Life as a Modern Dancer

Dreams of Friday: Kristin Damrow & Company Premiers "Medium" on November 5th in San Francisco

Video description for trailer: Anna Greenberg Gold is laying down with the color of the room changing around them. Macio Payomo is moving through a white room. Shareen DeRyan is moving through a forest as well as dancing with a sculptural costume design.

Dreams of Friday: Kristin Damrow & Company Premiers "Medium" on November 5th in San Francisco

By Jill Randall

This week, I got to catch up with choreographer Kristin Damrow and two of the collaborators for Medium, Allegra Bautista and Shareen DeRyan. Read on to gain a window into the work. There is a sense of excitement and hope as we imagine gathering, sharing, and experiencing live performances more and more this November and December.

Check out Medium in person in San Francisco on Friday, November 5th at 7:30pm and 9pm. Tickets are available here.

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Please describe the creation process and timeline of Medium for us. What was most exciting? Challenging?

Kristin: The creation process for Medium has been extremely condensed. We usually have over a year to make a show, and  we packed it into a short 3 months. As hectic as it all feels, it's also super thrilling to see it all come together so quickly. It really asks artistically, and from a production side, to make choices and trust my first impulse. Also coming together as a company again to create work has been so fulfilling. Over the pandemic we have focused on solo projects and creating dance films. To feel the vibe of a whole group moving together, creating together, and supporting one another is powerful. 

Allegra: I was so excited to enter the studio and see familiar and new faces during the process of Medium. Working with Kristin and all the other dancers has enlivened a spark of joy and a sense of gratitude. Dancing and working with this group of dancers has been so special.

How many times have you personally performed for a live audience since March 2020?

Allegra: Since March 2020, I have been fortunate to have performed multiple times for a live audience. My first live performance was in May 2021 for KDC in Palo Alto. Since then, I have performed outdoors at Yerba Buena Gardens, de Young Museum, Presidio Theatre, and in Healdsburg and indoors for the SFIAF (San Francisco International Arts Festival).

Shareen: In April and May I was a part of Jennifer Perfilo’s interdisciplinary work. 6 weeks 6 shows at Golden Gate Park. Each show was a different collaboration between 3 dancers and either a scriber, videographer, photographer, or sketch artist.  I also performed in October with Christy Funsch’s 12 hour dance experience show, EPOCH, which was live and virtual. 

There was an exhibit at the Berkeley Art Museum years ago titled "The Dream of the Audience." That phrase has stuck with me for many years. What is your "dream of the audience" for November 5th?

Allegra: Whatever a person is going through that day or week, they are invited to be present, connect, allow for the imagination to soak in what we are offering.

Shareen: I implore the audience to feel inquisitive about art making…What is your artistry? How do you continue to support your art and other art makers around you?   

Share a bit about the Firehouse at Fort Mason. What drew you into this particular space/place?

Kristin: Finding a venue for Medium, there are a lot of factors at play. We needed a space that was flexible to have a film premiere as well as space to have a live piece performed. We also had to really take into consideration safety during Covid and to make sure the facilities were equipped with ventilation and allow small audiences to still feel like they were seeing a show. Firehouse also offers a wonderful layout, where we can split the audience into groups to allow the two elements of the show (film premieres and live performance) to happen simultaneously and then rotate and reset in an efficient way. Not to mention the location is beautiful, being right on the Bay.

Why live art, now?

Kristin: Navigating what it means to have a performance during Covid is new territory for all artists. It feels like we're coming out of hibernation and also asking audiences to do the same. The audience always plays a role in a performance. How they hold the space. How they hold the energy in the room. It's also the variable in the creation process that we can never anticipate how it will feel until it's in the moment. 

Shareen: COVID put its stamp on the world, and the means of expression, creativity and exploration feel crucial for maintaining one's sanity. 

Allegra: One of the most common comments I have been receiving after a live performance is how much the audience has missed watching live dance. I am so grateful to be able to connect, listen, share and make the audience remember why live dance and art is so important. There is a deeper meaning when able to connect in person. 

Image description: Behind the scenes of the filming of "Silo." Dancer Shareen DeRyan stands within an abandoned concrete structure. In front of her is a camera capturing the moment and the cinematographer, Nate Gold.

