Dancer's Turn

See. Site. Dance: A talk with Tom Pearson

noreply@blogger.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Sat, 03 May 2014 20:32:00 +0000

Tom Pearson
(photo by Darla Winn)

See. Site. Dance.

A talk with Tom Pearson of Third Rail Projects

by Melanie Greene

See. Site. Dance.

Site-specific work is never that simple, yet those words--See. Site. Dance.-- instantly come to mind whenever I recall my conversation with Tom Pearson, Co-Director of the award-winning Third Rail Projects.

Site-specific work takes dance or movement exploration out of traditional proscenium spaces and into the world. This practice expands the possibilities for dance presentations to reach a larger audience and spurs us to question who dance is for and where can it live and breathe. These days, in an ironic turnaround, artists are even coming back to conventional theaters as site-specific spaces.

How will the artist(s) interact with the space? What information does the space offer the performer and the work? How will the audience witness the work in the space? What legal permits (if any) need to be acquired, and how long will it take to get them?

These and many more questions run through the minds of Tom Pearson and his Third Rail Project partners and co-directors, Zach Morris and Jennine Willett, as they make art for the public sphere in a multitude of genres--dance-theater, performance, video and multimedia, and installation.

Left to right: Zach Morris, Jennine Willett and Tom Pearson
at the Bessie Awards 2013
(photo courtesy of Third Rail Projects)

Their masterfully crafted, immersive theater work, Then She Fell, won a 2013 Bessie Award for Outstanding Production Performed in a Small Capacity Venue.

“Lots of things were going on [at the time], and things were happening quickly in our company,” Pearson remembers. “The company went from 13 to 30…but now I can really reflect. If I had time to think about it as it was happening, I’m not sure I would have been able to do it.”

This was Pearson's second Bessie; he and Zach Morris first received a Bessie for choreography in 2008 for a production that ran only three days. He felt gratified to know that Then She Fell, at the time of its honor, was celebrating a run of one year.

"It feels right [to receive recognition] for something in the present,” he told me.

Receiving the Bessie proved to be excellent publicity, and now more people will get a chance to catch the work. Then She Fell's run has been extended through August 31, 2014--two years from its launch.

“The work was first embraced by the theater community, but it’s great to get recognition from the dance community where we attribute our history and roots,” Pearson notes.

Then She Fell is a cleverly curated work that takes each audience member on a unique journey. Audience members are shepherded from one room to the next, slowly piecing together fragments of a broken narrative. As you go around, you split off from familiar groups and join up with new ones, but sometimes, you're left alone to figure out and experience what comes next. You leave with a unique perspective all your own. (Here's mine: scenelaniereene.blogspot.com/2014/02/joining-her-twisted-wonderland.html)

In February 2014, Then She Fell was running 12 shows a week. The show can only support about 15 audience members per performance, which encourages intimacy. "It may not be a big money-making model," Pearson notes. "But it’s successful and keeps itself going and us all working.”

Photo courtesy of Third Rail Projects

How Site-Specific Works

There is no set formula for site-specific work. It's hands-on, a process full of trial, error, and discovery.

“It can get tricky," Pearson adds. "Depending on where you stand, it can be the difference between needing one permit [for use of a site] or five.”

When producing site-specific work, flexibility invites possibilities. It encourages an artist to see the potential in the chosen space.

In 2007, Pearson told an interviewer for China's TVB8 that site-specific work involves “investigating the architecture, the history, the cultural ideals that are inherent in a particular place and bringing that into the work." [See https://vimeo.com/7656763.]

My conversation with Pearson sparked my curiosity about how such hands-on, learning-by-doing can be taught to students of dance and emerging artists. I mentioned reading Site Dance: Choreographers and the Lure of Alternative Spaces, edited by Melanie Kloetzel and Carolyn Pavlik. Pearson was familiar with the book, and our conversation of it spiraled around the promise of generational history and future enterprise.

Kloetzel and Pavlik's book, a good resource, documents site-specific dance events through images, interviews, and accounts from practitioners. For Pearson though, the book's discussions seemed tilted towards a West Coast and historical approach to site-specific dance. We agreed that this geographical exclusivity didn’t feel intentional—just likely the product of publication deadlines and accessible material.

I joked with Pearson about the release date of his hypothetical site-specific book as future generations would benefit from his experience and knowledge.

“Who knows?” he replied. I'm convinced that this idea is merely waiting for the right time, when there is time.

Tom Pearson
(photo by Rick Ochoa)

Having Sights on International Sites

The way Pearson's career is going, time to write about his process might not be that easy to come by. Site-specific projects have taken Pearson to many parts of the world, like last year's visit to Almaty, Kazakhstan .

“I take on a lot. We all do. It can appear overwhelming, but we take on these projects and choose to do them. Maybe I should have not have gone abroad... with other Third Rail Projects works happening at the same time, but how could I not? And fortunately, there are three directors, so we do sometimes have the ability, not only to collaborate, but to fan out.”

In April 2013, Pearson and Morris worked with young artists of the Capacity Building Foundation during a workshop and performance in Kyrgyzstan in an abandoned Soviet mall. Participants helped clean the space. Nearly 300 people showed up for the performance. Due to this success, Pearson had little reservation about heading to Almaty in September for the ARTBAT Festival, along with Third Rail’s Associate Artistic Director, Marissa Nielsen-Pincus.

Pearson recalls the ARTBAT Festival as an “amazing experience…one of my favorites so far.”

“We find a site, find a partner or the partners will find us. We like to work with local people and look beyond the traditional scope of parameters to unlock the potential for engagement and success. This goes back to being able to look at a space with a sense of flexibility that expands the possibilities of how to exist in the space. ”

Even with several projects on his plate, Pearson values taking time off to rejuvenate. He enjoys camping and scuba diving but also likes to participate in conversations and other explorations that can inform his work. Inspiration can manifest from the most unlikely places and spark ideas for the next project.

“Immersive theater is having a huge moment in conjunction with site-specific work,” Pearson reflects. Artists are experimenting with new ways to curate experience for their audiences, and Pearson continue to wonders, “What is the next part of that conversation?”

For Pearson, the conversation, most recently, involved eggs--two rather big ones--with dancers inside.

A scene from Yolk
at Grace Plaza
(c)2014, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

In April, Third Rail Project curated lunchtime for office workers and tourists with a new site-specific project commissioned by Arts Brookfield. Yolk, an outdoor dance installation, premiered at midtown Manhattan's Grace Plaza with Roxanne Kidd and Jessy Smith slipping around inside human-sized eggs. Critic Eva Yaa Asantewaa called Third Rail Project's fantasy duet "meditative and beguiling" (http://infinitebody.blogspot.com/2014/04/third-rail-projects-and-two-good-eggs.html).

You never know. Third Rail Projects could turn up next at a site near you. Find out here.

BIO

Tom Pearson is a Bessie Award-winning artist and the Co-Artistic Director of Third Rail Projects and co-creator (with Jennine Willett and Zach Morris) of the hit production, Then She Fell. He works in a variety of media that includes contemporary dance, site-specific and immersive performance, film, visual art, and large-scale installations. Each work introduces its own movement and/or visual vocabulary, defined by the parameters of the subject and performance environment. Through the lens of a contemporary movement vocabulary, he creates dense, evocative worlds that illuminate the transient and the transformational, using movement abstracted from and coupled with everyday action. Paired with this is a fierce percussive abandon, often complimented by meditative nuance. Likewise, Pearson uses art installation to achieve rich, multi-dimensional environments, and site-specific explorations seek to mine public spaces for hidden meaning and to capture and engage unwary and unsuspecting passersby.

Tom has been commissioned to create original works for Danspace Project; Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts; the Hong Kong Youth Arts Foundation; Arts Brookfield; The Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, and the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC), among others. He has served as an adjunct faculty member of the Florida State University School of Dance (FSUinNYC), The Florida School of the Arts, and through master classes at a number of colleges universities, and arts-in-education programs including the High School of the Performing Arts and New York City Opera. He is also a writer whose work on performance has been published in Dance Magazine, Time Out New York Kids, Dance Spirit and as the Editor of the Public Theater’s Native Theater Journal online and in filmed interviews for NYU’s Hemispheric Institute. Tom holds an MA in Performance Studies from New York University.

Dance chose me: choreographer Stephen Petronio writes his life

noreply@blogger.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Sun, 13 Apr 2014 14:05:00 +0000

Above: choreographer and Aries, Stephen Petronio
Below: Stephen Petronio Company dances
I Drink the Air Before Me (2010)
(photos by Sarah Silver)

Confessions of A Motion Addict
by Stephen Petronio (self-published, 2014; 288 pp.)
ISBN-13: 9781492736547

reviewed by Eva Yaa Asantewaa, InfiniteBody

I should not have been surprised to learn that Stephen Petronio self-published his memoir, Confessions of A Motion Addict. While the dramatic arc of this world-famous artist's life and career--not to mention the literally boldfaced names he can and does drop, sometimes scandalously--should make any publisher salivate, I can't imagine Petronio having much patience for any middleman or woman dictating how he should tell his own story. The book, all 288 pages of it, is Petronio, through and through. As Spike Lee would say, it's his joint.

The first sixty or so pages, dense and filling, plunge readers deep into childhood and teenage history: richly remembered Italian-American feasts, furtive sexual experiments, rollercoaster drug experiments, precocious insights into the personalities orbiting him, scary dreams, passion, restlessness and, always, a sense of outsider status. By page 67, his artistic fate is sealed when Contact Improvisation makes a serious pass at this newbie Hampshire College student. He subsequently forgets all about taking pre-med. "Inner motor" revved up, mind blown....

I look down my body, and I realize...it's there. I have a body and it is mine. I have a body and do not understand its power or potential or the invisible stories pressing at my skin. I desperately want to move.

Next up? Judson Dance Theater's Steve Paxton, a guest artist at Hampshire. "I am the bastard child of Steve Paxton and Trisha Brown," Petronio will tell us later on, citing his two greatest influences. Brown is, after all, the woman for whom he harnessed up and walked down the wall of a 14th Century French monastery (Man Walking Down the Side of a Building), a feat he repeated a few years ago at the Whitney Museum.

But there's still a lot of getting there until he's there. Petronio takes us along on an adventurous hitchhiking trip through Canada and the West Coast. The young man, exposed to the rigors of nature and the unpredictability of the human animal--enjoyed unexpected kindness of strangers along the way, the occasional minor bummer and one hugely, hugely major one. He's headstrong and lucky and an Aries, and maybe only an Aries would attempt this type of trip in this type of way--"Like all good Aries, I must try to try on every possible lifestyle as my next incarnation"--and get through intact.

Petronio made it through a lot of stuff intact--personal losses, the early years of the AIDS crisis, displacement, along with a lot of other artists, from a gentrifying SoHo, 9/11, a sex-and-drugs lifestyle that could make a rock star look like a rank amateur.

You see the dancer leap and bound, defy gravity and press the boundaries of human movement possibility, yet the mechanics and sensations of these efforts are for the most part concealed. In the mainstream forms of dance, artists often paint a smile over the top of Herculean efforts, but their soul is gritting and grimacing for dear life. The dancer has come to represent the ethereal, outside the law of physics, but we live on the earth and the pull of gravity is definitive. We work with it, attempt to defy it, and yes, we eat real food, pant, smoke, drink, eliminate, copulate, get married, divorced, addicted and healed. We are human. We sometimes break. And it all hurts at some point or another. And we all do something to deal with that pain. Some more than others.

He has chosen to reveal the pull of gravity and the mechanics of living, to conceal nothing, whether it be a personal lapse or a controversial opinion. And with it all, his story provides the kind of energetic rush one comes to expect from his work on the stage.

Learn more about Confessions of A Motion Addict here.

Eva Yaa Asantewaa, InfiniteBody

Kazu Kumagai: Catalyst of Tap [UPDATE]

noreply@blogger.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Thu, 10 Apr 2014 13:32:00 +0000

Kazu Kumagai
(photo by Leslie Kee)

Kazu Kumagai: Catalyst of Tap

by Eva Yaa Asantewaa

It’s no small matter when a tap expert like Tony Waag, American Tap Dance Foundation’s Artistic and Executive Director, feels comfortable agreeing with The Village Voice who hailed you as “the Gregory Hines of Japan.”

“Kazu Kumagai is not just a great tap dancer,” Waag says. “He is also a very kind, conscientious and devoted advocate for tap dance and knows how important the art form is internationally.”

Kumagai--who lives in Park Slope, Brooklyn with his wife Mari, a singer, and his four-year old daughter--happens to be one of my favorite dancers of any kind. After last year’s Tap City festival, where he appeared in Waag’s popular Tap Internationals evening at Symphony Space, I noted that Kumagai “channels dissonance and passion, taking tap to a stormy place beyond the familiar sunshine,” and I included that solo performance, Journey to the Soundscape, in my list of “most memorable arts experiences of 2013” (InfiniteBody, December 24, 2013).

Born and raised with his older sister in Sendai–a moderate-sized coastal town, a little less than 190 miles north of Tokyo–Kumagai took an early interest in the arts. His parents owned what was then a rarity in Japan–a coffee shop, serving a Japanese clientele–and he played there, as a youngster, around what he calls “unusual people.” These were mainly artists, poets and musicians. But, then again, his parents were also, he says, “kind of unusual.”

“My father was the first person who started roasting coffee in Sendai, a pioneer in the café business, about 40 years ago.”

Kumagai saw his first film footage of tap dancers thanks to jazz musicians he met at the café. He started tap dancing himself at 15 but, he says, didn't have a session with a live musician until he came to New York at age 19.

Of all the arts, what drew him to dance?

“I think I liked physical movement. When I was 5 or 6, I saw Michael Jackson on TV, and that had a great impact on me. I loved how he expressed himself–not just singing but the whole energy. When he got the Grammy, he mentioned the great dancers that he was influenced by--Fred Astaire and Sammy Davis, Jr., and that was a first, small introduction for me. I wanted to tap, but I couldn’t find any tap class in my hometown. My mother called several schools, but there was no tap class. I kind of gave up.

“Then I started doing some martial arts and soccer, football. I was serious about those things. But when I became 15, I saw Gregory Hines's movie, Tap, on TV.

“I carried my passion for tap dancing since I was little and started looking again and finally found one school that included tap. It was impressive. Every student was older–maybe thirties or forties, most of them women.

“I was fortunate to meet a good teacher, in his twenties, who had studied in Tokyo and come back to Sendai. He also loved the style of Gregory Hines, but he couldn’t teach that style because no one wanted to do it at that time.”

Theatrical tap, such as we would see on Broadway, was more readily accepted.

“Students went for exercise but were not really serious about it. I was really serious from the beginning, and he saw that. We became close. I went there all the time, even when I had regular school. I just went to dance school!”

A new home

“My hometown was like.... Have you seen the movie Billy Elliott? A man was supposed to be a banker. Or you have to go to university. Now it’s looser. But when I was growing up, you had to have a certain image. Tokyo was more open, but Sendai was more suburban with an intense social pressure within neighborhoods. My sister went through a tougher time, being compared with other kids. But, somehow, I grew up more open. I was kind of lucky.

“I was in a strict school. One time I was in a meeting with my teacher, and I wrote which school I wanted to attend, and I wrote tap dancing as my hobby. The teacher really couldn’t understand what I was doing. ‘You’re not supposed to dance; you’re supposed to study.’”

The teacher gave him an ultimatum: quit dance or quit school. But then he asked him to dance “right now.” Kumagai did as he was told.

“He looked impressed, but he was a stubborn man. ‘You have to go to college, but maybe you can dance as a hobby because you can’t make a living as a dancer.”

Kumagai lacked role models for his dream. But through his determination, he would go on to serve as a role model for many up-and-coming dancers in Japan. The key? A decision to come to New York despite lack of any connections to the dance world here or much information about how he could get hooked up. He discussed the matter with his parents and told them that he felt ready to search for what he needed.

Acknowledging his love of tap, Kumagai's parents knew that Sendai could not support his goals. “I told them, ‘I’m going to college in the states.’”

He started with learning English in a language school on Long Island, not quite the New York City of his imagining. “Totally different from what I expected,” he says, laughing.

Moving into the city, then, and beginning studies at New York University, he started looking around for a tap school, finding ads for Steps and Broadway Dance Center, still not exactly what he had in mind. Little by little, he began to find his way.

“Charles Goddertz and Barbara Duffy showed me rhythm tap. I met Buster Brown--a legend in the field--when I was hanging out with other tap dancers in a restaurant, and we talked." At the time, Brown was launching his Sunday night tap jam at Swing 46, a jazz and supper club on Manhattan's West 46th Street.

"Gradually, I started finding the community," he says. "I went to National Tap Day and met Peg Leg Bates," who had been a celebrated tap dancer and Catskills resort owner. "I met Savion [Glover] on the street when Bring in 'da Noise, Bring in 'da Funk was running. 1996 was a great year. I was very lucky, a lot of things started to happen, an era of the rise of a new style of tap.

"Gregory Hines was doing a workshop, and I studied with him. I had met him at Fazil’s, a home for tap dancing, and he invited me to practice with him. That was amazing, and we became close. It was an adventure, discovering something new every day. We didn’t have cellphones or Internet back then, but it was much better!”

Young Kumagai's immersion in the New York scene did not permit time for much homesickness. He does remember crying for hours upon leaving Japan but, as soon as he landed in our city, he was ready for a new life. And, it seems, that new life was ready for him.

Kazu Kumagai
(photo courtesy of Kaz Tap Studio)

“There was a workshop called Funk University, a workshop for new dancers for Bring in 'da Noise, Bring in 'da Funk. Ted Levy was teaching, and he was amazing. It was basically for African American dancers because it was their history. But I went there because,” he says, laughing, “I didn’t know!”

“They were young African American dancers, but Ted saw me and gave me an opportunity to study. I started working with them at Fazil’s for three months, every day for seven hours, in the summer without any air-conditioning. But it was great education because it was so different from other schools. He showed not only steps but also history and culture. He spent so much time talking about how tap dancers carry years of struggle, and he sometimes cried because of the prejudice and the painful history.

“That’s when I discovered the meaning of the tap dancer. They danced from their own roots, and I am not from here. I felt a little distant, a little different, but they treated me the same, as a brother. Ted called me Sole Brother. S-O-L-E!"

Although one of the show's producers felt it wasn't appropriate for Kumagai to be in the school and asked him to leave, Levy invited him to continue taking classes.

Kazu Kumagai
(photo courtesy of Kaz Tap Studio)

"Kazu is an amazing musician," says Derick K. Grant, famed tap artist and one of Kumagai's early teachers in New York. "He tends to work twice as hard to be accepted and taken seriously, and it has paid off. He learned as much about us--African Americans--as a people as he did about us as dancers, and that gave him a level of respect for our people and our journey that is unique."

In return, Kumagai was so warmly accepted by Grant and his colleagues that they bestowed a "Black" nickname upon him: Kenyon.

Kumagai, Grant says, took what he learned back to Japan and offered his homeland's dance students an alternative based in authenticity.

"Following his return to Japan in 2002, we started to get an influx of students coming from there who were well prepared and already sound in their foundation." Grant says. "There were a lot of them, which led me to believe that he was inspiring many. That was great for us in tap. He was also very gracious in pointing students in our direction. I, and others like myself, had a great hand in the development of tap dance in Japan--something we are very proud of. Today, they are some of the strongest, most technically sound dancers in the world."

The artist who had persevered despite the lack of local role models not only became a brilliant one for his compatriots; he opened a pathway for them to get the kind of excellent training he had found in the US. Grant acknowledges that Kumagai's "new" style, while exciting the youth of Japan, put him at odds with established teachers there still promoting a lightweight, musical theater approach to the art.

Hank Smith, a tap performer-choreographer and educator, remembers Kumagai from the late 1990s as one of a number of Japanese dancers coming to Brown's jam at Swing 46. Something shifted, though, during the subsequent time Kumagai spent back home in Japan.

"I could tell he'd really developed, not only as a dancer but as a person," Smith recalls. "There was a maturity in his presence. Kazu just seems to be a committed artist and human being who uses his gifts to try and make a difference."

"Tap can be more than just hitting the wood as loud or as fast as possible," Smith says, citing Kumagai's solo work last year in Journey to the Soundscape, an intense, expressive piece that embodied his feelings for his hometown and the Tohoku region where, in March 2011, an earthquake and tsunami caused devastation and massive loss of life.

Devastation in Sendai, Japan, March 2011
Photo: Reuters/Yumiori

When Michelle Dorrance--Bessie Award winning tap artist who also won a 2014 Alpert Award in the Arts--recently danced with Kumagai in Japan, he took her to visit Sendai. It was his way to share with a friend what he had seen and experienced at the time of Japan's disaster.

"It was important for me to share this feeling with her. I hope she will talk to other people about it. My goal is to make a bridge from New York to Japan, to Tokyo and Sendai. People are still suffering in Tohoku district, and I want more people abroad to know this fact."

His parents stayed on in Sendai during the crisis and, like many people who have made a home in a risky environment, want to remain there. Luckily, they live in Sendai's inner city, away from the heavily impacted coast, although they did have to go several months without gas. Another ongoing concern for the region and nation--the only country that has ever suffered the devastation of atomic bombing--is radiation leakage from damaged nuclear power plants.

"And still they want to keep the nuclear plants," he says. "It's hard to understand."

Kumagai, present in New York during our own crisis, 9/11, draws a saddening comparison between Japan and the US, noting that disasters can swiftly turn people and their governments away from the ideals of peace. Japan's historic non-nuclear weapons policy, imposed by the US after World War II, could end soon, he says, as tensions grow between the nation and its regional rivals in Asia. There isn't yet enough of a vocal, coherent movement to divert Japan's conservative government from a proactive buildup of nuclear arms.

Kumagai, as his career unfolds, chooses to remain mindful of his homeland and hometown. "A lot changed [for me] after March 2011," he says. "What happened in Sendai, it has become myself. As an artist, everything I do becomes dedicated to my hometown--also dedicated to the [tap] masters. These two things are now the most important to me, and I want to keep doing positive things."

The challenges of coming home

After Kumagai's initial, life-opening training in New York, the return in 2002 to Japan's limited scene did not flow easily.

"When I went back, not much was happening in the tap community. However, a conflict between old and new was happening both in the tap community and in Japan in general. They didn’t know what tap really was. It was difficult to readjust. There was no place to practice."

"I had to start from the beginning. I had a part-time job and did street performances. There were some good small jazz clubs, and I started dancing there, a small community in Tokyo where musicians get together. It’s growing in popularity. People hear a rumor and come to see us. At first, many artists were interested in tap: musicians, DJs who liked to have tap dance at their parties or in their performances."

Japan's great jazz trumpeter Terumasa Hino, who had learned tap from his musician/dancer father, caught one of Kumagai's performances and invited him to appear in his shows.

"He saw that, in the past, most Japanese tap dancers couldn’t work with jazz musicians because the style was different. However, he felt a connection with me and knew that jazz musicians and tap dancers share a culture. We toured together in 2004 and 2005."

The exposure from touring with a star of Hino's magnitude drew attention and offers from others in Japan’s music industry.

“I began dancing everywhere–from small hip-hop clubs to concert halls," says Kumagai. "I collaborated with many different kinds of artists.”

A growing appreciation for the intricacies of music affected how Kumagai saw himself as an artist.

"Jimmy Slyde, Buster Brown, Savion Glover, Dianne Walker, they all have their own sound," he says. "I was inspired by their sound, not so much by the visual. Image is important, but always I connect to the sound. For me, that is the greatness of this art form.

"The first time I saw Gregory in Tap, dancing in the jail, he danced for himself. Not so much for performance. And that particular scene still influences me a lot.

"I've heard criticism that the way Gregory danced is not really beautiful, but to me, it’s so beautiful. Jazz musicians, when they play, it’s beautiful. Same as athletes like Michael Jordan. They don’t try to look nice. It’s not about their looks. They devote themselves to their art, and that’s a beautiful thing. I don’t try to impress with how I look. What I love about tap is that a lot of masters can show what’s inside through their dance.

"Tap is a language. When I go to Europe, I don’t speak to the audience, but they can understand. When I went to Senegal, we could communicate."

How to stay serene amid the busyness of business

"I tour a lot...Japan, Singapore. This month, I’m going to Milan. When I’m in Japan, I go to my studio [KAZ Tap Studio] everyday and practice and teach classes. Here in New York, I go to American Tap Dance Center and practice. But before I do, I take my daughter to school, and that becomes my ritual–an everyday morning walk with her. It gives me a peaceful moment. So many things I can learn from my daughter.

"She dances a lot. She was in my most recent performance. The last night (of a three-night performance), I wanted her to be on stage somehow, because I was showing my life. I just wanted her to walk around, but she started dancing!" Kumagai chuckles at the memory. "It was real nice!"

Perhaps she'll join in again when he finally manifests his next big dream, an evening-length show for New York, his first--to which I say:

Right on, S-O-L-E brother! It's time!

SPECIAL UPDATE

I have just received the following announcement from Traci Mann, Co-Chair of The New York Committee to Celebrate National Tap Dance Day:

The New York Committee to Celebrate National Tap Dance Day is proud to Honor Kazu for his talent and his contribution to the health and welfare of his tap community in Japan. Much like the late great Bill Bojangles Robinson, Kazu is helping people with his talent. He is helping them to over come the Fukashima Disaster with his tap dancing and teaching. I can't think of a more noble thing to do on his part and we hope that he gets the recognition he needs as it will up build what he has accomplished and continues to work at.

Tap Extravaganza

Norman Thomas Auditorium

Park Avenue

New York City

May 24th, 2014

7 pm - 9 pm

BIO

Kazu Kumagai was born in Sendai City, Japan. He started tap dancing at the age of 15 and came to NY at the age of 19. He trained in FUNK UNIVERSITY, the training workshop for the big hit Broadway musical Bring in da' Noise, Bring in 'da Funk. He studied with Ted Levy, Buster Brown, Gregory Hines, Barbara Duffy, and Derick K. Grant.

Since then, he has performed in many New York City downtown clubs, such as The Knitting Factory, Tonic, and the Puppet Jazz Club.

