A Cast of Leaders

Silence.

"You have to invest in something, emotionally or spiritually or morally," he says. "Some philosopher wrote about a guy who is told by a wise man that 'life is insignificant' -- but the guy then goes about his life as if someone hadn't given him that information. Even if it's only a delusion, you want your life to have meaning. How long can we listen to people talk about the stock market? That's not work. That's not human. That's the accumulation of worthless things."

The room is quiet as Azenberg continues. "I'm asking you to find something in yourself -- for your own benefit," he says. "When you get to be my age, you're going to need it. If I died tomorrow, I would be fulfilled. I've done enough nutty things and virtuous things, and I've screwed up a lot of things. You have to be like Don Quixote: You have to piss into a few windmills."

When the students attend a screening of "Dancemaker," an Oscar-nominated documentary about the Paul Taylor Dance Company, they see that in the arts, having passion is not just a generalized aspiration -- it's a job requirement: One of the female dancers is fired because Paul Taylor, the choreographer, can't connect to her emotionally. "It just wasn't interesting," says Taylor. "I couldn't work with her."

After seeing the film, the students talk about it with Patrick Corbin, one of the company's lead dancers. He defends Taylor's decision: That female dancer, he says, could not "get free." Creating dance is such an intense act, and is so intensely dependent on teamwork, that there is simply no room for holding back, he explains. The actual steps of a dance are rarely choreographed before rehearsal. Instead, they emerge through an endless process of experimentation and improvisation. "It's like a slow, uncomfortable conversation," says Corbin.

The education in dance continues. Payne brings his students to a downtown rehearsal space to meet Doug Varone and Dancers, one of the dozens of small, threadbare troupes in New York City that survive on skintight budgets. "I never know when I go into a room what kind of dance I'm going to make," says Varone. "The dance finds its way to me. I try out different shapes, different movements, different combinations of people." He grins mischievously, and his eyes sweep up and down the row of students: He's like a wolf trying to decide which delicious Riding Hood to eat first. "Eventually, the dance starts to tell me what it is -- as you are about to discover. I'd like all of you to help me."

Elias is the first student to figure out what Varone is up to. He groans in mock pain, shakes his head, leans back in his chair, and laughs. The students look at one another, their eyes widening as if they were roadkill in the split second before impact. It's the moment anyone who's ever attended a company off-site dreads. It's the Leadership Exercise.

Varone gets the students up out of their seats and onto the floor, where he has them engage in a process of improvisational movement that he calls "cultural mapping." "Imagine that this dance floor is a map of the world," he calls out. "Find the place where your mother's ancestors came from, and go there."

Natalie heads off to Africa, Sasha to Poland, Elias to Lebanon -- and so on, until all of the students have been dispersed into an imaginary diaspora. "Now think about your ancestors' life there, and distill that experience into a single gesture." Evan (who has abandoned his goatee experiment) is digging carrots in Sweden.

"Now find the homeland of your father's ancestors, go to that place, think of an experience, and then reduce that experience to a gesture." David McKenzie is in the South African bush, watching big game. Katie Murphy is playing bagpipes.

Before long, the students are all gesturing wildly, weaving in and out and around one another like a platoon of Frankenstein's monsters that are trying to direct rush-hour traffic -- and who are simultaneously frightened by it. After a bit of repetition and refinement, the miniature dances that the students have invented take on a sort of goofy grace. Varone punches up some music on a battered old cassette player, and the students take turns performing their creations. Each dancer receives a round of jubilant applause.

After weeks of being cultural voyeurs, the students are finally starring in their own mini-productions.