Heart of Motion

Julie Rothschild on Art, Movement, and Menopause

Susannah Steers Season 1 Episode 7

Join me as I reconnect with the extraordinary Julie Rothschild, a dancer, artist, and movement teacher whose journey through art and motion will leave you inspired. Julie takes us through her profound relationship with dance and how the pandemic led her to the intricate world of tapestry weaving, offering a new dimension to her creative expression and fulfilling her artistic yearnings in ways dance alone could not.

Join us as we unpack the intricate dance between improvisation and structured techniques in movement and teaching. Julie and I share personal stories on how frameworks can guide yet not stifle spontaneity, enhancing the teaching experience. We discuss movement modalities like the Alexander Technique, and Pilates, their impact on our approach to movement, and how they helped us overcome our own physical challenges. Adaptability and continuous learning emerge as central themes in navigating both personal and professional landscapes.

In our final segment, we explore the evolving nature of movement practices, especially as we age.  We reflect on the importance of wisdom, shared experiences, and adapting our practices to maintain an active lifestyle.

Correction!!
In error, Julie mentioned an exhibit at the New Local.  Please note that the gallery hosting the exhibit is instead the Low Rider.  The opening of that exhibit is a private reception not open to the public. 
We apologize for any confusion that may have caused. 

Julie Rothschild Website
Julie's Instagram

And here's the link to the Michelle Obama podcast about menopause that Julie talked about.

Send us a text

Heart of Motion Podcast host Susannah Steers is a Pilates & Integrated Movement Specialist and owner of Moving Spirit Pilates in North Vancouver, BC. She is passionate about movement, about connections and about life.

Through movement teaching, speaking, and facilitating workshops, she supports people in creating movement practices that promote fitness from the inside out. She loves building community, and participating in multi-disciplinary collaborations.

Along with her friend and colleague Gillian McCormick, Susannah also co-hosts The Small Conversations for a Better World podcast – an interview based podcast dedicated to promoting the kind of conversations about health that can spark positive change in individuals, families, communities and across the globe.

Social Media Links:
Moving Spirit Pilates Instagram
Moving Spirit Pilates Facebook

Susannah Steers Instagram

Susannah Steers:

Welcome to the Heart of Motion podcast. I'm Susannah Steers and I'll be your host as we explore the heart, soul and science of movement as a pathway to more active, vibrant and connected living. Nothing happens until something moves, so let's get started. I have a special treat for you today. I can't wait to introduce you to my next guest Of all the places in all the world. It could have happened. I met Julie Rothschild at a marketing conference in the US over a decade ago. I was at this thing trying to figure out how to make my business work and I felt like an alien in a room full of people who seemed to know and do things that were outside anything I was familiar with, and they didn't even seem to want the same things. And then, like a ray of sunshine, there was Julie.

Susannah Steers:

A dancer, artist and maker and a movement teacher. Here was somebody I could actually relate to. There were some values and some experiences that we shared. Now, as it turned out that business-y environment grew stale for both of us pretty quickly, but it has been a wonderful treat to maintain a connection with her over the years, even from afar. Julie, welcome to the podcast. I've been so excited about this. How are you?

Julie Rothschild:

Thank you, Susannah. I'm good, I'm really good. I'm so happy to see you and get to talk to you. I remember, remember, meeting you.

Susannah Steers:

It was sort of a surreal environment we were in. Well, I mean, at least it felt that way to me.

Julie Rothschild:

Yeah, I was a little confused.

Susannah Steers:

Not a home zone for either of us, I don't think. I think one of the things that we discovered back then was that we each share a deep love of movement, and I've often spoken about how I resonate with dancer Peggy Baker's idea that movement is her first language. For me, movement is a way to navigate and translate the world around me, and I feel like that's something that you and I have in common. But I'd love to hear it in your words what does movement mean to you?

Julie Rothschild:

I mean, I could use your words it is how I navigate, how I interpret, how everything that I see. All my senses are geared towards movement somehow, and it's sometimes hard to even put into words, as I think you know, but it's just such a rich way to be in the world, if you will, and so much so that I have to like find my own volume dial so that everything that's moving around us, moving around me, isn't always touching me. Do you know what I mean by that?

Susannah Steers:

Yeah, so it's not all coming in at full blast, at full blast All the time, yeah.