From 2002 to 2010, he performed in Tony Waag’s Tap City, the New York City Tap Festival nine times and was dubbed by The Village Voice as the "Japanese Gregory Hines." In 2006, he was selected as one of Dance Magazine's "25 to Watch."

After Kaz went back to Japan in 2002, he made numerous solo appearances all over the country and collaborated with many artists and musicians, and appeared in several television commercials, such as SONY CYBERSHOT. He also performed in a MIHARAYASUHIRO fashion show in Milan, Italy, where he succeeded in opening up a new field of the arts. In 2008, he opened his first tap dance studio--KAZ TAP STUDIO--in Japan, and has subsequently taught throughout Japan including in his hometown of Sendai City, site of severe damage in the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

Kaz dedicates his passion and love for the art of tap dance to the great masters such as his mentor Buster Brown, Jimmy Slyde, Gregory Hines and others, as well as to the people of Sendai and the Tohoku region where his family and friends live.

Visit Kazu Kumagai's Web site here.

Wendy Perron: Capturing Movement in Words

noreply@blogger.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Tue, 04 Mar 2014 13:00:00 +0000

Dancer/dance journalist Wendy Perron
(photo by Cliff Roles)

Wendy Perron:

Capturing Movement in Words

by Melanie Greene

You can’t beat a book.

I know you’re reading this from a computer screen or smartphone, and I thank you, but nothing beats the tangibility of a good ol' fashioned book. Flipping the pages of progress…feeling the weight of the words…supporting the contents bound within a strong spine, the center, the glue holding everything together.

We read books and scan blogs, websites, brochures, social sites, reviews, journals--and talk to people--because we are curious about what’s going on in the world. In the dance world, there are several go-to sources of information, and one of those knowledgeable sources is Wendy Perron.

I recently sat down with Wendy Perron on a rainy day on the Upper West Side. It was the day before Thanksgiving, with people intent on last-minute grocery shopping. Perron and I sat in a cozy restaurant, talking about her book and life as the movie-like scene scrolled by the large glass windows.

Although Perron spends a lot of her time writing these days, she did not know, early on, that she would become the writer in her family. Before finding her voice on paper, she found it through movement as a dancer.

Perron's new book,
Through the Eyes of a Dancer: Selected Writings
Wesleyan University Press

Over the years, Perron's extensive participation in the dance community--as a performer, critic, editor and educator--has made her a valuable source of knowledge on contemporary dance. Her eloquent writings capture the imagination of movement through words in her new book Through the Eyes of a Dancer.

The book surveys Perron’s writings—dance reviews, feature stories, essays, and blog posts—spanning from the 1960s to the present. It offers dancers, dancemakers, and dance enthusiasts a living history of the art. Huffington Post writer Jennifer Edwards comments that Perron’s book “flows like a choreographic retrospective. The reader has an opportunity to witness both the writer, and the work, evolve.”

Scanning its pages, readers are invited to take an intimate look into dance culture’s continuous influence over artistic, political, and social movements.

MEETING

Since I had never met Perron, our meeting was a blind date so to speak. In these situations, I always feel, one's face takes on a distinct look of anticipation--a cocktail of anxiety and excitement sprinkled with the illusion of composure. There's an unspoken protocol of what to do if you are the first to arrive, an insecure voice that wonders "What if they don’t show up?" or "What if I got the date wrong?"

I arrived shortly before Perron as the restaurant opened for lunch. The first women to arrive after me shared my look of uncertainty, but I was sure I would recognize Perron once I saw her. I imagined her with those wild tendrils of hair she described in her book.

I was carefully negotiating glances between my phone and the hazy rain outside when Perron arrived, warmly bundled up, small grocery bags in hand. She had stopped in a grocery store to pick up the last ingredients for cranberry sauce for a Thanksgiving repast.

“I am always in charge of the cranberry sauce," she said. "People know it’s what I bring."

After unbundling and settling in, we ordered lunch, and I asked Perron how she was feeling.

“In general, I wish I could sleep more than two hours at a time,” she responded. “I’ve just traveled from Japan. Traveling changes my sleep patterns.”

Perron had just returned from Japan to judge the Youth America Grand Prix competition. In her Dance Magazine blog entry My Week in Japan, Courtesy YAGP, she details the competition and dedication of the young artists she met during her stay.

“I’ve always wanted to travel to Japan,” Perron stated. “I tasted this plum wine there and brought it back for Thanksgiving.” Coaxing pleasant feelings of nostalgia, the taste of this wine reminded her of the thoughtful designs of Japanese gardens and the beautiful architecture.

VENUES FOR WRITING

Back in the US, Perron remains in the thick of the New York dance scene. Witnessing and participating in the transformation of dance criticism and reviewing over the past 40 years, she has seen dance writings repurposed to accommodate evolving technologies and the need for instant information.

More blogs, social media outlets, and self-produced videos are popping up to cover what was once tackled by expert writers and critics. Magazine and newspaper reviews have become obsolete. As the needs and expectations of the dance world change, so must the ways we write and talk about dance.

“This does not mean that respect is lost for traditional critics and those who have been around a long time. Publications like The New York Times and The Washington Post still wield so much power,” Perron offered. Perron has been writing a dance blog as part of DanceMagazine.com for over 6 ½ years.

Today, information is just a click away. To reach the largest audience, dance writing must appear on the Internet and be user friendly. While many sites still support longform articles, others—like Twitter—prefer it short and sweet. Perron's blog posts and articles serve the in-depth reader, while her Twitter feed offers audiences quick links back to substantial information.

“There is something interesting about the challenge of saying something in 140 characters,” she says of tweeting. Within this new medium, you must choose your words carefully, saying just enough to entice the reader to want to know more.

“I see so much and there are people in New York and the world who don’t get to see what I see, so I like to be able to say something about it,” she says. Twitter challenges her to say it creatively and quickly.

Perron today, at right, with Olsi Gjeci
in Vicky Shick's Everything You See
(photo © 2013 Anjolo Toro)

WHAT WE WRITE ABOUT

Whether you write serious criticism, lively reviews, blog posts or tweets, the new digital media can offer space for your purpose: assessing dancemakers' aesthetic choices, uncovering the history of a dance form or its cultural relevance, examining how the art fits into the current political climate, and more.

“Ultimately, the responsibility lies with the writer,” Perron said. “The role is to respond honestly with your whole self on many different levels—not just thumbs up or down.”

“It is our responsibility to provide context…to say what the roots are…how [these artists] emerged, and what they have done before,” Perron added.

It’s important to open one’s eyes to the present and not become, as Perron would say, trapped by one's past. Even in repertory companies, dance works will change. Things will not look and feel as they did five years ago. We have to be open to that evolution.

The night of our meeting, Perron was going to see Chéri, a dance-theater piece by choreographer Martha Clarke, starring Alessandra Ferri and Herman Cornejo. “I like to see incredible performers challenged with something new," she said.

She also talked about how she continues to be excited about the fusion of forms in dance.

“Some people don’t like that word, fusion,” she said. “I’m not sure why.”

This sentiment possibly stems from conversations Perron has had with artists like Akram Khan, a British choreographer of Bangladeshi descent. His work combines contemporary dance elements and kathak, a form of classical Indian dance. In a 2008 blog post entitled Excited. Touched. Stimulated. Taken aback. Revved up. Honored., Perron wrote, “Khan likes the word confusion better than fusion, and to allow different stories to overlap or intersect. Somehow a lightness and a heaviness at the same time. A western-ness and an eastern-ness at the same time.”

“He is exciting to see," Perron told me, as we continued our conversation. "I can see both aspects of style and form so strongly” in Khan's East/West fusion.

WRITING PRACTICE

I asked Perron if she had a daily meditation practice or ritual approach to writing.

“My practice of writing is very haphazard, but I do have a daily movement practice,” she said. “I do exercises in the morning in my bed and in the afternoon. These exercises help to center myself in my body. I still see myself as a dancer first.”

Although she considers her writing approach haphazard, she likes to start writing early. Write a few sentences, then write a few more and print it out.

“I also show it to my husband. He’s extremely helpful,” Perron added. “Once I print it out, I lie down on my back and mark it up with a pencil.”

Perron attributes the effectiveness of this practice to the fact that “when I lie down, it’s closer to my heart, and I want to make sure it’s coming from my heart and not in there for just [arbitrary] reasons. If there is something I don’t feel strongly about, maybe I’ll take it out.”

A lot of her daily exercises and writing postures, she said, derived from her chronic back problems. Lying down helps relieve the stress on her back. This gesture, to me, speaks to the wealth of information that our bodies hold, how we exist in our bodies. We function as a result of the choices we make. If we listen, our bodies will inform new choices in movement and on paper.

THROUGH THE EYES OF A DANCER

“It never occurred to me to write a book,” Perron confessed, “but as you get older, you think about what you leave behind.”

Perron with Harry Sheppard,
students at Bennington College in the 1960s
(photo by Josef Wittman)

Whether intentional or by a marvelous accident, Through the Eyes of a Dancer became a way for Perron to reconnect with herself. Her writings propelled her back to memories of dancing with the Trisha Brown Dance Company, spending time in SoHo, and teaching at Bennington College, the Vermont liberal arts college that attracted Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, Hanya Holm, and Charles Weidman, all pioneering legends of American modern dance.

We get a glimpse of Perron's dancing/writing ritual: how she would stay up late Thursday, stalling to work on final details until around midnight. After a pint of Haagen-Dazs coffee ice cream and a dose of procrastination, she would resolve that “there was nothing else to do but sit down and write the damn thing.”

She remembers dancing and choreographing a lot in the 1980s. “When I did more writing, I danced less, and when there was more dance, there was less writing.”

Perron talked me through her process of scanning old documents and articles into a machine as she prepared to write Through the Eyes of a Dancer. Like magic, her past would travel into her technological present in the form of Word documents.

“The scanner enabled me to edit my writings from 40 years ago. It was an interesting project for me because of the time travel aspect.” Something about words and digital documents provides something close to permanence for a famously ephemeral art form.

Parallel to preserving her writing, Perron once started a project to transfer 1970s dance works from their old, unstable formats on VHS and beta tapes to DVD. However DVD proved equally unstable. Discs would become corrupt and, just like that “all those years went up in smoke," she said. "There are tons of video, but there is nothing stable. I couldn’t save the choreography, but I could save the writing.”

Dance happens and then it’s gone. Recorded artifacts are not the same as live performance, and this, partly, drew Perron to writing which presented its own distinct challenge.

“How do you write about something that disappears?”

OUR GOODBYES

After lunch, I mentioned to Perron that I was looking for yarn store, and she kindly walked me to one that she’d passed only hours before. As we said our goodbyes, she left me with a thought that will guide my own intentions as a writer.

“Writing should lead the reader. I don’t want it to just be information. I want it to make a statement of some kind.”

A statement can come in the form of insight, approval, objection, or total rejection. Some notable statements appear in two of Perron's Dance Magazine blog posts--Blogging about the Process of Choreography—Ugh! and Is There a Blackout on Black Swan’s Dancing? In each of these posts, she ignited heated dialogues that drew a range of reactions in the dance community, from outrage to satisfaction.

Perron is a strong advocate for the arts and artists. Through the Eyes of a Dancer provides rich insight into dance within an historical framework. Moreover, it captures the essence and virtue of living a life through both movement and words.

BIO

Wendy Perron danced with the Trisha Brown Company in the 1970s and has performed with many other New York City choreographers. Her own group, the Wendy Perron Dance Company, appeared at the Lincoln Center Festival, the Joyce Theater, Danspace Project and other venues in the US and abroad from 1983 to 1997. She was one of eight choreographers profiled in the documentary film Retracing Steps: American Dance Since Postmodernism. She has taught at many colleges including Bennington and Princeton, and was associate director of Jacob’s Pillow in the early ’90s. In addition to contributing to Dance Magazine as editor in chief for almost 10 years, she has written for The New York Times, The Village Voice, and Ballet Review. In 2011 she was inducted into the New York Foundation for the Arts’ Hall of Fame, and she still performs occasionally with Vicky Shick and Dancers. She was artistic adviser to the Fall for Dance festival and has adjudicated for Youth America Grand Prix, the American College Dance Festival, and New York Live Arts. Her new book, Through the Eyes of a Dancer (Wesleyan University Press), is a selection of her essays, memoirs, and reviews spanning 40 years. Read more about it here.

At the turn of the year....

noreply@blogger.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Tue, 31 Dec 2013 15:03:00 +0000

Thanks for reading and supporting Dancer's Turn in our inaugural year. We look forward to bringing you interviews with more exciting dance artists in 2014. And we wish you a happy, healthy, creative New Year!

Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Editor-in-Chief

Writers:

Troy Ogilvie

Jazzmen Lee-Johnson

M. Soledad Sklate

Evan Teitelbaum

Jaime Shearn Coan

Anita Gonzalez

Melanie Greene

Isabelle Dom

Komal Thakkar

Amanda Hameline

Alejandra Emelia Iannone

Sarah Elizabeth Lass

Jookin’ in its Prime: A Snapshot of Ron Myles

noreply@blogger.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Fri, 20 Dec 2013 18:16:00 +0000

Ron "Prime Tyme" Myles
(photo courtesy of the artist)

Jookin’ in its Prime: A Snapshot of Ron Myles

by Alejandra Emilia Iannone

He told me I could call him “Ron,” but he’s probably better known as “Prime Tyme.” Dubbed Ron “Prime Tyme” Myles by a friend from his hometown neighborhood of Orange Mound, in Memphis, Myles admits that he has always been one looking to “shine in front of a camera.” Now based in Los Angeles, he is a Bessie Award-winning dancer and choreographer, and an ambassador for the mesmerizing dance form called jookin’.

Smoother than buckin’ (a dance characterized by explosive, wide movements and spins) and similar to glitchin’ (where sporadic, sharp movements are interspersed within other slow movements), jookin’ developed on the streets of Memphis. With roots in the gangsta walk, a dance popularized in the late 20th century, jookin’ was initially done to gangsta rap exclusively. Nowadays, however, one might see jookin’ performed to all sorts of music--including R&B, pop, classical, and dubstep--and in a variety of contexts. As Myles sees it, it doesn’t matter what kind of music is playing when one is jookin’, as long as some music is playing.

“Gangsta Walk”

danced by Ron “Prime Tyme” Myles

Music: “Gangsta Walk” by Young Jai

Fundamentally, jookin’ consists of a step and a glide of the foot. These movements are punctuated and ornamented with remarkable feats like toe stands, toe glides, and torques onto the inside of the dancer’s ankle. As Myles explains, since there are so many directions and many ways to step, one could even write an alphabet using these movements. Myles tends to glide in patterns that reflect whatever is going through his mind as he dances, using his feet to write his thoughts out in cursive.

Much of his movement is improvised, but, he points out, jookin’ need not be pure improvisation or personal expression. So jookin’, like any dance form, requires flexibility, strength, focus, and practice. Also, the shoes matter. The dancer must wear shoes with a sturdy toe tip. For Myles, some of the best options out there are Air Jordans, Nike Air Force Ones, and his favorite--Prada sneakers.

Myles became acquainted with jookin’ eight years ago while watching some friends from school dance. At the time, he thought they looked a little crazy, but he found himself wondering how his friends could move that way. Eventually, his curiosity deepened. Could he learn to move that way, too? Lucky for Myles, there was a dancer in the family.

Memphis-born street dance prodigy and world-famous jooker Charles "Lil Buck" Riley is Myles’ cousin. Bonded by family and their common love for dance, the two would practice together at home or in the streets of their neighborhood in Memphis. Myles also trained with other teachers to learn hip hop and ballet. Yet, he identifies Riley--who taught him the fundamentals of jookin’, included him in performance opportunities, and collaborated with him--as a playing a key role in his own development as a dancer.

Together, Myles and Riley have already achieved great success, even receiving a 2013 Bessie Award for their performance at New York's Le Poisson Rouge--an evening fusing music and movement, and featuring composer Philip Glass, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, new wave string quartet Brooklyn Rider, Galician bagpiper Cristina Pato, and jazz trumpeter Marcus Printup.

Myles learned of their Bessie nomination while performing at the Vail International Dance Festival. Surprised and honored, he says he had a good feeling about their chances. But, he also remembers thinking that “the chance was 50/50 because the other nominees had produced great work.” When the award citation was read and Myles heard the phrase “intricate footwork,” however, he knew.

At the award ceremony at the Apollo Theater, he was overwhelmed by the audience's supportive, energetic response. Receiving the award affirmed that he and Riley "had put together a great piece that could go a long way," Myles said. Indeed, he aspires to "spread jookin’ all over the world, show what it is, where it came from, how it has evolved, and what one can do with it.”

And he is certainly making moves to achieve all of this. Myles has made his mark on stage, screen, and in studio--dancing in the 2011 film Footloose, starring in commercials for Pepsi and Adidas; headlining performances at the Vail International Dance Festival, and teaching hundreds of youth through Colorado’s Celebrate the Beat program.

When he isn’t dancing and choreographing, Myles spends his time acting and making music. Currently, he is developing a mixtape of original music, and just finished working on the film Frank and Cindy (coming to theaters in 2014) in which he plays the role of Dwight. Someday, he hopes to have a principal role in a major motion picture that incorporates jookin’.

Ron "Prime Tyme" Myles
(photo courtesy of the artist)

When in California, Myles regularly performs on the streets of Venice Beach and on Santa Monica's 3rd Street Promenade and gives indoor performances at Hollywood club Boulevard3. As he sees it, both environments have their perks--a captive audience at Boulevard3, expansive audience on the streets. He enjoys both.

In 2012, Myles and Riley collaborated with YAK to create a dance film set in New York City’s newly renovated Lincoln Center. Beautiful movement, striking imagery, and creative use of space aside, the last ten seconds of their film invite critical thought about the relationship between artists and arts institutions.

As the film shows, the filmmakers and dancers were asked to cease filming and leave the grounds since they had not received permission to use the space. Myles wasn’t inclined to comment on this experience but, when pressed, he thoughtfully replied, “I can understand. But we are making something beautiful here. We are making dance. So, why not let us do this--dance where art is?”

Frankly, I can't think of a satisfactory reason.

Lincoln Center is an oasis of artistic creation, education, and preservation. It seems counterintuitive to have to ask permission to make a work of art in a space that self-identifies as being dedicated to art.

One could argue that, regardless of its mission, Lincoln Center is private property and ought to be respected as such. But is an arts institution ever really a private organization? Is the space it provides ever exclusively its own?

Might arts institutions serve as official representations of the artistic community and illustrate the creativity and industry of the artists whose work inspired their creation? Might these institutions serve as a safe haven for makers, or at least a reminder that art still has a place of significance on this ever-changing planet?

BIO

Ron “Prime Tyme” Myles was born and raised in Memphis, Tennessee, in a neighborhood called Orange Mound. Growing up the only dancer in the area, Myles described his friends and family as his greatest inspiration and motivation during this time. In 2009, Myles moved to Los Angeles with his cousin and close friend Charles “Lil Buck” Riley, and since then has become one of the premier interpreters of the style of dance known as Memphis jookin’, often in partnership with Riley.

Helen Simoneau: Movement Across Borders

noreply@blogger.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Fri, 06 Dec 2013 14:45:00 +0000

Helen Simoneau in rehearsal
for among the newly familiar
Photo: Rachel Shane

Helen Simoneau: Movement Across Borders

by Melanie Greene

Leaves rustle and gently connect with the scratchy pavement. The air whisks a cool crisp breeze underneath the lining of my jacket, while I mentally negotiate the best combination of layers to complement the changing season. The sun’s rays warm the molecules of cool air around us....

One modest October afternoon, a pleasant chat with artist, performer, and entrepreneur Helen Simoneau became a welcomed addition to an otherwise normal day. We discussed dance, art-making and her December residency at Baryshnikov Arts Center (BAC). Simoneau was in New York for business meetings and performances, and I caught up with her during a brief intermission between engagements. Somewhere between a showing, a meeting, and a quickly-approaching plane ride, we managed to steal time to relax outside a small café in Williamsburg. We sat on a wooden bench that stretched the length of the café window, while the afternoon sun fought with vigor to penetrate my Canal Street sunglasses.

Before we began our conversation, a quick shuffle of our movement cleverly hinted at our lives as dancers. To prevent the relentless sun from blinding Simoneau, we gathered our belongings and switched places. Stepping through the strap from a bookbag here, avoiding the spill of a drink there, we settled on opposite ends of the bench while my shades served as a brown barrier between the sun’s rays and my retinas.

After an exchange of greetings and light conversation, I began by asking Simoneau how she felt, to which she replied, “I’m feeling good because I just performed last night. I feel in my body and grateful that I’m able to reconnect with my dance community here in New York.” This sentiment illustrates one piece of an interesting puzzle that roots Simoneau’s work and practice in both New York and North Carolina, where Simoneau currently resides.

I was first exposed to Simoneau’s work in North Carolina where I grew up and attended graduate school. During a North Carolina Dance Festival, she presented a solo, the gentleness was in her hands. Surrounded by three golden anchors of light, Simoneau moved as a lone figure within a triangle of light, completely mesmerizing. She moved in angular, awkwardly isolating ways complemented by soft, delicate extensions and undulations. Her head and torso would snake through space supported by long lines that journeyed from her hips into her feet. She was enchanting and, ever since, I’ve been excited to see and hear about her work.

Having moved to New York, I am fascinated by how other artists navigate across interstate lines. Simoneau’s dual state, as well as her international presence, situates her work and company--Helen Simoneau Danse--in an interesting state of mindfulness that radiates throughout her work as an artist, performer, and choreographer.

Here and below, a trio of scenes
from Simoneau's among the newly familiar
Photos: Steve Davis

Residencies Process Work/Time Separation

Precious Movers Thinkers Community/Core

Boundaries Borders Limitless limits

Simoneau's three-week residency at BAC landed on her radar because she was familiar with artists affiliated with the organization and, from them, heard about the supportive nature of its residencies. This opportunity offers Simoneau a platform to invest in what her work needs without the pressure to produce a polished final product.

“BAC is meeting me where I am with my process,” Simoneau said. “Sometimes performance expectations hinder the creative process because you simply try to get to the end too quickly at the expense of exploration.”

For three weeks, she, along with several New York-based artists, will call BAC home as they work on two dances in different stages of development and process.

Process

For many artists, the process is a very important component of choreographic practice. Simoneau realizes that her works often reflect something that is currently going on in her life. Certain themes and ideas just develop subconsciously. “It is not usually my intention, but I noticed that I tend to work out things in my life through my work."

Interestingly, these findings reveal themselves over time when one has a chance to step back from the work, which explains Simoneau’s advocacy for work/time separation. Establisihing some distance from the work allows you to reexamine your choices as a choreographer. The work becomes not so precious and lends itself to a quizzical, choreographic eye.

Simoneau in performance
Flight Distance III: Chain Suite
(photo: Steve Davis)

Work/Time Separation

Time also helps you see the potential and possible evolution of a work. It can offer clarity and create an opportunity to witness the fact that a work doesn’t stay fixed. It is an ongoing process informed by decisions made in the past and present. “I am there and present [in the work],” Simoneau added.

Once time has past, this clarity and participation makes it possible to seek avenues back into a work. With the luxury of time, she believes, “you begin to see patterns and unconscious choices." You can also make space to entertain the divestment of labor involved in a work that can make it easier to edit away unnecessary material.

Delving more into the process of creating work, Simoneau spoke of her gratitude for the women and men with whom she works and performs. “I work with dancers who understand me and my process. They are invested in the work, therefore are invested in the process.” Among many things, this process involves seeing and being with dance works over time. Dancers also contribute in the creation of material. “I’m excited about the dancers I work with,” Simoneau said. “I am inspired by them and confident that I can let go of material and trust that they will continue to inspire me as movers and thinkers.”

For the BAC residency, Simoneau will work with a group of dancers who she hasn’t seen in nearly nine months. “It is a pleasure to work with this particular group of dancers and, when we don’t meet, I miss it. We are a community, a core.”

from Paper Wings,
developed at American Dance Festival
(photo: Grant Halverson)

A Company With Many Homes

I’ve seen Simoneau’s work in several North Carolina venues, and I'm fascinated to witness how her work translates and transforms within New York spaces. When asked about creating and presenting work in both locations, Simoneau admitted “Every year, I’m more clear…I realized [years ago] that there were several resources in North Carolina that I was not utilizing.”

Booking studio space in New York can be expensive. In North Carolina, there is a community that really values the arts. Resources and rehearsal space that may be more difficult to obtain in New York are more accessible in North Carolina.

She knows that reaching out to people for support is key. “Ask for what you need,” Simoneau suggested. “Be willing to bring your ideas to the table and prepared to offer suggestions about how to get there.” Instead of imitating the journey of others, Simoneau found it more advantageous to figure out what she needed and devise her own plan to get there, stepping outside the box to see past traditional models.

For instance, Simoneau’s residency at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts (UNCSA) brought dancers in for three weeks and gave them access to free studio space and classes. One big "Yes" later, Simoneau is in her fourth year working with UNCSA.

“I think [UNCSA] said yes because there is value for them in having professionals take class and interact with their students. We usually end up having students peek into rehearsal, sometimes understudying. We also end up having an informal talk with the students about life after graduation. They always have tons of questions.”

Traveling, especially overseas, and sharing work are important components of her aesthetic. “It’s scary to be in a vacuum," she notes, "because there is nothing to push up against.”

Presenting and experiencing work widely seems vital to growth as a performer and artist. You might ask the same questions, but get different feedback. “Work is relative to the context in which it exists," she says. "It will be different in every place, but it should still find relevance in different contexts as well.”

After my conversation with Simoneau, I realize that as artists we often see and create opportunities out of necessity—a way to reconcile living and breathing the work we want to create and nurturing the individuals we want to be in this space, in our communities. Our intersecting paths are diverse and intricate from end to end, but it is possible to live what you love, love what you live, and, along the way, meet inspiring people who help to make your journey more clear.

