Dancing Through Life: Becoming a Professional Broadway Dancer

It was a brutal audition. Hundreds of men and women dressed in skimpy leotards danced for the musical’s choreographer until sweat was flying through the air as much as the dancers were. Hours later, at the end of the day, those hundreds became a lucky few standing before the casting director with a job. It’s a chorus job, so little recognition and little pay, but it’s a dance job. And for the aspiring Broadway dancer, it’s a dream come true.

If this scene feels familiar, it might be because it’s the premise of the hit Broadway musical and subsequent film, “A Chorus Line.” And because it’s real life too: the typical ordeal dancers must go through to land a gig. Even more difficult the emotional toll the rejection takes on the people cut. But for most dancers, the physically and mentally strenuous repetition of auditioning is all worth it if it means that they get dance. As “A Chorus Line” character Cassie says: “God, I’m a dancer. A dancer dances.”

The career of a dancer is short yet passionate. According to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, most professional dancers retire from performances when they reach their late thirties, and that’s if they have never sustained serious injuries. But just because dancers aren’t performing anymore doesn’t mean that they quit the field altogether; they often go on to become choreographers or teachers. In “A Chorus Line,” a girl named Bebe says: “I plan to go on kicking these legs as long as I can and when I can't – well, I'll just do something else.”

Aside from the low-paying, short-lived nature of dance, there is also its lack of a spotlight. More often than not, dancers are pushed into the background, meant to decorate and enhance a performance but not occupy center stage. Audiences pay attention to the person belting out the popular show-tunes, not the people swirling around them. As Cassie puts it in the song ‘The Music and the Mirrors:” “Well, it would be nice to be a star, but I’m not. I’m a dancer.”

Choosing any career in dance is a precarious decision, particularly for dancers with their eyes on a Broadway career in New York City. Manhattan is a notoriously expensive place to live and as Don from “A Chorus Line” puts it, though one may have dreams about dancing here “dreams don’t pay the rent.”

Despite all of these elements working against them, there are still plenty of dancers hoping to one day see their names in a Playbill even if their faces go unnoticed on the stage. The stories of three dancers in three different stages of their careers provides a window into the passion, drive, and hard work it takes to make it into those program pages. Leanne Sera Jose is just starting out in the business. Jonathan McGill has been making a living on the Broadway stage for about a year now. And Janice Niggeling is an established figure in the dance world with three years worth of experience on Broadway.

Leanne Sera Jose is a dance major with the posture to prove it. As a graduating senior at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, 21-year-old Jose is looking for any job in dance she can get. “I’m honestly open to anything because I feel like you can’t really be picky at this point,” she said. “I mean, you have to start somewhere.”

Leanne Jose started her journey to a Bachelor of Fine Arts in dance at the age of five when she saw her older cousin perform in “The Nutcracker.”

“I was kind of like, okay now I want to start dancing!” So her parents put her in the weekly pre-ballet class at the local dance school in Medford, Massachusetts. By the time she was in high school, she was dancing five to six days a week after school. However, this extreme dance schedule that almost ended her dance career before it even started.

“When I was a freshman, I honestly thought I was going to quit after high school,” she said. “I didn’t think I’d last all four years doing it with the work load.” But as her high school days began to wind down and college plans started to get tossed around, Jose couldn’t let go of her passion. “I thought about what having dance out of my would be like and when I imagined that, it just didn’t seem right,” she said. She decided to attend NYU’s Tisch because of its good reputation in academics and the arts.

Jose is now almost done with the intense three-year curriculum for dancers at Tisch, which calls for at least six hours a day, everyday, devoted to dancing. On top of that are the hours of rehearsal for the multiple performances offered every semester, as well as the required academic classes. The rigid schedule matches Jose’s rigid posture. “With dance, you have to be disciplined in that way,” she said.

It’s going to take a lot of discipline for Jose to land a job in dancing. According to the federal BLS, only 6 percent of dancers are employed as performing artists. Most of the other employed dancers are teachers or “self-employed.” In other words, only a small fraction of dancers actually get to make a living performing on a big stage, making it an extremely competitive field. At her first Broadway audition ever for “The Lion King” earlier this year, Jose faced the experience of seeing past Tisch graduates losing the competition.

“It’s discouraging but at the same time I think you’re also aware that it is like that,” she said. “You might want to deny it a little bit, but if it’s what you love to do,hen that’s the price you have to pay.” Unlike a rent check, the price of a dream-come-true is not paid in cash but in sweat, blood, and tears.

Jonathan McGill doesn’t have to worry the same way Jose is doing right now. McGill, 24, is an ensemble cast member of the Broadway show “Wicked” and can currently pay comfortably for an apartment in midtown Manhattan since the minimum required salary for union ensemble members is about $1500 a week. Although he’s been in the show for over a year, dancing eights shows a week, even the most dedicated “Wicked” fans would probably not give the slender, graceful McGill a second glance on the street without his flying monkey costume.

A California native, McGill was twelve-years-old when he began training as a hip hop dancer so he could “hang out with people after school and not have to go straight home and do homework.” However, the casual attitude about dance turned serious after he watched Michael and Janet Jackson perform. “My biggest influences are ‘The Wiz’ with Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson’s ‘Rhythm Nation’ concert,” he said. “I used to watch those alternating everyday. I was like, I want to be the Scarecrow and dance like Michael Jackson. Those are why I wanted to become a professional dancer.”

McGill pursued his dream by studying an eclectic mix of dance styles at the famous Debbie Allen Dance Academy in Los Angeles. After rejecting his original plan in high school of becoming a lawyer, McGill applied to NYU for dance and hasn’t looked back since.

