Beth Skogen
Díaz, with Olivia Rivard, is currently rehearsing for several lead roles in Kanopy’s upcoming production of ‘Martha Graham: In Her Footsteps.’
When Juan Carlos Díaz Vélez interviewed for a job at the Wisconsin IceCube Particle Astrophysics Center at UW-Madison, something other than his scientific chops got the attention of at least one person on the interview panel.
"Engineer Daniel Wharton pointed out it requires a lot of discipline to be a dancer, especially professionally. A person like this will have a high level of discipline," recalls Paolo Desiati, a scientist with IceCube who become Díaz's supervisor.
Díaz, who danced professionally between 1986 and 1997, landed the job at UW-Madison and has worked as a scientific simulation programmer with the center since 2004.
The center is located just blocks away from the Kanopy Dance Company studio on State Street, where Díaz began dancing again in 2007. He has since become one of Kanopy's principal dancers, and his talent and artistry have helped elevate the troupe.
Díaz says dance and science are both about problem-solving. "People think of dance as purely a physical thing, but it takes a lot of thought to figure out how to make things work. I suppose you can be a dancer and not do that, but to be a good performer, you have to be a smart performer also."
Desiati says these skills translate to the lab. "With science and art, it's often separate; usually people are either one or the other," says Desiati. "So it's very interesting that [Díaz] is in both worlds. I think he learned through his dance experience to deal with difficult and tricky situations and stay calm, but passionate."
Norma Saldivar, executive director of the UW-Madison Arts Institute, says science and art are closer than they sometimes appear. "There's a certain level of focus, discipline, tenacity that has to be present. And passion — one doesn't always use that word when talking about scientists — but passion has a broader definition that can be used for our colleagues in science as well," says Saldivar. "That idea of being really inspired by and dedicated to solving a particular problem, uncovering a particular mystery — those are very similar emotional and intellectual traits that can apply to either artists or scientists."
People joke that Madison is the kind of city where cab drivers have multiple advanced degrees, so it shouldn't be surprising to learn a scientist is also an acclaimed professional dancer. It's also a town where the arts are relatively accessible. "There is lots of interest here in arts and culture, making it a very natural place for artists to gravitate to...where their work is very accepted," adds Saldivar. "This isn't the case in all cities."
Díaz is currently rehearsing for several lead roles in Kanopy's upcoming production of "Martha Graham: In Her Footsteps," the second show of its 2014-15 season which opens Feb. 6 at the Overture Center.
Kanopy co-directors Lisa Thurrell and Robert Cleary, who are married, have been savvy about finding innovative collaborators for inspired new works, while honoring the artistic legacy of Graham, the influential modern dancer and choreographer. Thurrell is a former Graham Company dancer, and Cleary danced with the Minnesota Ballet and numerous other companies. Top-notch training at their school is reflected in the dancers in the main company as well as in Kanopy Company II, composed mostly of younger dancers. That a small regional dance company in the Midwest is able to secure the rights to perform important Graham repertory works is an impressive achievement.
A season highlight promises to be Díaz's performance as the preacher in excerpts from Graham's groundbreaking work Appalachian Spring. It's a physically challenging role involving many difficult jumps.
Sandra Kaufmann, a former member of the Martha Graham Dance Company who has played a pivotal role in helping stage this modern dance classic for Kanopy's production, says the preacher role "is built" for a dancer like Díaz.
"He has the dramatic intensity and fervor, as well as the charm and the charisma that make up this complex iconic character. He is ready to make the leap into this role."
The making of a dancer
On a cold January morning, Díaz, 44, gingerly warms up at the barre in Kanopy's main studio. After a series of careful stretches, he raises his leg into a high passé, testing the impact of a recent hip injury. His injury is not apparent as he rehearses a demanding solo and pas de deux from Thurrell's "Miserere (Have Mercy)." Thurrell says that this piece, which will be included in the troupe's February program, seeks to "reveal humankind's struggle to reach the divine."
Díaz uses his upper body elegantly, conveying emotion with just a loose wave of his arms. His strength is evident as he manipulates partner Olivia Rivard in a series of lifts. They work through a movement in which Rivard turns and suddenly sinks her weight into Díaz; they test theories on how to improve the move while underscoring the emotional connection in this duet that explores the relationship between Mary Magdalene and Jesus Christ.
