As we gear up for our performances this weekend, I am able to reflect on how amazing the JuMP Program truly is. Having participated as a dancer for the first two seasons, and as both dancer and co-choreographer in the third, I feel I can now speak to how important JuMP is for our Bay Area dance community. There are a surprising amount of opportunities in the region for new choreographers to create and present work at a low cost with minimal production. As a choreographer begins to build his/her portfolio of work and hone their artistic voice, the desire to show work on a larger scale, with professional dancers and collaborators, a budget for costumes, lighting design, theater rental, advertisement, etc., is absolutely necessary and can be so overwhelming. JuMP bridges this gap by helping an emerging artist build their voice, experience, and audience in San Francisco.

As a dancer, I have loved the challenge of each new choreographer’s process, art making skills, interests, and guidance. It feels like such a unique opportunity to have danced with a close group of collaborators for the last 4 years. This program allows us (the dancers) an opportunity to broaden our own practice and performance abilities with each new incoming JuMP artist. Due to the nature of JuMP’s changing choreographer each year, my colleagues and I show up to rehearsal each day physically ready to work and, most importantly, with an open mind and willingness to collaborate. As a result, we work together to make their artistic vision come to life.

This season’s JuMP choreographer, Katerina Wong, has her own specific process of creating and building work. In a round table discussion after a work-in-progress showing last month, JuMP mentor Erin Mei-Ling Stuart asked Katie what inspired her to make this most recent work with FACT/SF? Katie’s response took her way back to why she started dancing, who she dances with in San Francisco, how and why her interests in seeing and making work have changed over the years and, finally, what about the world today she finds most interesting and inspiring. Like every choreographer, Katie is guided by her own particular dance and art-making history. She comes into the studio each day to share that with us, allowing space for our own artistry to be expressed as well.

I am always floored by the support of the FACT/SF community each JuMP season. The collaborators’ willingness to not only go along for the ride, but to make the work stunning. As Artistic Director of FACT/SF, Charlie provides not only the financial support for the program, but also the team of dancers, lighting designer, theater space and crew, mentors, and much more. Each collaborator plays an important role in the JuMP program and the success of each performance. The FACT/SF audience participates in work-in-progress showings, providing valuable feedback during the creative process, and attends the performances with an excitement to see what the company has cooked up this time.

Staring straight into the face of our show week for JuMP 2016, I’m happy to take a moment to organize my thoughts, ground myself, and reflect on the unique experience of being the 2016 JuMP Choreographer.

FACT/SF’s JuMP Program has opened up so many doors for me. It has allowed me to better hone my artistic voice and my choreographic skills, and welcomed me into a new community of dancers and creators who similarly held high-respect for their art and craft. JuMP has also showed me the value of sharing work in early stages, gaining new perspectives, and eventually solidifying my own choices.

The Bay Area has provided me with a variety of wonderful opportunities to present my work as an emerging choreographer. I could not be more thankful for the directors, festival curators, and dance peers who have taken a risk, extended their hand, and invited me to present my art. These past experiences have not only prepared me to advance as a choreographer, but also significantly increased my desire for achieving even more. By sharing their incredibly talented, diverse, and intelligent dancers, organizing rehearsal times and spaces, providing budgets for lighting designers, costumes and marketing, and financially compensating all those involved, FACT/SF gave me the chance to take a giant leap: creating my first evening-length work . JuMP offers an environment choreographers often only dream of, where they can step into a role of pure creation and creativity without being weighed down by questions of time, money, scheduling, etc. In my heart, I knew I was artistically ready for this challenge. Realistically, I didn’t believe it would happen so soon.

Though the opportunity to let go of the “business” side of our industry lifted a huge weight, I quickly found that it was replaced by a serious sense of duty, devotion, commitment, and passion. In wanting to make the most of this rare chance for pure artistic discovery, everything deserved consideration: sound, lighting, costumes, makeup, projection, set design, movement strategies, structure, scale, use of the theater, etc. In order to embrace the freedom of choice, I first had to overcome the sense of being paralyzed by all of the potential. So I strategized with myself from the beginning – take the first few weeks to just play, discover new ways of approaching movement and sculpting the space, be specific to this experience, to these dancers, to this theater, and absorb all of the knowledge, advice, and collaborative spirit that this program holds. I was guided by my will to let go, listen, reflect, and experience.

