Behind the Scenes with Mike Anestor, Imagery Board Member
Imagery is committed to transparency in our values and processes, both within our organization and in our engagement with you, our audience and community. The following interview is the first in our “Behind the Scenes” series, where we will delve into the people behind our work, from board members to administrators to artists, collaborators, longtime patrons, and cherished community members. Everyone’s voices are important to the work that we do, and we’d like to share and uplift those voices as Imagery moves forward into a bold vision for the future. Conversations are the most important tools we have to engage with the field and generate meaningful change.
Today we welcome Mike Anestor, one of Imagery’s newest board members.
What follows are excerpts from our lively conversation. You can listen to the audio recording of this interview below or read the transcript that follows.
Sarah: What is your background with dance and ballet, and why were you attracted to Imagery’s work in particular?
Mike: I actually have my own artistic practice that is inclusive of dance. There were certain specific things that I saw in Imagery that align with some of my theories around where the industry is headed and where it also should be going, and the two are not necessarily the same thing. One of the things that was apparent on the surface was a commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, without it being stated. When you look at the arc of the history of programming, in terms of the collaborators, choreographers, dancers, videographers, they are consistently diverse across a decade. So, any reservations that I would have about that, being an Afro-Latino man, it's like, check. I'm sure that there's going to be a more formal conversation around that, but at least in the manifestation and the results, it's already apparent that no one had to ask Amy Seiwert’s Imagery to be this diverse. They already came that way.
There were also considerations of service with a larger ballet company versus a smaller intimate one, and I think that I am a better fit for organizations that are a little bit more nimble in terms of their ability to make decisions, pivot, and execute. So, I expect that there's going to be sound governance and solid management, but also less layers of bureaucracy. And the third thing was that the organization literally put on their website, "If you're interested in joining the board, please send us an email." That was so transparent, and as I had more conversations, I found out that that level of transparency is actually a part of the organizational culture, whereas sometimes with larger organizations a veil that you have to penetrate to figure out how does one join the board or onboard to an associate board, or a junior board, or auxiliary board, and it's not necessarily clear-cut. And I also traveled back and forth to the Bay Area from Chicago over the past three years for various reasons. So, I like the idea of having an impact and footprint beyond where I'm located and where I'm from, being involved with other communities allows me to have a more global perspective.
But to get into my own background, I started training in dance when I was 12. It wasn't consistent. It always felt like I was a late bloomer. And my training did include ballet, but I think a lot of the programs that I went through, they encourage you to be an all-rounder, well-rounded and proficient in all forms in which you train, with the expectation that you’ll get employed in dance but not necessarily in a ballet company. I never wanted to perform. I wanted to do admin work, design work, technical theater work, those were all the things that I signed up for in undergrad in avoiding the stage, it’s just not where I belong. But I wanted to stay close to the art form. So I still took class and did a lot of auxiliary service around performances within the dance department. But my other area of focus was biomedical engineering and biomedical sciences, with a minor in religion. Through work governance and freelancing as a consultant in arts administration, I've stayed close to the art form or various art forms. I've always maintained two parallel careers: one in financial information technology, aka FinTech, and another working in the arts. I have to distinguish this for people, that working in the arts is not a hobby for me. I am maintaining two separate parallel careers.
Sarah: That’s fantastic, thank you, and that segues really nicely into my next question. How do you bring your unique qualities, experience, and viewpoints to Imagery’s vision and values?
Mike: Well, I think some of this goes back to why I was attracted to Imagery. In some of the conversations about onboarding, we talked about the digital presentation of dance, but Imagery was investigating various modalities for presenting in the digital space before the pandemic. The pandemic may have accelerated Imagery's curiosity in diving into that realm, but I was tracking the evolution of that particular trajectory within Imagery. It's something that I personally wanted to support, because I have an interest in how ballet specifically can be a little bit more cutting edge about its engagement in technology, digital platforms, alternate modalities and presentation beyond the proscenium stage.
I'm on the board of another organization in Chicago that's a member of the National Performance Network. I see an absence of ballet in that community, and the stages are smaller. The NPN is for small to mid-sized theaters. So, is ballet exclusively made for these massive opera houses or these massive theaters that seat thousands of people? Is there another experience that we could be having? I know that when the SKETCH Series was on the stage and live and in-person, that that was being explored as well, how to continue to make ballet in smaller intimate spaces and in alternate spaces without the goal always being that I need to have a 20-person corps de ballet.
So, there's some convergence in terms of interest in those particular activities, and I think for me, that's enthusiasm that I'm bringing, but in addition to just pure enthusiasm for certain initiatives that are evolving organically in the company that dovetail with some of my interests. There is some history of board governance, some history of fundraising. Having served in the military, there's also a history of logistics and operations in my background. So, my experiences are a bit eclectic, and it makes me flexible in terms of figuring out what's needed in the moment and how to plug myself in in a way that best fits what's going on and contributes to the bigger picture.
