We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Gemma Isaacson a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Gemma, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What were some of the most unexpected problems you’ve faced in your career and how did you resolve those issues?

Question: We’d appreciate if you could open up about a time you’ve failed. Often the greatest growth and the biggest wins come right after a defeat. Other times the failure serves as a lesson that’s helpful later in your journey. Do you have a story of a time you’ve failed?

Answer: I was 10 years old and living in small-town Wisconsin when the intense desire to pursue a career as a ballet dancer (and eventually become a principal dancer in a ballet company) overtook me. For the next eight years, I lived and breathed ballet as much as I could within financial and geographic constraints. Every action I took in every area of my life was centered around achieving my goal – most importantly moving away from home at the age of 15 to a place where I could receive the full-time training I needed in order to achieve my goal.

Three years into an intense schedule of training, performing and touring with Minnesota Ballet, I had achieved a traineeship – a major milestone. I was performing corps de ballet roles as well as starting to sink my teeth into some more prominent demi-soloist roles. However, with this success, I was paying the price of major burnout. I found myself moving further and further away from why I started dancing in the first place – the joy and power of expressing myself through movement.

I was ready to throw in the towel on dance altogether. I was ready to quit. Realizing that I was now on a path that was actually leading me away from dance, I constantly asked myself if it was dance in general that I was done with, or if this burnout was specific to ballet. There are so many other forms of dance and ways to express ideas through the body that I hadn’t explored. Perhaps a more appropriate goal was not to become a professional ballet dancer, but to broaden my horizons by pursuing a career in other dance forms better suited to my body and to my personality.

Looking back, I feel that I needed this intense ballet experience in order to realize what I actually wanted and where my power lies. I did fail to achieve my goal of becoming a principal ballet dancer, but in hindsight it feels more like a redirect that led me to become the truest version of myself. Now, as a (preferably barefoot) contemporary freelance dance artist, I feel like I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be, doing exactly the kind of work that I’m supposed to be doing.

Gemma, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I began my professional career at the age of 15 as a ballet dancer. Now at 33, I am a well established, preferably barefoot, freelance dance artist who “infuses [her] stage presence with fluidity, power and a promise of taking no moment for granted.” (Caroline Palmer, Minnesota Star Tribune)

My art is being human.

My First Dance Life

Growing up in small-town Wisconsin, I lacked both geographical and financial access to the classical ballet training I so strongly desired. I attended one class a week at a local studio and self-trained in my parents’ basement. I constructed my barre from a mop handle duct-taped to chairs. With rigorous focus, I learned variations off a “Nutcracker” VHS.

My dedication was first rewarded when the director of Minnesota Ballet invited me to train on scholarship and perform with the company. At 15 I moved to Duluth and began dancing full-time, performing nationally in the corps de ballet and as a demi-soloist. Nothing would keep me from pursuing my passion, not even having to leave home.

My body became my home.

At 18, burnout and subsequent curiosity about the potential of my dancing body pulled me in a new direction. I left the Ballet to pursue a BFA in Dance at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. I desired to continue my performance career, but as an artist not bound to a singular movement aesthetic.

My Second Dance Life

Enrolled in a contemporary dance program, my balletically-trained body struggled to grasp new forms. I had an identity crisis that was both euphoric and infuriating. Ultimately, this challenging time was a fruitful change of course. I met Marciano Silva dos Santos, Founder/Director of Contempo Physical Dance. In my sophomore year, I joined the newly-formed professional Afro-Brazilian contemporary company.

The freedom I found in Contempo’s movement language (a fusion of Afro-Brazilian dance, capoeira and contemporary dance) and creative process was a bridge between my movement past and future. In marathon evening-length works, my penchant for intense physicality and embodied musicality was nurtured. I fell in love with experiencing movement so deeply that emotions surge forth from the depths of my being. Over the course of a decade, I originated roles in every piece of company repertory. I also served as rehearsal director.

My Third Dance Life – Part 1

I am deeply devoted to rigorously expanding my range in an effort to encompass movement forms that are as broad as the human experience; to excavating my physicality and emotions within the context of each work; to sharing my strong presence, intense physicality, embodied musicality, insatiable curiosity and unwavering commitment with audiences. This devotion culminates in stunning artistry and performances that are vulnerable, honest and undeniably me.

I am a highly sought after dance artist across genres and have built lasting relationships with local, national, and international stage directors/choreographers.

Throughout my career, I have inhabited performance spaces as varied as forests and frozen lakes, rock formations and farms, parking lots and school gymnasiums, chapels and art studios, black boxes and prosceniums, communicating narratives and embodying characters that run the gamut from abstract to linear.

My Third Dance Life – Part 2

In 2020, I embarked on a journey as a choreographer and solo artist – a trajectory that opened up a thrilling artistic evolution. Through a daily improvisation practice, I discovered how movement flows through me differently when I follow my own desires versus receiving external choreographic direction.

From this research came my unexpected choreographic debut – “tangible conduits”. I experienced the most stark and liberating connection to my work as an artist through this solo.

Through the research and development of my own work, I have come to the profound realization that my unique movement voice, whether utilized in my own work or in the work of others, is the fullest manifestation of how I exist in the world. It is where all my dance lives breathe together freely.

I have cemented my understanding of what is most important to me as a performing artist – sharing my humanness. I do not desire to be set apart from an audience in performance, but to journey hand-in-hand as both leader and follower. To that end, I have come to prefer performing in intimate spaces where I can experience everyone as they experience me.

My Future Dance Lives

I exist in a state of constant embodiment of the multiple dance lives I have lived as my 18-year career has moved through various dance forms, coupled with my unique sensibility.

When I dance, I share suspended moments in time with audiences through the conveyance of rich physical manifestations of musical and emotional experiences that reflect the depth of the human experience.

When I dance, I am human.

When I dance, I am undeniably me.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

I have found that the most rewarding aspect of being an artist is the impact I have on audiences through my work. To be able to share suspended moments in time with audiences through the conveyance of rich physical manifestations of musical and emotional experiences is a gift that I get to live and breathe everyday.

A secondary and related rewarding aspect is that my art and my life are one in the same. My art is a reflection of my life and how I move through the world, and vice versa. It is a gift to see the world through art, to experience the world through art; to be able to pour my life and my experiences into my work and to then share that work with the world in a never-ending loop.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

When I decided to pursue a career in dance at the age of 10, I lacked both geographic and financial access to the training I needed in order to make that dream a reality. At that time, I was enrolled in classes at a local studio, training one day a week for a couple of hours. Ideally, I would have been enrolled in a school attached to a professional company, taking technique classes 3-5 days (8-10 hours) per week, with that load increasing each year until I was in class six days (roughly 15-20 hours) per week.

My parents did everything they could for me with the resources they had – continuing to enroll me in that local class that met once weekly, in addition to driving me upwards of 5 hours once a month to take a class at more prestigious regional institutions. I would take rigorous notes following these monthly classes, writing down the combinations, exercises and phrasework from each class so that I could continue self-training in my parents basement in the interim, my ballet barre constructed from a mop handle duct-taped to two chairs. With rigorous focus, I learned variations off a “Nutcracker” VHS, or any other recording I could get my hands on. Fast-forward three years, and I had auditioned for and been accepted to the prestigious American Ballet Theatre summer intensive, largely through self-training, which then propelled me to those years of full-time training and performing with Minnesota Ballet.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://gemmaisaacson.com
• Instagram: @gemma_isaacson
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gemmaroseisaacson

Image Credits

All photos: Bill Cameron