Published by Dancers' Group, In Dance is discourse and dialogue to unify, strengthen, and amplify.
NOV 2018
Versa-Style Dance Company, part of the SF International Hip Hop DanceFest, Nov 16-18 photo by George Simian
This past spring I was selected to serve on the jury for a civil trial here in San Francisco. It was a complex case involving privacy, legal malpractice, and battery. What followed was a three week trial that was at times emotionally overwhelming and at other times tedious. But while I was in that box as Juror #2, I did my utmost to listen and learn with a fair and open mind. Not an easy feat when the world outside the courtroom clumsily navi- gated conversations of racial and gender inequity. After all, it was impossible not to notice that the plaintiff was a young Latina woman and the accused: an established, white, male attorney. Race was the subject of the first of three Long Table con- versations organized by Hope Mohr Dance this fall, and of Sima Belmar’s outstanding In Practice column beginning on page 3. In dialogue with choreographer Gerald Casel, the two discuss intractable, embedded, and embodied rac- ism within our dance communities, as well as the discomfort (notably among white individuals) in even having the discus- sions about how to bring about progress. Casel wants even more tension; he seeks to acknowledge the racial dynamics in every room, class, rehearsal, and performance. As election day approaches this month – with historic numbers of women and people of color running – I have been reflecting on how conversations like Mohr’s Dancing Around Race and experiences such as serving as a juror are all a part of my civic engagement. While our systems of governing and structures of power are profoundly challenged, there are a few ways I can and will participate, to attempt to bring positive change – however incremental – to bear. I will emphatically support the arts and participate in its visibility, viability, and equity, as it is cultural ground upon which our society stands. Welcome by MICHELLE LYNCH REYNOLDS, PROGRAM DIRECTOR
Randy Reyes, part of FLACC, Nov 9-11 photo by Robbie Sweeny
I will be a careful juror when called upon. I will vote at every election. And I will encourage everyone reading who is able, to do the same. In addition to the officials running for office, there are local propositions that could impact our Bay Area dance ecosystem. For example, Prop E seeks to restore funding for arts and culture in San Francisco through the Hotel Tax by allocating a portion of its revenue to fund cultural equity programs for underserved communities, arts programming, and funding for Cultural Districts and Cultural Centers in San Francisco. In California, Prop 10 would repeal the 1995 law known as “Costa Hawkins” and enable municipalities around the state to have greater control over their local rent control reg- ulations. Proponents say that it might help lower the costs of renting around the state. Expanding beyond local, state, and even national politics, Bay Area artists highlighted within this issue of In Dance are traveling far distances to bring their perspectives and move- ment practices. Johnny Lopez and his TURFinc perform every chance they get, bringing Oakland Turf and other street styles to audiences worldwide. This November, they will be presented at San Francisco City Hall, as part of the Rotunda Dance Series. Dana Lawton brought her company and modern dance teaching to Thailand for the first time this past summer. And Dasha Chernova returns to Russia this month to continue Telaboratoria, movement workshops designed to be a place of support and healing for that nation’s LGBTQ+ individuals. Wherever your dance practice takes you, it inevitably and necessarily interplays with broader societal and political contexts. If you’re able, bring all that you glean from your practice and experiences to your vote this November.
Alonzo King LINES Ballet BFA Program, Nov 9-10 photo by Doug Kaye
San Francisco Taiko Dojo, part of International Taiko Festival, Nov 10-11 photo by Lori Ikeda-Lowe
DEAF’S IMPRISONED : A New Work by Antoine Hunter/ Urban Jazz Dance Company by JUSTIN EBRAHEMI
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WE WEAR MISAPPREHENSION on our sleeves as a humble offering of our humanity. This is about audience as much as it is performance. A work-in-progress of our own vantage. I prescribe this room as an inverse microcosm of Deaf diasporas. Antoine and performers communicate about how to begin; we sit in alerted silence. The ability to hear is trivial in kinesthetic constellations of knowing. I am taciturn and ignorant. “Your truth is my truth,” Antoine inti- mates about the themes. The music begins with an auxiliary connection. Vibrations alert the performers of their cues. Perform- ers Zahna Simon, Maim Mendelson and Kelly Garret then pave an emotional topog- raphy on white marley. A labored tedium, they crosshatch tally on the stage wall with unknown quantity. The dancers enter ver- berations of injustices with hands shack- led and bodies swirling until rationale is blurred. We hear deep violins and cellos underscoring audible thumps. The perform- ers stab, slit, and nurture their own weight only to let it dissipate on the stage. Later, performers peer over the ledge and holler to the audience with relentless eye contact. I hold back my innate applause. What’s my role as spectator? It seems I don’t belong here. In this room, right here, attempting to package and con- sume the thematic overtones of these works. A hearing man, I couldn’t begin to encapsu- late the realities of Deaf diaspora; when Deaf individuals are removed from their homeland and relegated to a prison system that is cruel, inhumane, and grossly maltreating. Deaf individuals are wrongly shot and killed by police when attempting to sign. A handcuff to a Deaf person occludes communication as a basic right. Elsewhere, in prisons nationwide, accom- modations like sign language interpreters, access to videophones and other assistive technology is neglected ubiquitously. Deaf inmates are assaulted by hearing inmates and guards alike; incorrect treatment by systems we refer to as correctional. Once victim to
In Deaf’s IMPRISONED , Antoine Hunter/Urban Jazz Dance Company wel- comes Deaf artists to bring their personal trajectories of oppression and audism to the stage. Through storytelling, dance, spoken word, film, music, acting, and silence, we encounter prison in the abstract via a series of artist vignettes. What’s the reality for a Deaf woman of color? Christopher Smith, a Deaf, black, queer actor with Multiple Sclerosis, describes his life as “no picnic at all.”What can hearing audiences learn from his reality? Antoine describes these works as “explor- ing the tension between Deaf diaspora and Deaf utopia.” He gives multiple examples. A Deaf child born in a hearing family, issued assistive technology in lieu of ASL and com- munity. A Deaf inmate who’s too afraid of being abused to sleep or bath. Such dia- sporic partitions from Deaf homelands are honest and naked in Deaf’s IMPRISONED . Utopia might be the polar opposite of these caustic realities, but paradise is a far cry from the narrative realities in Deaf’s IMPRISONED . These performative works deliver emotive pleas for justice. As a hearing spectator, it’s difficult to accept legal thresh- olds of equitable treatment as winning the battle; a matrix of intersectionalities com- plicates matters. Though we can begin by putting Deaf activism at the forefront of our social justice conversations in efforts to dis- mantle diasporic chains, both within prisons and outside the bars.
