Conversations with Creators: Adam Barruch and the Power of Dynamic Sequencing

“Growing up, I was a singer as well as an actor, but dance is what I fell in love with,” says New York-based choreographer and licensed acupuncturist Adam Barruch. “I’m very much interested in the intersection of healing and dance and seeing how they intertwine.”

Barruch began his career as a young actor, performing professionally on Broadway and in film and television, working with prominent figures such as Tony Bennett, Jerry Herman and Susan Stroman. He later received dance training at LaGuardia High School for Music & Art and Performing Arts. After three years, he graduated early and was accepted into the dance department at The Juilliard School. As a dancer he has performed the works of Jirí Kylián, Ohad Naharin, Susan Marshall, Jose Limon, Daniele Dèsnoyers, and was a dancer with Sylvain Émard Danse in Montreal. He has also worked with The Margie Gillis Dance Foundation, performing and researching Conflict Transformation as part of The Legacy Project. Adam currently creates and performs work with own company, Anatomiae Occultii (Hidden Anatomies)—founded with longtime collaborator Chelsea Bonosky.

As a choreographer, Barruch’s work has been presented at venues such as The Joyce Theater, Dance Theater Workshop, City Center, NYU/ Skirball Center for the Performing Arts, The Juilliard School, The Baryshnikov Arts Center, Ailey-Citigroup Theater, The 92Y: Buttenweiser Hall, Jacob’s Pillow: Inside/Out, and more. He has also created works for companies such as The Limón Company, Ailey II, Keigwin + Company, Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company, River North Dance Chicago, BalletX, Whim W'Him Seattle Contemporary Dance, Graham II, GroundWorks Dance Theater, Minnesota Dance Theatre, The Gibney Dance Company, 10 Hairy Legs, and Daniel Costa Dance—as well as for dance icons Margie Gillis and Miki Orihara. Barruch is also the developer of ‘Dynamic Sequencing,’ a movement practice designed to promote expansive range, healthful coordination and optimal awareness in motion. Adam Barruch holds a Master’s Degree in Acupuncture from Pacific College of Health and Science, and is a Licensed Acupuncturist in New York State.

 

How did you originally enter the world of performing arts?

When I was in third grade, my music teacher chose our class to be in one of the high school productions. They needed kids in the show, so we performed in the production. I fell in love with the entire world; I loved being on stage and became really fascinated with movement. The show had a lot of dancing in it, and I began learning the choreography.

My parents were amazing; they saw how much I enjoyed the process of being in the show, so they signed me up for musical theater classes. I started going to a studio in Westchester, learning from my teacher in all areas of singing, acting, and dancing. I was doing community theater at the time, and in one production I auditioned for, it just so happened that the composer of the show had a friend who was an agent. He told the agent, “there’s a young person in the show – I’m not going to tell you who it is, but I think you’re going to be interested in signing this person, so when you see the show, let me know.” When the agent came to see the show, she singled me out. I ended up signing with the agent and began auditioning. The second or third audition I did, I got the job for A Christmas Carol at Madison Square Garden. I was lucky enough to perform in the show for two years in a row, and it was my introduction to professional theater.

I did a lot of productions, some TV and recoding work, and fell in love with dance even more. At the high school age, I realized if I wanted to do musical theater, I needed more classical, rigorous training ballet. I ended up auditioning for LaGuardia High School for the Performing Arts and was accepted. I went there for three years, where I was exposed to modern dance and my transition to contemporary dance began. I auditioned for Juilliard when I was a junior in high school and was accepted to begin training there. My love for contemporary dance began.

During your training years in college, was your mindset to find a job in dance, or were you considering choreographing already?

It’s an interesting story. I didn’t actually finish at Juilliard. I did two years and then decided to leave. I loved my teachers, fellow students and everyone there, but I felt the environment made me second guess myself. I began to doubt my abilities and became extremely nervous to perform; it was a struggle for me to get up onstage. I became overly perfectionistic about my technique and in my head a lot. I felt that it was probably best if I take myself out of the program.

