Saturday Matinee

Promoting conversation between science and the arts
Dance Your PhD
My first choreographic effort

It’s so great to start with an idea, and to actually devote a lot of time, energy, money, a lot of hoping and crossing fingers to get a studio, to ultimately see the project come to completion. I stumbled across this event “Choreograping Your PhD” earlier this year, and just thought it was hilarious as well as very fitting – science and dance is a novel yet symbiotic relationship that could lead to a greater understanding of both fields. After all, science has been a subject of dance for a while now, from Balanchine’s Four Temperaments (based on the subject of physiology) to the more recent work of Wayne McGregor’s groundbreaking work in artificial intelligence, cloning, and the heart. Add to that the quirkiness of scientists on display doing something out of the ordinary, and you end up with NY Times coverage.

So here I present my soul to the world, my first choreographic effort as someone clearly out of my own element. Bottom line – choreographing is SUPER HARD, and my respect for ALL choreographers just skyrocketed. Forget about any body issues that I have; I can’t even think about that without cringing. And I definitely need to go to ballet class more; I really need to work on keeping my torso upright (my technique seems to get worse every time I watch the video). But I’m forcing myself to get over it because after all this work, and I can’t not upload it now. Remember as you watch it that normally I am a geeky sedentary scientist and not a trained dancer by any means. My ultimate goal is to be able to choreograph as well as Balanchine or Wheeldon can do molecular biology.

The Stats: for the five of us in the studio filming this video:

• Collective education (earned and ongoing): one Masters in Computer Science, two PhD’s in Neuroscience, one PhD in Nutrition, one medical (MD) degree, one veterinary (DVM) degree.
• Collective dance experience: 17 years and three months of ballet, one quarter of Renaissance dance, a smattering of swing experience.

The Science:

How does a developing nervous system form connections (synapses)? It’s directed by a series of molecular cues, which is the basis for my PhD dissertation. Our lab studies synaptogenesis and the molecular cues involved in synapse formation and differentiation that is essential for the developing nervous system. Specifically, our lab studies agrin, a heparan sulfate proteoglycan that has been widely studied for its synaptogenic effects at the neuromuscular junction. My project studies agrin’s function in synaptogenesis in the peripheral nervous system.

The Dance:

I represent a motile growth cone, an immature neuron searching for its postsynaptic partner to form a synapse. It starts out as a slow awakening, as I explore my environment. I liked the breathing quality of the awakening process, waxing and waning, breathing with the music. The other dancers represent potential postsynaptic partners, where I dance with them to see if they have the correct synaptogenic cues that dictates my final destination. I ultimately find my final postsynaptic partner (who also happens to be the only one strong enough to hold me in a dip ) and synapse with it.

I was disappointed that the resolution of the video wasn’t good enough to capture my leotard. It’s nude colored to represent an unmyelinated neuron – with myelin, I would have worn white, but without myelin, I’m basically membrane colored. I also drew on these open geometric circles to represent presynaptic synaptic vesicles, which unfortunately you can’t see.

The Experience:

Everyone learned everything within the span of two and a half hours – teaching it and communicating what I wanted was harder than I thought, but everyone picked it up really quickly. I loved that I did this together with my friends; we’re definitely not the best dancers in the world, but I wouldn’t have had it any other way, all but one of them graduate students themselves. It was also amazing to be back in a dance studio for a few hours. Many special thanks to the UC Davis Theatre and Dance Department who were so welcome in letting me use the studio on a rainy Saturday on such short notice; Professor David Grenke (former principal dancer with the Paul Taylor Dance Company, founding member of Armitage Ballet) couldn’t have been nicer nor more encouraging.

Some photos we took for fun -

In short: It was a great time! Thanks to everyone who made my vision possible, including my friends who helped bounce ideas around. It definitely wouldn’t happened without everyone’s support. So with great humility, I hereby present to you my final product. Be sure to watch through til the end.