the justice system, the Deaf are subjected to the aptly dubbed prison within a prison. These are the themes surrounding Antoine Hunter/Urban Jazz Dance Company’s new work, Deaf’s IMPRISONED . Four distinct works investigate the realities of multiple Deaf artists, a Deaf black man in prison, a woman of color. The work was in part inspired by Joanna Haigood, Director of Zaccho Dance Theater. In 2011 Joanna invited Antoine to work on a dance piece entitled Dying While Black and Brown about African Americans on death row. During this process Antoine’s collabora- tors inquired about Deaf prisoners, catalyz- ing his research into the topic. “It pushed me to look deeper into the truth and encouraged me to work fast to get the message out,” Antoine tells me. “How many deaf people are in prison?” Kelly Garret reads from a cell phone in the work-in progress. The answer: thousands, though most prisons don’t track the number, and none of this information comes across my news feed. “My goal is for this work to instigate an inspired movement to correct and prevent wrongful convictions of Deaf individuals... and increase representation of the Deaf vic- tims in the justice, legal and corrections pro- fessions,” says Antoine. The dancers swivel limbs endlessly like clockwork. The labored exercise looks pain- ful and then becomes grotesque as grimaces indicate a quality of self-sabotage. Their hands make movements I can’t read. Do their bodies, too? Salient to the hearing view- ers, we inquire, Is there a level of commu- nication that we’re not able to join? Then I remember, this daily dissonance is a perilous reality to the Deaf community. A handcuff to a Deaf person occludes communication as a basic right.
CONTENTS
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ON THIS PAGE / Urban Jazz Dance Company by Justin Ebrahemi 3 / In Practice: Dancing Around Race with Gerald Casel by Sima Belmar 4 / Tango Con*Fusión by Lanny Udell 5 / Speak by Aura Fischbeck 6 / November Performance Calendar 8 / Did You Know? Dasha Chernova 11 / Dana Lawton Dances by Michael Lupacchino 12 / A Conversation with Johnny Lopez by Aries Jordan
JUSTIN EBRAHEMI is the Communications & Engagement Manager at CounterPulse.
CounterPulse and Antoine Hunter/ Urban Jazz Dance Company present Deaf’s IMPRISONED : Nov 8-11, CounterPulse, SF. counterpulse.org
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IN PRACTICE: Dancing Around Race with Gerald Casel by SIMA BELMAR
GC: I wanted more tension. And every time I asked for it, it felt forced. There was all this tension in the rehearsal room but also all this avoidance, which is what maybe happened on stage. Also, trying to harness the ideas and themes in the writing and put them into a compositional form was really hard. I would generate material, they would generate material, and after Splin- ters in Our Ankles [the first of the trilogy that includes Cover Your Mouth and Not About Race Dance ] choreography felt like a colonizing force because I’m always teach- ing them and they’re learning from me; I kept making movement for them to follow. So for a long time I didn’t dance I just gave the dancers instructions. I wanted some- thing different, a little bit more of me danc- ing, writing together, developing scores or improvisational ideas. But because of the nature of what we’re talking about, it didn’t feel organic or flowing as I’d imagined it would be. SB: We talked about dance legacies inscribed in the body at the public gather- ing. What dance legacies are inscribed in yours? GC: I started as a hip hop/jazz baby in Oak- land/San Jose. I had such a classical com- positional training at Juilliard, with Doris Rudko who assisted Louis Horst. When I left Juilliard I didn’t want any of that, I wanted to practice “release” techniques. I met Ralph Lemon and did his Folk Dances for my senior jury, which was really a departure. But I felt at home in that material. That’s when I met Michael Clark and Stephen Petronio. I would say I borrowed a lot of tools from Stephen borrowing from Trisha [Brown]. That lineage is very clear. I’ve written about it, processed it a lot. Some days I want to shake it out and have nothing to do with it, and some days it just feels like it’s so deep I can’t undo it. And that’s fine. Juilliard was richly diverse, at least my class. Not the teachers—they were mostly white (except for Indrani – who was my Bharatanatyam teacher, and Carolyn Adams, who taught Paul Taylor’s technique). Over time, I started to be a little more aware of who was the population that follows the post-Judson, Stephen, Trisha lineage. And I realized that I was picking up someone else’s history—even though it was in my body it didn’t reflect me. So when I moved back to the Bay Area, I felt, this is where I felt things shift.. But I still notice that the choreographic tools that I’m seeing on stage in the Bay Area still look the same. I can’t do that—I have to figure out what am I resisting, what am I highlighting, and what I feel encumbered by. I look around at positions of power in dance organizations, studios, companies, artistic directors, boards of directors, and they are mostly white people in the Bay Area. If I’m looking at my own history, not just my dance history but my ancestry [Casel came to the US from the Philippines in 1978], it doesn’t have anything to do with the reality that I’m seeing so why am I assimilating into a culture that I don’t want to reflect back, to define me? SB: So an immanent critique of dance train- ing and a confrontation with racial politics in the US drive your creative process these days. What sort of relationship between the two do you see in the Bay Area?
