Working

1986

A trio for three slack-minded guys just doing a day's work packing and hauling.

The Story

Dance Alloy artistic director Elsa Limbach had seen Costa's work, and knew that she wanted to invite him to Pittsburgh to stage one of his works. We learned most of the dance in a really intensive span of weekend rehearsals, and "Working" subsequently became a big favorite with school kids.

Sam Costa

Sam was the son of a steelworker from Ellwood City (near Pittsburgh), and he grew up amid a Steel City football culture, combining the physical with an intellectual bent. He went to Cornell University and was a fullback on the team that starred future Vikings running back and "Hill Street Blues" actor Ed Marinaro. His only exposure to dance was once watching Rudolf Nureyev on TV, "and I knew I never wanted to do that," he said. 

But Costa saw the movie "Knute Rockne, All American," in which the famed Notre Dame coach at one point brings in a choreographer to help players with backfield shifts. He was fascinated by it, "but all they had in town was Betty Burney's School of Jazz, Tap, Ballet and Baton. The baton was a turnoff," he said. 

When Costa was a junior, a Finnish choreographer rounded up several football players to be in a dance based on football movements. "It was a conversion experience," Costa said. "I understood it immediately." 

After graduation, he studied in New York, then joined the Ram Island Dance Company in Portland, where he became artistic director and stayed for 13 years. 

At his peak, Costa was a powerful 6-foot, 180-pound dancer and his early dances were extremely physical, really pounding into the floor. He went through a period in which he tried cool, intellectual dances, but after studying with Paul Taylor, “I learned I was capable of being a big man of lyricism." 

He studied with Twyla Tharp, who, learning of his background, had him teach her company how a running back jukes around tacklers—"the Knute Rockne film in reverse," Costa said. 

Sam died of pancreatic cancer in November 2019.