Díaz grew up in Guadalajara, Mexico, where his mother owns a dance studio. When he was 10, his mother asked her Diaz and his brother to perform in The Nutcracker. Both enjoyed being on stage and decided to study dance.
"My brother lasted two weeks and I lasted a month because we didn't fall in love with the discipline," says Díaz, laughing. Two years later, after another Nutcracker appearance, Díaz felt ready to take ballet seriously. "My mother was skeptical based on my track record," he admits. But soon he was taking three classes a day, five days a week at several prestigious ballet studios, with additional classes on weekends.
Later, he studied summers with the San Francisco Ballet School, Pacific Northwest Ballet and American Festival Ballet in Idaho. When he was 16, he was offered an apprenticeship in Idaho. "It was a tough sell for my parents," Díaz recalls. "I told them I could always go back to school later, so they let me drop out of high school."
Díaz credits his parents for giving him the freedom to follow his dreams. Their philosophy was "Make your own path and choose what you're passionate about," he says.
The arts run deep in Díaz's family. His late father was a musician, his grandmother a pianist and his mother a dancer. His brother also became a professional dancer, and his sister is now co-director of his mother's dance studio and a well-regarded choreographer.
Díaz says he had a bit of culture shock when he moved to Idaho. Also, he was one of the weakest dancers and at the bottom of the ballet company hierarchy. But he persevered.
Díaz returned to Guadalajara, but felt eager to get back to the U.S. — and not just for dance. He had met Amy Panganiban, who is now his wife, when they were both dancing with the American Festival Ballet. He began submitting audition videos, seeking a position at an American ballet company.
Christopher Aponte, the director of the Spokane Ballet, responded and asked to meet Díaz in person before offering him a job. Díaz wonders if his unorthodox video caught Aponte's attention. "I didn't look it over before sending it so it included clips of me trying to put together the solo from Le Corsaire, which begins with a turning leap that was not working," says Díaz. "I kept cutting it and starting over, falling over and trying again. I think Christopher found it humorous."
Aponte, who had danced with the New York City Ballet and Boston Ballet, proved a strong influence on Díaz. "More than anybody else, he was the person who pushed me the most and got me to grow as an artist," says Díaz. "There were times I would go home and wanted to cry and thought I couldn't do any more, but I appreciated what he squeezed out of people."
Díaz also danced with the Eugene Ballet Company, where he rose to principal dancer, and later with the Charleston Ballet Theatre and Ballet Idaho (which would merge with Eugene Ballet). He toured extensively in the States and overseas.
Díaz and Panganiban married in 1988. She shifted from dancing to costume design, and the young couple often toured together. Their son Tony, a West High School graduate who is taking courses at Madison College, was born in 1991.
But demanding tours soon became unsustainable for the young family. Tony was about to enter elementary school and Díaz was struggling more with injuries and stress.
Díaz, who had enjoyed science and physics as a child and earned his GED while touring, began pondering a change. He applied to college, but also sought a spot at another ballet company that would involve less touring. Then he left it to fate. "Whomever I hear from first with an offer," he told himself, "will determine my decision."
Back to school
The acceptance letter from Boise State arrived first. "I set my mind and was excited about going to school," says Díaz.
But he also kept dancing, performing with Idaho Dance Theatre, a contemporary dance company in residence at the university. He landed a dance scholarship to offset some of his tuition and received college credit for taking the company class. Marla Hanson, who still leads the company, recalls Díaz's dedication: "On tour he would bring his laptop, and after a very strenuous performance he would return to the hotel and do homework."
The next year Díaz received a physics scholarship and shifted his focus completely. Suffering from injuries and feeling burned out, he distanced himself from dance. "I didn't really think about dance at all and basically maintained this for 10 years," says Díaz. "I even threw away all of my dance clothes."
Díaz earned his undergraduate degree in physics in 2001 and planned to continue in the field. But a computer science professor, impressed with Díaz's work, offered him a fellowship his senior year. The professor suggested that a master's in computer science would make Díaz more marketable and that he could always pursue a Ph.D. later.
Díaz finished his coursework in 2003, the same year the family decided to relocate to Madison, where Panganiban had grown up. Díaz worked for Berbee Information Networks Corp. in Fitchburg before getting the job with IceCube the following year.
UW–Madison is the lead institution in this massive worldwide collaboration, largely funded by the National Science Foundation, involving more than 300 physicists from 44 institutions in 12 countries. The international effort aims to develop new ways to study the mysteries of the universe through neutrino research.