Graduating in 2006, McGill faced many of the same struggles that Jose now has to look forward to. He went to audition after audition, waiting to hear back from casting directors. Eventually, he landed the second national tour of “Movin’ Out” and then did the “Radio City Christmas Spectacular” in 2008. McGill’s big Broadway break came during this time, a month after a tough two-day audition. McGill said: “They called me back [a few days later] and they said ‘You got it, it’s yours.’”

But being on Broadway doesn’t mean that McGill feels as if he’s at the very top of his field yet. “Now that I’m here, I’m trying not to just settle and be like ‘oh, I made it,’” he said. “It’s a constant process. It doesn’t mean that I’m not happy; I’m very grateful and happy with what I have but there’s always room to grow.” With acting and singing lessons potentially on his list of things to do in the future, it seems that McGill is hoping to step out of the shadows of the background.

On going largely unnoticed, he said: “It’s a constant struggle. I don’t understand why we’re looked upon as lesser. Sometimes I feel like we get the short end of the stick.” However, he also understands that it’s a dancer’s job not to be the star of the show. “I’m supposed to make it look easy, that’s the trick,” he said. “A lot of times we can make it look so effortless that people don’t really see the work that goes into it. We can easily go unnoticed but that’s sort of a good thing.” It may seem against a person’s nature to work most of their lives on perfecting a craft only to make sure that their effort isn’t noticed. Since the age of six though, Janice Niggeling can’t imagine living a different kind of life.

Niggeling’s mother put her in ballet class when she was three-years-old so that her daughter could socialize with other kids her age. “Mom thought, ‘I’ll just throw her in there and let her run around’ and then it turned into much more than that,” Niggeling said. The classically trained ballerina danced about three hours every weekday during high school and often spent the weekends rehearsing for performances. For college, Niggeling moved away from her home in New Hampshire to attend Fordham University in New York City. A fulltime student studying finance, she also spent three to six hours a day dancing at a studio on the upper-east side of Manhattan. “That was a very intense time in my life,” she said. “I was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Looking back, I don’t know how I did it.” But she did do it, probably with a little nudging from her six-year-old self.

Even with a bachelor’s degree, Niggeling turned her focus back to her first love of dance for the same reasons Jose couldn’t give it up during high school: she couldn’t live without it. After auditioning for the renowned Broadway director-choreographer Twyla Tharp and her musical “Movin’ Out,” Niggeling caught the Broadway bug. She said: “I was like, oh my gosh, I have to do this! This is so fun and exciting!” Shortly afterwards, she nailed a part in the ensemble of a Broadway favorite, “The Phantom of the Opera.” She was 22, only a year older than Jose.

Now 25, Niggeling has multiple Broadway credits to her name as well as one as a current dancer for the Metropolitan Opera. Her demeanor is relaxed when she talks about auditions and the past but she remembers the days when she was in the same tense situation that Jose is in now. “It’s such a scary feeling,” she said. “Now I just feel so much at ease because I’ve done a lot of things and I feel like I have a good grasp on the community.”

As far as being a successful dancer goes, Niggeling knows it all, or at least a lot. She achieved her definition of success when she could support herself financially on dancing jobs alone. “I just wanted to dance and that be my full time job.”

This seems to be the mantra of every dancer, even fictional characters in musicals. Cassie sings “give me somebody to dance for.” Jose said that the greatest feeling is “the thrill and joy of finally doing what you put your mind to for dance, with everyone watching you.” McGill said: “You always just want to be dancing, you always want to grow and explore. That’s what we want to do.” Even though the words may be different, the sentiment is still the same: for dancers, dance is as important as the air they breathe. No matter how vicious a rejection or how exhausting an audition; how high the unemployment rate or how low the pay, Jose, McGill, and Niggeling will never stop because they can’t NOT dance.

Karla Garcia Thinks She Can Dance

Looking around the studio on 8^th Avenue where she teaches, it’s difficult at first to pick out the leader of the class. Everyone is dressed in sweats or tee-shirts and tube socks. But then the music comes on and all eyes turn to the tan brunette in the front line. There she is, wearing maroon sweats and a black tee-shirt. As Karla Puno Garcia demonstrates some steps, wide-eyed students follow her attentively as she moves across the floor. There is no question now about who the master dancer is in the room.

The 24-year-old Garcia’s strength in the contemporary style of dance landed her a spot last summer on the Fox reality show “So You Think You Can Dance.” Each week, 20 contestants must dance in different styles such as hip-hop, jazz, and ballroom and the number dwindles each show with voting by viewers and judges. Garcia made it through four weeks before she was kicked off for her weak performance of a fast ballroom dance called the Quickstep. Just 2 weeks earlier, her moving interpretation of a contemporary piece won her a top rating. Such is the fickle nature of “So You Think You Can Dance” viewers and judges.

“It’s very dramatic,” she said. “It’s as dramatic as it seems. Whenever I would watch reality shows and people were crying and being dramatic, I used to be like, why are they being so dramatic? But it really feels that way when you’re in it. It just feels like life or death.”

Her journey to “SYTYCD” began as a three-year-old tap dancer in San Francisco. Garcia moved to the Washington D.C. area when she was 5 years old and started to seriously study more classical forms of dance. Numerous ballet, jazz, and contemporary classes and competitions later, Garcia graduated high school and entered New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts with a major in dance. However, dancing for grades almost killed Garcia’s love for it. “My first semester in the dance department, it was tough,” Garcia said. “I never had been forced to dance before. It made me kind of not like dance a little bit.”

