words ANITA MARTIN | epilogue ALI MARCONI | photography DEOGRACIAS LERMA
fashion styling LINDSAY LANE | clothing & accessories TMBTITWI
Alessandra Marconi smiles as rhythm slinks up her body feet-first, turning idle stroll to measured steps. She extends a hand, accepts the draw of another’s fingertips, a gentle press to her back: leading, spinning, shifting course again and again. Each push, each pull, speaks to Marconi’s body, which responds in kind. A flowing conversation unfurls without a word.
This is the dialogue of dance: Marconi’s domain.
Just before the March 2020 shutdown, Marconi had relocated to Toronto to serve as dance supervisor on one of the then four North American tours of rap musical phenomenon Hamilton.
Polly caught up with Marconi more than a year later as she sat on the sunny front porch of her parent’s farm, 40 miles north of Cincinnati.
“I’m adapting everyday in every circumstance,” she said with a laugh.
As a kid, Marconi followed dance from rural Trenton, Ohio, first to Cincinnati — where she trained at Planet Dance and was a member of Exhale Dance Tribe — then to New York City, where she became a trusted collaborator of choreographer and fellow Cincinnati native Andy Blankenbuehler (In The Heights, Hamilton).
Dance then whisked her around the world: first to perform precision “shadow illusion” in Germany and Italy (with Catapult Entertainment), then to don a wireless light suit merging technology with movement in Malaysia, Hong Kong, and Saudi Arabia (with iLuminate).
Marconi has danced for film (Dirty Dancing, In the Heights), TV (Netflix’s Halston and Westside), and stage — including as assistant choreographer for Broadway’s Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.
She has also become a steward of street dance, specializing in the South Bronx borough dance Hustle, an evolving lindy/latin social hybrid originally adapted from Mambo by Puerto Rican and Black teens in the 1970s.
Meanwhile, Marconi uses her words, publishing articles based on her travels and creating fusions of movement and spoken word, including a 2020 video commissioned by The Peace Studio: a homage to Hustle doubling as voyage into the creative here-and-now, led by Marconi’s prose.
As Marconi prepares for her Hamilton relaunch, she’s excited to “bring everything we’ve learned in this collective shift of the past year into the space so we don’t snap back like an old addiction. A lot of people still want to revert back, and in so many ways that is a disservice to the time we’ve been given to reflect, unwind, and undo. I’m prepared to demand space be held for everybody to show up differently.”
Whether maintaining the integrity of Broadway choreography, holding space for creative shifts, or channeling an evolving Latin dance between generations, Marconi naturally connects dots. “I seem to find myself in that position a lot in life, as this bridge to communicate opposing or even hostile views. I often see everybody’s side, which is why I love to collaborate.”
From visualization to visionary
As a child, Marconi preferred gymnastics, cheer, and Tae Kwon Do, but upon “rediscovering” dance, she got hooked. Even if it took time for her skills to align with her vision.
“When I found dance again as a teenager, my mind was ahead of my body and I thought I was better than I was,” Marconi said. “I was involved with a local dance studio and competitions were a big thing … I wasn’t getting the response I thought I should, and I wanted the reflection I saw in myself to be received.”
Marconi describes what came next — five years of commuting 40 miles from farm to dance class and back, four days a week, including ballet training at Cincinnati’s De La Arts — as “a period of growing.”
“I was like, OK, I have some work to do, like good old-fashioned practice,” she said. “I’d never really had ballet training, so to organize my bones and muscles and have that balance awareness and achieve the lines, I needed to hone in technically.”
Marconi gained mentors in the Cincinnati dance scene, like Planet Dance’s Exhale Dance Tribe founders Andrew Hubbard and Missy Lay Zimmer, who were colleagues of Blankenbuehler in New York City. “I started to realize that my spirit was being recognized, that sort of invisible connection performers have with people.” Eventually, Marconi left for New York “with the understanding that I had achieved that balance — and still had work to do, the work never stops — but I was able to meet ends.”
Marconi works hard, but she believes in the power of vision. She imagined herself rocking dance competitions long before she could. “As I grew into that, I used visualization techniques to get where I wanted to be. Like I saw myself in New York before the building blocks to actually get there fell into line.”
Marconi chose to enroll at Marymount Manhattan College as a communications major and actively pursue her dance career on the side. “I really love school and I’m a writer as well, so I didn’t want to limit my potential. I wanted to soak up all I could with the liberal arts programming,” said Marconi.
Marconi explored art, technology, and political science at Marymount while attending dance classes and auditions across New York. She began working for the New York City Dance Alliance, assisting teachers as a demonstrator, working registration, and building a supportive network that came to include Blankenbuehler.
