Smuin Ballet Dancers Share Their Creative Process for Choreography Showcase
By Michael Phelan
February 3, 2025—In keeping with Michael Smuin's wish to give his Company's dancers the resources to develop their creativity, since 2008 Smuin Contemporary Ballet's annual Choreography Showcase has presented new works choreographed entirely by Company artists.

Recently, two of the ten Smuin dancers contributing to this year's Choreography Showcase shared with me their process of creating their world premieres. Maggie Carey is a seasoned choreographer; Jacopo Calvo is new to creating dance. Although they have polar opposite approaches to working with dancers, each derived inspiration for their work from music. For each, it started with a song.
Maggie Carey
Maggie Carey learned choreography while pursuing a BFA in dance at Butler University. By her recollection, she has choreographed five or six works for Smuin. Maggie's new work is titled The Singer and the Song, set to music from the album of that title by Labi Siffre, a folk musician of the 1970s. "I just really love his music. I've been listening to him for years," she says. When Maggie finds an artist she really likes, "I dive in head first...I want to know everything about them."
When Maggie learned that Siffre was a black gay man in the 1970s openly writing about queer love, "It totally changed my perspective on his music, the way I heard his music." Learning that she could experience art in a specific way, and then learn something about the artist that completely changed that experience, was transformative. When she realized Siffre's love songs were to men, "It was a really cool discovery," Maggie says. She decided to choreograph a piece to three of Siffre's recorded tracks.
Maggie's dance explores love between four men, whether love for family, friends, or a partner. "I'm trying to portray love and what that feels like and what that looks like through men," she explains. Maggie believes that women have an easier time expressing love, while men have a, "societal mishap that shapes the way men are able to connect with each other," she explains, "so I'm trying to break that barrier and show love and support and friendship through men."

To express these emotions in movement, Maggie is using a lot of grabbing of the heart, "Which I know is sort of cliché," she says, but she is trying to express an emotion, "that is pedestrian, almost, the things you do naturally when you're in love, or emoting, or feeling."
When asked if her choreography has a common theme, Maggie thinks a bit and says, "I don't know what the theme is, but our lighting designer was watching some of our rehearsal the other day, and he says, This piece is so you! I don't know what that means," Maggie laughs, "but I guess I do have a structural style I often keep to." For example, her dancers always start off stage and always stop on center, and the lights always slowly fade up.
Maggie takes an interactive approach when choreographing with dancers. She asks for their feedback, "to the point where it's probably annoying," she laughs. How does that feel? Are they comfortable? What are the dancers' strengths? For instance, as a woman dancer she has no experience lifting, so she asks the male dancers the best way to do what she wants, the safest way, the most comfortable way. "More than anything I want the movement to feel natural."
When she isn't dancing, Maggie likes photography and painting. Is choreographing a dance like creating a three-dimensional picture? "Dancers can be doing the most minimal movement, steps, but if it looks cool, it's very satisfying for me to watch," she says, "I guess it goes back to if I have a style. I really like circular movement. And I like to put that in like a canon. One dancer starts, and then two counts later the next dancer starts, and then two counts after that the next dancer starts. So everything is flowing in a circle. When something is visually stimulating for me, it feels like that's where I find the most satisfaction. I think that's probably like a lot of choreographers," she laughs, "If it looks good, it's good."
Jacopo Calvo
A native of Italy, Jacopo Calvo is in his first season with Smuin, having spent eight years in New York City with the Ailey School and Complexions Contemporary Ballet. How does he like San Francisco? "To be honest, I really like it," he says, "I feel that the city is so beautiful. I am actually really, really enjoying it."
His work, titled Itaca, is Jacopo's first experience at choreographing. "It started with the music," he says, "I had many ideas in mind, but I had to stick to an idea and choose a piece of music." He decided that "whatever I choose, it should be something that really speaks to me and something that I'm very familiar with." Jacopo is a "big fan of older Italian music," from the 1960s, '70s, and '80s. He chose a composition titled Itaca by Lucio Dalla about the voyage of Ulysses. Set to strong, dramatic music, the poignant lyrics, in Italian, describe the sailors' longing for their home on the Greek island of Ithaca and their resentment of Ulysses' decade-long quest for glory.

Jacopo describes Dalla as his favorite male Italian artist. "I've been a huge fan of his for many years." Dalla's song Itaca, "just kind of spoke to me immediately. As soon as I started playing it, I knew exactly what I wanted in this moment, and exactly what I wanted in this section of the music." His dance keeps to the idea of the homesick sailors rowing the ship, demanding to go home. "That's what I'm trying to translate into movement with my piece," he says. He wants his dancers to keep in mind nostalgia, yearning for "what feels like home, to people who make us feel safe," and also "speaking up against a big boss, against what isn't right."
To express longing for home, the dancers often extend their arms, reaching out. To convey the sailors' struggle Jacopo uses "sharper movements," such as accents and dynamic changes.
Although Jacopo has worked with choreographers who involve their dancers in creating their choreography, he choreographs by taking a firm leadership role with his dancers, preferring to "give clear directions and tell them the movements."
His choreography is "99% in my head," and then he tries to "let it out" in the studio. "Either I create on the spot," he says, or sometimes he video records himself as he improvises and decides later what to use. "There are a few sections that really catch my eye, and I'll say 'I like this, let me use this'." Then he'll work at connecting or blending "seamlessly" the sections he likes.
What about the point of view of Ulysses' faithful wife Penelope, waiting at home for ten years, relentlessly weaving at her loom to hold off suitors? "It would be a very interesting ballet," Jacopo admits, "but there is no music about her to work with."
Smuin Contemporary Ballet's Choreography Showcase runs from February 14 through 23 at the Smuin Center for Dance in San Francisco. For more information, see Smuin Ballet.