Allegra Bautista (she/her) is a San Francisco native and graduated from Saint Mary’s College of California. She is honored to have performed in the works of Garrett+ Moulton Productions, Amy Seiwert, RAWdance, Tanya Bello's Project b, Natasha Adorlee's Concept o4, and ka·nei·see | collective. Allegra currently dances with Margaret Jenkins Dance Company. She is a certified yoga instructor.

Kristin Damrow (she/her) is a San Francisco-based contemporary choreographer and dance educator. She received her B.A. in Dance from Columbia College Chicago then founded Kristin Damrow & Company (KDC) in 2010 after moving to the Bay Area. KDC’s work has been nominated for an Isadora Duncan Dance Award and has been commissioned by FOG Design + Art, Airbnb Design, Oakland Museum of California, Plat du Jour Project, Lindenwood University, and Iowa State University. KDC has been featured in Dance Magazine, Fast Company, Backstage Magazine, KQED Arts, and SF/Arts Monthly. Damrow is a faculty member at ODC Dance Commons in San Francisco  and she has taught master classes at NYU Tisch School of the Arts (NY), Columbia College (Chicago), Gibney Dance (NYC), and Mark Morris Dance Center (NYC).

Shareen DeRyan (she/her) is a San Francisco Bay Area based dancer and trained at Lines Ballet. She has performed in works by Christian Burns, Robert Moses, Christy Funsch, Alivia Schaffer, Karla Quintero, Mark Foehringer, Kinetech Arts, RAWdance, Mud Water Theatre, Bellwether Dance Project, Fullstop Dance and more. Currently Shareen is in her third year of dancing for Kristin Damrow & Company and Jennifer Perfilio Movement Works. 

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Modern Dance Fan Club: Funsch Dance Experience in "EPOCH"

Victor Talledos in "EPOCH." Photo by John Hill.

Image description: A solo, masked dancer on a stage with black marley and a dark background. Dancer has his arms stretched straight upwards, on both sides of his head. His eyes are closed and he wears a COVID-era cloth mask. The dancer has his left leg out to side, knee bent, and on the ball of his foot. His right leg is bent.

Modern Dance Fan Club: Funsch Dance Experience in "EPOCH"

By Jill Randall

Preface:

I have come to believe that all modern dance choreographers need a fan club. Regulars. T-shirts. Stickers on laptops. Longtime supporters. Folks who show up in a variety of ways for the artist and for the art.

I have been a member of the Christy Funsch fan club probably for 8 or so years now. I know her work as a fellow Bay Area artist. I have been moved by her in-person performances over the years. (Remember the bricks section in her evening length duet with Nol Simonse?) I also have loved her writing contributions on this site over the years. Check out Christy’s artist profile and also her shelter-in-place dance dictionary.

October 2, 2021, the Funsch Dance Experience offered a 12-hour durational experience at the ODC Theater in San Francisco. Due to my schedule for the day, I opted to get a streaming ticket and to pop in and out of the event 6 times. In total, I watched about 70 minutes of the 12 hours.

In conjunction with Christy’s experimental performance format, today I offer an experimental dance reflection, primarily in poetic form. Far from a “dance review,” this piece humbly aims to document and share back my audience member and fan experience. Please join me in re-envisioning and reshaping dance writing in response to performance. (Read more here in the February 2020 article, Creating a New Model and Landscape for Dance Criticism and Dance Reflection: Honoring Artists' Voices and Offering Multiple Viewpoints.) 

My basic notes are in black ink, and my poems/responses are in purple.

A PDF of this writing piece can be downloaded here: Modern Dance Fan Club Funsch Dance Experience in EPOCH

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10am, first livestream viewing

Start of the event

I tune in at the very beginning, with curtain speeches and land acknowledgements. I have not showered yet; I settle into the leather chair by the front window in the living room. My 16 year old son is still sound asleep in the other room.

I am drawn to write in phrases and to form poetry. Sitting here alone, no fellow audience members are bothered by my writing while the show happens. 

Here is my response to the opening duet with zoe huey and Erik Lee.