Luckily, Garcia was given a break from the academic life when she took a leave of absence after she was hired to join the short-lived Broadway show Hot Feet. “It was choreographed by [famous tap-dancer] Maurice Hines and so it was this new exciting thing.” Her audition for the show went well and Hines praised her dance skills. A wrong number on her resume resulted in e-mails from the casting director asking her to call back. It wasn’t until the day of the call-back that Garcia checked her e-mail and frantically called. “They were like, Karla! Maurice loved you, you booked the show,” she recollected. “That’s really rare. It was also a bit of a lesson. I was like, I’m never going to get my resume wrong again because I’m not going to be that lucky!” With her first Broadway show under her belt, Garcia got her first taste of real accomplishment in the dance world. “I was the youngest one [at] 20 in this new Broadway show. It was fun! The show wasn’t well received by the critics though and it only lasted like 3 months,” she said. “I was like, well that was a fun, quick little stint.”

After the show ended it’s limited run, Garcia finished out her three-year program at NYU and started auditioning… a lot. “I got a lot of rejection,” she said. “Nine times out of ten you’re going to get rejected, so you just have to keep going and that was part of the experience and the learning process for me.” She auditioned for the 2007 season of “So You Think You Can Dance,” but didn’t make it through that time. After traveling all over the country for different jobs, including a gig in the Florida version of the Radio City Music Christmas Spectacular and the tour of the Broadway hit “Wicked,” Garcia decided to try out for the 2009 season of “So You Think You Can Dance.”

“I thought this time around, I had been in two shows, I had been teaching, auditioning, just a lot more experiences that kind of matured me and made me ready for the experience,” Garcia said. “And I learned also that it’s a show and they’re casting. I wasn’t going to get my hopes up again.” Garcia’s mother bought her a plane ticket to Denver and booked her a room in a hotel right next to the convention hall where the newest batch of auditions for the show was taking place. Garcia said: “[My mom] spent a lot of money on that but she believed in me. She told me, ‘just do this’ and I wanted to make this worth it.” It turned out that Garcia did not let her mom down.

“I walked into the room and the judges were like ‘You made it!’ I almost ran into the door. I was so happy and it was surreal to have that opportunity.” However, the excitement quickly turned into exhaustion and frustration.

“It is a popularity contest most of the time,” she said. “I felt helpless sometimes. I was like, I don’t know what to do. It does make a difference when you see people more; you get more attached to them and you learn more about them and they get to show you what they can do. But you don’t get to control how you’re perceived. It was just so frustrating and it was hard to enjoy, but I tried.” The elimination process of the show involves viewers voting for their favorite dance couple of the week. The three couples with the least amount of votes must dance solos for the judges, who then decide on a boy and a girl to leave the show. Ultimately, Garcia felt that her lack of air-time compared to some of the other contestants contributed to America’s not voting for her. “I know I heard people thought I was boring sometimes,” she said “but it’s like, you don’t know me, you don’t know any of those people actually.”

Besides her inability to feel noticed, Garcia also dealt with the harsh criticisms of the judges and the fans. One of the comments left by scteacher212 on the SYTYCD forums said: “I personally think that Karla is the weakest of the three girls. She has not done a single dance this season that I liked so I would not be opposed to her going home.” Another user, ashylew, posted: “You do know that Karla nor Vitolio are going to make it to the top 10, right?” Criticisms such as these along with supportive fan comments crowd the SYTYCD websites about all the dancers.

“It’s hard not to look at Internet sites and see the blogs and everything. That is the worst. If I were to give advice to anybody that would be on the show, it would be do not go online and do not Google your name. You just get so down on yourself.”

A broken spirit may have been a contributing factor in her early termination from the show. But Garcia also believed that being the second oldest contestant in a sea of teenagers played a part in her downfall. “I could still hang and it was still fun but I had done my first Broadway show at 20, I had toured with Wicked, I went to college, a lot of other experiences that made me different in my mentality. I wasn’t doe-eyed. [It wasn’t like] if I don’t win this, I’m never going to dance again or if I do win this, then I’m going to be a star.”

Unlike some of her competitors, Garcia saw doing SYTYCD as merely another dance job, not necessarily as the pinnacle of her dance career. “I treated it as another gig. I mean I was excited, I was like ‘Oh, I’m on TV; this is fun!’ But it was just another gig.”

For Garcia, life after the show continues much as life did before the show. Sometimes she gets recognized on the street and putting SYTYCD on her resume certainly hasn’t hurt her any. However, it hasn’t exactly helped her a whole lot either. “I’d walk around and I’d get recognized and then I came back to New York and I got recognized a little bit. It opens a lot of doors for teaching and choreographing, Garcia said. “[But] I never felt better than anyone. I felt like I accomplished something but it’s not like I’m better than everybody or I look down on people.” All Garcia wants to do is dance. “Our bodies aren’t going to last forever so you might as well do it while you can.”

Back in the dance studio where Garcia is teaching, she finishes her choreography with legs spread and a spine-busting backbend. Karla Garcia grunts out a loud sigh and collapses to the floor. She lays there laughing as her students surround her and applaud. For a moment, it seems like she’ll never stand again. Finally, she picks herself back up and goes to turn off the music. Of course she stood up again; Karla Garcia always manages to get back up when life kicks her down.


For more information about Karla Garcia and her current projects, go to www.KarlaPunoGarcia.com!

Hands On Experience

These photos are for a story I am currently working on for my advanced reporting class. I am doing a profile on Karla Garcia, a former competitor on the reality show "So You Think You Can Dance." She is currently a contemporary dance teacher. As part of my reporting, I decided to take one of her classes to add some color to the story.


I used to dance (16 years of ballet!) and took a contemporary class this past summer at my hometown studio. However, I haven't seriously studied dance for about four years now. Going into her class, I didn't know what to expect. It turned out that it wasn't as difficult as I had thought it would be, though it certainly wasn't a walk in the park either. I was glad that I brought my camera along so I could escape some difficult choreography.