BIO

Helen Simoneau is a native of Québec, Canada. Her company, Helen Simoneau Danse, is based in both North Carolina and New York City. She had the honor of winning The A.W.A.R.D. Show! 2010: NYC with her solo the gentleness was in her hands. This work was also awarded 1st Place for Choreography at the 13th Internationales Solo-Tanz-Theatre Festival in Stuttgart, Germany. She returned to Germany as one of three finalists for the Kurt Jooss Prize 2010 in Essen for her quintet Flight Distance I.

Simoneau has been selected to choreograph for the Swiss International Coaching Project (SiWiC) in Zurich, the Bessie Schönberg Residency at The Yard, Bates Dance Festival’s Emerging Choreographer Program, and the American Dance Festival’s Footprints series. Her choreography has been presented in Austria, Brazil, Canada, France, Greece, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, and has toured throughout Germany and the United States. Her work Flight Distance III: Chain Suite was recently presented in a nine-performance tour of Montréal, Tokyo, and Busan, South Korea, marking the company’s debut in Asia. Simoneau is a Bogliasco Fellow, a North Carolina Arts Council Choreographic Fellow, and a Fall 2013 resident artist at the Baryshnikov Arts Center in New York City.

For more information about Helen Simoneau and Helen Simoneau Danse, visit
helensimoneau.com. Also, see Simoneau's choreography reel on YouTube.

Upcoming: DraftWork at Danspace

Saturday, Dec 14, 3pm (FREE)

Click here for information and tickets.

Christina Jane Robson: A Bud in Bloom

noreply@blogger.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Wed, 27 Nov 2013 16:16:00 +0000

Christina Jane Robson
(photo by David Gonsier)

Christina Jane Robson: A Bud in Bloom

by Sarah Elizabeth Lass

I first saw Christina Jane Robson dance when we both took Alexandra Beller’s intermediate modern class at Dance New Amsterdam (DNA) in March 2013. Her strong body and languid movement captivated me but, more than that, I was struck by her delightful, friendly energy and joyful spirit. She warmed not only the room but the people in it. I left with a big smile and a light heart and, glancing around, I’m sure I was not the only one.

I had heard from a close friend of mine--who had met Robson at Bates Dance Festival's Young Dancer’s Workshop--that Robson had recently joined the ranks of DNA’s permanent faculty and had a regular advanced modern technique class. “You have to take her class,” my friend insisted, “It’s amazing.”

Eager for more time with Robson and intrigued by the powerful, yet fluid dancing I had seen in Beller’s class, I suited up and headed to the studio.

Almost ten months later, I am hard-pressed to miss a single one of her classes. She has steadily gathered a devoted group of students, addicted to her high-energy, physically-challenging classes, all of which Robson cheerfully leads with compassion, a sense of humor, and an eclectic, ever-changing playlist.

Robson in action
photo by Ben Wolk

She has also grabbed the attention of critics and theatergoers, a standout in the work of a large number of notable dance makers, including Séan Curran, Monica Bill Barnes, David Dorfman, Alexandra Beller and Kendra Portier. Rachel Rizzuto of Dance Teacher magazine recently commented, “It is nearly impossible to watch anyone else when she is on stage. Her presence commands attention and relaxes an audience member at once.” For Rizzuto, Robson is the “modern dancer to watch of this next generation.”

I am similarly in awe of Robson’s dancing but also curious about her path into the world of teaching and how, by the end of every class, she has people shouting, cheering, and laughing. I want to get to know the person who, time after time, creates a room where anything feels possible, and who has woven together a warm, supportive community that has grown steadily larger thanks to these uplifting, inspiring two-hour treats.

After one such class, we met to chat over a couple of jumbo iced coffees–her acknowledged and happily-indulged vice. I invited Robson to share more about herself, her life, and her approach to her own practice and the one she shares with her students. Notorious for her sense of humor, I was laughing out loud from the moment we sat down.

At my suggestion to start “at the beginning,” she happily launched into the story of her birth, and ticked off her vitals upon delivery. Weighing in at almost eleven pounds, the very large infant Robson joined just one older brother, rounding out her small family in the Tewksbury, Massachusetts, a “blue collar, working, football town” of around 30,000 people, just north of Boston.

Since childhood, she has considered herself a bit of an odd duck among her older brother--a “computer science genius,” she says--who was always the academic of the family; her father, who custom fabricated hotrods; and her mother, one of the most personable, good-humored people. A typical day in her household consists of “my dad watching TV, my mom failing to bake something, and my brother taking something apart.”

Despite her “odd-duck” status, Robson can see a bit of herself in each of her family members. “I am like the artsy, social butterfly,” she says, “but I think I got my mom’s sense of humor.” As for the creativity that is now apparent in her dancing and teaching, Robson traces this back to an unlikely culprit: her father. Robson’s admiration is clear as she speaks of his careful, detailed construction of car engine models, a process in which she sees an amazing amount of artistry.

As for childhood activities, Robson acknowledges that she just wanted to do everything her older brother did, much to his annoyance. So, when he took up hockey, she followed suit, really her first taste of movement. “I was so bad at it,” she recalls. But, she adds, “I would skate as fast as I could and slam into the boards, just because it felt good.”

A concerned parent, watching Robson in practice, approached her mother and suggested that the girl take dance classes. Robson’s mother enrolled her in a local school–Tammy’s Dance Connection–in the same shopping center where the family owned Toon Town, a record shop. “I lived in that store,” Robson reflects, thanking the family business for helping her memorize, by age six, all the words to Salt-n-Pepa’s “Let’s Talk About Sex.”

When it was time for dance, Robson’s mother would close up shop for five minutes and walk Robson over to Tammy’s. Beginning in ballet at age four, Robson soon added jazz and tap, and began competing regularly. Despite mixed feelings about dance competitions, she acknowledges their benefits. “You learn how to perform at a very young age,” she says. You can perform anything and everything.

While she was exposed to a variety of dance styles, tap most captured Robson’s heart. “I was big time into tap dancing. Like all my time tap dancing. I did a lot of conventions and jams and had private lessons and competed in competitions,” she explains. Now, fully immersed in and focused on modern dance, she says, "Tap still really influences my moving body. I think I still strive to find shading and tone and rhythm in my body in any full-bodied movement phrasing.”

When she wasn’t in Toon Town or tapping at Tammy’s, Robson’s childhood consisted of “neighborhood-wide” football games, dodge ball, and street hockey. “I grew up in a suburban neighborhood chock-full of families with several children of all ages,” Robson recalls. Probably because of this, Robson has always loved kids, and has worked as a nanny since arriving in New York in 2009. She even credits one incredibly supportive and generous family, with whom she lived and worked for several months, with allowing her to continue dancing throughout a time of financial hardship.

“There is a playfulness and a love of sharing time with people and kids that is very much a part of me,” Robson says, thinking back on these neighborhood activities and the small, family-based community she calls home. Séan Curran--the seasoned New York choreographer and Robson mentor--acknowledged, “She’s great with kids. She’s a kid herself.”

Christina Jane Robson
photo by Yi Chen Wu

Sitting with her in Think Coffee, I am also struck by her childlike enthusiasm. It’s contagious. She is animated and engaging—her passion for movement clear in her voice and body—moving and gesturing in her seat, still energized after giving a challenging, two-hour class. Apparently, she’s always been this way.

“I couldn’t sit still in high school,” Robson admits. She got good grades, but school, she says, was never really her thing.

When I pressed her to talk more about her teenage years, it surfaced that she had been a high school cheerleader. “I can’t believe it either,” she joked. She looked for any excuse not to wear her uniform on games days. That uniform included a fake curly ponytail--“not my best look." But she did enjoy the movement. “I never said the cheers. I just did all the moves. The stunts were fun too.”

As high school drew to a close, Robson’s parents had made it clear that not going to college was never an option. Looking for places where she could continue moving and dancing, she auditioned for the dance department at Roger Williams University (RWU) in Bristol, Rhode Island, charmed by the intimacy of the program, with everything housed in one barn.

Asked to present a short solo, she chose one of her competition tap routines. Robson remembers the performance well, laughing good-naturedly at her own naivety at the time. Wearing a purple leotard and black bootie shorts, Robson dove into her routine, fully committed and enthusiastic despite the RWU dance program’s distance from the competition dance world.

The modern dance class that came afterward was, in fact, the first modern dance class Robson had ever taken. She remembers the foreignness of the positions and the vocabulary and, more than anything, the breathing.

“I just remember thinking, ‘Why are you guys breathing like that?’”

Upon her acceptance, Robson was immersed in the intense and diverse training offered at RWU, and met “the most important person to date” in her life: Kelli Wicke Davis, then head of the dance department.

“She had this philosophy of ‘throw them in, let them figure it out,’” Robson recalls, speaking of the whirlwind of styles that students in the department encountered thanks to short and intensive residencies from a wide range of visiting artists and choreographers.

Did her perception of her own dancing, and dance in general, changed once at RWU after so many years of dancing in competitions? It wasn’t so much that she noticed that her understanding of dance had changed, she says, but that she felt her body changing. “I remember my body morphing because it had to. How my body moved changed, and I felt that.” This seems indicative of the way Robson connects with her world: from the inside out. “I feel like I dance like I talk,” she laughs.

After four years at RWU and a semester studying abroad in London, Robson began thinking about life after graduation, assuming this meant a return to Tewksbury. Davis, however, had other ideas, and it was thanks to Davis that Robson was introduced to Séan Curran. In fact, when I asked Curran when he first met Robson his answer was 1979: the year he himself met Davis, who had then only just started the dance program at RWU and who encouraged Curran to audition for New York University’s Tisch School dance program.

“Kelli would recommend someone all the time,” Curran explained. “One of these people happened to be Christina.” Not thinking about hiring a new dancer, Curran still encouraged Davis to send Robson to New York upon her graduation in 2009, where she could take his class and he could offer any help or advice needed.

“I was happy to meet this person,” he says, “but I didn’t think it would amount to much. And then it was Christina Robson.”

Christina Jane Robson
photo by Ben Blumenfeld

Robson had no intention of living in New York. She remains surprised by the series of events that led to her move here. After Curran’s suggestion to just “get here and try it,” Robson packed a backpack and boarded a Megabus. She spent that first summer rehearsing with Curran’s company. Almost five years later she’s still here, and still dancing for Curran along with a plethora of other dancemakers.

Robson, Curran says, has changed his life. What makes her so special?

“It's her humor, her sense of wonder,” he explains. “She’s easy to laugh and she’s easy to cry.” He calls it her willingness to “sit in her emotions,” and that makes her an essential presence in the studio. “You know the saying, a lesson learned with humor is a lesson remembered? Christina embodies that,” he says.

Monica Bill Barnes, another New York dancer and choreographer who first met Robson at Bates Dance Festival in Maine in 2009, speaks with similar enthusiasm and admiration.

“She is a complete treasure to work with,” Barnes says. Asking Robson to work with her was one of the easiest choices she’s had to make. “She is hilarious and she is good-natured,” Barnes notes. “She has the right heart and grit to not just make it, but to enjoy the process, and it takes a certain level of grit.”

Listening to Robson talk about her dance career, though, “grit” doesn’t even seem to factor in. Joy bubbles in her voice, and her amazement and gratitude that she gets to dance everyday completely overshadows any fatigue or frustration that might surface naturally with such a physically, and often emotionally challenging profession. “She would go without sleep,” Curran notes. “She is so hungry to keep moving and keep dancing.”

And others are hungry for more of Robson. “I’m not the only one who loves her. Everyone wants her, and she wants to do everything,” Curran says. “She wants to dance and she dances for everyone who asks her. I’m always afraid I’ll lose her.”

Robson’s days are usually full of dancing, but that's not all. Her escape is as delightful as it is unexpected: flowers.

“Sometimes it's so easy to get tunnel vision dance eyes,” she says. “I definitely crave another perspective or another creative medium when I find I'm drowning in dance moves.”

Robson traces her love of flowers back to the garden her mother and father kept when she was a child and, while growing up, her occasional assistance with her church's flower arrangements. In New York, Robson continued exploring the art of floral arrangements and learning the business.

“I love to work with my hands, and I loved visual arts,” she explains. (At RWU, she had initially pursued a double major in Dance and Visual Arts and had experience with painting, drawing and sculpture. When, during her first year in the city, she passed the Flowers of the World's studio, her interest was piqued. “I loved their spare, minimalist floral design. So I wrote them.”

“I wasn't looking for pay, just knowledge. They wrote me back and told me to come learn. So I went a few times and got a few skills under my belt.”

As her dance career picked up, time for flowers faded away, though Robson remained very much fascinated by them and interested in their design. It wasn’t until last year, when she saw a Groupon deal for flower arranging classes at Studio Sweet Pea in the East Village, that Robson was able to jump into it again.

“My hands were itching to get back to work, and dance was slow at the moment.” She wrote the studio owner, Lisa Fireman Dorhout, and interviewed to apprentice. “We hit it off immediately. I learned so much about the business as a whole as well as details of design and event work from Lisa. She became a very good friend and mentor.”

“It is so satisfying to create pieces with a live, natural medium. Each stem is unique in its color and shape,” she explains.

Robson finds countless similarities between her work with flowers and dance. “There are so many similarities in how we shape choreography and how we shape a floral piece: They both work with shape and color and dynamics, how the different stems play off one another or blend, how to balance the energy, how to draw the eye through the piece.”

“I absolutely love it,” she says. “If I weren't dancing I would have my own shop, one hundred percent. Maybe just not in New York. Too much speed and too much pressure.”

Christina Jane Robson
photo by Melody Ruffin Ward

I am struck by how applicable these words about flowers are to Robson’s approach to her own dancing.

“I see the body as an overflowing vessel of ever-changing qualities,” she explains. As she dances—the curve of her long limbs in a legato phrase dropping into a grounded, punctuated step, her strong controlled balances offset by moments of juicy release—she shapes the space around her, just as she might shape an arrangement of hydrangeas. It’s dynamic and surprising, with a curious phrasing and exploration of rhythm that undoubtedly comes from her tap days.

As a teacher, Robson is also in the midst of shaping a unique class sequence. Though she did not begin teaching regularly until about a year ago, her class already has a distinctive flow and feel to it. Barnes, who has taken Robson’s class, sees maturity in her class sequence that one would not expect from such a young dancer and teacher.

“I really feel like it was one of the most clearly articulated, thoughtful, intelligent classes that I’ve taken in a long time,” Barnes says. “I think she’s quite extraordinary as a teacher.”

Robson’s first taste of teaching–in 2010 at her alma mater–was a bit terrifying, she admits. She was surprised that anyone wanted to hear what she had to say. Davis was present and Curran was in attendance, and Robson remembers her meticulous lesson notes, which she checked constantly throughout the class.

Since that class Curran has continued to act as a mentor to Robson in her teaching, and for that she is incredibly thankful. “I think that discourse between old and new teachers about how to teach is so important,” Robson says. It seems that this discourse is paying off. “She is becoming a fabulous teacher,” Curran affirms. “All the NYU kids just want Christina!”

About a year ago, Kendra Portier, another Robson mentor and for whom she often dances, let the young artist substitute teach some of her classes at DNA, the beginning of Robson’s regular teaching commitment. When her nerves started acting up, or attendance was low, Portier offered steady support and encouragement, remembering that it took months before she, Portier, had gathered her own regular group of students.

Now, with a weekly class at Peridance Capezio Center and occasional stints at Gibney Dance Center, Robson has collected a loyal group of admiring students. One of them, Michelle Rose, who first met Robson through her administrative work with Barnes, says, “I know I have a lot to learn from her. I think she has a real gift for being able to explain something and have it make sense, without becoming too ‘teacher-ish.’”

Robson believes that she, too, learns a lot from her own teaching.

“I feel like I’ve had the most growth since college,” she says. “You need to be so clear, and show what you’re trying to convey through both metaphor and physicality.”

It has also been a humbling experience. “I’m letting people witness failure in my own body,” she explains. Now she feels more comfortable about improvising and being watched. Robson dances throughout her classes, feeling that because of this experience—of being “inside” the class with her students—she can lead the group thoughtfully and intelligently through each physically challenging and creatively stimulating sequence. “I’m physically experiencing class and then relaying that information live,” she says.

Curran notes, “She’s in her body. Not all dancers are in their bodies the way she is.”

Of the class sequence itself, Robson admits that it often feels a bit like “ping pong.” Always sporting a track jacket zipped up to the chin--Curran lovingly calls this the “ragamuffin chic kind of rehearsal look”--Robson begins her class with around 30 minutes of non-stop movement, jumping from guided improvisations, to something closer to fitness conditioning, then to yoga, then to ballet. She follows this with a handful of smaller, more technically-focused exercises. Everything ends with a gigantic, full-bodied phrase that sends student flying through the space, letting them draw on all the sensations gathered in the previous hour.

Robson--a dancer from no specific school or lineage and one who has skipped from hockey, to tap, to cheerleading, and to modern dance--knows the importance of being, as she calls herself, a “keeper of all sorts of languages.”

“Nobody can just dance for one person anymore,” she explains, “And there’s something kind of gritty and awesome about being a mutt.”

“I’m trying to figure out how many different ways I can challenge my body instantaneously,” she elaborates. Her classes, therefore, are structured just as she might structure an intricate flower arrangement—lots of different shades, colors, textures, and details all woven together to create a vibrant, unified whole.

That said, Robson is not interested in any kind of final product when it comes to class, rehearsals, or life, for that matter.

“She is very into the process, whether she’s in the class or teaching the class,” Curran explains. “Christina is a dancer who is interested in the making and doing.”

Just as flowers whither and fade, a dance exists in one moment and is gone in the next. Robson, however, is unfazed by such a dilemma.

One day, while guiding a class through a sensory-based improvisation, Robson stopped everyone and encouraged us to live in each movement, find something new and surprising in each moment, to let go of deciding, to not think ahead to our next choice.

“Now, now, now,” she chanted like a mantra as she sailed through the air.

Being around Robson, it’s easier to let go of the stresses of everyday life and of the expectations we have for each other and ourselves, and to just find a childlike joy in and fascination with the present. Robson reminds us to live fully aware and conscious in the “now,” because, although moments pass, and what was strong and vital inevitably wilts, something new and wonderful always blooms afterward.

BIO

Christina Robson began her dance training in her small hometown of Tewksbury, Massachusetts studying with Tammy Aspell of Tammy's Dance Connection. She graduated Summa Cum Laude from Roger Williams University in 2009 where she studied Dance Performance and Visual Arts. In the Fall of 2007, Christina studied abroad in London and trained at The Place. Christina currently has the joy of working with folks like Seán Curran Company, Monica Bill Barnes and Company, Alexandra Beller Dances, Heidi Henderson/Elephant Jane Dance, Kendra Portier | Band Portier, David Dorfman Dance and an artist's collective called The Space We Make.

In addition to continuing to pursue her professional performance career, Christina has also started making her own work., creating her first two original works on students at Colby Sawyer College and at Roger Williams University, where she will be returning this Winter 2014 to premiere her first evening of works.

Christina is thrilled to have most recently had the opportunity to teach at Dance New Amsterdam (DNA), Roger Williams University, Gibney Dance Center, New York University Tisch School of the Arts (SADC), Hofstra University and Peridance Center.

Jacqueline Green: A Clean Slate

noreply@blogger.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Wed, 13 Nov 2013 23:07:00 +0000

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater's Jacqueline Green
in Wayne McGregor's Chroma
Photo by Paul Kolnik

Jacqueline Green: A Clean Slate

by Sarah Elizabeth Lass

As one of five children, Baltimore-native Jacqueline Green grew used to being in the company of others. However, in 2011, this versatile, talented, long-limbed beauty who has now captivated so many joined a different kind of company: Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. Since then, she has grabbed the attention of audience members, critics, and choreographers, gracefully tackling works from Jiri Kylian’s technically-precise Petit Mort to Rennie Harris’ soulful Home.

It may be difficult to believe that 23-year-old Green, featured in Dance Magazine’s “On The Rise” (May 2013), began her formal study of dance just ten years ago. In fact, it was only at her mother’s suggestion that Green auditioned for Baltimore School of the Arts (BSA).

“My sister went to a very good academic school, and my mom was always doing research on schools,” Green recalls. BSA stuck out as an outstanding academic institution, but when her mother suggested it, Green admits she was surprised. “I was just like, uh, I don’t dance,” she laughs, “When I thought of dance, what came to mind was Fame.”

“I don’t know what convinced me, but I auditioned,” she says. “I felt extremely naked in my leotard and tights, and I remember thinking it was weird that somebody was touching your body.”

One of a handful of selected students, Green then plunged into an intensive and accelerated course of training. “After six months I was on pointe,” she remembers.

It's not uncommon for dancers to begin training at a very young age. Did Green find this relatively late start to be a frustration or an obstacle? On the contrary, she believes it worked to her benefit.

“I had no preconceptions about dance, or habits I’d picked up when I was three,” she says, “I was a clean slate.”

Linda-Denise Fisher-Harrell--associate professor at Towson University, an Ailey star for thirteen years, a BSA alumna, and one of Green’s teachers during her junior year at the school--believes that this clean slate is what lends itself to the “quickness” in Green’s learning. Fisher-Harrell--a self-proclaimed former tomboy who auditioned for BSA with the goal of one day dancing in a Michael Jackson video--says of Green, “She entered the school as an open book, and I think there’s a beauty to that. You are a blank canvas.”

AAADTs Rachael McLaren, Jacqueline Green, and Glenn Allen Sims
Photo by Andrew Eccles

What Green did bring into her training was a joy for movement, something she now recognizes she had at a young age, when she still had no idea that dance could be a career. When I ask about any activities or hobbies before dance, she thinks for a moment and responds, “Even before dance, I loved to dance. I liked music and I liked to dance around the house with my best friend. We were the queens of nineties.”

Even though Green does not see her later start as a hindrance, it certainly does not mean that she had it easy. She remembers her beginning ballet class with Anton Wilson, and how much she struggled with one of his combinations.

“After a month I finally got it, and I felt that success, and I wanted to keep going.” With each small victory, like the one in Wilson’s class, dance became Green’s passion and joy. “It was a slow love affair,” she admits, “but it fills you up like nothing else.”

Green’s teachers recognized this desire to keep going, this hunger, drive and, perhaps more than that, a willingness to work. Fisher-Harrell says, “It’s not that Jackie did everything perfectly, but she really wasn’t afraid to work. When things didn’t happen right away, you never doubted that she would get it.”

Fisher-Harrell admits that if there is such a thing as a “model student,” Green was it. “She is just a joy,” Fisher-Harrell says, “She has this attitude like, ‘Yes, I am here and I want to learn and I am happy about it.’” For Fisher-Harrell, this kind of work ethic is everything. “Your work ethic is all you have, and that starts from the first moment you walk into the studio. It’s about how you take care of your body and how you stay in the practice of dance. You have to be in constant research of the next level.”

Green herself was struck by this work ethic when Fisher-Harrell came to teach ballet at BSA during Green’s junior year. Green remembers thinking, “She has it, and she’s still working.” This insistence on growth and improvement was something Green saw and absorbed early on, and is something that Fisher-Harrell believes is essential to the success of any professional performer. “I always thought of myself as a student, even as a principal dancer. If you approach things that way it keeps you hungry, always seeking,” Fisher-Harrell says.

As her time at BSA drew to a close, Green began to look for a similar opportunity in higher education. “You got to go to college,” Green says, “An education is priceless.” Just as BSA impressed Green and her family years earlier, the Ailey/Fordham Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) Program similarly offered excellence in both dance and academics.

Upon her acceptance, Green relocated to New York. “I think I always had it in the back of my head that I wanted to dance, and then I came to New York and realized people were doing it,” Green says. At this time, too, she saw her first performance of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. “I became a groupie,” she laughs, “I would run over to City Center after class!”

I asked Green about her experience in the Ailey/Fordham Program and her day-to-day schedule.

“In many ways, college is harder than being in the company," she explained. "You’re a full-time Fordham student and a full-time Ailey student.” Indeed, Green’s days were packed from early morning until late evening with academic classes, dance technique classes, rehearsals, homework as well as the time she spent alone in the studio.

Despite an already demanding schedule, Green began to apprentice with the company during her junior year. By senior year, she was officially an Ailey member. How did she handle the many obligations of being both a full-time student and company member with one of the world’s most famous and highly-acclaimed dance companies?

She laughs and says, “I made it work.”

Jacqueline Green
Photo by Freddie Rankin

Green reflects on her first two years with the company with maturity and a level of insight not expected from such a young professional. Green’s first year included an eleven-week international touring, marking the first time Green left the country. “The first year was about learning the repertory and knowing how to tour and stay inspired,” Green says, “You figure out how to be with the company and be your own person.”

What, then, inspires her?

“Anything. Anything can inspire me.” It could be something from one of her favorite TV shows, Scandal, or the long walks through foreign cities that she enjoys taking while the company is on tour. As Green mentions her co-workers, her voice sparks with admiration and enthusiasm. Clearly, she feels joy in working with such talented people everyday. “We can be just cracking up on stage, and that reflects to the audience, they feel it too.”

Beyond her professional duties in dance, community outreach--such as the educational work the company did in Argentina this September--also gives her pleasure and a sense of purpose.

“The passion in these kids,” she says, trailing off, her amazement clear in her voice, “You see it and you absorb it.” Outreach, Green explains, helps to refresh and renew Green’s practice and approach to her own work. “It takes me back to that first year,” she says, in reference to the beginning of her own training ten years ago.

This is, she believes, her biggest artistic and personal challenge. “Going back to that clean slate, it’s always the challenge.” Green explains that after learning the repertory and getting accustomed to life in the company, as Green did in her first year, things can get comfortable. In approaching each new day of dancing and each piece on which she works, Green says, “I need to open my brain, absorb new information, and not do it like I would do any other piece.”

Jacqueline Green
Photo by Andrew Eccles

We talked about the various roles Green has tackled during her time with Ailey. She has dived into so many different ones.

Discovering her character starts with the movement, she says, and then develops during the rehearsal process. “Whenever we’re rehearsing something I think, ‘What kind of character does this movement make me?’”