“I was demonstrating for Andy and auditioning for In The Heights, which was on Broadway at the time, and [Blankenbuehler] trusted me to pick up the choreography and keep its integrity,” said Marconi. “Soon after, he started inviting me into the studio with a number of other dancers he felt safe creating with and we began co-creating choreography for shows [in pre-production],” she said. Marconi joined Blankenbuehler in a rare performance for New York City’s BC Beat and later as a dancer in Lionsgate/ABC Studio’s remake of Dirty Dancing, among other projects.
“The people Andy brings in become external brains of his. Through years of developing a relationship, we understand what he’s trying to articulate, but he brings us in for our unique perspectives as well,” said Marconi. “Like the social dance — contemporary partnering is a big skill of mine, and so if he has a partnering section, he’ll be like, Alessandra and a couple others, we can work on partnering today.”
Reconciling comfort levels
One of Marconi’s first gigs after earning a BA in communications was as a shadow theater artist with Catapult Entertainment.
“Shadow theater is a super niche thing and super detailed,” Marconi explained. “What you’re seeing as an audience is just a screen, and we are between the screen and a projector behind that onstage. So you’re working with this cone-shaped light source, and you learn a lot about scale and how to move your body in relationship with that light.”
Marconi loved traveling Germany and Italy with Catapult and learning the ropes of a professional tour, but the tireless travel (sleeping on buses, performing a new town nearly every night) weighed on her. As did the medium’s movement restriction. “This work is really detailed and focused. I mean it is small, you’re really not moving your body a lot,” she said.
When Marconi left Catapult, she still wanted to see the world. But she needed a home base for a spell — and to really move her body. That vision materialized almost instantly.
“My first week back in New York, I took a class and afterward, a woman approached me and said, ‘Hey, I was in that class … I own a dance company and I think you’d be really right for it.’”
The woman was Miral Kotb, founder of iLuminate, the world’s first light dance technology company. At the time, iLuminate was preparing to perform several months at a resort in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
“I saw some of the footage, and it’s super physical! So, when I found out it was a sit-down tour, I was ready to sign,” Marconi said. Following this sit-down Malaysia residency, she traveled with iLuminate to perform shows in Hong Kong and Saudi Arabia.
For Marconi, the art of travel requires “reconciling comfort levels. It’s about being uncomfortable and figuring out what it means to you to feel comfortable. Is it food, is it music, is it the rhythm of how the day flows? I’ve always said that I’ve found pieces of myself in every place that I travel.”
Always in partnership
Marconi’s not someone who wakes up and creates movement alone in her room. “I am always in partnership with choreography. I get way more done if there are other people in the space. I like to execute a vision, but it’s so often carved in dialogue with others.”
In her artist statement, Marconi emphasizes “deeper understanding of the human condition through interpersonal relationships” and acknowledges herself as a “vessel for innovation” while honoring “the artists that came before me.”
Marconi fulfills this vision reflexively. When she first saw couples dancing Hustle at a New York club in 2013, she had no idea she’d go on to both teach the dance at the Lincoln Center and found Hustle Social, a mobile event offering classes and parties in neighborhood spaces in New York.
“I started going to these parties and learning, and I slowly found the actual community of OGs from the 1970s who were still dancing Hustle,” Marconi said. “They were able to offload their experience to me and some others so we could share this language with a new generation of people. It was this classic story of: How do we pay tribute to the foundation of the dance and let it evolve naturally?”
In preparation for her role on Hamilton’s Phillip Tour, Marconi shadowed the Broadway production for about a month, then moved to Toronto. Within one week, Broadway (and the world) announced its temporary closing. In the months that followed, Marconi moved in with her Hustle partner, Crazy Smooth (director of Canada’s street dance company Bboyizm). Marconi was in her element: dancing Hustle in new city streets and gearing up for a high-profile gig with Blankenbuehler’s choreography.
Marconi is optimistic about her upcoming position: “I feel like I really can help actors understand the integrity of the movement, because I’ve worked with him so much; it’s also in my body.”
Still, supervising dance for a Hamilton tour represents next-level responsibility. “This is a big job; it’s really massive. So that’s another badge for my expanding toolbelt of how I can learn to hold space for a lot of people and guide them in a safe way. A lot of times the rap on Broadway is that it’s a constant bogging down, and I’m excited to bring a very holistic, fresh perspective to it.”
While the role will require Marconi to manage a dense, fast-paced schedule and protect Blankenbuehler’s vision, she understands “that artists are often nonlinear. I’m interested in bringing in tools that allow people not to feel so confined.”