The full, finished story and more pictures should be posted here soon. It will also be on Fameology.net. Also, if you like what you see/read about Karla, check out her website.

Adv. Reporting: Q&A Profile

STUDENT PROFILE

Name: Michael Menta

Age: 21 years old (born July 17, 1988)

Occupation: Student at New York University, studying dramatic writing and journalism

On becoming a journalism student: I was looking for another major and I took an art criticism class while studying abroad in London. So I thought I could be a critic and that would go with my dramatic writing major. And then I had to squeeze in journalism because I started it so late [into college].

Potential future careers: I could maybe still be an art critic. It’s possible.

On fame and (not wanting to be) desiring fame: I don’t want to want to be famous, but I do want to be famous. I think it would be unpleasant though because you will always be disappointed with [being famous]. So I do want to be famous but that’s unfortunate.

What will make him famous: I would like to produce something or be famous for my writing. I don’t need worldwide fame. I used to act, but unless somehow I ride on someone’s coattails, I’m not going to be a famous actor. I wouldn’t want to be famous for acting anyway. I would want fame for writing.

Who he believes to be the hardest working famous people: I think politicians are the hardest working famous people. There’s a lot of wheeling and dealing so you’re going to have to compromise your ideology sometimes, which doesn’t seem easy at all. Also, people in academia who become famous are probably some of the hardest working people.

Who he believes works to the hardest to be famous: I think that actors work the hardest to be famous above all else. It’s necessary to them, even if their fame is limited, it gets them some kind of notoriety.

Celebrity he most admires: Daniel Day Lewis. He is respected in his industry and he’s famous for definitive reasons.

Favorite celebrity: Larry David because he failed a lot when he was younger and it wasn’t until Seinfeld that he had any real fame or recognized achievement. He seems like a humble guy.

Most hated type of celebrity: I don’t really like most reality show people. I also don’t like Carlos Mencia. I think he is really abrasive. So, I used to watch his show to see if he’d be funny that night and I was constantly disappointed. I can’t understand the appeal.

Celebrity he would most like to switch bodies with: George Clooney seems really, continually content with his life. He works the Hollywood system and seems pretty independent. Realistically, I’d be more like Woody Allen.

People he thinks should be more famous: I’m not sure I would wish fame on anybody. You’d like to see everyday heroes get recognition. They do get attention around major events but I wouldn’t wish fame upon them all the time.

Words he associates with fame: “Media attention.”

Negative feelings on fame: I don’t think it’s pleasant to be famous. I’m not famous so I can’t say for sure but when you’re a person who’s scrutinized all the time, you can’t get out of it anymore. You can’t live normally because you’ll always be given attention, unless you just slip into nothingness.

Success vs. Fame: There is a difference between fame and success. You can be famous and successful but you can also be famous and unsuccessful, or not famous and successful.

Tick, Tock, Tech.

Remember the good old days, when people had to walk to school and it was uphill both ways? Before the stresses of the “real world” hit you into adulthood and you could spend after-school hours rapidly typing away one-letter responses to friends over instant messages on the computer, while complaining to your mom about how you could not be any more bored than at that very moment, as the TV blared away in the background, mixing with the sounds of your vibrating cell phone, buzzing away with voicemails. Ah, those were simpler times indeed. Even though this is a scene right out of my childhood not even 6 years ago that many members of my generation would recognize, it is a scene that would not be very familiar to young tweens and teens today. The rate at which technology is advancing moves faster than the fingers of a 15-year-old texting, making it difficult for many educators to keep up. It is especially hard for those teachers who have been in the profession for decades.

Carol Imbriaco is an 8th grade “creative communications” and drama teacher at Wall Intermediate School in Wall, New Jersey. (“Creative communications” is a fancy way of saying “computer class.”) Since 1976, Ms. Imbriaco has had the pleasure, as well as the pain, of educating students in an ever-changing technological environment. The gap between old and new methods of learning is always widening to Ms. Imbriaco.
“I had to explain to the kids that an electric typewriter was something we had back in the day because we didn’t have computers,” she said. Nowadays, kids cannot imagine a day going by without turning on a computer in the classroom. “We use computers everyday in here,” said Ms. Imbriaco of her current classes. Loren Nappi, one of Ms. Imbriaco’s students, said that they use computers in class “for research [on the] Internet, Powerpoint projects, and right now, MovieMaker.”

When Ms. Imbriaco was young, the most advanced piece of technology her family owned was a black and white television set with a “plastic color thing that you could put on the screen that could give you color.” Today, according to Loren, “probably everyone in the school” has a cell phone, let alone at least one color TV in every house. Despite the abundance of cell phones though, actual phone calls are a rarity. “[I text] all the time,” Loren said. Ms. Imbriaco can hardly get her 28-year-old son to speak to her. “If I try to talk to my son on the phone, he won’t answer his cell phone. He’ll text me. I have to say call me and then he thinks it’s an emergency. He will not pick up his phone and he’s 28-years-old,” she said. “Pick up your phone! I want to talk to you.” Gone are the days even of stand-alone calculators. Smartphones and computers have them built right in and complicated graphing calculators that can double as a portable gaming system, are a common necessity amongst algebra students. Life has changed since those black and white TV days. Even just 7 years ago, when I was a freshman at Wall High School, only a few people in my class had cell phones. Now, cell phones for nearly every 8th grader is what Loren calls “addicting.”