To be fair, there were efforts to turn the conversation towards specific dance-related issues. There was a question about decolo- nizing dance training, to which David Her- rera, one of the members of the Dancing Around Race artist cohort, said, “It’s about getting rid of stuff in our bodies passed down by teachers and mentors.” Hope Mohr asked about how we determine criteria for good art, which launched a discussion about mastery and virtuosity. Yayoi Kam- bara, another member of the cohort, said we need to ask ourselves how we value what is good, beautiful, or true. Jess Curtis takes a performance studies approach, asking what a dance does, “Who does it change?” And Jacqueline Shea-Murphy pointed out that terms like mastery, virtuosity, innovation are inscribed in a system, and that the modes of doing things, like gathering energy, “can’t be sensed until you’ve been with them a long time…a different kind of sensing means the terms may not be the terms.” I didn’t ask my questions at the gather- ing, but I did ask them when I got together with Gerald Casel a week after. We talked about the conversation and about the work he showed at ODC Theater in June, the premiere of Cover Your Mouth When You Smile , and a preview of Not About Race Dance . I wanted to know why he had said at the gathering that Not About Race Dance failed to reveal whiteness through structures as he had hoped it would. I wanted to know how he mobilized Homi Bhabha’s concept of colonial mimicry practically in the creation of the dance. Gerald was unflinchingly hon- est, forthright, humble, thoughtful—another magical conversation with another magical Bay Area dance artist. Sima Belmar: Dancing Around Race did a great job talking about race and art/cul- ture more broadly, but the dance expertise in the room wasn’t tapped. Aruna talked about visual arts, and institutionally, there are some similarities. But even with post-
ON SEPTEMBER 20 OF THIS YEAR, approxi- mately fifty Bay Area dance folks gathered for a Long Table discussion at Human- ist Hall in Oakland as part of Hope Mohr Dance’s Bridge Project 2018 Community Engagement Residency, Dancing Around Race . The conversation was the first of three public gatherings organized by the residen- cy’s Lead Artist, Gerald Casel, and featured Aruna D’Souza, art historian and author of Whitewalling: Art, Race & Protest in Three Acts . D’Souza is a brilliant thinker who spoke eloquently about racial inequity in the visual art world, and the Long Table format afforded participants the space and language to discuss the question of racial equity in Bay Area dance. But in a room full of choreogra- phers, dancers, dance administrators, dance presenters, and dance writers, we somehow managed to dance around the subject—not of race, but of dance. Maybe it was because the invited inter- locutor came from the visual art world and not the dance world. I’ve long thought that 20th century Western concert dance dis- course struck a devil’s bargain by position- ing itself first within discourses of visual art (e.g. the Clement Greenberg club), and then within the conceptual frameworks of literary theory (beginning with Susan Foster’s Read- ing Dancing ), to legitimize and make itself legible to a broader public. Although many writers work to find language to describe “the different ways dance does what it does” (as dance scholar Jacqueline Shea-Murphy, author of The People Have Never Stopped Dancing , put it at the gathering), when it comes to talking about what dance artists do that constitutes expert knowledge, I’ve often found a strange reticence. For example, when Judith Butler was invited to speak about gender and perfor- mativity at the July 18, 2013 Dance Dis- course Project, I asked a question about what dance as a practice may offer as a way to explore or understand the very concept of gender performativity, given that both take embodied behavior as their matter. I remem- ber the moderator, Julie Phelps, dismissing my question as somehow reifying of dance as a movement practice wholly unlike the everyday embodied practices that Butler had been discussing. Didn’t I know that it was woefully unhip to talk about dance as an art form with unique characteristics? How awfully modernist of me! Had I not read my French theory? But that was not my point. I don’t regard Capital D-dance as a monolith. My ques- tion had to do with what people who devote their lives to dancing, making dances, sup- porting dance, and even viewing dance have to teach the rest of the world. The guid- ing questions for the Dancing Around Rac e conversation were: What obstacles get in the way of racial equity in the Bay Area dance community? What does it look/feel like to have racial equity in dance? What does the future look like? How do we get there?—all great questions. But I wanted to ask, How might dance practices, in their medium-spec- ificity and cultural context, help us address practical questions of how to cultivate racial equity? And what are dance’s blind spots to racial equity? It seems to me that any analysis of how the Bay Area dance com- munity (or dance communities, as choreog- rapher Byb Chanel Bibene rightly pointed out) can improve racial equity requires a deep acknowledgement and investigation of the methodologies and discourses that are grounded in their disciplinary expertise.
Gerald Casel: I noticed that there were very few dancers there, like maybe a handful, maybe five. There were choreographer-danc- ers, but just dancers? The people who take class? I didn’t see very many. To me that was an indication of something. Maybe we need to reach out more to that specific person and make sure that we’re talking to them and they’re totally part of this conversation. I agree that we really didn’t go into the weeds. I feel like there was a hesitation on the part of folks. Since I started working on Not About Race Dance , I’ve felt this huge reti- cence, people holding back, even my closest dance allies and colleagues in the studio. GC: When I started that piece there were four white women and me. And there was certainly kinetic hesitation present in the room; there was white fragility. I asked the dancers to write about instances in which they felt racialized. They either withdrew from the process and were totally silent, or it snuck out in small increments. Or they talked about it in other people’s experience, as an observer of racialization. “I’m asking everyone to write a statement of equity.” —GERALD CASEL SB: What did the experience of reticence look like?
