The room isn’t that of an empire builder. The white walls lack decoration, and the large desk and visitor’s chair sit in the center of an otherwise empty space.
Lou Conte moved into his office in the new Hubbard Street Dance Chicago headquarters in March, but the only personal touch is Buddy, Conte’s snoozing, giant, venerable golden retriever, as much a fixture of Hubbard’s surroundings as Conte himself. With characteristic bonhomie, Buddy plops down, not by his master, but at the feet of his master’s guest. We’re all friends here, he seems to say.
“He’s not much of a watchdog,” agrees Todd Clark, Hubbard’s lighting supervisor for 11 years. “He does like to lie down in a doorway from time to time so that when I’m leaving with my arms full of lighting equipment, I don’t even see him and trip.”
Clark doesn’t mind: There are pratfalls at every dance company.
And there are sky-bound leaps too. Conte and his troupe are about to open their 20th anniversary engagement. If that doesn’t impress you, consider this: No one else in the history of Chicago has done what Conte has done.
He built a home-grown dance company from scratch and not only made it last for two decades, but now houses it in a state-of-the-art home and won it an international reputation that seems to grow year by year. Other indigenous dance companies in this town by this point would be on a respectable plateau–or out of business.
Instead, Hubbard, which took enormous steps in the 1990s by becoming the official repository of the early works of Twyla Tharp, now has its sights on Europe, adding, with this engagement at the Auditorium Theatre, a second piece by Spain’s acclaimed Nacho Duato and a piece by the Netherlands’ 50-year-old Jiri Kylian, one of the top choreographers in the world. This summer the troupe makes its debut at the prestigious Spoleto Festival in Italy.
From straw hats, canes and leotards in humble gigs at senior citizen centers to Spoleto is quite the journey. Apparently, Buddy’s the only napper in the bunch.
“When I first started, I kept saying I’d get to this or that when things calmed down,” says Gail Kalver, the executive director who has been with Hubbard for 15 years and is Conte’s right arm.. “Well, things never calmed down. The last 15 years have been a gallop, like riding a bucking bronco.”
Only Conte has been with the troupe for all 20 years. Sitting in his office for a recent interview, in good spirits though recovering from a minor hernia operation, Conte indulged in some unusually frank, expansive reminiscences. Here’s what he said:
On Hubbard’s beginnings: “When we first started, I wasn’t starting a company. I don’t really know what we were doing. I’d danced on Broadway (in “How To Succeed,” among others) and I’d come here to do industrials and musicals and make my living from my dancing. I slept on floors, I was a true gypsy at this point. Someone had a heart attack in a production of `Fiddler on the Roof’ at Candlelight Dinner Playhouse, and I took over the part of the Rabbi. Some of the players asked me to teach them some tap dance, so I rented a studio downtown. I was 30 or 31. God, I was young. I choreographed `Boss’ for Bill Pullinsi at Candlelight, and, after that, I opened my school, on Wabash at first and then at Hubbard and LaSalle. I had gobs of students.
“In the summer of 1977, a woman named Barbara Cohen was in the class, a retired teacher. She said one day, `These kids are so good, why don’t you do something with them?’ I said I’d like to but didn’t know how. She arranged for us to work with Urban Gateways performing at senior citizen centers.
“There were four girls, and in two weeks, we put together a 35-minute program. The girls took it very seriously, I think it was probably overkill for the seniors. We were paid $105 per performance. The girls each got $20, and I put $25 in the kitty for gas, costumes and other expenses. Our first annual budget was $7,000.
“A group called Lawyers for the Creative Arts helped arrange for us to get not-for-profit status, and we had to have a name to put on the application. Late one night, in the dance studio, we got punchy, coming up with jokes, like Ballet de Monte Conte. Finally, I looked out the window, saw the street sign and said, `Oh, what does it matter anyway? Let’s just write down the Hubbard Street Dance Company.’ “
On their first big break: “In 1980, we played at Loyola University, and Richard Christiansen came from the Tribune and wrote, `They’re not only ready for the big time. They are the big time.’ The dancers sent me flowers. Dick Carter from Channel 11 and Roche Schulfer from the Goodman Theater came backstage and said they’d both like to present us. So Channel 11 aired a special, and by the time we played the Goodman, live, a month or so later, we were sold out in advance.”
On Claire Bataille, one of the original four dancers who was the troupe’s other early choreographer besides Conte and who stayed until her retirement in 1992: “She was my Muse, Gwen Verdon to my Bob Fosse. She moved like I love people to move. Her leaving was tough. We suffered a lot of tension over it. But we’ve made up, and she’s back now, returning in June to work with the dancers. She still knows how to draw qualities out of them that I like.”
On his role as head of a 20-member troupe: “The hardest part of my job is dealing with this psychology thing. I work much harder on it now. The chemistry of all these relationships has an incredible impact. I used to think it didn’t. It’s not so much that I play counselor to the dancers, but I have to listen to them. I get the best work out of them when they’re happy. I’m not talking about spoiling them. But if they come out of a class and complain, I used to say, `Hey, stop whining.’ But if they do get a teacher who knows how to conduct class, who knows how to warm them up properly, they respond better.
“I’ve learned, for the most part, the dancers are right. They do know what they need. As my shrink used to say, `You cannot dismiss other people’s feelings.’ “
On Lynne Taylor-Corbett, an early choreographer who went on to choreograph the movie “Footloose” and more recently “Titanic” on Broadway: “Lynne did four pieces, and then she did this complicated work called `Case Closed,’ about incest, death, alcoholism and kidnapping. It didn’t really work. To this day she’s such an intelligent, wonderful person, and I’d love to have her back, but I’m almost scared to. That was right for us then (the early ’80s). I’m not sure it would work now. And she has all these things she wants to say. I’m not sure I want to hear them.”
On Daniel Ezralow, nurtured early in his career by Hubbard in the late 1980s, choreographer of the dance segment on this year’s Academy Awards telecast and about to choreograph Hal Prince’s new musical, “Parade,” for Broadway: “Danny’s whole way of working was so new to us. He came in for the first week and a half (in 1989, for the piece called `SUPER STRAIGHT is coming down’) and did nothing but improvise. He had the dancers throwing socks at each other. I was freaking out. `He’s got five days left and there’s no choreography.’ But in the editing, it started to look interesting. Next time I figured he’d show up and work more conventionally. But it was the same thing all over again. He’s so talented, and has such great concepts. But it’s frustrating. He’s not organized. But I expect he’ll be back soon.”
On Twyla Tharp: “She’s known for being difficult, but I’ve never had a problem with her. She lays out these demands, and if you meet them, there’s no problem. But if you don’t give her what you promised, she’ll be difficult. So am I. She’s a tough businesswoman, but she’s worth it. People say she’s rude, but she is never rude. She’s short and clipped. I think she’s a person who believes if she lets down her guard, people will take advantage. After rehearsal, away from the studio, when she talks about her kid or relaxes with her boyfriend, she’s like a schoolgirl. There’s this whole other side.”
On Hubbard’s success: “I’m real happy with a lot of the plain old luck that’s happened. It’s tough, but not for the reasons people think. The artistic stuff is just instinct. It’s all that other stuff. I’m not a social butterfly, I’m not comfortable with that. So I’ve got all these people around me who handle that for me, and people just accept me now for how I am and who I am. This guy from a rural town in southern Illinois (Du Quoin) who loves the dance.”
