“Giacomond” by Quint Buchholz
August 2nd, 2013
Classes will begin in 3 weeks. My last semester at the University of Colorado. My first contact with Charlotte York Irey and Nancy McElroy was in 1978 when they asked me to come in and work a show in the Chapel studio at 10th and Aurora. It was a performance by Tandy Beale from from UC Santa Cruz. I did some more work for the dance division in that room over the next few years. Marda Kirn’s Boulder Dance Festival (it became the Colorado Dance festival in 1982) was growing in reputation and the dance division hosted it, so there was that connection, as I worked for her from it’s first year until 1996. In 1984 Toby Hankin called me and asked me if I wished to begin supervising the dance productions in the new dance wing, their new home on campus. I did for the next several years, until I moved to Seattle in August of 1990. In April of 1991 Nancy McElroy, the glue that held the division together for 30 years, contacted me and asked if I would be interested in coming back in the fall and joining the faculty as a part time lecturer. I initially said I was not very interested, but in the end I returned and began the job which is now ending with my retirement in December.
The process of ending such a long relationship is interesting to be sure. Everyone who I began working with has retired before me. There are a few who have been around for 15-20 years. Nada Diachenko, who ran it for 14 years after Charlotte retired, a few more then that. I have watched as several faculty members came, earned tenure, then moved to their preferred positions somewhere else. Not too surprisingly, I can sense the change taking place even before I begin to pack up my office possessions. They do have to plan for the spring, when I am gone, and I am being excluded from some of that. It is both odd and a relief at the same time.
I wish we were not always defined solely by what we do to put bread on the table, but indeed it seems always to be the case. In the performing arts perhaps more then with some other types of work, as we tend to not put in the normal 9-5, but rather our hours extend to evenings and weekends as well.
Will I miss it? I think not much. It was the type of job that fed my curiosity enough to keep me interested, but which you could not turn off and on at will. Now I will put that same energy into other endeavors that interest me at least as much, but at my own pace.
Stay tuned.