{"id":136475,"date":"2020-10-14T16:15:27","date_gmt":"2020-10-14T20:15:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=136475"},"modified":"2020-10-16T12:52:40","modified_gmt":"2020-10-16T16:52:40","slug":"meet-new-faculty-brian-evans-and-the-meaning-of-dance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2020\/10\/14\/meet-new-faculty-brian-evans-and-the-meaning-of-dance\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet new faculty: Brian J. Evans and the meaning of dance"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Each week this fall, we\u2019ll introduce new Bates professors who have tenure-track positions on the faculty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This year\u2019s nine tenure appointments are in the disciplines of art and visual culture, classical and medieval studies, economics, English, environmental studies, dance, politics (two appointments), and psychology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This week we introduce the eighth of our nine new faculty members<\/a>, Brian J. Evans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Name<\/strong>: <\/strong>Brian J. Evans<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Title<\/strong>: <\/strong>Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow and Lecturer in Dance<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Degrees from<\/strong>: University of Washington, M.F.A. in dance; Gustavus Adolphus College, B.A. in dance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His work<\/strong>: Evans describes himself as a \u201ccitizen artist,\u201d a term with a few definitions, including this one from the Aspen Institute Arts Program<\/a>. While comprising two powerful words, it\u2019s about connecting the two identities, citizen and<\/em> artist, to empower artists like Evans \u201cto literally dance through life,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why dance?<\/strong> When asked how he\u2019s been able to make dance his life\u2019s work, Evans offers a short answer and a longer one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The short answer: \u201cMale privilege, luck, support from family, and my work ethic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The longer answer tells a story that begins at his undergraduate college, Gustavus Adolphus, in St. Peter, Minn., where he took a dance class to fulfill a general education requirement. \u201cBetween the choice of drawing and dance, I picked the latter,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Evans\u2019 hometown is Gaylord, a small town of about 2,300, located about an hour southwest of the Twin Cities, where the top employers are the county and a food-processing plant. While not exactly a Footloose<\/em> type of place in its conservatism, Evans says that \u201cdancing was not something encouraged for boys in my town.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But that nearly random choice to take a dance class opened the door to a career that Evans didn\u2019t know existed. \u201cWhen my professor mentioned in passing that I could do this for a living, I had no idea what that entailed.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Brian
Brian Evans, a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow and lecturer in dance, poses on the Historic Quad on Aug. 3, 2020. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The dance class led to a dance major and then to an adjunct professor\u2019s invitation to audition for Stuart Pimsler Dance and Theater. It was the best kind of audition because Evans didn\u2019t know it was one. \u201cI just thought it was supposed to be a fun experience. So with all the confidence of someone just trying something new and having a blast, I wasn\u2019t nervous.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He got the job \u2014 a four-month, $5-per-hour apprenticeship \u2014 that turned into an $8-per-hour company appointment. In 2018, by that time musical director and a principal dancer, Evans left to pursue a master\u2019s in fine arts at the University of Washington that \u201callowed and empowered me to come to Bates and teach.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ease the pain<\/strong>: Evans has found a tried and true medicine to ease those sad moments of self-doubt and isolation: turn your focus to people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, he says, joy comes from \u201cwatching once-strangers dance together in community, or seeing the magic that occurs when disparate elements of an art experience come together.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the brain asks the body to create what we call \u201cdance,\u201d the result is more than just a body in motion: It\u2019s the creation of meaning.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Or seeing student artists \u201ctaking their first steps back into themselves after being away from their bodies for such a long time, or the awesome power of people deciding that things can be better.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPeople astound me in their capacity for extraordinary accomplishment in the face of systemic oppression and their resilience to continue to get up every day to continue the work.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Embodied in the body<\/strong>: Evans\u2019 work is driven by the notion of \u201cembodied arts,\u201d a term that describes artistic endeavors where the human body is key to how we make sense of the world. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In other words, while the brain is typically ceded prime authority when it comes to cognition, let\u2019s not forget the body\u2019s role, says Evans. When the brain asks the body to create what we call \u201cdance,\u201d the result is more than just a body in motion: It\u2019s the creation of meaning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this sense, the body, as it experiences the world, serves our brain\u2019s need to do complex thinking. Or, as Evans says, the need \u201cto hold more than one story\u201d at a time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Brian
Brian Evans, a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow and lecturer in dance, poses outside Hathorn Hall on Aug. 3, 2020. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Children approach the world as embodied artists, says Evans. \u201cThey tend to take on everything with everything they have, body and mind,\u201d he says. \u201cAs we grow up, some of that embodiment gets stripped away.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s where an arts-focused liberal arts education comes in handy, he says. \u201cAn embodied liberal arts education can give us the crucial ability to, in real-time, literally, dance through life \u2014 and the power to be unabashedly human.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why teach dance? <\/strong>Dance and the embodied arts speak a beautifully complex language that, unfortunately, \u201cmost people don\u2019t know,\u201d says Evans. \u201cWorse, they are made or taught to be afraid of this embodied language.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Teaching students this language \u201cgives me a sense of purpose,\u201d Evans says. \u201cIt excites me thinking of the impact I may have on a future senator, teacher, mechanic, philosopher, astrophysicist, etc. who found something in my class made them more empowered to embody their work and life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe hope with any teaching I do is that students find something useful in what I teach, and then attach that to their drive of curiosity and their belief that learning is never finished. As an extension of an academic setting, the expectation is not to ever finish the process of learning.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The good twin<\/strong>: After more than a decade living and working in Minneapolis\u2013St. Paul, Evans says he would \u201cpit any art scene in the nation\u201d against the Twin Cities\u2019 when it comes to artists\u2019 \u201cability to find a diverse array of work to tap into.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Admitting to a \u201cprivileged vantage point,\u201d Evans says he was able to build an arts career through dance performance and commissions; teaching stints and residencies, including as an adjunct at Macalester College; and other creative gigs that used what he calls \u201cauxiliary skills\u201d like music and video editing, Qlab multimedia programming, and musical direction and accompanying \u2014 not to mention welding, carpentry, and three days of being a LYFT driver.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We create meaning with more than our brains, says Evans, a new lecturer in dance. Through the embodied arts, we can literally “dance through life” \u2014 and gain the power “to be unabashedly human.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":104,"featured_media":136476,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[4,133,224,234],"tags":[12201],"class_list":["post-136475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academic-life","category-creativity","category-society-culture","category-teaching-education","tag-2020-tenure-track-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136475"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136475\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":136552,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136475\/revisions\/136552"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}