control movement from

center up.

What's fascinating to me is that while

I'm sure there are people who can move

their trunk at very high frequency, you

know, undulate very high frequency,

that's a hard thing to do. That that

generally has to be learned. Like I can

move my trunk slowly from side to side,

but it's hard to move it very fast from

side to side, but I can move my fingers

very fast. And so there's there's

basically a frequency map

from the center out on the body. So now

when I look at the way people move I

think because I'm a neuroscientist and I

have this knowledge in my head like

they're they're communicating frequency

and frequency in the visual in photon

space gives you very interesting you

know wave we have wavelength we have

also frequency like we we in sound you

have high low and high pitches low to

high pitch and in other domains you also

have this and so to me first of all I'd

love your thoughts on this. I'm not I'm

not asking for validation of a theory.

This is just is what it is. I didn't

come up with this. But I wonder whether

or not consciously or unconsciously when

you've choreographed dance, whether or

not you're making music with movement in

a way that maps on to this idea of a

frequency map from center out. Maybe in

part, no. Sweetness, my love. Did we not

discuss already much earlier the

importance and um specifity specificity

specificity

of center.

Now what you're saying about the

different rates of the

tendrils, the neurons, the cellular

>> Yeah. the neurons that control the the

trunk versus the upper arms versus the

the

>> Yeah. that this this is this is got more

uh choice can make more choice than this

can make. Mhm.

>> Do I think about the parts of the body

as sometimes in other words the legs can

be working at one rate of speed say half

time of what the uh the arm is doing and

they'll be on the same metronomic base

but they'll be operating at a different

speed certainly I would think of that uh

what I think about power uh that

sometimes uh you can isolate through the

center and there'll be like a huge

impact from the top but that the body

the lower body will be fluid sometimes.

I mean, I've ripped off Tai Chi forever.

It's okay. Uh, so we're doing Taichi and

suddenly

and then we're back into it, right? Uh,

so it's like just like a jolt goes

through it and I suppose that's a change

in your neurological construct. I mean,

what interests me in what you're saying

is a part of the nightmare of my life,

which is dance has difficulty. And one

of the reasons it has difficulty in

being registered by many people in our

culture is that it doesn't have easy

access to being documented and recorded

in the way that music does or language

does. What you're saying, I've argued

for many years, should be a way of

documenting movement that people could

read and then they could read the dance

and then they would feel grounded in

that tradition and understanding of that

tradition. They could under they could

study that tradition. That's not now

possible. I'd like to talk about the

creative process a bit in a way that

perhaps people can, you know, structure

uh some of their own creative pursuits.

At what point do you know the spine?

>> The beginning and the end.

>> Okay.

>> Okay. What do I mean? In the beginning,

uh you hope for it. Uh and you have a

little taste of it or you wouldn't be

able to I wouldn't be able to start uh

without the tiniest little indication

there's something there that's actually

going to hook in. And that's going to

allow me to start building. And this is

where process becomes very reassuring.

You start building the wall. You're just

mixing the mortar and putting the brick

in. Mixing the mortar, putting the and

the wall grows and it develops all of

this stuff happening and you're just

doing the mortar and the brick and it's

very not menacing and extraordinarily

rewarding in the place you want to live.

But you can't because you got to finish

the work and let it go. a dismal moment.

>> Maybe we put this into example. Let's

say I want to write a a short story.

I realize you're a choreographer, not a

writing instructor, but we we say like

what's the would you say? And then you

say, well, someone says that they want

to write stories or books. So, what's

the spine?

>> The first thing is what's the idea? The

first thing is where where is the

where's the story? I mean, some writers

have to know the end before they can

start at the beginning. Others want

nothing to do with the end until they've

at least reached the middle because they

want the work to find itself. Uh that

all is, you know, that's a part of the

privilege of being a writer and the pain

of being a writer. Um but the uh

construct of starting sometimes it's

simply habit and discipline. Um, and uh

you are going to go in and you are going

to start at let's say 6:45 every morning

and you're going to give yourself you've

only got an hour and a half. Okay? I'm

not talking about you're a professional

writer. I'm talking about you're a

person uh who maybe wants to become a

professional writer but who's got at

least one other job and maybe two and

probably a kid to deal with. An hour and

a half is a lot of time for in that

life. So starting you got to start with

something and either there's an idea

that you're that you really are uh

energized by or just you know you start

writing something gets something on the

page and bit by bit it becomes a habit

and maybe that habit evolves and maybe

it doesn't and maybe you give it up and

maybe you find that you then you get an

idea you find something you keep

returning to and it pulls fles you. It

It hypnotizes you. Uh it makes you want

to follow it, see where it will go to,

see how it will develop and then at a

certain point it's done. It's it's

played out. Uh maybe you can guide that

so that it becomes more exciting and you

learn how to build as you're going along

and you learn how to direct it so that

it's going to get to either a surprising

end where it has to end and the reader

is going to say, "I should have seen

that." or you're going to say, "I should

have seen that." Or you're going to go,

"No way. You're a liar. I'm not going to

buy this book."

