The Brooklyn Rail

Imagine you’re in the middle of a mat class with your favorite Pilates teacher. Maybe you’re lying on your side, gritting your teeth through a killer series of clamshell reps, when you notice the person next to you is groaning with a little more drama than necessary. And your instructor, for some reason, has launched into an earnest conversation with another student about what sounds like a dance show she’s creating. No, you’re not dreaming. Rather, you’ve entered the world of Comedy Pilates, a fitness parody, an interview series, and a workout, conceived and directed by choreographer and certified Pilates instructor, Amelia Heintzelman. Comedy Pilates takes place at the Center for Performance Research in Brooklyn in three sessions, each one hour long, May 4 and 5.

Karen Hildebrand (Rail): Comedy Pilates sounds like nothing I’ve ever experienced. Tell me, is it really an exercise class? Or is it some kind of immersive performance?

Amelia Heintzelman: Originally, Comedy Pilates was a Zoom class—it was a COVID project. We were doing mat Pilates, but these little jokes would happen. Like there would be a performer behind me pretending to be a thief, taking things from my apartment while I was teaching. This variation at CPR is going to feel very different because the class will be live, but the premise is the same: an hour-long Pilates mat class. Everybody is there to take a Pilates class. There’s no audience. And there’s this added layer, where I’m not only instructing class, but I’m also interviewing a special guest—an artist or choreographer about their artistic practice.

Rail: So you’re deliberately complicating your task as a fitness instructor.

Heintzelman: I really am curious about these artists. And then there’s a whole ensemble of characters that will disrupt class. Between trying to have an earnest conversation and facilitating a group fitness experience with a high level of performativity, there’s almost an impossible number of things to juggle.

Rail: How does this ensemble of characters show up? Are they obvious to the other students, or does somebody on the mat next to me suddenly start doing something odd?

Heintzelman: So the characters are class participants, just like everyone else. They’re loosely based on experiences I’ve had as a teacher. They inhabit these exaggerated, verging-on-toxic qualities of a person in Pilates class. There’s going to be someone who is there to show off. There’s going to be someone there who’s looking for love. There is going to be someone who takes the class really seriously. It’s all to create a scenario in which we’re collectively dealing with a really uncomfortable level of having split attention. The push for self-optimization requires us as artists and people to deal with constant competing demands.

Rail: Are these performances scripted or are they improvised?

Heintzelman: I’ve never worked in theater, so nothing is going to be scripted; I work improvisationally in my own choreography practice. This project has been a really different experience, since I usually work with scores that are a lot more abstract and based in the body. It’s been a fun challenge working with this ensemble to craft characters as containers for each of their own improvisational experiences within the class.

Rail: Of course, as a teacher, you also work improvisationally. You bring your intuition to whatever needs to happen in the class that day.

Heintzelman: I’ve been saying that for a long time. When you’re a newer teacher, you have to kind of write out a script for yourself—you need structure. But when you become a good teacher, you know how to abandon the structure and be really intuitive in how you’re paying attention to the folks who are in the room with you, how the group dynamic is unfolding, how things are changing in real time.

Rail: How does Comedy Pilates fit into your portfolio as a dancemaker?

Heintzelman: I think this is the first time I’ve let my artistic practice really kind of bleed into my teaching life. I am a Pilates and yoga instructor in my daily life. That’s how I make money. It always felt very separate from my artistic practice as a performer and choreographer. I feel like I have to turn on a different personality—a little bit louder or a little bit more dominant, a little more aggressive, a little bit better at multitasking, a little bit more tuned in to other people. In my choreographer/performer mode, everything feels much more internal. So the tension between the internal and external that exists in Comedy Pilates is something that interests me generally.

Rail: Can you say more about that tension?

Heintzelman: In my artistic and working life, there’s a lot of tension between the idea of authenticity and performativity. There’s tension between perfection and failure, control and absurdity, that I’m constantly grappling with. These things seem like they’re maybe pushing up against each other, but they are actually quite dependent on each other, they’re intertwined. This project is a really good way of just letting all those things kind of bubble up to the surface.

Rail: Where do you want to go with this project?

Heintzelman: I’m excited about this being a video project because it’s something that can be revisited. The interviews will be videotaped and turned into a short series, each between five to ten minutes, as an archival document. I’m inspired by dancers and choreographers. I think they have so much to say, and it’s important that we record them for other people to have access to.

Rail: Who do you plan to interview?