2 dancers
Top of head
Co-existing?
Today’s improv?
Set material?

zoe looks at Erik - 
Morning contact

Pensive
Stretched time

zoe’s turn first
Erik waiting, watching

Sound score like sand blowing on a long stretch
Low - going - flowing

zoe so clear -
Clarity
Invoking, stating
Erik witnesses, is asked to wait

A transfer of energy

Erik sparked to join

Thinking about agency versus reactivity

Calm
Clarity

Choreographic question:
Why 2 dancers at once?
Feels like separate solos

Commitment to slow, continuous movement

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At 10:18am, 3 dancers come on stage in unison.

zoe windmilling, churning
Repetition in upstage left

Contrasts, composition
5 on stage

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10:20am, 2 audience members in the theater enter and cross the space to find seats. The formality is broken. I feel a bit more at ease. 

10:23am - a unison duet

Oh, seeking unison 
in this post-pandemic
emergence

Togetherness
You, in my periphery

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10:25am I add into the Chat on the screen.

Lots of joy watching first thing today.

How would I describe the movement?
-Primarily stationary
-Slower, continuous
-Broad circles
-Crouching
-Heartbeating/pulsing gestures
-Lunges
-2 arms dancing

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At home, I turn off the screen. My son is still asleep. I step into the open space in the dining room. I stand up and repeat in my own body 5 movements I just saw. I am compelled to feel + embody them myself, to join in. I give myself permission to join in.

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P.S. From viewing #1

Thank you Christy, dancers, and musicians. Those 30 minutes took me to another place, and shifted me out of this morning’s anxiety. 

My heart feels open again. My chest is broad, wide.

Transitioning back into this morning and today’s list of tasks + needs.

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12pm (viewing #2 of the livestream)

5 dancers

Sitting, lying
Witnessing

Durational
AND with masks - 
I am impressed.
Patience AND endurance.

Curly haired dancer - 
I want to learn your name.
Slow, continuous, measured
The tension of 
Agency + being acted upon 
at once?

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I looked away for a moment and now you are upright.

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Patience 
Witnessing others
Allowing yourself 
To move
In this tempo
In this path

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I see zoe’s visible
Exhale

The weight
The heavy lift

What do we carry?

Bird sounds + song
In the soundscore
Thank you
(I associate this sound with calm)

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4 dancers are now
On backs and side

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Rest, recuperation, resignation?

A few jumps, prances
Arms swinging
Hug yourself
Legs lifting to side - bent knee

Existing in a sparse landscape

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Tempo picks up
More urgency
More wind

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I get up on my feet again and embody a few of the moves myself. Giving myself permission to experience the work in a new way and respond in a new way. 

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2:17pm (viewing #3)

Chinchin Hsu dancing

I want to join into 
This twisting
    Slapping
    Lifting phrase

Repeated

The energy of today

Then - 
A quiet balance!
Hope

Shift the energy

Chinchin’s solo embodies my day
Thank you for this gift 

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Circling
Hair released, down
Stirring this shit around

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Then -
    Arms up
    Eyes up
    Heart looking up -

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5:34pm viewing #4 of livestream

Unmasked

5 dancers -
    Different cast than this morning

Solo endeavor
Versus group

A diagonal line of dancers
Some stillness, some movement
A solo amongst the group

When are we “together?”
When are we alone,
    Separate,
    Apart?

Facing back
Hiding?
Turned away?
Separating ourselves?

Lights fade

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Viewing #5

I take one more quick peek in between personal and professional events this evening. I didn’t note the time, but I estimate it was around 6pm?

Still - in my work outfit - I stand up and try on a few more moves…

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9:12pm viewing #6 of livestream

Endurance!

Jumping, bouncing
Still going

Yet also catching a 
First glimpse of some of the dancers

Paddle turns
Long arms
Bouncing
Slow churn

Co-existence.

9:14pm

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Jill Randall is the Artistic Director of Shawl-Anderson Dance Center in Berkeley, CA and founder/editor of Life as a Modern Dancer.

Left to right: dancers Shareen DeRyan, Nina Wu, and Emily Hansel. Photo by John Hill.

Image description: Three dancers onstage. The marley flooring in black and the background is dark. Two dancers move very upstage in the background. One dancer is featured in the photo, downstage. She is crouched on the ground, with both hands gesturing near her head.

 

Wholeness in "Split"

LizAnne Roman Roberts. Photo by Robbie Sweeny.

