Life as a Modern Dancer

One Good Quote: "Go Big or Go Home" with Aiano Nakagawa and Heth Stockton

In Fall 2017, Life as a Modern Dancer launched a new concept for post-performance discussion and writing. The goals are multi-fold:

• What are new ways to invite post-performance writing (since so few publications now print dance reviews, and there are fewer and fewer dance critics in the United States)?
• How can choreographers hear and read more from audience members about their impressions and experiences of dance events?
• Can we offer new mechanisms for choreographers to gather language about their work, to further their work and to promote their work? 

The premise is simple. If you experienced the dance film "Go Big or Go Home" with Aiano Nakagawa and Heth Stockton,  June 10-11, 2022 as a part of the Queering Dance Festival, please take a few minutes to leave a comment. Write down images, impressions, appreciations, and questions from the performance. These can be words, phrases, or a few sentences. 

We thank you for your time, support, and thoughtfulness. Here's to more dialogue, more reflection, and more writing on the dance performance experience. As choreographer Mariah Steele noted, we are "democratizing dance criticism."

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In “FRAMEWORK,” Kristin Damrow & Co Explore The Body Inside And Out

Dancers Brandon Graham,  Anna Greenberg Gold, Sawako Ogo, Sam Grayson, and Allegra Bautista. Photo by Hillary Goidell.

 

In “FRAMEWORK,” Kristin Damrow & Co Explore The Body Inside And Out

By Garth Grimball

Kristin Damrow knows how to produce live art. Since “Eames” premiered in 2018 in San Francisco, Kristin Damrow & Company has been making dances that are design-forward, thoughtfully staged, and detail conscious. “FRAMEWORK,” presented at The Lab on June 3-4, builds on the company’s reputation of impressive execution while plateauing in movement invention.

“FRAMEWORK” is billed as an immersive experience of the skeletal structure and biomechanics. The Lab gallery had three 12-feet high white, monolithic structures cutting through the space at different angles. A striking paper sculpture, made by Damrow, hung from the ceiling like a diorama of vertebrae or layers of skin peeled back. On the back wall a projector showed images of biomass at a cellular level.

Damrow invited the audience to move through the space letting yourself miss some things and discover others. Throughout the show she led by example and the audience followed suit, creating our own swirling biomass. I walked, sat, squatted, leaned, stood still. I was more aware of my skeleton by moving through the space than if the show were a seated event. The audience accepted Damrow’s invitation to immerse.

Allegra Bautista, Brandon Graham, Sam Grayson, Anna Greenberg Gold, and Sawako Ogo entered in black pants and semi-translucent yellow anoraks cropped at the waist. In a line they leaned against one of the monoliths touching their heads to its surface. Delicate moments like this heightened the sense of architecture’s precarity; no matter the strength of the materials the assembling is key to integrity. The dancers disassembled and assembled in solos, group choreography, and stillness.

Kristin Damrow & Company. Photo by Hillary Goidell.

The choreography began with motifs on waves and distal ends. Erect arms acted like a compass for the body to rotate around. Deep lunges were the base for torsos to ripple and sway like bamboo scaffolding. One movement phrase evoked the jelly bones of Trisha Brown—side step into a curtsy lunge as the arms slice across the upper body, using the momentum to change directions.

The motifs recurred throughout the dance but the dominant movement vocabulary became contemporary modern: sickled-foot developpes, pirouettes, body undulations to the floor. All danced beautifully by a technically skilled cast, but the connection to the concept spread thin as “FRAMEWORK” progressed. At the work’s beginning I was truly considering the skeleton. By the end the body’s architecture was backgrounded by dance moves that lacked the specificity imbued in the performance space.

Composer Aaron Gold’s score is replete with hooks and beat drops. Part of the evening’s choreography was the swaying and head bobbing of audience members. As the dancers reached their energetic apex though the music had a flattening effect. There was little sonic space left to ratchet up the energy.

“FRAMEWORK” succeeded in its mission to create an immersive dance experience. Walking through The Lab’s gallery was an orgy of sound, visual art, and bodies in motion. The work’s skeleton could use a few more bones.

 

Garth Grimball is a dance writer and artist based in Oakland, CA. He is a contributor to SF Examiner and Dance Media. He is the editor of ODC’s Dance Stories.

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Inclusive Rules: Teachers Can Learn about Integrated Dance

Nadia Adame (left) and JanpiStar (right). Photo by Nick Flagg.

Inclusive Rules: Teachers Can Learn about Integrated Dance
By Camryn Eaglin

Inclusivity. A word that many have discussed probably more than they’ve practiced. How are dance educators actively creating an inclusive and accessible environment in their classrooms? Inclusivity doesn’t stop at race, gender, or sexuality but must also include disabilities. AXIS Dance Company, a San Francisco Bay Area based company, is offering a virtual summer intensive that includes a teacher training program. It is focused on an integrated teaching method that effectively includes both disabled and non-disabled dancers together.

For over 35 years, AXIS has held a necessary space in the dance world as their company collaborates with both disabled and non-disabled dancers. Their mission “challenges perceptions of dance and disability.” AXIS summer intensives have gained a buzz by offering a personalized experience for each participant. The intensive is virtual again this year, which aids in its accessibility. The intensive spans from July 27th to July 29th and from August 1st to August 2nd. The first three days are broken up into three modules: Improvisation, Choreography & Performance, and Teacher Training for Dancers, Professionals, and Educators. Participants can sign up for all three modules or choose which modules best suit their needs.

The teacher training focuses on an integrated dance teaching method. Nadia Adame, Artistic Director of AXIS Dance, describes this method as, “Including everybody with focus on disabled and non-disabled people in the classroom.” She discusses the non-inclusive tendencies dance culture has when it comes to language. “Teachers often say ‘with our legs we extend forward,’ but what if I’m paralyzed or in a wheelchair, or what if I don’t have legs and I’m an amputee? I would feel excluded because they're telling me to move my legs.” Adame says language is a way you can easily include or exclude someone. Adjusting our language as educators expands the possibilities for all students. Instead, Adame examples that teachers can say, “Use your lower limbs or your upper limbs. Or, stretch your torso one way or the other.” This way students can investigate this movement based on their own unique bodies.

In this module, there is movement in discussion. “We think people learn more by doing and experiencing themselves in their body and the people who are around.” Adame says. Open dialogue is welcome and a realistic approach to inclusive teaching is explored. AXIS instructors will share their expertise on integrated dance and discuss body specificity – working with varying bodies, ensuring everyone is challenged. At the end of the program, participants are offered a teachers’ network to continue to support one another.

