I skillfully steward the pleasure that movement provides? How can I let it be a path into wisdom, rather than a way to paper over discomfort? I ask this in part because my grat- itude for dancing again is laced with grief – over not seeing the staff who welcomed me so fully at the Center anymore, over what I know, and don’t know, about how this institution has weathered the pan- demic, and the longstanding issues that it threw into sharp relief. In December 2020, Piper Thom- asson wrote an open letter, “White Supremacy Culture at Shawl- Anderson Dance Center.” In it, she describes a harmful pattern of unfulfilled promises, opaque deci- sion-making, and the nascent equity practice that she helmed before her Equity Practice Advisor role was not reinstated. It is a generous and beautiful message, encouraging the Shawl-Anderson community to hold our space accountable to its radically inclusive vision. I believe this is possible because I’ve already sensed it. Not long after I started dancing, I came to a Queer Partnering workshop taught by Andrew Merrell and Roge- lio Lopez during the first Queer- ing Dance Festival. I was part- nered with Deneka Siu, who kindly guided me through the sweet phrases, more advanced choreog- raphy than I had ever tried. We shared weight, giggles, delighted in our rare masc-masc Asian coupling. We could feel our matter; we could feel our mattering. Owing so much of what I know of dance to the teachers and staff at Shawl-Anderson, I hold the mes- sage Piper shared with a heavy, angry, hopeful heart. Shawl-Ander- son has given me so much. I want to witness and contribute to its healing and growth, too. I hear some dance makers say
that they approach their work as a research practice; a way to work through human puz- zles at the most elemental level. I encountered this same notion when I studied Go Ju Ryu karate in Okinawa. My sensei Kazuhiro Hokama would work on the char- acteristic hard/soft movements, startling the dojo’s visitors with how much power could move through his small frame. “ Ken- kyuu, kenkyuu ,” he would smile (I’m doing research). He always told me to relax – this was how to move with the most power. As we return to in person danc- ing, I savor the ways we can turn toward each other in shared space. After her warmup, Dana Lawton breaks for hellos and hugs. Nol Simonse offers “modern dance moments”: paired tactile feedback to refine alignment. At the end of class, Shaunna Vella invites us into a circle to exchange quiet eye contact with one another. Roge- lio Lopez thanks each of us with a small bow, tells us to “Let our family, friends and pets know that he’s here at the Center, every Mon- day night.” There is a tacit mes- sage in all of this: I want you to be at home here. Every dance teacher at least grazes against this subtext of our coming together to move, the unnamable ways we are nourished by it and one another, but Randee Paufve openly encodes it in ritual. At the end of her Sunday morn- ing class, we assemble in a circle where Randee leads us in a locat- ing practice from Babette Lightner: “Here I am, as I am, in the world, as it is, supported by the planet, floating in time, awake to my state of being. Whoosh!” When I’m overcome, when I can’t skillfully hold what’s hap- pening in me, or in the world,
movement reminds me there is home awaiting. It helps me touch that sublime recognition: no self. Held by the path offered in simple instructions, in complex choreog- raphies, I can submit to collective wisdom. Dance is a practice in the queer art of coming home. This art is not only finding home in one’s body, but recognizing the delicate sprawling network of life that sustains that possibility of finding home at all. Every expres- sion of our bodies is a dependent arising, a gift uncovered. The Big Reveal ends by gestur- ing at the fear that the tools we create could draw us further away from what it means to be human – or worse, that we’ve already unwittingly become instruments of our own alienation. The com- pany’s CEO (Patricia West) and Product Manager (Melecio Estrella) sing: “I just wanna infect you, crawl into your brain … We don’t know where this will go, scatter all the seeds we sow, feed you and you’ll grow.” What grows is up to each of us, and all of us. Dance is a precious prefigurative space; where we can let our most radical wishes flour- ish, play with possibility, tend the fragile roots of healing and change. Within it, we can arrive – we can be home.
EMMA TOME lives in Oakland, California, and dances most days.
GESTURES 1. Here i am 2. As i am 3. In the world 4. As it is 5. Supported by the planet 6. Floating in time 7. Awake to my state of being 8. whoosh
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In Dance | May 2014 | dancersgroup.org
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