we know about something becomes more complicated. We think of prisons as terrible places, and they absolutely are, but I have also seen staggering expressions of love within those walls: children visiting with their fathers, inmates having brief moments to say hello to each other through the bars, or Bill’s 25+ year friendship with fel- low inmate and artist Steve Champion. Inequity is statistically rife within our judicial system, and, by extension, as members of society, we each play a part in how the machinations of soci- ety function. Many people blind them- selves to our inmate population, but this project uses performance as the vehicle to stir an audience’s conscience and make it clear and visible that inmates are truly part of our commu- nity family. Things can change when a society cares about all its people, incarcerated or not. Apathy only per- petuates injustice. As Bryan Stevenson, founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, said, “I’ve come to believe that the true measure of our commitment to justice is how we treat the poor, the disfa- vored, the accused, the incarcerated, and the condemned. We are all impli- cated when we allow other people to be mistreated.” Our stages are an ideal way to challenge misconceptions, and with Resilience I hope to play a part in bringing a broader awareness to an individual I have come to care very deeply about, and who I believe has transformative knowledge to share. ALEX KETLEY is a choreographer, filmmaker, and the director of The Foundry. He has re- ceived acknowledgment from the Hubbard Street National Choreographic Competition, the Choo-San Goh Award, the Princess Grace Award for Choreography, four MANCC Residencies, the Eben Demarest Award, the National Chore- ographic Initiative Residency, a Kenneth Rainin Foundation New and Experimental Works Grant, and the Artistry Award from the Superfest Dis- ability Film Festival. His pieces have also been awarded Isadora Duncan Awards for outstanding achievement in the categories of Choreography, Company, & Ensemble. In 2020 he became a Fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and in 2025 he received a Nation- al Dance Project Award from the New England Foundation for the Arts.
Bill Clark and Alex Ketley at San Quentin
death row is, Bill is one of the most beautifully optimistic people I have ever met. He tells me often that this is intentional: to survive in one of the darkest situations anyone could ever be placed in, you have to become a vibrant generator of your own light. He is deeply aware how awful his
dancers, filmmakers, musicians, writ- ers, animators, directors, and actors, we had a weekly two-hour conver- sation with Bill. All the students, except for one, had never been directly affected by our carceral system, so the class profoundly influenced their thinking around incarceration and
AT SAN QUENTIN, BILL AND I MET WEEKLY IN WHAT CAN ONLY BE DESCRIBED AS A GLORIFIED DOG KENNEL.
circumstance is but is radiant as an act of defiance to a country that has deemed his body not even worthy of being lived. It is an example that beauty exists everywhere, even in the forgotten depths of prison. I feel like societal change is possible when unlikely communities collide. On the surface, Bill and I are certainly unlikely friends, but we have met in a space that feels pretty pure: our shared love of artistic practice. I wanted to expose others to this vibrant space, so I invited Bill to be my guest in a Stan- ford University class called DanceA- cution: Performance Practice, Death Row, and the Evolution of Cultural Reform. In a room filled with student
their own individual art-making pro- cess. To metaphorically stand with one foot at Stanford and one foot at San Quentin is the kind of collision I find so ripe with the possibility of real change in terms of how communi- ties view each other. The students and Bill bonded deeply with one another, and the final projects felt important because the content underlying the class was so clearly consequential. Bill and I are now embarking on a new evening-length project called An Approximation of Resilience , which is set to premiere in the spring of 2025 and then tour throughout the country. What interests me in this piece is the interstitial space where what we think
18
in dance FALL 2024 18
FALL 2024 in dance 19
In Dance | May 2014 | dancersgroup.org
unify strengthen amplify unify strengthen amplify
44 Gough Street, Suite 201 San Francisco, CA 94103 www.dancersgroup.org
Made with FlippingBook - Online Brochure Maker