For the intensive, AXIS offers many accessibility options for participants virtually. For each class, there will be a disabled instructor and a non-disabled instructor to exemplify how movement can be translated to different bodies. They also offer auto captions and ASL interpreters. Dancers can specifically request needs on their application. Adame says it’s important these tools are available. “What we try to do is not put a little band-aid on the top and just think about it later. No, we are trying to make it a part of the process so it’s more natural and integrated.”

Teachers can learn to incorporate an integrated teaching method in their own classrooms through this program. It costs $375 for the 5-day intensive or $80 per day. Applications for the summer intensive are now open until June 24th. In the application you can identify if you are participating for the full-week or if you are only doing drop-in’s. Any and everyone is encouraged to participate. Get more information and apply for the intensive here: https://axisdance.org/engagement/summer-intensive/ 

 

Camryn Eaglin is a professional dancer, freelance writer, dance teacher, and creative. Eaglin recently graduated summa cum laude from Wayne State University in Detroit, where she earned a Bachelor of Science in Dance with a minor in Broadcast Journalism.

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“Four by Four” by Emily Hansel: Reflections on Product as Process

Mia J. Chong, Chelsea Reichert, and Alex Carrington (left to right). Photo by Steve Disenhof Photography.

 

“Four by Four” by Emily Hansel: Reflections on Product as Process

By Molly Rose-Williams

A few weeks ago, I went to a friend’s art opening. It was held in the front room of a large Victorian with lofty ceilings and hip-to-ceiling windows that shone with dusky light. Her prints meandered like a black and white stream around white walls, and lay across a large table in the middle of the room. I started at the table, magnetized towards a small paper box with printed accordion fold-outs that stretched into printed images of verdant greenery.

“That didn’t turn out how I meant it to.” Artist Olivia Arau McSweeney looked on as I pumped the box open and closed, printed sides folding and unfolding in paper pleats. She picked up another small box to my right and pulled it open like an accordion. “See? This was my prototype.” The blank sides on hers stretched flat, while mine stayed furrowed and off-kilter. “I made a sketch of how it’s supposed to work here.” She pointed at a series of diagrams drafted with an engineer’s precision. “I think the ink affected the folding action?” 

She replaced the box on the table. “Anyway, let me know if you have any questions while you’re looking around!” I nodded and she drifted away to greet a cluster of new arrivals.

Last Friday night, sitting in the ODC theater at Emily Hansel’s newest work, “Four By Four,” I couldn’t help but think of Olivia’s show. Though the setting (a dark and drafty theater), the art form (moving bodies on stage), the context (a “completed” work at the culmination of a month's long rehearsal process), and the themes explored (a “messy attempt at refusing productivity” and an exploration of “not knowing”) were distinct, both shows felt like invitations to enter the work through process instead of product. These invitations came not in the form of written descriptions or verbal explanation, but instead by way of the art itself. Both Olivia and Emily used the languages native to their work (sketches, paper prototypes, and choreography) to reveal the processes that had given birth to what we were seeing. 

In doing so, both bodies of work unfolded for me in unexpectedly rich ways. Olivia’s folding box became not just a beautiful and clever paper contraption, but a study on iteration, noticing, and the unpredictability of working with uncontrollable materials like paper and ink. “Four By Four” became a series of infinitely branching questions around the communicative potential of moving bodies on stage—Is movement innately meaningful? What limits and potential do moving bodies have for precision in communication? To what extent is the meaning of a movement shaped by its context (physical, compositional, historical, sonic etc.)? How are all these things the same or different from other forms of communication? And on and on. By the end of the show, I was swimming in a gentle glow of non-verbal intention, clear that something had been given to me, but not yet able to put words to it.

The show took place in three 15 to 20 minute chunks of dancing separated by two 5 minute pauses. During each pause, we were invited to get up and stretch, chat with our neighbors, or do whatever else we wanted—a sort of choose-your-own-adventure palette cleanser. The chunks of dancing read like triplets to me—clearly of the same family, but different enough from one another to feel like separate entities. They became synergistically more fascinating when presented alongside one another. 

Dancers and co-creators, Alex Carrington, Mia J. Chong, Shareen DeRyan, and Chelsea Reichert, danced in every section. Each wore an outfit of monochrome pastel—orange, pink, lavender, and yellow—and their movements stayed in a similarly narrow register throughout. I saw mechanical clocks and ballerinas, swooping birds, a wind-up toy, a water toss, a dog tail-wagging, hugs, butt scoots, and body rolls. Mostly, they moved with a kind of gentle staccato of linear arm, hand and leg gestures, accented by brief moments of stillness, a curve of the spine, spiraling turns, or minor upticks in speed. 

It was often unclear if what I was witnessing was improvised or set—the movements were precise, and movement themes consistent enough to make me suspect it must be at least partially set. But they moved with a fluidity and presence that suggested spontaneous composition. After speaking with Emily after the show, I learned that the the first five minutes of the show were fully improvised—an open score to help the dancers “enter the work” from a place of authenticity as opposed to rote memorization—and that after that, the invitation to “do what you want at any time” applied at all times. “It meant every night was different,” explained Emily. 

Shareen DeRyan. Photo by Steve Disenhof Photography.

On the night that I went, each section felt like variations of the same dance—a liberally-imagined remix of the same modest vocabulary of post-modernesque movements. The first was a tour of solos, duos, trios, and quartet dancing. It felt like the most formally-constructed of the three sections, with the dancers following clear geometric pathways across the floor, and each movement section unfolding with a kind of symmetrical linearity. The formality broke down towards the end, when the dancers all went to exit the stage by scooting on their butts backwards through the curtain. The first three of them made it without a hitch, but Chelsea Reichert was left struggling alone, unable to quite make it to the curtain despite her absurdly gargantuan effort. She finally abandoned the task and closed the piece with a stunning solo downstage to the mournful croon of a cello.

The second section started in a single pool of rectangular light. Chelsea Reichert and Shareen DeRyan whispered to each other and they constructed a phrase we had seen in the first section. As they “remembered” more and more of the phrase, they moved across the stage through two more rectangular pools of light that grew to hold them. Mia J. Chong and Alex Carrington watched from the side of the stage, whispering to each other as if welcoming us into a most intimate rehearsal moment. The second section ended with the same cello as the first, this time with all four dancers moving before leaving Chelsea, once again, alone onstage.

In the third section, the dancers moved with the most energetic abandon I had seen yet—a kind of modest celebration performed in the vocabulary of post-modern dance. Once again, we saw echoes of moments from the first two sections, remixed and reworked. It ended with the mournful strings, this time leaving just Mia to dance in the glowing orange light.