>> But the showing up at 6:45 consistently

is the is the is the the brick laying

that's essential.

>> Yeah. Because it allows you to think

that you could be a writer.

>> Sort of living into a a a delusion that

could be a reality.

>> Could be.

>> Yeah.

And maybe it's not a delusion because

maybe what you start to write

immediately is a very interesting

sentence or two.

>> Some days maybe

>> some days. Yeah. You can't expect a good

time every day.

>> You might want to quote me on that.

You have a reputation for having uh

risen early and gotten to the gym by

5:00 a.m. for two hours, eating three

hard-boiled eggs postworkout, day in

after day out for a very long time. Uh

tell us about that ritual and uh do you

still enjoy it?

>> It's not a ritual and I never enjoyed

it. It's a reality and uh you do it

because you need an instrument that you

can challenge and in order to challenge

something you got to know how it stands.

I mean I could challenge you wouldn't

want me to the centering of this but I

can only do it if it's already grounded

then I can try to throw it off. You

can't just throw things off. They've got

to be set before you can throw them off.

Right? So that is you just set the

mechanism for the day you're going to

have to do it.

It's kind of boring and it's kind of

lonesome. I would rather go to the gym

than brush my teeth. I'll tell you that.

>> Could you give us a bit of insight into

your inner dialogue around days when you

don't want to go? Is there a selft talk

or have you learned to push aside the

the voice that says maybe not today?

>> Yeah. No, no, no, no. Uh it's simple. If

you don't work when you don't want to

work, you're not going to be able to

work when you do want to work.

End of story.

>> Were you always like this?

>> What do you mean like this?

>> I didn't [laughter] mean that in that

sense. And you know, I didn't.

>> I don't.

>> You know, I didn't. You know, I didn't.

I meant were have you always been this

disciplined and had this uh this clear

view of the necessity for hard work.

>> My mother was an extraordinary force in

anybody's life. She happened to be in

mine. Okay. I was trained as a very

young child to practice.

Uh whether anything everything had to be

practiced. It had to be scheduled to be

practiced and time is limited and you

don't waste it and you work very hard

and you try to maximize that period of

time because otherwise you're being

wasteful. And while I said I'm from San

Burdue, I am, but I'm not. I am from the

Midwest. I was born in Indiana um and

left when I was eight. Uh but up until

that point I had the extraordinary good

fortune of being on my grandparents'

farm uh for long stretches of time

without my parents and these farms were

in uh Amish territory and the family's

Quaker and the land was the land period.

There was no electricity. There were no

phones. There was plant the seed, grow

the seed, kill the hogs, ring the check

chicken's neck, and you work or you

don't eat. Yeah. The Midwest sensibility

is something to behold. I have a lot of

friends from the Midwest. There's a real

decency out there in terms of how people

communicate with one another, who they

do and don't know. And there's a real

thing to farmers. at Stanford uh when I

was a posttock there was a MD PhD

student in the laboratory she had grown

up on a mushroom farm not the psilocybin

mushrooms the kind you eat and don't

hallucinate on a mushroom farm in rural

Pennsylvania and her work ethic and this

is at Stanford school of medicine where

people are very driven not just on

average but

>> her work ethic was unbelievable

>> and her cheerfulness about it was also

unbelievable.

>> It was spectacular.

>> The delight in fact.

>> Yeah. She had a bike accident on a few

people will know who this is. She had a

horrible bike accident on campus.

Knocked out all her teeth. Someone had

stepped out in front of her with at

>> she was back in the laboratory with

falsies in and working. I think within

like 48 hours. This would have put

anyone else out for a much longer time.

I haven't kept up with her, but I'm sure

that she's a spectacular physician uh

scientist wherever she is. But there's

really something to the the the farming

piece.

>> It is communal and it is the sense that

while these farms are very isolated, I

mean, you know, 100 acre plots that are

divided by tree barriers from one

another, uh uh [clears throat] that

somebody has your back all the time. I

still have my grandmother's quilting

frames and the they uh when established

it require eight women, a four to a side

and the quilt gets done and then you

make eight of them and each one gets a

quilt. Uh and you you know that to do

the big job, the barn that's got to get

up, you you have to utilize forces

outside yourself uh in order to

accomplish this. and that you owe you

owe them and you want to it it's not an

obligation it's a sharing and you

understand okay I'm getting that barn I

owe services here for seven more barns

or whatever

this is an excellent thing

and I do try to think of dance that way

and I do think a well-made dance is a

good community

It's society as it ought to be.

