Published by Dancers' Group, In Dance is discourse and dialogue to unify, strengthen, and amplify.
in dance FALL 2020 DISCOURSE + DIALOGUE TO UNIFY, STRENGTHEN + AMPLIFY
P.36 Out of Touch
P.4 IN PRACTICE
P.30 In Community
CONTENTS
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I HOPE YOU’RE WELL, AND I HOPE YOU’RE SAFE. For most of 2020 these daily words were written in emails, texts and in posts on social. They do bear repeating: Dancers’ Group hopes you’re well, and we hope you’re safe. These direct and caring sentiments reflect the many unknowns taking place during this shared situation known as COVID. I’m OK. Are you OK? I think that trying to make sense of this time is in part a realization that human and natural systems are not separate. Hey, World. Are you OK?
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We find ourselves in an unreal reality. Being told to carry on with our life as if all is OK: like, the paradox of being ordered to shelter in place, yet the expectation is that we keep working, keep producing; and then there’s the reality of lost income and still having to pay our rent and loans and bills. How does this make sense — well it doesn’t and yet, it’s our reality. Even during a pandemic — a time like and not like the HIV/AIDS pandemic —we dance. Times of great loss stir up questions of what to do? What comes next? These questions, past and present, guide us forward and provide options and opportunity to share. I do believe that dance is a sharing and forever kinda thing. It’s primal, and it feeds us, and it continues to be the thing we come back to. So continue to question. And continue to demand change. As we’ve put together this Fall issue we’ve asked many questions, and one was, who’s in the community? This has led us to look at numerous dance organizations in the Bay Area — over 700 the last we surveyed. Within these pages we highlight a smattering — that’s a technical term— to illicit action from our readers. Meaning go to their website or social media page, and learn more about their work, activities, transitions, offerings. Be ready to be gob- smacked by what continues to take place here. Let’s dance with those that protest. Let’s dance with those that dream. Let’s dance to ensure a shift in power. Let’s stomp out systemic racism. It doesn’t matter how we dance, it matters that we do something, we move, we are in action. Let’s be kind and generous and ready to move toward truths we know to be true — in dance, in the World. I hope you’re well, and I hope you’re safe.
DANCERS’ GROUP Artist Administrator Wayne Hazzard Associate Director Katie Taylor Program Assistant Andréa Spearman Administrative Assistant Shellie Jew Bookkeeper Michele Simon Design Sharon Anderson
30/ In Community
4 / IN PRACTICE: Stepping Back to Move Forward
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.
Highlights and resources, activities and celebrations for our community— find more on dancersgroup.org
A Conversation about shared leader- ship and power with Cherie Hill, Hope Mohr and Karla Quintero by Sima Belmar 10 / House/Full of BlackWomen: New Chitlin Circuitry: Reparations Vaudeville is the 14th Episode directed by Amara Tabor-Smith and Ellen Sebastian Chang
36/ Out of Touch
When, and how, do we decide it’s safe to touch and hug family and friends? by Rowena Richie
40/ How Much Should I Pay?
With so many new offerings online what’s the right amount to pay for a class or performance? by Katie Taylor
Articles by Tobe Melora Correal, Dana Kawano, Frances Phillips, Marvin K. White, and Zakiya Harris
29 / We
—Wayne Hazzard, Artist Administrator
Cover: Rami Margron, photo by Robbie Sweeny Contents: photo by Robbie Sweeny
by Maurya Kerr
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In Dance | May 2014 | dancersgroup.org
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INPRACTICE
LISTEN TO THIS ARTICLE
Sima: A shift from second to third wave feminism. Hope: I wore two hats for a long time: an activist out- side the dance world and an activist inside the dance world. Within the dance world, my curating had been tied up in my own aesthetic lineage, which is white postmodernism. So when I started curating, I was bringing in people like Anna Halprin, Sim- one Forti, Lucinda Childs, Trisha Brown—all white women. All of the chore- ographers I’ve ever danced for professionally have been white. As an activist outside the dance world, my awareness and engage- ment was much more inter- sectional. I was a Latin American Studies major, I did fieldwork in the domes- tic violence movement in
of collaborative leadership within non-profit spaces. Maybe it’s not acknowledged as such. Sima: I’m always a little leery of the word col- laborative because, yes, it means we work together but it doesn’t necessarily mean that we do so in a non-hierarchical way. Does part of announcing a shift to distributed leadership mean claiming a non-hierarchical relationship between the organization’s moving parts? Karla: Yes. There is that desire among the staff and also with the artists to figure out ways to flatten the hierarchy between all of us when we’re working together. What I’ve observed in the move to distributed leader- ship is that it’s tied to these macro questions that people have had in the dance community around how sustainable it is to run an orga- nization, to put on a dance concert, to make work using the models and paradigms that have been prevalent for however many years. In part it’s a conscious effort to counter exist- ing patterns of how we do things, the way that we fundraise, the way that we put excess value on production driven work. Karla: My work is changing a lot because I have to change the way that I see it. Even though I felt that my contributions were acknowledged and respected, I was not hired to vision for the program. I’ve been thinking a lot about what that shift means because it seems like an easy shift, but it’s not. In par- ticular, if I’m part of something I respect already, I’m inclined to support it in the way that it exists. Sima: How has your role in the organization changed since the shift? Sima: To suddenly become part of not just promoting but creating the vision. Karla: Yes, that’s a very different thing even if you’ve already had a lot of autonomy in terms of the work that you were doing in the organization. Cherie: A year ago I came on as HMD’s Community Engagement coordinator. I was mainly working with the Community Engagement Residency (CER) program, which I was really excited about because of its focus on cultural equity and working with artists. I’ve done a lot of work in equity in dance education. But I was interested in what Sima: What’s your relationship to HMD, Cherie?