Throughout, the phenomenally spatial soundscape by Sophia Cotraccia and Ben Juodvalkis served as a central anchor for my meaning-making. Pebbles falling, children laughing, water flowing, and a deep resonating bass that reverberated through my very bones became a dynamic landscape, painting the action onstage as human, nature, spiritual or energetic. I felt invited by the work to follow the imaginary tangents sparked by the vast textural diversity of sound, somehow confident that there wasn’t a single “right” interpretation that I might miss by allowing my imagination to run wild. I think this spaciousness was created in large part through how the dancers witnessed one another, often with gentle smiles that suggested some kind of inside joke hidden between the seams of this formal movement.

Overall, the effect of placing three similar pieces next to each other evoked a similar fascination to what I felt at Olivia’s art opening. It made me want to look, and then look again. Each moment unfolded like that little paper box—one time this, the next time that. The same movements became something new each time I saw them, like the layers of a many-faced kaleidoscope, slowly revealed, face by face. The most conclusive “take away” I can share, is that by the end of the show I felt relaxed and at ease. I look forward to more from Emily Hansel and her collaborators.

Photo by Steve Disenhof Photography.

Molly Rose-Williams is a performer, writer, maker, and educator based in the SF Bay Area. In her writing about dance, she’s interested in exploring language as a tool for amplifying and challenging the unique perspectives that body-based art can offer. When she’s not dancing or writing, she also works as a creative producer for The Nocturnists podcast, teaches cooking and science, and organizes community arts events. www.mollyrosewilliams.com

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Related posts by Emily Hansel:

Relearning Agency: A Dancer’s Call for Collective Action

Cultivating Healthy, Equitable Workplaces for Dancers

Empowering Dancers Through Contracts

 

 

Review/Response: "One Body, Five Dances, Six Perspectives II" with Peiling Kao Dances

Peiling Kao Dances: One Body, Five Dances, Six Perspectives II

May 6th & 8th, 2022 

University of Hawai’i, Mānoa Earle Ernst Lab Theater, Honolulu, HI

Reviewed by Christopher Blasdel

Peiling Kao’s dance concert—One Body, Five dances, Six Perspectives II—consisted of a series of short, commissioned dance vignettes from five guest choreographers. Each of the guest choreographers came from differing cultural and ethnic backgrounds, and they infused different themes, costumes, styles, movement, stage props and music into their works, reflecting a great diversity. The only unifying aspect of these five disparate pieces was the dancer herself.

For the first dance project of this series, One Body, Five Dances, Six Perspectives I, Peiling commissioned dances from five female choreographers. The second iteration focused on male choreographers. Her intention, according to her own words, was to explore the additional gender dynamic in the process of creating dance. She selected her choreographers on the basis of personal relationship, admiration, ethnicities, styles of the work, and her own desire to collaborate.

Like a musician performing a commissioned piece, the dancer must put herself at the will and direction of the choreographer. Peiling asked herself at the outset whether “this dancer’s body can be colonized by the choreographic intentions,” but she demonstrated that her cultivation into each dance piece was both natural,  meaningful and fleeting. She swept through the pieces like a peregrinating spirit incarnating for a brief period within each dance vignette. It is a tribute to Peiling’s great skill and extensive dance vocabulary that she successfully inhabited these dances and made them into her own. The result was a rare opportunity for the audience to experience a wide variety of highly articulate movement and storytelling.

Pele honua mea (Pele of the Sacred Land)

Choreography: Peter Rockford Espiritu

This piece opened the recital with a chanted tribute to the ʻāina—the concept of land that is sacred to Hawaiians. The chant described the location of the theater and its place within the overall hierarchy of land in Hawai’i, starting with the largest land division in the state: the individual island (mokupuni), in this case Oʻahu. The next level of division is moku (Kona, referring to the southwest part of Oʻahu), and then the lesser ahupua’a division (Waikīkī), down to the smaller subdivisions (‘ili) and finally to the very small division—the hill upon which the Earle Ernst Lab Theater stands.

Peiling emerged from the darkness clothed in a red and black flowing dress. She was Pele, the volcano goddess, and indeed the back story of the dance referred to a defeat that Pele suffered in a disastrous fight with her sister, Nāmaka o Kahaʻi (Pele is the fire goddess, and Nāmaka is the water goddess, so I assume there is a basic instability in their relationship). The story, according to the choreographer, depicted the resurrection of Pele and the rebuilding of her home (Kilauea) as she recovered from the battle.

Peiling physically narrated this story with elegantly extended arms and legs, taking ownership of the stage (and her world) by creating an expansive sense of space. She used two props, both long sticks, that (to me) resembled serpents, although in this particular context it may be more meaningful to interpret them as moʻo, the traditional Hawaiian lizard (or dragon) that is an elemental, though troubled, water spirit. At one point in the dance, Pele picked up the largest of these moʻo and held it aloft, in a triumphant gesture of fire subduing water. This movement demonstrated mastery of both her dance/storytelling techniques and the energetic ascendency of Pele back into her rightful status as the volcano goddess. After the dance finished and the light faded from the stage, I thought how appropriate this dance was for the opening. It made clear the Hawaiian’s reverence for ‘āina, tradition and mythology that informs the profundity of the Hawaiian culture, and I felt as if I had witnessed a ceremony attended by divine participants.

How Water Disappears

Choreography: Shinichi Iova-Koga

How Water Disappears was danced in total silence with an almost brutal minimalism. The choreography was a reference to butoh, a movement that originated in Japan in the late 1950’s, early 60's and reflected an intense questioning—at least in butoh’s early days—of one’s place in society as a human and an artist.

Whereas Pele knew her destiny and how to reclaim it with broad, expansive movements, Peiling as the butoh dancer remained focused on her inner world, only emerging for brief moments to express wonder, or perhaps a slight annoyance, of things that were going on in her surrounding physical world. Her body seemed to alternate between an inward uncertainty of the spirit and outward exploration of the physical world, and as she shifted perspectives, I felt myself joining her, going inward into my thoughts then outward to the movements onstage. The switching of perspective reminded me of the traditional Japanese bon dance, where villages and local family members welcome home the dead for a few days of food, entertainment and communion with the living. In some of the local dances, for example the Nishimonai bon dance from rural Akita Prefecture, the dancers move in a choreographed line, first facing inward then outward, symbolically alternating between the world of the dead and the living. Gestures emanating from the dancer’s body, it seems, can exist in both.

Iova-Koga described his dance as being based on the theme of water as a life-giving force. He envisioned images of a child discovering the transitory nature of water that collects in the morning rain and evaporates in the midday sun. Both rain and life are evanescent, and one must enjoy them to the fullest while they are with us.

