Interview with Amazing HBC Alum Claudia Schreier
Today we had the exciting opportunity to talk with Claudia Schreier, an amazingly insightful and talented alumni of HBC, who is now a professional choreographer! Claudia shared with us her experiences at Harvard and with HBC, details about her journey, career, and inspiration, and some advice for how to navigate the pandemic era in a positive way. We really appreciated Claudia sharing her wisdom and hope you will enjoy her responses to these 15 questions as much as we did!
❤️Audrey and Amy
1. What is your name?
Claudia: My name is Claudia Schreier.
2. When did you graduate from Harvard?
Claudia: I graduated from Harvard in 2008.
3. What did you concentrate in when at Harvard?
Claudia: I concentrated in sociology, with a secondary degree in dramatic arts.
4. Can you describe your current occupation and how you arrived at your job?
Claudia: I am currently a choreographer, and I arrived at my job relatively atypically for someone in my field. I owe a large part of that to my experience at Harvard, actually, because even though I wasn’t studying choreography and it wasn’t part of any official program at the time, Harvard allowed me the time and the resources to investigate my passion and discover that I wanted to turn it into a career. From there, I pursued every opportunity I could to create. A lot of that work was done as a side hustle for a number of years and then I went full time as a choreographer officially at the beginning of 2017.
5. What inspires your choreography—perhaps describe one of your favorite projects?
Claudia: When I’m creating, I would say that it comes down to drawing inspiration from others. I’ve discovered over the years that everything ultimately becomes a collaboration. I may not always be in constant conversation with the composer of a score, for example, but there’s always this sense of push and pull and exploring other people’s ideas. In the end, that helps me unlock ideas that I wouldn’t have developed on my own. I love pursuing interdisciplinary projects and working with composers, designers, filmmakers, and other creatives.
6. Can you briefly describe your dance background and training?
Claudia: I started dancing at three years old -- I guess at that age it’s more like creative movement than ballet -- but that was my initial introduction to dance. I studied with Stephanie Marini at The Ballet School of Stamford up until I graduated and went to Harvard. It was essentially pre-professional classical ballet training with a bit of modern and strength training mixed in, but mostly technique class and performance.
7. Who is one of your favorite choreographers and why?
Claudia: This is such a hard question for so many reasons. I just watched the Twyla Tharp documentary, and it reminded me how much I love the fact that she has been pushing boundaries and churning out amazing works her whole life, and continues to. In the Upper Room is just this absolute nonstop powerhouse of 40 minutes’ worth of music. I love her sense of drive and immediacy, and her need to create in the moment. I also didn’t have really clear exposure to modern dance when I was growing up, and so discovering the great masters later on, in particular Paul Taylor, Martha Graham, and Alvin Ailey, has given me a much wider and deeper appreciation for dance and for the art of creating movement. That wasn’t just one, but there are so many!
8. What role did HBC play in your college life and how did it affect your career trajectory?
Claudia: HBC was an extraordinary resource for me, and it became a family, a source of inspiration, and a real foundation for where I landed in my career. Like I said before, my trajectory was atypical, because traditionally a choreographer develops through some sort of professional company system, whereby they might get to create works with their fellow company members while balancing a really arduous performing career. And that’s if they get the chance to create at all, since there tends to be an imbalance between female and male choreographers in terms of opportunities. With HBC, though, I was given the opportunity to create early on, even in freshman year, when I created a duet on my dear friend Joanna Binney and Jeremy Sueker. Other than the pressures I placed on myself, it was free of all external pressures and expectations. That was the case for the entirety of my time at Harvard, and it gave me a place to feel safe creating and experimenting with movement. I was also surrounded by several female choreographers, including Elizabeth Bergmann, who was the head of the dance department at the time, and a number of friends and classmates who were also creating. So until I left the Harvard bubble, I didn’t really understand how much of a gender disparity there was in the choreographic field, and in ballet in particular, because it never occurred to me that this was something that not a lot of women were doing. I had a lot of opportunities with HBC and the Harvard dance department, including taking two of my ballets to the American College Dance Festival Association (ACDFA, now known as ACDA , and one of them to one of the first Ivy Exchange Programs at the Merce Cunningham studios (now the Martha Graham studios). That was one of my first New York performances, and it was a formative experience. I was surrounded by a number of extraordinary dancers, including those who had danced professionally or were currently doing so, and so I was always working with a stellar set of tools. I really had everything at my disposal there.