GERALD CASEL DANCE / photos by Robbie Sweeny
One of the missions of the project is to mark white- ness, to make it visible. Neil Greenberg’s Not About AIDS Dance (1994) was highly celebrated. It was an all white cast. And that was the same year as Bill T. Jones’ Still/Here , which was massacred by [critic] Arlene Croce. It was mostly black and POC, different shapes and sizes. There felt to be a
modern dance inhabiting the white spaces of the museum more and more these days, the visual art, museum model of reflection feels lacking. When we go to an art exhibit we’re not watching the artist’s labor in real time. The body of the artist is simply not on display in the same way the dancing body is. The artist alone in her atelier is simply not the usual structure of rehearsal. The way the artist feels making sculpture or painting is simply not the stuff of art history. (Though it should be.) Dance is a discipline, an inter- disciplinary discipline to be sure, but a dis- cipline nonetheless. And its workers know things that other kinds of cultural workers do not know. Why are we so loathe to share our expertise?
total discrepancy. I was there [dancing with Stephen Petronio] in 1994 and actually saw both premieres. I wasn’t really conscious of the racial politics and so part of Not About Race Dance is trying to acknowledge the racial politics of that time and to see how it’s become a persistent legacy. SB: But at the public gathering you said were unhappy with how Not About Race Dance turned out. Why do you feel that way?
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TANGO CON*FUSIÓN: Not Your Mother’s Tango by LANNY UDELL
“While remaining true to its heritage, this is not the tango of yesteryear; it is not even the tango of yesterday; it is the tango of today.” —TED VIVIANI I PRODUCER, EXTREME TANGO THERE’S NOTHING CONFUSING about the vision of Tango Con*Fusión. San Francisco’s all- women dance company is laser-focused on building on the tradition of the century-old dance. The group of eight artists with eclec- tic backgrounds, skillfully bends the rules to explore the boundaries of Argentine Tango. From the beginning, they have been inspired by, and have worked closely with, local and internationally known tango musi- cians. “The genre of tango music is vast,” says dancer/choreographer Debbie Goodwin, “and we’ve been fortunate to work with some great musicians, many of them women.” How it all began The women originally came together in 2004 to “play” and explore the traditional bound- aries of Argentine Tango. It was a concept Debbie had thought about and nurtured for some time. “One day Debbie called me and said she had this vision of a group of women coming together to work in a collaborative effort of choreography and dance,” says Christy Cote, one of the original founders and current co- director along with Debbie. “It would be more than just tango, but a mixing together of different dance genres.” Debbie’s idea was to have dancers who came from modern, ballet or jazz, so it would be a fusion of these genres. “They had to be strong, independent women and be able to both lead and follow,” she explains. In addition to Debbie and Christy, the founding members included Pier Voulkos, Chelsea Eng and Michelle Gorre. To get started, they held a two-hour workshop with Brigitta Winkler, founder of the New York company, TangoMujer, and then they were on their way. “We decided to meet once a week and see what would happen,” says Debbie. Little did they know how far their concept would take them. In their first major performance piece in 2004, Sola , the violinist Vanessa Montgomery accompanied the dancers onstage as they por- trayed one woman’s struggle to find her place in the world. The “voice” of the violin soul- fully underscored the contemplative mood of the dance. “Having Vanessa onstage with us really inspired the dancers,” recalls Christy. Two years later, Tango Con*Fusión per- formed in Leading Ladies of Tango produced
Tango Con* Fusión / photo by Genevieve Parker
by Ted Viviani at the Herbst Theater in San Francisco. In keeping with the theme, Ted brought in musical director and pianist, Polly Ferman, who assembled an all-women orchestra for the occasion. “Collaborating with them was a won- derful experience,” says Polly, founder of the all-female multi-media music and dance company, GlamourTango. “In 2009, Tango Con*Fusión performed with us at the Logan Auditorium in Chicago. They are wonderful artists, creators and friends. What else can you ask for?” Tango composer and lyricist Débora Sim- covich recalls working with Debbie and Christy in their 2015 performance with Orquesta Victoria at The Playhouse in San Anselmo. Says Débora: "Having Christy Cote and Debbie Good- win dance in our show was wonderful. I remember, in particular, their intuition when they danced my tango, Hermana Mía , which I wrote in memory of one of my sisters who was recently deceased. Without any reference from me, they decided to dance in long night- gowns (one in white and one in black) and infused a sister-like spirit into their choreog- raphy. I was amazed by their acute perception of the real history that inspired this tango!” How they work Even though Debbie and Christy are the company’s primary choreographers, they solicit input from all members. “Each dancer brings her strength to the
from a place of deep connection, from within both a tango perspective and a broader arts mindset.” Over the last decade, Tango Con*Fusión has performed many times with the Bay Area’s Trio Garufa. “They always bring a fresh perspective and interesting approach to the art of Argentine Tango,” says Garufa’s Adrian Jost. “It is exciting for us to see how they will interpret our music and what story they will tell with their dancing.” Fresh from their European Debut While the company has done seven tours to Buenos Aires, in July 2018 they made their European debut in Berlin where they per- formed and taught in the Berlin Queer Tango Festival. Audiences were engaged as soon as the dancers, dressed as 1930’s dandies in men’s suits complete with fedoras, came on stage to dance El Chamuyo . “All week long, people came up to us to tell us how much they liked the show, espe- cially the humor in the choreography,” says Debbie. They also presented a new work, Derecho Viejo . Choreographed by Christy Cote and Rose Vierling, the dance demonstrates how Tango Con*Fusión uses gender-bending cre- ativity to transform the iconic male/female stereotype. Performing in Buenos Aires The company has had many successful appearances in Buenos Aires, beginning in 2008 when they were invited to perform dur- ing the Queer Tango Festival. “The organizer, Mariana DoCampo, invited our group as an inspiration to get more women dancing as leaders,” says Deb- bie. “While the men in the Queer Tango scene were dancing with each other, very few women in Buenos Aires were doing so and were even looked down upon.” As a company of women dancers, they didn’t always find such a warm welcome. Debbie recalls when, in 2010, they were invited to perform in the CITA (Congreso Internacional de Tango Argentino) stage show. “One of the male dancers refused to perform if we were dancing, so we were uninvited,” she says. “We weren’t sure if it was because we were women or American, or both.” “The director was left with no choice but to ask us to perform at the milonga in lieu of the more important theater show,” says Christy. “It was a huge disappointment for our company, but we made the most of it.” “Tango Con*Fusión is an amazing exam- ple of what a great idea combined with effort and talent can accomplish,” says Max Masri, producer/composer/singer of Buenos Aires-based Tanghetto. “Our award-winning music is not your mother’s tango, and they