Image description: Dancer stands downstage in a performance space lit bubblegum pink. Dancer wears a sleeveless button up shirt, dark shorts to her knees, and white socks. The dancer is slightly arching and looking up to the ceiling.

Wholeness in Split 

By Sarah JG Chenoweth

For FACT/SF’s Split I walk through the bowels of CounterPulse. Dark and fantastically quiet, the first hallway presents a soft towel on a wooden bench nook cut into the wall. Next to it, a placemat, a card with my name hand-written on it, and my drink of choice. I am charmed. What a personal touch. I sit. Pop the top and feel the fizz cut my thirst as a throng of portraits meets my eyes.  The people in them are close to me, literally—the hallway is narrow. They range in gender expression and race and age and declaration: laughing, staring, peering up, glancing sideways. Each one has some kind of patchy reflection of themselves superimposed on the same photo. Like they are caught in a prism, self upon muddled self. Portions of their own face or body are mirrored at indiscriminate angles. But instead of feeling disjointed, the fragments and fog declare a completeness: they are more than straight and center. I am stuck with one face. Eyes I know. A person I know, have moved with. I think they are beautiful. The faintest smile. Just the corners of the eyes squint—otherwise totally still. In this photo they watch me patiently, exactingly, insistently. They are waiting for me to catch up to the wisdom I should already have, the right relationships I should already be in. 

My host (here to usher me from room to room) interrupts our silent conversation and softly directs me to the next space. A pitch-black booth behind a lavender curtain whose bottom has been rippling with nearby filtering air—the only movement in these smooth halls. My host explains that I can put on some headphones and control sound levels. The host is calm. Reassuring. Slow and kind in their body and volume. They close the lavender curtain. I sit again. This time across from three iPad screens. I watch a series of mini films of faces submerging in water. My point of view is from the bottom of the container, and I see the people explore their mouths and eyes and cheeks as they plunge in and out. Some talk or scream, and bubbles dance out and up from both sides of their lips to a surface I know is there but I cannot see. Some grin widely with full teeth and squeeze their eyes shut. The film flickers from one person to the next, from just bubbles to just faces. Sometimes all three iPads show the same face, sometimes they don’t. And sometimes, like the portraits, the faces overlay, coincide, recede or advance from one into another. Also like the portraits, it’s a digital echo that so accurately/hypnotically captures the sensation of a very real and a very complicated, refracting, bending identity. I am not often grateful for digital representations of human distinctiveness. But here I feel the wonder of a face literally inside of another face—a self that is diverting and returning. Fractions of self added to self, beautifully illustrating the sometimes severing nature of psycho-emotional realities. I can’t remember what the sound was. Their voices maybe? If so, muffled to obfuscation. Music maybe? Something droning or murmuring only to sink me into the mouths (moustache), eyes (tight and wanting), cheeks (ballooning), and bubbles (hasty dancers). 

My host returns. They’d warned me I had only about five minutes in this watery world. It’s fine. I’m in a trance. The next phase of this experience I know to be its culmination. I am wanting but sedate. I feel held. I didn’t think that after this baffling and dehydrating year I would respond so well to solitude, to sparseness. But, this is potentially the most quiet, still space I have been in in eighteen months. Even sitting alone at home there are a thousand things to snatch my attention. The limitation of stimuli (other audience, a large space, colors and light, sounds fighting sounds, jabbering internal monologues) is a gift. A gift of clearing and rinsing. Of immersion. My own submersion. Into this softly, deliberately crafted art and experience. My host walks me down a longer hallway. My shoes click in near emptiness. They explain that I will go alone down another hallway, turn, go up a few steps. A chair will be waiting for me next to a single, lit lamp on a small table. If I need anything, shout or knock loudly on the table. I am so in. Buzzing. 

