We were lucky to catch up with Suzanne Haag recently and have shared our conversation below.

Suzanne, appreciate you joining us today. Are you happy as a creative professional? Do you sometimes wonder what it would be like to work for someone else?

I have had the great fortune to be able to consider myself an artist for my entire career. I was a professional ballet dancer for 16 years and now will start my 7th season as the resident choreographer for the Eugene Ballet in Oregon. I am certainly happy, though not every day is easy and there were many of challenges along the way, but I wouldn’t trade this life for anything.

As far as having a “regular job” I understand the basis for this question. But I would also like to challenge this way of thinking. By interviewing so many successful artists, you are doing a great service in pointing out that working artists aren’t unicorns, but in fact very much a contributing part of society which is so valuable. I can’t count the number of times I’ve told someone I was a ballet dancer and then they would ask me what I did for work. Why don’t we, as a society, see the life of an artist as a regular or real job? Wouldn’t the arts flourish more if we all put more value in the arts? I’m referring to what I know and live and work in, American society. We see artistic pursuits as hobbies but not real jobs, and that couldn’t be farther from the truth. There are professional artists everywhere. Thinking that all artists are “starving artists” or that artists can and should work for less (or worse, work for “exposure”) because they love what they do is harmful. If we all collectively agreed that artists should be compensated for their work and years of training, our arts would be more sustainable. I think individuals, corporations, and foundations would be more likely to fund arts organizations and artists if we stop this way of thinking that artists don’t need compensation like “regular” workers do. Thank you for shining a light on the fact that working artists are everywhere and to add to that, folks in “regular jobs” are using creativity all the time and I don’t think that should be missed.

I do sometimes think about what it would be like to have a job outside of the arts. And not because I don’t love my job but sometimes muse about what it would be like to have an income that is higher or a job that allowed me to clock out completely at the end of the day (meaning I wouldn’t take work home, always be thinking about what I could have done better in rehearsal that day, be planning ahead for a commission coming down the road). Would life be simpler? Easier? More predictable? Perhaps – but then I remember that when I was working in the service industry to cover my rent in the summers (the ballet off-season) when I was a young dancer and working in a restaurant. I worked hard at that job and all of my early side gig jobs. One day, in the restaurant, I remember crying because I couldn’t slice the bread as perfectly as the owner wanted. So whether I’m doing a pirouette, or choreographing a new ballet, or making a sandwich, I’m going to take it to heart. And that, I think, is what artists do. Our life is our art and our art is our life, no matter what we are doing. So, I know I’d prefer to be working hard at something I love and that I believe is putting something beautiful and meaningful into the world.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I have always been in love with ballet. I apparently saw my first ballet at two and was enamored – I have little recollection of this – but my parents put me in a tiny local dance school before my 3rd birthday and I have been involved in ballet in one way or another since then. I am ever grateful to my parents for recognizing my need to move and communicate through dance. I was very shy as a child and somehow the language of ballet made more sense and felt more comfortable to me than speaking and reading at a young age.

My formal training began at eight years old at the School of the Hartford Ballet in Connecticut, near where I grew up. And I went on to get my degree in Dance and Arts Administration from Butler University in Indianapolis. I was a professional ballet dancer for about 16 years, dancing for the Indianapolis Opera Company, Nevada Ballet Theatre, Ballet Idaho, DROP Dance Collective, #instaballet, and Eugene Ballet.

I recognize how fortunate I was to be able to find my “thing” early on in life and, though the path to pursuing ballet as a career has been full of twists and turns, heartbreak and injury and self-doubt, the joy and self-fulfillment have far outweighed the challenges. Not everyone finds their place at such a young age. And I credit this to my parents for encouraging and supporting me and for a very large number of inspiring teachers and mentors along the way. I had the honor of working with world-renowned teachers like Alla Osipenko, Franco De Vita, and Raymond Lukens when I was a teen. My early training was with the amazing Rosie Docal Pizzuto and I was fortunate to have composition (choreography) classes at a young age with Katie Stevinson-Nollet who instilled a curiosity in her students and made the art form of choreography fun and inspiring.

In 2018, at age 38, I retired from performing full-time and made the shift into making choreography my focus. This was a huge step, I had been performing for as long as I can remember and being on the stage has always felt like home. Working at the front of the studio, collaborating with dancers to make new ballets is equally fulfilling but in a different way. I am now focused on the big picture, how to get all of the pieces to communicate to the audience instead of just my body. I have been so lucky to have been mentored by Eugene Ballet’s Artistic Director, Toni Pimble, as I have continued to practice the craft of choreography. And to date I have had some amazing experiences and collaborations. Through my tenure at Eugene Ballet as their resident choreographer, have worked with the band Pink Martini, with musician Tracy Bonham, and percussionist Pius Cheung. I have also had the privilege to re-create known works like The Firebird and Petrushka and have recently choreographed a ballet adaptation the Tennessee Williams play The Glass Menagerie. I have created work for Dance Lab New York, Dance in the Parks (Chicago), the National Choreographers Initiative (Irvine, CA), National Dance Institute (Santa Fe, NM), Eugene Opera, the University of Utah, Texas Christian University, the University of Oregon, and University of North Carolina School of the Arts. I am constantly looking for projects that allow me to learn something and explore my craft from a new perspective with different collaborators.

