Faculty member and Artist-in-Residence Fiona Lummis has spent the last decade teaching her firsthand knowledge of the repertoire of Jiří Kylián to USC Kaufman dancers.

By Jana F. Brown

For Fiona Lummis, who enjoyed a prolific career as a professional dancer, the transition from performing to teaching represented a natural evolution, not an ending.

“I loved performing, I loved being a dancer, and there was always this question of what you do when you stop,” Lummis explains.

She is now two decades into a career as an educator, following 20 years with Netherlands Dance Theater (NDT), which began with two years in the junior company, NDT2, before joining the main company as a principal dancer. During her time at NDT, Lummis danced primarily under the directorship of renowned Czech choreographer Jiří Kylián, who choreographed 15 of his iconic contemporary roles specifically for her, including that of the Moon Princess in “Kaguyahime.”

When Lummis decided to close the chapter on her performance career, she was anointed as one of only a few in the dance world authorized to stage Kylián’s works. She’s now been doing that at USC Kaufman for nearly a decade.

Prior to joining Kaufman, her transition began when Lummis began teaching at a summer course while still dancing with NDT, and then staging a piece at her alma mater, Elmhurst Ballet School, in her native England. The motivation behind that shift was multifaceted, Lummis notes, expressing her desire at the time to keep a foot (or two) in the dance world, while also starting a family, which now includes two adult sons. Her husband, fellow NDT dancer Glen Eddy, already had made the jump from performing to teaching, and Lummis decided to test the waters.

“It’s a hard thing to find your career after dancing,” Lummis reiterates. “I realized I wanted to keep the repertoire in my body, in my system. So, I looked for opportunities, and we ended up moving to Los Angeles.”

Once in L.A., Lummis was able to keep performing at a high level while also launching her personal second act. She spent several years teaching dance at L.A. County High School of the Arts, before joining Kaufman as an artist-in-residence.

Her authorization to stage Kylián’s works came through Lummis’s direct relationship with the Kylián Foundation, built from her years creating with the choreographer. Lummis’ deep understanding of the artist’s nuances from the inside, having been present “from the beginning, when pieces were created and experiencing hours in the studio,” gives her special insight into staging them.

At Kaufman, Lummis has directed excerpts from several Kylián ballets, including “Symphony of Psalms,” “Falling Angels,” “Sarabande,” “Un Ballo,” “Whereabouts Unknown,” and “Forgotten Land.” She explains that the focus on snippets rather than full ballets is a result of the complexity and cost of staging complete Kylián works, which often require orchestras, sets, and complex production elements.

When staging the pieces, Lummis includes as many students as possible, viewing the exploration of  Kylián’s distinctive style as an essential part of their dance education and exposure to a crucial contemporary dance legacy. She also incorporates Kylián into her partnering classes, selecting excerpts from different periods of his career to show the choreography’s evolution. Lummis emphasizes that most dancers “find themselves” in Kylián’s work, characterizing his themes as deeply humanistic, dealing with fundamental subjects such as life, death, and love.

“His exceptional musicality is a defining feature,” Lummis adds, comparing Kylián’s approach to poetry, “with the movement fitting the music like a glove.”

Lummis adds that Kylián’s meticulous editing process during creation also sets him apart. She calls him a skilled editor who allows dancers vast exploration in the studio, before refining each piece.

“You could work for a day, and you felt like you made a whole ballet,” Lummis says. “But he would really shape it and sculpt it down until we got to the essence of what worked with the music and what worked with the whole…and you’d be left with this pure little nugget.”

Whether Lummis is staging Kylián or another artist (she also stages pieces by another mentor, the legendary Hans Van Manen, who considered her a muse), she views repertoire as crucial for dance education. She compares it to actors performing Shakespeare and emphasizes the difference between simply teaching steps and directing a piece to flow effectively on the dancers in front of her.

“While technique provides the foundation, repertoire allows dancers to open their hearts and develop as interpreters of existing works,” she explains.         

Lummis is always impressed by the caliber of her students at Kaufman, sharing that their level of excellence and motivation is what allows her to effectively teach and stage sophisticated pieces.

Beyond Kaufman, Lummis is in an artist in regular demand, as she stages for professional companies. Recent projects have included working for Houston Ballet, where she staged “Overgrown Path”; Ballet Arizona, where she’s currently staging a Van Manen composition; and an upcoming project with American Ballet Theatre, where she’ll collaborate with her husband to stage Kylián’s “Nuages.”

While Lummis expresses particular fondness for several Kylián works, she singles out 1978’s “Symphony of Psalms” as a cornerstone of the choreographer’s repertoire and notes that it was the first piece she staged at Kaufman in 2016. Two decades since deciding to transition away from the spotlight, Lummis remains grateful to be able to continue the legacy she began as a performer. “To be on the other side and be generous, that’s a gift that keeps giving,” she says, adding that the choreography continues to reveal new layers. “I feel like I have that deep understanding, but I also now can understand how important the staging is, how important the lights are, how important it is to direct the whole piece.”