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April 7, 2000 GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE
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Queen of the Dance
Movement is Sean Curran's first language
by Michelle Tomko
Cleveland "When I have to speak, I always start by saying: English is my second language."
That is how the whirlwind phone interview with Irish American gay dancer and choreographer Sean Curran started. English is his second language because he believes dance is his first.
But Curran seems to have mastered his second language quite well. In the most enjoyable interview this writer has ever had, Curran spoke with energy, humor, and vitality, hardly taking time to breathe. He has the kind of personality that could make Nathan Lane or Richard Simmons seem somber on their most flamboyant day.
The Sean Curran Company will perform Saturday April 8 at the Ohio Theatre as part of Dance Cleveland's 1999-2000 season. But along with the scheduled concert, Curran will discuss being gay with teens in the Cleveland Lesbian-Gay Center's PRYSM youth group, and on Friday afternoon April 7, teach a free lecture and demonstration at Cleveland State University.
"It's going to be light on lecture, heavy on demonstration,” said Curran. He will also let participants critique his work.
"This is cafeteria criticism. I'm only taking what I want," laughed the dancer. Curran began his training with traditional Irish step dancing as a boy growing up in Boston.
He then gained notoriety as a principal dancer of his confrontational mentor, African American, gay, HIV-positive choreographer Bill T. Jones.
"When I left Bill T. Jones he said, 'I hope you become a changer. Remember, everything in art is political. Even your omissions are political.' I bring to the work a gay sensibility, the need to dazzle, hopefully with a bitchy gay sensibility. I speak with many voices. But in many ways the gay voice is the most important one," said Curran. These two influences.seem to be at the root of one of the four pieces he will perform in Cleveland, called Folk Dance for the Future. In it, he pokes fun at his Irish dance training as well as the ego of the Lord of the Dance himself, Michael Flatly. "I play a character named Michael Flatfoot."
But the piece evolves into a commentary on the changing image of family in the world today as three couples, straight, gay and lesbian, dance with three baby dolls with different complexions.
"I wanted the piece to have a political angle. One is black, one is white, and one is what we call in the company, cappuccino," said Curran.
He then told how difficult it was to set this piece for two universities, Bucknell University in Pennsylvania, and the University of Long Island. At both schools, students dropped out of the piece rather than be cast as a member of a gay lesbian couple.
"I feel like I'm preaching to the converted sometimes," said Curran. "Then at Bucknell this kid says to me, 'I'm a born again Christian, I can't push this idea forward.' I said, 'Why don't you pray about it.' Here was this 18-year-old saying to himself, 'You poor thing. You are going to burn in hell.' I said to him, 'Art is my religion.' The kid dropped out of the piece. At Long Island, it happened again with the girls I cast as the lesbian couple: 'Our mothers are Jehovah's Witnesses.' If this is going on, I have to keep putting my baby dolls onstage!"
The graduate from the prestigious Tisch School of the Arts at New York University also talked about being the first gay member of Stomp.
"The casting director was looking for drummers who could dance and dancers who could drum. They were looking at me for a swing because I can pick up things quickly. I got like fifteen callbacks, and I kept thinking, I'm so close but they're not going to give it to me because I'm a faggot. The producer always introduced me, 'This is Sean. He's our first gay Stomper!'
Curran did have one negative experience with a rehearsal director of Stomp, who told him in not too many words that he was too gay.
"I was enraged! He was condescending and homophobic. I was on the phonoto London. They apologized. He apologized." said Curran of the experience. "I'm very conscious of that. I'm like Bill T. Jones. I want one of everything" in his own company, he said.
Curran also explained how he casts his own company.
"I want to show how I see the world. I never have an audition. I hate them. I need to fall in love with the person. I see people in other stuff, and I invite them to a rehearsal. Women are much more hungry. The problem with men is, they are flakes. You go to an audition and there are a hundred women and twenty men and they are casting eight and eight. You do the math."
Although the business is grueling, Curran admits, "I never feel like I have a job." He also says that "I'm 38. I feel family manifesting itself in the company."
We should all be so lucky to feel that way in our chosen profession.
"I bring to the work a gay sensibility, the need to dazzle, hopefully with a bitchy gay sensibility."