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So how <\/strong>is<\/em><\/strong> dance a mother?<\/strong><\/p>\nROBERTS<\/strong> Dance nurtures, and it\u2019s grown me up so much, from the time I entered the professional space at 18 until now. It teaches you the hard lessons. Dance mothers you, and sometimes you just hate her, but no matter what, you love her. You\u2019re kind of stuck with her forever.<\/p>\nHow did this collaboration start?<\/strong><\/p>\nMEARNS <\/strong>We met in a park, and he asked me: \u201cWhat do you want to feel when you go out there? What head space are you going to be in when you go out onstage? What do you want to look like?\u201d I had never been asked those questions before about a piece. I almost didn\u2019t know how to answer. But it started this conversation about how we feel at this point in our careers.<\/p>\nIn what way?<\/strong><\/p>\nMEARNS <\/strong>We\u2019ve both had very long careers and been through a lot<\/em>: a lot of baggage, a lot of ups and downs, a lot of pain \u2014 but a lot of great things too. We started talking about that love and joy that we had when we were 10 years old. Is that still there? Only people at this stage would understand that or be able to answer that question or not answer that question. So I thought that was a very cool way of going in to make a piece.<\/p>\nJamar, how did you want the dance to feel?<\/strong><\/p>\nROBERTS <\/strong>I remember agreeing that we wanted to make a slow piece. Because everything is just mad turbo these days, myself and my work included. And I wanted it to feature Sara in the way that she felt the most comfortable. When we were at the park she said, \u201cI don\u2019t have to be the first one onstage.\u201d It\u2019s probably something that I would say if somebody was choreographing a piece for me. I wanted it to feel like each dancer\u2019s contribution was equal for the most part. Even though the piece is for the audience, I wanted it to feel like a glorified dance studio.<\/p>\nMEARNS <\/strong>But if this is slow to him, I don\u2019t even want to know what fast movement is.<\/p>\nROBERTS <\/strong>Listen, I said it would be a good challenge.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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Part of this experience is being able to dance with others on equal terms?<\/strong><\/p>\nMEARNS <\/strong>I think I did want to have a communal situation, because I don\u2019t really get to have that. Even if I\u2019m part of a bigger piece, it\u2019s usually, Sara, this is your movement. I\u2019m not saying there\u2019s anything bad about that, but I miss dancing in a group. This is a very close group of five people that are dancing together and that are on the same train, going the same place at the same rate.<\/p>\nJamar, why did you want to be in the piece?<\/strong><\/p>\nROBERTS <\/strong>That\u2019s kind of a deep question. Loaded. Choreography was feeding me in a certain way when I first started, and over time the honeymoon phase wears off, and so the question of purpose came into play. Not so much purpose in the grand sense, but a daily sort of purpose. The nearest thing that gave me that same sort of satisfaction or gratification was dance.<\/p>\nHow did you announce your plan?<\/strong><\/p>\nROBERTS<\/strong> I said to Sara, \u201cWhat would you think if I danced in the show?\u201d I was a little concerned only because I was like, It\u2019s Sara\u2019s show. Sara\u2019s a thing. I\u2019m a thing. And I didn\u2019t want to be up there taking the shine away from Sara. Tell her what you said, Sara.<\/p>\nMEARNS <\/strong>I sent back an entire text of exclamation points. I had been waiting for this moment. I was like, I can\u2019t ask him to be in it. I just can\u2019t do that to him because I don\u2019t think he\u2019s in that place anymore and I\u2019m not going to force it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n
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How is it going? Are you finding that satisfaction from dancing?<\/strong><\/p>\nROBERTS <\/strong>I don\u2019t really need the stage and the lights and the audience to get what I need from dance. So, yes.<\/p>\nIt\u2019s tough having to divide myself between the dance maker and the dancer. But I think it\u2019s reminded me of a certain power that you get from being able to will your body into doing things. It\u2019s a strange ego booster. It\u2019s an interesting little tool that dancers have.<\/p>\n
Do you relate to that?<\/strong><\/p>\nMEARNS <\/strong>Oh yes. That\u2019s what I mean when we both walk in the studio the same way. I feel like we both have that feeling of, \u201cI don\u2019t know if this is going to happen today.\u201d And then you get into the rehearsal vibe and you start learning steps and then you get into this groove. It\u2019s this unbelievable feeling. No one else can do that for me. I have to get there.<\/p>\nIt was much easier to get to the top, to get to this place many years ago. But then to consistently come back every single day and do it?<\/p>\n
Have you been able to return to that place of why you started dancing in the first place?<\/strong><\/p>\nROBERTS <\/strong>I have. The love has always been there, even when I\u2019m not performing. I don\u2019t think it\u2019ll ever go away.<\/p>\nMEARNS <\/strong>I was told once that I was an anomaly because of how I feel about dance. I don\u2019t feel this way about anything <\/em>else in my life. And sometimes that has shut me off from the world. That has made me feel alone or lonely or not like anybody else. But I wouldn\u2019t have it any other way, because this is what I\u2019ve dedicated my life to.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nSource link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The first time Sara Mearns stepped into a studio with Jamar Roberts, she knew they were cut from the same dance cloth.Read More ›<\/a><\/button><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46972,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/04\/03\/multimedia\/02MEARNS-01-vftz\/02MEARNS-01-vftz-facebookJumbo.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46971"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46971\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}