I will always take what I have learned as performer with me in whatever I do, whether it’s in this field or somewhere else. I’ve learned to enjoy the sharing. As a dancer, you start out selfish, obsessing about your body, the steps you are doing, the parts you are given. At some point, there is a shift when you can see the bigger picture – that you are doing all of this work on yourself to give everything you’ve learned and worked for away to the audience. This is a magical feeling, to be able to communicate thoughts and ideas and feelings through dance, to share with the audience something that allows them to escape, or connect, or see something from another angle in a new way. My goal is to create work for us, for people today. That might mean breaking the gender norms that are typical in classical ballet, or updating a known ballet like Stravinsky’s Petrushka to focus on the use of artificial intelligence. I want to demystify ballet, make sure that folks are invited in and understand that it isn’t purely pink tutus and princesses (though I do love a good classical ballet) but a powerful art form that can utilized to connect to today’s audiences.

In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?

I am a big believer in the power of the arts in education. Music, dance, theatre, visual arts, literary arts, etc. all teach children to be creative, problem solve, express themselves in different ways, and connect with each other. We need this in our public schools. Our Oregon Community Foundation ran a study in arts education and discovered that only 1% of K-12 children in public schools in Oregon receive access to dance. The most commonly taught artistic discipline in our public schools is music, which still comes in at only reaching 50% of students. These numbers have been gradually increasing, but there are many challenges that keep these numbers lower than is ideal. Lack of funding, personnel, and challenges scheduling are the biggest hurdles in our state and I know this is true across the country. But there is such value in incorporating the arts into the public school system. Even if children choose not to continue to pursue an art, they will take what they have learned with them. I have always excelled at jobs I’ve held outside of ballet (with the exception of my bread slicing abilities) and I credit that to the discipline, work ethic, problem solving skills, and ability to work in a team that I have developed through my ballet training.

If we want our arts to flourish, we need to start teaching about the arts young. Not only to aid in the education system, but to build awareness in the importance of the arts to build a more connected society. As artists, as creative problem solvers, we might not be able to completely overhaul the American education system. But we can do our part to share our art form with the public and invite folks in to our process. I believe it is our duty not just to make art and to express ourselves in our various art forms, but to invite others in.

I noticed a disconnect between audience members and dancers in 2013 when I was still dancing. People were hesitant to attend a ballet because they “wouldn’t get it” or simply had never seen one before and just assumed they wouldn’t like it. Being an artist and therefore a problem solver by nature, I set out with a fellow dancer, Antonio Anacan, to fix this. We created #instaballet – a real-time, interactive dance performance model to teach audience members of all ages about the art form of ballet and choreography. We hosted free performances (breaking the barrier that ballet is too expensive or only for the upper echelon) and asked the audience what they wanted to see. This interactive exchange between audience and dancer allowed audience members an inside look at what goes into making a new ballet. It has given audiences an in depth understanding of how ballet can communicate ideas and an appreciation for the artists’ abilities to communicate such a vast range of ideas so readily. And as a choreographer, this process has allowed me to hear from the audience about what they want to see and what excites them. Over the years, this tiny nonprofit has grown and has begun work in public schools and with organizations focusing on students with autism and other related abilities. We are hoping to continue to increase that 1%.

If we can get more arts into schools, and also invite more audience members into the creative process of our various mediums, I think there is hope that our creative ecosystem will increase in sustainability. Awareness creates more audiences, audiences that are more educated and appreciative of the arts they are viewing, and supporters who want local arts and artists to succeed. And I think the more people get to talk to working artists, the more they will understand the value that we hold.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

This is not the largest pivot I’ve made, but certainly the most formative one. When I was 14 I sustained a stress fracture in my lower back and had wear a thick plastic brace and stop my dance training for 9 months. It was crushing. I couldn’t do the only thing I knew how to do and it was at a time when the other dancers in my class were really excelling, I was missing out on a very needed point in my training. The only class that I could participate in was my composition class, learning the art of choreography, because I could tell other students what to do, even though I couldn’t do it myself. This opened up a whole new angle for exploring ballet that I didn’t know was possible. If I couldn’t dance, I could still create in this art form that I loved so much. I could still be a part of it. I did go on to heal, and have a professional career as a ballet dancer, but I always took with me this time in my early teens. I was forced at an early age to deal with disappointment, and figuring out how to continue with my art form when things weren’t going as I had hoped. This lesson has stuck with me throughout my career. I think this ability to see success as something that can shift has been my biggest asset. Getting too stuck on one ideal goal can be a hinderance, being open to shifting a little or a lot can be a gift. Years later, I’m taking all of those lessons I learned and creating a second career for myself as a choreographer and director.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://suzannehaag.com
• Instagram: @suzi.haag
• Facebook: https://Facebook.com/frazzledballerina
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/suzanne-haag-9bb974297
• Other: vimeo.com/suzannehaag

  instaballet.org

Image Credits

Ari Denison, Damian McDonald, Antonio Anacan, Katie Patrick