way they look at each other is as two sepa- rate souls, one softened into a deep pool of understanding and care into which the other can see herself shine. Throughout the work, we see them take turns being the reflective water for the other. This loving listening appears in the part- nering, the unison work, the easy laugh- ter, and the generous turn-taking on stage. Watching Molly and Aviva perform, and lis- tening to them talk, their sororal love illumi- nates the space around them—like in Frozen! (except without the imbalance of one sister having ice powers and the other heteronor- mative desires). What follows is some back-and-forth between Molly and Aviva. You’ll notice my absence—these two clearly have had a lot of practice talking to each other. On their creative process Molly: Before every performance, Aviva and I would set intentions or questions: what are we curious about, what do we want to find within the experience? I hadn’t realized until we were doing that together that I do that myself when I perform solos. But doing it together and having the conversation every time, we would actively decide to think about pacing and energetic flow or about what it means to perform the piece from where we are right now as opposed to where we were when we created the movement. Aviva: Mol’s extremely articulate. All I can think of is a cardboard box next to you, sim- ple and bland when it comes to articulation. Molly: [Laughs.] The entire piece relies on feeling the realness of our relationship. And yet there was almost a distancing from our real life relationship and a leaning in to our artistic, creative collaboration that needed to happen in order for the relation- ship to feel really alive in the show. Some- thing that’s been so exciting about working with Aviva is finding a collaborator who can match and expand my physical interests as well as having a completely different creative domain in terms of how we might use a physical language to convey or investi- gate something. On the roles of dance and circus Molly: My whole life growing up I did acro- batics, played soccer. It always felt like there was something external about the physi- cal experience. When I started dancing I feel like I actually met my body. My first dance class was with Andrea Olsen at Middle- bury—experiential anatomy. There was very little so-called dancing. It was mostly touch- ing our bodies, finding how things worked, exploring ranges of movement. As I started to investigate a new relationship with my moving body, I realized there was also incredible capacity and potential in dance for the athleticism I had grown up loving. Now that I have these skills I can actually feel it when I’m doing it. Aviva: The thing I find most interesting about working in circus is finding every- thing that’s in between the things that people -have already found. Especially on pole, I’ve noticed there are specific positions you can get in and normally a trick is get- ting from point A to point B. How do you change point B so it’s something that’s never been seen? How do you rewrite these things and make them unexpected? This goes towards dance: how do you change rhythm and change a body’s buoy- ancy in space so that it becomes unex- pected? Then for the performance, you have to figure out what you’re communicating with all of that. That’s where I think my work veers towards dance because it really is movement exploration.
Photo by Robbie Sweeny
On generating movement Molly: We approach movement explora- tion really differently, which was one of the hardest parts of the creation process. My experience of your approach is that it has a lot more to do with pathways and I’m inter- ested in felt experience and a broader nar- rative element, the experience of the energy, and the experience of the event, which is more intangible. Your process is more con- crete in a way that can be shared between two people. Aviva: I feel like creating movement and creating things in general are a series of choices. And in general you can’t make bad choices. Any choice that you make can become something else over time or rein- spection. For me to get to a reexamining I just need to create something and find the logic within it when I’m working with other people. Molly: Hearing you describe it that way, in some ways our process is not that differ- ent. I feel like your body and intellect have a more harmonious relationship and your intellect doesn’t stifle your body as much as mine does. The relationship between my intellect and body is not quite as intimate, the translation isn’t as easy so I have to take more distance and then come back to it later. Our physical process is somewhat similar, but mine happens over a longer period of time. Aviva: One of the things I loved the most about working with Mol—and I loved a lot of things—is being able to come in as a cir- cus person from a very specific environment, and be like we’re making something. It didn’t have to be circus or dance or theater. We can use our voices. We can use guitars. We both thought that if there were risks we weren’t able to take before, this is a great place to take them. On the audience Molly: Maybe this is my projection but I feel like everyone wants to connect and most of the choices we make every day of our lives are somehow related to the desire to connect with others. I think it would be silly to think someone was making art in a process completely devoid of that desire. Art is a really beautiful way to connect with others and to connect with ourselves.
Aviva: Coming from circus I’ve seen the opposite where people love training, they love the physical engagement with their body, they love how it makes them feel, they love the way that it makes them look to themselves and a lot of performance that I’ve seen also feels like just a step, if you train this much and you want to validate it then you need to perform to make money so the performance doesn’t feel that important, it’s a way to validate their train- ing experience which is really a connection to their body. There’s not much riding on any sort of connection. I had one final question for Molly and Aviva: What was the driving question for Mind the Gap ?
Aviva: A lens of oneness through our twinship to talk about oneness with all people.
Molly: Where did we come from? And where are we now?
SIMA BELMAR, PH.D. , is a Lecturer in the Depart- ment of Theater, Dance, & Performance Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Her writing has appeared in The Brooklyn Rail , San Francisco Bay Guardian , The Oakland Tribune , Dance Mag- azine , TDR , Journal of Dance & Somatic Practices, Performance Matters , Contemporary Theatre Re- view , and The Oxford Handbook of Screendance Studies . Her writing on living in Naples can be found at undertheneapolitanson.blogspot.com. To keep up with Sima’s writing please subscribe to tinyletter.com/simabelmar.
Aviva (left) and Molly (right) Rose-Williams / Photo by Eric Gillet DANCE WITH PRIDE
Photos courtesy of artist
Photos by Grant Okobu
SUNDAY, JUNE 30 Rhythm & Motion, together with Dancers’ Group and other local dance organizations, are gathering a contingent to dance down Market Street as part of the 2019 San Francisco Pride Parade. This year’s theme is Generations of Resistance .
Anyone can be a part of the dance contingent – no previous experience required! Rhythm & Motion teachers will lead over 200 participants dancing along the parade route. Learn online and at at least two free in-person rehearsals offered in June.
Details and registration at rhythmandmotion.com
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in dance JUN 2019
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