(Left to right): Cherie Hill, Hope Mohr, Karla Quintero
with Cherie Hill, Hope Mohr & Karla Quintero TO MOVE FORWARD STEPPING BACK
Hope: The Bridge Project’s programs have been social justice-driven for a long time. More recently, that engine has become more focused on cultural and racial equity, most specifically with Dancing Around Race (2017-2018). Through that project, I was in a lot of working and personal relationships with artists of color and involved in conver- sations where I was frequently hearing the need for white people to step back. I started thinking about what that would mean for me personally and what that would mean to apply that to the organization that I founded. I also felt like there was an increasing discon- nect between our public facing programming and our internal organizational structures. I wanted to bring the internal structures into alignment with those values. Sima: What did the social justice drive of the organization look like before Dancing Around Race? Hope: The program was anchored originally in feminism and a commitment on my part to honoring and centering female-identified voices and lineage in dance. Over time that curatorial commitment became more intersectional.
Central America. I had that awareness, but I hadn’t yet figured out how to implement it into curating. Sima: When did you, Karla, come into the organization? Karla: My first engagement with HMD was as a dancer in the 2016 Bridge Project , Ten Artists Respond to Locus (a multi-dis- ciplinary response to the legacy of Trisha Brown). I started working as a dancer in Hope’s work in 2017 and then as an admin person later that year. Sima: I’ve seen you in a lot of different admin spaces. And dance stages. Karla: Yeah, I do a lot of different support roles for folks in the non-profit space. Before danc- ing, I used to work in transportation advocacy in New York, particularly in Spanish-speaking communities. I started working with HMD as an admin manager, mostly helping Hope carry out the programming in whatever way was helpful. It may not have been distributed lead- ership, but a lot of the work was collaborative. It’s interesting that “distributed leadership” is a buzzword now because there’s always a lot
by SIMA BELMAR
B eginning on September 13 and running through November 21, HMD’s 2020 Bridge Project pres- ents POWER SHIFT: Improvisa- tion, Activism, and Community , a festival that features the improvisational practices and diverse dance genres of leading Black/African American, Latinx/Latin Ameri- can, Asian American, female-identifying, and queer improvisers and social justice activists from around the world. In a swift pivot to online and outdoor platforms, the festival
organizers will offer art and activism work- shops, improvisation practices for both rookies and old hands, and live-streamed performances. HMD stands for Hope Mohr Dance, and The Bridge Project has been Mohr’s curato- rial platform for ten years. But this spring, the organization announced a shift to a “dis- tributed leadership” model, which might mean that Hope Mohr Dance goes the way of the Oberlin Dance Collective–from words to acronym.
HMD’s leadership is now composed of three co-directors: Mohr, Cherie Hill, and Karla Quintero. Quintero is HMD’s Director of Mar- keting and Development, and Hill is Director of Art in Community. Titles aside, the three women now work as a co-curatorial team. I spoke with them in July about what the shift to distributed leadership looks like in practice. Sima: What led to the shift to a distributed leadership model? And what is distributed leadership?
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Our board is now 100 percent working artists and that was not the case six months ago.