Julie Rothschild:

You know how to be a little more selective. I'm thinking of a million things to say about it, but yeah, it's just as long as I can remember. My memories are very visual the movement that was happening around me. You know, that's how I remember things.

Susannah Steers:

I find it interesting sometimes when I'm thinking about how I perceive the world or things that happen around me. You know, something as simple as music, and well as simple and as complex as music. Let's put it that way.

Susannah Steers:

You know, recognizing how there are different ways that I feel it in my body. Different sounds move through my body in different ways. It's everywhere, right, it's everywhere. It's fun to meet a fellow human who feels the same way about it.

Susannah Steers:

Well, okay, so when we met, you were dancing and performing and working to build up your practice as an Alexander technique teacher and thinking about building a movement space. Now you went and did all that and more, and these days am seeing your work from afar, often in small snippets online. I see that you're weaving and sculpting with metal and creating in all kinds of new ways, and I'm fascinated by the movement I see in your work and how all the elements seem to exist on their own and yet come together too. Tell me more about what you're doing right now.

Julie Rothschild:

It's all such a surprise. It's such a surprise and you're right. At that moment, when we met, I was on the cusp of building something new and that did involve creating a movement space for performance and other artists and teachers, and it was amazing, a lot of work and worth it. And once I had to close the studio in 2020, I not close it fully, but I had to ask everybody to vacate. So no more classes. Let's rethink how we perform for each other, with each other. A lot of rethinking had to happen for everybody and right before that happened.

Julie Rothschild:

So in 2019, I just taken a little tapestry weaving class, and so in 2019, I had just taken a little tapestry weaving class and so picture, if you will, a little frame loom and you start setting up the warp and start thestage left and a downstage right and a center stage, and every thread that I wove through was another line through space and another kind of energy and color and interaction between it. It was everything that I want to do with movement, right there in this little tiny thing in my lap. Oh my gosh. So that was 2019. And I kind of became obsessed immediately because it fulfilled something that I don't think I've been able, you know, yes, partially my physical capacity to make the dances that I feel, but also the logistic capacity of I need 20 dancers right now and I need a very big stage and the logistics of those things. Suddenly I was holding it in my hands, in my hands, so I just kept going.

Julie Rothschild:

And then to jump ahead to when I did have to ask people kindly to not come back into the studio, the studio kind of became like a full-size loom, if you will. It became an installation space for me. It was my little playground, knowing I could do that until I could invite people back in, which I did. And then I decided that I wanted to continue to pursue visual art more than run a studio, and so a few years ago I sold the studio and now I'm full-time, I am working with fibers, I'm weaving, I'm yes, I'm sculpting with steel, large pieces of steel, and I'm really interested in the structural integrity of steel and the tensegrity of fiber, and then the opposite the structural integrity of a fiber and the tensegrity of the steel, and where these two things and the tensegrity of the steel and where these two things meet with me as the connector.

Julie Rothschild:

So I don't really feel any limits right now, except when my tendon in my shoulder is like stop it. I have a few little complaints that come around, but but but it's like stimulating physically and mentally. I love sharing it with people. So I got to, you know, have a few exhibits. I have another one coming up in a couple of weeks. Just yeah, very, very stimulating.

Susannah Steers:

Well stimulating, as an observer as well. I have to tell you, you know, I voraciously look at your feed these days because there's always cool things, whether you're sort of wrestling or dancing with your metal as you create, or you know, I see the movement in your weaving and you spoke a little bit about your exhibit and and I don't know which exhibit it was but I I saw, you know, your work, the weaving hanging and the, the metal placed around the room and then you dancing with it. I was just like, oh my God, this is everything I need right now. It seems to fit together so seamlessly for you, and maybe it is that movement is the thread in between them. I don't know, it sounds like it.

Julie Rothschild:

Yeah, it all feels like the same thing because it's what I'm doing with my body. I'm weaving with my body, I'm sculpting with my body. I'm weaving with my body, I'm sculpting with my body. The movement of making these things is as interesting, if not more interesting, than the product.

Julie Rothschild:

It's like the tiny details that I have to get into, and then the more expansive work, the work that takes a lot of strength and the work that takes a lot of delicacy. So it's this whole range. And then, yeah, I was sort of in a why not? I seem to always be thinking, well, why not? But my friend and colleague, courtney, was up for doing a duet with me in the midst of the exhibit and so we created this. I think of it as pretty funny now, but it was really fun to make some dance work in the midst of the exhibit.

