CONTENTS
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WELCOME by BHUMI PATEL, Guest Editor
RECENTLY, I’VE BEEN OBSESSED WITH HOME . T he obses- sion runs deep through my veins. In thinking about why I’ve come to this, I think about temporarily living in a new place away frommy home of seven years; about the ways in which many of us are tentatively making our way back into the world after being home for two years; about my long standing interest in digging into the ongoing practice of making my body the home I have always looked for, connecting both with ancestors and futures. Finding and
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re-finding home in our disoriented states comes through in the articles for this issue. In the “before times,” physical home was my soft landing place after a day of driving from gig to gig. It was the place where I made dinner and had tea parties with friends. It was somewhere that I spent little, but meaningful, time. This small, second-floor apartment in Oakland is the place I’ve lived the longest since child- hood, and soon, it’ll be a place that I lived longer than the house in which I grew up. As a queer person, I feel how fraught our relationships to home can be. For many of us, coming out led to questions about where home might be after that moment of potential rupture. Which is not to equate queerness to suffering, but rather to un- derstand how challenging the dominant narrative can leave us with many questions. As a person who didn’t grow up in the Bay, I feel the deep connection that some of the writers in this issue express in their works about the Bay Area as home. As a per- son of color, I am deeply invested in the home-space necessary for BIPOC that many touch on. As someone who exists at many intersections, I often think about how to do “the work” from what bell hooks refers to as homeplace: “the one site where one can freely confront the issue of humanization, where one can resist.” In developing my own pedagogy and style of teaching improvisation, I keep coming back to queer improv and wondering what it means to queer (as a verb) and make home in the practice of improvisation. The lines between my teaching, writing, dancing, and choreographing overlap and intersect in a queer, decolonial praxis, and so it felt fitting to ask a wonderful group of queer writers to contribute to this issue. In the rebirth of Spring, I am reminded of the myriad ways we can consider home, how we find our way there, and why it matters. I make this offering of an issue considering home so that we all might think about what home means, so that queer voices are highlighted not just in June of each year, and so that we all might begin considering our bodies, our practices, and our spac- es as our homes. Theresa Harlan writes “Our ancestors, the beloveds, are calling to us, and we call back, ‘We are coming home.’” Let us listen to that call to come home.
Performances to the Community Calendar Dancers’ Group promotes performance listings in our online performance calendar and our emails to over 1,700 members. Resources and Opportunities Dancers’ Group sends its members a variety of emails that include recent community
36/ In Conversation
8 / we done/come home:
Dancers’ Group gratefully acknowledges the support of Bernard Osher Foundation, California Arts Council, Fleishhacker Foundation, Grants for the Arts, JB Berland Foundation, Kenneth Rainin Foundation, Koret Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation, San Francisco Arts Commission, Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation, Walter & Elise Haas Fund, William & Flora Hewlett Foundation, Zellerbach Family Foundation and generous individuals.
notices, artistic opportunities, grant deadlines, local news, and more.
a ritual prayer for belonging by amara tabor-smith
Andréa Spearman chats with Melecio Estrella
38/ A Love Letter to San Francisco
16 / Family in Site
by Melecio Estrella 22 / root my body grew by Jasmine Hearn 24/ Being a Body by KJ Dahlaw 26/ dancing close to home by Emma Tome 32/ Learning to Dance
A dancer’s understanding of home by Jesse Escalante 42/ given, found, finding, making, re-making, finding again by Nina Wu 46/ Baby Baby, Come on Home by Zoe Huey 52/ to remain empty at all times, an effervescent palimpsest (or love letter) for the heart by Estrellx Supernova Highlights and resources, activities and celebrations for our community—find more on dancersgroup.org 64/ In Community
DANCERS’ GROUP Artist Administrator Wayne Hazzard Artist Resource Manager Andréa Spearman Administrative Assistants Shellie Jew
Anna Gichan Danielle Vigil Bookkeeper Michele Simon Design Sharon Anderson
Or When Lessons on Transformation are Lessons on Belonging by Hannah Meleokaiao Ayasse
36/ 10 in 10
with Sir JoQ by Andréa Spearman
With love and gratitude,
Cover photo by Jessica Swanson
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