The lamp turns off. I am held. In darkness and in their craft. Black curtains hang just to my left and just to my front, delineating the stage space from my space, which is small. I feel safe. I am wrapped. Behind a plastic barrier not three feet in front of me—that I barely believe is there—lights come up like rising steam. I begin to see a retreating corridor created by walls of soft white fabric, back lit with soft pinks and oranges and yellows: warm sunsets and warm flesh. One dancer.* They start stingingly close, and I am lapping it up. They find my eyes and we lock in. I feel the corners of my eyes smile. They cannot see my mouth. I wonder if they can see my delight. Slacks with a few pleats cut off at mid-knee. Boxy, billowy button up shirt with a collar and no sleeves. Socks. Limbs. Pining limbs. Growing limbs. Rotating in and out, in and out, searching for something deep in their sockets, then flicking something away. Femur loose and free to glide open and closed, swiveling and squeaking the ball off the foot on wood below. The set narrows to a single, small, not quite door-sized opening upstage, just like a perspective drawing from Art 101. The white floor cascades in three tiers back into the non-door as well. Two small tables with two clear bowls of water anchor each side of the top, closest tier. The dancer centers, heightens, and authenticates the space. Though they are limber and strong, their work and their need here are not smooth or linear. One movement is pruned in mid-action to give rise to an opposing one… slickly sinking grand pliés truncated by a spring upright into a tight parallel, fingers curled and stiff, head cocked backward toward the right shoulder. A series of flowing revolutions are cut off to stare firmly at me, dancer paused deep in a lunge, limbs dangling. Then back up, palms stretched wide over hip sockets. The disruptions in the movement sequences offer the same sort of splintering of self that the photos and films did. They are splitting and whole at the same time, erupting into an attitude turn and leap from something inside shoving them sideways, then erect again, stern.

LizAnne Roman Roberts. Photo by Robbie Sweeny.

Image description. A solo dancer performing in a white space lit bubblegum pink. The space has three descending performance platforms, and the dancer has her hands on the top tier and feet on the second tier. Two small white coffee tables flank the dancer, with a clear glass bowl on each of them with water.

The mood is serious. I am taking it seriously. There are three sections. To enhance each respectively, there is silence, some kind of instrumental hum, and some piano in a minor key (or at least it sounds dissonant). Over the course of the piece, the dancer makes their way from downstage with me, through the canal, and out the bottom tier. I notice that the entire set of Split—the winding hallways, the small dark rooms, my being solo—mimic the dark nooks and the singularity of internal landscapes. I all of a sudden wonder why we generally do dances that are about internal shit in such outward environments. At some point the dancer goes to the water and rubs it on their face and arms. I think of the conjoined iPad faces in the water. Water has a way of refracting and changing our perception of a form. Things can look distended or sliced, depending on the angle, the light, the ripple, the arrangement of the atoms. Shapes and selves bent yet bathed. The dancer begins to speak. The text is poetic, unorganized, and pointblank in its delivery—not conversational but decisive: jagged thumbnail scraping skin; pushing and pushing against a brick wall; car driving down the hill without anyone in it; it was me [them] caught in a distant tree like a balloon. It is patchy and dreamlike, parts of stories or realities or perceptions. Until the moan. Toward the end of our time together, the dancer moans. A long, long, animal moan. The moan rams and revs through their body while they brace in a bent plank position until the moan is ready to be done. I think of labor. A birthing of wounds or past selves who knows what. And afterward, before exiting out of the not quite door-sized opening, the set goes nearly dark. The dancer, only a shadow now, rolling through liquid joints, limbs floating.  
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I’ve never felt so important to a piece, so integral to a performance. Not only were the dancer and I so selectively relating (you can’t not relate to them), but also I was so fucking delighted to be there and relating in that way, to have it all be for me. Not “for me” as in “I’m special” or it’s “about me,” but for me because I was the only person there. I felt taken care of in the prep-work and execution, but not treasured. Which is great. I was solo but not alone. It was still quite shared. I left in a slow, low stupor. Huh. I didn’t want to release what it felt like to be so inside, so narrowly and so powerfully absorbed.  Nevertheless, traffic and texts took me right back out.

LizAnne Roman Roberts. Photo by Robbie Sweeny.

Image description: Photo of the dancer's upper body with a dark purple and black background. Dancer's elbows are bent and her right hand is reaching up while the dancer looks down at the right hand. Left hand is on her thigh.

*LizAnne Roman Roberts was the performer for this iteration. Four dancers rotate through performing during the run of Split: LizAnne Roman Roberts, Samuel Melecio-Zambrano, Katherine Neumann, and Charles Slender-White. 

Sarah JG Chenoweth is a dancer, teacher, and writer based in Oakland, CA. But on her favorite days, she sings Gwen Stefani songs with her 3 year old, Wyatt. 

