About
Bruce Wood
Lone Star strider
Bruce Wood’s Choreography is inspired by big sky, wild wind of Texas
Fort Worth – Bruce Wood is an original. The former horse roper is one of the best contemporary choreographers in the country. And he has no intention of leaving Texas for greener pastures. The Lone Star State is his muse.
“The thing about Texas I love is the fact that it’s big, it’s flat and the sky is high up. I love being on a field where you can see 20 miles in all directions on a hot, hot day. It affects how you think.”
“My aesthetic is different because I am from here. I don’t mind simple. I don’t think you need artific to make your point,” says Mr. Wood, 40. His Fort Worth-based Bruce Wood Dance Company has, in the short space of four years, become a must-see experience.
His works combine classical elegance with fluidity. Dancers cover the ground with whiplash quickness, in silky patterns that ruffle like the wind. The intensity builds and drops, as sudden and shocking as a tornado.
“To my mind , Bruce fills a space akin to Paul Taylor, ” says Susan Motheral, president of the company’s board, referring to the acclaimed New York choreographer. “I have not been so excited about dance since 1978, when I spent summers at the American Dance Festival in Durhan [N.C.].”
“He’s changed my life, ” says Marti DeRaud, vice president of development. “Every time I go, I forget everything.”
That enthusiasm is evident at every concert. Bass Performance Hall nearly fills up, an unprecedented occurence for modern dance locally. The company’s budget has risen from $75,000 in 1997 to $1 million this year. “I do believe we’ll have international tours in five years and national tours in three years,” Ms. Motheral says.
“Bruce has incredible vision,’ says Michael Lively, who joined the troupe two years ago after dancing with the Fort Worth Dallas Ballet for nine years. “He’s demanding. He pushes beyond where you can go.” Ms. Motheral drops in often to watch rehearsal t the Bruce Wood studio, a former Piggly-Wiggly grocery store. “Under his tutelage, the dancers have grown,” she says. He gives them the freedom to be who they are as dancers. It reminds me of Michelangelo’s sculptures — they look like they’re breaking out of the rock. What I like is you can see them laugh and grin and catch each other’s eyes. You don’t see that with most dance companies.”
Mr. Wood pushes himself, too. The last performance March 26 [2001] at Bass Hall, included three of his own new works. Local 126 was fascinating portrayal of union workers, but nothing compared with the drama of Bolero, a grating, heated dance of brilliance. In just about every program he includes at least one new thrill. Rumors of a Big Wave (his first piece of choreography), Being, The Only Way Through is Through, Rhapsody in Blue, Spontaneous Combustion, Lovett! and Bolero rank up with anything of Mr. Taylor’s…
Mr. Wood’s zest for hard work stems from a rough-and-ready past that is a far cry from the experience of most choreographers.
He grew up in West Texas in the ’70s, playing all kinds of sports. His father was a high school football coach and his mother an English teacher. They moved from Jacksboro to Forth Worth when he was 15. He dropped everything else one he spotted a dance studio and declared he wanted to take lessons. “I found out what I really loved, ” Mr. Wood says.” And you couldn’t stop me.”
He looked through the Yellow Pages and found Gayle Corkery. Within seven months, he was accepted to the summer program of the School of American Ballet in New York.
As soon as he graduated from Richland High School, he took off, first dancing with the San Francisco Ballet, the Les Ballet Jazz de Montreal, Twyla Tharp and Lar Lubovitch.
But by age 30, he was burned out. Too many tours on the road, too many friends dying of AIDS. One day he walked out of the Lar Lubovitch studio and walked to 34th Street to apply at Macy’s.
Dance was history.
Six months later he moved back to Texas. He raised horses in Wise County. For a time he played polo and rode in rodeos. “He’d wear a number on his back, ” his friend Joe Groves recalls. “He took it seriously. Just like today. He’s always very serious about whatever he does.”
After that, Mr. Wood got a job in Fort Worth with a pharmaceutical company. He moved to Austin, working as a free-lance art director for TV commercials.
The unexpected success of a 30-minute dance in Austin, Rumors of a Big Wave, spurred him to try his hand at choreography. He put together a troupe to perform at the Paramount Theatre in Austin, and that gave him the idea of founding his own company…
…Texas is what feeds his soul. Simplicity, force and dynamics shape his dances. ”When I was a little kid, I loved the wind — the wind is my favorite thing. It makes you a little fearless.”
After creating 27 works, Mr. Wood says, “I don’t know where it comes from. The structure is in your head. I don’t think you have to understand it. You just have to be aware of it. It’s like trying to understand God. Like when you’re standing out in the middle of the field — the only thing out there other than the wind — you always have a sense that there’s something greater than you.”
By Margaret Putnam, Special Contributor
The Dallas Morning News, April 8, 2001