Picking up on the changing attitudes of students towards technology, schools around the nation are going further than computers in their classrooms. Some schools are experimenting with replacing textbooks and library books with e-readers. E-readers, such as Amazon’s Kindle or Barnes and Noble’s Nook, allow for thousands of books to be viewed and stored on one handy handheld tablet. While the backs of many students are thankful for less weight in books in their backpacks, there is an opposition to such a movement. E-readers have been given the name “book killers” by many bookworm parents opposed to the infiltration of Kindles or Nooks onto their children’s bookshelves. Despite the obvious advantages of more technology in schools (research is easy, less paper used, lighter backpack loads, etc.), Ms. Imbriaco also sees its downside. “Technology is all around them but I think it’s ruined them too,” she said. “They’re so lazy. They want everything done for them. Everything.”

For example, Loren and fellow student Casey Wehrhahn explained what they would do if computers were taken away from them: “I’d have a heart attack,” said Casey. “Yeah, when you’re researching, the work is so much harder than just typing it in,” said Loren. “With computers, you can target the answers easier.” Technology has certainly made students more susceptible to laziness, but it may be a reach to say that it has “ruined them.” In fact, Seth Hewitt, the Media/TV teacher at Wall High School, argues that there is not enough use of technology in the classroom. “Technology definitely benefits the students,” he said. “I hope to see text messaging and iPods used in an effective way to engage students in the lesson[s]… I’d [also] like to see more students using personal laptops in the classroom.” Mr. Hewitt is a relatively new teacher. He has been teaching Television Production at Wall for only six years, but is using every piece of electronic equipment he can get his hands on to help his students stay interested in lessons. “A well designed lesson using technology increases the burden on the student to discover and learn, where as, someone just using power point for note distribution allows the students to sit and watch. This creates lazy students.” Ms. Imbriaco is not just worried about lazier students though. She believes that with the advent and popularity boom of the Internet, kids are growing up faster than ever before.

“They see things on TV that we didn’t have, inappropriate things on YouTube, a lot of inappropriate things on the Internet all together,” she said. “There’s too much out there. They know too much. I get shocked with some of the things that they come out with in class. Some of the things they say and some of the things that they do or some of the things they repeat... I’m just shocked by an 8th grader, or a 6th or 7th grader with the things that they say. We didn’t do that.”

On the other hand, Mr. Hewitt argued “technology allows students to be hands on in the classroom, and find their own ways to remember material.” So then the question is, how do educators find a balance between too much technology and not enough? Honestly, there is no answer. As technology advances and more gadgets find their way into the hands of younger and younger kids, teachers and parents alike must face the burden of adjusting to the new world of the Internet age.

Many embrace and incorporate today’s technologies into school projects. Casey’s older brother at Wall High School had to use Facebook for an assignment. “The teacher made him make a Facebook and use it for that project,” he said. Instead of seeing the negative aspects computers, iPods, and cell phones have on society’s youth, the positive facets should be highlighted. By highlighting the assets and teaching kids to use technology responsibly, it is possible to reverse the damage Google and YouTube has wrought upon all of us. Even Ms. Imbriaco agrees that technology cannot be entirely ignored or to put to blame for all of society’s misdemeanors. “As a parent, after 9/11, I wanted my own kids to have phones for safety,” she said. “And I thought that [schools] saying no one was allowed to have a phone, I felt that wasn’t a fair statement to have because I felt uncomfortable with that myself.”

Even the best efforts to retain kids in the “good old days” of paperback novels and cell phone free pockets will fail. It is impossible to stop the wheels of future technologies from churning on and thus, impossible to stop the involvement of lives with the advances. Ms. Imbriaco put it best: “This is so much a part of their life now. Their whole life is technology. They’re surrounded by it.”

What the Heck?: A Look Into The Life of a Modder

Last year, Benjamin Heckendorn could not figure out what to get his mom for Christmas. His pregnant sister suggested a digital camera because “of course, my mom would want to take nine trillion pictures of the baby.” This seemed like a perfect idea, except for one problem. “We couldn’t decide who was going to have to be the one to show her how to use it,” he said. This statement is rather odd, given what he does for a living. Benjamin writes how-to articles on modifying electronics.

Madison, Wisconsin native Ben Heck, as admirers refer him to, is a minor Internet celebrity because of what he would call “skills with a z at the end.” He is a “modder,” or a person who modifies videogame consoles such as Xbox360s or Playstations. “Modding” projects are becoming mainstream as more and more Nintendo Wiis and Sony Playstations fly off the shelves during the holidays. Some people desire highly specialized or personalized versions of their new toy, such as making it portable or adjusting the controller’s layout. For those who are too technologically inept (or lazy) to reengineer their new gaming system, there is Ben Heck.

“What I do is someone will request some kind of highly specialized videogame console and what I do is I take the existing console, let’s say a Playstation 3, and I take it all apart,” he explained. “Then I put it back together and usually I do it in some new form. Typically I make it like a big laptop so it’s a self contained portable video gaming system.” The going rate for a single Ben Heck Xbox360 laptop: “Around $5,000.” However, modding is not necessarily just business for Ben. It also turns out that it is a way for him to help others.

One of Heck’s specialties is creating access controllers. Access controllers are specially designed gaming tools for the disabled who would still like to play videogames, such as amputees or paraplegics. Ben first became interested in such projects when an Iraq veteran contacted him a few years ago. “I think his name was Jason. He had come back from Iraq and he had lost a limb and he was like, I’ve lost a limb but I would still like to play my Xbox. And I’m like, Oh that’s an interesting project idea.” Thus, the one-handed Xbox controller was born. “So, I made this Xbox controller that you can basically hold in one hand, and you can move it against your leg and whatnot. You can play it, do everything with one hand,” he said. “I get a lot of requests for stupid crap like ‘Put five systems in one and blah blah blah.’ I don’t care about that stupid stuff. This was interesting and it was helpful so I was like ‘I will do it!’” As heartwarming as this story is, Heck did not take on this challenge merely out of the goodness of his own heart.