Sarah: I love that, especially now I think it’s really timely as we’re all going through a really difficult time. So, what are some challenges you see for the current and future state of dance, and what would you like to see change as we approach these different challenges?
Mike: I think everybody's going to have to figure out how to work through the pandemic to get back to live performance. But just like I said that I saw Imagery on the trajectory to engaging with film, engaging with other digital experiences, one of the things that I'm hoping for dance--and I'd say ballet specifically--is that this is a teachable moment of highlighting everything that we could have been doing before the pandemic in terms of the technology that existed, the opportunities that existed. The reason why I say ballet specifically is because I find that as these technologies emerge, performance art, contemporary dance, modern dance, those things that are highly interdisciplinary, those things that are more cerebral, they're quicker to adapt and embrace these technologies. And I always feel like ballet's the last, but I think, though, that we have the largest audience. So, if we were the first, we might actually make use of some of these alternative ways of working much more widespread quicker.
Sarah: I think about that too in the context of Imagery being both a nimble organization and a contemporary ballet-based organization, that we can do some of that shaping in different ways. Do you have any specific hopes for how Imagery could shape the future of contemporary ballet?
Mike: Well, the most recent SKETCH Series was film-based. My own personal practice is surrounding this notion of recontextualizing dance as a part of the visual art canon, without necessarily displacing itself as its own discipline and having its own canon. And I think that there have been enough evolutions in technology that allow us to strengthen that case, and I strengthen because we have William Forsythe and his Choreographic Objects and his exploration of visual art and kinetic art. And we also have Trisha Brown, who actually wrote a book about how dance can be viewed as visual art. And in my own practice, one of the things I’ve planned on doing is spending a year on a different technological modality, such as augmented reality or holograms and holographs. A lot of times we think digital and we think film, but there might also be opportunities to use special effects and 2D and 3D animation.
As we think about how we innovate, Imagery has always been a case study, almost an evolving case study on innovation. I could definitely outline new possibilities that I don't see other ballet choreographers looking into as heavily. Just doing an informal scan of the field, have you seen a ballet presented as a holograph? I'd like to share notes without necessarily pushing programming. I'd like to say, "Hey, considering what's in the DNA of Imagery as a company, these are some things that you might want to consider." When you have an idea, sometimes you have to push it, so that way you're first to market. I can easily say that some of these things that I've been thinking of are already showing up in Imagery's trajectory. I think being the case study and being the leader of the pack can inform the rest. We've also seen a decline in touring amongst ballet companies, and as you learn how to produce in smaller spaces, more nimble spaces on a smaller scale, that might also make work more accessible, geographically speaking. But that's something that Imagery is already talking about and is already considering.
Sarah: Thanks. Ok, last question, and this is maybe a little closer to the heart. What is your favorite thing about dance that you might want to share with the world?
Mike: This is personal, but for me it's the full body activation. I can go to the gym and not necessarily get that same soul-body activation, and I think it shifts your consciousness. It makes me think about how sometimes some kids who might be on the autism spectrum will go to a combination of occupational therapy, behavioral therapy, and speech therapy. But one of the things that they talk about in occupational therapy is how adding weights and putting them through the various exercises with occupational therapy, sometimes increases vocabulary immediately after a session, that it increases proprioception, which is your awareness of your limb orientation, and that reduces sensory overload. So, we know that there's this mind-body connection that we see in occupational therapy as it's designed for autism, as it's designed for some other therapeutic modalities to treat certain conditions. But we know that that brain-body connection exists, and I'm using those examples because they're easy to reach for. There are other places where that brain-body connection exists. And for me, getting my body in alignment is the same as getting my mind in alignment.
Many thanks to Mike for his thoughtful generosity. We look forward to more conversations and his contributions to Imagery’s future!
Mike Anestor is a STEM professional in the Federal Government and a Chicago based freelance arts consultant. He also has a practice as a poet, printmaker, choreographer, and theater technician under the name Michelangelo qui Mutat Fatum. He began hi…
Mike Anestor is a STEM professional in the Federal Government and a Chicago based freelance arts consultant. He also has a practice as a poet, printmaker, choreographer, and theater technician under the name Michelangelo qui Mutat Fatum. He began his dance education in hopes of having dual careers in STEM and the performing arts. He currently serves on the Board of Links Hall (a National Performance Network partner theatre) and also completed a Mission Continues Fellowship in 2018 - with the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago Performance Department serving as the host site.
[Image description: Mike Anestor is an Afro-Latino man wearing a gray shawl draped around his face and head. He looks into the camera with a neutral expression.]