EXPLORING THE HORIZON: The Red Wind Within Us
by REBECCA LILLICH
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ignited by witnessing political, societal and technological revolutions to imagine new futures through art. The artis- tic legacies of many of the artists were stunted when the Soviet govern- ment came into power, causing a violent silenc- ing of dissenters. The movement, which em- braced challenging au- thority and questioning of who has the power to shape identity, was not viewed favorably by the Soviet Union. After this period, art became commodified into propa- ganda and artistic pos- sibilities that invested in exploration, such as abstraction, were de- terred. The Avant Garde had utilized many me- diums to question cer-
IN TRYING TIMES of transition, a resurgence of art and activism allows room for renewed questioning of assumed certainties. The cur- rent political climate has created a pressur- ized environment where artists have used their platforms to contest and reimagine the structures we are operating within, and many have been looking into the past to fur- ther inspire what our futures could be. The spirit of revolutionary renewal has been a continual force throughout time and has served as unending inspiration for Erika Tsimbrovsky and her San Francisco-based group, Avy K Productions. Whether tackling an individual’s experience of creativity, such as Nijinsky’s journal in Nocturnal Butter- flies (2009), or addressing artistic movements throughout time, such as in Un-Still Life (2015), the collective’s multimedia, impro- vised performances invest in the possibilities inherent in the creative present. An artist of Jewish and Russian heritage who was educated under the Soviet Socialist Republic, Tsimbrovsky combatted an em- bedded discomfort with revolution through the practice of improvised performance, drawing inspiration from artists of the Rus- sian Avant Garde movement whose work challenged her to reimagine the possible. In her work to connect the innovative spirit of the Avant Garde movement with today’s political and artistic climates, Tsimbrovsky articulates that “we are a product of the revolution, of its errors and consequences. The passion of the romantic spirit of the revolution and pain of its destruction are inside our bodies.” Ruah Aduma/Red Wind has been in pro- cess for Tsimbrovsky since 2005; it has lived in various iterations of her performance practice but has most recently been explored at SAFEhouse Arts in San Francisco, May 2017 and at the Eleanor D. Wilson Museum
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feminist forces were able to use abstract art as a means of perceiving and reflecting on radical change throughout their society. Tsimbrovsky’s work engages dualisms that are not binary but contingent on each other for meaning; the horizon is created by the meeting of earth and sky, the movement of the work develops between form and force, we operate between understandings of the constructed and deconstructed, the meaning and meaninglessness, between Apollo and Dionysus. The balancing of opposing forces creates the zero point of happening. Between the certain (past) and uncertain (future) we experience the momentous present and all its innumerable possibilities, our own possibili- ties as individuals. These dualistic ideas serve as the entry point to the structure of Ruah Aduma/Red Wind , connecting what Tsimbrovsky calls “flesh from the ancient past” and creating a new language to foresee a future ready for transformation. Abstraction when enacted through performance becomes a means of sharing an expansive exploration of the hu- man subconscious beyond and within cultur- al borders. This shared experience, created through the collaboration of dancers, media and installation, hopes to reevaluate how the efforts of past artists inform our future. “I believe we are experiencing another shift,” says Tsimbrovsky, “another time of change on all levels and in all systems.” Dur- ing times of transition, when the future seems uncertain, the world can pulse with utopias full of potential. The culmination of these pasts, presents and futures within a performance seek to invest in the potential of the human spirit. REBECCA LILLICH was born in Bad Soden, Germa- ny and grew up in Syracuse, New York. She received her BFA from the Alonzo King LINES Ballet BFA Program in San Francisco, California with a minor in English. She is a aspiring artist and MFA candidate attending the Hollins University Residency Program in Roanoke, Virginia. CA$H is a granting program for the San Francisco Bay Area’s dance artists and organizations. The program supports dance projects that represent the many diversities of Bay Area dance community (race, genre, age, gender, ability, experience, location). Grant awards will be announced in late June 2018 for projects that culminate after August 1, 2018. Guidelines and application at dancersgroup.org/cash New Location for Museum of Performance + Design The museum has moved to a new location at 2200 Jerrold Ave, Suite T, San Francisco. There will be an open house on Tue, Apr 3. mpdsf.org
Avy K. Productions / (above) photo by Orfeas Skutelis; (below) photo by Rob Kunkle
tainty, dismantling codified forms such as poetry and painting and abstracting them as a means of research. Abstraction here becomes a means for envisioning possibility. In many ways the power to invest in abstraction was a spiri- tual awakening to otherness in the world and a resistance to given oppressive struc- tures. During the resurgence of the Avant Garde movement in the United States, an investment in identity discourse and politics became a significant proponent of feminist possibility and queer empowerment. Devel- oping discourse over both of these fields in the 1960s allowed for a further interrogation of the possibilities of abstract art. Queer and
at Hollins University in conjunction with her MFA thesis, June 2017. An hour-long instal- lation/performance combining video, dance, poetry and live painting from Vadim Puy- andaev, the work explores the undercurrent of the revolutionary spirit through time and specifically questions how the Russian Avant Garde movement can inform and contribute to artistic investigations today. The Russian Avant Garde movement oc- curred between the 1890s and 1930s; Tsim- brovsky’s work focuses on themes of the movement that experienced a resurgence in America during the 1960s. Artists such as Kazimir Malevich, Wassily Kandinsky, Ve- limir Khlebnikov, and many others were
15th Anniversary Season
Maria Basile & Gary Masters Artistic Directors
FREE at Santana Row Park Sunday, April 29 at 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. sjDANCEco.org F ESTIVAL @ S ANTANA R OW This is the kick off to “National Dance Week” and the FIRST in the Bay Area with more than 50 performing dance troupes from the aspiring to professional dancers – from cultural to clas- sical to Hip Hop and MORE! AND IT’S FREE!!!
Avy K Productions present Ruah Aduma/Red Wind: Apr 19-21, Joe Goode Annex, SF. avyk.org
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in dance APR 2018
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