It opened up a whole new space in my mind. I welcomed the dancers’ refreshing and inquisitive thoughts about the piece, the theater, and their physicality. This, along with JuMP’s work-in-progress showings, left a really strong impression on me. Never before had I had the time or desire to present work to the open public for feedback before it was “complete”. I have to say, hopefully without sounding too dramatic, it terrified me. But ultimately, the work-in-progress showings helped me understand that I can simultaneously hold others’ thoughts and opinions in my mind while also sifting out what is most important to my work and me. I can share people’s opinions and let others go. I can hear their criticism and appreciate it for the fact that my work has connected to them and sparked a dialogue. I found myself inviting people with an open-mind, willing and happy to hear their ideas even though we still had more to work to do on the piece. All of that feels really exciting – to be able to balance the input of others while staying true to yourself. It marks significant growth and progress for me, and is surely something I will hold onto even after this work is complete.

Looking forward to our final rehearsals together, I’m filled once more with a flurry of emotions. But the one feeling that seems to be rising to the top is a sense of gratitude and appreciation. I am grateful that I had the opportunity to become part of the FACT/SF family and join a short history of really inspiring commissioned choreographers. I am grateful to be reminded of the incredible social and dance community that I have been surrounded by since moving to the Bay Area almost 6 years ago and very much look forward to sharing this work with them. I am also very grateful to have my family here from the east coast to experience this world we live in and the work to which we have been committing ourselves.

I see this work not only as a culmination of almost 3 months of intense exploration and development, but also as a reflection of my own personal growth. Speck contains a part of myself, and I hope that audience members see a small part of themselves in it as well. Together, we’ll explore the topic of space exploration, human ingenuity, bravery, diversity and perspective. Somewhere in those ideas there are things we can all own. And that is why I love creating dance.

As you all well know by now, community lies at the heart of all we do at FACT/SF. Together, our artists and advocates, fans and friends, make our work and make our work possible. And, though the Bay Area is home, our impact reaches far beyond our region – across the state, the country, North America, and many diverse regions around the world. The FACT/SF perspective is simultaneously local and global, and our 2016 programming highlights this robust and broad work.

Our most recent creation, (dis)integration, involved in-depth research in Bulgaria and Serbia. I travelled to the Balkans to study history, culture, and politics, and to gain a better understanding of the relationships between the region’s Roma and non-Roma populations. Interviews back home with my father and grandparents connected me to their 20th century histories in Sonoma County and Los Angeles, and contextualized for me what it means to be a descendant of a largely invisible, non-white immigrant community.

I’ve just returned from a month in Melbourne, which reconnected me with American and European colleagues, and introduced me to Countertechnique dancers and teachers from New Zealand, Australia, Germany, the Netherlands, Austria, Taiwan, and Canada. Though we all spoke English with each other, the exchange of culture and information went far beyond any one language or tradition. It is true that the dancing body, in all its glory, transcends man-made borders and boundaries.

Now back home, this week’s FACT/SF Summer Dance Lab has convened 24 folks from across the United States, Canada, Mexico, New Zealand, and Austria to share and learn together. We got off to a sweaty start yesterday, and will continue to fly and fall, twist and turn over the next four days.

And, with JuMP 2016 just one week away, FACT/SF will again realize its commitment to supporting local art and local artists. Katerina Wong, our 2016 JuMP Choreographer, has created a stunning and universal (guys, it’s literally about the universe) work about the Voyager Golden Record, aspirations, space exploration, and human connection. Liane Burns and I have co-choreographed our first installment of Platform, which also takes on questions of humanity and humanness by looking at the homogenizing effects of modern technology. Liane and I will continue our work this fall in Bulgaria, and premiere the complete work in June 2017.

It’s an incredible gift to get to work within such a supportive environment, and to play a role in cultivating understanding and critical thought through dance. I remember having a conversation with my dad about 15 years ago, when he was asking me why I wanted to pursue a career in dance. At the time, I shared with him an untested idea which I now know to be true, “The cool thing about dance is that it happens everywhere, in all cultures, with all bodies. Dance can be fun or serious, reverent or subversive. Dance can bring people together, dance can challenge, dance can inspire.”