After that, Green picks a hairstyle. She has sported high, fountain ponytails, mohawks, braids, and more. This light, playful spirit does not only pertain to her approach to character development, but also to her daily practice as well. “I like to be the performer,” she admits. “I’m a crazy kind of girl—I have the crazy-colored tights, and the tie-dye leotard.”

“She’s just a fun-loving girl,” Fisher-Harrell confirms, “Faithful, fun-loving, and caring.” This vivacious personality and kind spirit endears her to friends, teachers, and co-workers. “You know what I love about her?” Fisher-Harrell asks animatedly, “She’s sweet! You can tell in the studio, with her friends and in her interactions with her colleagues. They just love her.”

Green's ability to commit herself wholeheartedly to something foreign or uncertain, without judgment or premature analysis means allowing herself to be vulnerable.

“You let go of all those fears, and you become vulnerable again," she says. "That’s how you started everything. That vulnerability is courageous, and it took me awhile to figure that out.”

As Fisher-Harrell says, “Her journey is what is so fascinating, how she takes material and progresses through it.” With such an outstanding work ethic and unending dedication to personal growth and discovery, I can only predict that Green’s return to the stage this season will be a joy to witness, each performance a lesson in renewal and rejuvenation.

BIO

Jacqueline Green (Baltimore, MD) began her dance training at the Baltimore
School for the Arts under the direction of Norma Pera, Deborah Robinson and Anton Wilson. She is a graduate of The Ailey/Fordham BFA Program in Dance. Ms. Green has attended summer programs at Pennsylvania Regional Ballet, Chautauqua Institution, Earl Mosley’s Institute of the Arts and Jacob’s Pillow. She has performed works by a variety of choreographers, including Elisa Monte, Helen Pickett, Francesca Harper, Aszure Barton, Earl Mosley and Michael Vernon. In November 2009, Ms. Green was the recipient of the Martha Hill’s Young Professional’s Award and the Dizzy Feet Scholarship in 2010. She was a member of Ailey II and joined the Company in 2011.

For more information on the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater's New York City Center season (December 4-January 5), click here.

Vicki Igbokwe: To Keep Me Sane

noreply@blogger.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Tue, 22 Oct 2013 12:47:00 +0000

Vicki Igbokwe
(photo courtesy of the artist)

Vicki Igbokwe: To Keep Me Sane

by Anita Gonzalez

I’m sitting with 32-year-old British choreographer Vicki Igbokwe in the café at The Place, a contemporary performance center in London that nourishes creative dance work. I’m thrilled to be in the company of a dancer who markets herself as a choreographer and an Olympic mass movement coordinator.

Igbokwe’s “urban contemporary,” choreography melds house dance, waacking and modern concert dance. She’s just returning from the Sadler Wells Summer University, a think tank for dancers, artists, and creators. As I watch her eyes, Igbokwe’s mind tumbles over new thoughts and ideas. This artist, now well situated in her career, realizes that her early life experiences directly influenced how she created opportunities for herself and others. So how does a life story manifest into dance practice?

If I go back to come forward, the dance for me is all about a release.

Personal history, her father’s passing and her mother’s illness, shaped Igbokwe’s

spiritual passage as a dance artist. She speaks of dance as release, reflecting back

upon personal challenges she faced as a burgeoning teenage artist.

My dad was a barrister. He practiced here and in Nigeria, and my mom was a

councilor for the Labor Party. We had always danced in my family. Coming from a traditional Nigerian home there is always music, Sunny Adé, Fela Kuti… music and dance was always in the house. She (my Mom) would go to these traditional weddings, or African women’s association meetings. They would bring the kids and, after the meeting, there would be the food and the music and the dancing.

Igbokwe’s mother passed away in 2009 following an extended illness. As a teenager, the choreographer grappled with challenges of taking care of her mother while developing her own independence.

My Mom became really ill, and I ended up becoming her caretaker from the age of 14 and looking after her and my three younger sisters. I was coming home from school and making sure that mom was OK and making sure that my sisters were OK, and it was a very tough time. I feel like a fifty-year-old woman in my mid-teens, and I need something that is just for me to do. And at school I was always choreographing on my friends. A teacher told me about a summer project that was happening here at The Place. She said, “this would be something just to do for you.” I would learn technique classes, and I absolutely loved this dance thing, this creative thing. And from there I got the bug.

The bug of dancing helped Igbokwe to feel young, and most of all happy. Later she attended college. Choosing an art career over a law career disrupted family

expectations. Although she first concealed her arts degree from her mother, she later confessed that she was pursuing her heart.

I found the hobby was something that just kept me sane and made me a bit whole again.

Uchenna Dance in works by Vicki Igbokwe
(photos by Irven Lewis)

Igbokwe’s most recent work, Our Mighty Groove, draws from her early experiences of house club dancing. Zoe Anderson describes the September 2013 performance at Sadler's Wells' “Wild Card” series.

“A woman in an extravagant hat cuts through the crowd, clearing space by sheer force of personality. Delicately taking the hat off, she starts to dance, with rippling shoulders and slicing arms. The crowd presses in for a better view, and then falls back again to give her more room.”

In the work, Igbokwe immerses audiences in a house dance environment and lets them observe multiple characters entering a 1970s club. The dance fully utilizes the personality of each of her dance artists.

I’m doing what Mommy did and the ladies of the African women’s association.

Igbokwe attended primarily white universities that challenged her sense of self. The buns and tights she had to wear for classes felt, to her, like alien outfits. Outside of the university, she worked with Hakeem Onibudo of Impact Dance. He encouraged her to improve her teaching by becoming an exercise teacher at fitness studios. Before the exercise course, she was “really engaged but rough round the edges.” Hakeem advised her that, as an African girl, she should work on her smile and people skills.

He was the key figure back then, a big brother, and he came from Nigeria as well. He understood that transition.

Even though she softened her classroom demeanor, Igbokwe held onto her cultural grounding, naming her company Uchenna Dance. Uchenna, the Nigerian first name given by her parents, means “God’s Will.” She honors her parents by choosing this as her company’s name.

Igbokwe established the company in the middle of the recession. Her goal was to create a company that had an identity separate from Igbokwe as an individual choreographer. It was a precarious time.

I thought, “give it a go” rather than “what if.” I wanted to create something bigger than me--or that will be bigger than me--that can add to the British dancing that we have here, right now. This thing of seeing myself within dance as a Black woman as an African woman, as being a woman, as someone that absolutely loves dance and ballet and also likes house dance and waacking and knows the history and the technique behind these styles.

Waacking and house dance are popular dances with poses, explosive kicks and fast arm movements performed to driving urban music.

To promote social dance as contemporary choreography, Igbokwe started Cultural Explosion, an annual event showcasing artists working with urban vocabularies. Because of the “knock back” against her own work, she created a platform that is experimental, vibrant and infused by street, social, African and informal dance styles. Cultural Explosion invites choreographers from around the country to experiment with hybrid styles.

For me this work is about finding the similarities in those forms, the get down, the essence.

There have been three “cultural explosions,” each opening up networks for sharing ideas and practices. Open classes invite artists to exchange styles. The event aims to build artistic languages and bring the underground to the British Dance scene.

If we don’t do it, it won’t get done.

Igbokwe’s deeply imbedded ideals of fusion come from her heritage and from her experiences with training across disciplines. She wants to merge multiple dance styles.

I know about each of them in their individual forms. But what excites me is when they come together. When you’ve got a dancer that has the aesthetic of a contemporary dancer but the essence of an African dancer and then the rhythm, that punch of an urban dancer, that’s what gets me going. That’s what really excites me. To find bodies, dancers, I’m excited. That’s what my passion of merging these styles together is. I love the use of the back and the spine. I love the groundedness, but at the same time I love the lines. If you can get your leg up there, I’m yours.

When I first met with Igbokwe, I wanted to know more about her involvement with sports. She was a Nike Athlete and UK Master Trainer as well being part of the creative team, at the 2012 Olympics, working on all four of the opening and closing ceremonies. Her title was Mass Movement Coordinator and her team worked with a cohort of choreographers, dance captains and creative directors. Each team developed their own choreographed movement and the vision for their segments. The Mass Movement team lead by Steve Boyd worked to make the choreography and vision a reality.

As we chat, I realize the woman in front of me sees the athleticism of training and the invention of dancing as similar processes. Whether she works with large-scale movement or with individual artists, she views the process of dancing as coordinated release. I consider her earlier statements.

I found the hobby was something that just kept me sane and made me a bit whole again. When I’m dancing I feel young, I feel happy, I don’t think of the stress that I’ve got at home.

Igbokwe finds happiness through the physicality of dancing with others while

bringing a unique aesthetic to the British dance scene. Her work encourages

experimentation with styles, values precision in practice, and honors personal

relationships.

BIO

Vicki Igbokwe is the Creative Director of Uchenna Dance, a company that delivers high quality, dynamic experiences in dance for all--be this as a participant, spectator or project partner.

Starting her career as a street dancer, she later trained at Middlesex University graduating with a BA in dance studies in 2004. In 2011 she graduated with a MA in cultural leadership from City University.

As an independent artist, Vicki wears multiple ‘hats’ that include choreographer, teacher, lecturer, manager and producer. She is also a founding member of the ADiaspora collective a creative collaboration with Alesandra Seutin of Vocab dance.

As a choreographer, she undergoes practice-based research, which sees her fusing Waacking, Vogueing, and House Dance (club dances) with West African and Contemporary dance.

Career highlights include being a sponsored Nike dance athlete and master trainer (2005-10) and a Mass Movement Coordinator (creative) on Opening and Closing Ceremonies for Olympic and Paralympic London Games (2011-12)

To learn more about Uchenna Dance, click here

Beth Gill: The Elusive "Why"

noreply@blogger.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Thu, 10 Oct 2013 11:01:00 +0000

Beth Gill

Performance of Electric Midwife at The Chocolate Factory
(photo by Steven Schreiber)

Beth Gill: The Elusive “Why”

by Komal Thakkar

Bessie Award-winning choreographer Beth Gill came to dance at age 3 when, after sitting through an entire PBS broadcast featuring Baryshnikov, she informed her parents of her desire to take ballet class. She would go on to study ballet under Rose-Marie Menes--formerly of the Ballet Russe--at the Westchester Ballet Center in Yorktown Heights, New York and make her first dance when she was just thirteen.

“Rose-Marie was a traditionalist,” says Gill. “She was extremely proud of her own lineage inside the ballet world, but she also created an environment where we were exposed to other kinds of dance. I studied Bharatanatyam, tap and jazz in her school.”

Tami Horowitz, a dancer trained in Limon, introduced Gill to modern dance at age ten through her Limon-based classes for young students at the Westchester school. Gill credits Horowitz for integrating creative movement exercises into her classes.

In love with the idea of dancing and choreographing in New York City, Gill applied to college programs in dance. Each one rejected or waitlisted her, including the brand new Fordham/Ailey BFA program. But Gill insisted on attending Fordham, and they accepted her a few months later.

“[Ailey] was a hard fit for me. I was grateful to have a place to go, and I wanted to attach to those pure dance forms they were teaching, but in a way I was invisible,” she says. “At Westchester Ballet Center, I formed an identity of making things, but there weren’t many outlets for that at Ailey. I transferred to NYU.”

Gill’s experience at NYU proved to be formative.

“I was surrounded by a group of people who were, in our own small context, trying to be experimental, or radical,” she says. Although she doesn’t feel like they were making anything extraordinary, she certainly recalls their excitement at the time.

Reflecting on her adolescent years, she explains her fascination with avant-garde culture.

“I tended to be much more safe in my own expression, but I was attracted to people and art that seemed to be living outside of the mainstream.”

After graduating from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, she felt a deep concern about continuing in the world of dance and choreography. It was what she had always done. Nevertheless, Gill seized the opportunity to make a work for the Movement Research Improvisation Festival, a small step that propelled her in a decisive and lasting direction.

Eight years after graduating from NYU, Gill received a 2011 Bessie Award for Outstanding Emerging Choreographer, and the first ever Juried Bessie Award. The jury panel, comprised of noted choreographers Elizabeth Streb, Ralph Lemon and David Gordon, stated that Gill’s work, Electric Midwife, “demonstrated rigor in its process and challenged its audience’s perceptions.” The panel commended her consideration of the specific ways an audience views a dance.

Scene from Electric Midwife
(photo by Beth Gill)

Electric Midwife consists of three duets mirroring each other with a movement vocabulary of rounded arms, lunges, slow turns, and simple poses. Phrases of movement interrupted by long pauses eventually transition into longer smoothed out, continually moving phrases. The duets symmetrically weave through each other at changing tempos and in various planes throughout the space. The dancers exhibit control and a lack of affectation. They have cultivated mature skills through years of performing.

Gill originally created this work for The Chocolate Factory, a performance venue in Long Island City with a narrow and short space. Electric Midwife frames that unusual space so that one’s focus becomes evenly split.

Roslyn Sulcas writes in The New York Times, “The sense of three-dimensionality is heightened, as is our sense of the space itself, its depth and width, its rough walls and its windows at the back, looking like large eyes. Even the women’s casual outfits--leggings and loose tops in orange, green, blue, red, black and gray--form blocks of color that are reminiscent of Mondrian paintings.”

Sulcas concludes by asking, “Which is the left brain, which the right? Are the movements in fact identical, or are they permeated by the tiny individual differences that each human body produces? Which side is real, which side the mirror?”

Scene from Electric Midwife
(photo by Beth Gill)

Some of the work’s spatial relationships and patterns can get lost in transplant to other venues, but this helps Gill think about her work differently for each setting. In a large black box theater in London, the work can take on an unexpected theatricality. The walls of the stage space are gray, and the floor is black with white Marley in the center. The resulting visual intersection of white, gray and black color fields and the audience on a steep rake far away from the dancers create a viewing situation where the audience looks in on the piece as opposed to being within the piece.

Gill expresses concern over the possibility that her audiences most relate to a possible gimmick in her work, focusing and responding solely on the symmetry of the piece. Dance performs a vanishing act, this choreographer believes; that’s part of its challenge--and its appeal.

“Putting your experience into language after seeing a show is very difficult,” Gill says. “So often, I feel like this medium is evasive to language.”

“What it provides you as a maker is the two-fold ability to become completely obsessed with how to construct a work and also the ability to see it as a transient form. You’re moving through it, and it is moving through your life. The ephemerality of the medium is one of the most beautiful, tragic and powerful elements that I experience.”

While showing Electric Midwife in London, Gill met a man who described himself as a professor of perception, an expert in peripheral vision. At that moment, she felt as though she had made this work specifically for him.

Gill's meeting with this man created an opportunity for her to speak with someone who possessed concrete, scientific knowledge of the process of sight and observation, which Gill does not.

“When you’re seeing peripherally, your gaze is receding,” she tells me. “It’s as if your eyes withdraw into your head. When you look into a narrow space, your gaze is more honed in to a specific point, and your eyes are right at the surface of your head. Thinking about how I physically see work makes me more conscious of my body.

“I am fixated on notions of space and perception and different forms of materiality affecting our experience of space.”

Gardening is her other favorite passion. She reveals that her fantasy job would be in landscape architecture. Gill recalls meeting an artist deeply engaged in architecture who told her that she often feels as though she is a choreographer stuck in another field.

This question raises a similar one for Gill. “Am I only exploring these notions through choreography because I’ve been a dancer since I was young?” Yet Gill remains engaged with the art of dance.

In an interview with Christine Jowers of The Dance Enthusiast, Gill, once again, queried her own motives.

“At the onset of every new work is a familiar battle to reconnect with why I keep making dances. The only way this continues to be a relevant language, medium and identity for me is if I am questioning its necessity at every juncture.”

Has she ever found the answer?

“At this point in my life, my perceptual experience of the world is deeply integrated in my physical being and the sense that I have of my body. The information I take in funnels through physical receptors, so it’s hard to imagine being in a different mode.”

As she continues to question, perhaps, one day, the way she answers herself and the content of that answer will change. Until that day arrives, Gill is very much what she has always been: a maker of dance.

See the trailer for Beth Gill's Electric Midwife here.

BIO

Beth Gill is a New York based artist, who makes contemporary dance and performance in New York City. She has accumulated a body of work that critically examines issues relating to the fields of contemporary dance and performance studies, through an ongoing exploration of aesthetics and perception. Gill is a 2012 Foundation for Contemporary Art Fellowship recipient, a New York City Center Choreography Fellow for 2012-2013 and an inaugural member of The Hatchery Project (2012-2015). In 2011 she was awarded two New York State Dance and Performance “Bessie” Awards for Outstanding Emerging Choreographer and the Juried Award: "for the choreographer exhibiting some of the most interesting and exciting ideas happening in dance in New York City today." She is a graduate of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and has been a guest artist at Barnard College, Eugene Lang College the New School for Liberal Arts, Arizona State University and the New York State Summer School of the Arts. She is currently developing New Work for the Desert, which will be premiere at New York Live Arts March 19th-22nd 2014.

Body Stories: the choreography of FIVE DANCES

noreply@blogger.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Sun, 06 Oct 2013 13:32:00 +0000

Reed Luplau (left) and Ryan Steele in FIVE DANCES

Body Stories:
the choreography of FIVE DANCES

by Melanie Greene

Limbs spiral around a quiet calm torso. Hands pierce the space like sharp blades. Movement is blanketed by silence…a silence that is suddenly broken by the vibrations of a cello. He moves. His eyes seem familiar. He does not appear to be dancing for someone. He is dancing for himself. He is comfortable in this movement. His long, straight leg follows an imaginary circle in space, rotating bone within sinew. The energy emitting from his toe sends his motion along a downward diagonal.

FIVE DANCES is a captivating tale of a young talented dancer and his journey into the contemporary dance world in New York City. Directed by Alan Brown and choreographed by Jonah Bokaer, this film stars Ryan Steele, Reed Luplau, Catherine Miller, Kimiye Corwin and Luke Murphy. While I could talk at length about the cohesion of this film in terms character development, location aesthetic, and overall story, my interest lies within the composition of Bokaer‘s choreography and its impact on the overall story.

Bokaer is an internationally known choreographer and media artist. Through his cross-disciplinary work and social enterprise, he has made a unique impression on the dance world and worked with many artists including Merce Cunningham, David Gordon, and Deborah Hay. As a young choreographer, his accomplishments are impressive and his artistic vision—inspiring.

Ryan Steele in FIVE DANCES

FIVE DANCES tackles a traditional tale of a young dancer, Chip, portrayed by Steele, and his transition as a professional dancer in New York. Tethered to events occurring in his home state of Kansas, Chip must weigh his responsibility to his family and his responsibility to his career. Joining a small company in the city, his talent and determination couple with his innocence to generate a series of firsts. You will fall instantly in love with this character through his innocence and drive. His work ethic radiates through his range and capacity as a mover. There is something familiar about his character, and his history and hardships genuinely radiate from his eyes and into the execution of his movement.

Brown shot most of the film in and around an intimate dance studio in Soho. As the story builds around Chip and his four cast mates, the film takes on a ritualistic nature as their relationships build around the routine of their rehearsals. Movement becomes a true narrative of this film. Conversations through movement reveal the smallest, yet sometimes most important details.

Every now and then, city life seeps into their world as sounds and conversations hint at subway stops and cross streets. And while we are invited into the dancers’ life outside the studio, we receive the most information inside the studio.

Light pours in from the studio windows, warming the space and casting shadows along the periphery. The repetition of choreography throughout the films creates space for the audience to admire the personal and professional chemistry of the quintet. Bokaer's choreography adds richness to the story that illustrates a true sense of awareness and consideration by the characters. The dancers, and particularly Chip, negotiate the complexities inherent to the contemporary dance world.

I was captivated by how the actors negotiate breath, fluidity, and control within their movement palette. A similar fluidity guides the tension and release of their personal connections. Steele performs Bokaer’s choreography beautifully. The choreography feels strongly rooted in ballet technique, but defiant limbs, articulated torsos, and bare feet make it reminiscent of Merce Cunningham’s aesthetic.

While the repetition the core movement throughout this film became tedious at times for me, it allowed the story to develop in a captivating way. It created space to reveal the possibilities of the movement through camera angels and timing.

Captivating in its minimalism, FIVE DANCES is an enjoyable story told through movement. Although it is a familiar story, its artistic composition requires the audience to approach this content with different considerations and engagement.

Monica Bill Barnes: Awkward Singularity

noreply@blogger.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Wed, 18 Sep 2013 13:54:00 +0000

Monica Bill Barnes
(photo by David Wilson Barnes)

Monica Bill Barnes: Awkward Singularity

by Komal Thakkar

Seeing a performance by Monica Bill Barnes & Company, you might be surprised by how much you laugh. When I saw Barnes & Company perform Luster, Mostly Fanfare, and Everything is getting better all the time at the Kennedy Center in May, I certainly did, enjoying her enthusiasm and the athleticism of her muscular body flying through space.

Barnes comes to dance by way of training in theater at the University of California in San Diego, where she also studied philosophy with an emphasis in ethics. After graduating, Barnes applied to law school but rethought her choices. Shifting gears, she moved to New York City, attending a summer dance program at the Alvin Ailey School. The routine, she found, was not for her. She wanted to make her own work.

“Philosophy asked me to articulate my understanding of ideas,” says Barnes. “Choreography is articulating your ideas through your movement, and what you’re judged on is your ability to be specific and communicative in expressing those ideas.”

Specificity and attention to detail, essential components of a successful work, are two factors that compel Barnes to the process of making dance. She deeply admires Bill Irwin, an American actor trained in dance and clowning, for the physical specificity in his work. Ira Glass, the creator and host of NPR’s This American Life, her current collaborator, exemplifies nuanced, detail-oriented practice in work that bears his unmistakable radio personality.

“Specificity and attention to detail help you clarify what kind of performer you are trying to be and help you become a distinctive artist,” she believes.

Barnes (front) in Parade
(photo by Steven Schreiber

How can she “step outside” of a piece and view it with a critical eye while actually dancing in it? Barnes explains the necessity this way: she doesn’t understand herself as an artist without having the opportunity to perform.

She recalls the horror she felt as she viewed one of her pieces from the audience.

“I recognized that if I were in it, I would have felt it reaching a standstill in its natural and logical progression while we were rehearsing it in the studio. When I was watching it in the rehearsal process, I was taken by the distinctive, powerful performers. There’s a transformation that happens when you shift a dance from the studio to the stage and put it under lights in a formal setting. It’s not that I think I’m a great performer. I understand the work from inside out.”

from Parade
(photo by Steven Schreiber)

Working humor into a dance can prove to be even more challenging. While Barnes doesn’t usually aim for humor, it does occur--frequently--when it’s unintended. The awkwardness and tragedy of the human condition interest her more.

So many dance artists deal with grace and beauty, she says, that she does not feel the need to contribute more of that type of work.

“I’m less interested in seeing photographs of iconic figures and beauty than I am of seeing photos of real people. You can get confused between one beautiful person and another. There is a distinctive, identifiable singularity that is specific to an awkward individual.”

“Most of the time the audience laughs is when something has gone wrong onstage,” says Barnes. “I never feel like the audience is laughing at us though. I feel like a lot of the laughter comes from empathy. My hope is that laughter serves as a response to us in these moments of awkwardness and humiliation that which they can relate to on a very personal level--a shared experience.”

Mostly Fanfare, set to songs performed by Nina Simone, deals with the struggles of showmanship and resilience. Barnes and her dancers wear large white feather headdresses reminiscent of a vaudeville act and incorporate large, sweeping movement and circus-like stunts in which they balance chairs in their mouths.

In Anna Bass’s solo, the dancer stacks large brown packing boxes on top of one another and then attempts to lift this tower of boxes. Clearly, the odds are stacked against her. Suddenly, boxes pelt her from the wings as the determined dancer struggles to carry on.

“When Anna gets hit with a box, she usually gets a laugh,” says Barnes. In this moment, she recognizes the humbling experience of being a performer, attempting beauty, failing miserably and somehow recovering.

Bass recalls surprise at the audience’s laughter during Mostly Fanfare's premiere. What’s funny in one city, Barnes says, might not work that way in another. To their amazement, one audience let out a collective groan when the boxes hit Bass.

Luster, an autobiographical duet, highlights Barnes’ long-standing onstage partnership with Bass, celebrating ten years of sacrifice, triumphs, and endurance. It opens with a film showing how much they travel and prepare, the less-than-glamorous, exhausting details of packing, unpacking, performing and repeating the process over and over again. At one point, Barnes and Bass, dressed in running shoes and sequined dresses, literally run in circles. For Bass, Luster is a virtual archive of their decade-long experiences in making dance.

“When we show up to a theater,” she says, “we put the set together and preset the props with the help of the production staff. We’re very hands on, and the piece reflects that about us.”

Barnes connected with Ira Glass after he attended a performance during her 2011 run at The Joyce Theater. He wrote her an email, and they began regularly conversing about their work. She admires how he uses radio in unique, innovative ways. “That’s what I aspire to do with dance,” she says.

Together, they created a performance for This American Life Live! before a live theater audience including Glass’s usual narration of stories and segments where Barnes and Bass would dance. Delighted by the project’s success, they next created a full-length show called Three Acts, Two Dancers, One Radio Host, which they are currently touring.

“Language forces the audience to think about the movement in a different way,” Barnes says. Without language, choreography and music are the only ways that the audience can discern meaning.

“The challenge in this collaboration is to ensure that movement doesn’t become illustrative of language and that language doesn’t become descriptive of the movement.”

Glass and Barnes continually rework their respective contributions to assure that neither movement nor language dominates. Their collaboration, like a performer’s career, is a continuous dialogue, a constantly evolving learning process.