Susannah Steers:

Well, like I said, it brings me great joy to see it.

Julie Rothschild:

So yay, I'm so glad.

Susannah Steers:

Thank you. Well, I know an important part of your dance work has been in improvisation, which requires its own set of skills and an ability to listen on so many different levels. What draws you to the improv side of things? Is there something in the process of improvisation that brings you something that perhaps more choreographed or scripted approach might not?

Julie Rothschild:

I'm just thinking this right now and so I might say something I don't fully, I might not have all the words for, but when I've just for lack of a better word made a mistake, screwed up in the midst of a choreographed piece on stage, you learn how to kind of smooth it out in the moment, right. And then, yeah, it's like I've got these actual memories of times where this has happened, mm-hmm. And then I think about it differently if I'm improvising in performance and I make a choice that's not fulfilling, like it's not fulfilling the whole picture with other people, and so there's a it's not an oops moment, it's like you're composing a whole new I don't know. You're like changing the end of the sentence.

Julie Rothschild:

I'm not saying it right at all, Susannah, I can't quite... I can see it and I can feel it, but I'm not sure how to say it. I mean, maybe I can better say it with what I'm doing right now. So I mean I'm treating all of my weaving as improvisations too, with like learning those skills, how to have the discipline to, how to have the discipline to understand patterns and repetition and scale and tension, but then I'm letting pattern go. I'm kind of just putting things together and then sometimes taking them out once I've put them in.

Susannah Steers:

Yeah, you know, it's composing in the moment, Do you start with a score?

Susannah Steers:

You know the way sometimes we talk about in improv.

Susannah Steers:

Do you start with a proposal or a score ahead of time and then take it from there,

Julie Rothschild:

That's great. Yeah.

Julie Rothschild:

Yeah, yeah, I would say yes, and the score includes the size. I determine how much space I'm going to take up and it's kind of like here's the frame, here's the space I'm going to work within fiber, the color of fiber, and keep it really simple, so not that many elements are going to come into it, and that's kind of it. So then I just finished a tour. I don't say totally finished, I took a piece off my frame today. I worked, you know so like a two week process, which is pretty good. Some take much longer and some I'm really quick with, but I, you know, can walk away from it and I can come back to it and I can see something that I like and I can see something like oh what if that's over there instead of over there? Yeah, I'm giving myself a lot of freedom and a lot of time to make these choices myself a lot of freedom and a lot of time to make these choices.

Susannah Steers:

That's beautiful. That's beautiful. Do you find that that improv mindset for lack of a better word informs other aspects of your life or your work?

Julie Rothschild:

Hmm, yeah, it's just it's. It's easier for me if I don't have a this notion that things have to go a particular way because they don't.

Susannah Steers:

They don't.

Julie Rothschild:

They don't. It's funny.

Susannah Steers:

I know that there's something for me in the, in the curiosity and the questions and the proposals of improv, that feels important to me when I'm working with clients and movement. We have the science, the training, the practice, the experience, the critical thinking, all the things, right? Those are, they're base. But what is even more powerful, I think, is being present to whatever shows up, whatever might happen in that moment, and then you can pull out the skills that you need as the thing unfolds, as that relationship develops, as that thing happens, and that just feels really powerful. I don't know. I think we need that right.

Julie Rothschild:

Yeah, I think it's trusting that empty space, trusting the silence, trusting whoever your students are and I think I used to. I was teaching a lot for a long time and if it was a group class, sometimes I would just draw like an empty square and then a few words and arrows, and these are the ideas that I think could come up today and then, based on what happens, comes the lesson Right. You know, if I was teaching a modern dance technique class, it's pretty good if I've got a few things ready to roll, you know. But also even within that comes the thing. You see, same with teaching Alexander technique, teaching private lessons, movement coaching, it's really what, what your student brings into the room and that's, that's the lesson.

Susannah Steers:

Yeah, so yeah it's the juicy stuff right.

Julie Rothschild:

The juicy stuff. Yeah, yeah.