At Juilliard, my first composition class was with Elizabeth Keen, which was one of my favorite experiences because I was given all these assignments to execute and create around extraordinarily creative and talented people. I began making a lot of work at school. I always knew I wanted to create, but I didn’t necessarily think I would do it right off the bat. After leaving Juilliard, I started creating work before I started dancing in people’s work, because I was a little nervous to perform. I went back to LaGuardia after I left Juilliard and created for their Senior Dance Concert when I was 19 years old. I was only a year or two older than the graduating seniors. I began working with Steven Weinstock again, who created the music for the piece. It was my first work outside of Juilliard with a cast of 13 dancers and was an amazing experience. 

How did your choreographic career progress since your first work?

I started to make a lot of work on students in training and watching videos in the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. I would go into the studio and try to emulate choreographic textures that I was watching in different choreographers. As I was choreographing on students, I began developing my voice. When my friends graduated from Juilliard a few years later, I began teaching and creating on them. In 2009 I self-produced my first short show. It was a 40-minute evening length work at the Baryshnikov Arts Center.

A few years later, I presented my work more formally at the Association of Performing Arts Presenters (APAP) conference. I started getting commissions for work and dance companies. Opportunities took off after that, and simultaneously, I started feeling a little bit more confident in myself as a performer. I took some time during those years to perform for some companies up in Montreal. It was kind of an unexpected trajectory that happened but also pushed me back into creating and performing. I figured, if I perform in my work, no one will get mad at me, because it’s my work. I felt a little more confident creating on myself. And that's really what enabled me eventually to get back on stage.

When you were an emerging choreographer, were your inspirations at the time? Do you have any significant inspirations in terms of your choreography now?

I was investigating a movement vocabulary that felt organic to me, which was an exploration of different choreographers and people that I worked with who inspired me. I started collecting ideas, creating work based off physical textures. I found interest in creating work that was human and theatrical, with an emotional center going back to my roots as an actor. I felt safest moving when I had some type of emotional initiation, such as a narrative or organic reason to move, rather than something purely physical or technically abstract. Being able to express myself through movement is what made me feel safe.

When I was at school, I deviated from movement because I became so technically obsessed and nervous to move. One of my teachers at the time said, “you know, movement can be really emotional.” At the time, I didn’t really understand. It was only when I left school and began investigating different choreographers and works that I started to see movement I connected with physically and emotionally. I then integrated that into my own work.

How would you describe your movement practice and style?

I would call it kinetic gesture. My movement is very much initiated and oriented in gesture, based on vocabulary of the arms and hands. I always feel like my hands and arms are the windows into my internal landscape. I’ve been really inspired by choreographers who utilize gesture and por de bras in their work. It’s something I explored from the beginning.

Your movement holds so much expansiveness, I’m curious if you can explain developing the practice you refer to as dynamic sequencing?

I was introduced to floorwork by an incredible artist, dancer, teacher, Feldenkrais practitioner named Ami Shulman. I took her classes up in Montreal in 2009 and it felt like I was coming home to something that I needed to investigate; up until then my training had been very classically oriented. I had never experienced a release technique or anything inherently skeletal in my training. I had some Limón technique which was based in breath and release, but I’ve never experienced that in a skeletal way on the floor. I was really inspired by her and her classes, and began taking some of her vocabulary, using it as vocabulary as a warmup for my work. I felt too locked or muscularly bound after taking a ballet class.  I started developing elements based off of Limón, the floor classes that I had with Ami, Feldenkrais and Alexander Technique, taking all of these movement practices over the years and putting them together. That’s kind of how I developed my class.

What is the sequencing of your class?

My class starts on the floor with sequences engaging with the weight of the skeleton and disengaging from the musculature of the body. There’s a definite circularity in the movement as well. The phrases start to build into standing movements. It’s meant to warm up the body and create the expansiveness and to be able to make choices in movement and keep the choice making alive. I find that I want to create a class where people can find real homeostasis in their body and be aware of their bodies, so if something should go wrong or go off center, they have this understanding of flexibility or a certain kind of oscillation in their body that allows them to recalibrate safely.

Are there parallels between your choreographic process for a rehearsal and setting work versus creating the framework of your class? 