“To be quite honest I was more interested in the challenge than helping people,” he admitted. “I know that sounds terrible but I knew it would help people so that was fine… mostly I was like ‘Wow, this is an interesting challenge’ but I’m glad it helps people too.” Despite the less-than-altruistic motive, it did ultimately yield a beneficial product for many people. Ben even brought some of the controllers to the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington D.C. While he was there, Heck learned that “the thing with this war is there’s a lot of casualties but they’re not fatal. They’re like, you lose a limb because of road bombs.” But Ben’s product is not just for those who have been incapacitated by war. The advent of the access controller has also aided stroke victims and those in motorcycle accidents. In fact, according to Heck, it is “unbelievable numbers of motorcycle accidents” that request the controllers. “So riding a motorcycle is apparently more dangerous than going to war,” he said. Because of this observation, he added: “I’ll never ride a motorcycle. Apparently it’s a good way to lose a limb.” This is coming from someone who lives in a “Harley-Davidson state.”

Ben Heck has lived in Wisconsin his whole life. He claims that Wisconsin is, besides being Harley country, a “beer state.” For those outsiders who are unfortunate enough to believe only what they are told, Ben would like to clear something up: “Wisconsin is not the dairy state. It’s the beer state,” he said. “That’s all it is. All we do is drink. So that’s what I tell people about Wisconsin.”

Before he was old enough to be able to drink along with his fellow Wisconsinites, Ben lived with his mom, a sister, and a half-brother “out in the country,” which is “cool” according to Ben because “you can run around outside and have dogs and stuff. And if you’re a guy, you can pee out the back door.” There was at least one downside to living in the middle of nowhere though: “Radio shack was never close enough. And back then, 15 miles might as well be across the ocean when you can’t drive.”

The son of a hairdresser out in rural America somehow found an interest in electronics at a young age. He claims it might have come from his father, who died from heart disease when Ben was six-years-old. “My dad did stuff like [taking electronics apart],” he said. “I mean, he died when I was 6 so I didn’t really have that much time to be influenced, but maybe I subconsciously got influenced via DNA or some shit, I don’t know.”

Heck went to college, but dropped out soon after and instead pursued graphic arts. “I was a graphic artist for awhile and then I started doing [modding] on the side,” he said. “[With] the graphic arts, I definitely learned a lot about design and industrial design and… building things.” His background in arts is still a major aspect of his life today. “I have two boxed retail products which is cool because my favorite part was making the boxes for both of them.”

After modding as a hobby for a while, Ben decided to write a “how-to” book called Hacking Video Game Consoles. He quit his job to work full-time on it but the pay-off was not so much monetary as lifetime achievement. “If you’re not [J.K. Rowling or Dan Brown], maybe Danielle Steel, you’re not going to really become rich off of it but you can say, ‘I have a book.’” He added: “It’s a cool bullet point in your life. Like, ‘Oh yeah I wrote a book once.’” It was not until after he had published his book that the real money came rolling in from doing mods for other people. “People just kept asking me for more stuff.”

At 34-years-old now, Ben Heck has managed to make nearly a brand name for himself. Through his website, pod casts, and articles, Heck reaches a multitude of different people looking to buy his particular mods or get advice on how to do them at home. Many admirers post on his forum hoping to get a response. Brian Buell from Eau Claire, Wisconsin is one of them. A 21-year-old who has been modding for three years, sees Ben as a role model. “I wouldn’t want to say that Ben is necessarily the best modder in the world… but he has had many groundbreaking projects with consistently good quality,” he said via e-mail. “Other modders respect him, both beginners and professionals.” Another Ben Heck fan, Robert Thompson, said: “I feel like Ben has really opened doors to a lot of younger people. With his book alone, he has made working with electronics accessible to thousands of people, and he loves what he does.”

His mother, perhaps, would not automatically agree with all these words of praise on how Ben reaches out to help others. She eventually bought herself a digital camera and didn’t ask for any help from him. However, it soon becomes clear why Ben did not want to buy her one. “So, she takes these pictures of my niece,” Ben began. “Then, she takes them to Wal-Mart, prints them, and mails them to me in the mail. She has my email address and she has a computer. She mails me photos! It was ridiculous,” he said. ““I think she slipped an 8track in there too.” Obviously, he does not his electronic expertise from her.

Vegan Vaccination

Jill Renaud is a high school teacher in Astoria, New York refuses to get the flu shot. Not only does the 24-year-old hate the doctor, she is allergic to eggs and egg derivatives, which is part of why she became a vegan a little more than five years ago. “I just don’t take vaccines,” she said. Someday though, Jill might be required to get the vaccine in order to keep her job as a teacher. And that day may be sooner rather than later.

New York State has recently passed a law that requires all health care providers to receive the regular influenza vaccine this year, as well as the H1N1 strain when it becomes available. Many of the workers required to get the immunization are upset, arguing that it violates their rights. Rallying behind the workers are many anti-vaccine groups, including the vegan community.

There are about three million vegans in the United States. That is, three million people who do not ingest anything containing animal byproducts nor do they use anything made from or tested on animals. This poses a major problem for those vegans required to receive the flu vaccine this season. All vaccines are tested on animals before human trials and many contain ingredients derived from animals. According to the Center for Disease Control, all but one of the different influenza vaccines has an egg derivative in it. For Cynthia Mosher, editor and publisher of Veg Family magazine, getting herself and her family vaccinated is not even an option.

“Vaccines are tested on animals,” she said. “They also contain human and animal tissue.”

