Buses speed by, people charge to their destination and loud noises bounce off of buildings all while a group of dancers in the middle of a sidewalk move so slowly that to the naked eye, they barely seem to be moving at all.

The woman responsible for this artistic display which colored the streets of downtown Pittsburgh is Pearlann Porter, an improvisation teacher returning to Point Park University this spring 2017 semester. She calls the instillation “Thought Pockets”. It’s a pop-up series of work focused on time which incorporates improvisational dance and bright chalk art.  The project itself is only a small sliver of what Porter is truly about.

“Dance was my entire life for a long time but it transcended into a medium for what I want to say and do – instead of dance being my life, my voice is my life and dance is just something it’s conveyed through,” Porter says.

Porter grew up in New Jersey, right outside of New York City. She started taking dance classes in her home town at age three but soon found that regular dance school was not enough. By the time she reached high school, she developed a specific schedule that adhered to her newfound needs.

Alone, she snuck into the big city and back before her mom got home from work. She relished in the fact that this was more than just a fun class; it was her way of exercising her independence.

“I got out of school at about 3:15 and I’d get on the 3:40 Path Train to New York City which took me exactly $7.50 there and back, and that wasn’t including class,” Porter says.

She always knew that she was going to dance but she was not aware that dance was a professional option. Porter was taken back when a girl from her home studio went to Point Park to major in dance. After she gained that knowledge that she quickly decided that was her goal.

“I later found out that I got accepted into Point Park from a clerical error,” Porter said.

In more recent years once she began working for the school as an instructor, she looked up her own file out of curiosity. She discovered that she was denied acceptance by all faculty members at her audition for the dance school yet was still admitted into the program.

“I was unremarkable in every possible way because I didn’t fit in the dance world – I don’t have the body type, I don’t have the height, the ability, the skills, or the technique,” said Porter.

Porter came in at the lowest level classes and had to fight for a chance to perform. When she was cast, it was usually something replaceable.

She became so frustrated with this pattern that she took it upon herself to show up to rehearsals for one of Douglas Bentz’s pieces without being invited to. She stood outside the door and learned the choreography as if she were an understudy. One of the dancers in the cast asked Bentz if he noticed that Porter knew the dance and asked if he would let her perform in a show. To her surprise, he conceded and let her dance.

Her tenacity and dedication helped her when her inherent talent could not. In the midst of all of this, she needed a channel for expression that existed outside of class. This is where she fell in love with improvisation.

“I think if I was solely relying on others to cast me and recognize me it would have eaten me from the inside out and I would have rotted… improvising saved me but I didn’t know it at the time,” Porter said.

Her passion for improvisation soon shed light on her knack for choreography. She choreographed for the annual Student Choreography Project twice and both times her works closed the show. After people saw this, Porter gained more respect in the department and finally felt legitimized.

“My freshman ballet teacher told me to consider something else and said verbatim ‘you just don’t have a lot of talent. Do you like journalism? Maybe you should think about writing’,” Porter said.

In her senior year, that same teacher apologized for making that remark. She confessed that she sold her short and did not consider her capabilities.

“No one saw that coming because it was my mind that no one could see – they just saw my body which didn’t represent what I felt or what I could do,” Porter said.

After she graduated she tried to follow the typical career path of dancers. She cast off to Chicago and Pittsburgh to audition but none of it appealed to her.

She moved back to Pittsburgh and received a call from Point Park asking if she could teach a one credit tap class and she accepted. She slowly transitioned to teaching a jazz class improvisation. In total, she taught for 13 consecutive years.

Before her class, there was never a true space dedicated for improv in the dance department. She focused her improv class on an idea she likes to call “post-jazz.”

The improvisation is focused on the idea of playing music visually. It takes all the emphasis off of physicality and places it on motion, speed, clarity, isolation, and stillness. She strives for students to be able to articulate their motion as a jazz musician would play their instrument.

Among all of her personal accomplishments at Point Park, she also founded The Space Upstairs in 2006 just two years after she started her company The Pillow Project. The Space Upstairs currently holds monthly performances along with classes, intensives, and other shows.

The space was also a meeting place for projects like “Thought Pockets” which was many years in the making. It started with an accumulation of site specific experiments turning the real world into a canvas for her playful work.

Thought Pockets stretched over a two week span with one performance every day lasting multiple hours. It was strategically set up this way so that someone on their lunch break would see it and then come back in the evening on their way home and notice that it’s still going on.

The series has a way of introducing dance to people in a welcoming and calm atmosphere.  After being closed off from the dance world for not being an ideal dancer, she understands the necessity keeping the art form open. Cops, secretaries, and school kids alike all dipped their toes into the seemingly avant-garde display through its run.

Troy Patrick, a junior musical theatre major at Point Park and dancer in “Thought Pockets”, went through a similar exposure to this way of dance when he met Porter after being invited to a performance at The Space Upstairs.

Patrick found himself going through a mild identity crisis as many college freshmen do.  With his major having him restricted to only ballet classes, he was left looking for a way to express himself.

The creative environment at The Space Upstairs paired with Porters imaginative prompts pushed him into a direction of instinct and freedom.

“She’s the only teacher I’ve ever come across that changed the way I thought about dance and art so I honestly don’t know where I would be if I hadn’t been doing that work with Pearlann,” Patrick says.

Dance major and “Thought Pockets” performer Emma Page’s favorite moment of the series came from a performance named “Free Fall”. There was a group of people sitting near the display and one person decided to join in on the fun.

“One of the men, who is blind, started grabbing our hands and moving with us and said ‘I can’t see you but I can feel this and it makes me feel alive’,” said Page.

For dance major and performer in this project, Annette Elphinstone, a moment of surprise came during a different performance.

The group was doing the project downtown at Triangle Park for at least two hours when Elphinstone and the other dancers noticed high school students coming.  As the students came closer the dancers started to become concerned for their safety because the students were making loud and crude comments.

“It was so bizarre because all of a sudden they just started moving with us and then we started weight sharing with them and they were all clapping for each other and they continued for at least 15 minutes,” Elphinstone says.

The series lasted two weeks this season but Porter plans on stretching it out for an entire month next year. She hopes that next time people will randomly stumble into them. Porter ultimately would love to turn it into a festival that Pittsburgh becomes known for.