Susannah Steers:

Well, I think one of the other things you mentioned, the Alexander technique. I mean, I think we both that was another thing we bonded over. We teach modalities designed to improve movement and alignment and structural health and fitness. I know I came to Pilates as a way to kind of solve some knee pain and dysfunction that I was experiencing, and I think you had a similar pathway. Maybe it was the knee pain and the solutions for that that we bonded over. I don't know, but I'd love to hear more about your entree into learning and teaching Alexander.

Julie Rothschild:

Yes, I came to it for my own personal. Let's see, I think I was in. I was in grad school for dance, which was a moment, a blip. I did a year of grad school but I was introduced to Alexander technique in a way that said the right things to me at the right time, and I'd had, at that point, at least two knee surgeries, if not three. This is going way back to like 1993 or something like that.

Julie Rothschild:

And so, with like Laban and Feldenkrais and Alexander Technique, all of these ways of looking at how people move, looking at how we ourselves move, and beginning to notice some habits that I probably had from early on, based on how my body works, or so I thought, then come along the injuries and then come all the compensations that I was doing in order to dance the way I wanted to, with strength and power and tumbling and all of that. But I was really holding myself up on one leg, and I think it was the language of like pause and notice that gave me time to like, just re think how I was even standing and walking, and I geared everything around this one knee Right, and so I began to take lessons for myself and eventually, years later I kept seeking out teachers wherever we lived and then eventually I got reconnected to a teacher that I'd had in Lawrence Kansas, marsha Paladin, and then a teacher I met in Baltimore, robin Gilmore, and they were starting a teacher training program, and this was around maybe 2004 or something.

Julie Rothschild:

We lived in Georgia at the time and I decided to go for it. I was doing a lot of teaching at that time at University in Georgia at the time and I decided to go for it. I was doing a lot of teaching at that time at University of Georgia and other colleges and I was like I want my students, I want to figure out how to share this information that I apply to myself with my students and I want more confidence in the language. And I didn't know necessarily that I was then going to really dive into teaching Alexander Technique. I just wanted it to be in my toolkit. So it was a great addition to what I was already doing and you know, learning how to apply that information without specifically teaching it and then eventually going into two more teaching teaching groups and teaching private lessons. So it was about my knee. Yeah, it was all about that.

Susannah Steers:

Well, I mean, you start with, I guess you know the pain points right? My journey was quite similar. My knees were just a mess and and they were hurting all the time, and it didn't seem like any of the medical interventions that I was looking at were really all that useful in terms of getting me to the level of work that I wanted to get to. And it really did mean, as you say, sort of stop, finding a little moment of stillness, recognizing what those patterns are, and then playing around with things and seeing, oh, if I try it this way, that's really quite different. And oh my gosh, look at that, I have that other leg to stand on now. Well, so let's talk about the techniques for a minute.

Susannah Steers:

You know, Pilates technique, Alexander technique both are relatively linear methodologies, in some ways created by white European men, and I think we've both benefited a lot from what we've learned. And yet, you know, from my side of things, I know in certain circles Pilates can be a pretty much a my way or the highway kind of thing. The master was the master, and do not mess with the original work. Sometimes there doesn't seem to be a lot of room for evolution or change. Yeah, over the years I've had all the feelings about this. Sometimes, oh, we need to preserve the work, and sometimes, whoa, no, there's time to move on and evolve and all the gray areas in between. And I'm wondering how that kind of stuff sits with you with respect to Alexander and movement and your experience with it.

Julie Rothschild:

This is a big question.

Susannah Steers:

Yes, sorry,

Julie Rothschild:

It's okay - big question. I'm not teaching these days and I let teaching go a few years ago and that's a whole other story probably. But yeah, in the field there are definitely lines of thinking that some people get to be master teachers and some don't, and I found I'm so not interested in being a master of anything. I think it's language we need to part with.

Susannah Steers:

I'm with you there

Julie Rothschild:

.

Julie Rothschild:

There were some pretty strong ideas that it was a my way or the highway field, and so there are camps, camps that didn't always want to talk to each other. I'm like, aren't we all just interested in people living full lives and feeling good and so getting into it over this? What this one man decided was his technique. I just yeah, it's. I yeah, I just didn't really feel like being in it anymore and I will say I have some friends and colleagues who are doing some really beautiful work in really opening it up more and more and more, letting the language change, letting how it's expressed and who it's available for be much more open. I mean, hopefully, really really open.