Ms. Mosher is a vegan who started the online magazine Veg Family in order to help parents and families living a vegan lifestyle. In her opinion, this lifestyle includes not getting any vaccinations.

“Some vegans do go against their beliefs if the benefit outweighs the harm, but personally, I do not feel immunizations should be required nor do I feel they are worth it,” she said. In response to states across the country requiring flu shots, she said: “Health care choices should be a personal and parental decision, not government enforced.” Jill Renaud however, disagrees.

“I mean, you should never force anyone to do anything, but I feel like if you’re in a high risk job as it is, you should get vaccinated.”

In her sophomore year of college, Ms. Renaud joined the First Aid Squad. As a result, she ended up being vaccinated for hepatitis B and meningitis despite her aversion to doctors and her veganism. “It wasn’t absolutely mandated, I could have waived out of it, but it made sense to do so,” she said. She believes that it makes sense for the health care workers to get flu shots, no matter what their religion or lifestyle. “They’re in contact with so many sick patients that they’re in a high risk of getting infected.” The only exception she sees with it is when it will undoubtedly do more harm to the person than good.

There are ways out of receiving mandatory vaccinations. People may fill out forms indicating a category that prevents them from fulfilling the requirement. First, there is the medical exemption Ms. Renaud described. If a person has an allergy to an ingredient in the required vaccine, he or she does not have to get it. Those that do have a non-life threatening allergy to an ingredient in the flu shot may opt to receive it in two separate doses. This is what Ms. Renaud said she would do if a situation arises where she will need to get it. “My co-worker is allergic to egg too,” she said. “He just gets half of a flu shot at a time and it’s fine. I could probably do that.”

There is also the religious exemption, though there is no law in New York that says this may be an option. Finally, there is the philosophical exemption. One who fills out this waiver rejects vaccination because of his or her personal beliefs and values. Vegans would be able to claim philosophical exemption. However, the exemption is currently only available in 17 states, and New York is not one of them.

Ms. Renaud thinks that if states will allow religion to be a legitimate reason to be exempt, then so should being vegan. Although she believes the only good reason not to be given mandatory vaccines would be a medical excuse, she knows that this is unrealistic. Given the current rules, she said: “I would consider veganism a legitimate reason because you can waive because of religion, and a lot of people adhere to their religions much less strictly than some vegans adhere to their veganism.” Ms. Mosher says that beyond claiming either a religious or a medical excuse, she would also hire some lawyers.

“If my job required me to be vaccinated I would probably seek legal recourse,” she said. “The same for my child and a school required vaccine.”

When asked what she would do if New York started requiring public school teachers to get the H1N1 vaccine, Ms. Renaud replied: “I would probably just get it. I’m a lover, not a fighter.” Spoken in the true spirit of veganism, Jill.

The New Circus

For centuries, the circus has been a form of entertainment for people of all ages in many countries. Troupes would pitch tents and in the main one have a three-ring extravaganza of trained animals, daring feats, and lots of sequins. In more recent years however, there has been a rise in popularity of what is called the contemporary circus, made most famous by the Canadian group, Cirque du Soleil. Located in midtown Manhattan happens to be one of the largest schools for training aspiring contemporary circus performers.

Founded in 2006 by the now retired performer Cypher Zero, the New York Circus Arts Academy came into being after his realization that a lot of people wanted to learn how to do the things he did.

“I was mostly focused on creating professional performances and I had a company called Firefly acrobatics,” said the 32-year-old. “After a certain amount of time, I realized demand in the United States was much more for instruction than it was for performance.”

Anna Marie Otazo is a 21-year-old CUNY student who decided to join in this past Fall when she read about it in a magazine. She said: “I came here, and tried out and I love it and I come here all the time.” She added: “I do want to perform but I think I got into this because I like the thought of teaching.”

On the opposite side of the room, Rachael Shane dangles by her feet from a hoop hanging from the ceiling. She is in the training program at NYCA to become a professional performer and teacher. As an actress and dancer, the appeal for the circus arts came from its combination of both of those things. “It just made so much sense to me in terms of the way I move and the way I want to express myself,” said the 28-year-old real estate agent.

Tonight is a smaller class of only aerial work; there are days when the entire gym and not just two-thirds of it is swimming with multiple activities such as juggling, clowning, acrobalance and more.

This winter, people will get to see all of these acts brought together in an original production by the New York Circus Arts entitled “Takura” which is premiering off-Broadway in December 2009.

So what is it about this art that keeps people from all different cultures captivated? Rachael Shane attributed it to “seeing things that are outside of the norm, seeing people do things that you hadn’t been able to conceive of yourself.”

Cypher Zero thinks that it’s more about the human condition. He said: “What we see through these performances is not performers who have become fantastical characters but performers who have played fantastical characters and learned to be human or to be themselves through doing that.”

“I don’t know what makes it the greatest show on Earth,” said Otazo. “It’s more exciting than real life, I guess.”

My Vegan Week

I’m really not that fond of red meat. In fact, becoming a vegetarian has crossed my mind a few times in the past. However, the draw of a big juicy hamburger or a thick piece of grilled chicken has always kept me from going full “veggie.” Recently though, I have revisited the idea because of my friend Jill Renaud, who is a vegan and much healthier than I am. Whenever we go out to eat somewhere, I watch her eat platefuls of delicious colors: orange carrots, dark green spinach, black olives, beige chickpeas, red tomatoes. And then one day I thought, hey! Why don’t I try it out and see what being a vegan is like? So from there, I decided to embark on a five-day journey of no meat, no eggs, no fish, no dairy… actually no animal by-products at all in my food. It was going to be tough to drop some of my favorite foods cold turkey, er, cold lettuce? But I was determined to see what the life of a vegan is like and if it really is as easy as Jill says it is.