on our part and because of that there’s a high bar. We need to implement the values not only in a structural way, but also on the level of organizational culture. It’s not just about creating a democratic workplace or hori- zontal power relations among staff. It’s also about changing how things get done. And distributing power to artists and bringing artists into positions of power over aesthetics and resources. Sima: What’s an example of how one might distribute power to artists? Or what did it look like before you embarked on this process? What’s something you might dismantle? Hope: : Our board is now 100 percent work- ing artists and that was not the case six months ago. After we announced our move to distrib- uted leadership, three of the board members, in conversation with me, decided it was time to step down. There’s been an intentional transi- tion away from a traditional nonprofit board that’s conceived as a fundraising engine com- prised of people with connections to money and networks. I think that’s an outdated model. Value-aligning the board has been an important part of this transition. We’re also having former lead artists in the Community Engagement Residency program select the next round of artists in partnership with HMD staff and I am stepping off that selection panel. We’re also talking about a paid artist coun- cil with curatorial power or the power to hold the organization accountable to our stated and aspirational values. Things like that. Karla: When I came on board, the CER program supported one lead mentor artist and a number of mentee artists. In a recent meeting a couple of artists brought up dis- mantling hierarchies within mentorship as well so it can be bidirectional. That already started happening in the CER program in 2019 where we transitioned to three lead art- ists who have collaborators they work with. The CER also transitioned from a mentor- ship program to a capacity building pro- gram. We’re still asking questions about what it means to shift, share, cede power within a program where you have an organization that’s regranting money to artists. That pro- gram could radically transform over the next few years. Sima: You write the grants that get the money to support your programs? Is there a discon- nect between how you get the funds and how you distribute them? Karla: The CER is funded by the California Arts Council Artists in Communities pro-
gram. This application supports organization/ artist partnerships for sustained residencies in community settings. For many CAC pro- grams, artists must partner with a nonprofit in order to be eligible and competitive for the funds. In terms of how we distribute CAC funds, initially the majority of the money from the grant went to one lead artist with the rest divided among the mentee artists. Now that’s more equitably distributed among the three artists for three different projects. Hope: We’ve also started implementing finan- cial transparency practices regarding how we communicate internally to each other and with artist partners about budgets and fund- ing. A lot of historically white-led organiza- tions have positioned themselves as regrant- ing organizations. They regrant funds to artists of color. That’s problematic for a lot of reasons because the regranting nonproft 501(c)3 retains control over the money and over the relationship with the funder. Often this can disempower the artist because they don’t have the direct information or direct access to the money. If there’s poor communi- cation, too often the artist pays the price. So the question is, how can nonprofits step away from that gatekeeping role and provide more direct access to resources? Hope: Sometimes it can happen even in the application process. If an artist is relying on a nonprofit for a foundation opportunity because the foundation only accepts 501(c)3 applicants and the nonprofit messes up on the application, the artist pays the price. Or if the nonprofit fails to be transparent with the artist or fails to honor their agreement, the artist pays the price. Funders need to shift Sima: What kind of problems do artists run into in that model? as well. If foundations made applications less burdensome, accessible to artists with no staff and less time, and if fiscally sponsored artists were eligible for all funding opportuni- ties, that would help level the playing field. Cherie: HMD is also connecting artists we partner with to foundations and program officers that they didn’t have a connection to previously and might not even know of. Hope’s connected a couple of our CER artists to people at Hewlett or CAC so they can start to build their own relationships with them. As an artist, no one ever introduces you to the foundations even if you’re working with a 501(c)3; they keep those relationships to themselves. That’s another way that we’re being more transparent with the artists we’re working with and also helping them estab-
PICTURED: POWER SHIFT ARTISTS AND ACTIVISTS, LEARN MORE ABOUT THE ARTISTS >>
Sima: What are some of the things the artists said or asked for? Cherie: One big topic was race. What does it mean for a white founder/leader who has been the head of this organization to embed cultural equity and distributed leadership? Does it mean stepping back? Does it mean training? There are a lot of questions we don’t have answers to yet. Hope: An ongoing theme has been what combination of dismantling, evolution, and seeding new structures do we want to imple- ment. Any time you structure or restructure an arts organization, there will be different questions and tools that are appropriate. Bringing artists into the process is absolutely crucial because a lot of organizations have multiple directors—that in itself is frankly nothing radical. This is a value-driven move
that would look like in a dance company that wasn’t dance education focused. My long term goal is to start my own residency pro- gram in the Caribbean, so this was great field research for that. Then in January, I met with Hope to renew my contract and the idea of distributed leadership and moving me into a bigger role as Director of Art in Commu- nity surfaced. I didn’t know exactly what that would mean, but I was in for the ride. Sima: Can any of you name the first real step HMD took toward enacting distributed leadership? Cherie: All of us co-curated this year’s Bridge Project. The theme of improvisation was really intriguing to me as a creative dance and improvisation teacher and as someone who loves to put improvisation into my own cho-
reographed work. I was also really happy that we could focus this Bridge Project on impro- visational forms that come from the African, Asian, and Latin American diasporas and peo- ple of color who teach and perform improvi- sation because it feels like so much in the US focuses on improvisation from white artists. Cherie: There was a lot of collaboration and shared decision making. We would meet to talk about artists we’d want to invite, share videos of their work. Hope was really sup- portive of who we were interested in bring- ing. The process felt really empowering to be able to make decisions and bring my vision into what the Bridge Project would be this year. We’ve been in intense distributed lead- Sima: What did the co-curating process look like?
ership training starting with hiring Leader- Spring as consultants to help us delineate what distributed leadership means for us and for HMD. We talk about power and decision making, and some critical questions that have come up around the relationship of HMD to The Bridge Project. Sima: Karla mentioned bringing artists in to help flatten hierarchy. What role do artists play in the distributed leadership model? Cherie: Something I’ve learned about HMD is that there is a high value for artists, paying them and respecting their time. We recently had three sessions where 10-15 artists were on a Zoom call with us and LeaderSpring, talking about what distributed leadership means to them. Hope: And we paid each artist $100 for each community meeting they attended.