Susannah Steers:

A lot more open yeah ,yeah.

Julie Rothschild:

I didn't know that I would ever feel so happy to not be teaching. This was necessary for me, I think, to really step out and see what all of these forms, because I love any number of fields, including Pilates. How is that helping me right now? And if I come back to teaching at some point, great, but I don't know if I will. I don't know. Am I hitting the question?

Susannah Steers:

Yeah, totally. And I mean that's it right. I think I feel the same way in that it is sort of aren't we all here to help each other live more fully and more comfortably and, you know, with more energy and all of that, and what can we do? And you know, none of these things is, in and of themselves, the panacea for anything. And so isn't it fun when we can collaborate and play and explore, and yeah, so I think we're kind of on the same page there.

Julie Rothschild:

Yeah, yeah, I mean, my best experiences with the work were when I was in kind of like playful dances with people and we weren't talking, you know, we were just letting ourselves play in motion.

Susannah Steers:

Yeah, Interesting things happen.

Susannah Steers:

Well, so did you grow up in a sporty kind of family. You know, where did you come from?

Julie Rothschild:

Well, I played a lot of sports. I think I played all the sports that were available to me as a kid in Ohio, which meant softball, basketball, volleyball, swimming. I was on the swim team for a little while. I ran track swimming.

Julie Rothschild:

I was on the swim team for a little while I ran track.

Susannah Steers:

Wow, I didn't know that.

Julie Rothschild:

Yep, I did all. I was a cheerleader for a minute, cause that was a sport, if you will, how high can you jump? But I never knew when to cheer. For what I mean? I can't believe they let me cheer. It was in eighth grade, I think. I'm like I don't know what, what, what first in 10 means, and there's a cheer, oh my god, anyway. Um, yeah, so, and then I I, my dad was definitely, uh, he was a swimmer. My parent both my parents encouraged us to be athletic and, uh, busy, you know physically.

Julie Rothschild:

So, and we had a farm and so there was a lot of physical activity there.

Susannah Steers:

Physical work.

Susannah Steers:

Yeah, did you raise your kids with like as maybe we could say it this way - with movement as a core value?

Julie Rothschild:

Yeah, yeah, I think so. We love to be outside, so we did a lot of hiking, we did a lot of things in the outdoors and if they wanted to play soccer, we did our best to get them on soccer teams. The dismay that I know we feel about kids have if you don't get your kids signed up by age four for a club sport, they're no longer going to have a chance to play high school sports. Yeah, and that just wasn't the case for us. I mean, we, if we wanted to be on a high school team, there was room in the whenever that was that we were in high school.

Julie Rothschild:

Yes, and I really that was not true for my kids, the, you know it, it became something else and I felt the fun kind of drain out of it. They both played sports and all different things, but they, I think they found their way into ultimate Frisbee and skateboarding and things where there was more fun and freedom. Yeah, and, and both of them took dance classes and one of them is a dancer now in Chicago and the other is doing movement and music stuff in New York, and so I feel like that that got in there.

Julie Rothschild:

Sounds like it, I feel pretty good about it Got in there Sounds like it, I feel pretty good about it.

Susannah Steers:

Both of us are women of a certain age and with that comes some shifts in capacity and expectations. Menopause and aging seem to be kind of having a moment lately, after a long period of everybody ignoring it, and there's no shortage of information out there about what we should be doing to stay healthy and keep moving. But information needs to be bolstered by wisdom and experience, I think.

Susannah Steers:

You know the stories that we tell other women and and our children, and you know, learn from our grandmothers. So I don't know, could you share some of the things that you're learning along the way?

Julie Rothschild:

Oh boy, it's quite a time, isn't it?

Susannah Steers:

It sure is.

Julie Rothschild:

I, you know, I've asked my mom at different times about different stages in her life and you know her memory of it is like I was just so busy I don't even know, you know what was happening. I feel very lucky and fortunate because my sister is a nurse practitioner specializing in women's reproductive health, and so for years she has been my first call and as she keeps up with the science and her own experiences and how she looks at and understands menopause and is endlessly helpful to me. And so then I feel like when I go see my doctor I come in with questions that I've been able to think through a little bit more and I've had a run.

