We recently connected with Rachel Turner and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Rachel, thanks for joining us today. If you could go back in time do you wish you had started your creative career sooner or later?

I think looking back, I wish I had been exposed more to the breadth of things happening in the dance world. Growing up, I always knew about big companies with full-time dancers, and while I studied dance in college, I was also pursuing pre-physical therapy coursework, with the plan to go to graduate school for that. During college, I slowly came to the conclusion that I was not going to be able to “make it” as a dancer and looked for other plans. Luckily, my college didn’t offer two credits that I needed for PT school, so I was unable to apply during my senior year of college and was going to have to wait til the next cycle of applications so that I could take post-college summer classes at another school. With a year until a potential start to grad school, I had to find a job, and through pure luck, found a job, on Craigslist of all places, at a prestigious private school teaching dance. I also discovered that being a part of a dance company can come in so many forms and through a lucky connection through a friend, I auditioned for a company that rehearsed on weekends and evenings. Washington DC in particular was such a magical place for this because so many companies rehearsed on this schedule, with many dancers working very buttoned up government jobs during the day. Over the course of my time in DC, I danced for many companies, even touring within the US and internationally, and started my own company, presenting work in the DC area, as well as in Chicago and Detroit. I also realized that if I was loving what I was doing teaching during the day, I didn’t need to go back to school to follow the plan I had made for myself. I feel lucky that I wasn’t able to apply to grad school right out of college, or this might have been a more expensive or stressful realization, or I might not have been able to transition.

I love teaching as a creative outlet, and in my current job, I am in a great space where I can express my larger artistic ideas while working with younger dancers. Additionally, for me, being a creative, especially as I start my family, means working a more typical day job (I teach dance, but since I am at a school, my hours are more traditional than teaching at studios), that gives me the time and stability to be able to work on other creative projects. I grew up thinking that “making it” only meant dancing full time with a company while waitressing to make ends meet, but I think it can be whatever set up works for each individual. So I wish I had seen more of these options sooner, but I’m glad that things came together the way they did.

Rachel, 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 am a dancer, dance teacher, and choreographer. My full time job is teaching contemporary dance at Campbell Hall (a K-12 school in the valley). I love this work – we offer six levels of contemporary for 7th-12th graders, so I teach all these classes, manage the scope and goals of my program, and put on an hour long production each year, in addition to a “recital” type show, so right now, most of my choreography takes place here.

I also am the regional director of NACHMO LA (National Choreography Month), which challenges choreographers to create a new dance piece in the month of January. I started participating in NACHMO in DC, which really propelled me to work on choreography and eventually start my company Errant Movement. When I came to LA, I discovered that there was not a hub, so I started one in 2018, even though I barely knew anyone and had just moved to the area. We’ve put on six years of sold out shows, plus a year with an outdoor performance in a park and film festival during COVID. I love being able to give choreographers the platform to present work. We’ve had hundreds of dancers participate, and probably over 60 choreographers since 2018, and I’m very proud of this event. It’s always a bit chaotic , but I love the energy of the creative, excited chaos. I love using this as an outlet to present my own work too, and have appreciated other showcases where I’ve been able to still pursue choreography outside of the school setting.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

For me, I feel like I try to let myself follow what I want to explore, rather than sticking to one mission. In a lot of my work with my company, Errant Movement, I have used dance to explore tough topics and open a conversation. One of the most valuable pieces of feedback on an early work I received was “why do you have to give an answer?”. I had been struggling with an ending pose for a piece about social media and technology, and this feedback helped me realize that I didn’t have to answer the question – my dance asked the question and left the audience to think about what it might mean to them.

I also have found that at times, maybe when my own life is heavier, I might just want to make a dance that is about the dance and nothing else. I think the first time I did this, as part of a choreographic residency project in Colorado, I felt like I had to justify not having a “meaning” because I had often focused so much on the meaning or question. As I work with students, this brings up so many creative purposes to explore – working with students to explore lifts can be the starting idea of a piece or choosing a song that challenges me or a song that excites dancers to get them more bought in.

So my mission is to be mission less and create what I want without judgement on myself for maybe something that feels more frivolous as a topic or theme.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I think one of my biggest things that I am working on as a dancer is to unlearn a lot of my own self critique. I think because I always felt like success meant one thing (full time company job), I felt like that meant there was one right way or answer to move. I trained primarily in ballet in high school which also tends to be more restrictive, particularly in my rigorous school. So now, I have trouble trusting myself as a mover, and when I know I could be better, I have trouble performing/selling what I am doing. There are a lot of various opinions on filming in classes, but I do find this valuable in my own journey to try to perform where I am at in a short time frame. This can also be the challenge of being a teacher and choreographer and dancer, because it can be hard to remove my teacher hat and not think of technical things that could be better. Coming back from having my first child has actually been refreshing, because that gave me a “reason” to be easier on myself.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @rturner418
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachel-turner-8842a527/

Image Credits

Letxia Cordova, Powell Browne, Gregory Kasunich