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lish their own foundation. A lot of artists have expressed the need to know more about fundraising and how to think about long term sustainability. Hope: That’s another aspect to this commit- ment to distributing power. White artists who move in circles of power and have relation- ships with funders, donors, and program offi- cers can directly connect those folks with art- ists. This is one way of bringing new voices to the table. Instead of saying, “I’ll get that grant for you,” say, “Meet this person, you can apply for this grant directly.” Sima: This sounds like a sideways movement. Unblocking access. Stepping aside rather than stepping down. Hope: I just published a blog post about step- ping back. White folks shouldn’t withdraw and disengage as a way of avoiding the structural work of antiracism. What does it mean to stay in the work while also making space for other voices? Sometimes it’s appropriate for white people to step away entirely and that might be what I do eventually, but I also feel like there has to be capacity building, a transitioning of relationships and resources, and an engage- ment in difficult conversations. Just saying “I’m out of here” may not always be the best thing
everyone that was there, but at least every- one’s perspectives are acknowledged, heard, and taken into account. More and more we’re starting from this place of dialogue, and more and more we’re able to because we’re building trust with artists. Hope: It’s interesting to think about the implications of distributed leadership work for art making. Many choreographers and directors claim to work collaboratively in the studio, but typically that ethos only goes so far. The pressures for authorship in the stu- dio are different than in administrative and institutional contexts. In antiracist and equi- ty-driven work, I don’t think we should let artmaking off the hook. Sima: It’s important to take the temperature on how local dance communities feel about your organization. Whether or when you can make a practical shift, if the community feels the organization is there for them, that’s a huge difference already. Hope: There are a lot of organizations doing surveys right now of their “community.” A survey’s good—it’s better than not doing a survey—but there’s a difference between having artists weigh in as some sort of ancil- lary unpaid or underpaid focus group, whose
Hope step back in a lot of ways—being more cautious about time, sharing decisions with Karla and me. I’ve even stepped back, just listening to the artists and what they need, rethinking curation and who that should come from. It’s been about sharing responsi- bilities and giving up power at times. Sima: In an older paradigm, I’d think it would be more efficient because you would delegate tasks. Karla: In particular when we’re talking about partnering with artists. It’s about providing the resources and information artists need to take ownership or leadership over something. If people don’t know the structure that’s cur- rently in place, where things come from and what the thinking is behind them, then it’s a really tall ask to say, do you want to share leadership over this. A lot of it is about how we communicate information with each other and the community. That’s where the focus of distributed leadership is right now. Also, it’s revealing that what is most scarce is our time. Hope: For me, distributed leadership is not just structural. It’s cultural. The culture of the organization needs to shift and that takes time. It’s about unpacking the layers of power. It’s about relationships. It’s about shifting how the organization relates to time, efficiency, and control. Those deeper organi- zational shifts get at white supremacist cul- ture, which pervades nonprofits and philan- thropy. Just changing who’s inside the system is not going to change that much. Sima: What can In Dance readers do to support HMD’s new adventures? Hope: We want to bring more working art- ists onto the board, so if people are interested in being a part of this work, reach out to us. Also, I’m interested in being in conversation with other organizations who are doing this work or navigating similar shifts. To normal- ize these shifts, I think it’s important that the learning doesn’t happen behind closed doors. We need to share our learning curves, our mistakes, and our vulnerabilities. Karla: We’re calling for organizations to be more transparent with the artists they work with. Cherie: We want people to check out Power Shift, The Bridge Project that’s coming up and join us. That’s a step toward engaging in equity and supporting diversity for our community in dance. People should read HMD’s blog. Folks have asked that we publicize our process and decisions more, so keep an eye out for that. Hope: It’s less efficient. Cherie: And more work. SIMA BELMAR, PH.D., is a Lecturer in the Depart- ment of Theater, Dance, & Performance Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, and the ODC Writer in Residence. To keep up with Sima’s writing please subscribe to tinyletter.com/simabelmar.
