Interview: Kristina Isabelle of DIRTY TALK at Shadowbox Live!

From the time she was in third grade, Kristina Isabelle knew exactly what she would be.

It wasn’t career counseling.

“I remember I was eight or nine years old,” Isabelle said. “One of the neighborhood girls asked me what I wanted to do when I grew up. I said I want to be a dancer, actress, singer.

“So, I asked her what she wanted to do and she said, ‘I don't know.’ I told her (raising her voice to a concerned tone), ‘You don’t know?  You have to practice, practice hard now, and work at it now.’”

Her message was not well received. The girl’s mother overheard what Isabelle was saying and wasn’t pleased; the girl ran back to her house in tears.

A few decades later, Isabelle is still working at what she predicted she would do. After attending the Juilliard School, the Harvard of the entertainment industry, she not only started her own dance studio, but she was hired by Shadowbox Live as the resident choreographer.

Producing director Julie Klein said Isabelle has already made an impact.

“Kristina brings a lot of creative energy to our production team,” Klein said. “She has vast experience in the arts and her choreography is both powerful and moving, which makes her a wonderful fit for Shadowbox Live.”

Isabelle designed routines for Poison’s “Talk Dirty To Me,” Tom Lehrer’s “The Masochism Tango” and Flyleaf’s “All Around Me” for the company’s DIRTY TALK. The show opens at 7:30 p.m., April 2 and will be performed at 7:30 p.m. most Thursdays and at 2 p.m. on Sundays through Aug. 15.

“I’m looking forward to another new creative process experience,” Isabelle added. “I love making dances here. The performers are actors, so that adds a layer of storytelling to my work.”

This summer Isabelle is coordinating the movement of Shadowbox’s summer show FLANNEL: A 90’s ROCK MUSICAL (which opens May 28 and runs through Sept. 8). Fueled by a grunge soundtrack that features Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, and many others, FLANNEL follows Rolling Stone photographer Chance as he navigates through a journey of self-discovery.

“(Hopefully) it makes the audience really feel the song and story in their own bodies,” she said. “It is a visceral experience. Having live music at every performance makes the Shadowbox experience even more powerful.”

“Kristina brings creative ideas to the table and is willing to always think outside the box,” Klein added. “There is never a shortage of ideas, concepts, or passion.”

After spending 12 years building her own dance company in Chicago, Isabelle was looking for a new challenge. She became aware that the theatre was looking for a choreographer and attended one of the shows in the fall.

The choreographer was convinced this was the right place for her and the Fort Hayes and Upper Arlington graduate returned to Columbus in October.

“After the show, I knew this would be a great place to create and work,” she said. “It’s a great challenge for me to dive into: making and creating at a fast pace and with all original material.”

Isabelle has never been one to back down from a challenge. After high school, she aimed to get into the best program she could find: Juilliard. The school, located in New York City, has a 5-9 percent acceptance rate, making it more difficult to attend than Harvard or Yale. Actors Audra McDonald, Laura Linney, and Viola Davis, and dancers Robert Battle, John Heginbotham, and Gerald Casel all were in her graduating class.

The choreographer compared attending the school to joining the Army.

“They break you down a little bit that first year before they build you back up,” said Isabelle, who earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in dance there and then went to earn a Master of Fine Arts in dance from The Ohio State University. “You might have been the star at your dance studio or in your high school. Everybody there was also a star. You have to find your place.

“The best part about Juilliard is that it was art wrapped around education. I love the variety of work I got to do. We had great teachers, but it was challenging and there was some competitiveness to it.”

Isabelle continues to push herself. One of the skills she brings to the Shadowbox is being able to dance on stilts.

After college, the Juilliard graduate moved to San Francisco and joined Environmental Circus, LLC. The company, known for producing spectacles like the 1967 "Invisible Circus" held at Glide Church, organizes events to support ocean conservation groups.

“When I got there, they only had guys on stilts. I thought, ‘I want to try that,’” she said. “I began to experiment with different sizes of stilts. After a while, the stilts became like extensions of my body.”

Isabelle’s body of work extends worldwide. Her choreography has been produced in Chicago, Columbus, New York, San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Minneapolis, Fort Worth, England, Ireland, and Poland.

The only area Isabelle struggles to conquer is the space between her ears:

“The biggest thing I have had to overcome is to get out of my own head,” she said. “I’ve been dancing for a long time and you get to this point where you feel like you can’t do it anymore. I had to get out of my own way to realize that dance and dance making is my gift.