Patricia West (foreground) / Photo by Jessica Swanson
by DAMARA VITA GANLEY FINDING THE FOG BEAST
MY HAIRDRESSER IS OBSESSED with tracking Mountain Lion sightings in the Santa Cruz mountains. She follows locals on Instagram who live along the lion’s territorial maps and also the online Santa Cruz Puma Proj- ect tracking system. I understand the appeal. There is something about these majestic, elu- sive creatures that pulls our imagination. Per- haps it is the tingle of possibility that comes from thinking about a being that sets its own trajectories within an organic relationship to ecological principles that operates outside of our constrained territorial grids and power lines. It is incredible that something so wild, so powerful, so mysterious lives so close. A sighting feels both magical and sacred. That is how I feel about Fog Beast. The first Fog Beast duet I saw was in a bar in May 2011. Your Favorite Game was a striking combination of a tavern song and a christening ceremony. Or maybe it was a wedding? Co-directors Melecio Estrella and Andrew Ward emerged from the crowd with beer mugs raised, their bodies vibrating with
a focused magnetic resonance. Is it a ritual? A story? A dance? Are they summoning the Evangelical Rapture that was predicted to happen that month? Fog Beast evades definition and so as I track them through the years it is an alchem- ical quality, along with a refreshing irrever- ence towards expected narratives, that leads me closer. Much like my hairdresser, my obsession has led me to connect with those others that live in process with, and near, the Fog Beast. This connection has helped gain insights and glimpses into the making of their new work, The Big Reveal , a per- formance-as conference-as ritual, to be held at the Asian Art Museum in mid July. Fog Beast is unpacking and spreading out the ragged vestiges of our colonial inheritances and the contemporary corporate narratives that shape our patterns of belonging or not belonging. As they work together, they invite each performer to bring themselves and their histories into the creative process.
Melecio Estrella shares “I’m really inter- ested these days in lineage. Where we find ourselves is a result of strands of lineage on so many levels braided together – biologi- cal or familial lineage, our dance and perfor- mance lineage, our social governmental lin- eages, so much of the way we live and think is inherited from who and what came before. As collaborators we show up in the room with all these lineages… and in this way we are so rich with material embedded in our dancing bodies and emotional topographies. What we do with our time together, what we choose to pass on through our work of embodied storytelling, is one way our lin- eages may continue through us to future gen- erations. We are not looking to hire dancers. We are looking to gather a sensitive, funny and skillful group of kind humans to play with these entwined fibers of lineage.” Hearing from some of the performers in The Big Reveal is particularly poignant given that Fog Beast is building the piece collab- oratively and drawing from the performer’s
personal experiences and identities. Below are excerpts of conversations with Patricia West, Danny Nguyen, and Wailana Simcock. Also performing in The Big Reveal will be Melissa Lewis, Janine Cayla Trinidad and Katie Faulkner. Fog Beast performer Patricia West holds a central role in their productions. The depth and nuance of her performance practice reflects the Fog Beast values in transcending traditional delineations. In He is One of Us (2017), Patricia’s personae as the corporate CEO commanded our attention immedi- ately upon her entry. Her amplified armor was shed and dissolved throughout the piece until we rediscover her in a transformed state engaged in a pivotal, powerfully sacred solo that energetically ricocheted through the room. We are transfixed and maybe even a bit healed as we experience the personae slip away and Patricia emerged in a fully embod- ied and revealed state. As she and Fog Beast were making that solo, the emphasis was on her ancestors. Through her dancing (and later in song) she was both welcoming them and honoring them. Damara: How do you experience yourself as part of Fog Beast? How would you describe your experience as a collaborator so far? Patricia: If you are in the room, you are part of the Beast. I feel that as a collabora- tor of Fog Beast, they embrace the individual as part of the whole. I feel that my voice is heard and responded to. My curiosities and intrigues often times become those of the group. And we all share the value of process. And Fog Beast doesn’t avoid the uncomfort- able, they don’t fear saying or doing some- thing that speaks a truth. Damara: Do you have any thoughts/reflec- tions about the content of the new piece so far that you would be willing to share? What are you curious about?
8 in dance JUN 2019
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