We want people to check out Power Shift , The Bridge Project that’s coming up and join us.
to do. In dance, there’s a dominant model: the founder starts the organization and puts their name on it and then all the programs are tan- gled up in the founder’s personality. It’s crucial to disentangle the cult of personality from the public programs. It’s crucial to separate curat- ing from the founder’s ego and lineage. Sima: So what’s the plan for the relationship between HMD and The Bridge Project? Hope: It’s a work in progress. Karla: I think people in general undervalue what it takes to build enough trust to get a bunch of people in a room to share how they think with each other, in particular when they’re coming from different places and backgrounds. The trust I’ve seen grow through the distributed leadership meetings with the community, between the organiza- tion and the artists we work with, and how it keeps growing, is a real tangible thing we’ve been striving for. The things that come from this place are reflective of equitable practice. Many programs that aim to advance cultural equity reflect a savior mindset: we are giving something over, or up, for you. This change we are seeking can’t start from this place. It has to start from a place of conversation and maybe what emerges from that doesn’t serve
input you cherry-pick according to your com- fort level, and actually bringing artists to the table and giving them a stake in the future of the organization. Sima: What I’m hearing about the definition of distributed leadership is inviting other people, more people, different people, large amounts of people to the table, even if it becomes harder to determine what everyone needs, and then the three of you are in constant communi- cation about the decisions you make based on those conversations. Is it that simple? Hope: No, I don’t think it’s that simple. I resist defining it. This work is emergent, itera- tive, and dynamic. And in our case it’s val- ue-driven. It’s not a business decision. We’re not doing this because I’m leaving town or I’m dead. The more we do, more reveals itself as needing to be done. Cherie: I agree. I don’t think we have a defi- nition yet because it’s still in process and we’re at the earlier stages of it. I think dis- tributed leadership in general is unique to whomever is doing it. I think the things you said are parts of it, at least where we are with it now. A year from now there could be a lot more components. I would also add that stepping back is a big part of it too. I’ve seen
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THE 14TH EPISODE OF HOUSE/FULL OF BLACKWOMEN
VAUDEVILLE
BY TOBE MELORA CORREAL, DANA KAWANO, FRANCES PHILLIPS, MARVIN K. WHITE, & ZAKIYA HARRIS PHOTOS BY ROBBIE SWEENY Learn about the public events and follow on Instagram
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BY TOBE MELORA CORREAL
JUNE 2013... I want to do “A House Full of Black Women!” —Amara Tabor-Smith T hese were the words that came fall- ing out of Amara’s mouth, sweet and easy, like fat golden corn falls ripe and juicy off a late-summer cobb. It was mere hours after the soul-stirring finish of Amara’s 2013 presentation of He Moved Swift- ly ’s “Room Full of Black Men” and I was still speechless with awe at the majesty that had taken place there. We were two sister-friends of 40+ years having some kitchen table-talk and debriefing the show. A house full of Black women??? I didn’t know what that was; nei- ther did Amara. But what our heads didn’t know our bodies could feel: a She-presence that came into the room, something thick and round, wide-bellied and dark. Not the so-called inferior-dark of white supremacy, nor the despised-feminine dark of patriarchy. This dark was a radiant-dark Mother Force, primordial and rich in beauty and mystery. Amara’s words had called open a portal and this spirit, House/Full of BlackWomen, was now with us at the table. With chills running up my spine I looked at her. “Yaaasss Amara, oh my god, YES.” She looked back at me with sharp eyes, her lips in pursed determination, and nodded her head three times, resolutely.
Sebastian Chang. Together they gathered a cir- cle of Black women who began showing up in places you would not expect to see them, doing things you would not expect to be done; shak- ing aloose preconceived notions about what constitutes art, audience, theater and perfor- mance, making a place in the streets of Oak- land for this new/not-new 1 thing Amara had named Conjure Art. At that time—in addition to the chal- lenges of a chronic health condition and the heart-wrenching death of my mother a few years before—I was dealing with an extended crisis around housing and resources and so was usually too unwell to show up in person for the various House/Full “epi- sodes” that were taking place around town. Instead, I mostly learned about you through
girlfriend chats with Amara and photo- graphs. Then one day Amara said to me, “we’re gonna do a 24-hour song circle for Black women.”Which sounded so glorious it made my eyeballs pop with excitement, until she finished her sentence with, “and I would like you to lead the opening prayer.” All I could say, with tears in my eyes was, “I can’t. I know you love me but I am not worthy of the job.” I can’t … because I spend my days feeling empty and lost, chok- ing on despair. I can’t … because I am worn all the way down from the struggle of just barely making it. I can’t … because I don’t have anything of value to say to anyone right now, let alone a whole ass song circle full of Black women, who deserve the very best and should have an opening prayer
Dear Beloved House/Full, Mother of Black Woman Medicine Who Restores and Transforms…
At first I watched from the sidelines, quietly stalking you while Amara joined forces with her long-time collaborator, the formidable Ellen
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from someone in far better shape than me… Amara let me cry-talk for a while then leveled her gaze at me and said, “This is not a show. I am not asking you to perform. Just come as you are. I know you can’t see right now but I still see you. I know your power. I know your magic. Just come and speak what your tongue knows to be true. That’s all you have to do and it will be enough.” And so I did that, brought my true tongue, unvarnished and vulnerable. At first it was hard because I felt so exposed with all my pain and struggle hanging offa me. But word by word I just kept going, feeling my way with authenticity as my touchstone. And I soon found out this was indeed enough. With the breath and bodies of all the women in the cir- cle holding and supporting me, before I knew it I was in the flow of prayer and praise, no longer feeling broken; the magic had begun. For the next 24 hours, 75 or so of us sang and hummed and made sound together continu- ously without interruption. We howled and sobbed, raged and bellowed. We napped when we needed, nibbled on snacks, moved our bodies and shared sleepy-wild laughter. Leav- ing nothing out, we filled that massive room with Black Woman True-Tongue. Together we brought down a fiercely powerful healing--on the city of Oakland, on the Black women and girls of our bloodlines and most importantly, on our own beloved selves.
