RR: Tell me more. How do you as a set designer ‘draw attention to certain aspects that are aligned with the message of the piece?’ SR: I start to tease apart specific elements [of the build- ing] and try to figure out okay, so how does this emotion machine work? Like what are actually the moving parts here? And that’s where I’ve started to find elements that I can play with. RR: For example? SR: Throughout the building, there are these busts, busts of previous mayors and other figures. And all these busts are presented on these funny plinths. It’s like a box, you know, like a four foot high by two foot by two foot box that the bust sits upon. And what that plinth means is here is an object worthy of your attention, right? So I have latched onto that shape of the plinth as a method within the context of this building, of calling attention to an object worthy of consideration and of apprecia- tion. I’ve recreated these plinths without the bust on top as performance props. And then, because of the limited surface area on the top, right, you just follow the poetry of it. There’s all kinds of other vocabulary about the lim- itation of space, the confinement of that tiny plinth for human beings to dance on. And that leads to movement. It leads to storyline. It leads to all sorts of things. RR: Are there any obvious “elephants in the room” that need to be addressed? SR: In this space, there certainly are. The reason this piece needs to exist is the essential disconnect between what the building is today and what it purports to be, and the architectural style and the intention of that archi- tectural style. There’s a disconnect in what this building is — our political and social center — and what it rep- resents or what we hope it represents. What it strives to represent is inclusion, a governmental system that upholds all of the best ideals of our American style of government, which we profess to be equality and equal consideration and access. RR: Yes, and yet.… SR: And yet I think we all would agree that it’s a com- plicated history in this country, so unpacking what this building means is a complicated thing. I think it’s really important to note that it’s a gorgeous building. It is Joan- na’s position, and mine as well, that unpacking and try- ing to understand and comment on this building’s archi- tecture doesn’t take away from that fact. But the truth is that this Beaux Arts style has elements of Baroque and Rococo and is strongly influenced by Europe, and in turn back to Rome, and back to Greece. It’s got these classi- cal shapes and forms and it’s no mistake that it was cho- sen because of its association with these classical societ-
ies and these classical seats of power. It was designed to place American society and American power in this inher- ited lineage of the great societies of the world, right? It’s all about what this architectural style uplifts and supports. And what it lifts up and supports is a vision of what is relevant and good in a society. And this particular vision of what is relevant and good in society is patriarchy and capitalism and essentially, white supremacy. RR: And essentially, white supremacy. SR: Yeah. The roots of this style are part of the foundation of what it means to fabricate whiteness. What it means to build an identity of whiteness. And it does so by reaching out and borrowing history from other places that for better or for worse, or truthfully or untruthfully, were identified in the minds of the people that chose this style as flourish- ing whiteness. I think it’s fair to say that indigenous cultures were not considered and are not considered. We see this colonial style in plantation architecture, right? We see it in all sorts of places attempting to identify with whiteness, and trying to transplant that into this space in this country.
PEOPLE PALACE DESIGNING FOR MORE IN THE SEAN RILEY INTERVIEWED BY ROWENA RICHIE
ROWENA RICHIE: “Sunny Jim” Rolph is the San Francisco mayor responsible for christening City Hall “The People’s Palace” when it opened in 1915. The expression referred to its intended purpose: it was not a palace for kings and queens, but for ‘the people.’ Tell me about your set design for ZACCHO Dance Theatre’s upcoming performance, The People’s Palace. SEAN RILEY: I guess we start with the building itself which is the essence of site specific work. Basically we’re mak- ing a piece of time-based art in conversation with this locale. This is different and distinct from what we would think of as traditional theater where the proscenium is a blank frame in which we create a world inside, and you can move it and plug it in somewhere else and have a similar experience. But in site specific work we’re talking about making the work specifically in conversation with that locale which can only happen in that place. So in this case, the building itself, City Hall, is that locale, right? So, in terms of my approach there are two pathways: there’s what the space is, and there’s what the space means. They are different ways of unpacking the building. Architecture is an emotion machine. It’s designed to evoke, to provoke a set of reactions from us as humans.
When we walk into a building, we get a feeling. With this space, where we have the huge vaulted ceilings, the tool that’s evoking that emotion is so powerful that you can’t help but notice it and be affected by it, but also notice that it is affecting you. There’s not a lot of subtlety in this Beaux Arts style. This style is specifically designed to inspire, to overwhelm, to impose. So, I look at the build- ing in terms of what it is to understand what makes this building stand up. The different ways that force is man- aged within the architecture actually has an effect on how we feel. But also because in this specific kind of work we plan to use these spaces in unorthodox ways. RR: This kind of work meaning site specific aerial work? SR: Yeah, I certainly have done other kinds of site spe- cific work, but I’m talking about doing aerial which is, you know, a wide umbrella of a term. Sometimes it involves ropes. Sometimes it just involves being in a place where humans can’t normally get to — unique access. It’s really all about drawing attention. In this context with Joanna, aerial is not just a trick, not only circus and spectacle. It is very carefully thought out to inhabit and embody the space in a unique way that’s positioned to draw attention to certain aspects that are aligned with the message of the piece.
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In Dance | May 2014 | dancersgroup.org
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