Scott Davis can't decide what he wants to be when he grows up, so he's trying out everything. Well, it only seems that way, maybe, but the guy who teaches Mime in the NWS Theatre department and Street Law as a 12th grade Humanities elective, while performing and choreographing in several genres and practicing a bit of contract law on the outside, definitely is a Renaissance Man.
He's also a take-charge sort of guy, whose approach to his own education always has been to improve one skill by learning something new. For example, he saw the Princeton Mime Troupe perform during his first week at college in the late 80's and signed up because he thought Mime would improve his acting. "Soon they all graduated and I was left to be the director," Scott recalls, so he took the troupe on a tour of Scotland. Then he decided that dance would improve his Mime skills, so he joined the Modern Dance program at Princeton and experienced what he calls "reverse Title IX. Guys in dance are a significant minority, so when one shows up, they put (him) on stage right away, even if he's not on the same level as the women. Being on stage makes you get better really fast!"
After he graduated in 1990, Scott taught English in Indonesia for two years with Princeton In Asia, a peace-corps-like program. When his Indonesian language skills developed enough to teach, he paid for lessons in Javanese traditional dance by giving lessons in Mime. He returned to the U.S. in 1992, became a director of Princeton In Asia, and founded Loon Soup, a physical theatre company made up of Princeton alumni. For the next three years, Loon Soup performed in New York, Seattle, Alaska and Scotland.
By 1995, Scott decided it was time to develop the analytical skills he'd need to pursue his interests in public policy, human rights and international development, so he moved to Seattle to attend the University of Washington Law School. He danced with UW graduate students at nights and on weekends, and joined the Lingo Dance Theatre. In 1998, before taking the bar exam, Scott went to Lithuania to teach law classes in English. When he came back, he worked for the Seattle Mime Theatre and took dance classes while studying for the bar.
Scott passed the bar in 1999, the same year he interviewed for his job at NWS. He knew of the school through having met theatre teacher Jill Meyers at the Sitka Fine Arts Camp, where he is now Artistic Director. "I was looking for a way to keep working in the arts while continuing to teach," Scott explains. "This was perfect. I was in disbelief that this school would hire practicing artists, would support people coming in part time so they could go on working in their fields."
And work he does. In 2000, Scott went to Los Angeles, Ecuador and Japan with Lingo Dance Theatre, performing a repertoire of modern dance influenced by gymnastics, Improvisational Theatre and the Brazilian street tradition of Capoeira. Last year, he and Lingo were in Cuba, Texas and Jacob's Pillow.
These days, Scott spends roughly 50% of his time at school, 35% in the dance world and 15% as a Mime. How long can he keep up this frenetic existence? "When the body goes, I'll teach a lot more," Scott laughs. Meanwhile, watch for him next in "Speak To Me," Lingo Dance Theatre's exploration of how dance relates to language. It premiers in February 2003.
-- NWS News Magazine, November 2002