This is what you give us, House/Full: an embracing invitation to, as Amara said, come as we are, to entrust it all to your circle. Tucked and pinned into the folds of the full spectrum of our Black Womanness, we bring offerings of sweet bread and tears, comfort and courage, for you House/Full, our Sacred Ground. Mother Who Turns Jagged Edges To Magnificent Joy, you are our bowl of sugar, our honey water cleansing. When the poisons of systemic racism and misogynoir have us confused about who we really are, you still see us. By the bright light of your gaze we learn to treasure one another when, through the eyes of a sister, we re-find truths we have forgotten we know. You remind us we deserve to be held, our stories honored. You insist we are worthy of being seen and heard, fully and with the deepest love. Never do you ask us to explain any aspect of the unique intersectional web of oppres- sions we each have to fight against every day as we do the endless work of challenging the structures of greed and what Ellen calls “the lies of whiteness.” You make a place for Black women to gather and bear witness to one another as we make revolution. The House/ Full revolution is Black women creating a cul- ture of loving mutuality and radical accep- tance, mending and tending, as together we stitch the fabric of renewal. For our people, for our ancestors, for ourselves and--whether
they know it or not--for the world. While we tarry in your healing presence, the lost ones who work against our aims, the hungry ghosts who would rather dominate than love, feast on the entrails of their own rotting flesh, devouring themselves into annihilation. Some say House/Full performs. “Ha! We do not perform,” we whisper amongst our- selves. We pour libation to the Deep Dark Bowl of Ancient Feminine Mystery, wherein all manner of Black Woman genius, power and beauty dwell. We sit at the table of She- Who-Brings-A-Thickness-Of-Blessing. Where Black woman pain is offered up to commu- nal digestion, and the metabolic powers of our togetherness are activated and unleashed. By dancing and resting and processing 2 and remembering together we conjure medicine in your name, House/Full, to serve the sacred work of your alchemical mission: That Black women be free, so that all may be free. TOBE MELORA CORREAL was initiated in 1990 as a Yoruba-Lukumi priestess of Yemaya. She has an M.A. in Consciousness Studies and is the author of Finding Soul on the Path of Orisa. She is honored to serve as spiritual advisor for House/Full and lives in Oakland, California. 1 “New” as in contemporary. “Not new” as in expressive of and grounded in ancient healing practices of earth-based ritual and medicine-making traditions 2 As in processions.
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u n i f y s t r e n g t h e n amp l i f y u n i f y s t r e n g t h e n a p l i f y u n i f y s t r e n g t h e n a p l i f y u n i f y s t r e n g t h e n a p l i f y
44 Gough Street, Suite 201 San Francisco, CA 94103 www.dancersgroup.org
BY DANA KAWANO
I didn’t wake up one day came from a human most people know as Amara Tabor-Smith. In this article I share an inside peek into the approach I use to concep- tualize and render ritual costumes in general and take a look at how that works in practice in my collab- orations with House/Full of Black- Women Co-Creators Amara Tabor- Smith and Ellen Sebastian Cheng. The starting point for a success- ful ritual costume process lies in drawing out a clarity of the inten- tion behind the planned ritual per- formance and then breathing that thinking I should create rit- ual costumes. They snuck up on me. They whispered to me, they brought magic into my home and drew me into their clutches. Those whispers intention into each step of the design and construction process. Ritual performance combines art and aesthetics as an instrument to inform viewers about beliefs, the constructs of our ancestral origins. It calls upon education and con-
templation to understand diasporic experiences while honoring and retaining our cultures and grounding in our identities. It brings about perspectives that we might otherwise overlook, deny or refuse to see. It often infuses… It is a digestion that can transform us. You see, what I have learned about ritual costume design and cre- ation is that it is in essence a guided process with spirit at its core. It is not based on perfect construction of the garment but rather a mindset born of an earnest desire to understand, honor and respect the traditions where they are derived. It is an openness to embark on a journey where you as the creator let go of ego to solely embrace the intent of those who will wear it, heightening awareness of the mes- sages and materials that appear during the process of creating and then trusting that those materials showed up so you can integrate them in a meaningful way. It is as if spirit is guiding you through the process, telling you what to do—as long as you listen. Costumes and fabric share a long history. French poet Charles Baudelaire’s phrasing of the essence of that relationship speaks for me: “fabrics speak a silent language.” RISD Museum expands that, speaking to the Egungung costumes I create: Its universal significance and applicability might sometimes be culturally specific, but in essence spans the entire gamut of our collective human experience. Though it has no voice, cloth speaks in complex, multisensorial fashions. 1
The ritual costume serves as a dramatically symbolic vessel carrying a story all its own while holding space for embodiment of spirit. It is an instrument called to action that is imbued in the fabric of intention whereby we can carry out those intentions with respect to the world, our fellows, ourselves and our traditional beliefs. They hold a back- bone of courage that dares to hold truth through subliminal messages, alluring layers with complex meaning carried on the backs of channel- ers. They are a canvas for the integration of symbolic references, for spirit and woven in the fabric of life’s journeys. They recall ancestral guides deepening our awareness and bringing forth new perspectives in moving forward. They are a protective womb of safety to release the injuries of the past and move forward toward healing. THE CONCEPT My process of conceptualization draws inspiration from various points during development. There are typically portions of Amara’s and Ellen’s projects where they are clear in their vision while other parts that remain open, providing room for improvisation. As they tell the story underlying the performance, it gives rise to strong visions of the setting within me. Their explanations evoke a series of symbols, meta- phorical relationships, spiritual overtones/undertones, objects, textiles, organic matter, texture that seem to appear within my mind. Having
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In Dance | May 2014 | dancersgroup.org
u n i f y s t r e n g t h e n amp l i f y u n i f y s t r e n g t h e n a p l i f y
44 Gough Street, Suite 201 San Francisco, CA 94103 www.dancersgroup.org
those representing the treasured values of Egungun traditions, or asa. Asa represents a conscious attempt “to select, choose, discriminate, or discern” (Yai, 1994) while being cognizant of the historical past. Quite logically, artists-priests-devotees use their oju ona (design consciousness) together with oju inu (inner eye or artistic insight and sensibility) as well as laakaye (intuitive knowledge) plus imoju-mora (unusual sensitivity) in order to make deliberate choices (Abiodun, 1989; Lawal, 1996) in the selection of colors, patterns, and designs. This dynamic artistic process is constantly inventive, revitalizing, and modern. The result is that the cloth panels come in a multiplicity of designs, patterns, hues, shapes, and colors—a curious blend of disparate elements fully reflective of the multidimensional vision and power of departed ancestors. 2 THE COSTUME The moment I live for is when the performer puts on the finished costume for the first time. Embodying the character in the cos- tume brings the costume alive and the cos- tume transforms the spirit of the performer, which together become the vessel to deliver the intention to the audience that the direc- tors articulated weeks or months before. In the House/Full of BlackWomen episode “Passing Through The Great Midde,” the directors said they wanted a “bone dress.” Curiously, I wasn’t shocked. They told me the story of a young woman aboard a slave trader ship who was ordered—and who refused—to dance for the crew. So they
bound her to a halyard, hoisted her up the mast and dropped her to the deck, again and again long after she perished. When Amara and Ellen retold this story at each rehearsal, I could feel my own body being hoisted, followed by the free falling weight- less emptiness only to crash in blinding pain. This sensation imprinted itself in my soul. This bone dress was to honor this young woman’s spirit, to tell her story, to set her free. This costume needed to scream in anger, it needed to cry in pain, it needed strength held deep in principle, it needed an ocean’s sway, it needed air for spirit to flow through it, it needed to hold the echo of ghosts, it needed the allure of beauty followed by a recoiling to the ugly, ugly truth. ANATOMY OF A RITUAL COSTUME Garment construction begins with a visu- alization process. I mentally visualize the entire set design look and feel while think- ing about how costumes might punctuate the space. I ask how the performers will move through the space, how much move- ment will they be doing, will they be solo or part of a larger group in movement? From there I can see the silhouette of the costume followed by a general under- standing of the overall construction. Typ- ically starting from the base garment or garment that is closest to the body, I define what will work best in terms of form and function. What would be most comfort- able, identifying fabrics, style that support their movement. From the undergarment I think in layers, what needs to be com- posed over that undergarment to achieve the silhouette. Once the scenes are laid out, other spe- cifics emerge driving costume design, such as the number of performers per scene, who is cast in those roles, what the set will look like, the amount and type of move- ment, what function they will support in the story line. Now specific deity references enter the process which informs the essence of costume character such as Mother of the Ocean, the universal element they embody such as water, fire, earth, wind, the objects that are symbolic for the deity and colors. I strive to bring a consistent look for the overall production entailing purchasing sim- ilar items with variations of style and then there are special ritual costumes for key roles. As advocates for material reuse, we place intention on items that are purchased for future reconstruction or creative alterna- tive use. When designing the special ritual cos- tumes, during the construction process I consider versatility in form, function, sizing
a world that existed in the past, a world as all worlds should be based in a love for each other that we as human beings have lost along the way, making it feel unsafe to be our authentic selves. My experience with House/Full has been grounding. It has given me a perspective rooted in extremes: one like a raw open wound to another of unlimited power to express. It has afforded me the opportunity to understand deep pain and pure joy— sometimes together. Doing so widens my awareness not only about others but also within myself. It can be uncomfortable at times but looking back over the years my depth of understanding my place in this world, what I bring, where I fall short and how I can use what I have as best as possi- ble to help others continues to become more and more clear. That clarity about who you are and what you bring helps to inform all choices you make with clear intention. I never thought that making costumes would open a door into such a rich life jour- ney. But I often think that I have the best job in the world as I am able to intimately collab- orate with highly talented artists that process life in a deeply profound way, dig into the roots of understanding ancestral history and traditions, gain a perspective on history and how it informs us today, integrate all of those aspects and create tangible references that can support visual impacts to provoke ques- tions, raise awareness, promote healing and celebrate our existence. What can be better than this? UNTIL THE NEXT TIME… It’s been great to have a chance to write about and bring words to my work—a space that ordinarily has precious few of those. I would like to take this opportunity to express thanks to the Bay Area ritual dance commu- nity, the directors and dancers, for inviting me into your sacred midst. I consider myself privileged to be a member. Looking forward to seeing you all in a theater as soon as we are able! DANA KAWANO is an award-winning Ritual Costume Designer, Scenic/Installation and Visual Artist who has worked with artists like Amara Tabor Smith, Ellen Sebastian Chang, Dohee Lee, Yayoi Kambara, and oth- ers. She is versed in a multitude of artistic mediums. Her focus is to create ‘visual landscapes’ of elaborate wearable and/or scenic art that incorporate textiles, found materials and traditional mediums while inte- grating cultural/ritual layering to tell the story. 1 By Bolaji Campbell, Cloth as Metaphor in Egungun Costumes , RISD Museum, July 10, 2016,
worked with Amara and Ellen for nearly eight years now, I have gained an under- standing of the general aesthetic that appeals to them and communicates the feeling with which they hope to fill their audience. Once I understand the environment, I inquire about the main characters, their roles and their deity overlays. The pivotal points in the per- formance determine where visuals need to make a specific impact and where the cos- tumes integrated with the set design are of major importance. The performers selected for those charac- ters inform the final phase of the costume design process. Amara’s identification of the role, the deity overlay, coupled with the cho- sen performer can bring clarity defining the essence of the costume. In my design pro- cess, I draw from African traditions, Yoruba
traditions, historical era, specific objects related to a specific era, possessing symbolic significance with an earthly element to it.
and simplicity in reconstruction. Versatil- ity plays a key factor as cast members can change requiring quick costume adjustments. Honoring the spiritual nature of the perfor- mance, these special costumes are built with clear intention as a vessel that will hold the intended grace of the message. The underlayer garment typically includes a form of protection for the performer who will wear the costume. That protection can be in the form of a talisman/amulet/herb/symbolic characters etc. The structural inner layer I view as the bones (usually figuratively, though not always!), which provides a strong struc- ture to build on. The outer layer includes the fabric base of which specific embellishment and symbolic object oriented adornment can be supported. Through the combined integration of each layer that imbues the costume in preparation for the ritual performance. This includes the collaborative collection of meaningful fabrics and objects, ritualistic processes often used to create the objects, spiritual practices in placing the objects—all with clear intention throughout. INSIDE THE EXPERIENCE The feeling I get when entering a rehearsal space can only be described as like entering a remote island, a village, with people who share a deep love, compassion and acceptance for each other focused on the positive aspects of the gifts that each person brings. The space holds a respect that is beyond words where each individual feels safe to be their authentic selves and are able to express in a way that is grounded at a level that allows them to share who they are in whatever way that they truly are. There is a grace, a gentleness and understanding that is held by all to support each other in a way that I’ve not experienced in the outside world. It feels to me that it is
WHAT IS AN EGUNGUN? The Egungun plays a prominent recurring role in Amara’s and Ellen’s House/Full series. Some readers may appreciate knowing a bit of background on Egungun and their history. The RISD Museum offers one of my favorite descriptions: Made into elaborate decorative patterns, forms, and colors, these carefully arranged fabrics must follow the well-established conventions of the past, best defined here as
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In Dance | May 2014 | dancersgroup.org
u n i f y s t r e n g t h e n amp l i f y u n i f y s t r e n g t h e n a p l i f y
44 Gough Street, Suite 201 San Francisco, CA 94103 www.dancersgroup.org
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