Local StoriesMarch 22, 2022

Meet Sarah Jack

Local Stories

Today we’d like to introduce you to Sarah Jack.

Hi Sarah, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I grew up north of DFW. Homeschooled, LDS (Mormon) and in a family of ten, I had to get creative early on for recognition and to entertain myself. Funny enough, it was because of a crush that I started learning to dance. During my teenage years, I trained in swing and looped all the friends I could into that style or movement. College is where I began taking more traditional studio styles. Once I got a taste for this art form, I couldn’t stop. I got my associate degree at Collin College and then transferred to the University of Texas at Austin. I could hardly believe I’d gotten into their BFA Dance program. There I trained in as many performance styles as I could manage. Due to a class assignment, I went to a community circ event and was introduced into ATX’s acro scene. From there, I discovered fire spinning and the rest of Austin’s wonderfully weird performance community. Through them, I had the chance to delve deeper into event management and producing productions outside of school.

During my first year at UT, I acquired a teaching artist position with Creative Action, a sub position with Ballet Austin and I booked a performance gig at SXSW for a show you might have seen on Hulu (The Handmaids Tale). I had been waitressing overnights on the weekend prior and couldn’t wait to take another step towards my desired career.

Austin and my time at UT was an intense fury of learning experiences, challenges and artistic growth. I wouldn’t be where I am today without all of the instructors I had there, in ATX, at Collin and before.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Learning dance late in life has always been a challenge. No matter what, you just don’t have the hours. I remember distinctly my first contemporary class at UT. The instructor had us add up all of our prior training hours. Many of my peers had at least a 1-2 years of 365/24/7. I had a month. Another professor was honest enough to tell me “you just don’t have the technique” when I inquired as to why I didn’t get cast my first semester in Dance Repertoire Theatre (UT’s dance performance course). It wasn’t until my senior year that my movement felt something to be proud of. That year I was a part of non-stop overlapping performances from the start of the fall semester and well past graduation. I was dancing, I was choreographing, directing and acting. It was bliss.

After graduation, I took a brief break and just taught. Not long after, I decided to get back into the swing of things. I was raped and then the pandemic hit.

It was hard. It was world-shattering. In the past two years, I have learned so much about trauma, advocacy and healing. I know what it’s like to be so disassociated from your body that you can’t work or even sleep. My nervous system was wrecked and my career prospects looked bleak with the world coming to a halt. So I went home for a few months… Really COVID got to ATX, my work suspended classes and my Asian mother said, “come home”. I spent a few months with my family and hanging out everyday with my siblings. I found studios to teach with virtually. I trained more Tukong Moosul (Korean martial arts style). I found a therapist and focused on healing. I was on unemployment for a LONG time. And honestly, it gave me the ability to switch full-time to productions and performance work.

If I have learned anything, it’s that I owe so much to community. Without family, friends, partners and mentors, I wouldn’t be where I am today. Thank you to everyone who has supported and guided me through my journey. <3

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
My work is often centered around education, advocacy and movement as a form of communication. I enjoy studying psychology and theology, discovering their parallels to both acting and movement techniques. The performing arts are also an amazing tool for teaching and deepening social-emotional learning skills. A practice I help share through my work with organizations such as MindPOP and Creative Action.

Currently, I am working on a film with Secretly Famous Productions and Art With Impact. We just finished our crowdfunding campaign and are deep into the production process.

Promise is an experimental dance film exploring an individual’s abuse of their opioid prescription following the death of their husband and their eventual attempt to find recovery.

https://igg.me/at/promise-dance-film

Artistic Statement:
As physical beings, we are subjected to the world around us. From infancy, we observe, mimic, and experiment in order to survive. Before all else, we learn to feel… to touch. Inside our mother’s wombs we see first with our bodies, then through our ears, through our tongue, our nose, and lastly our eyes. Movement is our primary mode of interaction and communication, long before our reality expands past this maternal environment.

Outside the womb, movement allows us to experiment and experience physically, emotionally, energetically, and spiritually. As humans, our connections to movement run so deep that mirror neurons allow us to vicariously experience a physical situation just from observation. It is a form of communication that can express more than words can describe. It is inherent in each of us, no matter how much we have come to rely on our other senses.

Dance is the cultivated art form of movement. It serves as both an experience for the performer as well as the observer. It lives in the moment and is subject to the passing of time, just as we are. My work as a dance maker explores interactions (be it with ourselves, others, or an environment) in order to better understand our individual and collective relationships to the physical world.

Teaching Philosophy:
Movement is movement is movement* what you learn in one style can undoubtedly transfer into another. While dance techniques differ based on cultural context and movement concepts, they still boil down to actions and motion. Simply put, the concept of “technique” is more so the ability to choose.** For a dancer to have good technique, it means they can physically articulate their body in a certain manner utilizing specific elements of space, time, and energy. In order to provide students with a well-rounded movement education, one must design curriculum with autonomy in mind. My goal as an educator is to provide students with the tools necessary for them to recognize core movement concepts and execute these ideas clearly and precisely. This focus on foundational essentials assists dancers when creating bridges between different techniques, assisting them in drawing connections to previous movement experiences and accelerating their absorption of different dance styles. Furthermore, students are introduced to the historical and cultural context of styles as well as encouraged to engage in deeper personal research of said practices.

*Charles O. Anderson
**Beth Migill

Professional Bio:
Sarah Jack graduated summa cum laude in 2019 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance from the University of Texas at Austin. She discovered a love for film works shortly after finishing her undergrad. With a background in concert dance, circus and martial arts, her hope is to find her roles within the action and stunt industry. Offscreen, Sarah enjoys working behind the scenes as a producer, production assistant and movement specialist.

We’d be interested to hear your thoughts on luck and what role, if any, you feel it’s played for you?
I think of luck like dominos. Every action you take places one down and every opportunity is the universe attempting to connect them all. If they are spaced too far apart or slightly askew, things won’t always fall in line as they appear to do so for others. There is much more to be said on this analogy that we don’t have time for in this article (how privilege/accessibility comes into play, etc.).

Be honest with yourself about what you want and the steps to achieve/acquire it. Hold yourself accountable and trust that the universe wants to work in your favor.

A few reads that shaped my understanding of luck in the creative/performance world are: Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert and The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life by Twyla Tharp.

Pricing:

$60/hr Dance or Movement Class
$350 On-Set Day Rate
$100/hr Modeling
$30/hr Producer & Project Management

Contact Info:

Email: sarahjackofficial@gmail.com
Website: www.sarahjack.me
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarahjack.me/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sarahjack.me
Twitter: https://twitter.com/sarahjack_me
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/SarahJack
Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@sarahjack.me

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