In the time that they have been at Oberlin, Guest Dance Faculty members Kent de Spain and Leslie Dworkin have taught dance students from their own unique perspective, that of the free-lance and highly-lauded performer, artist and teacher. De Spain is a noted expert on dance improvisation, while Dworkin excels in an experimental style of dancing called “Release-based Technique.” Each of them hold degrees from Temple University and Dworkin is a 1995 Oberlin alumna.
Since joining forces in 1991, Dworkin and De Spain have appeared at the nation’s leading dance institutions, including Jacob’s Pillow in Massachusetts and Judson Church in New York City. They have also toured with the Brazilian modern dance company, Grupo Tran Chan, and were members of dancer Kei Takei’s loose-knit company “Moving Earth.”
While they don’t usually do actual work with each other in the dancing field, this duo travels together and have served parallel appointments at many higher learning institutions, including UCLA, Bryn Mawr College and the University of North Carolina-Greensboro. Their residence at Oberlin ends the beginning of Fall Break.
The following is an abridged version of an interview conducted with Dworkin and De Spain Wednesday, Oct. 10.

Douglass Dowty: How did each of you individually become interested in dancing?

De Spain: I had no thought of ever dancing as an adolescent or whatever, but I was interested in acting and singing, and was literally forced to dance in a musical. The director said, “If you want to be in the show, you’re going to have to dance.” So I started to dance and loved it. I was supposed to enter UCLA as an economics major and entered as a dance major.

Dworkin: In some ways, I feel I didn’t choose dancing, it sort of chose me. I just feel compelled. There are video tapes of me when I’m three dancing around. I didn’t have much training in high school at all. Then when I got [to Oberlin], I made a somewhat conscious decision to really pursue it more, though I was not a dance major, I was a religion major. Once I graduated, I started dancing in a small company in Michigan, and realized I had to do this.

DD: Why did you come back to Oberlin? Was that the prime motivation?

D: I definitely wanted to come back and see how things had changed. I haven’t been back to this place since I went here. It’s great to be back. Things have changed a lot…the [dance] department has changed a lot. But also it’s great to be teaching, so we go wherever they offer us work, [laughter] and they offered us something while Nusha [Martynuk] and Carter [McAdams] were on sabbatical.

DD: Where are you two going when you end your term at Oberlin?

D: We’re going to New York for a short time…Kent has to do a presentation for a conference there. And then we are moving to the San Francisco Bay Area.

DD: What conference?

DS: The Conference for Research and Dance. I do a lot of writing on improvisation and others things. But I also do a lot of presenting on dance and pornography.

DD: Mr. De Spain, can you explain a little about your interest in improv dancing?

DS: It’s a particular interest of mine. Performance improv is particularly different than choreography, because you’re having to deal with the form and the content in real time, instead of planning ahead of time. When you’re improvising in performance, you have to make it up on the spot. Yet you have to have some of the same sense of where a piece begins, where is it going, where is it coming to a conclusion. [My interest in that] came out of the training I got, really. When I entered UCLA it was a time when a lot of Improv was going on in the mid-’70s. I was really just thrown into it. It was what everyone else was doing, and I thought, wow, this is really interesting.

DD: Ms. Dworkin, can you explain a little about your specialty [in Release-based Technique]?

D: It describes a qualitative range and can mean different things to different people. I’m really interested in a more body-friendly way of using the body. Less outward shape and more an internal sense of the body, of its weight, of its natural rhythm. When I work with dancers, I like to open up the timing structure so that [the dancer] can choreograph a phrase in their own time [as opposed to a set meter]. Each person can have a kind of personal mark that way.

DD: What is it that you are really trying to leave with the students here at Oberlin?

DS: For me, it’s a sense of the drive and passion and joy that we get out of a life of moving. I just want to instill that in them. It’s a kind of weird combination of work ethic and joy.

D: Part of it is if they can just get a taste of what it is like to become more personally invested in the moving, and find a way to really taste it on their own in a way that’s satisfying for them. And I remember when I was here it was just so wonderful to have a bunch of people come and do a variety of things. I think we have a different approach than a lot of the other faculty members, and I hope it’s sunk in a little bit the short amount of time we were here. A range of moving experiences.

Leslie Dworkin and Kent De Spain’s students will perform Wednesday, Oct. 17 at 5 p.m. in Warner Center’s Main Dance Studio.