After graduating from Brown with a degree in music and theater, Courtney Naliboff did exactly what most people would do: She moved to the big city.

Boston was a place where she could perform with bands and pursue her master’s degree in print journalism. She didn’t think it was likely at the time that she would go back to Maine, but it turns out that there was a home for her in North Haven.

“The spring after I finished my master’s degree,” she says, “my phone rang during a recording session. It was the superintendent of schools for Maine SAD 7.” Maine SAD 7 consists of one school: North Haven Community, a K-12 in the little island resort town of North Haven. A friend of the superintendent’s had been friends with Naliboff’s parents, and when North Haven Community needed a teacher who could do both music and theater, Naliboff’s parents knew just who to call. They gave him her phone number in Boston, but warned him in advance: “They told him they didn’t think I would ever leave,” says Naliboff. Luckily, Naliboff’s boyfriend, Bill, thought it sounded like a great idea. “I asked him what he thought about possibly moving to an island off the coast of Maine and he said, ‘Great, how soon can we move?’”

The first year as the music and theater teacher at North Haven Community wasn’t exactly the smashing success the second year was. “The spring play, ‘Pirates of Penzance,’ was more or less a disaster, at least psychologically,” she explains. The previous theater teacher had a penchant for the grandiose, although anyone who has been involved in school theater companies knows, nothing ever goes according to plan. Usually, they are logistical nightmares.

But Naliboff, who had seen plays at North Haven Community growing up, knew what was possible. “The group that came through for me were the younger kids,” she says, and that coincided perfectly with an idea she had when she and Bill still lived in Boston.

“I’m a pretty intense Deerhoof fan,” she explains. Back when Milk Man was released in 2004, she was immediately captivated by it. “One night Bill put the album on to fall asleep to,” she says. “And I was so fascinated by it that I think it repeated six times before I finally fell asleep.” By the end of that sixth repetition, Naliboff realized what should be done with the album. “It was just so clear to me -_Milk Man_ should be performed as a dance piece, with a cohesive story line, and it should be performed by children.”

Unfortunately, at the time, Naliboff was living in Boston, had absolutely no resources to put on a production of that sort, but she did send the band an e-mail about how much she loved the album, and sketched out her idea for a Milk Man ballet. “[Deerhoof drummer] Greg [Saunier] wrote back this really sweet e-mail saying basically, ‘We totally agree, and we don’t know anyone with the time or resources either,” she says.
It was kind of a gift for the idea to get a teaching job at a school with a strong tradition of theatrical performance. She tested the waters for about a year and then came forward to the school with the idea. They thought it was great. “I e-mailed Deerhoof again and said,’Well, guess what, now I have time, resources, and permission from the school and the Arts and Enrichment board to do the show!’ They were pretty surprised to hear from me again, and gave me the total go-ahead,” Naliboff explains. She and the band worked through several different ideas – including Deerhoof coming and performing for the show – but the one they chose was to have a live orchestra of locals play, and the band would drop in for the dress rehearsals and the performances.

Naliboff was faced with a difficult task: transcribe the entirety of Milk Man for her team of local musicians. It was hard, but “really fun…I had a lot of moments of, ‘Oh, cool,’ when I figured out what was going on harmonically. I also had a lot of moments of, ‘What the hell?’” she says. Fortunately, she was able to tap the brains of her boyfriend Bill, trumpet player Dave, and Greg from Deerhoof to sort out some of the awkward bits. Her transcriptions turned out great.

“It’s sort of closer to the way the album sounds than the way the songs sound live – I actually never saw Deerhoof live until the day before they came to the island!” she says.

With an orchestra of islanders, including local band the Toughcats, who helped with both playing the music and running sound during the performance, and everything from local clergymen to seventh-grade saxophonists, the six-week rehearsal schedule began. P.E. teacher Ken Jones started working with the kids, choreographing the entirety of the album. In all, “There were five adults in the orchestra, all of whom I probably would have been hanging out with anyway, two costumers who didn’t attend many rehearsals, one eighth grader who stage managed, Ken choreographing, and the third Toughcat working on the set and live sound,” says Naliboff, along with eight dancers.

In designing the set and costumes, Naliboff and her collaborators were looking for the dreamy quality of the album. Both sets and costumes went through a long evolution, eventually coalescing into the stark, minimalist white set featuring white weather balloons suspended above the stage and completely white costumes for both the dancers and orchestra. “We have a sort of staggeringly good budget for stuff like that, too,” Naliboff says, though they spent little money, as the crew made most of what was used.

What probably ruled the most though was the very end of the rehearsal process and the performances. “Having Deerhoof around was amazing,” she says. She flew out to Portland to see them perform at the SPACE Gallery before the shows, and all three band members came back to North Haven to check out the dress rehearsals. The band helped out, and “gave us incredibly insightful, useful feedback on the arrangements and mic-ing and mixing and everything sound related,” Naliboff explains, really helping to bring out the quality of sound. Guitarist John Dieterich even helped out in the sound booth, the quality of which shows up on the DVD that the school is now selling on their website to benefit their building fund.

In general, the band was touched by the fresh take the North Haven group offered on their album. “Greg says he cried when he watched the dress rehearsal for the first time,” Naliboff says. “Ken’s choreography really touched a chord with them,” too, she says. Just like Satomi Matsuzaki during the band’s live performances, the dancers skipped around stage energetically, capturing the childlike quality of her singing.

“The kids and Deerhoof got along like a house on fire, too,” Naliboff adds. The band agreed to come and do workshops in some of her classes, and ended up playing a five-song set in one. The younger kids, especially, are now huge Deerhoof fans. “Watching the kids watch Deerhoof play songs that were a huge part of their lives was intense and beautiful,” she says. “Actually, I bet watching me watch Deerhoof play those songs would be pretty funny too.”

Milk Man Ballet