*****

Trailer for Monica Bill Barnes & Company's October 2012 season

NYU Skirball Center for the Performing Arts

MC'ed by Ira Glass

BIO

Monica Bill Barnes is a New York City based choreographer and performer. Born and raised in Berkeley, California, Barnes moved to New York in 1995 after receiving her B.A. in Philosophy and Theater from the University of California at San Diego. Before she decided to become a choreographer Barnes studied on scholarship at the Alvin Ailey School, was a member of the high school debate team, played volleyball and wrote bad plays. Since pursuing choreography as a livelihood, she has created thirteen evening-length dance works, numerous site-specific events and multiple cabaret numbers for her company, Monica Bill Barnes & Company. Favorite New York performance venues include The Joyce Theater, Danspace Project at St. Mark's Church, Symphony Space, NYU Skirball Center and Dixon Place. Lincoln Center Institute invited Barnes to tour two of her shows, This ain’t no Rodeo! (2003-2005) and Suddenly Summer Somewhere (2009-2010) throughout the tri-state school system as part of their Repertory Season. Barnes has been an invited Guest Artist at the American Dance Festival, Bates Dance Festival, North Carolina School of The Arts, Vassar College, Virginia Commonwealth University, Connecticut College, The College At Brockport, Florida State University, James Madison University, University of Michigan, Emory University, Steps on Broadway, Peridance and Dance New Amsterdam. In addition to stage works, she has created several site-specific works and theater productions, including From my Mother’s Tongue (Dancing in the Streets), Game Face (SITELINES Festival), Limelight (Philadelphia Live Arts Festival) and several new works for The San Diego Dance Theater’s Trolley Dances. Recent projects include commissions for Parsons Dance (Love, oh Love) and The Juilliard School (The way it feels). Barnes was thrilled to be a part of This American Life Live! on May 10, 2012 alongside her favorite radio show host Ira Glass and other fabulous guests.

iele paloumpis: Craft of living, healing, making

noreply@blogger.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Wed, 18 Sep 2013 12:51:00 +0000

iele paloumpis
(photo by Tei Blow)

iele paloumpis: The Craft of self and body

by Eva Yaa Asantewaa

[Editor's note: As a matter of respect, Dancer's Turn's style calls for the initial use of an artist's full name with subsequent references using the surname only. iele paloumpis, as a survivor of domestic abuse, notes that, "self-naming has been an important part of my journey, as a survivor and as a trans person." On their request, iele paloumpis will be referred to by their full name instead of the surname, "paloumpis," as a compromise between iele paloumpis and Dancer's Turn that will respect both the artist and the publication's style.]

iele paloumpis is many things–among them, a witch like me.

I knew I’d want to talk to iele paloumpis–a dance artist identifying as trans/queer–when I heard that their workshop in neopagan ritual, Witchcraft: a corporeal practice, would be hosted by New York Live Arts as part of its Shared Practice series this spring. I missed my chance to attend but wanted to hear all about it.

“We created a bodily circle and consumed salt and sage, taking this into our bodies to create that safer, sacred space together,” iele paloumpis told me. “Instead of burning herbs, we made herbal oil infusions for bodily healing.

“I base it on the lunar calendar. What’s happening with the moon, what sign it’s in, what’s happening with the planets astrologically guide what sort of ritual we will do and what sort of meditations we will have–if it’s about welcoming things and bringing energy into our bodies, or if it’s about expelling energy outward in different areas of our lives. The class is ever-evolving. That keeps it exciting for me.

“During the Shared Practice, Mercury was in retrograde, and the Moon was between Taurus and Gemini, void of course. A lot of witches believe, ‘Don’t do anything during Void of Course! And don’t do anything during Mercury in retrograde!’ But Mercury in retrograde--those interruptions that we experience--are telling us to slow down, telling us to go back to self-reflection and think about past experiences, our histories. Void of Course, similarly, is good for meditation, therapeutic things, in between worlds.

“We did a walking/moving improvisational meditation starting at one side of the room which we said was ‘Birth.’ When you got to the other side of the room, you were in the present moment. You were thinking about–and moving–your history and bringing it into the present.”

iele paloumpis in improv
(photo by JJ Tiziou)

For better or worse, our histories continuously permeate our present realities. iele paloumpis lives with a history that both challenges and stimulates the artist, educator and advocate they have become.

“When I was four,” they say, “I got into a major accident: a shopping cart fell on my leg, breaking my femur and cracking a growth plate in my hip–a spiral fracture, one of the worst fractures.”

The child should not have been moved, but a worried adult, not waiting for medical assistance, picked iele paloumpis up and ran through the store.

“The bone twisted, facing the wrong way, and there was danger of my leg never growing again,” says the dancer. “They had to fly in a special doctor who could set baby bones, and he did a good job. I was in a body cast for four months, from the middle of my chest, over both hips and then down to the tips of my toes. I don’t remember a lot from that time, but it was one of my first memories of a lot of pain.”

During their convalescence in the cast, their muscles atrophied. When the cast came off, they would need physical therapy to regain strength. On advice from their doctor, their mother enrolled them in dance classes–mostly tap with the Chicago Human Rhythm Project--and did volunteer work at the studio to defray the cost of attendance.

iele paloumpis continued to enjoy dance, never once considering it as a potential profession. Their future choice of a college, though, would tip them in that direction when, with a primary interest in literature and writing, they selected Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia.

*****

The young iele paloumpis had grown up just outside of Chicago in difficult circumstances, raised by a mother who suffered epileptic seizures and a conservative, Greek Orthodox father who was frequently abusive.

“My parents finally divorced when I was in high school," iele paloumpis recalled. "But at the time, there was this horrific law: if you’re going through a divorce, the first person who leaves the household gives up their rights to whatever monetary gains they would have gotten from the household. Since my family didn’t have a lot of money, paying lawyers fees almost caused the house to go up for foreclosure. Neither of my parents could afford to leave the house. It escalated things, and it got really violent.”

Their mother had placed some of the settlement funds from iele paloumpis’s accident in a CD. To help iele paloumpis escape the unsafe household, their mother advised taking half of that money to buy a car to live in. iele paloumpis used the remainder for food and gas for getting to school and work. Friends sometimes allowed the youngster to couch-hop, a chancy situation. Finally, the mother of a fellow dance student, a devout Baptist from an affluent family, opened up her home. She also guided them through the process of applying to colleges, taking advantage of resources available to students unable to depend upon parents for support. iele paloumpis would be the first in their family to attend college.

At the time, iele paloumpis’s mother–with her epilepsy advancing to a dangerous state, with numerous seizures per day--faced emergency, life-saving brain surgery. Within days after the surgery, iele paloumpis headed to Virginia and college with the gift of a Bible and a plane ticket likely paid for by their friend's mother.

Thanks to Donna Faye Burchfield, Hollins University had launched its first baccalaureate and graduate programs in dance in collaboration with the world-renowned American Dance Festival where Burchfield also served as dean. At Hollins, iele paloumpis was surrounded by exciting up-and-coming dance artists.

It didn’t take long for dance to work its magic. iele paloumpis attended a dance festival at Hollins where, oddly and wonderfully, things didn’t quite go as planned.

“A big windstorm cut the electrical power right before the show was supposed to start. No one could see anything. Donna Faye rallied everyone around. They got candles, they got flashlights, they got everything they could and put them on the stage. Chris Lancaster, the accompanist, got out his cello, and Donna Faye called forth Isabel Lewis and all these other people to improvise–the most amazing thing I had ever seen. There was spoken word poetry, too. And then, at this pinnacle moment, the lights came back on–and they did the show!

“I was like, ‘I have to know what this is!’ I had never experienced dance like that in my life!”

So iele paloumpis approached Burchfield. Although their training had been very different from the offerings at Hollins, they started taking dance classes and ended up with with a double major in writing and dance.

photo by Adrien Weibgen

At Hollins, a women’s college, iele paloumpis also began to question gender identity.

“I was very much identifying as a woman--and I still wholeheartedly identify as a feminist, even though I don’t identify solely as a woman now. But there was always something that didn’t resonate for me around the language about being a woman. It didn’t quite feel right. And I don't mean oppressive/homogenizing language that is often used to describe women. No one identifies with that!

"Moving away from conceptualizing myself as solely female has been a complicated journey, but there's something about how I related to my own body. It was visceral and nonverbal, and so it’s hard to put words to.

“There are many different ways to identify as trans. Some people identify within the binary, being assigned a certain gender and then crossing over–male to female, female to male--to better reflect their gender identity. Personally, a binary expression of gender is not how I identify. I feel that there are masculine and feminine forces within my body, and I think to a certain extent that’s true for everyone, but it’s also how I relate to my anatomy. No one knows my body better than I do, just as no one knows your body better than you do, and so on. Ultimately, it's about self-determination and supporting each other within that.

“Graduating from Hollins and moving to Philadelphia--which has a very strong transgender/genderqueer community--was the first time that I was exposed to trans-ness in terms of fluidity of gender, more expansiveness, which was what I identified with and how I came into my own gender identity.”

Using the pronoun “they”–instead of “she” or “he”--came to express that breadth, depth and fluidity of gender.

Defining self for self, and throwing off oppression, had long since led iele paloumpis away from their father's Greek Orthodox religion, as well as the born-again Christianity of their friend's Baptist household. And yet, the symbolic, ornate ceremonies of the Orthodox tradition seem to have foreshadowed the rituals they create in both witchcraft and dance. Both pursuits represent a deep call to healing from trauma.

“It came back to healing, the layers of getting in touch with my body through dance with my history of abuse and violence, and being around women who had experienced violence, too. That was a very strong conversation happening at Hollins, and feminism was a part of that. I was thinking about my body and all bodies in a way that’s complex and about things not immediately visible.

“The idea of invisible disabilities is an odd thing. It’s invisible some of the time...until it’s not. My mother could often walk about the world, and no one would know that she had epilepsy until she was seizing or there was some other indicator. That, and the ableism that she experienced and that was constantly causing her to be between jobs, was always very present in my mind.

“Very young, I innately had the sense of injustice around my family’s class background and how that related to my mother’s disability and the domestic violence, and how that connected to our bodies. As I got older, I became more and more politicized around disability justice, connected to my mother’s struggle.”

This concern for justice extends to iele paloumpis’s work as an educator for the Arts and Literacy Program of the Coalition for Hispanic Family Services, providing consistency and safe space for young people from low-income families.

*****

“Within the past two years, I’ve been experiencing various physical ailments that have not been able to be diagnosed by doctors until recently," iele paloumpis says. "I’ve been navigating those things in my own body. I have an impairment that causes double vision.”

A cranial nerve lesion causes the double vision, a fairly rare condition that falls outside the expertise of most ophthalmologists and neurologists. They now consult with neuro-ophthalmologists specializing in double vision. Corrective lenses help somewhat; physical therapy, so far, has not been as effective as it might be in children with the disorder.

“The condition is very disorienting and causes a lot of dizziness. It’s weird: Your body adjusts over time; your body wants to orient itself. I realized I was compensating in all these different ways: I’m much more of an auditory learner now than a visual learner. Then it was, like, ‘Oh, I haven’t been reading for like a year.’ I can pick out words here and there, but I can’t read paragraphs. Since writing has always influenced my dancemaking, that has been difficult. There’s audio software that can read things aloud and magnification on my computer, but they’re imperfect programs for sure, and it restricts me to only reading things online.”

They avoid the typical bestseller audio books: “I don’t need more of that in my brain!”

Motion heightens their dizziness and queasiness.

“When I’m moving and dancing, it’s way too much, and that inhibited me to large degree when I had this wonderful studio residence at New York Live Arts over the past year. A lot of it was working with a sense of limitation and a feeling of not being able to trust my body in the way that I had once known it.

“At the same time, I was thinking about how to integrate this new thing that’s happening in my body–and not in a way steeped in internalized ableism. This is my body. This is what I’m going through right now. How can I embrace that? How can I integrate that into my dancing and my life?"

Shadows of iele paloumpis at left and Jung-Eun Kim (aka J.E. Kim) at right
in Keening at New York Live Arts
(photo by Joanna Groom)

“Last year, as I was working with J.E. Kim and Joanna Groom, my roommate at the time, I started thinking about orientation through sound," iele paloumpis said. "I found singing to be really calming. Joanna taught us how to use our voices, and it became a kind of meditation and spiritual practice to sing together. There’s subtle movement–your vocal cords, your breath–but not the topsy-turvy feeling that I get when I’m doing large movements.

“I had this deep desire to map out the space. I didn’t feel that I could see it anymore, that I could feel it anymore. Part of J.E.’s role was her ability to do that. The locomotion and directionality of her movement was about outlining the perimeter of the room. At New York Live Arts, although it was still very frontal–and part of that was for me to not be further disoriented--we turned the orientation so that, for the audience, it was from a corner vantage point.”

The disorientation, therefore, was placed on the viewers.

“For me, I was feeling the dizziness within my body, going there, doing some deep work around violence."

Three scenes from my mother keening
(photo courtesy of Arts and Literacy)

This season, iele paloumpis will be further developing their work through a Brooklyn Arts Exchange (BAX) Space Grant. So, it’s onward, no matter what.

“The queasiness has made me not want to dance, but what my doctor has given me, recently, is the ability to patch one of my eyes, allowing for singular vision. It messes with depth perception, and I have no peripheral vision. I have to rely more on sound or craning my neck. I’ve been trying that out, and it’s actually been very freeing. I’m able to dance in ways that make my body feel good again. It’s a new form of navigation–both familiar and new–which is exciting!”

For a dance artist often improvising with others, could this be a challenge?

“I was very visual before in my understanding of the world around me. So that includes the way in which I watch work, how I come to understand it. I’ve been putting myself in my work a lot more recently because, despite all the physical difficulties, it has become less about watching the work and more about the experiencing of it. It’s been important for me to be inside of it. I know less about what it looks like but maybe more about what it feels like. For me, that’s very linked to improvisation.”

*****

iele paloumpis’s background as a survivor of adversity also guides how they view
the struggles faced by dance and dancers in an often uncomprehending and dismissive society.

“The only place I want to be is New York City because I have so many amazing people here, part of our dance community, that are deep friends. When the money goes away, it’s not like when I was in Chicago, when I’m not going to have a place to go. There are couches that I can still crash on here. When I first moved here, I wasn’t able to make the rent, and I was facing eviction and didn’t have the safety net. I know a lot of dancers who are on food stamps in order to survive and make their work, but I don’t know a lot who have contended with potential eviction and homelessness. So it’s hard to have a conversation with dancers around poverty."

"Within the last year, my class status has shifted quite a lot," iele paloumpis says. "I went from housing court to moving around a lot, collecting unemployment then luckily getting a steady teaching job--with health insurance!--and newly living with my partner and their sister who are from an upper-middle class background. It's very surreal. I'm coming to understand the idea of a 'safety net' in my chosen family.

"But, at the same time, my mom just got another pink slip while her current husband is laid up due to a work-related injury. I hope to one day be in a place where I can be her safety net. My mom loves dance, but she's never seen me perform in my adult life because travel costs are too high. We only see each other every three years or so."

Life experiences such as this make it impossible for this artist to be oblivious of social realities outside of the world of dance.

“For me, I think it’s important to think about accessibility, and I think that our dance community can keep itself very insular–you know, like the same people going to all the shows. The language we use is often very academic and sometimes inaccessible to others.

“We often will complain, ‘Why isn’t dance being seen? Why isn’t it considered important?’ Part of that is our own cycle of not branching out further, not thinking about accessibility.”

In fact, iele paloumpis says, the availability of dance as a healing and spiritual force becomes limited to the few. That’s one reason they remain dedicated to their work as an educator in underserved communities.

“I want to extend that to others. Those of us who do have safety nets, let’s do more and extend that conversation outward: What it means to be broke for a while because you’re not getting income as opposed to what it means to be in poverty. Of course, I think that, for most dancers, there isn’t a lack of interest in doing that. There’s a feeling of being stuck in the how of it because of a general lack of resources. But, as a community, we could work harder to extend outward.

“I think people are worried about ‘simplifying’ dance, because we’ve really worked to make it this thing that’s recognized in an academic setting. There’s this real drive to not let go of dance being an intellectual pursuit. But we’ve gone too far in that direction.”

*****

Witches learn early that words have limitations, but the right words-- combined with imagery, gesture and other sensory phenomena--can empower. By claiming the word “witchcraft”–which, they admit, is not taken seriously by a lot of people, iele paloumpis also lays claim to a history and feminist analysis of the oppression of women and pagan healers under patriarchal religion.

A rebellious thirteen-year-old iele paloumpis--influenced by their mother’s interest in witchcraft and psychic dreams, as well as by an idolized cousin, who was a survivor and healer–began to explore neopaganism. When iele paloumpis’s mother slipped a Tarot deck–the teenager’s first–into an Easter gift basket, their father grew angry.

“Him hating it made me love them all the more. It was a special gift that allowed for that sense of healing that I was needing. I still have that deck; it’s the only one I use."

Years later, while iele paloumpis was studying at Hollins, their cousin died from a drug overdose. Sara, who was more like an older sister to iele paloumpis, had struggled with addiction throughout the latter part of her life.

"Sara's body was found in a dumpster, and the coroner told our family that she would have likely lived had she been taken to the hospital. There was no further investigation into Sara's case. She and whoever disposed of her body were just chalked up as 'junkies.' And my world shattered. It is still incomprehensible to me--these acts of violence and people's indifference to suffering."

iele paloumpis found comfort in re-connecting to Tarot as a spiritual practice, learning what they could through reading, the Internet and just “acts of doing.”

“Doing ritual, more and more, gave me deeper knowledge, intuitive knowledge. It allowed me to feel connected to Sara and my ancestors. It's been life-saving in terms of my own emotional and physical well-being. Only recently have I desired to have more community around and to share these things. Within the trauma and physical impairments that I’ve been dealing with, I’ve felt the need to have healing connected to my neopagan, earth-based spirituality as a way to be inside my body. I’ve been thinking about it as a somatic practice and that there must be people out there who yearn for that or who already have a connection to it who can help me deepen my practice as well. So, I've been branching out more.

“It’s only very recently that I’ve been allowing this into my work in an intentional way--though it might have bled in before--based on the disability that I’ve been experiencing, as a way to orient myself and be inside my body. Joanna is open to doing ritual with me as part of our rehearsal practice.

“I’m studying herbalism right now, and a lot it is just about taking your time. Sitting and being quiet. I’ve been allowing for time to unfold. The seedlings on the work started at New York Live Arts. Right now, we’re finding movement vocabulary and language around our rituals. Wearing this patch, it’s going to be navigating through a half-sightedness–a new element coming into it.”

History subtly streams through the work-in-progress that iele paloumpis is conjuring and exploring this fall.

“my mother keening locates remnants of invisible trauma. The work explores various ways in which people heal themselves--through ritual and science and the magical nature of it all. Historically, acts of ‘healing’ or ‘fixing’ have often been used as forms of domination and control. my mother keening reflects this duality and complexity. It is a ritual, a celebration, a humiliation, a lament for the dead.

“While Joanna and I are still working with ritual and healing, our current emphasis seems to be shifting. We're now looking at the many ways we try to escape pain but are ultimately still bound to it. And recently we're approaching this heavy subject matter somewhat lightly, in that we hope to make the absurdity of it all visible.

“We're trying to find the levity in always trying so hard, but ultimately always failing. At the same time we are not putting the emphasis on failure alone. There's been enough of that in queer art over that last decade.

“With all sincerity, we are striving for a different outcome--something like euphoria, bliss or hope.

"We'll see!”

*****

See a free showing of a work-in-progress by iele paloumpis with Jen McGinn and Joanna Groom on Monday, November 18, 8pm (on a bill with Germaul Barnes, Amapola Prada and Daniela Tenhamm-Tejos) at Movement Research's at Judson Memorial Church. For information, click here.

iele paloumpis and Joanna Groom will also be showing my mother keening on Friday, December 6 and Saturday, December 7, both at 8pm, at Brooklyn Arts Exchange (BAX), 421 5th Avenue, Brooklyn. For information, click here.

BIO

iele paloumpis is a trans/queer dance artist, choreographer and teacher. As an educator of 9 years, they've taught movement improvisation and composition, as well as dance theory and critique. iele has also practiced various forms of neo-pagan spirituality since age 13 and recently began sharing this knowledge through workshops as a part of a bodily practice. In 2010, iele was a co-recipient of The Leeway Foundation's Art and Social Change Grant. This past year, they felt fortunate to be a 2012-13 Studio Series Resident Artist at New York Live Arts, as well as work under the mentorship of Trajal Harrell through the Queer Art Mentorship Program. iele is currently a 2013 Fall SpaceGrantee at BAX. At the center of their practice are ideas exploring body politics and artistic self-empowerment.

Dance lives in the world: a Dancer's Turn project

noreply@blogger.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Sat, 07 Sep 2013 13:12:00 +0000

Dance lives in the world

At Dancer's Turn, we seek to locate dancers in real-time, real-life context, as witnesses and active players not insulated within intellectual gated communities. What does it mean for the art of dance to live and play its part in the world? How do dancers listen to that world and how do they contribute?

Please contemplate this idea: "Dance lives in the world," and send us your thoughts--anything from a paragraph to 500 words--to be considered for posting. Our targeted readership is general, non-academic.

Our address: dancersturn(at)gmail(dot)com

Thanks so much!

Eva Yaa Asantewaa
Editor in Chief
Dancer's Turn

Coco Karol: Journey of a Female Voice in Dance

noreply@blogger.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Tue, 03 Sep 2013 15:16:00 +0000

Coco Karol
photo by Joseph Victorine

Coco Karol: Journey of a Female Voice in Dance

by Melanie Greene

4 o’ clock in the afternoon. The air is thick and hot. Eying a table and bench made of wood, we find a cozy spot underneath a covered patio. Condensation forms on the outside of my plastic cup and runs down the back of my hand—refreshingly cold against the vibrating heat. Ice cubes clash inside the container, melting into the green tea liquid. I’m look forward to taking a sip of this cool refreshment.

Karol sits comfortably on an adjacent wooden bench to my right. She carefully sips her tea, while I sip mine. In the shade, we catch bouts of wind that we gladly coax through the fibers of our clothes and against our skin. Taking one last sip of our liquid refreshment, we begin to talk at length....

If you Google or Bing modern dance images, you will encounter a visual menagerie of female and male bodies frozen in suspensions, extensions, and vertical contradictions to gravity. Refine your search further to choreographers and you may peruse lists counting up and down the decades of modern and contemporary dance greats.

I’ve become increasingly fascinated by discussions in recent literature surrounding the presence of the male gender bias in dance. From choreographers and company directors to performers, male visibility is undeniably large in a field dominated in numbers by women.

The Dance Advantage blog offers a possible reason for this phenomenon through a guest article written by Dorothy Gunther Pugh. Because there are fewer men, a perceived male scarcity leads to preferential treatment in the form of free training, bonuses, and unique performance opportunities and experiences (http://www.danceadvantage.net/2011/02/22/women-in-dance/a). It is within this climate that I wish to remember the female artistic voice in dance; the choreographers, creators, educators, performers, and provocateurs. To highlight the female artistic voice in dance brings into question what it means to be female or have a feminist voice in dance. The feminine mystique does not only appear in issues and content relating to females; therefore, it is not exclusive to females. This aesthetic can extend beyond culturally constructed ideas of gender, so it may be important to first define what I mean when referring to the female artistic voice.

Locating the feminist voice in dance involves considering how women and other under-represented minorities are represented in dance. It considers the stereotypes and portrayals of women and does not assume to locate a universal idea of feminine identity. It considers the fine line between oppression and empowerment. It is this voice that I wish to hear and highlight in this article.

To find the feminist voice in dance--and indeed that of other under-represented minorities--we must consider how the population is currently represented and treated in dance. We cannot assume that dance holds one universal truth about feminine identity that dictates how women should exist and participate in dance. Instead, we consider the information that flows through and around us as a tool to perceive, understand, and sometimes provoke existing circumstances. It is this information that shapes our understanding and consideration about interactions and relationships. It allows us to consider the fine line between oppression and empowerment, real and fantasy, and realized and fetishized. It is this voice that I wish to hear and highlight in this article.

I met Coco Karol during a six-week dance summer intensive in Durham, North Carolina. We participated in a theory class designed for dance professionals and artists wishing to obtain their Master of Fine Arts. We shared a unique space with others that nurtured questions and considerations about dance as it related to pedagogy, sexuality, phenomenology, and visual aesthetics.

Upon our first encounter, I was struck by Karol's careful consideration of thought during group discussions. She appeared genuine in the way she chose to articulate her ideas without appearing disrespectful, combative, or condescending.

Collective Collaboration Passion projects Long hours

Distant work that brings people together

Different-Language-New Communication

Problem-solve

Collaborations cultivate a collection of ideas, insights, talents, and passion. It marries disciplines and encourages many languages to come together as one.

Karol and I shared stories about the nature of collaboration and the possibilities that can manifest even when artists speak very different artistic languages. It is very rewarding when artists are able to bridge gaps and discover new ways of communicating.

Karol has worked on a series of collaborative projects with artist Björk; photographer Steven Sebring; sculptor Eve Bailey; composer Inhyun Kim; and dancer Chloe Douglas. With each work and collaboration, Karol identifies a set of conceptual challenges that are influenced by the collaborative medium. These seeds of consideration and contemplation root the foundation of her works. As a set of challenges becomes realized, Karol sees it as an opportunity to explore new challenges. For example, when moving within the physical structures designed by Sebring, Karol spoke about how conceptual challenges served to mirror physical ones. Working inside a 360-degree photo rig with Sebring, Karol described how, “the two of us talked our way to a final product, each person at different times responding, reacting or having agency, within our respective mediums.”

As a mover, it is important to work within evolving environments that present new questions and challenges for the performer. It keeps the mind and body active, thinking, and agile. Many would agree that this trait is also advantageous in life. We have to be able to fluctuate and adjust to daily challenges. Collaboration gives you an opportunity to work with different people, which has the potential to generate unique excitement when you see “what can happen when everyone involved is learning and growing” together.

Collaboration with architect Marcos Zotes
from the installation Rafmögnuð Náttúra--
a temporary and site-specific light installation animating the facade of
Iceland’s Hallgrímskirkja Church with a large 3d video-mapping projection

from Karol's film-in-progress, Topography
photo by Azmi Mert Erdem

Entasis Dance (2012), Karol's collaboration
with sculptor Eve Bailey
photo by Adam Bailey

Examples of recent collaborative works for Karol include Entasis Dance with Eve Bailey, Rafmögnuð Náttúra conceived by Marcos Zotes, When Insight Comes In a Dream III. I write to you and you feel me composed by Inhyun Kim, and Karol's own creative brainchild Topography.

