Matt Liu’s Senior Recital is on April 10th at 8 pm in Paul Hall! Check out his special promo video!
Dear friend,
I’d like to invite you to my senior recital! It’s going to be a fun show akin to Ellen, Oprah, all the greats, so come have a great time. 34 performers – 21 musicians – 10 singers – 3 dancers – 9 original musical compositions – 1 stage – 1 Matt Liu.
Hope you can come! Tuesday, April 10 at Paul Hall, 8PM
All my best, Matt
Sumire Hirotsuru (MM ’18, violin) interviews Maestro David Robertson on the rehearsal process, tips for success, and his upcoming position at Juilliard.
Maestro David Robertson – photo by Sumire Hirotsuru
On a Tuesday evening, Sumire Hirotsuru (MM ’18, violin) visited a green room in the basement of the Metropolitan Opera, where Maestro David Robertson was eating a pre-show coleslaw. As newly appointed Director of Conducting Studies at Juilliard, concluding his 13-year tenure as the Music Director at St. Louis Symphony Orchestra (SLSO) at the end of the season, Maestro Robertson is conducting the Juilliard Orchestra on April 2nd at Carnegie Hall. Sumire sat down with Maestro Robertson to hear his thoughts on the rehearsal process, tips for success, and his upcoming position at Juilliard.
____________________________
Sumire Hirotsuru (SH): How has your experience working with the Juilliard Orchestra been? Had you worked with them before this concert cycle?
Maestro David Robertson (DR): The first time I worked with the Juilliard Orchestra was actually 20 years ago, as a guest conductor. While the students had always been extremely gifted, I find that students take orchestra more seriously now than 20 years ago. There’s been a real increase in the basic understanding of what you need to do in an orchestra, and it’s been a lot of fun for me to work with the group.
SH: What’s the difference between working with professional orchestras and student orchestras?
DR: When one is playing in an orchestra, there is a certain shyness to really play out in a student orchestra. I have seen this over 13 years of many auditions in the SLSO, but my colleagues always tell them to play out more. It is very interesting to work on repertoire with a student orchestra, because in some parts where you are expecting to hear something quite prominent, it’s often not there yet with the full personality and projection that you expect from a group of seasoned professionals. It comes as a surprise when you see someone who is not playing out and realize “Oh, this person needs encouragement, they don’t realize how important their part in the orchestra is.” What is very gratifying about working with the students is that once you tell them, you get the results immediately.
SH: Do you think more students were looking for soloist career 20 years ago?
DR: There was a feeling that going to an orchestra rehearsal was a little bit like a visit to the dentist – you know you have to do it, but no one looks forward to it. Now it certainly has gone out of dentistry, and has become something much more interesting and challenging. But there’s a misunderstanding that you somehow have to become anonymous in an orchestra. In fact, it’s the opposite. You can absolutely hear the difference when 14 first violins out of 14 are really playing, or only 14 out of 16 are playing. Each person brings their own individual sound, style, and personality, and that’s what makes the whole beauty of the section and orchestra unique.
SH: I totally agree. When I played in the conductor-less Juilliard Chamber Orchestra last month, everyone was contributing so much to the rehearsal by playing and speaking up. I was totally able to feel the difference, being in the middle of the orchestra.
DR: Definitely – when I am working in an orchestra, I like people to suggest something. Whether I work with an orchestra in Europe or in America or in Australia or in China, I want to hear what they think about the piece, because I’m interested in putting that together with what I know about the piece, through which we make something that we can’t make otherwise. If I come to rehearsals and just tell them exactly what they have to do, it feels more like I work for Starbucks. It will be high-quality but it’s not the same as when people contribute – it’s not how music works in my opinion.
SH: In Dvořák (Symphony No.9) rehearsals, you sometimes suggest non-traditional way of playing and to change the way we play. Because everyone already knows the Symphony, there is sometimes a discrepancy between their own ways and your way. Where does your inspiration for the piece come from?
DR: Any famous pieces like Dvořák or Beethoven tend to start taking a life of their own through recordings and performances. For me, the original document that composers left us with the ideas is the score, and I find it continually fascinating.
Sometimes in Mozart, for example, when there are two different ways of articulations on the same passage in the opening and the recapitulation, people assume that Mozart made a mistake or they assume that it has to be one or the other. I find assumptions like that will hurt the clarity of the piece. Of course, a composer may make a mistake, but in the 500 pages of manuscript of Cosi Fan Tutte, which I’m conducting, there are maybe 10 errors in three hours of music. Before you just jump to the conclusion that what he wants here is this way, maybe you should think about why.
