Katherine Helen Fisher (Kate) is a dancer, choreographer, producer, filmmaker and co-founder of thisiswater Productions. Kate has performed with Lucinda Childs, Mark Morris, MOMIX, ODC, Jennifer Muller/The Works, Johannes Wieland, PEARSONWIDRIG DANCETHEATER, Mark Dendy, Janis Brenner and Ann Carlson. Her choreography has appeared on stage and in film, including the collaborative, interdisciplinary dance/film, Finite & Infinite Games.

I first met Kate years ago, but we reconnected recently when I photographed dancer Jamie Verazin, who often works with Kate. I photographed Jaime while the two were rehearsing a new piece Kate was creating. While I was focused on Jaime as the subject of that shoot, I was also totally riveted by Kate. She’s a creative force in the studio and it’s amazing to watch.

For our shoot, I met Kate at her home near the Brooklyn Navy Yard. I then followed her through her day, which included creative meetings, working out at the gym, attending a ballet class, and rehearsing her new work, Leading Edge Disturbances.

Leading Edge Disturbances is premiering September 29-October 1, 2011 at Dancespace Project in NYC. Get tickets here. I can’t wait to see the final piece.

What inspires the movement you create?

People, places, behavior, books, music, memory, action. Systems especially influence the way in which I generate material. I enjoy employing a set of interacting or interdependent components in order to form an integrated whole. I like things to make sense!

What compels you to dance as a form of expression?

The medium of dance has always been a way for me to experience intimacy and to channel the lives of others in so doing. While performing I feel my own humanity unified with that of the audience, the choreographer, my fellow dancers. It is an exercise in holism which requires the participation of every individual in order to succeed.

While I was photographing you, you took Lenny Larson’s ballet class. You’re already an accomplished professional dancer, what else is there to learn?

Ballet is very much a meditative practice for me. I began studying ballet at age four and have not stopped since. The system of steps provides me with a safe place for my body while affording me space to access my current state of mind . In class, the world falls away and the sonorous piano sweeps away roadblocks on the creative path.

Your work usually involves a lot of collaboration. How do you find that working with others enhances your personal vision?

The collaborative process allows us to sidestep the limits of our vision as individuals. I can tend to be myopic, easily losing my way in the beautiful nuances of any given material. In reaching out to other artists and thinkers whom I respect to contribute to the work, I supersede my own shortsightedness and rely on many of the faceted perspectives of others. I believe this way of working enlarges the creative practice.

And how would you describe your relationship with your dancers?

Also collaborative. I encourage my dancers to be problem solvers. We work extensively with guidelines in generating movement. It can be a very methodical process. Emotion, intuition and interpretation, in my work, rest on structure. I require that the dancers be constantly engaged in the creative process. I rigorously cultivate the work but simultaneously expect the dancers to come to the table with their problem solving skills in full swing. I revere autonomy! When everyone is engaged in the group simultaneously, we achieve an unparalleled sense of communal accomplishment. The work is theirs as much as it is mine.

What do you hope to achieve with you work?

My work is ultimately about accessibility. Not in a the commercial sense per se but in cultivating a space where people can come to interact with ideas. Connectivity is key. If a writer, or scientist or mother or business person can find elements of their lives in the work, I know I have accomplished my aim. For me theater is not about escape but rather about the glorious unraveling of time. I hope to offer my audience an elevated experience of time wherein everyone’s potential to act is awakened.

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