Carol Nolte: Choreographer, Artistic Director of WestFest

Carol Nolte says she has been dancing all her life. But it wasn’t until her late 20s that she was able to devote herself to dance and choreography. Originally based in New Jersey, her company Dance Collective performed for schools and communities throughout New Jersey and on the East Coast. Subsequent iterations of the company performed in the New York City downtown arts scene. Carol also works as a soloist and has had a number of artist residencies. A Westbeth resident since 1989, she is the founder of WestFest, the spring dance festival that includes a tour in and around Westbeth to see site-specific dances and also features performances in the Martha Graham Studio Theater (formerly the Merce Cunningham Studio). The festival has been a huge success over the years; in spring 2023, WestFest drew about 700 visitors. Carol has two children, who also chose a life focused on the arts: her daughter Laura Wilson is a visual artist, and her daughter Elizabeth Wilson is an art teacher.

Terry Stoller spoke with Carol Nolte on July 30, 2023, about starting her company Dance Collective; the vicissitudes of her personal life; moving to SoHo and putting her company back together; her artist residencies; working as a public school arts counselor; her early collaborations with Westbeth artists; creating WestFest and shepherding the dance festival as artistic director for more than a decade.

Terry Stoller: Were you dancing with other companies before you formed the Dance Collective?

Carol Nolte: No. I was not. But I danced my whole life. I graduated from Brown. They did not have a dance company at that time. Then I went to law school; then I got married; then I had children. Before I was 30, I decided that I had to dance. So I went to the New School, and got a dance degree there. While I was still in the school, I started my dance company. We lived in Alpine, New Jersey. I had my own studio. It was divine.

Who did you choose to be in your dance company?

The New School was really an entrance into the downtown dance scene. While I was there, I was also taking classes with Merce Cunningham, Paul Taylor, and other downtown choreographers. So I learned the ropes. I would audition people in New York, and they would take the bus to the George Washington Bridge, and I would pick them up, and we would rehearse. The local church lent me their community house. It had a beautiful raised floor, and we would rehearse and have class there.

How many people were in your company?

I always had five. At that time, I had two men and three women, one of which was me. It was during Jimmy Carter’s presidency. There was a lot of funding for producers, for people who were hiring dance. We would do maybe fifty performances a year. We traveled all over New Jersey, the schools, community centers. We went to campsites in the summertime. Then we started touring the East Coast. One of my dancers was from South Carolina, so we went to universities there. We didn’t do a lot of that because I had kids.

Did you become familiar with how to run a business?

Yes, that’s me. I decided early on that this was a business. When I was in New Jersey, I had all this support. I had a board. They would give fund raisers and cocktail parties. I went into what we would call here “big time.” We didn’t scrounge around or start out slow. We started out fast. We were able to teach and choreograph in all the schools in Teaneck, New Jersey. The best school was the Catholic school. We helped the whole graduating class choreograph their graduation program as a performance piece, which was radical at the time.

Were you the main choreographer for your company?

I was the choreographer. I had a partner, Phyllis Munkens. I was the artistic director, and she was one of my dancers and the businessperson as well.

What kind of music did you use for your company’s dances?

I had a composer, Jerome Neuhoff, who was the music director for the company. He composed music for my early work. One of the first dances we did was all about birds, and he wrote a different piece of music for each bird. We performed that piece at the Washington Square United Methodist Church in Greenwich Village. We also did a full evening production with Jerry’s music at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine.

How long did the members of your company stay with you?

Till my life fell apart at the end of the ’70s. We were together in the ’70s, ten years more or less. I formed the beginning company with people I knew. Then I started auditioning or meeting people in class in New York. I was going to three classes a day in New York.

Was the company always limited to five members?

Yes, that’s what I could afford. I always paid the dancers.

But at some point things fell apart.

We were living on an old estate in New Jersey. I had gotten one divorce, and I had a second husband. Then the owners sold the estate, and we had to move. I found a 150-year-old barn, north of there in Rockland County. So we moved up to this barn to renovate it, and built this beautiful studio in the barn. And then in one month, my second marriage ended, my Dance Collective partner moved South, and I could no longer afford the barn.

Of course, I wanted to be in the city anyway because I had come to that point in my career. I wanted to compete and be here. I didn’t want to be anywhere else. I moved to the city in 1983. I moved to SoHo in this building where artists lived. It had no legal electricity or doors. I lived in and did performances in that loft. I did one in a SoHo gallery. That’s what I’ve always done. I just gather people. Those weren’t just dancers; they were friends of mine, actors, poets.

Were you choreographing new pieces?

I choreographed for those spaces and included other artists doing their work as well.

Were you still called the Dance Collective?

Yes, because I had a 501(c)(3). I was paying everybody. God knows how. I had no money. I couldn’t even get on the subway. I was that broke.

