Amanda Loulaki

Born on the island of Crete, Greece. In 1994, received a Fulbright scholarship to study at the Merce Cunningham Dance Studio and moved to New York. Programming director at Movement Research. Dancing for 30 years.

What was your first move into the professional dance realm? I stopped dancing for a while when I was in college, and I remember I missed it so much. And a friend of mine told me it's never too late. So I started searching; I did ballet and jazz and modern but I wasn't satisfied. I thought if that's dance, I don't care. Then I took a workshop that taught a different approach to movement through improvisation and I was interested because you could make it all very personal.

How do you sculpt a dance to fit your vision? At the beginning, I rehearse by myself trying to find out what kind of movement represents the idea I want to develop. After I find that, I invite everyone into the studio and we start working on the idea. I ask everyone to improvise because I want to see what is coming out of them, and then I start directing. After that, I teach them phrases, which they manipulate in their own way, and again I start directing. But we take a long time experimenting on what the movement feels like, working on a specific state of mind. I want them to get into that state, and after they own that feeling we can work on the movement material.

Describe La La La La, Resistance. We wanted to investigate human mortality. Some of my dancers and I are at an age where we're going to start losing people we know and we found that we're not able to deal with that absence. Then the realization came to us that the way we deal with incidents like death are through patterns. Everyone has their own pattern-religion, political ideals. The only way to deal with nothingness is by creating patterns that we can fill our minds with, so we can go through our lives painless. But the piece is not only about this; I don't like didactic work. I don't like that you show the piece and then say "okay guys, did you get it?"

How much do the dancers influence the work? A lot-that is why I'll never have an audition. I know everyone, how we relate and how they think. If not, I would have made a solo. Why put more people on stage who do not have different things to offer? Also, I'm sometimes bored of myself and I really like to see what other people are going to do with my ideas.

Dance Theater Workshop, 219 W. 19th St. (betw. 8th & 9th Aves.), 212-924-0077; Weds.-Sat., March 2-5, 7:30, $20.