Interview with Koren Teo
Q: Can you please give us an overview of your involvement with dance, from when you first started up until today?
I started my dance journey as a late-teen with the intention of doing it as cross-training and as a break from martial arts. I fell in love with dance – the way it felt to let the music move me and the endless space for self-expression. Fast forward a couple years, the martial arts was completely replaced by dance. I started attending structured dance classes most days of the week and trained one-on-one with a spectrum of teachers, first in Chinese dance, then ballet, then came contemporary, jazz, and modern dance. Fortunately for me, wherever I studied and worked, there were options in the local area to keep dancing. Not all had the same options as Toronto, but some dance classes were definitely available. Since moving back to Toronto, I became part of two dance bodies: Push Pull (a company of “dancing professionals, not professional dancers”) and Little Pear Garden (a Contemporary Chinese dance troupe). Amidst this pandemic, I am currently dancing with Push Pull to create a virtual dance show which fully takes advantage of the virtual format to do things that are not possible on stage, and also dancing with our awesome Daffy dance team for ‘2021 Daffydil the Movie’ – stay tuned!
Q: I realize that I sort of took advantage of the fact that I already know you! Before we really get into the dance, can you tell us who Koren is?
That is a tough question, like everyone else who’s starting a new career or chapter like medical school, I’m trying to figure out who that is, who Koren is, every single day. But I guess right now, I’m a first year med student, I am a mom to three kids, a wife, someone who’s scrambling to get things done, including getting outfits for tomorrow’s [Christmas] photoshoot! And I like to dance.
Q: What role does dance play in your life?
Definitely something for release. And I didn’t realize to what extent I needed it, and how much I enjoyed it, until I danced for an hour with people over Zoom last night! Dancing with people is something I haven’t really done much of during this pandemic. I’ve just taken advantage of pre-recorded classes which is not the same as having people live on the other end. I guess prior to this pandemic, dance was the biggest source of my social life – actually, probably 85-90% of the friends that I see regularly are people I dance together with.
Q: I think we’re all wondering this – how have you been able to juggle medical school with dance?
I actually don’t mind this whole online platform and being at home all the time because that gives me a lot of flexibility. And now that everything is online, I can take classes with people that are halfway across the world. During lunch, I have sometimes taken classes with teachers who are streaming classes live in England, because they’re six hours ahead so that would be their normal evening class time.
Q: You mentioned that you took classes in different styles. What kind of dance do you focus on and along those lines, which one’s your favourite?
I mostly do ballet now and it is my favourite by far. A lot of people don’t gravitate towards ballet because one, it takes a few years before it becomes reasonably satisfying to look at yourself dance on video. And two, it’s very “classical” in the way that it’s taught, so it can be boring. There’s your left side, then you do a right side, because that’s the way you’re supposed to build your body – very structured. It’s good for your body to have even muscles and good coordination on both sides though. So some people find it unsatisfying to commit so much time to doing something very regimented and repetitive. Until you get to a certain point where you’re very comfortable with the technique, self-expression is harder in ballet.
But, I’ve actually found that to be less of a problem. I honestly don’t mind regimented and repetitive. After a day of work or after school, going into something where you know exactly what to expect is nice. Whatever you do on the right side you’re going to do on the left side; there’s a rhyme and rhythm. All the exercises basically follow the same order and most teachers will follow the same order. It’s kind of – how do I put it – kind of nice to not have to think. It’s a comfortable, safe space to express and allow music to move my body without having to think too hard about it.
Q: Was there a role model or someone who helped with your transition to ballet?
I think I got really lucky that I ran into a really good teacher, the teacher that I trained the most with. He’s from Shanghai, and he was actually the Head of the Ballet division at the City of Shanghai Dance School. He’s here in Toronto now, retired, living the life, and teaching because he enjoys it. But he trained really spectacular people, including a principal dancer in the San Francisco ballet. I heard about him through word of mouth and he teaches small classes that he doesn’t actually advertise – so lucky! I would definitely say he helped me the most in my transition into ballet.
Q: What does a typical training session look like?
I mostly go to open or drop-in classes now. For those, they already assume that everybody has the basic ballet techniques, so they don’t really go through how to say, point your foot, etc. We start with a warm up, then a series of exercises you do holding the barre. You start with a plié and you go to your tendu, and you move on to the bigger movements like your kicks. And you do a bit of stretching and then put the bars away. You then dance without the barre, because the whole point of the stuff done at the barre is to work all your muscles and find your center (or balance) by engaging all your core muscles and getting your proprioception all warmed up so that you can do stuff without holding the barre. And yes, that’s where the true dancing begins and you can move more freely.
Q: And where does the choreography fit in?
For a typical open class, you wouldn’t really learn choreography or a dance piece. In an open class, you would have short combinations of movements that could be from a ballet number, but we don’t learn the whole thing per se. For a drop in, you’re supposed to be able to show up to the class without any prior training with that teacher or that group and still be able to enjoy it. Hence, most combinations of dance movements are taught in short segments and taught fresh.
Q: What are your thoughts on how age affects one’s ability to learn ballet?
There are things where, say, if you start training younger, your neuroplasticity and flexibility are better, which makes the jumps and turns a lot easier to learn compared to you if you started training in your late teens. I’ve noticed in particular that back flexibility is harder to develop later in life. In anatomy, we just learned that the spine doesn’t really bend backwards that well anyways [laughs], and especially the thoracic spine because its spinous processes point down. There can’t be much bending forward or backwards! But somehow, people who started training younger seem to be able to bend it a lot!