Interacting with sculptures designed by Bailey (http://evebailey.net/), video footage and images can be found of Karol twisting, molding, and elongating her body around organic sculptures. In Rafmögnuð Náttúra (http://www.rafmognudnattura.com/), Karol created and performed a dance in Brooklyn that was later projected on Hallgrimskirkja church in Iceland. During When Insight Comes In a Dream III. I write to you and you feel me, Karol's movement sequence created a duet with Kim's composition (http://findingcoco.net/videos) guiding the eye and ear to consider musical and physical forms.

Karol’s current Topography project continues along the spirit of collaboration, combining a collection of mediums, including dance, film, music, and projection. Her vision for this project continues to create a space that nurtures the intersection of diverse voices and disciplines. Topography enlists film to explore the human body as a landscape and navigates the physical perimeters of that space to allow the body to alternate between "map and means, path and pathos, guide and guided." While Karol spends a majority of her time teaching and performing, she is fueled by collaborative projects and doesn’t mind the flexible lifestyle. She attributes this to being surrounded by a supportive family and community of inspiring artists.

For a time, Karol articulated her gratitude for her experiences and opportunities. When I asked Karol how she comes by these amazing projects, she spoke about how they grow organically. Work begets work. One opportunity leads to another. She added that, “whenever you’re open to the possibility of something happening, something does.” She did admit that she has a difficult time saying no to projects, but fortunately she has met some amazing people by not saying no. Over the years though, she has figured out how to say yes with terms and conditions.

from the 2012 gallery show, Method of Loci
photo by Rogue Space

In Brooklyn, Karol built and managed a performance space called the Petri space: “a small petri dish concept, dedicated to experimentation, education, community, and roof top gardening" (findingcoco.com). While it was really hard to live and work in the same space, Karol spoke proudly about the nurturing vibe of the Petri space. Here you were allowed to fail, succeed, and discover. The Petri space cultivated beautiful moments where roles were given the space to combine, collide, and shift like an enchanted orchestration of improvisation. Karol has also participated in programs that promoted arts in education. Working with schools in Staten Island and Queens, she said, “You have the capacity to do more and feel rewarded by what you’re doing” when you see how it resonates with students.

Life/Inspiration

Karol was raised in Boston but has lived in Brooklyn for about ten years. She acquired her undergraduate degree at Tisch School of the Arts and has a background in ballet, modern, contemporary, and improvisation. The opportunity to travel a lot has greatly influenced her worldview, with trips to South Africa and Austria leaving the biggest impact.

As a proponent of physical and mental wellness, Karol advocates establishing a daily meditation practice of one's own. She practices a type of insight mediation, which brings one's busy, straying thoughts back to one's breath. The consideration here is to be mindful about the bodily sensation of breath and how it can inform one' s thoughts and treatment of reality. This practice allows you to observe how your mind wanders–or gets distracted, or reacts–and how to have compassion for it and treat it with gentleness without struggling to control it.

Remembering to breathe mindfully while living in a big city is very advantageous. Like a piece of advice a man once offered me while sitting over a continental breakfast in a hotel in San Francisco, “The most important thing for me is that next breath. Without it, there is no next step.”

There are many ways to find balance, but you must commit to it being an ongoing investigation. “One way is to remember to take a pause. You can go to the Met and have a home for a day,” Karol added. This mindfulness promotes a healthy life and state of mind when living in a big city. As many have experienced, life in the city can be difficult, but Karol reminds us that

"There are a lot of different New Yorks. You just have to carve out the right one for you."

As we concluded our interview, Karol spoke about her part in the dance world and her hesitation to call herself a choreographer. She doesn’t see herself as a conductor, commanding bodies in space. Instead, she sees her role as creator, dance maker, and dancer. “It feels good to be a woman creator in dance,” she says.

Karol occupies a powerful place that encourages women to be artistic explorers. Through her, we see, feel, and experience how the female voice becomes manifest within artistic mediums. This evolving voice may speak to many or only a few. It is generous, considerate, challenging, provocative, delicate, aggressive, and all that flows in-between.

A friend of Karol once gave her this powerful reminder that also inspires me and fuels optimism within my spirit as I continue my journey and personal history with dance…

The universe never says no, but answers with one of the following…

(1) Yes, (2) Yes, but not now, or (3) I’ve got something better.

BIO

Endlessly fascinated by the different modes, means and mediums of communication and transformation, Coco Karol has made collaboration with artists and musicians who speak in entirely different and vast artistic vocabularies, the focus of her choreography and performance work. Likewise, the language of existing or created environments, of installation or site specific stage settings, have excited her imagination.

After graduating with a BFA in Dance from Tisch school of the arts she has had the pleasure of getting to work closely with many interesting artists such as the singer Bjork and film collective Encyclopedia Pictura, designer Jennifer Gonzales, director Steven Cook, and magazine Beautiful Decay. Karol is an eager, existing member of Chris Elam's Misnomer Dance Theater, where she also wrestles with themes of communication in its varying degrees of choreographic language.
In Addition to performing works at an experimental performance space in Brooklyn, Karol built, called the Petri space—a small petri dish concept, dedicated to experimentation, education, community, and roof top gardening—her collaborations have been shown at D.U.M.B.O Under the Bridge Festival, New York Studio Gallery, Galapagos, Brooklyn Ballet, Death By Audio, and Aunts collective, as well as at some unique community events for neighborhood youth and gardening.

findingcoco.net

Joe Bowie, Jr.: The Stuff of Life

noreply@blogger.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Wed, 28 Aug 2013 14:38:00 +0000

Joe Bowie, Jr.: The Stuff of Life

interviewed by Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Joe Bowie, Jr.
(photo by Amber Star Merkens)

You can tell people, over and over, how much you love something, but when they see you doing it, they see the love.

Bread is life, and it's living.

I'm a real bread nerd.

SUBURBAN DAYS

My mother ran one of the cafeterias at Michigan State University, and my father worked for General Motors. He started on the line and worked his way up to white collar, middle management--both very hard workers. I have one sister who is a year older, and we are thick as thieves and always have been.

I was a little bit of a strange and nerdy kid, loved school, loved learning. My parents taught us how to read at a really young age and how to write. I remember it very fondly. Basically having a good time and making good friends, though my sister was probably more social and socially at ease than I was.

I liked things on tv like The Brady Bunch. I liked anything with magic: Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie and My Favorite Martian. I'd play with my friends, and I'd be, like, "You can be Captain America, and I'm going to be a warlock!" I just wanted to be a big ol' witch!

I played tennis a little, but my sister was really athletic--better at baseball and things than I was. I wasn't bad, but they put me on the team because she wouldn't play unless I played. So I was always like stuck out in right field where no one hit the ball. She was the best first baseman in our city at ten, eleven years old.

Tennis, though, was one of the things that felt natural to me. I liked all the things that felt graceful--ice skating, rollerskating. I watched all the conventionally clichéd gay male sports like ice skating and gymnastics.

In junior high, I was the “Smart Black Kid.” I liked coaching and teaching anyone who needed tutoring. I played volleyball and tennis. I played in our school symphony and our city’s junior symphony, playing the double bass. I was the smallest kid and played the largest instrument.

DOCTOR BOWIE?

When I was a kid, I had all the doctor toys, the doctor kits and a [Milton Bradley] game called Operation. My great grandmother used to call me "Doc," and my family would let me prescribe candy pills for them.

I was always going to be a doctor and loved science. And so it was really strange for me to love to do other things like art. I drew really well and wrote a story that won a citywide award when I was ten. But you kind of put those things away, and my parents were very practical.

For college, I settled on Brown University's pre-med program for African-American students. All summer, studying science--really, really fun.

It was strange to be away from home. You could make all your own decisions as far as what courses to take and whatever. I had always done what was expected. I'd never done anything that would cause anyone pause. You'd never look at me and say, "He's going to rebel," because I never did.

THEN CAME DANCE

But, in freshman year, I had a friend who dared me to go to a dance class. So, I went. I took the dance class. And boy! It really threw me for a loop because I kind of liked it a lot.

I had danced around a lot when I was a kid, and I watched it on television and loved it. My mother used to take me to shows– Eubie! and Your Arms Too Short to Box with God, Ain't Misbehavin' and The Wiz. But my parents really weren't into the dance thing. There were all those stigmas attached to it.

I never enrolled in a dance class, but the head of the department--wonderful woman, Julie Strandberg, Carolyn Adams's sister--was the teacher, and she would just let me come in and take class. There weren't very many men dancing, and there were a couple of student companies.

I would just go to the studio and dance. My world was turning around. I had gone in with a plan, and now the plan was changing because I was changing, and I didn't know how to express that, how to articulate it to my parents.

My grades dropped for a moment, and I had always done well. It was partially rebelling. I didn't go to class as much as I should have. I had a physics class that I barely went to. (I never liked physics.) I was trying to be me for the first time, and it wasn't easy.

GETTING TO GOOD

Fortunately, Brown was, for an Ivy League school, very liberal and open. They told us early on, in the pre-med program, that you can major or concentrate in something else. You don't have to be a Bio major or Chem major. I could take advantage of a curriculum that allowed me to explore other things I liked.

I started taking literature classes--in particular, poetry. And still did the science thing, sort of on the side, and started dancing more and going to dance class more. I was in both student companies. I spent any time I could in the dance studio. I would even write my papers in the studio. I don't know who I thought I was or what I thought I was, but I was really kind of happy with myself for the first time. It wasn't about an achievement or an award. I really felt good in my skin.

At that time, my parents didn't know people who were actors and dancers in our city. People sang in church, had great voices, but we didn't know of anyone who was in a show. It was really frightening for my parents to spend all this money for me to go to college and then not come out on the other side with a degree and accolades and a profession that everyone expected.

After college, I spent the summer at Jacob's Pillow with The Jazz Project. I worked with Milton Myers and Otis Sallid and Lynn Simonson--all these great people--and then I went to New York and said, "I'm going to see what happens."

So, when I got into Paul's company, I remember my father asking me, "Well, do you have a salary?" And I said, "Yes."

"Do you have health insurance?"

"Yes."

And that's all they needed to know, even thought they didn't know who Paul Taylor was.

My first year with the company, we performed at the University of Michigan, an hour and a half away from my parents' home. So, my parents came. Paul was really great about making sure that, if you were in your home state or your home city, you were in everything. They were going to get to see you. I'm pretty sure I was in every piece in the program. I was, like, 23. Everyone wanted to meet my parents afterwards since they hadn't come to the shows in New York.

My mother, my great aunt and my dad came, and I walked out of the dressing room, and my mother looked at me, and she was crying, and she was shaking me, and she was saying, "You are really, really good. You are really, really good." And my dad was standing there as a proud papa. He wasn't the most emotional... And he was, like "You know, it was great to see you up there. That was really beautiful." That was the first time they really got it.

You can tell people, over and over, how much you love something, but when they see you do it, they see the love.

And so my mother, she knew I loved school because of my grades. Saying I love dancing was like saying I love the clouds, to my mother. It didn't resonate at all, and then when she saw me up there with full joy in this company. I was the only Black face up on the stage in that company, and they were exceptionally proud. That's where it sort of turned, and they started to understand it.

I left Paul's company to join Mark's company. Whenever Mark saw my parents, he was so sweet to them, and our executive director Nancy Umanoff would always make sure that they had great seats at shows.

WHAT COMES NEXT?

They started to understand a little bit more about what I was doing, and I think that the only worry was, “How much longer can he do it?” With other professions, if you do something for twenty years or whatever, you've got a pension, retirement. For dancers, what comes after is not so evident.

There was a part of me that could have continued to teach for Mark and set pieces for Mark, be assistant director for operas and things--which is really fun for me--but I always loved to bake. It's stereotypical, but I won a Home Economics award when I was 14!

I once baked cupcakes for one of my colleagues in Mark's company because I didn't have time to buy him a gift. I had the Magnolia Bakery Cookbook and made cupcakes. They fought over them like five-year-olds at a birthday party!

I was, like, "Here, John. These are for you. You can do whatever you want with them." He said, "Thank you," and they were gone!

I was, like, Oh!

So, I started baking for people’s birthdays. I would try to figure out what they wanted or their personality. Or I would say, "Give me an ingredient, and I'll make something for you." I'd bring in pecan pies, something like that. Towards the latter part of my dance career, baking was always around.

I went on a tour of the French Culinary Institute for their pastry department. I even sat in on a couple of classes. But I said, "This isn't for now."

It was also $45,000 for six months, and I was, like, "Wooooo! Did anyone tell you what I've been doing for the past twenty years?"

I'd ask some people "What did you do before this?" And they’d say, "I managed a hedge fund, and I decided to bake." And I was, like, "I chose the lucrative career of being a dancer, and now I'm choosing the also-lucrative career of being a baker!" They’d say, "I work for JPMorgan during the day, and I come and take these classes at night." And I was, like, "I don't do that! I work for a dance company!"

In the company, all of my friends were gone or going. I still had a few close people. The toll on your body.... I'd danced for quite a few years, and it's not that they weren't beautiful. But you start to look at it and say, “What can I bring to this? I think you should take me out of this. Choose him. He's dying to do this, and I've done it for so long.”

So we started figuring out, how much I wanted to dance or go on tour. Sometimes, you won't go on tour; you'll stay and do this or go to such-and-such university and do this for the company. That’s what I do. I never had any designs to choreograph, but I am a very good rehearsal director. That's something I love and do well, and I like to coach people and nurture them.

THE MAGIC STAFF OF LIFE

Career Transitions for Dancers held a day at our center, the Mark Morris Dance Center, and showed us that we could apply for $2,000 grants. Knowing how little we make in our careers, they wanted to see if we could try something that we really were interested in without spending our own money and then deciding that it wasn't for us.

I'd found an interesting artisan bread baking class for five days at the French Culinary Institute, but I didn't have $1,500 to spend on it. So I wrote my essay, sort of connecting baking to dance. I wish I had a copy of it! I was very happy that I had spent a lot of time with words up to that point in my life, because you can make connections--and, in the arts, you are more likely to make connections between things. I remember something about "a safe haven of baking and dance" or something! I don't know. But I submitted it, and that was that.

And then I got a call from Career Transitions: I was one of the finalists and had to interview. I wasn't in New York at the time, but they had just opened up an office in Chicago, and I was setting one of Mark's pieces in Milwaukee. So, they had someone call me and interview me there. Then I got a letter of congratulations. They gave me a check for 1,500 bucks! I think in my account I still have $500 left. You're given the full $2,000, and the rest remains available to be used.

Bread is the staff of life. Almost every culture has bread. It's not like having a cookie, which is a treat. Bread is life, and it's living, and it's different all the time.

I can let red velvet cupcake batter sit there. It will still make a cupcake, but it will ferment and won't be delicious. It won't be beautiful. [Bread making] had an aesthetic point of view, because you would score it and shape it and bake it and it would come out as this beautiful thing with varying colors and textures because they were naturally blooming out of the flour and yeast and the salt and water. The four ingredients were like magic. I'd always wanted magic.

When I put these things together, nothing that comes out of this oven looks like what I put in, and that's why I like baking more than cooking. If you put a chicken in the over, it's going to come out still a chicken. But baking was like alchemy, so fabulous.

That it's a living thing can also be frustrating. You can't control it, and that’s also exciting. In my career, I've worked in situations where it's really stressful, like when you work for Chef Daniel Boulud, and you have bread to get out, and it has to be perfect, because every French chef has an idea of what a baguette looks like–the one from his region or the one from his favorite bakery. And you have to appease all of these people. And if it doesn't come out perfectly, we put it on the family table, or we throw it away, and then there are people who would be dying for this piece of bread that I'm making. There are things like that that are hard for me at times.

It's arduous. You're on your feet. People are, like, "Oh, you've been on your feet all day as a dancer." But I was moving around. When you're in a bakery, you're standing there for nine, sometimes ten hours. It's tiring but not in the same way as moving or jumping around in dance. It's hard on your body. I'm not 22 lifting these things; I'm 49.

The actual bread making itself is pretty much always a joy, even though there's a routine to it. I like that routine. It's like taking class. You might not want to, but you need to go to class to do what you love.

I need to scale out and mix these ingredients to create what I love--a decent bread. That's part of it, not separate from it. People say, "Oh, I don't go to class." Different things work for different people but, for me, it was always that I liked the idea of maintaining so that, when I got on stage, I could worry about other things besides where my body was. The thing about taking a class was, "Let me feel where everything is."

When you get to take a loaf of bread from start to finish, you get to know where everything is moving. You get to check in all the time. I like that aspect of it.

It's endlessly interesting to me that I'm a nerd. I'm a real bread nerd. I watch videos on shaping things. I read about the proteins that make the gluten structure. I can't stop it!

My first job out of school, I was in a research and development kitchen in a little bakery run by Le Pain Quotidien. I always loved to teach; it was a natural fit for me. I got to do production and learn more about bread baking. The woman who ran it, an instructor at French Culinary, we hit it off. I knew how the bakery worked. We were a small team. I worked there for a year, then left because I thought I should go experience other things. And now I'm going back to help develop classes there.

It's a wonderful ride. I learned so much about myself. I learned a lot about patience. I can't control the bread. I can know all the variables around it that will help me have an idea. Dancing was a wonderful thing, but the idea of putting my hands in dough is gorgeous.

You know how it feels when it's not going right--also,when it's not doing what you want it to do. The same thing with your body: "Oh, I used to rebound more quickly after these shows. This didn't hurt as much."

In this profession of baking, you realize the process is so important. It echoes, many times, how you're doing personally--not that I bring my personal life into work, but some days I feel impatient, work is particularly arduous, or days when it feels like I'm as light and airy as the baguette I just baked. What a beautiful crumb!

Although a baguette is not my favorite bread! My favorite bread is called a miche–an old country French bread. Not everyone has an oven. So, you'd bring your bread to a communal oven, and you'd cut it or score it in a way that would mark if for your family. That scoring also helps the bread rise. They would bake them all together, and later you would come and get them.

You can get a lot of volume with miche bread, and they're full of flavor. They're all naturally fermented. I used to make this one with starter wheat and rye, cooked and fermented for a long time, and there are these coffee and caramelly kind of flavors in it. And it's just bread. The crust is dark, and once you let it cool, you taste so many different things. That is my favorite bread to eat and to make.

BAKING OFF-DUTY?

Do I bake off-duty? I do! I'm that crazy guy! My boyfriend always says, “I can't believe that, on your days off, you're baking!”

In the past maybe three and a half months, I've been making more sweets, but when I was baking more bread, I would bake sweets at home--and sometimes bread, but mostly cookies and cakes and stuff like that.

I have beer and cheese bread that people tend to like, and also I would make challah for Fridays, things like that. I love to bake at home.

I can usually tell when it's a job that I'm not loving, I don't bake at home. It's funny, when I'm happy at work and feel great about what I'm doing there. I tend to bake all the time. When I feel blocked in some way, I don't bake as much at home, and it feels like a chore. But when everything is sort of aligning, I'll bake all the time. I'll bake until the ingredients go away. No more eggs. No more chocolate. No more flour. I will.

OKAY, BUT THE PARENTS: WHAT DO THEY SAY?

I think they're okay with it. With this, at least. My mother bakes. My grandmother, great grandmother--incredible cooks! My mom is from South Carolina; my dad is from Mississippi. In South Carolina, where we would spend our summers, I mean, they would throw down! And they didn't have a lot of money. But the food...!

Baking, my mother kind of gets it. "Hey, you said you were going to send me that recipe." Or, I'd go home, and I'd get a list of things I'm supposed to make: "I want a red velvet cake, and your aunt wants one."

I remember when I was dancing and, at one point, my mother was, like, "Show me what you do." And so I taught her a little ballet barre. She was so sweet about it.

She really doesn't bake bread, but she knows that I also bake other things. So we have more to talk about in that way. And if I'm ever feeling down and blue--and I'm not necessarily a blue person--but if I get a bit worked up, she'll say, "Why don't you go bake something?"

They wouldn't have been happy if I had gone to culinary school out of high school: College was where I was going. But now they like it because they get to eat it in the same way that they had the joy of watching their son up on stage and being proud of him, which is beautiful. My dad loves to be the center of attention. I remember walking into a restaurant after a performance in Ann Arbor, and they applauded me, and my dad started bowing like it was for him. He takes pride in his kids.

I don't get to see them as often as I would like. It's more difficult with a baking career. When you're dancing, you have layoffs. With baking, it's pretty much all the time. You may have some vacation. My parents, though, have been great supporters. My sister is my biggest support in everything I do. She is my biggest fan in everything, and I am hers as well. We adore each other.

BONUS!

Here's my chocolate-chip cookie recipe. My friends and family love them. You'll need a small scale to make them; we rarely use volumetric measurements in the bakery.

Flour 639g
Baking soda 5g
Salt 7g
Butter (room temp) 340g
Brown sugar 569g
Eggs 125g
Vanilla extract 18g
Chocolate (semi-sweet or bittersweet) 551g, chopped

Whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt in a medium-sized bowl.

Cream the butter and sugar together in the bowl of your stand mixer, using the paddle attachment or in a large bowl using the regular beaters of your handheld mixer, until light and fluffy.

Add the eggs and vanilla extract, and mix until just combined.

Add the flour, baking soda, and salt mixture in two additions, mixing until just combined each time.

Mix or fold in the chopped chocolate.

Refrigerate the dough for at least an hour to allow the gluten to relax.

Preheat your oven to 350-375 degrees, and line your cookie sheets with parchment paper.

Portion out the cookie dough into 75g balls (make the balls by rolling the dough between your palms).

Bake at 350-375 degrees for 12 to 14 minutes, rotating the cookie sheets halfway thru the baking time.

Let the cookies cool on the cookie sheets for ten minutes and then de-pan onto a rack to allow them to cool completely.

Store in an airtight container for 3 or 4 days. If you feel as though they're getting stale, warm them slightly in a toaster oven or at about 250 degrees in your conventional oven.

BIO

Joe Bowie was born and raised in Lansing, Michigan. He started dancing when he was a sophomore at Brown University, and graduated with honors in English and American Literature. Joe moved to NYC in 1986, and danced in the works of Robert Wilson, Ulysses Dove, and for two years with the Paul Taylor Dance Company, before he moved to Belgium in 1989 to join the Mark Morris Dance Group. He danced with the Mark Morris Dance Group for twenty-one years. In 2010, Joe received a grant from Career Transitions For Dancers to pursue his second passion: baking. With the grant, he took a five-day artisan bread baking class at the French Culinary Institute (now the International Culinary Center), and fell in love with it. Using this momentum and newly-found love, he enrolled in The Art of International Bread Baking, the French Culinary Institute's professional artisan bread baking course in 2011. Since graduation, he has worked as both a baker and instructor for Le Pain Quotidien, in its research and development bread bakery; for world-renowned chef, Daniel Boulud, in his Prep Kitchen's bread bakery; for Dean & Deluca, in both its bread a pastry kitchens: and as a baker for a small, but growing, Brooklyn-based bakery called Ovenly. He will soon return to Le Pain Quotidien to develop bread baking classes for their Bleecker Street Bakery.

Keith Hennessy: performing resistance, embodying reconstruction

noreply@blogger.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Wed, 28 Aug 2013 14:38:00 +0000

Keith Hennessy: performing resistance, embodying reconstruction

by M. Soledad Sklate

Keith Hennessy

Keith Hennessy, the Canadian-born, San Francisco-based performance artist, dancer, choreographer, singer, juggler, teacher, queer dance pioneer, sex healer, ritual conductor, anarchist and activist knows what he performs for: to denounce “shit that seems wrong, fucked-up, oppressive, unjust, unnecessary, cruel, stupid, and expensive.” He also knows what stimulates his creative process. "Power, especially the asymmetrical power with its embedded violent hierarchies, is a kind of muse for me,” Hennessy says.

His activist performance style has resulted in praise for “breaking boundaries considerably more restraining than handcuffs, straightjackets or coffins,” (Movement Research Performance Journal #35, 2009) but also in multiple arrests. He estimates nine.

In spite of the distance that a virtual conversation imposes between us, Hennessy’s enthusiasm when talking about these experiences reveals that he takes pride in having been behind bars a few times. He considers them, in fact, important educational incursions into “the ugliness of power.”

Keith Hennessy
(photo courtesy of the artist)

Hennessy strongly rejects my attempts to dig for psychological explanations for his activism in his childhood or upbringing. This does not stop him, however, from extensively talking about his family background and how life was in the Canadian mining town of Sudbury (Ontario), where he was raised as one of five siblings of an Irish Catholic family.

His parents certainly did not encourage him to defy the forces of law and order. But he admits that “there was a really strong sense of justice that was handed to us by our family and some of that is connected to a kind of Catholic or Jesuit social justice. Be good to others. Don’t speak badly about others. Help others in the time of need.” While he was the only sibling who became an activist, he points out that one of his sisters embraced activist causes such as the feminist struggles of the 1970s and Quebec’s nationalist movement.

McGill University (Montreal), where he enrolled as a business student was, in the late 1970s and early ’80s, an ebullient place where ideas of social justice and activism were not only talked about but acted upon. Tuition increases, nationalist and labor politics, anti-apartheid initiatives and anti-nuclear movements mobilized the student body to protest, organize non-violent actions and political meetings, and to even shut down the school and the city center once.

Hennessy has an explanation for his unexpected choice of a traditional career. “Where I come from, there was no real imagination of what university was for, except to go to university in order to get a job. I didn’t have any other thoughts besides, ‘Am I doing pre-law?’ ‘Am I doing pre-med?’ or ‘Am I going into engineering?’ I thought I would be a lawyer and I would go to business school before that, so that was the trajectory.”

In spite of having an uncle who was an artist (but had a "real" job as well) and a mother who painted and collected art as a hobby, being an artist “was not an imagination that I could have,” Hennessy says. As for becoming a dancer or performer, “I didn’t even know that existed,” he adds.

At McGill, however, he complemented his business courses with dance classes and street performing. The jugglers, acrobats, and vaudevillian comedians he became involved with were at the center of politicized student and anarchist movements. Something quickly became apparent to him: “Clearly, I wasn’t going to follow through with business school,” Hennessy says.