If composers like Dvořák have a certain bowing, and you say “Oh you can’t play that bowing because the tempo is too slow,” then I would say “REALLY? Is your tempo not fast enough for this to work? Have you decided that you want to ignore the tempo markings at the beginning of the symphony because you think it sounds better?” Great works of art will probably sound good at any tempo, but at the same time I’m not sure that that’s the kind of respect you should pay for somebody who can write a piece of amazing music like that.
I believe that even if you stick very closely to what the composer wrote, there are still so many opportunities to express your own feelings about a piece of music. Whether it’s Bach or it’s all the way up to Elliott Carter, it doesn’t have to do with style – it has to do with interaction that we have and our feeling about the notes.
SH: You mentioned that we should always think about the reason why composers wrote in a certain way – in rehearsal, you also explain the reason why you want to perform your way. Do you have your own personal way of rehearsing that you keep to yourself?
DR: German conductor Otto Klemperer once said “Rehearsals are to play around with the piece and establish boundaries.” Boundaries mean that you will find certain passages faster, slower, louder or softer and you work out all sorts of things; you try different things to discover possibilities. Then, when you get into a performance, you can choose a lot of different possibilities because everybody knows where boundaries are. The performance doesn’t have to be the same way each time, so the rehearsal is for experimentation. I usually try to listen to how people are playing and analyze it – not just in terms of whether it is together or correct, but also what I see in the score, what you hear, and what kind of understanding and expression is coming across from players.
The other thing that I try to do in a rehearsal is to figure out the things that I can help people with by working together, and to leave things that people will have to do on their own. For example, in the Charles Ives piece (Three Places in New England), there is a very hard first violin part and you want them to practice it and realize, “Oh, now I know what to practice in what tempo.” We try the part as a group when they come back after practicing, which makes group rehearsals efficient.
SH: What do you think is the most important personalities or skills that they should have to succeed in this world?
DR: Firstly, you have to show up. Secondly, you need to be curious and constantly thinking about why something is the way it is in a musical phrase or why a piece is put together, so that you can get different insights and keep your curiosity alive. Then, the most important thing is not to give up when things look like they’re not going the way you want them. It’s very easy to get discouraged and to stop – and sometimes you don’t see that there are other opportunities right there.
SH: I have read an article that you stepped into SLSO when the conductor fell ill. Why do you think you were able to stay in the position, or did you even imagine you would spend so much time with the orchestra?
DR: There are certain people with whom you talk to for the first time and there’s a kind of immediate understanding and bond. I arrived in London as a 18 years old at the Royal Academy of Music, and the first student I saw was this crazy red hair trombonist parking his motorcycle at the parking. I had my French horn and he had his trombone, and we said hello to each other, and we are friends ever since. Likewise, it was a really deep immediate bond for me with the musicians in the SLSO; that was a kind of connection made at the first rehearsal that I had with them. When they invited me back, even though I had not seen them in 3 years, I remembered which instrument each musician played when I saw them in the hallway of Carnegie Hall. It’s just a great kind of bond right from the start, and you feel very lucky because sometimes you have good chemistry with people and it was spookily good at the SLSO.
SH: What are you most excited for as you approach your position at Juilliard?
DR: Interactions with the students. By the time they get to this level of the program at Juilliard, they are all remarkable, and I think one learns a great deal from dialogues with brilliant individuals. They will probably teach me more than I teach them because anytime someone asks you a question, it forces you to think and it’s the goal of what you want education to be. For me, the sense of constantly changing thinking about things is the important part, and I look forward to having a discussion about the Dvořák, where they may make me rethink what I do now. I first conducted the whole Symphony No.9 over 30 years ago, and I’m sure I do it completely differently now – not because now I’m good, but because I’ve learned so many things from people I worked with. What I’m looking forward to at Juilliard is helping the conductors discover who they are, and in the process, benefitting from all the things that they are going to teach me.
SH: Is there anything that is changing in the conducting world or classical music world compared to 30 years ago?
DR: The classical music world is changing a lot. But it always has, and there hasn’t been any time when it was completely stable. The question is, what does a classical musician want to do now, and the most important aspect of that has not changed – communication to an audience. One major aspect that has changed very much from even a hundred years ago is that fewer people now have direct contact with an instrument, and therefore the sense of what it means to listen has changed for them. It is essential for musicians to think that there may be people who have never heard an acoustic instrument – the instruments they’ve heard of always come through loud speakers. If you remember the fundamental idea that you want to communicate with the audience, then you might need to change how you present things to people. As I said, if people can keep their curiosity and ask questions then there will be the answers – although I am prejudiced, as my father was an engineer. For engineers, there is no problem for which there isn’t a solution, as they just have to think about it. And how I think about problems might be influenced by him.
SH: What do you like the most about conducting?
DR: It’s the inspiration that I get from people playing music, and I enjoy that I am able to shape a part of that. That’s why I am often smiling when I’m conducting.
___________________________
David Robertson conducts the Juilliard Orchestra
Monday, April 2nd, 8pm at Carnegie Hall
David Robertson, conductor
Tomer Gewirtzman, piano
IVES Three Places in New England
BARTÓK Piano Concerto No. 3
DVOŘÁK Symphony No. 9 in E Minor, “From the New World”
Ticket information: https://www.juilliard.edu/event/130606/david-robertson-conducts-juilliard-orchestra
Zlatomir Fung responds to Joseph Peterson’s March 15th opinion piece “Where TF Are The Practice Rooms?” and provides his own solution to the ever increasing practice room issue at The Juilliard School.
Sometime last semester, my string quartet was cramming a last-minute rehearsal in room 424, one of the larger individual piano practice rooms at Juilliard. One of our members left to go to the bathroom, returned, and we got back to work. After about 15 minutes, a knock sounded at our door, and we dropped our heads in resignation, sensing the misfortune which then befell us: a fellow student had reserved our room through the kiosk system, and was prepared to claim it. We had failed to lock it, thereby renouncing our privilege to occupy it.
We tried to reason with the pianist, arguing that, being a quartet, we ought to have a notch more amnesty, but she continued to apologize with that falling, drawn-out “sorry.” She pitied us, but not more than she wanted to practice. After all, it was our mistake; if we really needed the room, we would have locked it. And so we trudged out and attempted a half-hearted rehearsal in the fourth floor hallways without our instruments, since it was 4:30 PM on a Wednesday afternoon, and there was little hope that we might find a room large enough to accommodate us.
The practice room crisis is a vast epidemic at our school. It has woefully fomented this ‘eat-or-be-eaten’ culture of practicing at Juilliard. I am grateful that Joseph Peterson, the author of the editorial to which this piece responds, had the courage to initiate a much-needed dialogue on this topic, for it is undoubtedly a grim reality affecting a large portion of the student body.
There are 95 practice rooms in the school, the majority of which have pianos. (For now, I leave the two dozen practice rooms in the Juilliard dorms aside.) Of the some 900 students in the school in all divisions, we can assume that at least 650-700 of them use the practice rooms regularly. Naturally, it would be ideal for each student to have their own individual practice room, always vacant when needed. The actual situation is far from that, and as it stands, the math is ghastly.
This brings us to a core philosophical question: does Juilliard, as an educational institution, owe practice rooms to its students? Some would argue it falls under the umbrella of the “artistic education” cited in the school’s mission statement, and most of us would consider practicing even more essential to our improvement than our private lessons.
I am sympathetic toward those who believe that our tuition costs entitle us to practice rooms. At the same time, I do not find it productive to reason solely from a position of entitlement. There are many positive changes that we can make without blaming the whole system for a single manifest failure.
The analysis of Juilliard practice rooms differs from, for example, corporate conference room booking, because of the highly personal, variable nature of practice schedules. Say that you believed that class schedules at Juilliard are structured unfavorably towards practice room availability. Your argument is as such: a large majority of classes are Tuesday-Friday morning or early afternoon for orchestral instrumentalists, thus priming the school for a dense wave of congestion on Tuesday afternoon. Yet, at 9 AM on Tuesday morning, there are plenty of rooms available because so many people are attending classes.
This argument becomes tricky, however, when you recognize that there is no guarantee this solves the issue at all, because even if those who are currently attending class at 9 AM were to attend at a different time (say, late afternoon on Tuesday), they might not want to practice in the morning. Perhaps it’s the case that most people enjoy practicing in the mid-to-late afternoon on weekdays.
It’s challenging to know what the underlying mathematical issue actually is. All observable patterns are subject to variance, so changes might only be verified through trial-and-error. This fact is a concession, but a necessary one. Given this, I now modestly present five suggestions for how we can modify our practice room system and culture, in order of feasibility:
1. Convert classrooms into kiosked practice rooms. This includes classrooms on the 2nd and 5th floors (e.g. 560A, 223A, etc. as well as the keyboard rooms of 500F and such), which are often unoccupied during the evening. Some of these rooms are premium rooms, currently occupied through the ASIMUT booking system. However, having them kiosked would make them more readily accessible. The kiosks would be in effect outside the hours of daytime teaching and the Evening Division courses, which means they would still be largely unavailable during the afternoon peak hours.
2. Create a virtual waitlist system. This would work when there are no rooms available and several different people looking for a room. A swipe at a kiosk will express your intent to practice, and you will be placed in a virtual queue and notified via text when a practice room has opened for you. Pianists will only be given piano rooms, and other instrumentalists will be given anything available. If you fail to occupy a room within five minutes of being awarded it, the room will be given to the next person in the queue. The current system of by-hand reservation will remain in place when there are multiple rooms available, quickly giving the user an idea of the different options. This way, no one will have to swipe incessantly at the kiosks, and there will be no competition. It will be a fair, productive system. Someone might even be able to write an algorithm based on observed practice habits and queue length to estimate the wait times for prospective practicers.
3. Fix the culture of abandoning practice rooms without releasing them immediately. I wager that the implementation of this would do more for practice room congestion than any other modification to the system. So often we leave practice rooms and forget to release them. These 15 minute increments of wasted time add up quickly to hours of practice space wasted each day. Part of the issue is that the “double-swipe” system of releasing a room is unintuitive. It is up to us as students to recognize that this facet of the large issue is our responsibility.
4. Vacate one floor in the dormitory and use it for practice rooms. One floor in the Juilliard dormitory is 20 new practice rooms for non-pianists. This is about as close as we might get to Peterson’s first suggestion. Perhaps with the installation of some curtains, the noise levels would be small enough for this to become a real possibility. Obstacles remain, such as how one would go about integrating the main-building kiosks with these rooms- not to mention the financial implications.
Now I’d like to propose a more complex fifth option:
5. Create an advance booking system. Any functional, communal practice room system must be based upon equity. This is the idea that each person who practices ought to be allocated the same amount of time to practice as each other person, within a given temporal range. Currently, we are faced with an inequitable arrangement, where certain people may occupy a practice room for hours at a time during the most highly trafficked time periods in the day, robbing colleagues of their equity.
To help relieve this, I propose that 35 of the 95 practice rooms be separated from the kiosks to be electronically booked in advance, through ASIMUT. No room can be booked for longer than two hours, and no single individual can book for more than 14 hours a week, or two hours a day. Practice rooms can be booked up to 24 hours in advance from the time when you wish to practice, except for chamber rehearsals, which can be booked 36 hours in advance with the approval of all the members. (It is actually more equitable for everyone to have chamber groups rehearsing during peak hours, since multiple individuals are only using a single room.) If someone fails to occupy a room they have booked, then the room will be released as a kiosked room for the duration of their booked session, starting 5 minutes after the booked time frame begins. If someone wishes to end a booking period early, they may release the room as a kiosked room until the next booked session. Each room and booking may be viewed on the Juilliard ASIMUT platform, so there is never a question of an individual’s right to occupy a room at a given time.
This system will, in itself, create a protected 14 hours per week of practice time for nearly 200 individuals, within common practice hours (11 AM-10 PM). This is a favorable ratio. Some might argue that a time limit on bookings creates a value cap on practice time. However, any sort of value cap on practice time must be considered in relation to the fact that, as it stands, many people are being left behind by the system and simply not getting a requisite number of hours in the practice room. Since some will still want to practice more than 2 hours for a given session, the non bookable kiosked rooms will be available for them, creating a healthy balance.
This proposition demands more fleshing out, to be sure. Please suggest changes, or argue against this system; my intention is to create a serious dialogue about the range of possibilities for change. I encourage all readers who are musicians at Juilliard to discuss this important issue whenever possible, and develop your own ideas about where the issues lie, and how we can go about fixing them. Once a united front, we may present ideas to the administration to cure our epidemic.
One student ponders why a school leading the world in musical education has an insufficient amount of practice rooms. Joe Peterson looks into an issue that has affected most, if not all musicians at The Juilliard School.
Photo by Fiona Robberson
Many musicians at Juilliard are intimately familiar with the electric red banner at the practice room kiosks signaling “All practice rooms are currently signed out by other students.” Every single day (including weekends) there are significant blocks of time when there are no open practice rooms available.
Often, there are lines of three or four people waiting at each kiosk, leading to a game of reflexes, won out of luck as opposed to who got in line first. Furthermore, the kiosks seem to break almost every day, creating even longer lines, and wasting more of our limited time.
On some days, many of us spend upwards of 30 minutes waiting for a practice room. Some days, even more. And then, some of us give up in frustration and go watch Netflix.
Considering we often only have 30 minute intervals to practice between each class, and considering many of us live too far to just go home and practice between classes, this situation is detrimental to our advancement as artists. Hours, if not days, of our time at Juilliard are lost to waiting for practice rooms, and this could very well be the time that determines whether we win our dream job or not.
It also seems to illustrate a lack of respect. Juilliard’s cost of attendance is upwards of $60,000 per year, which is by no means exceptional for a private institution (#cripplingstudentloandebt). Nonetheless, many of us pay tuition with the basic assumption that we will at least have the opportunity to work on our craft.
This provokes many questions. Does Juilliard not have enough practice rooms? Does Juilliard accept a larger student body than it is able to sustain? Does Juilliard™ spend more money on its brand then it does on our education? Or is it simply a matter of facility maintenance and faulty mechanics?
Regardless of the answers, Juilliard is supposed to give us a leg up, not an obstacle to overcome. We are a valuable commodity, and we deserve to be treated as such.
POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS
If you or a loved one can think of any better solutions, please share them in the comments.
Poem: untitled — All the big dippers’/ Translucent layer play/ At rest: esteemed/ Steam shovel./ Javelina in trenching/…
All the big dippers’
Translucent layer play
At rest: esteemed
Steam-shovel.
Javelina in trenching
Rock & Jalapeño popper
Outcomes sourced
Regionalized addition.
All the big dippers’
Javelina in trenching
Translucent layer play:
Rock & Jalapeño popper
At rest, esteemed.
Outcomes sourced
Steam-shovel;
Regionalized addition.
All translucent at steam.
Javelina rock, outcomes regionalized:
The layer-rest, shovel in & sourced addition.
Big layer esteemed trenching: Jalapeño
Dippers’ play popper.
All javelina translucent rock,
At outcomes, steam; regionalized.
The in layer &
rest, sourced, shovel-addition,
Big-trenching play. Jalapeño
Esteemed.
Evan Yionoulis becomes the Juilliard Drama Division’s sixth director and first ever female leader. She will begin on July 1st.
Press Release from The Juilliard School:
Juilliard today announced that Obie-award winning director Evan Yionoulis, currently professor in the practice of acting and directing at Yale School of Drama and a resident director at Yale Repertory Theatre, will become the school’s Richard Rodgers Director of Drama at Juilliard starting with the 2018-19 academic and performance season. The Juilliard Drama Division, celebrating its 50th anniversary this season, offers a program that encompasses one of this country’s most respected conservatory educations for actors as well as highly successful pre-professional mentoring for playwrights.
Ms. Yionoulis has been on the faculty of Yale for the past 20 years and was Lloyd Richards Professor and Chair of Acting from 1998 to 2003.
In announcing the appointment, Juilliard President Joseph W. Polisi said, “Evan’s impressive work at Yale and extensive directing credits make her the perfect person to develop our gifted actors and playwrights as she leads Juilliard’s Drama Division into the future. We were deeply impressed by her thoughtfulness and rich understanding of the educational process in both classic and contemporary work.”
On accepting the position, Ms. Yionoulis remarked, “I am honored and excited to lead Juilliard’s Drama Division into its second half-century, carrying on the school’s great tradition of excellence, and preparing the next generation of actors and playwrights to transform the future of our field through their passion and artistry.”
Joseph Haj, who studied with Ms. Yionoulis and is now artistic director of the Guthrie Theater, said, “Juilliard has made a brilliant choice. Evan is a significant artist and working professional; she has been teaching and mentoring students at the highest level for many years and, not least of all, the human being side is as fully developed as the artistic side. Juilliard could not have done better. I am thrilled for the school and for Evan.”
Ms. Yionoulis will succeed James Houghton, who was head of the division from 2006 until his death from cancer in 2016.
In addition to her Yale position, Ms. Yionoulis is an award-winning director; she has directed new plays and classics in New York and across the U.S. She has enjoyed collaborations with major American playwrights including Adrienne Kennedy and Richard Greenberg. She most recently directed the critically acclaimed world premiere of Kennedy’s He Brought Her Heart Back in a Box for Theatre for a New Audience, where she previously directed her Ohio State Murders (Lortel Award for Best Revival) and the Off-Broadway premiere of Howard Brenton’s Sore Throats.
Ms. Yionoulis opened Manhattan Theatre Club’s Biltmore Theatre (Broadway) with Greenberg’s The Violet Hour, directed his Everett Beekin at Lincoln Center Theater, and received an Obie Award for her direction of his Three Days of Rain at Manhattan Theatre Club, having directed the premieres of all three at South Coast Repertory.
At Yale Repertory Theatre, she has directed Cymbeline, Richard II, The Master Builder, George F. Walker’s Heaven, Brecht’s Galileo, Gozzi’s The King Stag (which she adapted with her brother, composer Mike Yionoulis, and Catherine Sheehy), Caryl Churchill’s Owners, and numerous other productions including the world premiere of Kirsten Greenidge’s Bossa Nova, and, upcoming, Kiss, by Guillermo Calderón.
Other credits include productions at the Mark Taper Forum, the Huntington, NY Shakespeare Festival, the Vineyard, Second Stage, Primary Stages, Dallas Theatre Center, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Denver Center, Williamstown Theatre Festival, and many others.
Ms. Yionoulis has directed Seven, a documentary theater piece about extraordinary women from across the globe who work for human rights in New York, Boston, Washington, Aspen, London, Deauville, and New Delhi.
Her short film Lost and Found, made with Mike Yionoulis, premiered at Cleveland International Film Festival. Their most recent collaborations are the multiplatform project Redhand Guitar, about five generations of musicians across an American century, and The Dread Pirate Project, about the malleability of identity between the digital and natural worlds.
Ms. Yionoulis has received a Princess Grace Foundation Fellowship, Works-in-Progress Grant, and the Foundation’s prestigious Statuette. She serves on the executive board of SDC, the labor union representing stage directors and choreographers, as secretary.
This 2017-18 season Juilliard Drama presented fully staged productions featuring Juilliard’s Group 47 acting students in their fourth and final year in the drama program. The fall season’s productions included Suzan-Lori Parks’s Father Comes Home From the Wars, directed by LA Williams; alumnus Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’s Everybody, co-directed by Danya Taymor and Branden Jacobs-Jenkins; and Pierre de Marivaux’s Triumph of Love, translated, adapted, and directed by Stephen Wadsworth. In February, Juilliard Drama presented three plays in repertory: Euripides’s Trojan Women, directed by faculty member Ellen Lauren; alumna Katori Hall’s Hoodoo Love, directed by Kym Moore; and Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, directed by faculty member Moni Yakim. All performances took place in the Stephanie P. McClelland Drama Theater at Juilliard.
e.d.i.o.p — anonymous submission: impatient inaction… / Intensive Outpatient / elicits reactions; / emotions still latent…
impatient inaction…
Intensive Outpatient
elicits reactions;
emotions still latent
yet forming brain factions.
long calculations,
improper fractions,
won’t quite satiate
but might help gain traction
in preoccupations
long out of fashion.
In recognition of National Eating Disorder Awareness Week, one Juilliard student speaks out about battling bulimia.
Editors’ note: due to the sensitive and important subject matter, we have broken our practice of requiring names for editorials in order to share this Juilliard student–submitted essay. Also note, we at the Citizen Penguin are not doctors and the advice herein is based solely on the author’s individual experience.
**Trigger Warning: Details of specific eating disorder behaviors ahead (not graphic).**
National Eating Disorder Awareness Week 2018 runs from February 26 to March 4, and NEDA’s theme this year is “Let’s Get Real.” So let’s do that. Let’s have a real conversation, starting here at Juilliard, about food.
Around three years ago, I began using bulimia as a mechanism to cope with my emotions and everything else in my life I felt I couldn’t control. This was a very hard thing to admit. A year into therapy, I would still say to myself, my therapist, my doctor, and my parents, “I don’t have an eating disorder, though. That’s not what this is. I just get stressed sometimes, and I’ll do something stupid, but it’s fine…I’m done with that now.” Although I have gotten to a point today where I can fully acknowledge my problems with food, it is still very hard to talk about, and I am not comfortable enough to attach my name to this essay. I realize that a call for more open and honest discussion pulls less weight coming from an anonymous writer, but I am still dealing with my own internalized guilt and shame. I’m just not ready to handle the very real stigmatization and othering that can sometimes accompany a public admission like this.
I was in so much denial because I was terrified of what it would mean to be someone with an eating disorder. What did that make me? Was I really so vain and shallow? I also feared that if I ever admitted my problem to other people, they wouldn’t believe me. I hid my behaviors well, I never looked sick, and I was nowhere near “thin enough.” I know now that those thoughts were not rational. They were coming from the very part of me that is responsible for my eating disorder. The part of me that is full of negativity and will do anything to protect the disorder and keep me sick. One thing I’ve learned through psychoeducation in treatment, my own research, and listening to other people’s stories, is that eating disorders thrive on internalized shame, social isolation, and lies. This has definitely been true of my own disorder, which is why it was so important for me to find people to talk to, but also why it was extremely difficult to do so.
My reality may have been easier to come to terms with had I been able to find positive and inspiring representation I felt I could relate to, but there is almost none out there. In TV shows, books, and movies, eating disorders are rarely discussed, and typically anorexia is the only illness to get attention. Anorexia is often portrayed as a type of vain hysteria affecting a very small subset of the population. Basically, the story goes, a young white woman wants to be thin and pretty, so she goes crazy trying to do it. At the same time, many anorexia narratives focus on the extreme physical appearance of the sufferers to the point of fetishization and glamorization. Binge Eating Disorder, on the other hand, is almost never mentioned, even in many conversations about obesity and related illnesses. Meanwhile, bulimia is sometimes a trope used to represent jealousy between women, and sometimes an edgy punchline in a sorority movie. There are too many examples of eating disorders—which have the highest mortality rate of any mental illness—being erased or trivialized.
Anyone can have an eating disorder, and everyone who struggles with food and body image deserves help. Athletes have eating disorders, as do soldiers, and doctors, and certainly college students who are performing artists.
Media representation can seem like a petty complaint, but insufficient or bad representation has real-world consequences. Many mainstream media sources tend to handle eating disorders only by voyeuristically ogling tiny waistlines, or rolling their eyes at vapid drama queens with a “fake” disease “made up” in the 1970’s. And if these types of narratives dominate the discussion, how can the average person recognize and appropriately face an eating disorder in themselves or others?
The reality is that people have had troubled relationships with food for a long time. While rates of diagnosed eating disorders in many countries sharply increased in the later 20th century, and seem to rise in accordance with food overproduction in a society, disordered eating behaviors have been around for hundreds of years. In fact, according to Psychology Today, the first documented cases of eating disorders occurred as early as the 12th century.
An even more important reality? Anyone can have an eating disorder, and everyone who struggles with food and body image deserves help. It isn’t just for the blond, rich, skinny cheerleader with her head buried in a teen fashion magazine. Athletes have eating disorders, as do soldiers, and doctors, and certainly college students who are performing artists. People of any gender, class, age, race, and size can and do have unhealthy relationships with food. Such relationships can affect a person’s quality of life, and can become more and more serious when left untreated.
Eating disorders are hard to define. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) has updated its diagnostic criteria with every new edition, and clinicians are working to better recognize different kinds of eating disorders. But how helpful are these criteria for anyone who is not a health professional? As a layperson, I’ve found it makes much more sense to understand behaviors, thought patterns, and beliefs as existing on a spectrum. On one end of the spectrum is a person whose relationship with food is completely healthy and comfortable. At the other extreme is someone whose severe eating disorder has drastically impeded their ability to function, or has put them in a state of medical or psychiatric emergency.
There are a number of maladaptive behaviors that can be symptoms of a clinically diagnosable eating disorder, but can also be a part of someone’s life anywhere on the spectrum. Some such behaviors that I have either experienced personally or known someone who has, include emotional eating, bingeing, restricting, fasting, excessive or compensatory exercising, vomiting, laxative abuse, diet pill or diuretic abuse, supplement or steroid abuse, body-checking, calorie counting, obsession with a “healthy” diet or “clean eating,” chewing and spitting food, hiding food, and using caffeine, nicotine, or other substances to suppress appetite. One of the biggest red flags is a general feeling of anxiety or lack of control around food.
Too many of us, if we’re being honest with ourselves, probably exist somewhere in the grey area of the spectrum, and have used at least one of the above behaviors at some point. Maybe we feel like we need to “earn” our food by working out a certain amount every day. Maybe we look in the mirror and see a body that is too big or too small. Perhaps we eat far past our physical comfort level at a buffet, because we just can’t resist when there is unlimited choice. Any of these examples on their own would not constitute a clinical diagnosis, or even necessarily indicate an unhealthy lifestyle overall. However, for myself and for some of the people I met in treatment, behaviors that started out as seemingly innocuous or “normal” ended up spiraling out of control and becoming very dangerous habits.
Disordered eating behaviors do not come out of nowhere. Usually, they are a way to cope, or are the product of stress, social insecurity, and/or lack of control. At a competitive performing arts school like Juilliard, managing crazy schedules, trying to build a reputation in the field, and taking auditions are all a part of day-to-day life. For me, dealing with these situations can be mentally, physically, and emotionally wearing. Meanwhile, I find myself, as an artist, constantly striving to be better, reaching towards an unattainable perfection in my discipline. I know this is part of my own artistic journey, and it is what will hopefully allow me to achieve my creative potential. However, this constant reaching started to become harmful when I tried to apply those same impossible standards to the rest of my life, and determined my self-worth based on how close I was to “perfect.”
If you believe you or somebody you know may have symptoms of an eating disorder, it is important to know that you are far from alone, and that help is possible. This can start with a simple conversation. Sharing your struggles or worries out loud is a huge step towards reducing shame and stigma—and in being more honest with yourself. Disordered thoughts will make any number of convincing excuses for staying silent, one of the most common being, “I’m not sick enough.” Know there is no such thing.
Anybody on the disordered eating spectrum can benefit from talking to a counselor or a nutritionist, both of which are available through Juilliard Health Services—free of charge! It is important to note that sometimes, information regarding eating disorders is not widely known in the medical or therapeutic communities, so if possible, try to make sure the professional you are seeing is experienced in this area. There are tons of highly qualified therapists and dieticians who specialize in eating disorder-related issues all around New York City. Many professionals take various types of insurance, and will often work with clients on a case-by-case basis to establish a sliding-fee scale for private pay. If you already see somebody but are concerned that you may not be getting enough care, there are a number of treatment centers in the New York City area, including the one where I was lucky enough to be able to spend 12 weeks over the summer. These facilities may offer options for care such as support groups, intensive outpatient programs, day/partial hospitalization programs, and residential treatment programs.
Although formal treatment is not for everybody, and may not always be accessible, my experience was transformative. The structured environment disrupted my unhealthy routines, allowing me to form new patterns. It became a safe place where I was able to explore my scariest thoughts and feelings and try new things. Perhaps most important, I connected with other people in the group setting who were going through similar experiences. I felt understood and accepted in ways I had never felt before. Together, we learned from each other and shared our triumphs, our frustrations, our boredom and our compassion, and we reminded each other that none of us was alone.
My advice to anyone on their own recovery journey unable to access formal treatment, or for whom treatment is not enough? Find another way to incorporate that sense of comradery in your life. Whether it be through an affordable or free support group, family and friends, or online recovery spaces, make your voice heard. And have hope. Whatever you may be going through, you don’t have to do it on your own. We are lucky at this school to have so many resources available, so don’t be afraid to use them! And if you find some resources to be lacking, build and seek help from your community. Listen to friends with non-judgmental ears. We’re all in the same boat, trying to make it through young adulthood here at Juilliard, and doing our best to grow as artists and as people.
Choosing recovery has been one of the scariest things I’ve ever done, and no part of it has been easy. I still have bad days. I still slip up. I still need to keep track of my mental health every single day. Ultimately, though, I know that recovery will have saved my life. I already feel happier, more motivated, and more alive than I did a year ago, before treatment. Change is possible. And thanks to my support system of friends, family, and health care providers, I have a whole network of people who are reliably there for me, and whom I am comfortable reaching out to whenever I need.
Getting real will always be hard, but it doesn’t have to be lonely.
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EATING DISORDER AND MENTAL HEALTH RESOURCES
Free Counseling, Nutrition, Medical, and psychiatric appointments through Juilliard:
https://www.juilliard.edu/campus-life/health-and-counseling-services
Eating Disorder Education:
https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/
https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/screening-tool (Free, confidential self-screening tool)
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/evolutionary-psychiatry/201112/history-eating-disorders
https://www.allianceforeatingdisorders.com/portal/what-are-eating-disorders
https://www.anad.org/
http://www.feast-ed.org/
http://glossary.feast-ed.org/2-eating-disorders-symptoms-and-behaviors/body-checking
https://www.edinstitute.org/
https://www.youtube.com/user/KatiMorton (Therapist who specializes in ED’s and makes informative mental health videos)
Eating Disorder Treatment:
https://www.eatingdisorderhope.com/treatment-centers/new-york-ny (List of possible treatment options in the NYC area)
https://www.eatingdisorderhope.com/recovery/support-groups/new-york-ny (List of support groups in NY)
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/groups/eating-disorders/ny/new-york (Support groups)
http://eatingdisordersanonymous.org/index.htm (Free meetings in local areas across the US)
http://renfrewcenter.com/ (Treatment center for women only)
http://www.montenido.com/mn_locations/new-york-ny/ (Treatment center for men and women)
http://www.centerfordiscoverynewengland.com/ (Treatment center for women only)
Mental Health Crisis Resources:
https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/
https://nycwell.cityofnewyork.us/en/
https://www.nami.org/
The Sing for Hope Pianos places artist-designed pianos throughout NYC’s parks and public spaces for anyone and everyone to play. The OSA is looking for volunteer painters to help paint a Juilliard Sing for Hope piano over spring break!
The Sing for Hope Pianos places artist-designed pianos throughout NYC’s parks and public spaces for anyone and everyone to play. We are looking for volunteer painters to help paint a Juilliard Sing for Hope piano over spring break! The design was created by Juilliard students, Matthew Quigley and Avery Roth-Hawthorne.
If you would like to help sand, prime, or paint, sign up at https://goo.gl/forms/TuPG9tTU9xvXb4Wk1. Sign up for 1 hour or 5 hours! Up to you! We will be painting the piano Wednesday, February 28 to Sunday, March 4 from 2-7 pm each day at the paint studio downtown on Liberty St (just off the Wall Street stop on the 2/3 line). Visit Sing for Hope to learn more about this special organization and their piano project.
The Juilliard Student Council, in collaboration with the Office of Student Affairs, is putting on Juilliard’s first student art gallery event!
The Juilliard Student Council, in collaboration with the Office of Student Affairs, is putting on Juilliard’s first student art gallery event! The gallery will take place in the SMR on April 12th for a few hours and will be open to the Juilliard community. There will be snacks and light refreshments. This is an opportunity for Juilliard students to showcase their art and get more exposure, as we have many talented artists among us! If you choose to participate as an artist, there will be a time for you to speak about your work, but this is not required. We will attempt to display works of any media that the space allows. On a larger scale, this event is an effort to include more meaningful visual art in our everyday lives at Juilliard.
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