Hapon

Choreography: Gerald Casel

This dance was well-placed as the third piece in concert. Peiling entered the stage dressed in white and, with Debussy’s  Afternoon of the Faun as background music, began dancing in a modern dance style, totally different from the previous segments. Not surprisingly, throughout the piece Peiling demonstrated an impressive mastery of both modern and classical dance techniques.

Afternoon of the Faun (which originally premiered in 1894) is probably best known as the music to which the Ballets Russes legendary dancer Vaslav Nijinsky’s choreographed a sensual and provocative (for the times) dance in 1912. Indeed, shortly into the piece Peiling began to imitate Nijinsky’s iconic hand movements; kneeling low on the floor with palms extended in straight lines or at a 45 degree angle from the body. Guest choreographer Casel, inspired by Nijinsky and Debussy, choreographed this piece in 2019 during a residency at the Bogliasco Foundation in Italy, but Peiling’s performance was its premiere. The piece was effective, coming as it did immediately after the fiery Pele Honua Mea and the watery, introspective butoh dance. Peiling danced with a clever sense of self awareness, and it was refreshing that she did not take herself too seriously and enjoyed the brief channeling of Nijinskyʻs spirit.

The Sound Keeps Falling

Choreography: Wen-Ching Lin

This piece was a light-hearted and openly humorous respite from the previous works. Holding four bamboo clappers, Peiling moved around the stage to the well-known Taiwanese dance song Chē gū diào. The arrangement of the piece she used however, was done on synthesizer with humorous electronic timbres, creating an absurd, manga-like parody of the music. Peiling danced this absurdity to the fullest, made even more effective by a straight poker-face held throughout the dance. She heightened the cartoonish effect with humorous actions; for example, she perched her clappers on her shoulders, where of course they inevitably fell off. She replaced them, only for them to dislodge once more. The inevitable futility of this unpretentious action reminded me how entertaining simple repetition can be. It added to the cartoonish atmosphere of the choreography and delighted the audience.

To discover the subtext of this dance, however, one apparently had to look beyond its cartoonish veneer. The choreographer explained that he wanted to make the audience consider the present state of traditional folk dances. He asked questions like: How can one keep these dances alive? What is the place of the traditional folk dance in contemporary society? and How do we make them relevant and meaningful in modern society? Indeed, these are important questions, but for the moment I just sat back and enjoyed the funky music and fun dance.

Island

Choreography, visuals and text: Keith Hennessy

The stage set for this dance utilized more props than the other dances, including a very large, seven-pointed star (made by the dancer herself from cardboard, tin foil and decorative paper) suspended at the back of the stage and a large plastic tarp, consisting of colorful segments sewn together and laid out on the floor.

The music was abstract and blended well into the background. Both the star and tarp were reminiscent of simple folk art and contrasted the minimalist stage settings of the previous dances.

Peiling made her way through these props, exploring a relationship with them. She danced with her star, then made her way to the tarp, at times completely covering her body with it so that it seemed as if its patterns and colors had a life of their own—whipping across the stage like a giant flag torn from its pole, or a tent with the errant leg or arm protruding from it.

In preparation for the dance, a stage-hand came on and set up a microphone downstage, indicating  to the audience that something unusual was going to happen. Near the end of the dance, Peiling suddenly broke the “fourth wall” and made her way to the mic to begin reading, in both Chinese and English, from a set of cards she carried. They were simple statements about her life, like “I have become proficient in cooking,” “I bake as well” or “My mother has a Japanese name.” I wondered if these intriguing declarations were scripted on the card or if they were answers to questions the cards poised.

It was refreshing to hear Peiling vocalize during the performance, though I wished she had forgone the use of a microphone and just allowed her voice to resonate in the small theater. Nonetheless, the scripted words spoken at the end of the final dance forged a deeper connection with the audience.

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Peiling’s dances were transparent yet at the same time full of color, imagery and story. In the program notes, Peiling stated that “The performer’s body is the container that transforms movement through space and time into something meaningful to individual viewers.” Although each dance was laden with cultural references that demonstrated, in the dancer’s own words, the “postcolonial body,” each of the five dances allowed the viewer to make their own personal interpretation.

 

Christopher Blasdel resided in Japan for 45 years and is a recognized master of the shakuhachi (Japan’s traditional vertical bamboo flute). He has worked with dancers throughout his career, including the pioneering butoh dancers of the 1970’s: Akira Kasai, Kazuo Ohno and others. He has written numerous reviews for books and concerts for the Japan Times. He presently resides in Hawai’i and teaches a course on Japanese music at the University of Hawai’i, Mānoa. www.yohmei.com

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Culture & the Dance Educator: Online Course on Anti-Racist Dance Teaching

Dr. Nyama McCarthy-Brown (right) in conversation with a colleague.

 

Culture & the Dance Educator: Online Course on Anti-racist Dance Teaching

By Camryn Eaglin

Online learning opportunities in the dance community are far from scarce this summer, and although they often call for young dance students, there is one focused on developing dance teachers. A new online course, "Culturally Responsive Pedagogy in Dance" with Dr. Nya McCarthy-Brown, is teaching dance educators about Culturally Responsive teaching. It is a method that she says, "Positions students as the experts of their own culture, their dance histories, and their embodied knowledge." It requires teachers to acknowledge culture to actively make connections to the dance curriculum being taught. In addition, this online option is an incredible opportunity to study with one of the leading scholars on anti-racist dance teaching and pedagogy.

This six module, asynchronous experience takes dance educators on a path of cultural reflection. “Everybody here [in America] in some way or some level was forced to give up their culture. They were asked to disconnect from it in schooling and learning spaces to conform to structures of oppression and whiteness,” says Dr. McCarthy-Brown. Culturally Responsive teaching attempts to take this power back and calls on teachers to better center students’ unique cultures.

Dr. McCarthy-Brown’s pedagogy practice upholds dismantling structures of oppression in dance education. As a workshop facilitator and dance educator at Ohio State University, she works towards diversifying dance curriculum and advocates for culturally informed teaching methods. She is recognized nationally for her contributions to dance education and was a 2021 Dance Teacher Award Honoree. Dr. McCarthy-Brown pulls some of the course material from her 2017 book, “ Dance Pedagogy for a Diverse World: Culturally Relevant Teaching in Research, Theory, and Practice.” She says the online course can work in partnership with the book to reinforce information, but the course can also stand alone. 

