Polly Motley's Houston dance roots run deep. She assisted James Clouser during his time as interim director of Houston Ballet during the mid 1970s. She also served as associate director of Space Dance Theater, a noted experimental troupe. Motley's work Charmed Romantics, performed by CORE Performance Company, is featured in A Weekend of Texas Contemporary Dance at Miller Outdoor Theatre. Motley fills us in on the piece and what she has been up to since leaving Houston.

29-95: What are your Texas roots?

Polly Motley: I am a Texas native, born in Nacogdoches. Two of my great-grandfathers signed the Texas Declaration of Independence. Is that Texas enough?

29-95: I'll say. Why did you leave us?

PM: You are sweet for asking. I do miss Texas. Houston wasn't much interested in experimental dance. I went to Colorado to pursue contemplative work and finally settled in Stowe, Vermont, where I live and work.

29-95: It's no secret that I gushed over Charmed Romantics in my Dance Source Houston review. I was simply amazed at how the dancers seemed to inhabit your work with a remarkable consistency, as if they share the same movement language. How ever did you do that?

PM: I spent all day with them for five weeks.

29-95: Well it shows. What did you with them?

PM: We did luxurious, two-hour warm ups, where I guided them to get deep within their own body's sensation and timing. So that's big and really influenced the work. I encouraged them to discover how they want and need to move. It worked well in this situation because they needed to do both hard choreography and do it well, but they also had the opportunity to alter that material in ways that felt really good to them.

29-95: Isn't it rare these days to have so much time with a company? Or do you demand that?

PM: Yes, it's rare, and yes, I insist on it. This is the first group piece I have choreographed in ten years. I have been doing solo work. I am thrilled to be choreographing for a group of dancers again. Charmed Romantics is based on a piece I did in 1985 called Duet. This piece is a version of a project I call Duet to Quintet, which I am interested in making for other companies.

29-95: How the dancers develop such a cohesive look?

PM: Nina Martin deserves credit. The company worked with Martin's ensemble thinking process, where their improvisatory skills were really honed. I would add that the CORE dancers are particularly gifted at it.

29-95: When I watch the piece I see people, not dancers.

PM: That's a big thing right there. It takes a lot of work to get them to look like people. One of the things I talk about when I teach is that we are human beings first who just happen to be able to whip out three pirouettes and land in an arabesque.

29-95:The dancers seem to be involved in their private self-obsessed worlds but doing it all together. So they are alone and not alone.

PM: The warm-up process is very much like that, in that they experience a very deep personal awareness, which is enhanced by the presence of other people doing the same thing at the same time. It's like meditation. I can meditate by myself in a room, but I can mediate much better with the energy of other mediators in the same room.

29-95: I love Dierde Adams' music. How did you find her?

PM: At Eddie's Attic, a club across the street from the Core studio in Atlanta. She performed live in Atlanta.

29-95: The song comes in and out of the dance, but when it returns, it feels like a soothing tonic.

PM: I guess it does soothe. She wrote it when her heart was broken.

29-95: How do you think such an intimate piece will read in such a large outdoor space?

PM: I don't know if it will carry over the hill. I do know one thing, the piece is well placed in space, there's a dynamic use of space and energize in how its composed, so something will read.

29-95: What's next for you?

PM: I'm working on a project with dancers from New York, making theatrical dance vignettes for installations in a gallery setting in Vermont.

29-95: Don't wait three decades to return.

PM: I'll be back in Houston in November, teaching and making work.

Dance Source Houston presents A Weekend of Texas Contemporary Dance. 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday. Miller Outdoor Theater. Free.