Neutrinos are invisible subatomic particles that are constantly streaming around us and through us (100 trillion neutrinos pass through your body each second). Most of them are produced in our atmosphere, but higher-energy neutrinos are likely to originate from beyond our solar system.
Research by IceCube could potentially answer big questions about black holes, gamma ray bursts and exploding stars.
Díaz dances near the 2010 South Pole marker. There is an annual ceremony on New Year’s Day marking the pole’s newly surveyed location.
The IceCube Neutrino Observatory, which is an enormous particle detector, is buried deep under the South Pole, but Díaz works about 9,243 miles north in the center's office on West Washington Avenue. A programmer, he wrote software that connects the participating institutions around the world as they analyze the statistics coming out of Antarctica.
Initially Díaz also worked to fine-tune the project's "simulation" software, which critically re-creates the physical processes captured by the neutrino detectors. This allows researchers to closely examine these fleeting interactions.
Díaz traveled to the South Pole in the winter of 2010, the year crews completed the construction of the detector. He helped install the computing equipment in the lab. "I think few people get a chance like that," says Díaz. He had to undergo a rigorous medical and dental screening process prior to departure, followed by complex logistics of traveling first to New Zealand, then McMurdo Station on the Antarctic coast and finally the IceCube lab, located at Amundsen-Scott South Pole station.
Desiati says Díaz has "one foot in both worlds" — the ability to understand the physics that underpin the project and to write good code: "His contribution to the collaboration is enormous, and he's highly respected."
Return to the stage
By 2007 Díaz felt the itch to return to dancing, but purely for exercise. He approached Thurrell at Kanopy.
"I asked if I could take ballet class, and Lisa asked if I would be interested in performing with Kanopy. I said 'no thanks,' but she said 'we'll see.'"
Thurrell soon convinced him to perform a short duet in a larger piece.
Now Díaz says he has found a healthier way of pursuing his art. "I felt like there were times during my last season [as a professional dancer] when I would finish a performance and I could barely walk to the bus. I would spend the evening recovering."
Díaz says he values Kanopy's inclusive and collaborative environment and feels at home there. He has also added choreography to his repertoire, after Thurrell and Cleary encouraged him to give it a try.
"They had never seen my choreography, but trusted me," says Díaz. His crowd-pleasing "De Planta, Punta y Tacón" premiered in 2009.
He and his wife also teach on Kanopy's ballet faculty.
Thurrell and Cleary are well-respected in the modern dance world, which enables Kanopy to attract guest artists and visiting choreographers who are heavy hitters from the national and international dance scene. Because of these connections, Díaz has danced alongside the "gods of Graham" — as Thurrell nicknames luminaries like Martin Løfsnes, Donlin Foreman, Sandra Kaufmann, Miki Orihara and others — and he gets to tackle challenging new works like "A Strange Day for Mister K" the corporeal mime piece from their November concert.
Coming to Kanopy as an accomplished ballet dancer didn't automatically translate to mastery of the modern dance technique created by Martha Graham, says Thurrell. "His body is finding the opposition in Graham technique, the contraction and release, the shift of weight and how you move through space differently than in classical ballet."
Díaz says he draws on both techniques, depending on the needs of each role. It's similar to how he creates a bridge between physics and computer science.
"I don't worry whether it's ballet or Graham, but instead if I am doing what the choreographer wants," he says.
As a dancer, Díaz is a precise mover. He is powerful, but shows a certain restraint. Nothing extraneous clutters the purity of his technique. But he fully inhabits his roles. He has been an appalling and seductive monster in "Maw" and a sweetly naïve fellow in "A Strange Day for Mister K." Thurrell says Díaz possesses the thing that great dancers have. "Finding something within yourself and almost becoming a vessel." She adds, "What you'll see from him in 'Miserere' brings tears to my eyes."
The right place
Díaz is now working on his Ph.D. in physics through the University of Guadalajara. Ideally, he'll complete his degree within two years. His goal is not to teach but to continue doing research and work on projects like IceCube.
Díaz believes he has landed in just the right place. "The university is such an integral part of the community, and it being so central to downtown [and Kanopy] makes it great for me," he says.
Madison, he adds, is a city where artists can grow and flourish. "It's a place to develop your own homegrown art."