Q: Besides age, could you comment on any other physical limitations regarding ability to do ballet?
So I got really lucky in that I have a lot of flexibility to begin with. But one of the things that my classmates and I sometimes struggle with is turning out our feet – basically, you’re supposed to be rotating the top of your femur – but we can’t do that as well as we would like to. But my teacher said that if you started really young, you could correct for a lot of those things by just putting more work and increasing range of motion over another decade. Another thing is pointe work. That is, standing on tippy toes with a pointe shoe was harder for me at the beginning because it’s harder for the pointe shoe to support you if your foot doesn’t curl or arch enough for it to do so. It’s not bad now with more training. If you’re not trying to do this professionally like dancing in demanding classical ballet pieces, then absolutely you can work around it and you can enjoy it. I’ve enjoyed dance with these limitations for years.
Q: Is there anything frustrating about dance for you?
Sometimes I take contemporary dance classes. So in a contemporary class they’ll give you some counts of music to play with and express yourself. And I have a hard time creating movements in my head. I find myself looking around like, “what are people doing, what am I supposed to be doing? Am I interpreting his instructions correctly?” But deep down I do understand that he means exactly that: this is your self-expression and these are the parameters I’ve given you to do it. So anything goes. But I find I’m less comfortable with that.
Q: Do you have a favourite move from your arsenal of different ballet techniques?
The move I would love to perfect is the pirouette, which I find very hard sometimes. I find jumping a lot easier than turning – I think that stems from my previous training in martial arts. But my favourite might be the grand jeté. It’s a giant split jump. Everytime I travel somewhere, if there’s a scene that I really like, there’s probably going to be a picture taken of me doing the grand jeté. I have one in front of the Colosseum doing a grand jeté – it’s one of my favourites.
Q: Do you have a favourite ballet or a favourite ballerina?
Probably Romeo and Juliet, it’s one of my classical favourites. Some of the modern interpretations that people have taken are questionable. I think, one time, they set it in a modern city but they were still fighting with swords. But still, in general, that’s the one that I like most.
I think my favourite Canadian ballerina would be Sonia Rodriguez, who is in the National Ballet. In any ballet show – let’s say, Sleeping Beauty – they’ll tell you who is dancing a principal for that show. I’ve noticed that I purposely pick her shows. It just makes me happy when I watch her dance.
Q: Can someone who doesn’t know much about ballet still attend and appreciate a ballet?
Oh, absolutely. I’ve gone with friends and family who don’t dance at all, but we’ll read the program and do a little bit of Wikipedia ahead of time. The National Ballet also does “ballet talks” about an hour before the show where they just go through and give you a brief description of what everything is like, what the origin is, and they show you some costumes close up which is really nice. I think between all of that, ballet is absolutely there for everyone to enjoy.
Q: Which ballet would you recommend to an adult who wants to be introduced to ballet?
If it ever comes back, Cactus was a good one to watch. It’s a modern, almost absurdist satire of the way contemporary dance or art sometimes is and how society responds to it. It’s very comical and definitely worth watching.
Q: What about your kids? Do you take them on any ballet trips?
My three year old has watched a bunch of my classes back when I still had to rehearse and was taking classes. When she was younger, she happened to be really good at sitting in one spot. As long as I left her with food and something to play with, she entertained herself. So yes, she’s watched a bunch. In terms of a full show, I haven’t taken her to any where it wasn’t run by one of my friends or somebody I knew that wouldn’t care if I had to walk out five times because my child could not sit still! But I do look forward to taking them to a show when I have faith that they can sit for two hours without moving much. It’d be nice if it could become something that we do together. I’ve taken my daughter to some lessons before the pandemic. If anyone is wondering what lessons look like for a toddler, it looks nothing like ballet. It’s basically a bunch of kids running around with some instruction but not a whole lot of anyone knowing what’s going on.
Q: What’s next for you in terms of dance?
I’m kind of in a maintenance phase right now for technique and artistic development because with school and family, it’s hard to find time. I also don’t have the extra energy at this point to do the introspection that’s required to become better at what you do. If we’re allowed, this summer, I would like to go to a few more workshops, and if traveling is permitted, I’d like to go to a couple different places, like New York, to take classes with different teachers. Different geographic areas do have different styles in the way they teach; the teachers arrange the choreography differently to the music, and I find that every time I take dance in a different place, I gain a lot from that.
For example, when I took a class in London, all the exercises were with very classical music in which all the counts are very square and all the movements were done on counts within the eight count. It was very easy to predict what movement came next and everything was very even. It felt very classical and proper, whereas when I took a class in New York, there was a teacher who would like to do everything on the offbeat which gives a really interesting effect, but I had to learn to re-train and think about things on the offbeat. I think that it’s also really good for your brain to be exercised in different ways.
Q: Final thoughts on ballet and getting the word out?
I think everybody should give it a try. Especially now that YouTube and Zoom ballet are options. I think a big barrier to someone picking it up is being self-conscious – before the pandemic you would be in a room full of people who you think know what they’re doing and maybe secretly judging you (but really, everybody’s focused on themselves, trying to figure out what’s going on, trying to not fall). So right now, that is not a barrier at all – you can turn your camera off! It’s definitely a good time to try it out.