I hope you all will join us next week for JuMP 2016 – to have two new dance experiences, to spend time together, to support the FACT/SF team, and to indulge just a bit in the power of art and community. The FACT/SF work, mission, and dream continues!

(dis)integration was a beast, and the biggest work I’ve ever made. With each creation I try to ask myself a series of new questions, with the goals of continuing my artistic growth while providing something uniquely compelling to audiences. Some works push me really far, others do not. Some feel radically different, others feel familiar. With (dis)integration, I think both happened. The work is logically situated within the aesthetics and compositional structures of my previous work, but also required a depth of research, prolonged investigation, and personal vulnerability that felt challenging, foreign, and scary. How great – to be able to build on a past while also discovering and making something that feels actually new!

It’s necessary to mention a few of the many ways that (dis)integration became a possibility in the first place. I had an amazing cast of dancers (Liane Burns, Michaela Burns, Eric Garcia, Evan Hart Marsh, Catherine Newman, LizAnne Roman Roberts, Wiley Naman Strasser, & Amanda Whitehead), and an incredibly talented dramaturge (Seth Eisen), lighting designer (Darl Andrew Packard), costume designer (Melissa Castaneda), composer (Dan Cantrell), and production assistant (Mariana Olvera). CounterPulse signed on to co-produce the premiere, and also connected me with partners in the Balkans (and necessary funding via Movement Research and the Trust for Mutual Understanding) to conduct on-the-ground research in Bulgaria & Serbia. The Kenneth Rainin Foundation, San Francisco Arts Commission, Dancers’ Group, and FACT/SF’s numerous individual donors provided the money to make the whole thing happen. And, the First Lady herself provided the catalyzing moment with her casual use of the ethnic slur, ‘gypped.’ I should mention as well my teacher and phral, Dusan Ristic, the JuMP 2015 crew (colleagues Lauren Simpson & Jenny Stulberg, mentors Sheldon Smith & Maurya Kerr, and co-producer ODC Theater & Christy Bolingbroke), the trusting faculty and committed students at the University of San Francisco, and my dad, grandfather, and grandmother who generously and candidly shared their complex histories.

Given all this, and now looking back at the work with a sense of pride and satisfaction, it feels important to remind myself, and share with you that, though always dynamic, this creative process was anything but simple.

Before the premiere performances in May 2016, I created two shorter works where we started to tease out some of the movement material that would eventually make its way into (dis)integration. One was part of JuMP 2015 (spread t h i n) and the other was commissioned by the University of San Francisco (Nomadic Mandate). I spent a lot of time reading numerous books and articles, traveled to Eastern Europe to interview people from local governments, NGOs, US Embassies, etc., conversed for hours with my colleagues and friends about the project, developed theories about visible diversity vs. behavioral diversity, and more. I didn’t know how, but I hoped that eventually each of these pieces would come together into one coherent performance. I kept collecting information, trying things out, soliciting feedback, watching rehearsal footage, re-designing the choreographic structures, and…eventually started to feel like we were getting nowhere. My brain continued to expand with facts, the dancers and I continued to develop more and more complex movement systems, and nothing seemed to progress. I felt like I was creating in the dark – completely lost and with no direction. I’m the director! Directing without direction is, well, a weird experience – to say the least. In my creative process, it’s typical that I don’t always ‘see’ the work – but the sort of blindness that accompanied this creation was darker and more persistent than before. My collaborators kept showing up to work everyday, and folks started buying tickets…but I had no idea where we were heading, what we were making, or who it was for. Hah.

To be clear, for the majority of my work, the ‘why’ and the ‘for whom’ are not central considerations. With (dis)integration, though, this was entirely different. Here, with a work ABOUT a particular group of people (and I would come to realize, a work about my family and myself), I had to be much more intentional and specific. This proved to be the most challenging aspect of the creative process.

Was (dis)integration aimed at non-Roma people, with the intention of educating them? No, that felt pedantic. Was (dis)integration aimed at Roma people, with the intention of illuminating and celebrating their story? No, that felt too bold. As an assimilated, mostly-white kid from San Diego, what the heck did I know about the ‘Roma experience’? Could I accurately represent on stage 20 million people and a 1,016 year history? Unlikely. Could I just stick to my guns and make something super abstract? No, turning real people and real histories into abstract ideas felt disrespectful – and would just perpetuate the type of erasure and disregard towards Roma that already persists throughout Western society.