DAY ONE
I woke up absolutely starving. I went from my cabinets to the refrigerator and back again searching for something to give my growling stomach. However, I had not thought about buying vegan-friendly food the night before and thus had next to nothing to eat in my apartment. I was tempted by a big glass of milk and some cheddar cheese, but I settled instead on the vegan friendly (though not very healthy) combination of Fritos and orange soda. Obviously, I was off to a very bad start.

The rest of the day went on much better. I discovered that Ronzoni spaghetti and Newman’s roasted garlic tomato sauce are both things that I could eat. (What would we all do without the Internet?!) Later on, I ordered delivery from a place Jill had told me about called Atlas Café. I had the “Veggie Burger Sunshine” and a dairy-free strawberry and banana smoothie. The fake “meat” in the burger had a strange, cardboard aftertaste but I was so hungry by the time it came that I didn’t care. I just crossed my fingers that tomorrow would be easier.

DAY TWO
I had a good start to my morning. I stopped in a Starbucks on my way to class and had a plain multigrain bagel with some juice. From there, it was all down hill.

By noon, I was hungry again and my teacher’s assistant brought in chocolate Pocky for the whole class. I eagerly gobbled up the tiny stick and a few minutes later remembered about my challenge. I felt super guilty about it, but it’s hard to resist something offered to you that you normally wouldn’t think twice about eating.

After class, I went over to Weinstein dining hall and had myself a nice salad and a “Garden burger.” Just to be safe, I decided to check “hamburger bun” online and to my surprise and horror, the bun I was eating was NOT vegan! It contains dairy products in it. Oh brother, this was harder than I thought it would be.

DAY THREE
Breakfast at Third North dining hall put me on track. I had some fruit and half of a bagel with peanut butter. Peanut butter, I quickly learned, was a vegan’s best friend. Not only is it a good source of protein and healthy fats but also it’s delicious on almost anything.

For dinner, I went out with Jill so it was easy to stick to my diet. We ate the same things together (vegan penne dish, banana with peanut butter, and some hummus) and bonded over the amazing amount of fiber there is in a vegan’s diet.

Though I was tempted all day by egg bagels, macaroni and cheese, pasta with alfredo sauce, and other favorite foods, I managed to resist it all with the mantra “write a good story about this” in my head.

DAY FOUR
I was so excited when I found out that I could eat Cap’N Crunch cereal! After a few handfuls of that, I went off to my internship at 30 Rockefeller Center. In the weekly run-down meeting for the weekend Today Show, one of the segments for Saturday was going to be about fast food. I was practically drooling by the time the meeting was over. Of all the weeks to do a segment about fast food, it had to be during the one week I couldn’t eat any of it!

Once I got home, I made a huge bowl of pasta with marinara and some corn to make me feel better. Just for the record, pasta is the best comfort food ever, vegan or not.

DAY FIVE
Last day! At work, I made myself a toasted plain bagel with strawberry jam. The fast food segment aired and I was surprisingly unaffected. Maybe I could be a vegan after all? When I got home though, I knowingly cheated. The cheddar cheese block in my fridge was practically yelling at me to eat it! I justified this slip by telling myself that I had to “ease” my body back into eating dairy regularly again. I still stand by this excuse!

After dinner that night, I had my first taste of vanilla soy “ice cream.” It was smothered in Hershey’s syrup so I’m not sure if the actual “ice cream” was actually any good but I definitely enjoyed it anyway. When I went to bed that night, all I could think about was everything I was going to eat the next day, to make up for all the healthy foods I had consumed over the past week. I guess I failed my vegan test.


The advantages to my week as a vegan were definitely outweighed by disadvantages for me. On the plus side, I found myself eating smaller meals more often because of the low calorie foods I ate. So even though I would get full easily with big plates of salads and fruit, I would get hungry again quickly because I didn’t consume many calories to keep me going. (Note: A bowl of baby carrots is not a full meal!)

On the down side it was hard for me to resist foods that I love. Mostly, it was the dairy products that were the hardest for me to give up. My love for cheese, cream, and ice cream may not be that healthy, but it’s part of my life and I could never give it up for good. Also, I hate soy and most soy products, which means that the vegan lifestyle and I would probably never work out anyway. Some things are just not meant to be.

United Nations, New and Improved?

The lively aura surrounding the 250 resident correspondents in the United Nations building feels foreign amongst all of the dead and abandoned electronics that line the cramped hallways. Reporters are busily tapping away at keyboards and listening through headsets to the daily Security Council meeting being held all day. However, one would not believe that a major change had just occurred in one of the UN’s most powerful member states. It has only been about two months since United States’ President Barack Obama took office, but the novelty of it has seemed to have already faded. Perhaps it is the natural skepticism of journalists, but there seems to be some doubts about the predictions of positive changes to come for the UN.

“There’s not like a single story of like everyone loves Obama, everything’s going to be better,” said Inner City blog reporter Matthew Lee. “I’ve seen so many stories that are just like ‘it’s a new era’ and I’m not really sure.”

Despite the raised eyebrows at the Obama optimism by many, it cannot be denied that he has brought some change to the building, if in mood only.
Neil MacFarquhar, a reporter for The New York Times said: “I think there is a change of tone and there’s a sense of anticipation but in terms of actual concrete examples of change, I don’t think there is or has been one so far.”

It appears that the general feeling towards the new Obama administration is one of cautious apprehension. Because things work at the UN, according to Mr. MacFarquhar, at a “glacial pace,” it is too soon to say whether or not the changes brought by President Obama and Ambassador Rice will be good or bad.