The course materials include lecture style videos by Dr. McCarthy-Brown, text files, and video links; but it also includes reflection activities and encourages the act of vulnerability and accountability. She wants educators to be reflective of themselves and their own personal cultures, no matter how big or seemingly small. These details make up who we are. “The course embeds moments where you think back on your teaching, in terms of race, class, gender, culture, identity, who you are in the classroom, who your students are, and how those things are operating together,” She says. This course is a safe space for teachers to unpack, explore and reflect on one's own cultural and teaching practices. “When you really think about how culture works and operates, I think it positions you to be a better educator,” says Dr. McCarthy-Brown.

For $120, Dance educators can engage in the six modules. The information is concise and leaves room for research, exploration, and independence. Those enrolled can access the course for up to four months. She believes this allows people to digest the material, go at their own pace  and look back on lessons to maintain the teaching techniques and tools discussed. “I hope they’re more thoughtful about how their own identity impacts the class experience. And more thoughtful about how they can center the knowledge of students and use it in the class as a valuable resource.” Dr. McCarthy-Brown hopes this is what teachers will ultimately take away from the online course. 

Register for Dr. McCarthy-Brown’s course here: https://www.movingforequity.com/resources-and-tips 

Camryn Eaglin is a professional dancer, freelance writer, dance teacher, and creative. Eaglin recently graduated summa cum laude from Wayne State University in Detroit, where she earned a Bachelor of Science in Dance with a minor in Broadcast Journalism.

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Review/Response: "Talking Circle" with Risa Jaroslow & Dancers

From left: Erin Yen, Sharon Dalke, and Chelsea Reichert in Talking Circle. Photo by Robbie Sweeny.

Risa Jaroslow & Dancers

Talking Circle

May 12, 2022

CounterPulse

By Sima Belmar

One of my favorite things about dance class is the time spent on the sidelines watching others dance. I suppose the main reason why we take turns dancing in smaller groups is to afford each other more space. But we also get to watch each other. We watch to learn, to rest, and to marvel at one another.

This was what it felt like to bear witness to the dancing in Risa Jaroslow & Dancers’ Talking Circle. The six movement collaborators—Sharon Dalke and Pamela Wu-Kochiyama (the “elders” of the dance), and Anna Greenberg Gold, Chelsea Reichert, Cauveri Suresh, and Erin Yen—had me in marveling mode the whole time. Technical, sensual, articulate movers all, each dancer exhibited a bodily surety that I found deeply satisfying. 

The choreography is full of subtle surprises—a head thrown back at an unexpected angle in relation to the shoulders during a spiral to the floor, a wrist oddly cocked, power poses that morph into sloth poses into pin-up poses. There was so much delicious movement and because the CounterPulse theater is an intimate space, I felt close enough to chew it, to taste it.

Talking Circle was driven by the question, “What is the freedom you long for and what will you risk to have it?” (program note). But I didn’t think about freedom when I watched the dance. I thought instead about the word “articulate” as I lapped up the deep lunges, viscous footwork, and eloquent hand gestures. I wondered what I was missing but then, after the show, I listened to Jaroslow, Suresh, and composer Amy X Neuberg talk about the work. Jaroslow explained that the group developed 42 gestures to create their own language. So my experience of the dance as an exercise in articulation (as communication as well as the movement of joints) reflected the process if not the original driving question. It didn’t matter to me that I didn’t understand what the dancers were “saying.” Like an aria in a foreign language, I could ride the beauty of the choreographic specificity. 

Neuberg’s score is a wild ride—acoustic instruments (cello, banjo) collide with ambient sounds (glass breaking, seagulls cawing, ocean waves) and Neuberg’s signature nonsense syllable singing (with some recognizable speech). Sometimes I had to lower the volume on my auditory sense in order to focus on the dancing because the score had such an epic storytelling quality. I’m not usually particularly attentive to lighting design, but I was very conscious of Allen Willner’s sensitivity to subtle shifts in mood as he kept all the dancers in their best light. 

The piece looked like a community being together through the rise and fall of everyday affects—pleasure and pain, sorrow and joy, solemnity and jocularity. I thought, “Is this a coven?  A deconstructed Little Women? Herland?” I did find myself wishing that Dalke and Wu-Kochiyama were given more to do because when they weren’t sitting on the sidelines (perhaps marveling at the others as I was), even their simplest of movements—slow walking, arms moving like the currents of a river—were captivating. 

I wrote a whole dissertation about the relationship of talking to dancing. One chapter focused on the use of ASL in an early work by the Wallflower Order Dance Collective. The specificity of the gestures in Talking Circle often felt like language, which was intentional. The dance begins with these gestures, dancers in duets and trios, sometimes seated, in conversation with each other, performing a sort of call and response. That specificity extends to the lower body, moving out of the typical communicative gesture space, giving pelvises, knees, ankles, and, above all, feet the power of speech. And, for me, whether or not I understand what is being said through the body, I can feel, I can be moved, and I was.

Cauveri Suresh in mustard, center, in Talking Circle. Photo by Robbie Sweeny.

Sima Belmar hosts the ODC podcast Dance Cast and teaches in the Department of Theater, Dance, & Performance Studies at UC Berkeley.

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Circling Freedom with Risa Jaroslow & Dancers - by Garth Grimball
Artist Profile: Risa Jaroslow
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Circling Freedom with Risa Jaroslow & Dancers

From left: Erin Yen, Chelsea Reichert and Sharon Dalke in Talking Circle. Photo by Robbie Sweeny.

 

Circling Freedom with Risa Jaroslow & Dancers

By Garth Grimball

 

Six dancers enter. They sit in a circle. Gestures are passed from one body to the next in acts of listening. There is no unison in the circle, no definitive conclusion. How could there be when exploring the idea of freedom?

So begins “Talking Circle,” Risa Jaroslow’s fourth evening-length work presented in the Bay Area, premiering May 12 at CounterPulse. The dance is driven by the question, What will we risk for freedom?

“You have to free yourself from something to have freedom to do something,” said Jaroslow. She was inspired by Miriam Toew’s book Women Talking. When I visited a recent rehearsal our conversation included the philosopher Erich Fromm’s Escape From Freedom, questioning the freedom from—freedom to dialectic.

Jaroslow began the process at the end of 2019. In the ensuing three years, two collaborators moved from the Bay Area and the creative team went through every available rehearsal option: Zoom, outdoors, and finally, back to the studio. The limitations could be fruitful. Jaroslow turned the visual restrictions of the Zoom square into a choreographic task. “We could never see each other’s whole body,” she said. “So let’s use this.” The cast created a unison upper body phrase and paired it with individual lower body movement, and vice versa.

Dancers Anna Greenberg, Chelsea Reichert, Cauveri Suresh, and Erin Yen are joined by Pamela Wu Kochiyama, age 65, and Sharon Dalke, age 78, of The Elders Project. Jaroslow founded The Elders Project in 2016, and “Talking Circle” allows her to unite her professional passions. “Movement and age diversity makes a bigger picture.”