I think it's very different. I keep my class as a chance to acclimate and find my center, but the patterning is very similar to my choreographic work, which is very sequential and skeletal in nature. I've been told that it feels anatomically logical, even though there's a complexity to the sequences. I tend not to make work that goes against the natural flow of where movement is going. I rarely change direction in an erratic way. I like things to feel good and for things to feel easy. I don’t like working super hard in certain ways. I like to push myself emotionally, but I don’t necessarily always love a physical push that doesn’t feel circular or sequential.

How do you approach a movement process with new dancers in the room?

First, I always try to teach a class for them, so they understand more of where I’m coming from, from a purely physical place. I always teach dancers movement that comes from my body. Even if I know the dancers I’m working with can do more than me, I teach them something I created in my frame. It’s important for them to see how I relate to my mind, hands, and heart center while I’m moving. Once they understand the patterning, I tend to deviate from anything I create in my own body. I ask them to generate movement and kinetic gestures which take them through space, and so on. I come in with a certain thematic element that I’m interested in exploring. We begin building a vocabulary that’s based off both my body and the bodies and minds in the room.

Has there been a specific choreographic opportunity or moment which stands out to you as a meaningful or gratifying career moment?

I have two that I can mention. I work a lot with a dear friend and collaborator named Chelsea Benoski. We’ve created a lot of shows and piece together and she’s assisted me in many choreographic processes. There was a moment where we were scheduled to perform in Bryant Park onstage in a duet we made in 2015 based off of a Nathaniel Hawthorne short story. It was a gothic, intense and dramatic piece, and I was feeling a bit trepidatious about it because it’s harder to really rein peoples’ focus in with such a distracting, noise-filled area. When we were preparing to perform, a huge rainstorm started accumulating in New Jersey into Manhattan. When it started raining, the show was cancelled. I noticed there was this huge patch of dirt in front of the stage as it was raining and I said to Chelsea, “wouldn’t it be amazing if we just perform this piece right now, in the rain, in the dirt?” And she agreed. We asked the producer, and they agreed to play the music. We ended up doing the piece on a splits second notice. We performed the entire piece in the rain and dirt, like a site-specific installation. It was one of the most magical experiences I’ve ever had performing. It truly felt the way the piece was supposed to be. People stayed put under their umbrellas, and it was a truly special moment.

My other experience, which was magical, never truly came to full fruition. The pandemic kind of derailed it. I was developing a dance production of Sweeney Todd, which was one of the most incredible experiences. I created a solo with a mime element, like a Charlie Chaplin Marcel Marceau take on Angela Lansbury’s performance of the Worst Pies in London. I was with no props other than a table doing the entire number with my body through a long series of circumstances. Stephen Sondheim saw the solo and gave me permission to continue it. When I had a residency in California in 2015, I asked if I could investigate doing a full production with movement. He said yes, and I was able to meet with him. We worked on and off for many years. I had plans to perform it in 2019 into 2020, and unfortunately the pandemic happened. Maybe one day we’ll pick it back up again at some point, but the time working on it with that group of people was really magical for me. I love the material. I love music. As a musical theater kid, it was just a joy to work on that score and develop a theater-based dance piece. Both experiences are so significant, but for such different kind of reasons, like the ambience and environment they were held in.

What do you hope to communicate through your dance and work?

I want to communicate a humanity and vulnerability in my movement and my work. I want there to be some type of cathartic release, both as a performer and as an observer. I like to create work that feels like something you have to peer into; not something presentational but more so something you’re witnessing. I want people to feel and recognize themselves in the work.

What are you most excited for next?

I took the last four years and dedicated them to acupuncture school. It’s been a wild ride being in acupuncture school, maintaining my teaching practice, and making works here and there for training programs. I haven’t engaged in my own performing practice in a long time, so I’m really looking forward to not only incorporating my healing work into my life. I’m also excited to get back onstage and start making more work with Chelsea. I feel excited to ‘come back’ into my practice of making and performing more, and to see how the information I’ve  received over the last four years in school informs my work. I see the body in a very different way now, in terms of energetic anatomy and topography of the body. I’d like to make work that is healing, especially in today’s world, which holds much chaos. I’m interested in helping people in and out of the studio and theater.

 

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