Sheldon likes to make things. He grew up in Omaha and was once a
classically trained ballet dancer and an unsuccessful French horn
player. Things have changed since then. He no longer lives in the
Midwest. He is now, for lack of a better way of putting it, a bay area
based multi-disciplinary artist with an extensive background as a
dancer/choreographer/teacher and musician/composer. To further
complicate things, he is also a video artist/technologist and a sort of
conceptual artist/writer/etc. All of these slashes go together somehow
in the work that he makes both on his own and in collaboration with
Lisa. But it’s complicated. He still likes making dances that are simply
and fundamentally about the body and its possibilities. There is such
infinite intrigue in the ways bodies can be combined. But most often he
finds himself making dances that are hybrids of experimental theater,
conceptual art, new media art, installation art, performance art and of
course, dance. That’s a lot to synthesize but if you keep a sense of
humor about things it helps.
Sheldon discovered dance through his mother who was a life long lover of
dance. The youngest of four boys, he was perhaps the daughter his mother
never had. Some of his earliest and fondest memories are of summer dance
camp. Though he preferred the shooting range to Russian character dance
(and still would given the choice), eventually the stars aligned. Shoes
and dance shorts were purchased and many many years of ballet classes
and nutcrackers and awkward moments went spiraling by in a hazy
whirlwind of sweat and other bodily secretions.
And then there was college. Sheldon will forever credit his professor,
Peggy Berg who never gave up on trying to crack through his ballet
armor. One can only resist for so long. And when he found himself in an
Aesthetics of Dance class with guest artist Stuart Pimsler and fellow
student and future luminary Scott Heron, things really changed and
changed fast. Improvisation-yes yes yes! Dancing in gym shoes-hell ya!
Making music and dance together, making dances to no music, making
dances that just talked, making dances by chance, dancing outside while
on hallucinogens…
College lead to confusion, confusion lead to the bass guitar, poverty,
Portland, Denver and finally Chicago. Chicago was then and remains now a
vital, comparatively affordable city with an amazing experimental
theater community, great music, and a whole lot of dance. He had his
first real job, got up early, rigged theaters by day and danced and made
music in the evening. This is around 1987. Gets his first dances
produced at the legendary MoMing performing arts center, lives across
from Links Hall, meets Bob Eisen and goes touring old style in a
volkswagon bus.
Graduate school happens and finishes. The 90’s become a strange and
mysterious haze of rigging jobs, dance-making, home built computers,
cats, roommates and existential confusion. As the decade closes, Sheldon
meets Lisa at a dance concert and convinces her (eventually) that he
would make a fine boyfriend. Things start to look up.
And then things look down. At the beginning of the new millennium, his
mother dies after a long, long struggle with cancer. The phone call came
at about 7:15pm. He was warming up for a show with Julia Rhoads that was
scheduled for 8pm. The show was postponed. There was a late night drive
to Iowa. There was a funeral.
Three years later there was a wedding. Sheldon and Lisa get married in
Nebraska. In the following spring Lisa is offered a job at UCBerkeley
and they move to California where they live for several years in an
amazing little cottage they will never forget. The dance making they
started doing together in Chicago continues to flourish and grow.
Sheldon takes on teaching jobs all over the Bay Area, makes music and
videos for SWDA and others and occasionally makes odd websites.
And then there is a boy. Will was born three weeks past due as his
father was not quite ready. His father was still not quite ready but
quickly adjusted in the delivery room when five tiny, warm and wet
digits wrapped tightly around his index finger. Life is full of miracles.
The last two years have been wondrous. And exhausting. And profound.
To be continued…
classically trained ballet dancer and an unsuccessful French horn
player. Things have changed since then. He no longer lives in the
Midwest. He is now, for lack of a better way of putting it, a bay area
based multi-disciplinary artist with an extensive background as a
dancer/choreographer/teacher and musician/composer. To further
complicate things, he is also a video artist/technologist and a sort of
conceptual artist/writer/etc. All of these slashes go together somehow
in the work that he makes both on his own and in collaboration with
Lisa. But it’s complicated. He still likes making dances that are simply
and fundamentally about the body and its possibilities. There is such
infinite intrigue in the ways bodies can be combined. But most often he
finds himself making dances that are hybrids of experimental theater,
conceptual art, new media art, installation art, performance art and of
course, dance. That’s a lot to synthesize but if you keep a sense of
humor about things it helps.
Sheldon discovered dance through his mother who was a life long lover of
dance. The youngest of four boys, he was perhaps the daughter his mother
never had. Some of his earliest and fondest memories are of summer dance
camp. Though he preferred the shooting range to Russian character dance
(and still would given the choice), eventually the stars aligned. Shoes
and dance shorts were purchased and many many years of ballet classes
and nutcrackers and awkward moments went spiraling by in a hazy
whirlwind of sweat and other bodily secretions.
And then there was college. Sheldon will forever credit his professor,
Peggy Berg who never gave up on trying to crack through his ballet
armor. One can only resist for so long. And when he found himself in an
Aesthetics of Dance class with guest artist Stuart Pimsler and fellow
student and future luminary Scott Heron, things really changed and
changed fast. Improvisation-yes yes yes! Dancing in gym shoes-hell ya!
Making music and dance together, making dances to no music, making
dances that just talked, making dances by chance, dancing outside while
on hallucinogens…
College lead to confusion, confusion lead to the bass guitar, poverty,
Portland, Denver and finally Chicago. Chicago was then and remains now a
vital, comparatively affordable city with an amazing experimental
theater community, great music, and a whole lot of dance. He had his
first real job, got up early, rigged theaters by day and danced and made
music in the evening. This is around 1987. Gets his first dances
produced at the legendary MoMing performing arts center, lives across
from Links Hall, meets Bob Eisen and goes touring old style in a
volkswagon bus.
Graduate school happens and finishes. The 90’s become a strange and
mysterious haze of rigging jobs, dance-making, home built computers,
cats, roommates and existential confusion. As the decade closes, Sheldon
meets Lisa at a dance concert and convinces her (eventually) that he
would make a fine boyfriend. Things start to look up.
And then things look down. At the beginning of the new millennium, his
mother dies after a long, long struggle with cancer. The phone call came
at about 7:15pm. He was warming up for a show with Julia Rhoads that was
scheduled for 8pm. The show was postponed. There was a late night drive
to Iowa. There was a funeral.
Three years later there was a wedding. Sheldon and Lisa get married in
Nebraska. In the following spring Lisa is offered a job at UCBerkeley
and they move to California where they live for several years in an
amazing little cottage they will never forget. The dance making they
started doing together in Chicago continues to flourish and grow.
Sheldon takes on teaching jobs all over the Bay Area, makes music and
videos for SWDA and others and occasionally makes odd websites.
And then there is a boy. Will was born three weeks past due as his
father was not quite ready. His father was still not quite ready but
quickly adjusted in the delivery room when five tiny, warm and wet
digits wrapped tightly around his index finger. Life is full of miracles.
The last two years have been wondrous. And exhausting. And profound.
To be continued…