Check out the other entries, as well as last year’s (live) contest, here. Please submit a video, especially if you are a post doc or a professor, because there aren’t too many videos in those categories. The deadline is Nov 16.

P.S. Speaking of science and the arts, who’s excited for the next four years?? I am!

Updated: Very special and very kind blog endorsements! Thanks to everyone -

• Cocktail Party Physics
• Reverberate Hills
• Swan Lake Samba Girl
• Oberon’s Grove
• Thomasina’s Last Waltz
• Art.Cult at WNYC

Last night, I found myself at the Marin Center for a performance with the Marin Symphony, conducted by Alasdair Neale. I’m really starting to discover the purpose of a community symphony and how it really serves it community. The theater was a big one but all on one floor, where I’ve never seen so much socialization occur across rows of people greeting each other. I couldn’t help but to wonder if they haven’t seen each other since the last Marin Symphony concert.

In last night’s performance, the clear performance of the night was the Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto with Orion Weiss that alone was worth the price of admission. I spoke about Orion Weiss before, when he performed at the house recital. But there, I felt like the environment didn’t serve his talents well – there were real moments of poetry, but there was also a bit of awkwardness and ‘muddiness’ in the piano sound especially in the Beethoven piece, possibly due to the unique circumstances of a living room performance or an unfamiliar piano or a new repertoire. Whatever reservations I took away with me at the recital however, Orion Weiss’ performance with the Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto shattered all expectations with a brilliant performance. The same lyricism that I heard previously in the house recital was there, this time to the fullest extent with an unassuming yet magnanimous confidence, contrasted with moments of almost startling vibrancy in the fast technical passages that still sang. Weiss also has this uncanny degree of quiet unguarded vulnerability in his playing that’s particularly extraordinary in today’s young cynical generation where performers often “give us a show” rather than show us their heart. This allowed the audience to have a personal experience connecting with Weiss through his music. I know that I write a lot of “positive” reviews (I’ve been accused of being “too nice”, many times!) but I think when I truly get excited about a performance, that will come across in my writeups. And this is one of those performances. The first movement was particularly spectacular, with its more free form style. I’m more familiar with the third movement which I learned a very long time ago, but the first movement was the vastly more interesting especially in this performance. This truly is a “can’t miss” performance, which will be repeated on Tuesday night on Nov 4, so be sure to check it out.

The concert opened with the magical Mendelssohn’s Midsummer Night’s Dream. It opened tenuously with a woodwind chorale that was plagued with pitchiness and oddly imbalanced middle-heavy chords but most of all a lack of confidence every time the chorale made an appearance. But the soft, quick violins emulated fairies racing throughout a forest, and repeated donkey brays in the middle of the overture was whimsically emphasized. I officially nominate the overture to Midsummer Night’s Dream be entered into the repertoire of Trite and Overplayed Orchestral Pieces, which I find vastly more interesting than some others such as Don Juan and the Miraculous Mandarin Suite. The excerpts were followed by Mozart’s Symphony No. 36 in C major in a spirited rendition, but left the thought that this four movement symphony before intermission was too long as it seemed to go on forever. The orchestra was led with an easy charm and a good dose of wit by Alasdair Neale, who deservedly is the community’s pride and joy.

A quick word on the pre-concert talk with Julia Adam – she happened to be the choreographer who choreographed one of my favorite pieces in the New Works Festival earlier this year at the San Francisco Ballet, and it was a joy to hear her talk about the choreographic process and to watch clips of her choreography with her explaining it. I love the fact that her choreography is deeply set in the music, with a dollop of intellectual thought and quirkiness. She showed clips of her Midsummer Night’s Dream that she choreographed with the Marin Ballet, which was absolutely entrancing. And, fortunately for the Bay Area, Diablo Ballet will be performing it in March! I will definitely catch those performances.

Anyone in the vicinity of Marin County should really go and see this performance. Click here for more information.

A paparazzi shot of Orion Weiss practicing the Beethoven, before the general theater was open.