Much of the choreography is sourced from the dancers’ responses to prompts on freedom and the ideas in Toew’s book. For Yen, “I feel most free when I am understood through body language alone.” The opening circle expands out as solos and group dances weave through the space witnessed by fellow castmates. The circle’s perimeter serves as both a safety net and a container for the evolving movement phrases.

Jaroslow acknowledges a concept as charged and fraught as freedom is unlikely to reach consensus. “What is the freedom any individual wants, or the community wants?” she asked. “This show is trying to figure it out.”

Suresh shared the difficulty in defining and questioning the subject of freedom. “The word has such a multitude of, often conflicting, meanings — the freedom of, no one can tell me to wear a mask versus the freedom to control whether or not I seek an abortion, for example,” they said. “We might think one of these is really freedom and the other is a perversion of freedom, others see it differently, and we’re still all using the word ‘freedom.’”

The ambiguity of freedom informed the structure of the dance. “There are many circles inside ‘Talking Circle,’” said Jaroslow. “In a circle people can see each other.”

Risa Jaroslow & Dancers, “Talking Circle.” May 12-15, 19-22 at CounterPulse. More information: counterpulse.org/event/talking-circle

Cauveri Suresh (left) and Erin Yen in Talking Circle. Photo by Robbie Sweeny.

Garth Grimball is a writer and dance artist based in Oakland, CA. He is a contributor to Dance Media and SF Examiner.

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Related post:

Artist Profile: Risa Jaroslow

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Review/Response: "Are You There God? It's Me, Jules" with Julie Crothers

Julie Crothers. Photo by Hans Holtan.

Are You There God? It’s Me, Jules

NOHspace, San Francisco

April 15, 2022, 7pm

Choreographed and Performed by Julie Crothers

Original music by Ben Juodvalkis with contributions from Greta Hadley and Jeanne Hadley

Lighting design by Maxx Kurzunski

Review/response by Sima Belmar

I recently listened to a conversation between Wesley Morris and Dr. Daphne A. Brooks about the violence of lists like the Billboard Top 100, in which Brooks makes a strong case against canons in favor of care. In other words, it’s not about whether an artist or artwork deserves to be on a greatness or most popular list, but why a particular artist needed to make the work they made in a particular moment. In 2020, Julie Crothers was named one of Dance Magazine’s “25 to watch.” And though I agree that Crothers is indeed someone to watch, I’d rather follow Brooks and talk about what makes her work a work of this moment. 

***

If you’ve ever identified as a teenage girl and grew up in the 1970s and 80s, you’re probably familiar with Judy Blume’s Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret, a novel about searching for religion, shopping for bras, and having to use pads held in place by a belt in the pre-adhesive tape era of sanitary napkins. Growing up in an interfaith household with a Christian mom and a Jewish dad, Margaret was spiritually lost—Jesus or Hashem? Christmas tree or Hanukah candles? Ham or gefilte fish? Though I grew up with two Jewish parents, I could relate to Margaret’s struggle. I prayed to the Jewish God of the Old Testament (mostly for the continued survival of myself and my parents, sometimes for Jordache jeans) in a combination of English and Hebrew, always signing off, “Thank you, God. Thanks an awful lot”—just like Margaret.

Given my intimacy with Blume’s book, Crothers’ title set me off chuckling before I’d even entered the theater, which was packed to the gills on opening night. Chuckles morphed into guffaws and gasps; my face hurt from smiling for an hour straight. Are You There God? It’s Me, Jules mixes sketch comedy, physical comedy, the multiple embodiments of the work of folks like Anna Deveare Smith and Sarah Jones, and dancing, exquisite dancing. 

The performance begins with a land acknowledgment. Crothers’ took the form of a story, spoken in her own voice with a depth and care I rarely hear from white artists. She situates herself in San Francisco/Ramaytush Ohlone by way of Brentwood, TN, “a rich white suburb of Nashville, and ancestral home of the Cherokee, Shawnee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Creek peoples.” She talks about field trips to Andrew Jackson’s home and the way her American history education glided by slavery and the trail of tears, burial mounds and stolen land. In that way, her land acknowledgment is itself a performance of reckoning with erasure. She encourages us to find the QR code in the program that leads to  The Association of Ramaytush Ohlone so we can donate funds. She takes her time. It was the first time in my experience that a land acknowledgment felt like more than lip service.

A phone rings in the audience. Jessi Barber answers so I know it’s a plant. (Later, my neighbor’s phone goes off—not a plant, grrrr.) Jessi says, “Hey Jules.” I can barely make out Crothers’ voice as she talks to Jessi from somewhere backstage. Jessi walks on stage, sets a clock for a 2-minute countdown. Crothers enters to an 80s sounding groove in her underwear and tank top, unfurls a long strip of tape on the floor diagonally in front of a clothes rack, and proceeds to set the stage:  she repositions the clothes rack, a music stand, some chairs, a backpack, a bowl, a stool, three blue balloons, a water bottle, and sneakers. She dons red pants and a red blazer, and with ten seconds left, backs up to turn toward the audience before the alarm rings.

“Welcome. You are here and you are welcome here…” This is Jules the preacher and she is here to tell us a “true story” about God. With a convincing warmth that nevertheless borders on a kind of creepy kindness, the preacher explains that God has a big tv made up of billions of screens, one for every person—God is always watching. As she moves to a chair behind the tape, the preacher morphs into God himself: a dude on a chair with his leg up, watching tv and eating snacks, sometimes laughing, sometimes sighing at a cacophony of voices. 

Crothers’ preacher returns to explain, “When you sin, God can’t see you. God can’t watch you sin.” She explains that the sinner’s screen becomes fuzzy. But then, “In comes JC with a wrench to save the day!” It’s hard to describe how convincing Crothers’ embodiments are, not because they aim for a sort of verisimilitude (there is no crown of thorns nor holy vestments), but because of the way her memory and imagination combine to create a kinesthetic expression. Jules as Jesus has her jacket tied around her waist and wears sneakers. Jules as Jesus who has come to fix everything is confident and smooth. Jules as Jesus makes imaginary nothing-but-net basketball shots and pumps her elbows, thrusts her pelvis. Jules’ Jesus is carnal.