were able to put forth a great choreography yet have the innovative approach to suit the blend of music and dance to be performed at such emblematic theatres as Zitarrosa (in Montevideo) and Salon Canning (in Buenos Aires) full of tango purists, and the Queer Milonga full of progresistas.” Injecting Social Commentary into the Dance “As a company of women dancers, we like to work with themes that affect women, not only in tango but in life in general,” explains Debbie. Some examples: Ladies in Waiting , performed to Trio Gar- ufa’s Desde El Alma , explores the dilemma women face when there’s a surplus of follow- ers at the milonga. In the piece, frustrated by the lack of male leaders, the dancers break the traditional code and dance with another woman rather than be stuck on the sidelines. In Escualo , Tango Con*Fusión takes on an unusual topic: the corset. More than just an item of lingerie, they portray it as a sym- bol of the repression and restraint of women. In 2017, the company presented their the- ater production, Sex, Women and Tango at the San Francisco International Arts Festival. “The mere mention of Argentine Tango con- jures up the iconic image of the macho-male and hyper-feminine female,” says Debbie, who directed the show. “ Sex, Women and Tango challenges this outdated image.” In this production, the women explore issues such as body image, street harassment, same sex couples and social and economic equality. Looking ahead For their 2019 season, Tango Con*Fusion is creating a new work featuring live music by Bay Area composer/musician Charles Gorc- zynski of Redwood Tango. The company will celebrate its 15th anni- versary with a gala fundraiser on February 2, at Alma del Tango in San Anselmo, featuring a sneak preview of their new work in prog- ress. The final piece will debut Saturday, May 25, at the San Francisco International Arts Festival, with live music by Redwood Tango. In July, the company returns to Berlin to teach and perform. Tours to Seattle and Port- land are also on the agenda. Tango Con*Fusión looks forward to con- tinuing to grow artistically and expanding its presence in San Francisco, the USA and the world. According to Debbie, “We are intent on delving deeper into issues affecting the
group. The energy is wonder- ful when we work together,” Christy says. The dancers start by listen- ing to, and understanding, the music. “We listen over and over again,” says Christy, “until we start to see how the music is formed, what moods are cre- ated, and what we feel in the music. Then we start to create the dance.” “Tango music evokes a range of emotion…passion, drama, conflict,” Debbie adds. “Usually choreography comes forward that reflects the mood in that moment in the song.” They often collaborate with local musicians while develop- ing a work. “Collaborating with the women of Tango Con*Fusión on original material has been a pleasure,” says Charles Gor- czynski of Redwood Tango. “They intuitively connect with the heart of the music and highlight the personal aspects
position of women.” tangoconfusion.com
LANNY UDELL is a freelance writer based in San Rafael. e: lanny@copywhiz.com
Tango Con* Fusión / photo courtesy of artist
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unify strengthen amplify unify strengthen a plify unify strengthen a plify unify strengthen a plify
44 Gough Street, Suite 201 San Francisco, CA 94103 www.dancersgroup.org
musings
speak
(or perhaps just a list of questions) on the culture of rehearsal, creative process, dancer agency and score based practices
by AURA FISCHBECK
AS A MOVEMENT-BASED ARTIST, my work is sus- tained and perpetuated by the dynamic inter- change which occurs between practices of noticing, investigating, and distilling. I’m an avid observer of the human condition posing as a choreographer. I’m currently interested in researching strategies which undermine habitual choice making, and inviting ambi- guity and comfortability with the unknown as a deliberate performative state. I’m inter- ested in framing the activities of the moving body with an allowance of its multiplici- tous nature. Along these lines I find myself increasingly interested in score-based prac- tices as a way to generate material as well as a way to tune and train my body and mind. I define score as the environment which creates the conditions for tracking a direct relationship with space, time, the senses, the materials, and one’s perceptual experience of this interchange. The score is alive. When I say the word “score” to myself, it automatically conjures a visual image of a web. Within this web or network I cultivate a practice of mapping particulars as land- marks toward which I can tune my percep- tual experience. There are particulars that might include directions for the body, the senses, directions in space and time. I have a sense of working with score as a simulta- neous experience of micro and macro. It’s a way of getting in touch with nature, not as an imagined or projected experience or place outside of myself, but as an experience that, like the natural world, doesn’t desire to be anything other than what it is. I’m look- ing to create conditions that allow for this. A score is a structure on which to rest or lean into and in so doing perhaps access an experience of a decentralized self. It isn’t me that I’m doing or showing. It’s the score. Yes, I’m responsible for my participation in it or in relationship to it, but the yielding to the container of the score grants a kind of dis- association from the need to assert an iden- tity in the usual way. Then another kind of being or doing is possible. In my experience the agency of each performer is amplified through directives that invite individual aes- thetics, choice. A tuning to the present that allows for our perception of what we are performing, or practicing performing, to be inherently inclusive of the unknown. The question of “what is choreography” is not a new one or a particularly interest- ing one, but because there isn’t one answer to the question, rather than invite an answer it invites musings of a multitude of possible answers to the question. Namely, there are an infinite number of ways to construct a dance, and it is useful to re-examine and re-investi- gate this terrain with each creative process. What does it mean to get in a room with people and move together with the intention of “making” something? How does the cul- ture we create in rehearsal process impact the “finished product”? It’s a strange phenom- enon—the rehearsal process—and for most dance artists the time spent in rehearsal greatly outnumbers the time spent in performance. And yet, to the greater public, this notion of rehearsal culture remains mysterious, and even to many dance artists laden with a his- tory of presumed roles, power structures, and behaviors. As a dancer you commit your time, your skill, your intelligence, and your physical attendance in service of the project. This isn’t questioned. It’s a given. Dancers expect this. But what does it actually mean? And what is being assumed? I find myself questioning: what is the nature of the assumptions of the dancer/choreographer relationship and how can we as artists be in more active contempla- tion of the culture we engender in our cre- ative processes? What do we want to do here? Why are we here? Are our reasons symbiotic?
