Choreographer Chase Brock has always been a little ahead of himself. As a six-year-old, he watched his cousin鈥檚 dance recital, begged to be put on the stage, climbed up, and 鈥渇elt the rest of my life born in that moment.鈥� At 16, he left high school, got his GED, and moved to New York. Brock did not earn a degree in dance or theatre, but he learned at the feet of the masters. Ann Reinking, Pat Birch, Jeff Calhoun, and Gregory Hines were teachers of his at Broadway Theatre Project; he landed his first Broadway show at the age of 16鈥擲usan Stroman鈥檚 The Music Man鈥攁nd followed that up by assisting Reinking on her Broadway revue The Look of Love and assisting Kathleen Marshall on her revival of Wonderful Town.
At 24, he founded his own dance company, The Chase Brock Experience, which celebrates its 12-year anniversary this Thanksgiving鈥攁ll the while simultaneously pursuing theatre dance and choreography. Though today, the multi-arced career is a familiar one, a decade ago artists stayed in their lane.
鈥淭welve years ago, you had to say, 鈥業鈥檓 a modern dance choreographer with a company and we have 36 weeks a year that we tour,鈥� and now that鈥檚 over,鈥� says Brock. 鈥淏asically everybody is sharing. It鈥檚 more project-based, and there鈥檚 crossover between theatre and film and commercial dance and concert dance.鈥�
He continues, 鈥淚 was weirdly out of time, and now I feel in sync with how we鈥檙e all working.鈥�
But even if the working model has changed, it remains a challenge to balance. This past year alone, Brock presented the full-length dance work The Girl With the Alkaline Eyes, choreographed Broadway鈥檚 Be More Chill, choreographed the world premiere of Disney鈥檚 Hercules, and directed a high school reunion production of Fiddler on the Roof for the Disney+ series Encore! 鈥淚 live with a constant fear and frustration that in order to move the ball forward on either a CBE project or a freelance project or whatever, I鈥檓 having to do that at the exclusion of a bunch of other things on my other to-do lists,鈥� Brock says. For now, he continues to multi-task.
His dance piece at Theatre Row beginning November 21; Be More Chill will bow in London come February 2020; his new artistic space in Accord, New York, opened a week ago; his new musical Luna and the Gold River Docks recently had an industry reading starring Betsy Wolfe; and Hercules wheels continue to spin. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 know if I can do this forever in quite this way, but for now the company work feeds my soul, and I couldn鈥檛 do what I was doing in theatre without that. So I don鈥檛 want to choose.鈥�
Here, we take a detailed look at Brock鈥檚 four most present projects:
鈥淭he Four Seasons鈥� 鈥� The Chase Brock Experience
His role: Company founder and artistic director, choreographer
The origin: 鈥淢atthew Bourne, who is [now] on my dance company鈥檚 advisory board, saw an early concert of ours. He said to me, 鈥楾here鈥檚 a piece of music you need to choreograph. I really want to see your version of this music.鈥� As a huge fan of his, I was like, 鈥榊ou thought of me and a piece of music?鈥� It was Vivaldi鈥檚 鈥楾he Four Seasons.鈥� At that very moment, the intergovernmental panel on climate change released a report, and it was a chilling climate change report. This was in 2008. Like a global alarm bell. I thought, 鈥楾hat鈥檚 why I should make The Four Seasons. I should not make a European idyllic harmonious baroque piece. I should make a 21st century American or global piece. It鈥檚 as urgent as it was then鈥攐r more.鈥�
The style: 鈥淚 wanted to make a piece that kept changing the audience鈥檚 compass of what world we were in. I thought about Mark Morris in the spring movements; I took inspiration from Matthew Bourne for the summer movements. The fall is inspired by Jiri Kylian movement, and the end [winter] is Pina Bausch. I asked a playwright to write four weather reports. The set is like a giant clothing closet. While these weather reports happen, a cable news anchor gets increasingly frantic and the dancers move through a year鈥檚 worth of clothing.鈥�
Be More Chill 鈥� London West End, February 2020
His role: Choreographer
Broadway v. London: 鈥淲e have had five years of development on Be More Chill, and I feel that I鈥檓 definitely not going to reinvent the large movement ideas that I have brought to it. But the space will be different and the relationship to the audience will be different, and I think that is going to definitely instigate some new thinking. Be More Chill 4.0.鈥�
The style: 鈥淭he vocabulary for the students of Middleboro High鈥攖hey don鈥檛 know what they鈥檙e doing. It鈥檚 what I call the heartbeat of the hallway. Then there is the self-conscious characters dancing in situations like the Halloween Party at Jake鈥檚 house. That refers to international street dance, like Belgian jump style and, essentially, the way we consume dance now is that we watch YouTube. Essentially, teenagers in this New Jersey high school鈥擨鈥檝e imagined鈥攁re watching social media clips and learning European social dance and then doing it at parties. Then the other big language is the language of the SQUIP, which is the most fun and inventive in a way. How do you create movement language for a digital character who is essentially a bunch of ones and zeroes? He鈥檚 essentially coding. How do we physicalize that? Then, how do we make that vocabulary ominous? How do we, ultimately, in 鈥楾he Pitiful Children,鈥� see a landscape of what I say is the glittering face of fascism?鈥�
Accord Train Depot 鈥� a.k.a. Art Incubator
His role: Founder, owner, resident artist
The origin: 鈥淢y husband and I have a second home in Ulster County in the Hudson Valley in a small town called Accord. There was a former train depot that鈥檚 117 years old built in 1902 for the New York, Ontario, and Western Railway. In the teens and 鈥�20s, 500 people would get off the train twice daily and visit 250 resorts and boarding houses in an area that now feels like there are two hotels. This beautiful, dilapidated train depot sat on the Main Street of our town and we fantasized about it as our studio.鈥�
The space: 鈥淭wo years of construction and dreaming later, it鈥檚 a residency space where we can [also] house eight people. The station master and his wife and their son lived upstairs in the depot and our architect, Marica McKeel, created this extraordinary train-car-inspired sleeping-car-inspired bedroom. We鈥檙e going to start out and make invitations to our colleagues and artists we really admire, but the intention is to create a kind of incubator working space that companies can use, especially small companies that don鈥檛 have a zillion staff.鈥�
Luna and the Gold River Docks 鈥� Musical in development with book, music, lyrics by Eric Dietz
His role: Director; 鈥淭his is the first new musical that I have shepherded this far along.鈥�
The story: 鈥淚t鈥檚 all based on a true story that鈥檚 hard to believe and yet true [about an abandoned killer whale鈥檚 search for human interaction in Gold River]. It鈥檚 a piece that reveals all sorts of things about small-town business and industry and politics and environmentalism, and what do we do with wild animals, and what鈥檚 our responsibility, and what happens when the government gets involved in areas where they shouldn鈥檛 be involved in, and who gets to legislate the open waters. It鈥檚 a fascinating piece that has a documentary, small-town, quirky surface and a very mysterious, unknowable, ethereal underbelly. I鈥檓 excited about that duality.鈥�
The future: 鈥淲e are at a phase where I have produced all of the work to this point, and we are ready to have partners. In my dream world, we would have both a regional partner who is interested in presenting a regional premiere, and would have a New York non-profit.鈥�
