How do you see the next generation of artists expanding on the ideas you continue to explore, and what do you think of the state of contemporary dance and hip hop today?

The way I am inspired by my students is immeasurable; it’s literally hard to articulate. The reason I say that is because social media and information, in a really flat way, is available for them. It’s startlingly different than when I was their age. In general terms, social media was always available—VHS tapes, a recording—but the amount of global information available to them is really inspiring.

The ways that they approach it, interpret it, consume it, put it in their bodies, is pretty phenomenal. There probably aren’t too many weeks I can walk through the foyer at the Glorya Kaufman School of Dance and they’re not learning something on TikTok. They’ve probably done six hours a day in ballet, in house or locking. They’ve already done all of these movement classes, but they will prop a phone up, learn the latest TikTok dance and practice it right there in the lobby. 

Their ability to pick up movement is crazy, but it’s a training that happens outside the studio. They’re invested in it, because they just hit a different sort of point for them in their joy space. They’re exploding any notion of contemporary dance. Those people who are tied to what dance is supposed to look like in 2025, for me, they’re stuck. We just need to take in what they’re doing, and maybe it doesn’t fit your parameters of what hip-hop or what contemporary is. Maybe it’s like oozing past the margins of most ideas. 

Let’s just approach it from there and be okay with it. Maybe it is dangerous. Maybe there hasn’t been a genre for this. But something’s happening, and I see it every year. This is my 12th year, and then in the last six years, it’s only been amplified. I also teach composition and choreography, and one of the things that is beautiful about this opportunity is [that] I come in to teach a technique class, my colleagues—nationally, internationally—I keep asking, because improvisation is at the core of what we do—are they asked to teach improvisation?

Most of them say no, unless they have a background in modern, contemporary or ballet. I’m like, “That’s criminal.” But I teach all of these things at USC, including the inaugural class, and we have a fashion minor. I do costume design, and we have improvisational strategies to movement and materiality. So many dancers approach styling for performance and are already bubbling ideas around costume design.

Whether they want to be designers or not—this class helps them think about how to be in conversation around styling for performance. In a nutshell, you have a show, but please don’t tell everyone to wear all black. Think about what your projects are. They also learn how to sew in this class, so we recycle, we’re thinking about sustainability, which I think these dancers have been doing. 

So you go into your closet, you reconfigure things you wear every day, and boom, it becomes this costume. So, beyond the technique block, there’s all these other classes. They learn to put together their own movement scores or a symbolic system. Maybe they want to communicate with their dancers through an image, through words, through a sound or a combination of those things. We’re going to use all that.

Wow, grimes, your classes sound incredible! Finally, though, what do you feel most proud of, and where do you see yourself in the next five to ten years?

I sense the most fulfillment in cultivating a beautiful community of collaborative artists, a core group of people that my not even show up in the program. But in this season of life, there are people I’ve met when I was joining Puremovement and trying to figure out what concert dance is, and I’m still close to them. They really inspired me. 

I’m most proud of the people I’ve met along the way, and I think they’re visioning and thought partners for me. I feel they show up in the work, including my wife/partner, and my children. I have three and they’ve been in my work at this point. Those are things I’m really proud of. I’m a parent, and there’s no distinguishing line between who I am as an artist and a parent. 

Where do I see myself in the next five to 10 years? I don’t. I’m in the present right now. The timeline thing, I’m not even thinking about that. But I do feel like when I look at this garden of what's happening, I can feel the work oozing into what some people would consider the visual arts, spaces, galleries crossing boundaries, I can definitely see that.