In my current process I have felt my notions of what it means to be productive have shifted. I wanted to spend time with these people (Arletta Anderson, Deborah Karp, Phoenicia Pettyjohn, and Karla Quin- tero) doing and being and talking and mov- ing. I have felt the space of this creative pro- cess as a field in which to have exchanges – intellectual, physical, emotional. As we move closer to the performance event, I find myself considering how the end “product” of the dance is somehow a container or catch all for all the time we’ve spent together. And the residue of all the time spent, regardless of the material we have distilled into the piece, is present in the work as held by each person’s sense of history and memory, and the relation- ality between us. The piece exists as a docu- ment of our cumulative time spent together, a sort of spatio-temporal living bricolage. My desire in making this current work was to direct in such a way that in this con- stellation of people each person is very much individuated and distinct in the world of the piece. Within this environment we are consensually co-existing. How can each woman be navigating the multiplicity of her own inner world(s) and bodily expressions and also be in this collective activity? How does the environment, the sound score and eventually the presence of an audience sup- port this? Then there is the question of how the body is “prepared” (like an instrument) to perform the work. This brings to mind John Cage’s prepared pianos, that were made to alter the possible sounds and combinations of sounds available from the instrument. To me this is also what we do in rehearsal – it’s not just about practicing the material, but about cul- tivating a shared culture that is specific to this particular dance and we are all innately co-creators in this. How can our rehearsal practices prepare us, or tune us not to attach to a previous precious iteration but to allow for multiple iterations to co-exist and thus inform one another as multiple but equally valued experiences? My work with score and scoring has helped facilitate this possibility. I believe there is limitless potential for each creative process to be an opportunity for reinvention and rejuvenation, brought forth through a continuous reinvigoration of our rehearsal and performance practices. I don’t know if I even know what all of this means yet, but even just the curiosity and the acknowledgement of the need to practice this kind of examination feels radical and necessary. AURA FISCHBECK is a San Francisco based move- ment artist, teacher and writer. She creates dance theater performance events which investigate and communicate the bodies intelligence and reflect the complexity of the contemporary human experi- ence. Her work seeks to examine the intersection of movement, language and culture as a bodily poetics. Aura Fischbeck’s choreography has been presented nationally in series, festivals and shared programs since 2001. Aura is a 2nd generation dance artist. A Philadelphia native, Aura Fischbeck received her earliest dance training from her mother Brigitta Her- rmann, a student of Mary Wigman and co-founder and co-artistic director of Group Motion Dance Com- pany, and her father Manfred Fischbeck, co-founder and co-artistic director of the Group Motion Dance Company. She holds a B.A. in dance and poetry from the Naropa University where she studied under Barbara Dilley, among others. aurafischbeckdance.org
Aura Fischbeck Dance / video stills by Mark McBeth
matter how tightly prescribed it may be. So then it might follow that a dance is a type of communal property. I do believe that as artists we are made by and evolve through our making activities. How does the rehearsal process function as a microcosm for the way we wish the world to function? Often in my experience with cre- ating new work the time spent in rehearsal versus performance is probably 30 to 1. So what are these minutes, hours, days, weeks, months comprised of and how do they have meaning in and of themselves regardless or even in spite of the outcome of the final product, AKA “the performance”? The poli- tics we espouse in the world are reflected in the way we operate in our most intimate environments, and I include the rehearsal space to be in this category. Can we employ practices in our rehearsal processes that blow open conventions in the same way we’d like our work to function?
