JACQULYN BUGLISI

Interview by Celia Ipiotis

Best known for her iconic 9/11 dance, Jacqulyn Buglisi’s Table of Silence spreads across the Lincoln Center plaza in a meditative prayer to peace and goodwill. Indeed, the gestation of this piece was not an accident because Buglisi sustains a lifelong concern for the world and its inhabitants.

This conviction– everyone must embrace the past and reach out to the future to make this world a better place for all — is centered in just about every single one of her works. And that sentiment was in full view when Buglisi’s 6 dance works were on view for the one night only at the Ailey Citicorp Theater. 

Before each piece, Buglisi greeted the audience and drew out the context of each piece. 

When I asked her what influences her choreography, Buglisi began quoting classic writers, poets and the works of visual artists. Literature provides a springboard for ideas that gain form in motion through space. Her affair with dance began when she studied Wigman technique only to meet the great lady, Mary Wigman, who directed her to Graham. Brilliant at abstracting epic world stories, Graham challenged her dancers to invest time consuming the classics including Greek myths and authors like Emily Dickinson.

Buglisi’s creative tentacles are wide and varied. They stretch from literary and historical sources to music and architectural designs. “You can’t negate history…it elevates, illuminates, expands and gives us hope which we need at this time–hope inspires the good to reveal itself in the human story.”

These lofty sounding quips are truly embraced by Buglisi in her works and her everyday life. All her dances suggest a sense of community, a pulling together. Individuals support one another in imaginative pairings while sustaining their individuality. In particular, Buglisi women project strength and determination. 

When asked about the visual design identifying her choreography, Buglisi points to a use of serpentine shapes and asymmetry unless projecting lyricism, and then the patterns yield to symmetry.

From her 50 years of teaching, Buglisi has invested students not just with the tools to dance, but the tools to think. Some of the students she mentors become members of her company, and she hopes they will hold onto her teachings, her forward looking ideas and belief that everyone is a miracle. 

When asked what she would like to hear a student say about her, Buglisi muses, “…she inspires us to be the best we can.”

Not one to pause, Buglisi, looks forward to another iteration of her spectacle The Table of Silence Project 9/11 and future seasons embodying the best of us all.

EYE ON THE ARTS, NY – Celia Ipiotis