I didn’t get stuck in that crazy building for too long. Right next to me was the Performing Garage, and I went to see Spalding Gray do his Swimming to Cambodia monologue. After which, he came offstage and said he’d been offered a tour, and he wanted to rent his loft to a sober, quiet single woman. I was too shy to say, me, but I wrote him a note, and I got his loft. I lived in his loft for two and a half years. That loft was split with Elizabeth LeCompte and Willem Dafoe. Then things developed: I sold the barn and got some money and put the company back together. SoHo was great to live in then.

Dance Collective at Merce Cunningham Studio, 2005.

Where were you performing?

We did the Kitchen; Dia had a performance space then; all the downtown little venues and not touring anymore. I always had to have day jobs then. I was temping—did a lot of temping. I developed a side specialty, which was writing public relations for engineering and architecture firms. I had a series of those jobs just long enough so that I could get health insurance and keep it for six months.

That must have been good writing experience.

I’m a good writer. I always have been, since college.

You’ve been able to reach out to the press. In the 2000s, your performances were listed in the New York Times for a number of years.

When I was running a company, I also did a lot of fund raising, a lot of grant writing, and I received many grants. I did really well. We’re talking about the ’90s, the 2000s. I paid the dancers, always. I ran this business. One time when I was in the loft in SoHo, I lost $800, and I said that would never happen again. And it never did.

You also spent time in Taos, New Mexico.

In the mid ’90s, about 1995, I started going to artist residencies in the summertime. I went to Taos, California, Hawaii. My kids were in college by then. It was great because it was free, and it was a way to travel and be with other people. When I was in Taos, I met an architect who was the groundskeeper at the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation, where I was staying. He said, I could build you a house. I said, OK. We found property, and we built this house. I got help from my boyfriend at the time and a little from my family. It took seven years because it was all local contractors. They would often not come to work. They’d say, “I have to go to the mountains.” I’d rent out the house in the winter for the skiers in whatever shape it was in, and I’d come back every summer.

By then, I was working in high school in New York through the SPARK program [School Prevention of Addiction Through Rehabilitation and Knowledge] at Chelsea High School at Spring Street and Sixth Avenue. I walked to work, and I also rehearsed in SoHo. I did that for fifteen years. I started the same year I moved in here, 1989. I was an arts counselor. They hired five artists, one dance, one music, one theatre, one drawing, one technical person. The theatre person was Ron Cephas Jones, who became very famous. It was a nice group. Our mission was to do a traveling substance prevention show for high schools all over the boroughs. We’d go for a residency at a school for a week. And we’d already have a set piece in which some of the kids could fill in, and we’d perform it in the assembly.

But that didn’t happen very often. The schools could not provide resources or support. So they made us counselors, and we were dispersed to different schools, and we were supposed to work with the kids in these schools. I went to the High School of Fashion Industries and Chelsea High School. But this was unwanted in the schools. I could go into the classrooms at Chelsea, but at Fashion I couldn’t even go into the classroom. What the job employed was my mothering skills. I had an office, and the kids would come and go. And we’d do afterschool programs when there was room. Things like that. I was able to make a strong relationship with a bunch of kids that had nothing. I’m very grateful for that job. I never would have been able to do that or experience it. I feel that was one of the most important things I’ve done in my life, working with those kids.

During that time, the whole fifteen years, my company was going strong. I was rehearsing in SoHo. When there was nothing to do at school, I did my art. I guess it was meant to be.

Dance Collective duets, Merce Cunningham Studio, 2008; props by Victor Maldonado.

You wrote in a Westbeth Chronicle that you did a show with Terry Noel here.

That was incredible. When I first came here, he was down the hall from me. He was the first person I met here because he was sitting outside his door locked out. He and Rudy Cardenas, his husband, were very generous. They’ve both passed away now. Terry was a big creator. We did a show in our Gallery, and he decorated every room as a different scene, lavishly. He dressed my company up as showgirls, and we had drag dancers that were his friends. Then we did a big show at the Bank, which was a converted performance space on Houston Street.

You’ve done a lot of performances at the Merce Cunningham Studio.

I was close with Merce. When I was at the New School, he used to do workshops. And I always took class at Merce. It’s a magnificent performance space, and we all in the dance world think that. I’ve done whatever I need to do to show my work there. Merce was a genius, and I was privileged to be around him. He got me into all those residencies. He’d write letters. He was very generous. When he got awards, he’d invite us to go. He was very kind.

You’ve said that a few years before the WestFest weekend, there had been a forerunner. For that festival, you were using the Gallery, the Community Room, and the Cunningham Studio. What were you doing?

That was under the auspices of the Field, a dance support organization. They got a grant for $20,000 to give twenty choreographers $1,000 each to do a collaborative project. Keith Michael, a dance friend, and I paired together with $2,000. And we did a weekend festival called Dance Blitz. It featured dance performances, dance videos, and dance films in different spaces. It ended up that the whole dance world came that weekend. This was the predecessor of WestFest in that we created the structure and asked people to apply. We produced it. It was a big deal to do all that.