Figuring out what direction to take felt damn-near impossible. I knew that I felt frustrated by hearing Michelle Obama say ‘gypped.’ I knew that my academic research was intellectually interesting to me, and that my trip to Serbia and Bulgaria made ‘real’ much of the stuff I was reading about. Still, I had no idea how I factored in to any of this, or what I wanted to say about it. And, because I didn’t know how to position myself within the work, I continued to focus on the formal and abstract and shy away from the personal and literal. This whole deliberation (and confusion and uncertainty) lasted from June 2014 until April 2016.

The major shift came when, about 5 weeks before the premiere, I traveled to southern California to interview my grandparents. I was particularly interested in talking with my grandfather about his experience as a Romani-American, as a Roma kid growing up in Santa Rosa in the 1930s, about his parents, etc. Over 20 hours or so, I had conversations with both of my grandparents that I’d never had before. I learned that my grandfather still spoke a bit of Romanes, gained insight into how the Slender ancestors interacted within and outside of white America and, ultimately, how I was part of these larger traditions embedded within my family, culture, and ethnicity.

In short, via conversations with my grandparents, and with my dad as well, I found my ‘in’ to the work. I made the choice to share some basic information, to talk about my family, to talk about myself, to talk about stereotypes, to make the audience travel (because we’re talking about a diasporic people, right?), and to inform all of that literal information and direct images with a large dose of FACT/SF-style abstract contemporary dance. So, looking back, it feels very much like the work was about me as a maker, a thinker, and a 4th generation Romani-American, about my family, our identity, and the very complicated relationships between interaction, integration, and assimilation, about the Romani Diaspora and its people (all of whom I now feel connected to), and about finding ways to utilize art for purposes that are simultaneously practical and philosophical.

A lot of my family came to the show, and they told me they were proud of the work (for me, an enormous concern was that they’d feel like I had misrepresented our family and our history). Roma folks from outside of my family came, too, and they told me how satisfying it was to see and hear our collective story told. And, as the majority of the audience were gadje (non-Roma), I heard a lot about how educational and informative the work was for them. Which…is pretty cool. My Cherokee friend and I had some great conversations about similarities between our peoples’ experiences of persecution and oppression. With my light-skinned, racially-mixed friends, we talked about passing as white, benefitting from white privilege, and feeling super weird about it. We talked about how it feels when people ask, ‘But what are you, really?”

FACT/SF has already moved on to our next two creations, and in that way the year is progressing in a ‘business-as-usual’ fashion. But, for whatever reason, I felt compelled to take some time to write down a few thoughts and experiences that I had with (dis)integration, to thank the incredible people who gave me the chance to make the work, and to share with them/you a bit more about the impact this work has had on me.

If there has to be one take away from the piece, he’s what I’d leave you with:

‘Gypped’ is offensive for at least two reasons. First, it’s related to the word ‘gypsy’ and the stereotype that gypsies are thieves, liars, and/or cheats. Not cool to classify an entire ethnic group as dishonest. Second, even the word ‘gypsy’ itself is offensive (to me and most Roma), because it’s a misnomer for Roma people. When my ancestors started arriving in Europe around 1200AD, the white folk there had, until that point, very little experience with dark folk. They did not know much about the non-European world. They did know about this ancient civilization just across the sea, though. Egypt! So, they assumed that these brown people newly arrived in Europe (the Roma) must be from Egypt – they must be Egyptians. Egyptian got shortened to Gyptian, which morphed into Gypsy (it’s similar to Europeans arriving in North America, assuming they had made it to in India, and deciding that the local people must be Indians!). So, I kindly request, stop saying ‘gypped.’ And, as the designation ‘gypsy,’ isn’t super useful, accurate, or respectful, I’d propose deleting that from your vocab, too. If you’d like to know more about the Roma – grab a book! 

I had the great privilege of having meetings with the US Embassies in Bulgaria and Serbia, members of the Sofia City Council, executives at the Trust for Social Achievement, and officers from the OSCE. I spent a day with Romani teenagers at the Arete Youth Foundation, a week studying Romani language and culture at the Amala School, an afternoon teaching students in Sofia at Derida Dance, and another afternoon learning about contemporary performance in Belgrade via Station Service for Contemporary Dance.

