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April 2005: George Staib

STAIB HELPS PREPARE EMORY DANCE COMPANY SPRING CONCERT

Under the guidance of George Staib, faculty member in the Emory Dance Program, advanced choreography students will present the culmination of their semester’s work during the Emory Dance Company Spring Concert, Volume. This program of new works takes place in the Schwartz Center, Dance Studio April 28-30 at 8:00 p.m. and April 30 at 2:00 p.m.

Staib has been teaching choreography and leading the Emory Dance Company Spring Concert since he arrived at Emory four years ago. He explains that the spring concert differs from the fall concert in a couple of significant aspects. “The fall concert has guest artists and faculty choreographing with the students, while in the spring the students take the reins, doing all the choreography themselves,” he says. “They even work on publicity and build the workshops that take place throughout the semester.”

The spring concert flows from the work that students have done in their Choreography II class, which focuses on group choreography—“learning how to work with other bodies in the space,” says Staib. “This is one of my favorite classes to teach at Emory. It’s exciting because the students allow themselves to become vulnerable. It’s not easy to show your work and then hear the feedback. It’s wonderful for me to watch their growth. This is more or less their first time being involved with choreography, so I’m hoping it’s helpful to have someone like me involved, helping to guide them.”

The students rehearse on their own two nights during the week, and then show their progress on Monday evenings, when Staib provides support and feedback. “I might pop in and visit [rehearsals] during the week, but Monday nights are primarily when I give input,” says Staib. “It’s thrilling to watch the concert take shape and to watch the students’ excitement over the final pieces, especially as we enter concert week. Seeing their costumes and the lighting—it rejuvenates them.”

Nine students are participating in this year’s spring concert, seven of them from the choreography class. “The other two have already taken the class but want to have another opportunity to create a piece for show,” explains Staib. “This other opportunity comes through the concert production workshop.”

This year’s spring concert offers works that are more experimental than what has been put on in past years. “We have students who are experimenting with different modes with choreography and are doing so quite successfully,” explains Staib. “Some are working with text—that is, the spoken word on the stage, which becomes the soundscape for the piece. Students are taking many more chances.”

Two Staibs in the Arts at Emory
When Staib came to Emory, he joined his sister, Rosalind Staib, who is general manager of Theater Emory. “The night before I saw the listing for the job at Emory, I’d been thinking that I really needed to do something with my degree. I wanted to find a lasting job in higher education, which is what I’ve wanted all along,” he says. When he spotted the Emory job listing, he phoned his sister, who had also seen the listing and was also very excited about it. “It was a happy coincidence,” he says. His credentials, talent, and determination assured him a position on the faculty of the Dance Program, and he began teaching the choreography class right away and helping put together the spring concert.

About George Staib
Staib himself began dancing when he was an undergraduate student at Dickinson College. A political science major with the goal of becoming a lawyer or an actor, he danced on stage for the first time when a friend asked him to be in a duet. Staib says he completely surprised himself with his affinity for dance.

“I knew nothing about dance and was in this horrible production,” he says, “but it really got me interested, so I started taking classes.” After graduating Dickinson, he went on to graduate school at Temple University, still thinking he might try law later.

“I took a year off grad school and got a job at Georgetown law school to give it a try,” he explains. “I soon discovered that this was not at all for me.” He returned to Temple, where he earned a master of fine arts in choreography and then took a part-time position on the faculty as a dance instructor.

Calling himself a vagabond during the years prior to his coming to Emory, Staib was also on the faculty at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas and Wilson College in Pennsylvania. “Amidst all this, I would choreograph for ballet companies and teach when someone needed a teacher,” he says. His work would take him to Philadelphia, Houston, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas, among other places.

“Since I got to Emory, it’s been wonderful,” says Staib. “I’ve had the opportunity to choreograph, to take students on dance festival trips, and to develop and modify a couple of courses here, which has been really exciting.

“I also teach with a couple of choreographers around Atlanta. I dance with them occasionally and, if there’s a faculty concert that happens to spring up, I dance in that. Atlanta is a warm, inviting place to be.”

In addition to choreographing and dancing at Emory and around Atlanta, Staib is active as a color guard instructor. “I’ve been working with bands and color guard programs on an independent level for 23 years,” he says. In fact, he spent the week after spring break with Marietta’s Walton High School at the color guard championships in Dayton. He still teaches color guard in Las Vegas and Los Angeles, and is earning lots of frequent flyer miles traveling to and from these cities a couple of times a month.

“The work in my color guard activities has informed my choreography, and my dance has influenced my color guard activities,” he says. “I’ve been working to meld the two activities and find similar concepts and ideas to work with in both venues. That takes up almost all the remaining free time I might have.”

Staib spends his rare free time at home in Scottdale, near Decatur, where he shares a house with his sister, Rosalind, and his two dogs, Jackson and Berkeley.

Written by Nancy Condon
Communications Coordinator
Arts at Emory

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