>> It works the way we should work

together.

>> You mentioned Quaker.

>> Yeah.

>> I've been to a couple Quaker meetings.

>> Silent meetings.

>> Yeah. Every once in a while someone

would stand up and say something at a

friend who was a there's a Quaker house

near where I used to live when I was

finishing my masters and I got became

friendly with a guy outside because we

would drink coffee the same coffee shop

and chat and he was like you should come

to a meeting. You might find it

interesting. And I I knew I was in a a

benevolent place when I walked in

because you know in Berkeley,

California, if somebody says, "Hey, you

should come to a meeting." And you're

like, [laughter] like, you know, like

you don't know what you're getting into,

right? Um but they had a a picture of

the Quaker Oats uh guy on the wall as a

joke. I knew like, okay, these they can

poke some fun at themselves. So yeah,

someone would stand up every once in a

while, say something, there was some

reflection, and then at the end,

everyone kind of like said goodbye and

took off. It was it was it was

interesting.

>> Yeah. That those in in

those days for me were Wednesday

evenings and they were silent meetings

and there would be meetings where no one

had anyone to say any anything to say.

They were silent meetings and simply

you can help me out here. They were not

using language, but surely neural rays

were going out. And probably if there

had been a catastrophe in the culture,

you know, some kind of huge fire or

something awful, you know, that people

are thinking, you have a sense of what

that thinking is. And that there was and

is and can be a kind of nonverbal

communication. That's not even a

physical. You're not using sign language

to communicate. Uh but that you have a

sense of what we called in the day in

the air. In the air

and that that is a very powerful form of

communication that we don't really

respect

anymore. And how potent is it

neurologically?

>> This last year um the podcast series

telepathy tapes was very very popular. I

haven't had a chance to watch it in

full. I listened to a little bit of it.

It's about how kids who are non-verbal

perhaps can tap into this and it's

gotten some criticism from the standard

scientific community, but also less than

you would have anticipated if it had all

been complete BS. So, I think there's,

you know, it's it's gotten partial

acceptance there. Um, this brings us

back to the notion of a center. Believe

it or not, fish have lateral lines. They

sense the electrical fields of other

fish and other things near them. Um, I

mean, there's many, many examples from

the animal kingdom of, you know, like

the platypus with its uh electric it

people call it an electric sensing bill,

but it sends out these electrical fields

that then it can detect things in its

environment because its vision is very

poor. M

>> um somebody once said uh Ed Yong the

writer said that so many animals rely on

smell. We sort of smell with our eyes

which sounds crazy but we use our eyes

the way that other animals use their

noses and that gives you an insight into

how they use their noses. But most

animals have a sense of how close or far

other members of their species and other

things are. We tend not to think about

that unless you live in a big open space

and you get on the New York subway and

like suddenly you're like, "Whoa, this

is pretty, you know, this is different."

Um, but we have these, we don't really

have a lateral line, but we have

remnants of things that are similar.

They're beautiful studies showing that

if you look for in an experimental

context magneetto reception in the human

brain, people perform above chance. In

other words, we can detect magnetic

fields. People are going to think I'm

crazy, but this is published in Science

magazine. Yeah, we can sense electric

fields, but we sort of have to train

ourselves to do it. And perhaps some

people are just naturally leaning that

way. So, there absolutely

is, when I say energetic, neural

communication across space that isn't

just words, sounds, sound waves, and

vision, uh, photons. So,

there's stuff happening at a distance

and smell. I think we we vastly uh you

know underestimate the extent to which

pherommones and odors of people who are

upset or you know there's a study

showing that human tears of affect

hormones and people around them.

>> You need to have a 16-year-old boy

around you when it comes to the

sensitivity to smell and [laughter]

perfumes being sold commercially these

days.

>> Oh my goodness. But the thing about

distance is something that I'm very very

interested in. I mean the awareness is

mostly visual for dancers. Uh and it's

usually established again in class. If

you have a crow crowded class, you the

distance can be the next one would be

out here from this point.

>> But a really crowded class, the distance

might be out here. In which case, you're

going to be angling yourself to the

diagonal. So you're able to get full

full reach which is going to impact on

design right uh but there are also ways

and it's very demanding actually and it

requires a lot of trust on everybody's

part where I can get dancers to work

very close together and that has a real

visual impact and it becomes a physical

sensation of the person watching it can

become an anxiety oh don't step on the

she's going to get stepped on and it it

you know there I'm kind of using it

crassly and but it it's interesting to

push people in uh into what's called one

another's space uh and be able to

condense the amount of area that people

feel comfortable in or require which

could be a very good thing culturally

speaking because we got less and less

space. Yeah, it's interesting that the

the this notion of communication across

space. If we could just continue down

this path a bit. Last year I had the

great honor really to do a lecture about

music in the brain with Renee Fleming,

the the the great opera singer. And we

got on to this topic of the fact that

the opera singers will capture an

emotion. They're using their diaphragm

in a very particular way, getting a

certain frequency of vibration in their

body, obviously using air, you know,

shaping the air as it leaves their their

lungs to to sing and how maybe that's

actually impacting the same sets of

neurons in the audience, but they're not

singing. Okay. This is kind of

interesting idea that we're you're

feeling the emotion of the singer

because your your frenic nerve, the

nerve that controls the diaphragm, it

might be vibrating at a similar

frequency.

>> Yeah, absolutely.

>> This gets back to this like more I don't

want to call them primitive but more

fundamental aspects of language and

communication.

>> Yes. I wonder with dance

and perhaps with athleticism too, like

on a football field, when we see

somebody move or people move in a

certain way, whether or not there we

don't realize it perhaps, but that

there's almost the illusion that we're

moving like that.

>> Like we're accessing this idea of a

portals like art as portals that we're

we're actually sensing at some level

what it would be like to move like that.

And of course, I can't

>> absolutely. I mean, you know these

ocular glasses, right? That you believe

that you're projecting yourself into

that

item up there and actually feeling it.

Hello. Right. [clears throat]

>> That must be what is is working, what's

creating that illusion. You're not

really inside that item, but you feel

and believe as though you are.

>> Yeah. I've done a VR where it's a you

think you're in a different body. It's

>> right.

>> Really weird and kind of cool,

>> I guess. So I I I'm a little terrified

to deal with it or also I haven't taken

the time to really expose myself to it.

Um it definitely is of interest, but you

know, when you talk about soccer or an

athletic event, you know, you you can

feel in boxing, you can feel the impact.

You can feel how much poundage is behind

that punch.

>> Yeah. You boxed.

>> Yeah. with Teddy Atlas as your trainer.

>> We have some friends of Teddy Atlas

around here.

>> Yes.

>> Uh what motivated that?

>> I was in my early 40s and uh the

Olympics were in LA and I was making a

new piece and I wanted to compete. Uh

but there are no competitions for what I

do. I mean a dancer's range is much more

than um and and athletes not to the same

degree in specialization but across the

border speed flexibility uh you know

maneuverability in air uh coordination

flexibility dancers got all of these

components to a very high degree. So no

events for uh me at the Olympics. uh but

I could make a piece that would be

highly athletic and I wanted to be in

the very best possible shape I could be

in. Uh so uh I decided uh that the

training that was involved in a boxer

being in shape uh was more extreme than

what I was doing with my dancing

regimen. Uh and that the you know the

rope coordination, the stamina being

involved, the power coming off the

punch, the uh grounding of the body so

that you had a punch, uh the willingness

to take the blow in exchange for the

unwillingness to go down. You would not

go down. You're not going down.

And we don't do that in dance. So I

figured, well, I'll go where they do do

that. So Teddy, we we were running steps

backwards. This is a very good thing. I

mean, you know, uh and the shadow

boxing, it's a great great training

format.

>> Yeah, I agree. Um you know, as a

neuroscientist, I have to put a call out

against sparring for anyone who's not

trying to make it a profession and maybe

even for those that are, that's their

choice. But um but speed bag work and um

the vis the visual coordination that's

involved is also incredible. near far,

but also just switching from peripheral

to central vision is I imagine it it

improves the brain in many many ways

except for the getting hit in the head

part.

>> Well, probably.

>> And you're also well known for being

quite strong. Tell us about your

deadlift. Uh

>> well I mean no uh it's I I was training

with uh in a real weight gym with

competitive weightlifters u and was very

serious

>> uh from the time I was probably in my

50s until mid60s say um and that you

were nobody in that gym if you didn't do

your body weight for three on the bench

I mean you know what are you in here for

right so it had that kind of uh require

environment to it. Uh, which is very

encouraging if you want to lift heavy

weight.

Uh, and also snapped ammonia, right?

Which is like, okay, I actually never

did that. But the jolt of pulling more

weight off the ground than you really

can do or you have ever done really does

sound send a rush to the body that is

unique.

>> And what was your personal record?

>> 227.

>> 227 deadlift. Yep.

>> Awesome.

>> Well, I don't know about that. I mean,

you just do it day in day out. And I

wasn't, you know, you can't train day in

day out, but training rigorously and