 

Related posts:
An Afternoon Walk and Dance Through Glen Canyon Park: FACT/SF’s “Diffusion”

Artist Profile: Charles Slender-White

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Gestures and Dreams at Queer Date Night

Octavia Rose Projects in "bodyfabric II" with Jhia Jackson (left), Heidi Cash (center), and Noah James (right). Photo by Kim Anno.

Image description: Three dancers pose in close proximity in a space with light wooden flooring and white walls. Two are standing and one is seated in a power wheelchair. Each dancer is frozen in a gestured position. The stage lighting is a warm orange and pink tone. The costumes are white, grey, and orange.
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Gestures and Dreams at Queer Date Night

By Garth Grimball

Does anything scream “queer!” more than descending a staircase with drama? Well, Octavia Rose Hingle knew what they were doing to open Queer Date Night, part of Shawl-Anderson Dance Center’s Queering Dance Festival. 

Due to COVID, 2020 festival artists are finally given the chance to share work in 2021. Shawl-Anderson is producing small festival events throughout the year instead of a week of consecutive performances. Queer Date Night took place at 2727 California Street in Berkeley (CA), an intimate arts and education space in a converted corner grocery store.

In Hingle’s bodyfabric II they score the dancing of Heidi Cash, Jhia Jackson, and Noah James with live piano playing. James kicks off a suite of solos from a spiral staircase. Hingle smartly makes use of the quirks of the venue. A support beam centers the stage space, and the dancers utilize its dimensions rather than pretend it’s not there. Much of the movement concerns surface, its presence and absence. Each dancer takes time to assess walls, floorboards, and the piano with intimate grace. Hands caress bodies like fabric then reach and embrace the surrounding aura. 

bodyfabric II shifts abruptly from interiority to exteriority. Hingle stops playing piano. A club beat by Octo Octa drops the gossamer vibe into a party. The trio come together to move freely, outwardly in gaiety. Their energy feels genuine. A more developed tonal shift would release that energy into the ether.

Queer Date Night shifted from live to digital with the screening of uuu_prelude: wet dreams of J.A.P.A.N pt. 1 & pt. 2 by Estrellx Supernova. The 21-minute film is a meet-dirty of Annie Sprinkle’s eco-sexuality and Nijinsky’s Afternoon of a Faun. Supernova and Tina Wang grind and undulate amidst the National AIDS Memorial Grove in San Francisco, while Zoe Huey draws non-figurative interpretations of their grooves.

Screenshot from the film with Zoe Huey (left, drawing), Estrellx Supernova (center, red shirt), and Tina Wang (right, in pink wig).
Image description: Three dancers are in a wooded area in the daytime, on the ground. All three are wearing wigs. One dancer is drawing on a scroll of white paper with a black charcoal or pastel. The other two dancers are on the edges of the paper, posed on the ground.
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Directed by Supernova with videography by Chani Bockwinkel and Ainsley Elizabeth Tharp, the camera’s primary focus is the pelvis. Supernova and Wang’s faces are obscured by bright wigs and COVID-era fabric masks. A pithy means of disidentification. Without visible faces their bodies abstract into the wilderness. The hypnotic quality is undercut as passersby enter and exit the frame. This happening in the woods is glanced at as just another day in the Bay. There’s little variation in the content of the film but it doesn’t feel long. Its intent is opaque but its impact lingers.

Electronic music from six different artists soundtrack the dancers as they undress into thongs — red lace for Supernova, cotton for Wang — allowing more coupling between nature’s debris and skin. Orgasm defines a wet dream from a dream. The film ends with the duo snaking their way towards a grassy meadow. The final shot is of Supernova face down on the ground. It feels less like a release and more like exhaustion from an abundance of foreplay. But, then again, who doesn’t love foreplay?

Screenshots from the film with Tina Wang (photo #1, left image) and Estrellx Supernova (photo #2, right image).
Image description for photo #1: Dancer is outside on a dirt path amongst tall trees and rocks. They are standing, facing away from the camera. Their legs are twisted, arms outstretched to the sides. They are arching back, and their long dark hair drapes down the back. They wear a white sports bra and white booty shorts.
Image description for photo #2: Dancer is stretched horizontal in a bright green grassy area with white flowers in the grass. Their head is turned away from the camera. They are only wearing red thong underwear.