Who are we serving and who is being served? What is the line between design and domi- nation? Who gets to choose? Does everyone in the room feel empowered? Valued? Who ultimately owns the work if it’s been created collectively? In dialogue with friend and col- league Christy Funsch (with whom I have spent countless hours in creative process and dialogue), she put it aptly: “Rehearsal culture and the state of the working room are too often assumed to be agreed-upon constructs... . . . What if we were as bold and imaginative in our methodologies as we are with our content? Who makes the work, who is the work, where does the work reside if not in the bodies and minds of those enacting it?” Dances cannot be relics or museum pieces as they are not objects but rather lived expe- riences. Even the most historical dances, in the performance of them, are created anew by the bodies enacting the choreography, no
Aura Fischbeck Dance presents DUSK: Nov 9-11, Joe Goode Annex, SF. joegoode.org
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calendar NOV 2018 VISIT THE ONLINE COMMUNITY CALENDAR, to find additional events and to submit a performance. dancersgroup.org
Bobbi Jene Smith and Keir GoGwilt ODC Theater, SF
With Care explores ideas of care and caregiv- ing through music, dance, and spoken word. Conceived as a drama between two twinned characters, a caregiver and a wounded spirit, With Care is a physical investigation of vacancy, loss, and passion that dissolves the boundary between musician and dancer. Thu-Sat, Nov 1-3, 8pm, $30. odc.dance
Rotunda Dance Series: TURFinc San Francisco City Hall, SF
Presenting Oakland-based street dance company TURFinc in a performance featur- ing local and international turfers. Fri, Nov 2, 12pm, FREE. dancersgroup.org/rotunda
ODC/Dance ODC Dance Commons, SF
Unplugged is a recurring platform offering a look into the creative process of ODC’s cho- reographers. This is a behind-the-scenes look into the process of a collaboration with ODC’s New York-based Resident Choreographer, Kate Weare, and ODC Founder and Artistic Director, Brenda Way. Fri, Nov 2, 7pm, $25. odc.dance
Abhinaya Dance Company, Nov 3-4 / Photo by Swagato Basumallick
a residency program of SAFEhouse for the Performing Arts. Sat-Sun, Nov 3-4, 7pm, $15-20. safehousearts.org
Drove V Tenderloin Museum, SF
Social Muscle Club CounterPulse, SF
A twice-annual evening curated by Chlo & Co Dance where Bay Area artists are invited to create work in response a theme. Drove V’s theme is “preservation.” Chlo & Co Dance will be joined by Bellwether Dance Project, Malia Byrne, Michael D. Lee, pateldanceworks, requisitedance, and visual artist Dierdre Wein- berg. Fri-Sat, Nov 2-3, 7pm, $10 suggested donation. chlocodance.com Funsch Dance Experience Dance Mission Theater, SF Bay Area dance partners Christy Funsch and Nol Simonse co-direct their first full-length group work, Golden Bull , featuring an all-male, multi-ethnic cast. Original score by Aaron Gold and performances by Hien Huynh, Rogelio Lopez, Andrew Merrell, Victor Talledos, and Erik Wagner. Fri-Sat, Nov 2-3, 8pm; Sun, Nov 4, 7pm, $20. funschdance.org
Eating, drinking, freedom, chaos. The happy mix of happening, party and social sculpture. An evening of giving and taking in a cabaret atmosphere. Sun, Nov 4, 5pm, FREE. counterpulse.org
Afro Urban Society, Nov 10-17 / Photo by Lanee Mecca
Estas Tonne with Sergei Polunin Palace of Fine Arts, SF
San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival Auditions Palace of Fine Arts, SF Artists performing a wide variety of dances and music from around the world, hoping for a spot in the 2019 Festival. Come for an hour or stay all day. Sat, Nov 3, 11am-6:30pm; Sun, Nov 4, 11am-5:30pm; Sat, Nov 10, 11am-7pm, $10. sfethnicdancefestival.org Abhinaya Dance Company School of Arts and Culture at the Mexican Heritage Plaza, San Jose Stories of Justice explores historical and con- temporary stories of resistance, social justice and resilience in the stylistic vocabulary of Bharatanatyam. Sat, Nov 3, 7pm; Sun, Nov 4,
Kathy Mata Ballet Alonzo King LINES Dance Center, SF Celebrating 30 years, the show will kick off with exciting new pieces, followed by the musical, Just Another Ordinary Day , cho- reographed by company members, with live accompaniment by pianists Lucy Hudson and Michael Dolman. Sat, Nov 3, 3:30pm, FREE. kathymataballet.org Featuring gallery installations, screenings, and performances, Intersections explores the surprising, inspiring, and challenging crossings of art, science, and technology as part of The Leonardo Convening. Sat, Nov 3, 6pm, $20. codame.com NewGround Dance Theatre AUM Center, San Mateo A blend of dance and live vocals that weave together some of the greatest works in music from the 40s to the 70s. Sat, Nov 3, 7pm, $20-25. artsunitymovement.com CODAME Fort Mason Center, SF
The Breath of Sound features bold guitar music with special guest Sergei Polunin, the youngest male dancer ever to be made a principal with the Royal Ballet. Tue, Nov 6, 7pm, $35-90. palaceoffinearts.org Urban Jazz Dance Company CounterPulse, SF CounterPulse presents new work on what it means to be living in a “prison within a prison” as a deaf person. Performers will be using sign language, spoken text, dance (modern and jazz), film, music, and silence to look at lives of deaf people. Thu-Sun, Nov 8-11, 8pm, $15-35. counterpulse.org Alonzo King LINES Ballet BFA Program Angelico Concert Hall at Dominican University of CA, San Rafael BFA students perform four new works cho- reographed by faculty and guest artist Alice Klock. Fri, Nov 9, 7pm, Sat, Nov 10, 3pm, $10. linesballet.org