Heintzelman: Sophia Parker is someone I’ve worked with as a dramaturg. She has worked as a dancer for Sidra Bell, and has now gone to school for dramaturgy, and is beginning to make theater. She has a lot to say about switching between those different roles and the power dynamics involved.

Glenn Potter-Takata had a show at Danspace Project this past winter. He’s someone who works with props and technology in a way that I think is unique, and he also performs in his own work, which I do, too. So I’m curious to talk to him about that experience.

Lena Engelstein recently had a show at New York Live Arts. She is one of my favorite performers as well as someone who I love talking about dance with. Her brain is on fire, and I feel like every time I’m in conversation with her, she ignites my brain.

Rail: I’m picturing you interviewing these people while they’re pumping their arms in an abdominal curl. In the class description, you mention editing these into episodes similar to Hot Ones, that show where the host asks people questions about their lives and careers while they eat chicken wings with hot sauce and their mouths are on fire. You’re doing sort of the same thing: their abs are on fire, and they’ve got to talk coherently about why they’re making a dance piece.

Heintzelman: I think there’s something about the idea of interviewing artists while they’re doing Pilates that’s going to lead to really interesting conversation. Everyone’s guard will be down from the start, just because of what’s happening. I’m really curious about how that will change the conversation—and take us somewhere that we wouldn’t get to if we were hanging out after a show one night.

Rail: Is there a performer who works in a vein similar to what you want to achieve with Comedy Pilates who inspires you?

Heintzelman: I’ve always loved the Eric Andre Show. He’s one of my favorite comedians. I find so much joy in the interviews he does because they’re so crazy. My favorite female comedians, Kate Berlant and Jacqueline Novak, also have a great podcast; I like their banter.

Rail: Are you a funny person in real life?

Heintzelman: I’m able to find humor in a lot of places you wouldn’t expect to see it—more so than being a comedian myself. I’m always looking for that moment of awkwardness, or tension, that can be broken by seeing it as funny.

Rail: How do you think Comedy Pilates will feed back into your dancemaking life?

Heintzelman: This project is teaching me how to be really uncomfortable in a way that I don’t know if I’ve gotten to within my own work. There’s something that feels really good about it because I’m not in control of a lot of elements here. It feels really counter to the type of work that I do when I’m choreographing. This is about embracing the mess. And I think it’s teaching me about my relationship to control and perfectionism as a maker. It’s changing my relationship to failure and understanding what failure does in a performative setting. So this project is both challenging me and giving me a lot of joy. It’s a gift, and it’s also kind of scary.

Rail: What do you have coming up on the horizon?

Heintzelman: I’m working on a new dance, trying to continue to work from a place of interiority and trying to understand my relationship to the audience. I’m interested in thinking about arousal—how, as a performer, can I stir people on a deep level?

I’m teaching as always, and I am performing with a lot of folks who I really love and admire. So I get to ping-pong between these different roles, which brings me a lot of joy. I have so many interests. Yet there are only so many hours of the week to be all the different versions of myself. That’s who my character is in Comedy Pilates. I’m bringing out that trait. We were joking that if we each had a T-shirt describing our character, mine would say, I say yes to everything. I work all the time. I’m not listening. I never sleep.

Rail: So you can laugh at yourself, but it seems like Comedy Pilates is also taking a jab at a respected fitness institution. Or at least the way we partake in it.

Heintzelman: There’s a contradiction in the wellness industry with the idea of something being “holistic,” when it is actually about an obsession with personal perfection. The way capitalism markets wellness is a regimented, repetitive, and individualist attempt to optimize one’s time, body, and ability to perform. It’s actually quite violent. Comedy Pilates allows for humor and irony while also pointing out the danger of buying into an ideal body or way of executing an exercise, and losing the ability to think critically or with curiosity. Being obsessed with “wellness,” as it’s sold to us, can be harmful. 

Rail: I understand you’ve worked with a dramaturg to articulate some of your themes?

Heintzelman: This project is a hugely collaborative effort. Sitting down with a dramaturg really helps me develop the language to express the “why” within a piece. It’s helped shape my work in a way I wouldn’t have been able to do on my own. Especially when I’m in the work myself, it’s really helpful to have an outside perspective.

Rail: What kind of response do you anticipate?

Heintzelman: It could be really awkward. It could be an entire hour of just really not landing. I could fail. But that’s what’s exciting. And the archival component, I think, has the capacity to be very meaningful for people beyond just now. I’m having conversations with people I have full faith will go on to have prolific careers. I’m hoping this is just the beginning, and that there can be a big library of conversations.