I had done another festival in Taos, New Mexico, in 1996, with a guy from New York. It was very successful for one year, and then he ran off with the profits.

How did WestFest get started?

From the Field, I went on retreat in 2008 at the White Oak Plantation in Florida, where I met Pascal Rekoert, a dancer/choreographer. While we were away for the two weeks, he and I started conjuring things up. We decided to start a festival here at Westbeth because of this magic castle that has all these spaces. We worked for a whole year constructing the festival.

How did it all come together back then?

I was running it under Dance Collective in the very beginning under my 501. The first year, 2010, we did dance performances in various Westbeth spaces, and we had a video tribute to Merce Cunningham. The following year, George Cominskie jumped in and helped with finding the spaces, making the tours, and organizing the tenant tour guides. The heart and soul of WestFest became the touring program that uses these amazing treasured spaces all over. And we got a wonderful review in the New York Times with a two-page photo spread in that second year. [Claudia La Rocco, “Square Feet and Human Feet: Making a Building Move to the Music,” New York Times, May 2, 2011.]

George Cominskie explains WestFest tour to tenant guides as Carol watches, 2011.

Who were you looking for to perform here?

This is the way it’s changed: In the beginning even back to the little festival, historically, all the modern dancers lived in this neighborhood, the great choreographers, everybody. And so the idea was continuing in that tradition, like an homage. Since then, the area has changed totally; everybody has moved to Brooklyn. So now we get applications from everywhere. We’re interested in quality, artistic excellence. If you see the tapes, the diversity of people and the variety of work are remarkable. This last show in April 2023 was so creative, so amazing. The standard that we get is incredible.

Carol Nolte and Riley in performance, WestFest All Over, Westbeth Gallery, 2011. Paintings by Parviz Mohassel.

When did you start reaching out to so many different dancers?

We always have. We always advertised; now it’s in all the media things, all the dance organizations. We used to go to all the studios. We don’t have to do that anymore.

You featured 24 companies in this last festival. How many applicants did you get?

One hundred twenty. That’s a lot of work. I have two producers, Rachael Lieblein-Jurbala and Dylan Baker, who are paid. They’re not resident volunteers. Dylan has been doing it for probably seven years, and it was Rachael’s second year. I’ve always had those positions. And I’ve always insisted that they’re from the dance community, and they’re paid. WARC president Erin Quinn Purcell was the producer for this past year’s festival.

And does this team watch the audition tapes?

Yes, we do it separately, and then we come together. It used to be VHS’s, and we’d sit there for hours. Now they send a link.

Any highlights from the festivals that you particularly remember?

Every year has been so interesting and so good. In 2022 Jamal Jackson and his company’s street dance to Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring in the courtyard just thrilled me. I kept watching it over and over. So much of the work is good and exciting and surprising. I just love producing it. More and more, people value it and keep coming back. We have a core of stalwarts that are downtown dancers. We alternate, but I found you have to have that support and integration in the dance community.

Carol Nolte, WestFest, Merce Cunningham Studio, 2015.

WestFest is sponsored by WARC, and you have resident volunteers that lead the tours, and they’re free. The performances in the studio are not free. How do you decide who gets to do that work?

The applications are for either/or: the theatre or the site specific. We used to go out and search for the site specific, but now it’s very popular. We charge admission for the studio performances because we have to pay rent to the Martha Graham Studio Theater.

When do you start the process for the next WestFest festival?

We always start the first of October—that’s the beginning of the application process and also there’s so much Internet work.

Has the nature of the dancers changed over the years?

They’re much better trained. I think we went through a period when they weren’t as interesting. But now they’re very creative, very interesting, very brave and intent on taking risks and chances and identifying who they are—their race, their gender—that’s there as part of the work. That’s what I respond to. In my own work, especially since I’ve been doing solos in my elder years here, it’s always about me and who I am. I can say these dancers inspired me and gave me permission.

Carol Nolte, WestFest, Martha Graham Studio Theater, 2023.

Is there anything we haven’t discussed that you’d like to say?

The only thing I want to say is how much I appreciate living here. I came here in 1989. Every single morning since 1989, I wake up and thank whoever that this roof is over my head. I believe it has allowed me to do my work and to collaborate with other artists for my whole life here. It’s the greatest thing in the world.

To read more about Carol Nolte and Dance Collective, go to dancecollectiveny.com/about

Credits—Headshot: Alexander Berg; Carol Nolte, WestFest 2023: Steven Pisano. All images courtesy of Carol Nolte.

Terry Stoller is a Westbeth resident and author of Tales of the Tricycle Theatre.

Profiles in Art, Copyright 2023 Terry Stoller and Westbeth Artists Residents Council