The entire trip was funded by Movement Research and the Trust for Mutual Understanding, and was made possible by leadership and insight from CounterPulse’s Artistic Director, Julie Phelps.

Throughout FACT/SF’s 2015/2016 season, we will be making a series of works about Roma. We will also consider how this area of interest relates to broader (and rather enormous) issues of othering, passing, code-switching, systemic oppression, disenfranchisement, supremacy, hierarchy, displacement, and scapegoating. I’m additionally interested in the relationships between isolation–>interaction–>integration–>assimilation, and critical distinctions between visible diversity and behavioral diversity.

WHY would Charlie be making dances about Roma? Here are just some of the reasons:

1.) I’m a Romani-American and I’ve become more and more interested in my heritage.

Slender-White (left) with his great-grandmother and cousins.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

2.) Michelle Obama used the ethnic slur ‘gypped’ in an interview with Robin Roberts for the Working Families Summit in 2014. I found that pretty insulting, even though I suspect it came from a place of ignorance rather than malice.

(‘gypped’ at 6:19) 

 
3.) Most of the non-Roma I talk with don’t know much about Roma culture, or even that there are more than 1 million of us living (yes, amongst you!) in the United States.

4.) Historic and systemic oppression of Roma throughout the world is unique, AND there are many similarities between our struggle for equality and respect and the struggles of other oppressed, displaced, and maligned groups in the United States.

5.) I think that art, at its best, entertains while ALSO instigating conversations, challenging assumptions, and proposing alternative frames of reference. I think art and artists actually do and can and should work to advance society and its people towards greater understanding and awareness. As an artist, this becomes not just my opportunity but also my obligation.

INTRO & SCHEDULE

I’m in New York to see a lot of art – January is a performance explosion in Manhattan. There’s an edgy-ish performance festival downtown, American Realness, a theater festival, Under the Radar, a performance festival, COIL, a big conference in midtown, APAP, and a whole variety of ‘showcases’ (more on this later).

It feels extravagant to make an annual pilgrimage to New York just to see art, but it also feels totally justified. Making art and seeing art are central to my life. And I’m incredibly lucky to work as an artist. By being here, I gain a better understanding of what the field is up to and the broader context in which my own work exists. This could make my work better, right? I like to think of it as enjoyable ‘continuing ed.’

There’s more.

As a viewer, I often have experiences of seeing something exciting and wishing others knew about it. I’d like to write out/articulate my own thoughts, and engage with others in discussion. So, I’m starting to write about dance. I’ve included my schedule below, and will aim to write about everything I see – whether I understood it or didn’t, liked it or didn’t, thought it was relevant or not. I’ll include: a description of what happened, an interpretation of what happened, some context of what happened, criticisms of what happened, questions that remain.

This is weird because I make dance and choreographers/makers don’t normally write about each other. Maybe we can? Maybe we should? Who knows?

I’ll try to balance subjective opinion with objective information. Hopefully this will be useful for dancers and non-dancers alike, and create a space for robust and candid dialogue.

Here we go!

• Jan 7 – O Jardim by Companhia Hiato (São Paulo)

• Jan 8 – #ItGetsBitter by Dark Matter (New York)

• Jan 8 – Thank You For Coming by Faye Driscoll (New York)

• Jan 9 – Throw Me on the Burnpile and Light Me Up by Lucy Alibar (New York)

• Jan 9 – Sister by Tere O’Connor (New York)

• Jan 9 – Bear by Keith Hennessy (San Francisco)

• Jan 9 – Fest by Ivo Dimchev (Brussels)

• Jan 10 – Variations on Virtuosity by The Ballez (New York)

• Jan 10 – g-h-o-s-t-c-r-o-w-n by RoseAnne Spradlin (New York)

• Jan 11 – Peridance Showcase A (Various)

• Jan 11 – Peridance Showcase B (Various)

• Jan 12 – Undersweet by Tere O’Connor (New York)

• Jan 13 – Death Asshole Rave Video by Jeremy Wade

• Jan 13 –Brickman Brando Bubble Boom by Agrupación Señor Serrano (Barcelona)

• Jan 13 – Age & Beauty Part 2 by Miguel Gutierrez (New York)

• Jan 14 – Begin Again by Zoe Scofield (Seattle)

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