Dance Work Creator Keeps Three’s Company Moving

In the world of dance, the saying that “Two’s company but three’s a crowd” applies more to people who are anxious for some earnest cheek-to-cheek than to those whose intentions are to invent dance entertainment.

For San Diego’s innovative Three’s Company, now 15 years old, the appropriate maxim has become “The more the merrier.”

The modern dance ensemble now numbers at least 10, but its core still consists of three primary movers.

At first the trio was made up of Jean Isaacs, Betzi Roe and Patrick Nollet, and all three remain part of the Three’s Company equation. But they have played a bit of a musical-chairs game with their roles of late.

Nollet stepped down from his co-artistic director’s post to pursue other interests, and he no longer exerts an influence on Three’s Company’s aesthetic.

There are still three names listed on the company letterhead, however. These days it’s Nancy McCaleb, the troupe’s first associate choreographer, who shares top billing with founding directors Isaacs and Roe.

“I was blessed with the wonderful opportunity of making dances on a good modern dance company--Three’s Company--and on dancers trained by a good teacher, Jean Isaacs,” said McCaleb. “Not many people have such an opportunity.”

McCaleb, who moved here from Oregon, danced a solo concert for Three’s Company in 1985. Something clicked between them, and the outsider was invited into the tightknit Three’s Company family in a process that McCaleb describes as “an evolution.”

“There was no laid-out definition of what I’d be doing. They just said, ‘Keep the choreography coming,’ so I intend to keep the choreography coming,” she said.

“We have used a lot of other choreographers, but not on a regular basis,” Isaacs acknowledged. “We made Nancy an associate because she is a very consistent artist and we want her to make art.

“We’re trying to keep her energies away from the director’s duties. She needs to be cultivated,” Isaacs said, “and we’re trying to give her what she needs to create dances. What we’d like here is a relationship like Joffrey had with Gerald Arpino, where Nancy would be free of other responsibilities so she can devote all her time to making new works.”

“We need creative input on a higher level,” said Roe. “Running the company is a big commitment, and it doesn’t leave enough time for making art. Nancy, with her mixed-media palette, is a valuable asset. She brings another artistic approach to our company.”

Ever since Three’s Company cleared the decks for McCaleb, the prolific dance maker has designed 12 dances for her adopted company. Her most recent work, a collaboration with ex-Twyla Tharp dancer John Malashock, was hailed by critics and audiences alike as a major addition to Three’s Company’s repertory.

But there’s more in McCaleb’s grab bag of theatrical tricks than dance images. The former Oregon Dance Theatre member conceived the sound scores for seven of her latest works, and she is often credited as visual artist and text writer, as well as choreographer-dancer for her offbeat works.

“I’m concerned with the music, the text and the visuals as they pertain to the context of my work,” McCaleb said. “I think the art and music for a piece are equally important as the dance. I don’t think any art form has the monopoly on depth.”

She credits an interdisciplinary background that includes music, art history and creative writing--her interdisciplinary master’s degree is in music, dance and art--for her eclectic approach to dance making. But her oeuvre includes almost as many pure dance works as theater pieces.

“I’ve been criticized for not making my work dancey enough,” McCaleb said. “But just ask my dancers about that.”

“We laugh when someone suggests that Nancy’s pieces don’t have much dance in them,” said Denise Dabrowski, one of the most accomplished dancers in town. “They say that about ‘Swamp’ and ‘Osirian Fields,’ and all of us had a difficult time getting through them we were so tired from the dance challenges.

“Nancy’s dances are really very technical, but, since she uses a lot of theatrical fusions, there are a lot of things to divert you while you’re watching them,” said Dabrowski.

“I’m trying to form a connection to some transcendental realm,” McCaleb said, “often in a surreal and funny way. Actually, I’m trying to form as many connections as I can, with many levels of creativity. I have a mystical approach to art, based on religion and spiritualism.”

Hoping to “touch people’s feelings,” McCaleb often draws on myth and abstract movement. But she’s not concerned about communicating messages in her dances.

“Dance is a very visceral experience, and I don’t care at all whether the audience knows what I was thinking when I made it. I hope they find much more than I did in the work,” she said. “I don’t set out to make a dance, I discover it.”

McCaleb has an advantage over most dance makers. She has a studio built right into her ocean-view home.

“What it means is that I don’t have to make dances between certain hours of the day,” she said. “If I start thinking about an idea, I just go right into the studio and try it out. It’s too small to use for large pieces, but Jack and I made our new duet there,” she said, referring to Malashock.

What’s next for the resident choreographer?

“There’s a whole world left to explore,” she said. “I really want to do a new group piece that dances like crazy. And I want to do more collaborations. I’ve worked with fine musicians like Miles Anderson and Erica Sharp, and they’ve been a real inspiration. And I want to do more with visual artists. I also want to do more evening-length pieces like ‘Feast of Fools.’ ”

At 40-plus, an age when most dancers start winding down their performance activities, McCaleb said she is just reaching her stride, and vows to “keep dancing ‘til I’m 80.”

But it is her choreographic prowess that catapulted her into the forefront of San Diego dance, and she has no intention of giving up that dream job with Three’s Company.

“Now Three’s Company is my home, and I’m going to make dances and make dances and make dances,” she said.

“Nancy came into the company late and brings a new vitality,” said Roe. “After 15 years, the rest of us are getting tired, but for Nancy it’s all new and exciting. And the three of us work together so well.”