 

Garth Grimball is a dance writer and artist based in Oakland, CA. He hosts the Reference Desk podcast and is the co-director of Wax Poet(s) performance collective.

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In "Bacchae Before" the Reveal is in the Subtext

Silk Worm as Dionysus, center, with Belinda He, left, and Karla Quintero as two Bacchae. Photo by Robbie Sweeny.

Image description: A very dark theater space with black background and black marley. Three performers are on stage - one standing in the center dressed all in white, holding a microphone. Two performers flank the center artist, kneeling and facing back with heads turned towards the center person. Their hands are up applauding.

 

In Bacchae Before the Reveal is in the Subtext

By Garth Grimball

How interesting is it to watch others party? The fun in revelry is the absence of ego as you get down, boogie, praise, or exhale deeply. Being outside, watching the party, it’s easy to feel like Jay Gatsby staring through a window waiting for the party to become something or someone. Ego held strong. Depending on how much you enjoy watching others party will determine your response to Hope Mohr Dance’s Bacchae Before. Mohr and Maxe Crandall co-direct this dance theater adaptation of Anne Carson’s Bakkhai, a translation of the Euripides play.

Performed by Belinda He, Wiley Naman Strasser, Karla Quintero, and Silk Worm, Bacchae Before opens with all four in low-key orgy mode—groans and heavy petting—and uses the mode as transition between most scenes. Euripides’ Bacchae dramatizes the conflict between Pentheus, king of Thebes, and Dionysus, a newish god flexing their power, over influence on the female citizens of the kingdom and the power of faith writ large. Carson updated the language to better reflect the humor of the tragedy in our modern tongue. Mohr and Crandall use the text as a foundation to build a loose narrative around the tragedy of gender reveal parties. The adaptation is largely a performance of Carson’s text with scenes by Crandall interspersed.

Silk Worm and Strasser do double duty as Dionysus and Pentheus and a contemporary hetero couple expecting a baby. They slide easily between mythic authority and Instagram banality.  He and Quintero are the Greek chorus dancing and assisting throughout. The pair have one extended dance break. They ratchet up the energy with unison choreography of weighted centers and thrown limbs. Otherwise their dancing is a direct extension of the text. The stage is bare except for the characters and clusters of props. The props become more than costumes or scenery as the narrative switches between Carson’s and Crandall’s texts. Fondled or thrown aside like a quick joke, the objects are signifiers of class, gender, and temporality.

Bacchae Before is dance-theater. The text defines the work but dance is given its due. Mohr and Crandall wisely have the actors do the most acting and the dancers do the most dancing. I wish that dance was used as a connective tissue between scenes and time periods beyond the aforementioned writhing and improv-ecstatic dance. The body and gender locate the concept yet the body isn’t given much to do conceptually.

The program makes a point of noting, “the moment of reveal is a cornerstone of classic tragedy.” This recognition, combined with gender reveal parties, leads one to believe a reveal would be forthcoming. Not so, at least in the narrative sense. The reveal in Bacchae Before is in the subtext not the text. Silk Worm as Dionysus asks rhetorically, “How do I look? Convincingly human?” The text is telling us a god is in human drag. The subtext points to the absurdity and violence of how much being “convincing” within a gender identity is predicated on external forces rather than internal truth.

Death of Pentheus. Object animation by Mike Chin. Photo by Robbie Sweeny.

Image description: Photo of a small plastic brown toy deer. Next to the deer is a pool of red spilled paint to simulate blood and a crushed pine cone in it. The surface is wide stripes of light pink, light yellow, and grey. The background of the photo is blurred with small toy trees.

The most arresting scene is object animation. Silk Worm reads the play’s climax directly from Carson’s text. Strasser, He, and Quintero approach a mise-en-scène laid out on a table downstage center. They turn on a camera with live feed projected on the theater’s back wall. The ensuing minutes see a tracking shot across a miniature landscape designed by Mike Chin. The landscape evolves with the narrative blending mundane objects with fantastical colors and contexts. This scene is a welcome disruption of the binary of performer-director and the trope of livestream within live theater. The cast animate the inanimate. The scene provides an intimacy deeper than the moments of ecstatic revelry. One medium becomes the chorus to another.