Julie Rothschild:

I mean, I've really had quite a go and I will not go into all the gory details, but it's involved, you know I definitely hormone replacement therapy works for me. I'm very grateful for it. I have had a surgery in order to help with some of the symptoms. That was extreme, but not everybody would need what I needed, but I, you know I, was one of the lucky women who had all of the symptoms to the extreme, so everything was happening to and this is not unusual. But it can be hard to get out the door. It's kind of like when you have a newborn. Yeah, not at all like having a newborn,

Susannah Steers:

No, but the unfamiliarity of it! You know you have a newborn and it's like from one day to the next your life is different and there is something about that. I think to menopause, and maybe it's not one day to the next, but it's like all of a sudden, holy crap, everything is different and the things that you used to do to manage things don't work anymore and the dots don't connect anymore and like, am I going crazy? How is this ever going to come together? And I know it can be.

Susannah Steers:

I mean, I had, I think, a relatively easy in terms of hormonal stuff, but my anxiety went through the roof and my sleep I mean hormone therapy for me was like, oh my God, this is what sleep does, but I think it's really powerful. It's amazing that finally there are enough studies and enough actual science that people are paying attention to how women are different and the things that we need that are different than from men. But I think also - and I don't know you said your mom was just busy. I know my mom never talked about this stuff.

Susannah Steers:

She just didn't right. It was not, and then by the time I was old enough to ask, she was gone, so it was sort of "okay, Well, this is foreign and I didn't really have elders to talk to, so I think it's really cool. Women of our age need to be telling people what we're experiencing,

Julie Rothschild:

Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.

Julie Rothschild:

I was listening to a Michelle Obama podcast and she has one where she specifically talks about menopause. (Just to talk about another podcast while I'm on your podcast.) But it was so good, it was so affirming and funny and poignant.

Susannah Steers:

Oh, it sounds good.

Julie Rothschild:

Yeah, it was really good. I can try to find that link for you, I think having a lot of acceptance and grace with ourselves and yeah, I have some good, a few good doctors who I can really talk with about all the things that are going on and I feel really listened to. And that's not always the case when it comes to our reproductive and our kind of, you know, our health.

Susannah Steers:

No, it's true.

Julie Rothschild:

Yeah.

Susannah Steers:

It's funny, just as you were speaking there, I was thinking about that, life is improv. You know, we get to this phase and we don't know what's going to show up, and we have all these skills and maybe they'll work and maybe they won't, and maybe we need to learn more stuff, but also there's such a layer of just trying to be present with what is and accept what's there. And okay, how do we navigate this? What are we going to do with this? Where will this take us?

Susannah Steers:

You know, julie, there are a million more things. I had like a billion more questions to ask you, but I am mindful of our time. So I would love for people to experience your work, either in person or online. So what is the best place for them to find you, whether we're in Canada or down where you are in the US?

Julie Rothschild:

So my studio is here in Boulder, Colorado, and I love visitors. I have an Instagram that I'm relatively active on and just sharing works in progress and various little ditties, little improvisational gestures material gestures, at @julieerothschild . And then my website is jrmade. studio.

Susannah Steers:

Okay, great, I'll put links in the show notes as well so people can find those.

Julie Rothschild:

Thank you.

Susannah Steers:

the years my clients have heard a familiar refrain from me saying: "it's about more than just muscle, and when I say it, some people look at me as though I have three heads, Others give me a bit of a curious glance and others dive into exploring what all of that means. In talking to you, Julie, I always feel like I can bask in the fullness of what is, for me, a much deeper, richer and perhaps even a more spiritual experience. I mean, we haven't gone there too much today, but there's something there. Thank you so much for taking the time with me today. It's been so fun to catch up.

Julie Rothschild:

You are most welcome and thank you. What a pleasure and I hope to see you like this or in person soon, really, soon.

Susannah Steers:

Yeah, yeah, I am going to have to come down and see one of your exhibits. I'm just like I said, they bring me joy. Please do Take care and we'll see you soon, okay.

Julie Rothschild:

You too, Susannah.

Julie Rothschild:

Bye.

Susannah Steers:

I hope you enjoyed today's episode. Subscribe and, if you love what you heard, leave a five-star review and tell people what you enjoyed most. Join me here again in a couple of weeks. For now, let's get moving.

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