improvising with ghosts past/present/future the remaking, reshaping, recentering of FRESH/ROT
So yeah,,,, we’re experimenting, improvising,
fucking it up,
failing, listening, collaborating
and being in community because that is our practice. It’s what we know, it’s how we move, and it is our way of carrying on the FRESH legacy.
by CLARISSA RIVERA DYAS AND AINSLEY E. THARP
~~~~~~~~ m a k i n g s p a c e f o r m o r e s p a c e ~~~~~~~~
Who is in the room? Who is the community? (great fucking question.)
KH FRESH queer etcologies jam (2024)
The choreography of what this festival is will inevitably change and transform based on who is in the room. And a part of the legacy of FRESH we are acknowledging is the whiteness of past leadership of the festival.
How do we define legacy and carry what was built, cultivated, nurtured, and grown through death and generations? We take what we can carry in the ways we know how.
In the aftermath of Kathleen’s passing, Abby Crain, Clarissa Rivera Dyas, gizeh muñiz vengel, Chibueze Crouch, and ainsley tharp took on FRESH, which we renamed after KH FRESH after Kathleen. Kathleen didn’t really leave us a road map for how to make all this happen. She did leave us with around $20,000 in the bank, a whole festival fan base 10 years in the making, and memories of what we loved most about FRESH from different angles of participation.
What is happening right NOW? We are laying to rest and giving FRESH new life through this upcoming festival ROT.
We are shifting, recentering, and adapting.
Definition of ROT: the process of decay.
(making s p a c e)
So, we are,
did, and do.
In inheriting, it was a clear call and ask of this moment to reposition and address the overall whiteness of the festi- val. Having a majority BIPOC and queer production/cura- tion team, the only access point for us to engage with the festival was to center BIPOC and queer artists by inviting folks like Maurya Kerr, Rama Hamesh Hall, En Ningún Lugar, mayfield brooks, Tommy DeFranz, and others to teach and perform in the festival.
FRESH FESTIVAL began in 2010 in the care of Kath- leen Hermesdorf, Albert Mathias, and Ernesto Sopprani. For 10 years Kathleen was the director, curator, teacher, performer, and producer of FRESH FESTIVAL. In 2020, Kathleen was diagnosed with brain cancer and died about 8 months later. Here is Kathleen’s archive with so many beautiful memories, and letters from the past.
We replicated what we thought FRESH was and allowed ourselves and the festival to shift and adapt.
There is so much movement in the decay, there is transformation in the compost, there is new life and new beginnings after ROT.
Changes
are
inevitable
and we learned from what already existed. [DOING] Doing the damn thing taught us what needed to be done, and moving from there as a place of momentum. How does form influence practice? Embedded in the bodies that carry the legacy of KH FRESH are the forms/formlessness of experimental improv.
How do we build bridges? How do we cultivate a rich and diverse container that feels honest? How does recentering leadership create space for BIPOC and queer artist partici- pation and cultivation? Something we come back to again and again and again is the economic realities and pre- carity of our audience and community. Financial accessibility is a core pillar, princi- ple, and practice guiding the structure of the festival. All of our classes and events are no one turned away for lack of funds (NOTA- FLOF), which many participants took advan- tage of in previous iterations. We offer audio description and ASL for our performances, and there have been other offerings for other dance styles besides experimental dance and improvisation, such as House and Butoh.
Legacy became less about replicating the choreography of what the festival was and more about an improv score with FRESH’s past while tumbling towards the possibilities of what is just around the corner (THE FUTURE).
Kathleen during FAKE Company performance (2020)
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46 in dance WINTER 2025
WINTER 2025 in dance 47
In Dance | May 2014 | dancersgroup.org
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