9. What is one of the biggest challenges you think the dance world faces today?
Claudia: One of the biggest challenges is something that is really a global problem, and that’s the issue of inequity and poverty. The lack of diversity in the dance world is something that I’m so glad that we’re starting to talk about in a real way that just wasn’t part of the conversation even just over a year ago. The killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and so many others sparked global conversations that infiltrated into our own conversations in the dance world. When we speak about how we can bring more diversity onto the stage, into the studio, and everywhere in between, there are a lot of steps that can be taken immediately to make dancers of color feel more welcome, whether it’s by allowing them to style their hair the way they want or to wear skin-toned tights and shoes. We’re really talking about an access problem. Learning ballet is expensive and an enormous barrier to entry, perhaps more so than in other art fields. We need to focus on the greater issue, which is fixing the wealth gap and making dance a more equitable endeavor from the very beginning. I am where I am today in large part because my family could afford to put me in dance from the age of three and keep me there. It’s not just getting a scholarship for a year or two years and hoping someone else can pick up where that scholarship left off. We’re talking about making sure this is a long-term change, looking 15, 20 years forward. This isn’t going to happen overnight, and a lot of us are looking for that quick fix, but I would say that we need to look outward and commit to addressing the broader challenge.
10. What is one of the biggest challenges that you’ve faced as a choreographer?
Claudia: One of the biggest problems I’ve dealt with as a choreographer is trying to achieve work-life balance. It ultimately comes down to the way one creates, because if you’re not taking care of yourself, then your work product and artistic vision are going to suffer. As Harvardians, many of us know how hard it is not to sink into our perfectionist, Type A personalities. It works until it doesn’t, and then it can really take a toll on your sleep, your eating habits, and your relationships. It’s been challenging to maintain a sense of normalcy. You’ll never really have a “normal” life as an artist, and that’s kind of a given, but I’m learning, though not always succeeding, to say “alright, I’m going to take the night off, and I’m going to eat a proper dinner, and I’m going to watch the sunset, or watch something and go to bed.” That sense of guilt from not always being “on” is something that’s difficult to navigate, but if you’re operating at 100% all the time, you’re going to break down at some point, and it’s just not a sustainable way to live. It’s different from a 9-5 where I could just close the laptop and pick up again the next day. I work for myself, which is such a wonderful thing, and I’m so grateful for that, but I need to make sure that I, as my employer, give myself the latitude to breathe. By doing so, it allows me to connect with the world more authentically.
11. While the pandemic sidelined many dancers, it also created the conditions for change and innovation in the dance world. What is one innovation in the dance world that originated during the pandemic which you believe might stick around post-pandemic and why?
Claudia: Zoom rehearsals, I believe, should stick around. As frustrating as they can be, it’s actually a wonderful asset to be able to jump across a city or across the world, fix something for an hour, and go on with your day. I think it comes with certain caveats, like being unable to run the music on your end without a delay, or having a shabby Wi-Fi connection that makes everyone freeze, but I think it will become a really useful tool for companies and schools. Even beyond choreography, it’s great for teaching purposes. I know a lot of instructors and students who have loved being able to connect with people all across the world and share these experiences with one another. I hope that continues, as it’s something we could have been doing all along. I also unexpectedly enjoyed a lot of aspects of the Zoom rehearsal process, because it forced me to think and create in new ways. When creating my latest work for Atlanta Ballet, Pleiades Dances, I worked with ballet master Rory Hohenstein for the first time, and he and I just clicked. During each rehearsal, I would communicate intricate counts to him over Zoom, and he would observe and internalize my movement even if he could only see from the chest up sometimes, and he was able to relay that to the dancers in real time with a great amount of detail and accuracy. And so I developed a really special relationship with Rory, and he took stewardship of the ballet in a unique way. Had I been in the studio the whole time, he would have been taking notes on the side and running music, and the circumstances wouldn’t have necessitated us gelling the way that we did. So now I know going forward that when I create my next work there, we have that bond and he has my back. Discoveries like that are so special, and it wouldn’t have happened otherwise.
