Music is constantly part of my life. As a choreographer, I’m always listening, either searching for music for a new work, studying a score for a creation, or listening simply to disengage. Because I travel so much, music is also a constant companion on planes, trains, and road trips. Right now, the projects I’m working on are taking me in very different musical directions. I’m deep into French composers while researching a large new ballet premiere. At the same time, I’m studying John Adams’s “Nixon in China” for an upcoming production with the Washington National Opera. When working with a score, I listen repeatedly. I need to know the music intimately and begin to hear the possibilities for movement within it.
Then there’s the music I turn to when I want the opposite, to simply listen and enjoy, which happens every time I board a plane. Lately, that’s been Damien Rice, Rufus Wainwright, Brandi Carlile, and the Indigo Girls. Right now, the Indigo Girls are making me especially nostalgic. I’ve been revisiting their 1989 debut album, and “Love’s Recovery” hits something deep inside. There’s something about returning to music you’ve known for decades—you hear the song again and reconnect with the person you were when you first heard it. And since I spend a lot of time in Seattle as resident choreographer at Pacific Northwest Ballet, I’ve been enjoying a little ’90s grunge too. It feels only appropriate. I’m always moving between music as work and music as escape. One asks me to pay attention to everything; the other gives me permission not to.
Choreographer Jessica Lang is the new artistic advisor of Kaatsbaan Cultural Park in Tivoli. Originally from Bucks County, Pennsylvania, Lang is a graduate of the Juilliard School and a former member of Twyla Tharp’s company, THARP!, with which she toured internationally.