While becoming a lawyer might have been more of a logical career choice to advance his activism, Hennessy did not stick to that plan either. He jokes about his potential in that profession. “I could have been a lawyer in a lot of ways, because I’m a talker,” he says and ironically adds, “I’m also a performer and I think I could have done well as a trial lawyer… you know, another form of performance.”

Then, I asked, why did he choose dance and performance?

“I didn't choose dance and performance until I was already dancing and performing. We can all work for justice or goodness where ever we are. So the ‘fate’ answer is that I work in dance because I am a dancer, and I work on social justice issues because I care,” he replies, his tone showing some annoyance about my question.

In 1982, on his last year of business school, Hennessy dropped out to join his friend on a hitchhiking trip from Montreal to San Francisco to attend a juggling convention there.

“We didn’t know where it was taking us, and where we set out is not where we ended up.” While his friend followed their original plan--go to Italy to study commedia dell'arte--Hennessy remained in San Francisco. “It just never made sense to go anywhere else or do anything else,” he says, noting that he considers this city “one of the really great leftist places to live.”

“When I moved to the Bay Area, there was a very strong anarchist network of households, of activities, of civil disobedience groups, of political engagement in a variety of issues, and I walked right into that sort of environment.” He found artists, performers and dancers intrinsically involved in these progressive movements, actively and openly engaged in shaping life and public discourse through their art and performance. He immediately joined those artists with a deep sense of social and political responsibility, and those are the values that permeate through his work since then.

An odd attitude that combines aloofness and keenness manifests in his recounting of his life. However, talking about his dance and performance work provokes a change in attitude by igniting his passion. A few questions I sent him over email in preparation for our virtual interview elicited something like a ‘manifesto for activist performance.’

“Much of my work, especially the group work, is motivated by political crises and movements,” he explains. For instance, Turbulence (a dance about the economy) (2012), one of his latest “collaborative failures” with Circo Zero, a performance action group he created in 2001, deals with questions of debt, value, exchange, union busting, precarity, financialization, war, torture--all issues connected to the economic collapse and political crisis of the last few years.

Turbulence (a dance about the economy)

In the director’s notes for Turbulence, Hennessy says that with this collaborative experimental creation (that incorporates contemporary dance, improvised happening, and political theater), the goal is “to inspire broader public engagement, discussion and action with regards to the economy, particularly its violence, corruption, and injustice.”

Turbulence is perfect example of Hennessy’s articulation of how dance and performance can participate in criticizing and challenging oppressive, exploitative and unjust systems and interest networks. Dance critic Cassie Peterson encapsulates this aspect of the piece in her Context Notes for its presentation at New York Arts Live in 2012 where she writes that “Turbulence is an exercise in brute force, coercion, and inexcusable excess. It is a picture of poverty and depletion. It is class warfare.”

As the performers vehemently confront the violence inherent to these corrupt power structures and lasting economic inequities, the audience also does. Through Turbulence, Hennessy provokes strong reactions from the public; he successfully stirs up anger and resentment against social, economic and political abuses and injustices. He pushes the spectator to the limit. “Hennessy is calling us to the crumble,” Peterson says.

“Resistance”, Hennessy explains, “suggests anti as in anti-capitalism, anti-precarity, anti-racist, anti-war, anti-systemic, anti-coercive, anti-sexist/homophobic, anti-normative, anti-hegemonic, anti-oppression, anti-colonialism/imperialism, anti-gentrification...” Hennessy’s call to resistance is certainly anti. But it does not stop at the opposition and annihilation of old structures.

For him, resistance is likewise pro, referring to “an aspect of service also alive in the practice.” Resistance is also about reconstruction and “creating alternatives, serving victims and survivors,” he clarifies.

That is why, after the urgent call to destruction in Turbulence, “We are also asked to find love inside of our anger and resistance,” Peterson adds.

BIO

Keith Hennessy works in and around dance and performance. Born in northern Ontario, he lives in San Francisco and tours internationally. His interdisciplinary research engages improvisation, ritual and social movement as tools for investigating political realities. Hennessy directs Circo Zero in queer and collaborative anti/spectacles. Recent projects include Turbulence (a dance about the economy) with major funding from the National Dance Project; the artist laboratory Performing Queer (Failure) presented in France, Vienna/Impulstanz and Helsinki/Side Step Festival; and Negotiate, a collaboration with dancers from Togo, DRCongo, and Senegal, presented at L'Institute Français, Dakar. Keith was a member of the collaborative performance companies Contraband, CORE, and Cahin-caha, and he co-founded the culture spaces 848 and CounterPULSE in San Francisco. Recent awards include the United States Artist (Kjenner) Fellow, a New York Dance and Performance Award (Bessie), a Bilinski Fellowship, and two Isadora Duncan Awards. Hennessy is a PhD candidate in Performance Studies at UC Davis.

Alberto Denis: On becoming GoGo Gadget

noreply@blogger.com (Eva Yaa Asantewaa) — Wed, 28 Aug 2013 14:37:00 +0000

Alberto Denis...or should we say GoGo Gadget?
(photo by Mike Dennis)

Alberto Denis: On becoming GoGo Gadget

interviewed by Eva Yaa Asantewaa

About two or more years ago, I thought I was all but done dancing for anyone but myself...I'd considered that perhaps the dance world, for the most part, was done with me. – Alberto Denis

Ah, but all that was before GoGo Gadget!

On the second annniversary of GoGo Gadget’s boylesk debut, dancer Alberto Denis–now starring in Third Rail Projects’ acclaimed Then She Fell--recalls his liberating transformation into this sexy-nerdy character.

Alberto Denis
(photo by Gustavo Monroy)

Yaa Asantewaa: When you arrived at the idea that you were done with dance--or, perhaps, it was done with you--you eventually turned to burlesque. What drew you to the burlesque movement?

Denis: Over the years, I rarely engaged in solo choreography and was pleased to learn that I might in fact have something to say. That my work was well received enough to warrant frequent remounting of the work was a surprise to me. XXXV spoke to my experience of time and moments in my life, my journey from infancy to the age I was then--35. While it was fleetingly rewarding to create work on my own, it wasn't what I'd envisioned for my dance career. I was left questioning what, if anything, lay ahead of me.

My struggles with body image are, somewhat unfortunately, inexorably linked to a very natural desire to build a loving, passionate relationship. I'd spent the past several years as a bachelor and continued to find that, in searching for a partner, I focused more and more on my body image. I believe this to be primarily driven by societal norms as well as behaviors within the various communities to which I belong--my identity as a gay male and as a self-proclaimed geek.

I wanted to make a new work, which I'm finally embarking upon now. I wanted to explore my struggle with body image and the concept of attraction. At the time, doing research on bulimia and anorexia, while valuable, was a bit too depressing. I decided to take a look at the resurgent burlesque community and do positive research on a field that celebrates the female form regardless of societal norms.

I went to a performance called Meaner, Harder, Leather which introduced me to the concept that men also participate in burlesque, in what is casually called boylesk. Over several months, I continued to attend performances and befriended a very prominent performer--Chris "Go-Go" Harder–and attended his five-weekend burlesque course.

In that setting, I fully let down my guard, embarking on the long journey of accepting and occasionally celebrating my sexually attractive body. Even thinking those words is still difficult; I'd like to believe that I'm attractive to at least a few. But GoGo Gadget, unlike Alberto, is overly confident, assured, sexual and provocative. I'm so grateful for him, as I truly believe he's directly responsible for my personal growth as a dancer/actor, and he contributes to my process with Third Rail Projects.

GoGo Gadget in action
(photo by Gustavo Monroy)

Yaa Asantewaa: Where did you see Meaner, Harder, Leather? How extensive is the male participation in the contemporary burlesque movement relative to female dancers?

Denis: Meaner, Harder, Leather ran for what I believe to be a little over a year at what was then the Vig 27 Lounge on 27th Street between Park and Lexington. In the few years I've been exposed to the burlesque community, I've seen the ratio of male-to-female participants spike significantly, in no short part due to Chris’s workshops. When I began there were perhaps half a dozen or so regularly performing men, whereas now--just from the performances I've been able to see--I've seen closer to twenty-five to thirty male performers engaging in boylesk on a regular basis.

Yaa Asantewaa: What helped you to let down your guard? Let us in, a little, on the process of how you grew in self-acceptance.

Denis: I felt comfortable participating with a group as opposed to working as an individual, and also with Chris' very enthusiastic and well thought out process for leading the workshop. I'm still growing toward acceptance of what is physically attractive about me. It has been rewarding to rediscover my dancing ability within the context of a different community. To see it rewarded and celebrated has sparked a sense of "attractiveness" that I don't necessarily experience within the context of my dance community.

I believe that courage is also attractive, and I've had to learn to build my courage each time I build a new boylesk act and try it out, both to see if it works and the more basic fact that, by its conclusion, I become fully, physically exposed.

Also, for two years running, I've had an incredible collaborator in my gym trainer, Ray La Roca Grijalvo of SEEK FITNESS, who is genuinely invested in my success and achieving my physical goals. He and his wife have attended several of Gadget's performances. He's also developing relationships with many of my neighbors who also struggle with body image challenges.

Yaa Asantewaa: What’s behind the name GoGo Gadget? How did this character develop?

Denis: GoGo Gadget references my own Peter Pan complex, directly linking the name to a cartoon from my childhood. Inspector Gadget, a cartoon character of the 1980s-90s, was very popular in my youth. He was often put in situations where he was ill-prepared to succeed, and yet he always prevailed. Gadget also references my love of all sorts of tech gadgetry. (I’ve been employed by a major technology company for the past several years.) Gadget's development is still very much in progress and grows with each performance and each new work.

Yaa Asantewaa: How do you go about bringing him out when it’s time for him to perform?

Denis: The best way to bring him out is through masks, makeup, costumes, music and glitter. Lots and lots of glitter! Oh and bubbles too! Gadget loves candy, fun, sweating, dancing, cartoons, comic books, adventure heroes, men, and a few women too. And most importantly, he absolutely loves getting naked and feels beautiful about his appearance.

Yaa Asantewaa: Does his personality influence you and help you in everyday life? Or is this something segregated to dance or, specifically, boylesk?

Denis: What a fantastic question! I continue to struggle to introduce his ever-forming personality within my everyday life. I can say that he continues to grow in boylesk, and now recently is certainly making his presence known within my dance identity.

Yaa Asantewaa: How does GoGo Gadget influence you as you prepare to perform in other dance work, including your work with the celebrated immersive theater troupe, Third Rail Projects?

Denis: I can say that Gadget has directly influenced my ability to take greater risks when developing another role. That courage I spoke of earlier is accessible to me outside of burlesque. My latest role creation draws a great deal from my nightlife experiences as Gadget, asking me to be sexually enticing to both men and women, an outrageous attention whore, physically provocative, as well as physically innovative. Gadget's regular activities on stage often explore these kinds of themes, and I'm drawing heavily on my experiences to create dance scores for my new role based on this kind of material.

Yaa Asantewaa: Would you recommend some training in boylesk to other male dancers? If so, why? What could they take away from it?

Denis: I believe if a male dancer wants to challenge both his perceptions of self- identity on stage as well as develop his choreographic skills, boylesk is an absolute must. It's a brilliant combination of dance and theater structured in a way that requires taking emotional as well as physical risks.

If you happen to be in Paris on October 5, you can see GoGo Gadget in action at The Lettingo Cabaret. New Yorkers, keep watch for news on the GoGo Gadget front for late fall.

Alberto Denis
(photo by Gustavo Monroy)

BIO

Currently a member of Third Rail Projects and featured in their production of Then She Fell, in 2008 Alberto Denis created [QuA²D] = The Queens Academy of Arts & Dance after leaving his position as Production Director/Producer for Dance New Amsterdam where he created the first ever staff infrastructure for their inaugural theater on Chambers Street in lower Manhattan, while co-curating their first three seasons of programming. Previously he created the Wight Room Dance Series presented at The Movement Salon near Union Square. Alberto Denis has toured the world (Dubai, Dublin, Barcelona, Bangkok, Taipei, Mexico City, Oslo and Prague and more) as a stage manager, audio engineer, assistant technical director and production electrician as well as a performer for many choreographers. He has performed for Arthur Aviles' Typical Theater for five years and in projects for Doug Elkins, Risa Jaroslow, Palissimo Dance Theater, Dixie Fun Dance Theater, ann and alexx make dances, Marta Renzi, Alexandra Beller, Michael Leleux, Heidi Latsky Dance, Lawrence Goldhuber, Luis Lara Malvacias, JoAnna Mendl Shaw’s Equus Projects and Mei Yin Ng’s Mei-Be Whatever. He was also a featured performer in the Whitney Museum's Christian Marclay: Festival performance of Prêt-a'-Porter. His choreography has been produced at Dance Theater Workshop's Family Matters, Danspace Project’s Food For Thought, Dixon Place’s Body Blend and Moving Men, BAAD!’s Boogie Down Dance Series and Out Like That Festival and Kinetics Dance Theater, Baltimore MD. He has also served on the Dance Theater Workshop Curatorial Advisory Committee.

Ben Asriel: A Shift at the Right Time

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 06 Aug 2013 13:39:00 +0000

Ben Asriel
(photo courtesy of Kevin Kwan)

A Shift at the Right Time

by Evan Teitelbaum

“I like playing second fiddle. But I still like having a fiddle.” Ben Asriel laughs playfully, but he’s pointing out a critical aspect of his work as a dancer. He dances for choreographers who use their dancers’ individual qualities and choices to shape the work, giving Ben a sense of ownership over his art even when he is not the sole creator of the piece.

He expresses gratitude for those creative relationships, for having had the opportunity to make his mark with choreographers such as John Jasperse, Juliana May and Walter Dundervill, as he shifts his focus to a radically different endeavor. This coming semester, Ben will leave his life as a full-time performer behind him, becoming a full-time student at Columbia with his sights set on medical school. He feels ready. In his own words, his “‘Benness’ has been used and expressed in a full way” through dance.

We are squeezed onto a loveseat in the studio apartment he shares with his boyfriend Brian on a tree-lined street in the West Village. I prod him to take a stab at defining this “Benness.” Foregoing a surface description of style, he distills what about dancing has fascinated him the most: the object-subject split. A central paradox of being a dancer, as I see it, is that the dancer is simultaneously a body-object being observed, and a subjectivity communicating his experience. By way of illustration, Ben takes me into his process with Dundervill: “We’ve done a lot of work on being an object and being a shape and being aesthetically beautiful and very kind of Apollonian, but at the same time existing within the piece as yourself and noting your experience and also projecting that subjective experience of what it is to objectify. And that, I really love that.”

It’s a dizzying explanation, but fortunately I understand exactly what he means because I’ve witnessed it in real time. In a performance of Dundervill’s Aesthetic Destiny 1: Candy Mountain that I saw at what was then Dance Theater Workshop (now New York Live Arts), Ben and Burr Johnson performed a duet of shared shape-shifting. Maintaining contact on the surface of their bodies, they created symmetrical forms of sloping curves and defined angles. This meticulous shape-making objectified the body to an extreme, forcing it to conform to geometry over anatomy. The atmosphere, however, was thick with the awareness it took to move so precisely. The sensitivity to the other that was required to maintain connection textured the undertaking with a palpable vulnerability.

Ben’s approach to performance stems equally from his childhood in Glasgow, Kentucky and his graduate study at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts (which turns out to be much less of a culture clash than you might think). Ben’s mother (“brilliant,” “cultured,” and “bad-ass”) taught dance at a local studio and did nothing to discourage Ben’s interest in his body. Her creative movement classes for kids involved “lying on the floor imagining things,” which Ben notes prepared him well for the type of class work you might find at a Movement Research offering. Ben keeps a video of himself dancing in his grandparents’ backyard as a child and says,“what I was doing there was very me. It was something I could do now.”

I try to picture this childhood improvisation, this early uncovering of “Benness,” and wonder what it was like for a quirky, artistic boy to grow up in a small Kentucky town. For Ben, the smallness of the community actually provided plenty of space. In small towns, he explains, “there’s a lot that happens outside of the norm but, because everyone knows each other, it’s almost unnoticed in a way.” Familiarity rendered potential bullies unintimidating. They’d all grown up together.

Arriving in New York at 22, Ben sought to recreate the comfort of knowing everyone. Faced with a tight community that he didn’t have automatic entrée to and initially frustrated that he didn’t have a seat at “the cool kids’ lunch table”, he used his post at the Dance Theater Workshop box office to scope the scene. Now, asked how he has gotten work with some of the more visible scene-shapers of downtown dance, Ben shrugs, “I just have friends who make work, and I dance for them.”

But something is shifting for him now. Curiosity fueled his exploration, and he’s not interested in performing with a quality that has become “known.” His essential “Benness” needs to maintain its vitality. “I don’t want it to ossify within me, “ he says. “ I don’t want it to become a thing inside me that’s stale. That people can hire…I feel like performing it feels like controlling it where it used to feel like releasing it.”

Ben’s readiness to leave dance is also a comment on the lack of support for the arts. Ben admits: “I always felt selfish dancing. Or not always. That was something I fought and I think a lot of people fight. The idea that the culture gives us that making art is somehow selfish. Which it isn’t. It’s essential. And it’s generous and it is definitely a sacrifice to live an artist’s life more than it is to do lots of other things.” Despite Ben’s conviction, fighting this cultural disregard takes a toll.

By choosing medicine as his next venture, Ben is not abandoning the fight. He will take his experience as an artist into his approach towards medicine. “I felt really disenfranchised by the medical community as a dancer, not having health insurance. And so I guess I want to change it from the inside.” His transition back to school also speaks to the seriousness of his relationship of two years. He and Brian flirt with ideas of how to create a more stable future together without, of course, ruling out the possibility of “just staying crazy.”

Ben is excited to talk about Brian, his eyes brightening as he tells me about Brian’s culinary gifts. I brace myself for envy as I await a mouth-watering anecdote about an unforgettable meal this culinary school graduate prepared in some early stage of their courtship. Instead, Ben talks about how Brian watched food being cooked as a child and would “not just see it browning, but like he understood what it meant to be like a molecule of the food as it was cooking.” As Ben is speaking, I again find myself picturing little Ben dancing in his grandparents’ yard. I am struck by the sense that Ben and Brian’s younger selves shared this nonverbal curiosity –an intuitive, embodied way of tapping into things.

The small but airy apartment they now share feels just right for two creative entities contemplating how they might fit themselves more neatly into a less precarious lifestyle, but without being in any big hurry to do so. Although Ben apologizes for the gentle cascade of worn socks, books left out of place, and crumbs on counters, I am warmed by the lived-in state of things.

I ask Ben if he’s been seeing a lot of art lately, and he says no.

“I feel a little out of touch with what’s happening and that feels okay. I don’t feel the need to, like, get in touch.” At 32, he’s expressing a very different attitude than the 22-year old angling for a spot at the downtown dance table.

“I’m kind of looking forward to being a spectator or maybe a funder, or having some other role in dance—”

“Or health care provider,” I suggest.

BIO:

Ben Asriel grew up in Glasgow, Kentucky where he cultivated his love of art in his mother’s dance classes, on the soccer field, and playing trumpet in the GHS band. He studied music theory at Brown University (AB Music ’03) and dance at NYU Tisch (MFA ’06). In addition to MAYDANCE, Ben dances with Walter Dundervill, and Liz Gerring Dance Company. Ben has also performed with Gerald Casel, Daria Faïn, Jack Ferver, Gabriel Forestieri, John Jasperse, Antonio Ramos, Edisa Weeks, and Pavel Zustiak, among others. In 2010/2011 Ben was a Choreographic Fellow of NYCB’s New York Choreographic Institute, supported by Oregon Ballet Theater. His dances have been presented by CPR - Center for Performance Research, the Chocolate Factory Theater, Dance New Amsterdam, Movement Research at the Judson Church, The Tank, and Danspace Project. He is currently enrolled in Columbia University’s postbac premed program. Tell him what you think: basriel@gmail.com

Wendy Whelan: The Opposite is Also True

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 27 Jun 2013 16:32:00 +0000

Wendy Whelan
photo by David Michalek

Wendy Whelan: The Opposite is Also True

by Troy Ogilvie

Wendy Whelan bursts in thirty minutes late to our first interview (only steps away from her Upper West Side apartment) because of some late-night partying with family and friends for her 46th birthday. She enters the cafe wearing red lipstick that stands out against her long blonde hair—her talented husband, David Michalek, by her side. Candid and incredibly down to earth, Whelan is generous and articulate with her words, confident and lively in demeanor.

Whelan has begun her transition or, in her words, “transformation” from New York City Ballet (NYCB) into her own project: Restless Creature. This new project will be revealed at Jacob’s Pillow in August 2013 and consists of four duets with four male choreographers. Restless Creature will be the first endeavor for Whelan where she engages firsthand in production elements. In the protected environment of NYCB she never had to fundraise, clarify her ‘brand’, or commission choreographers. When asked about the additional workload, Whelan enthusiastically responds with “I want to do this. It’s my debutante ball, my coming out party!” She says that it is “easy to get spoiled at NYCB” because they have everything and while she appreciates it and continues to perform with the company, using her full voice will be exciting and fulfilling in a new way.

While sitting in on a meeting between Belgian fashion designer Dries Van Noten and Michalek, Whelan was struck by the confidence and clarity of intention with which Van Noten spoke. “He’s not settling for anything less than himself. The integrity level was so inspiring.” Getting ideas across exactly the way you want requires bravery and vulnerability; Whelan has dealt with this reality frequently as a performer. “I’ve gotten years of bad reviews from [Alistair] Macaulay and it was so painful at first to get through all of that, just coming to terms with all the negativity towards me has made me let it go.” Shedding the fear of critique has been a part of her process all along, although this time Whelan fans the creative flame behind the project in addition to being a performer. Fortunately, Whelan has an optimistic and realistic view on life, ballasts that will aid her in navigating her new adventure. One of the ideas that has served as Whelan’s compass throughout her long career is that “the opposite is also true.”

Whelan had several wise teachers in her youth who taught her optimism by flipping her perspective and enabling her to see opportunity even when her reality was frustrating. When told at age twelve that she had severe scoliosis, her Louisville teachers encouraged her to continue coming to ballet class despite intensive treatment that at times included a full torso cast. The experience helped her to focus on “squaring off [efficient body alignment] and gaining strength” which paid off in flexibility and control once the cast was off. This brush with her immobilized self during a time when young dancers are anxious for high legs and flashy tricks, gave her an enviable solid backbone of technique. Although the optimism of her discovery was grounded by the reality that scoliosis is never cured, Whelan still works and learns about her spiraled spine every day.

These lessons in optimism and reality prepared her for an injury in 2003 where she tore some of her plantar fascia, the thick connective tissue which supports the arch of the foot, while performing a piece by William Forsythe onstage at the Bolshoi. The tear put her out of commission for four months, the longest stretch she had ever taken off (“I don’t do vacations!”). During this time, she became engaged to visual artist Michalek, whom she married in 2005. Asked if she would have gotten around to marriage if she had not gotten injured, she replied, “No, I really wouldn’t have. I had to break the pattern. It was locked in like a piece of mylar, this is what you do, everyday.” Although the discipline “frees” your spirit, the schedule can “freeze” your life. Her ankle cast, while conjuring suffocating memories of her scoliosis confinement, created a break in her relentless schedule and gave her a glimpse into life outside of dance. Having internalized those lessons in optimism from her teachers, she recognized her opportunity for growth.

In a world where New York City Ballet exists and where the opposite is also true, there must necessarily exist a choreographer like Kyle Abraham. His choreography has been described as a “ rough-around-the edges approach to a singular blend of hip hop, both lyrical and hard-hitting, and glued together by modern dance and ballet” (Jane Varnish, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette). Seeing his work, Whelan thought, “If I could ever dance like that from where I am now, I would be an amazing dancer.” So she invited Abraham to choreograph a duet for the two of them as part of Restless Creature. To give you an idea of the intensity of the challenge she has before her, famed ballet dancer Mikhail Baryshnikov says it took him 20 years to fully transition into modern dance.

While the early rehearsals were overwhelming, Whelan now feels like they are onto something. “It was incredibly intimidating to start with him. Just watching them [assistants Chalvar Monteiro and Rena Butler], I thought oh man, I’ve bitten off too much.” So far, they’ve come to a compromise where “he’s doing his thing and he’s given me a limited vocabulary to try to embody.” Her initial instincts are strong and she continues to be “intrigued and enamored by what he is doing” and enjoys the challenge of “biting into it, trying it.” Modern dance and ballet have much in common, but their opposing qualities can make the two dance forms seem incongruous when seen on stage together.

In process with Brian Brooks
photo by Erin Baiano

The physicality and chemistry that Whelan feels when working with men sustains her inspiration and electrifies the space, which is why she chose to only collaborate with men on her first project. Acknowledging the awkwardness of this admission, she says, “there’s something about pleasing the man. You get excited when you please the man. Gay or straight there’s a physical, sexual dynamic that gets in there and charges the piece. It’s a power balance between a man and a woman.” She has not felt this creative tension with female choreographers thus far. “Maybe it’s from being in the dance world for so long, you know, Black Swan,” citing the Darren Aronofsky thriller. Although she has only experienced a few “weird things,” the fantastic extremes portrayed by Natalie Portman’s character reveal a culture in the ballet world that puts women on high alert with one another.

As the opposite is also true, she says “let’s get real and let’s think about another aspect of it that’s not built on this romantic ideal. Let’s get off the pedestal, and jump down, get off and walk with everybody else.” While the image of a tiaraed ballerina with long, clean lines defines the ideal, Wendy Whelan does not fear looking contorted or jagged onstage. In fact, she often portrays ‘the novice’ in Jerome Robbins’ The Cage where a predatory female insect species teaches its young novice how to kill the male members. She tells Wendy Perron in the article “Jerome Robbins Roles for Ballerina’s” (Dance Magazine, May 2012) that “I could use my weird assets. Jerry let me go with that ballet.” Whelan never saw herself as a “purebred Balanchine ballerina” but rather as a continuation of the Jerome Robbins legacy, especially since she experienced his exploration and experimentation first hand and felt a kindred curiosity. It seems his celebration of her unique qualities gave him a special place in her heart.