That work starts within, Marconi says. “A lot of what I carry into a space is energetic. It’s showing up clean, so to speak. ‘Clean’ meaning I’m not bringing all sorts of baggage into the room.”
Marconi meditates daily and does regular breath work to help clear baggage and ensure collaborative leadership. “It’s the way you address people and the way you hold your body that communicates that you’re not reactive … I think a lot of mindfulness practices result in you taking care of yourself. Then, as a reflection, everything else becomes clear. Because ultimately, you live in your own perspective. You live in your own reality.”
Marconi expects some road bumps when theater professionals return to live work. “We’ll all have nostalgia for the way things were. I have nostalgia about how I was experiencing my life in New York pre-2020,” she said. “It’s like getting over an old boyfriend. Just let it come up if it needs to but then: let it go, let it go. I know we’ll cultivate even better experiences from now on.”
In the coming months, as we pick up old threads and reintegrate into social and creative spaces, Marconi recommends playfulness. “I think being playful helps in keeping yourself aware moment to moment and not falling into those old thought patterns.”
As Marconi playfully put it, “It’s all just a dream anyway!”
Picking Up Where We Left Off, with Alessandra
August 8, 2023
The interview I had with Anita for Polly Magazine is such a bittersweet time capsule. I can remember the comfort of being at my parents’ house, sitting on the front porch and walking barefooted in the grass. All the while uncertainty loomed, not knowing when live theater would come back. Like all time capsules, there are some things that have changed dramatically about the world and others that remain the same. Some very big shifts have happened since this article was written, so in lieu of deleting Anita’s beautiful work, I am contributing a footnote to update my story.
In the winter of 2020 my agent sent me a casting notice for a dance role in a Netflix series called Halston. Virtual casting submissions were becoming normalized as entertainers were forced to push aside kitchen tables, buy ring lights, and backdrop paper to stay in the hiring pool. I submitted an improvised dance routine and soon received an offer for the role. Jobs had lightened up so much and only film productions were able to manage operating, although barely. Eager to revisit familiar territory and get paid, I drove from Ohio to New York. The film set operated in its normal chaotic flow except then the covid precautions dialed up the level of chaos to a measure that outweighed common sense. For example, an industrial size fan blowing directly onto performers wearing scanty costumes and nasal swab tests given on-set. Each day invited new variables and a steep learning curve for everyone involved. I was glad to have the work and to reconnect with colleagues, but I felt satisfied with going back to Ohio after the filming was complete.
“…I’m prepared to demand space be held for everybody to show up differently,” I said.
I envisioned this happening within the confines of a theater. Figuring out the well-drawn commercial system in order to insert windows of inspiration and harmonious action. But, to my awakening, this is not how the story unfolded. Six months after filming Halston, the remount of live theater began on Broadway. Upon return, it was required that all members of the company on and off stage would have the covid vaccine as a new condition of employment. This happened in most sectors of industry, as I’m sure you reading can remember. In the end, my exemption was not granted and I did not rejoin the company of Hamilton. It was an unexpected and disheartening outcome, but this was the reality.
A couple weeks later on a clear-blue Ohio day, I was driving to see a friend when my phone rang an unknown number. Answering this call turned the page to my next chapter.
I’m writing this footnote from my studio apartment in downtown New York, a place I’ve called home since I received that phone call two years ago. This apartment vacancy is the only reason why I came back to New York ~ a place that at the time I could not eat inside at a restaurant, audition for a show or be a patron at a theater. “Showing up differently” became the heartbeat of my new beginning.
At that time I entered what I refer to as my cocoon phase. I began studying and developing, reorienting and optimizing. In 2021, I founded Inner Compass, an experience rooted in trusting the innate intelligence of the mind, body and spirit. Through 1:1’s, group classes and Akashic Readings, I guide people to navigate life in an authentic and harmonious way so that who you are on the inside matches what you do on the outside. In 2022, I pursued a certificate of interior design and now work with The People’s Creative to transform spaces around NYC’s five boroughs. And later that year I was invited to dust off my choreographer shoes and worked on two unique projects, Do The Hustle at The Guggenheim and The Reality Show at New York University.
Today I am happy to say that I’ve passed through metamorphosis and am really grateful for that transformative process. The most consistent practice I’ve maintained since March 2020 is my studies at Divine Alchemy Academy. This has been my launchpad for each stage of personal growth over the last three years.
If you’d like to keep in touch with me, please subscribe to my newsletter on my website. It’s my way of intentionally connecting with people of like-minds and I’d love to invite you in. My perspective is based on the following: life is happening to you for you to unfold your highest potential.
Thank you for reading about my scenic route life and for supporting art based circulations like Polly Magazine.
– Alessandra.