4pm, $15-50. abhinaya.org
RAW presents Jyoti Vaidee and Lalli Venkat SAFEhouse Arts, SF New work by Jyoti Vaidee and Lalli Venkat. Sponsored by RAW (resident artist workshop),
Bobbi Jene Smith and Keir GoGwilt, Nov 1-3 / Photo by Matthew Placek
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Nora Sharp Shawl-Anderson Dance Center, Berkeley Small Boobs is a performance solo by Chicago-based artist Nora Sharp, offered out of curiosity around the intertwined follies of gender and relationship. Fri-Sat, Nov 9-10, 8pm, $15-25. norasharp.com RAW presents Jenna Valez and Farrah McAdam SAFEhouse Arts, SF Jenna Valez & Dancers presents I Tried To Put It Away using fast paced and innovative movement. New work by Farrah McAdam will explore the prefix “em-“ through the lens of POC and WOC movement artists. Words such as empower, embody, embrace, emblaze, empathy, embark, emerge, emotion, emulate, emit will be used to research and inspire a work where the dancers stand tall, proud and fierce. Sponsored by RAW (resident artist workshop), a residency program of SAFE- house for the Performing Arts. Fri-Sat, Nov
9-10, 8pm, $15-20. safehousearts.org
Diamano Coura West African Dance Company, Nov 24 / Photo by RJ Muna
Molly Rose-Williams & Co. Shawl-Anderson Dance Center, Berkeley What can bodies moving together on stage teach us about the actual labor of social move- ments? New dance work created by Molly Rose-Williams with Chelsea Brown, Galen R ogers, Ky Woodward, and Jesse Wiener. Sat, Nov 17, 6 & 8pm; Sun, Nov 18, 7pm, $15-25. mollyrosewilliams.com Diamano Coura West African Dance Company Malonga Casquelourd Center for the Arts, Oakland Power Through Tradition pays homage to the traditional initiation dances of Liberia West Africa along with a debut ballet inspired by the unique folklore and present day customs of the villages located in Oussouye, Cassa- mance. Sat, Nov 24, 8pm, $17-30. diamanocoura.org
Aura Fischbeck Dance Joe Goode Annex, SF
10th anniversary performances of DUSK , a dance for the time when the light is fading. DUSK considers the reality of the body as it exists in relative states of obscurity and vis- ibility, ambiguity and transformation. Fri-Sun,
Nov 9-11, 4:30pm, $10-20. aurafischbeckdance.org
FLACC 2018: BREAK(through) Dance Mission Theater, SF
The Festival of Latin American Contemporary Choreographers celebrates five years of fea- turing resistant, queer, indigenous and hybrid choreographers based in the U.S. and Latin America . Featuring: Arts & Above (Cuba/ Missoula, MT), Fabiola Guillén (Puebla, MX), Marisa & Maribel Plasencia (Santa Barbara, CA); and local artists: Adrian Arias, David Herrera, Vanessa Sanchez, Diana Lara, Liz Du- ran Boubion, Randy Reyes. Fri-Sat, Nov 9-10, 8pm; Sun, Nov 11, 6pm, $20-30. flaccdanza.org
Amenti MoveMeant, part of SF International Hip Hop DanceFest, Nov 16-17 / Photo by Ruben Manusama
International Taiko Festival San Mateo Performing Arts Center, San Mateo 50th Anniversary festival featuring Grandmas- ter Seiichi Tanaka and the San Francisco Taiko Dojo with special guests from Japan, Wako Daiko, Taiyo Onoda (KODO). Sat, Nov 10, 7pm; Sun, Nov 11, 3pm, $45. sftaiko.com USF Dance Ensemble University of San Francisco Studio Theater on Lone Mountain, SF Original choreography by Dazaun Soleyn, Kara Davis, Eric Garcia, and Arletta Anderson/Adam Smith. Guest Artist is dana e. fitchett. Dance Film by Amie Dowling, Austin Forbord, Reggie Daniels and Natalie Greene. Thu-Sat, Nov 15- 17, 8pm, $5-10. usfca.edu
SMUIN Ballet Lesher Center for the Arts, Walnut Creek & Sunset Center, Carmel by the Sea The Christmas Ballet features two acts with classical ballet, tap, jazz, and swing. Lesher Center for the Arts: Fri, Nov 16, 7:30pm; Sat, Nov 17, 2pm & 7:30, $25-82. Sunset Center: Fri, Nov 30, 7:30pm, Sat, Dec 1, 2pm, $58-79. smuinballet.org Merging elements of Brazilian urban dance and capoeira with hip-hop, modern dance, and circus arts in its break-neck produc- tions. Pixel features dancers in an interactive environment of light and lasers. Fri-Sat, Nov 16-17, 8pm, $30-68, prices subject to change. calperformances.org AIRspace presents New Queer Performance SAFEhouse Arts, SF Featuring 2018 AIRspace Artists: Jøse Abad, Maria David aka Zsa Zsa Garbàge, Anand Kalra. Sponsored by AIRspace, a residency program of SAFEhouse for the Performing Arts. Fri-Sat, Nov 16-17, 8pm, $15-20. safehousearts.org San Francisco International Hip Hop DanceFest Palace of Fine Arts, SF Micaya presents the 20th Anniversary Dance- Fest, featuring 14 dance companies from around the world. Fri-Sat, Nov 16-17, 8pm; Sun, Nov 18, 12pm, 5pm & 7:30pm, $25-55. sfhiphopdancefest.com Compagnie Käfig Zellerbach Hall, Berkeley
RAW presents Europa Baker-Brathwaite and Emelia Martinez Brumbaugh SAFEhouse Arts, SF
Afro Urban Society Flight Deck, Oakland
Based on personal stories and a timeline of Afro urban music from way back to the future, What Had Happened Was ... time travels, asking, “Where did we come from? Where are we going?” Created by Nkeiruka Oruche and directed by Tossie Long. Sat, Nov 10, 7pm; Fri-Sat, Nov 16-17, 8pm, $30. afrourbansociety.com
Europa Baker-Brathwaite’s tick is a multidis- ciplinary performance piece exploring time, chronic illness and mental health as it pertains to the black queer body. Also presenting new work by Emelia Martinez Brumbaugh. Spon- sored by RAW (resident artist workshop), a residency program of SAFEhouse for the Performing Arts. Fri-Sat, Nov 30-Dec 1, 8pm, $15-20. safehousearts.org
Kathy Mata Ballet, Nov 3 / Photo by Jennifer V. Zee
USF Dance Ensemble, Nov 15-17 / Photo by Tony Nguyen
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