Rutgers professor Daniel M. Ogilvie is a pioneer on the topic of the undesired self. While most people spend their lives attempting to narrow the gap between their ideal self and their real self, Ogilvie sees real benefit in giving the undesired self its attention. “The ideal self is cognitive while the undesired self is completely visceral and non-conceptual.” In other words, the ideal self lies in images of beauty and perfection while the undesired self lives in the realities of an aging body. One of the amazing aspects about the human condition lies in the way that body and brain harmony rely on the equal presence of both the ideal and undesired forces. Too much ideal self and reality is lost. Too much undesired self and stagnation ensues. Whelan may have more of a handle on this topic than she realizes: “So you can feel one way but if you really search for it, you can find the opposite of it. So I try to do that all the time and I find it helps when you are struggling with something. Even when you’re feeling high and mighty, it will keep you grounded so that you’re like, you know what? The opposite is always true. It keeps you in tow.”

The day before our interview was not only her birthday. It was the day she coached a younger dancer on one of her most renowned duets for a festival that for the first time in fifteen years did not invite Wendy to perform. She always knew there was an “expiration date” when it came to ballerinas “of a certain age.” Directors tend to “just look at that number more than anything and they say, move on.” Although she had always watched on as the oldest dancers dealt with moving on from company life, she had not seen the inevitable move coming until it became her reality. “This is the life part of the art,” she said on our interview. “Right now I’m looking at this moment as the true moment of grace.” She is acutely aware that as a ballerina “you’re a princess in the middle of the stage one second, with the lights on you, and then it’s over.”

Bio:

Wendy Whelan was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky. She began her dance training at age three. Four years later she performed the role of a mouse in the Louisville Ballet’s production of The Nutcracker. In 1982, Ms. Whelan moved to New York to continue her studies full-time at the School of American Ballet and the Professional Children’s School. She was invited to become a member of the New York City Ballet corps de ballet in 1986 and was promoted to principal dancer in 1991. Ms. Whelan has performed the full spectrum of the Balanchine repertory. Her roles range from the abstract ballets of Balanchine’s Agon, Episodes and Symphony in Three Movements to his more romantic works including Liebeslieder Walzer, A Midsummer Nights Dream, and La Sonnambula. She has danced the full-length classics such as Peter Martins’ Swan Lake, and The Sleeping Beauty. She worked closely with Jerome Robbins on many of his ballets, most notably, The Cage, Dances at a Gathering, In the Night and Opus 19/ The Dreamer. Christopher Wheeldon has created leading roles for Ms Whelan in 13 of his ballets including, Polyphonia, Liturgy, and After the Rain. She has originated featured roles in the ballets of Alexei Ratmansky, as well as works by William Forsythe, Wayne McGregor, Jorma Elo, Shen Wei and Twyla Tharp. In 2007, Ms Whelan performed with Morphoses the Wheeldon Company and was subsequently nominated for an Olivier Award and a Critics Circle Award for her performances on the London stage. She has been a guest artist with the Royal Ballet at Covent Garden and with the Kirov Ballet at the Maryinsky Theater in St Petersburg. She received the 2007 Dance Magazine Award and in 2009 was given a Doctorate of Arts, honoris causa, from Bellarmine University. In 2011, she was honored with both The Jerome Robbins Award and a Bessie award for her Sustained Achievement in Performance. Ms. Whelan appeared as Arabian Coffee in the film version of George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker and has appeared in numerous televised broadcasts of Live From Lincoln Center, on PBS. In 2010, she starred in the dance film Labyrinth Within, by the award winning Swedish choreographer and filmmaker, Pontus Lidberg.

Edisa Weeks’s Delirious Dance Acts

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 27 Jun 2013 16:31:00 +0000

Edisa Weeks's Delirious Dance Acts

by Anita Gonzalez

At the Player’s Club near Manhattan’s Gramercy Park, Edisa Weeks mounts the stairs of a nineteenth century building and sits down at Mark Twain’s favorite poker table to chat about her projects and her passions. A tall, thin dancer, sinuous and composed, she nevertheless commands space, resting at ease in her perceptions of art and art making. We talk, and I learn about how Weeks turns contemporary dance into social commentary.

On her website, Weeks writes that her company Delirious Dances, “was founded on the belief that people of all economic and cultural backgrounds, ages and abilities are empowered by the immediacy of dancing.” As a choreographer, Weeks heavily invests everything: body and finances, to create work in intimate spaces—spaces like swimming pools, store windows or living rooms—that create immediate and close encounters between dancers and audiences. The innovative nature of her dance projects, combined with the sense of abandon within her choreography, make works like Liaisons (2006), presented in New York City and Berlin, feel delirious indeed.

Liaisons originates from a notion to bypass the bureaucracy of traditional dance production venues while directly engaging with small-scale audiences. Using a quartet of dancers, Weeks stages choreography in living rooms. Email lists and word-of-mouth help Weeks identify individuals who would like to offer their homes. Once they agree to sponsor her performance, she sells tickets through Brown Paper Tickets, Ovation or other ticketing agencies. On the night of the performance, a core group of dancers go to the sponsor’s home where they dance. After each performance the dancers participate in a response session.

In one section of Liaisons, dancer Jenni Hong enters a circle of seated viewers and drops her underpants to the floor. What type of liaison does discarded underwear bring to mind? A few moments later, Hong finds underwear everywhere—in drawers and cabinets and underneath chairs—and she tosses all of them to the center of the floor. Next she dances; flailing her legs and rolling with abandon across the floor, at times stopping to smile knowingly at an audience member. Maybe they share her secret history of underwear encounters. Later, other dancers execute lifts and turns that daringly occupy contained space. Occasionally, they pause for eye contact or gentle handshakes. The sudden breaks between dance and gesture draw a laughing, delirious response from the audience.

How does Weeks overcome the fear of approaching strangers to ask to enter their personal spaces? “I practice,” she responds. She stands on the street asking people if she can dance in their living room. The best places are libraries because people are more relaxed. Post offices and grocery stores almost always get a negative answer. Berlin, unlike New York, has no tradition of door-to-door salesmen, so odds were better over there. While standing on public streets in Germany, Weeks asked eighty people if she could dance in their homes. Three people said yes.

Although Weeks describes herself as lacking in the “gift for gab” that enables other choreographers to verbally sell their work to presenters, she is tenacious. “I am really stubborn,” she says. This artist is determined to keep making dance despite economic barriers. Weeks aspires to provide consistent work for her dancers. Instead of spending time networking with presenters, she produces the work within her means. Often presenters schedule a dance work for a single run of three or six performances. They rarely re-present a work, preferring to look for the next new event or hot item to include in their dance seasons. By simplifying the production process and finding her own venues, Weeks’s dancers engage in a piece of choreography for at least a year.

One of her more recent projects, To Begin the World Over Again (2012), composed by Joseph C. Phillips Jr., features six dancers and an actor collaborating with an ensemble of thirteen musicians. In a climate of reduced funding for the arts, Weeks decided to self-produce this work by collaborating with responsive venues, taking out loans, fundraising on Kickstarter, and using her teaching salary to augment the dancers’ rehearsal pay. The interactive, evening-length, multi-disciplinary dance was performed at the Irondale Center in Brooklyn. Based upon Thomas Paine’s statement that “We have the power to begin the world over again,” Weeks explored the notion of United States democracy and what it has meant.

The choreography of To Begin the World Over Again depicts an active expression of delirium. With the audience seated on four sides of an arena-like space, performers leap, roll, fling and run, continuously propelling their bodies through space until they collapse to the ground. This is an exhaustive call for democracy. Later, with the assistance of a Master of Ceremonies, the audience collectively decides who will play the character of “Democracy.” Once selected, this same character is beaten down, stripped to their underwear, and demoralized. The dramatic actions demonstrate how a well-conceived and idealistic notion that originated in the seventeenth century can be reduced to mere rhetoric with the passage of time. At the end of the work, the dance becomes gentler. Some performers leave the arena to connect with a seated observer or to share a smile or an embrace. Eventually, the entire audience joins in a collective spiral dance that literally democratizes the arena space.

Weeks’s current project, a commission from the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens, opens in June as part of a gala celebration, and in response to the expansion of the native flora garden. In this site-specific work, she will use dancers to explore the ecosystem of native plants in Brooklyn. The Brooklyn Botanical Gardens is interested in profiling native plant life once prevalent within the borough. Weeks researched pine barrens, prairie grass, oak forests and sphagnum bogs, all eco-systems that once existed in the vicinity of Brooklyn. In her new work, performers represent each of these systems. We talked at length in our interview about how sphagnum bogs have layers that preserve the past and how Native Americans once used sphagnum moss as an anti-bacterial or antifungal treatment for wounds. Clearly, this artist is interested in the wider impact dance can make on society’s perspectives about the earth.

I asked Weeks about how research informs her approach to making dance. “I had a really influential teacher,” she says, referring to George Houston Bass (1938-1990), a professor of Theatre Arts and African American Studies at Brown University, co-producer and story editor for the WGBH series “On Being Black.” Bass founded the Rites and Reasons Theatre and was also the secretary and executor for Langston Hughes. While studying in Providence, Weeks took a class with Bass that emphasized the importance of using detailed research to support art practice. As a teacher, he inspired several other students who would later impact Black art in many ways: playwright Lynn Nottage, Producer Robe Imbriano, actor Erik Dellums, storyteller Vallerie Tutson, visual designer Garland Farwell, and, of course, choreographer Edisa Weeks.

At the Player’s Club, Weeks and I engaged in active conversation around the challenges of balancing life, career, and academic pursuits. Because she is an artist who invests in her projects, most of her income goes back into her art and into supporting her family. Her husband provides core emotional, psychological, and strategic support for the work that she undertakes. She says that instead of taking expensive trips, or going out to dinner, they take simple vacations, like touring Philadelphia by bicycle. Sometimes they stay at Black-owned bed and breakfast establishments as a way of supporting the Black community. Her current position as an Assistant Professor at Queens College allows her to have both roots and support as an artist and thinker. She uses teaching to spur her creative work and to provide stability for her artistic endeavors: “After years of scrambling, it is bliss not to be hustling for the next job.”

Our interview ends with a tour through the Player’s Club and discussion of her upcoming residency in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where she plans to work with University of Michigan students at the Museum of National History, developing a site-specific installation inspired by the structure of genes and DNA. She looks forward to summer as a time to devote to developing new ideas. I am curious to know what delirious movement projects will next emerge from the mind of this creative artist. Whatever the ideas are, Weeks has the talent, training and gumption to make them a success.

BIO:
Edisa Weeks is the Director and Choreographer for DELIRIOUS DANCES, which seeks to create intimate environments where people can experience and interact with contemporary dance. Her choreography merges theater with dance to explore the beauty and complexity of life. Her work has been performed in a variety of venues including swimming pools, storefront windows, living rooms, senior centers, as well as at Chashama Theater, The Massachusetts International Festival of the Arts, The Guggenheim Museum, The Mermaid Parade, Summer Stages Dance Festival, and The Haus Kulturen Der Welt in Berlin, Germany. Edisa Weeks received a BA from Brown University and an MFA in dance from New York University’s TISCH School of the Arts where she was an Alberto Vilar Performing Arts Fellow. Weeks teaches technique and choreography at Queens College in New York.

A Conversation with taisha paggett

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 21 Jun 2013 03:17:00 +0000

the dancing body is the same body

we move through the world with:

a conversation with taisha paggett

by Jaime Shearn Coan

taisha paggett (photo: Taka Yamamoto)

As your interviewer, I’d like to begin by asking: Do you have any concerns about being represented?

A lot of my issues around representation actually have to do with being in other people’s work—how I am continuing or contrasting one’s standard notion of a black dancing body on stage. This was coming up a lot when I was younger. I started dancing when I was eighteen, kind of late for a dancer. I remember being cast in these Alvin Ailey-esque type dances, and wondering: “Who, or what is this figure that I’m being asked to perpetuate all the time?”

I was very aware of myself as a black dancer within the downtown dance scene, which is predominantly white. Our training was always: “the neutral body, the neutral body—we’re just skin and bones.” I totally believe that but I also think it’s so complicated and it’s a very privileged thing to say. How the body is talked about in dance when we’re training—I think that’s where a lot of those questions came up for me.

Going back to my earlier years, I remember just loving the freedom that came when the teacher would pull the curtains over the mirrors. There was this notion that we could just be in our bodies and not worry about how we looked. That’s powerful, but it also is this practice of overlooking the fact that our bodies are radically different. When we’re performing, we’re not performing in the dark, we’re performing in front of an audience, for the people that are on the other side of the mirror.

I’ve always been aware of my difference in the dance world. I remember when I first moved to New York, I went to go take class at the Trisha Brown dance studio. I was super excited—my first time! I got in the elevator and it was this beautiful diversity of bodies—different colors, and hair textures, and heights, and body sizes. I was like, “This is amazing, we’re going to Trisha Brown, we’re going to take class!” And at the first stop on the elevator, all the people of color got off, because that floor was the Alvin Ailey studio. Then the elevator closed, and it was me and a bunch of white people, and we went up to Trisha Brown, and I was like, “Oh, right.”

And that’s actually why I started making work. I was interested in spending time reflecting on those experiences. I never had a dream of being a choreographer. I had some questions that I wanted to take up. I feel like identity—specifically, questions around how we come to understand ourselves as individuals and as members of a community—is constantly a part of my work. I feel like it will always be part of my work. I don’t believe that identity politics is dead or that it can ever be dead. I think that the ways in which we talk about it really have to shift.

Could you speak about your training, in dance but also visual art? You’re saying you’re motivated by questions rather than wanting to be a choreographer. And your work is very interdisciplinary. What were some turning points for you in your approach to making work? How did you become interested in presenting work in galleries and public spaces in addition to more traditional dance venues?

First off, I have no formal training in any other discipline other than dance. Back in my hometown of Fresno, where I first started dancing, I had a friend and mentor named Cheryl Kershaw, a dancer with a visual arts background, whose work really blurred those lines. She exposed me to a lot of possibilities around artmaking and was super influential.

Later, when I went to college (UC Santa Cruz), I felt like I was too old to focus on dance, although I was super into it. My focus was Art History, but I had some fantastic teachers who let me write all of my papers on dance. I was like: “Why isn’t dance in here?” And they were like: “You’re dancing, you’re really interested in it, so make these connections.” I think that was the place where I really started expanding this notion of what dance is. I wasn’t just trying to talk about the concert stage, but rather how the dancing body makes meaning—in whatever context. And when I got to studying more contemporary performance works, I was able to make really tangible, tactile connections. I think that turned my brain on.

Then I moved to New York (not to be a dancer!) and lived there for three years. I wasn’t interested in making work, but I had a lot of questions bubbling up in my head. I ended up performing a lot, so I was always in studio and in creative process. Something shifted and I realized that I wanted to go back to school, that I was interested in addressing these questions. I decided that I didn’t want to go to a conservatory program—that wouldn’t make sense for me at all. I chose the World Arts and Culture/Dance Program at UCLA because they did have a really interdisciplinary perspective: thinking about dance and other embodied practices all under the same umbrella.

How I started was not thinking that I wanted to be interdisciplinary. I just started thinking about the frames in dance. Why are they so set? Identity, and the notion of the black dancer was one of those frames. But then I started seeing the stage as a frame. And the division of labor as a frame. And I just wanted to play with that. Why is it that what I’m doing is limited to the bodies in space? How come I can’t design where I perform and how come I can’t do the lights? And why do there have to be lights? And why does the audience have to be separate?

A lot of my friends are visual artists and I got involved in having conversations with them about their work and my interest in the body. I have always believed that the dancing body is the same body we move through the world with. It was always already politicized. I guess those divisions were never really there for me in the first place.

I did some projects with Ashley Hunt, and Ultra red, and then I started working with artist Kelly Nipper, as a dancer in her work. So I was in Los Angeles, and in graduate school, and I ended up focusing a lot more on other choreographers’ work (my professors). As soon as I graduated, I started touring their work, which was all concert and black-box performance. When those things ended, I was motivated to start making work that went beyond those spaces, and to return to those initial questions I’d started exploring.

That’s when I made Decomposition of a Continuous Whole, which is a piece where I’m blindfolded and drawing on the walls of a room. I wanted to create a space where an audience was around me, and I wasn’t aware of their viewing, their eyes. I wanted to get out of this 7 minute, 15 minute, 45 minute, evening length dance structure. I wanted to expand time and have no narrative arc. I just wanted to be in an experience. And I wanted my internal experience to be as informative as what the audience was taking in.

I’d love to talk about LET’S USE THESE THINGS, your 2012 solo show at Commonwealth and Council Gallery in Los Angeles? Is that the largest spanning work you’ve made? Looking at your website, I was struck by the range of practices you engaged there. And then there was the multiplicity of your representation; I felt like you as the performer and creator were very present in all the different pieces. Also, you did something with your hair?

LET’S USE THESE THINGS was my first full installation where I’m here, and the work is there. It was a string sculpture, a painting (let’s say), a video, and a book.

That [hair] piece was called Proscenium. It was in a small room. I dipped my hair in different colored paints, and did this splash that I called “hair whip color magic.” That action was also documented and incorporated into a video called Fila Buster in the Autotuniverse which played in another small room of the gallery. So it’s like this trace of performance that becomes an object in itself, but you have to read through a knowledge of a body. In addition to the paint-streaked walls, the Proscenium piece was also full of lit candles, making it a memorial in some way.

I was especially drawn by the video triptych in LET’S USE THESE THINGS. In the center, you are performing movement outdoors, on your left is a televised dance-aerobics competition and on your right, a body-builder, who is past middle-age, female, and black, poses in a Fitness America Pageant. What sparked your interest in popular movement phenomena such as Zumba and fitness competitions? Can you speak to your process of bringing these practices into your body?

What brought me to Zumba in the first place was this interest in negotiating shared practices and putting my body up against these other forms. I came to this whole project with the realization that I had become fixed in my notions of what is dance and what’s not dance. I’m a dancer—I felt like I should know all these other forms that are coming up, and bring them into my body. What does it mean to consider that as another type of knowledge?

Another aspect of this project was about getting some inspiration from Earth-based spiritual practices. What has been really valuable is trying to source, to find, radical practices. I feel like embedded in Earth-based spiritual practices is a really intense, capitalist critique. It says, “That tree over there is just as important as the strip mall you want to build, so we can’t plow down that tree because it lives there.” And it’s this awareness that the Earth and the things that we live around—they have a right to exist and they have intelligences. I got into these goddess notions (this is really kind of underground information, but it’s in the work), and this notion of maiden, mother, and crone. Things in threes: intelligences in threes, and three different stages of life.

I found these fitness videos, which just blew my mind! And then I came across this woman: Ernestine Shepard, the older woman who’s the bodybuilder (she was 74 at the time of this recording, so must be about 76 now). Here’s this elder who is practicing this type of form that is the exact same thing as what the fitness people are doing, but what does it mean to look at her—this coming out in her form? The juxtaposition of this virile grandmother with buff muscles. I was interested in placing myself as a negotiation or intersection of those two points. What I was doing was improvised, it was very square, because that was how I was interpreting Zumba. Zumba on my loosey-goosey, everything-flows body creates square, angular, structured-ness.

Can we talk a little bit about your vestibular mantra (or radical virtuosities for a brave new dance)? In it, you write:

stay visible, stay wanting more, stay addressing

what’s not there and what the

audience isn’t willing to see.

….

stay knowing that if they get this dance, there might be something wrong.

stay knowing that if something is only to be gotten, we might all be doing something wrong.

Maybe this has to with the frames you were talking about before: the show’s over, the lights come on, we go home, we’re satisfied (or not). It seems like you’re expressing an interest in the audience and performers moving forward together, being more involved, or interdependent. I feel like there’s also a kind of pushing too: “what the audience isn’t willing to see.” There’s an interesting tension that’s coming across. Were you ever more concerned with the audience “getting” your work?

I do think about what the audience perspective might be on work while I’m making it, and then I have to put that away, and come back to it. The experience of someone spending time with my work—well, time is a resource, and I think that’s very sacred. I also feel that the audience is the work. There is an exchange that happens; the work exists because there is an audience. I mean, work can exist without an audience, but I do feel like there’s a completion of a circle when the audience is present. I’ve become more interested in creating spaces that envelop both the audience and the performer into this total experience.

My issue about what the audience isn’t willing to see, and knowing if there’s something to be gotten, we might be doing something wrong—is that there’s this “aboutness” that weighs so heavy in dance-making (and in making work in general, and in thinking). That “about”—we’re so fixated on that. And there’s so much more. I feel like work is an experience. When you even say that word “about,” it fixes—like it has to have a certain conclusion, or have a series of logic in place. I feel that that’s really limiting and not useful at all. So, it’s not about not caring what the audience gets. This work might not be “about” what the work is about anyways—it could simply be about us being together in space. It could be as much about the tampon you accidentally dropped on the floor while you were trying to turn off your cell phone and what came up for you in that experience—as much as it is about this duet I did. Again, frame—it’s not just the dance. It’s all the other things that come up.

Yes. I feel that that’s also really relevant to writing about dance, that we tend to go to a place of the mind, rather than trying to talk about how it feels to experience a performance through our bodies. Relying exclusively on language, or ideas. That somehow feels safer, or easier. It’s also keeping it away from us, the audience, as in: “This is not about me, this is about what I’m seeing, what’s being presented.” I think people only think of the audience being involved if it’s an audience-participatory work. And people have very strong feelings about that, for or against.

Audience participation gives me the hives! I guess I'm interested in involving the audience on a more experimental level. How do I shape the environment so they feel that the boundary between them and the stage is not so present? I also really like making work in small spaces where eye contact can actually happen between people.

What are you working on now?

The Fila Buster project started last year with a piece I was asked to propose for the National Queer Arts Festival in San Francisco. The prompt was: “This is what I want.” I decided the thing that I wanted was to address speech and the act of speaking. I had become very aware of the silence of my body. A friend of mine made a comment to me about one of my works: that she was really struck by me being blindfolded and not talking. She felt that sometimes it took power away from me. I sat with that and was thinking about how the voice is so not-present in dance.

So I was interested in speech and voice and I started researching ideas about talking and came across filibusters, which I thought was like a queering of time—a way to toy with and stretch time, and use it as a tool. In the filibuster, you’re just buying time through speech. So I was questioning this thing of “aboutness” and thinking, “How do I get to these ideas?” I decided, instead of making a piece about filibuster, to make a character called Fila Buster, who was the embodiment of these ideas. A pivotal moment in American history when the notion of the filibuster became a household name was the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which was part of a chain of events that eventually led up to the American Civil War. I got interested in this character being a woman who is trapped between that era and this current era.

It made me realize that, in dance, the “neutral body” that we perform is always a version of us that’s not actually us. I got interested in pushing that thought further and exploring the possibilities around inserting character and subjectivity into a dance, seeing what that might add to these questions around identity and fixed-ness. The specificity of identity but also the ambiguity of identity is really interesting to me. And so, all the works I make now have Fila Buster. Her questions, her thought process and subjectivity are present, and she's the one who guides and helps me make sense of it. That’s how I’m getting at “aboutness.”

The process brought up more questions than what I could address in that piece. This next work that I’m making is also under this Fila Buster Project/Certain Repetitions Fail Us. It has a working title of Parallelogram, and is definitely a continuation of questions about Zumba and structured dance forms, history, and identity.

It seems similar to writing a persona poem. Or like a prompt, in that it can bring you to new places. Do you feel that you receive a voice? Does that character feel like a real person to you, that you work with, or are you very aware that you’ve created her?

I definitely enjoy tapping into the notion that she’s speaking through me. That’s actually quite informative. But I'm also clear that she's a series of ideas and a strategy for doing things. And that “she” is an “it”. She’s not even a “she”. To call her a “she” would be too much to fix her as this thing. She’s like a transhistorical constellation of ideas.

Wow. Yes. Okay, one last thing: Can you address your decision to forego capitalization in the spelling of your name and in your writing?

I think it’s my lack of interest in labels and certain types of fixed formalities. I typically don’t capitalize the beginnings of the sentences when I write my bio. Politically, I think there’s something about softening myself into the collective of the other words on the page and choosing to make decisions about how that narrative is constructed. I guess I see the bio as a script, a location, and a point of entry—so I do pay attention to how it speaks.

bio:

taisha paggett makes things and is interested in what bodies do. she believes language is tricky, thoughts are powerful, and that people are most beautiful when looking up. her work for the stage, gallery and public sphere include individual and collaborative investigations into questions of the body, agency, and the phenomenology of race, and has been presented nationally and abroad, including The Studio Museum in Harlem, Danspace at St Mark’s City (New York City), Defibrillator (Chicago), The Off Center (San Francisco), and BAK Basis Voor Actuele Kunst (Utrecht, NL). as a dancer she’s had the honor of working extensively with David Roussève, Stanley Love Performance Group, Fiona Dolenga-Marcotty, Vic Marks, Cid Pearlman, Cheng-Chieh Yu, Baker-Tarpaga Projects, Rebecca Alson-Milkman, Kelly Nipper, Meg Wolfe, Ultra-red, and with Ashley Hunt in their ongoing collaborative project, “On movement, thought and politics.” she lives between Los Angeles and Chicago where she's a full-time Guest Lecturer at the Dance Center of Columbia College. she holds an MFA from UCLA’s Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance and is a co-instigator of the Los Angeles-based dance journal project, itch.

The Dancer is Never Asked About...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 19:21:00 +0000

The dancer is never asked about...

how many baths we take.
health insurance costs.
intellect...
or mathematics.

The dancer is never asked about...

physical limitations.
survival.
pain.

The dancer is never asked about...

childhood.
high school.
raising kids.
home.

The dancer is never asked about...

climate change.
sexuality.
race.

The dancer is never asked about...

ownership of work.

The dancer is never asked,
but we will ask
these and many other things we believe
the dancer can and will talk about.