This is the magic and mastery of Crothers’ performance, a layering of memory and imagination, of remembered and imagined embodiments, practiced and finely choreographed—even the improvised dance sections have a clear score and purpose: to embody character and affect, and to entertain. I believed every posture, gesture, vocal tone, and dance move. This would have been enough. But Crothers goes further by shaping a performance that also embodies the way Christian spirituality navigates, constructs, and claims transubstantiation. Crothers turns the teachings of her Christian upbringing into flesh. And she is clear that this is not entirely her own invention—her “Jesus dance camps” appear to have been centered around this very practice. 

Crothers reenacts an experience from “Jesus ballet camp,” where she also studies “Jesus modern” and “Jesus jazz.” She describes a workshop that involved a tunnel maze on a “very intense Tuesday.” With a backpack on her back, she crawls through a chair (the tunnel) and tells us that the tunnel was covered in papers with sins written on them: anger, bitterness, boasting, divorce, drinking, dishonesty, hatred, homosexuality—as she pronounces each word, she shrinks, cowers, falls back as if burned, reminding us that, “If you don’t say it (or see it) it doesn’t count.” Emerging from the tunnel there is a bright light, a cross, and a dancer named Colleen. Jules tries to describe the feeling of the dancing and singing that follows the harrowing journey through the tunnel of sin, but she can’t find the words. Instead, she writhes as a rainbow (flag) lights the upstage wall and the Christian rock praise song she wrote with Juodvalkis and Greta Hadley, which Hadley sings, plays. 

Because she always looks more or less like herself throughout the performance, it’s all the more extraordinary how Crothers transforms from preacher to God to Jesus to a painfully cheerful church mom to teenage Jules. As church mom, she recognizes faces in the audience, smiles, waves, and performs a shushing gesture. Like her play with transubstantiation, she uses verbal repetition to enact the ways dogma inscribes itself in the body but can also lose meaning. Church mom says, “I pray that you are moved. I pray that you want to be moved. I want you to want to be moved. I pray that you want to want to be moved.” To want, to move—the words change their meaning, lose their way. In this scene, JC returns like a boxer or bboy warming up to enter the cypher, sternum caved under the pressure of praying to want to want. I’m brought back to that Flashdance confession moment—” I want…I want so much!” 

Julie Crothers. Photo by Hans Holtan.

Crothers sets up her characters so the abstract dancing sticks to it; the dance sequences are coated in meanings established in the script, which allows her to maintain control of the character and the narrative even as it unspools, unravels. She appears always in command in part because she seems to be listening as she goes. It’s been said that acting is reacting and Crothers is right there, responding to (and delighting in) the unpredictable nature of live theater.

I could go on and on about the critique of Christianity Crothers performs in Are You There God? It's Me Jules. She certainly conveys the pain of shame around longing, particularly queer longing. But somehow critique feels beside the point. The point Crothers seems to be making is not a point at all but rather an ever-moving target of self-exploration. In the final scene, Jules is Jules. She calls God on a push button phone: “I’m sorry I ghosted you. You know. You don’t know? Ok.” Curled up in a chair, she wraps the phone cord around her toes, flanked by her props (what holds up our faith?). Ending on this earnest, teenaged Jules note is unexpected. It speaks to an evolving relationship with her faith and herself. Blume’s book is a coming-of-age story. Crothers’ performance is too but with the understanding (and promise) that she is forever a work in progress. I can’t wait to bear witness to the next phase.  

Julie Crothers. Photo by Hans Holtan.

Sima Belmar hosts the ODC podcast Dance Cast, teaches in the Department of Theater, Dance, & Performance Studies at UC Berkeley, and loves writing for Life as a Modern Dancer.

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Related post:

5 Questions for Julie Crothers

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One Good Quote: "One Body, Five Dances, Six Perspectives II" with Peiling Kao Dances

In Fall 2017, Life as a Modern Dancer launched a new concept for post-performance discussion and writing. The goals are multi-fold:

• What are new ways to invite post-performance writing (since so few publications now print dance reviews, and there are fewer and fewer dance critics in the United States)?
• How can choreographers hear and read more from audience members about their impressions and experiences of dance events?
• Can we offer new mechanisms for choreographers to gather language about their work, to further their work and to promote their work? 

The premise is simple. If you experienced "One Body, Five Dances, Six Perspectives II" with Peiling Kao Dances May 6-8, 2022, please take a few minutes to leave a comment. Write down images, impressions, appreciations, and questions from the performance. These can be words, phrases, or a few sentences. 

We thank you for your time, support, and thoughtfulness. Here's to more dialogue, more reflection, and more writing on the dance performance experience. As choreographer Mariah Steele noted, we are "democratizing dance criticism."

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“Frolic”: Reflections on the 3rd Annual Queering Dance Festival

 

“Frolic”: Reflections on the 3rd Annual Queering Dance Festival
By Molly Rose-Williams

Last Saturday I attended “Frolic,” an evening of performances produced as a part of the annual Queering Dance Festival. I’ve shared some of my impressions of the evening below in “snapshot” style—a glimpse of each chapter of the night as I experienced it. At the end, I share a few overarching reflections. 

In this piece, I’m exploring the potential value of reflecting back what I saw with less interpretation or commentary than might be offered in a traditional review. I’ve found that the process of writing this way has meant my own experience of reflection and meaning-making has extended much longer than it often does. My impressions from the evening have continued to transform, taking on new edges and forms as they merge with my accumulating daily experiences since. I’m hoping that writing with less commentary may also offer you, as a reader, the opportunity to develop your own alive and second-hand impressions of the works. 

This form of writing has also been a way for me to explore one of the thoughts I’ve been mulling over since the event: what does it mean to queer dance? I’ll say more about this at the end. For now, here are a few snapshots from “Frolic”:   

• Arrival. 

Performer Zoe Huey quietly tends to a draping paper creature onstage while the audience take our seats. We burble away like hens at dusk as Zoe considers the hanging paper thing in front of them. They carefully tape another sheet of paper, patterned with cuts fine as a snow-filled sky, to the tented creation. 

• The Land Acknowledgement.

My name’s Aiano and I am a settler here on Ohlone Land.

QDF Steering Committee member Aiano Nakagawa offers the land acknowledgement like they mean it. Like history is with us still. Like the land holds our memories, and our bodies hold the power to create a different future than we were given.

Give the land back, they end. More than an acknowledgment—it sets the stage for everything that comes next to be read as an expression of justice in action, and of homecoming. 

Zoe Huey. Photo by Robbie Sweeny.

 

• quietly you call me.

The draping paper creature onstage is also a heart with one chamber; a paper nest; a fort made of porous walls. Zoe adds two more pieces of paper, then enters the refuge and starts humming. 