12. What is one of your favorite HBC memories?
Claudia: One of my favorite HBC memories is from a couple days ago, because my friend Joanna Binney, who I mentioned earlier, just got married, and I was a bridesmaid in her wedding. Kate Penner was also a bridesmaid, and a number of HBC alums like Jordan Roberts and Larissa Koch were there, and Jessica Flores, who was the technical director at the time, officiated the wedding. It goes to show what a family HBC is; it’s such a genuine connection that you build when you’re there. Yesterday, I saw Liz Walker and Puanani Brown, two close friends to whom I owe my career because they were just such a formative part of it. Liz danced for me at Harvard, filled in for an injured dancer at Columbia, then she was in my 2015 program at the Ailey Citigroup Theater and my 2017 program at The Joyce Theater. She’s just been there for me the whole time. Both professionally and personally, you form these bonds and you just never know how they’re going to impact you after you leave, like a lot of relationships at Harvard. You form incredible connections, and then you get to be in people’s weddings and it’s great!
13. Congratulations on being part of Boston Ballet’s ChoreograpHER series in the spring! What do you most look forward to in being part of that series and what do you think of Boston Ballet’s initiative in supporting women choreographers?
Claudia: Thank you so much, I am so excited to be choreographing for Boston Ballet for their spring program. It’s such an amazing company, and to be able to create at a company of that caliber with those extraordinary dancers is just a wonderful opportunity. It also feels like a kind of homecoming, because that was the company that I looked to when I was at Harvard, starting to formulate ideas about what I wanted to do when I grew up. Mikko Nissinen came and taught master classes, and we as a group went to the Opera House a few times. I have these visceral memories of seeing Jiři Kylián works and Forsythe ballets, and I know for a fact that’s where some of my desire to choreograph started. So it feels very much like a full circle moment to be able to come back and work with the company in this way. The fact that they are creating this program specifically in support of women choreographers is important, and it’s necessary because until gender equality is no longer part of the conversation, it matters. We need to have programs like this so that more women are brought to the forefront of our profession and given opportunities on large-scale stages. One of the things I most like about this program is that I believe they’ve done it before. They understand its value, and they appreciate what it means not only for the works we’re creating, but how that visibility reflects on the community and what it means for other young female choreographers who are looking to make this their main gig. So I'm really heartened to see the company taking it so seriously, and I am grateful to be a part of it.
14. If you had to describe HBC in a single word what would it be?
Claudia: I would say familial, or family, for the reasons I described before. It’s just such a tight-knit, amazing community of friends and family. You just never know until you're a little bit further down the line how much these bonds you’re making now are going to mean to you, but it really is incredible. I remember when I was in my freshman year, there were dancers who had graduated years before who were still coming back to support us for our performances. Even then, the alumni community was really strong, and I know it continues to grow today.
15. Finally, what advice would you give to current HBC members during these uncertain times?
Claudia: I'd say just keep doing you. For everything that we’ve all gone through, I think HBC is just a remarkable community, and Harvard students in general are resilient. I have loved watching the ways in which you have all pivoted to accommodate these uncertain and bizarre times, while also taking advantage of the circumstances to create the beautiful digital program that you made last spring. You connected to each other in new ways that have their own intrinsic value, and you grew communities that will support you when you join together again. It speaks to how successful you are all going to be in the immediate future and also years down the line. So, you can take heart in knowing that this is one of the few things that we’ve literally all gone through together. Of course, some have not had it nearly as hard as others, and that is something that we need to keep in mind. So to that point, be there for each other, support one another, always assume that there's more going on behind the scenes than you know, and know that you’re going to be okay. We’re going to get through this.