Their hands wriggle out from gaps in the paper tent to lay small pink scraps of tissue paper on the stage and pour wooden blocks from a tall silver can. They move the scraps and blocks from place to place with minute intention, eventually adding a collection of tiny animal figurines to sit on top of the blocks in an ever-changing formation. At one point, Zoe sets two animals on top of yellow block chairs that face each other. After a moment's pause, Zoe scoots the chairs together as if to allow the animals an intimate moment. The entire audience chuckles. 

Zoe’s slow movements and meticulous attention to detail evokes for me a sense of childlike wonder. I see worldbuilding in the blocks, and the safety and sacredness of a space of one’s own in the paper tent. Zoe can barely be seen through the snowflake tent—but they share themselves generously through the dreamscape fantasy they materialize through paper, blocks and animals, and their constant stream of gentle humming and nonverbal commentary. 

After constructing, destroying, and reconstructing entire worlds with objects, Zoe scoots out from under the paper like a newborn. They reach their entire body along the floor, stretching tall, and then collect themselves back to a small ball with their hands. Over and over.

The piece ends with an upright dance to Eric Clapton’s “Wonderful Tonight”—Zoe making repeating staccato movements that glint with the edge of a razor sharp intention. Their breath offers a rhythmic counterpulse to the smooth flow of Clapton’s guitar. Then the piece is over. The lights dim and they leave the stage without warning or moral. I am left with the impression of having witnessed the entire arc of a lifetime in just a few short episodes.

Bernard Brown. Photo by Robbie Sweeny.

• Anew.

Bernard Brown crouches onstage, his back to us, covered by a sheer sheet of fabric. His arms and hands emerge like tentacles or tendrils, back undulating. I see a plant, an insect, a shadow creature.

He stands to walk downstage, still shrouded by gray cloth. My country ‘tis of thee. He sings from his belly as he walks, arms outstretched, hands clenched in fists. Land where my fathers—his body catapults back, as if punched in the gut or shot in the chest. The image shatters into a new form of unsettling, his body bent and pained.

He stands to walk again. Over and over, until—I want a divorce! He gets flung to the floor, then leaps to his feet, throwing off the fabric. His eyes glow, chest heaving.

Music pours forth like a sonic flood of bass. Bernard dances like freedom personified—earth turned flesh. His face is radiant as he swings, scoops, rolls, twists and catapults into virtuosic turns that would leave the most elegant bird breathless. I see joy, transcendence and freedom through movement. I see the rejection of a shroud that no longer serves the celestial body in front of me.

Finally, Bernard begins to sing again. Nothing stops him. Land where my fathers died…Let freedom ring. I hear it like a prayer, like a vision, like a promise. Through his alchemical movement, Bernard redefines the meaning of “freedom.” He reframes, reclaims, renegotiates, and conjures a version of Freedom that he not only has a right to, but that his own luminous Black body radiates.

JanpiStar. Photo by Robbie Sweeny.

• Liturgy.

JanpiStar enters like a celebrity or an embryo—magnetic, with an unmistakable potential for transformation. Their face is wrapped in a tight white cloth that trails behind them like a train. They move on a downstage diagonal, flourishing their arms until they reach the lower left corner of the stage and climb out of their wheelchair. On the ground, they roll over and over, wrapping themselves in the white fabric until they are fully encased.

Then comes the unveiling. They emerge from the cocoon like a star or baby moon, shining with glitter and intricate white makeup in geometric lines across their face. Like a ritual offering, they throw the white fabric back over their heads as the soundscore sends a flock of geese flying overhead. An offering to the spirits and element of air, I think.

A heavy drumline sets in, inviting us to enter a new space. Janpi begins a sequence of virtuosic, highly energetic floorwork that takes them around the space in a pattern like interlocking roses. As they move, they wear a pink and red tutu-like flower of fabric around their body, making me think of the burning power of fire. 

The drums end and Janpi removes the pink fabric. They move upstage and dip their fingers in a small vessel of blue paint. The paint pours from their fingertips down their face and neck like holy water—soothing and cleansing. The soundscore changes to a flowing and spacious environment evocative of water. Janpi finishes the dance with an impassioned duet with a blue pile of fabric. Their movements contain all the power and presence of a body made of universal dust. Glitter sprays from their face as they fly around the space.

By the end, the entire audience is cheering and breathless. The unspoken agreement seems to resound: we have just witnessed something holy.

• Reflections 

What does it mean to queer dance? Is it an action? An attitude, or way of making or witnessing dance that intentionally visibilizes alternate perspectives and experiences from those traditionally privileged in the field and society at large? An acknowledgment of something that’s already happening when a program is comprised entirely of queer-identifying artists? Something constructed—a product of discourse and group agreement? Something unavoidable—a product of the innate immeasurability of bodies?

Probably all of the above and much more, changing and shifting depending on the context and circumstances. One of the ways I started thinking about the idea of queering dance while writing this reflection was through the lens of acknowledgment and citation. I think Aiano Nakagawa’s land acknowledgment planted the seed for this branch of thought, and then my memory of a few definitions of how sound waves travel layered on top. In short, one aspect of queering dance that came alive for me through seeing this show was the idea that everything in these works was a reflection or “refraction” of an infinite well of source material. In watching each piece, I was witnessing a many-layered process of sources of inspiration and information being filtered through the artistic choices and in-the-moment embodiments of each performer.

This could be said of any dance or art, so for me, the idea of queering comes into play by explicitly acknowledging the existence of this source material and the process of translation. The act of acknowledgement queers certain assumptions or narratives around art-making by redefining the power structure inherent in the narrative of the “originator” artist (who is the sole creator of their work). Instead, we see artists as interpreters of source material (to which we all have access by virtue of being members of a shared world), who create something unique through translating that source material through their own lens of experience and perspective. 

Though this read on queering dance didn’t come explicitly from the pieces themselves, by starting the evening with the land acknowledgement, I felt invited to witness each piece as an expression of a shared world in which we all hold stake and agency, and in which we all experience unique positionality. The fact that each of the performers identify as queer also allowed these “refractions” to reflect a slice of experience unique to the experience of being queer. But for me, the “queerest” part of my experience was the invitation to imagine the massive cycle of information and impressions of which these dances were a part, and that this reflection now also joins.

I am grateful to the artists for sharing their work, and to the producers and organizers of QDF for offering the opportunity to reflect on queerness in dance in a new way. I’m already looking forward to next year!

Molly Rose-Williams is a performer, writer, producer, and maker based in the SF Bay Area. In her writing about dance, she’s interested in exploring language as a tool for amplifying and challenging the unique perspectives that body-based art can offer. When she’s not dancing or writing, she also works as a Creative Producer for The Nocturnists podcast, teaches cooking, and science, and organizes community arts events. www.mollyrosewilliams.com

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