Euripides’ Bacchae ends with an exile. Bacchae Before ends with a projection listing all the anti-trans legislation enacted or proposed across the United States. A different kind of exile.

Garth Grimball is a dance writer and artist based in Oakland, CA. He hosts the Reference Desk podcast and is the co-director of Wax Poet(s) performance collective.

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RAWdance’s Portal into (Un)familiar Space

Nick Wagner and Jhia Jackson, foreground. Erin Yen, Claire Fisher, ArVejon Jones, and Juliann Witt (upstage). Photo by Hillary Goidell.

 

RAWdance’s Portal into (Un)familiar Space

By Garth Grimball

Site-specific dance often prioritizes site over specific. And, as a priority, the site often exists as an absence rather than a presence. This site is not a theater. This site is a unique influence on the dance.

The former is arithmetic: non-theater site + dance = site-specific work

The latter is geometry: dance = site/movement + π r ¹

RAWdance’s premiere Portal exists somewhere in between.² Performed at the Transbay Joint Powers Authority’s Salesforce Park, September 3-5, co-director Katerina Wong explores “a space to process and reflect” with a cast of six dancers. Portal begins with a signature RAWdance group number. Claire Fisher, Jhia Jackson, ArVejon Jones, Nick Wagner, Juliann Witt, and Erin Yen pop in saturated colors against the evening greens of the park’s foliage. The movement plays with lines, canon, and balancing motifs.

From there the audience split to follow tour guides around the park to experience 5 performance installations. While the prescripted guidance guarantees a complete viewing of each section, it negates the rare freedom available in public parks. Were the audience allowed to roam freely, the experience of the installations would tune into the frequency of the surroundings. Catch a glimpse of a dancer like a seagull swooping past. Notice the distance between bodies like the skyscrapers cluttered around the elevated park. Instead the work feels very frontal, like being in a theater, but you’re not. You’re outside.

Claire Fisher and Erin Yen. Photo by Robbie Sweeny.

There are moments of eco-bliss. “Kindred,” a duet performed by Fisher and Jones, happens on a hill under fantastical lighting by Thomas Bowersox. Green LED specks shimmer across the trees as Fisher and Jones shift between static and languid. The duet ends with the dancers falling and rolling down the hill, leaping up to roll again. THIS. THIS MOMENT. This moment could ONLY happen in this exact setting. This moment is site-specific. It is breathtaking.

The other installations have echoes of site-specificity. Wagner backs into a tree causing the branches to shake and the tree is part of the dance. The gravity of Witt’s feet sliding against the soil evokes the special meeting of solid and moisture.

The finale happens on the park’s Amphitheater Stage. Michael Wall’s soundscape and Ephraim Colbert’s media projections blend into a calming vibe. The dancers, now clad in white, partner each other in rotating combinations. Jackson stands out in her commitment to the choreography; her focus imbues the weight sharing with an evergreen present. Portal closes with the dancers running in loops down the amphitheater’s stairs. The moment aims for release but lands as a task. Processing and reflecting begets more processing and reflecting. RAWdance continues the process.

Photo by Jim Watkins.

^{1 Note: this reference to geometry is purely metaphorical. Discussing the practical applications of Pi x r-squared to choreography is beyond me.
2 Algebra?}

 

Garth Grimball is a dance writer and artist based in Oakland, CA. He hosts the Reference Desk podcast and is the co-director of Wax Poet(s) performance collective.

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Juilliard’s “New Dances” Showcases Strings and Socks

Juilliard’s “New Dances” Showcases Strings and Socks

By Garth Grimball

Alicia Graf Mack, dean and director of Juilliard Dance, introduced the department’s “New Dances” program with now-familiar caveats: dance rehearsals followed public health guidelines; in-person and Zoom process; casts of no more than 8 dancers; no touching or partnering; lastly, within restrictions creativity flourishes. If only that were true of this program. The dancing is virtuosic and passionate. The dances are bland and long.

Four choreographers, Tiler Peck, Sonyah Teh, Bobbi Jene Smith, and Matthew Neenan, created original works on the students of the Juilliard Dance Department. Are there obstacles this new generation of dancers can’t handle? 

Dancing for camera - check. Creating work under the confines of health precautions antithetical to dance making - check. Ignoring the swamp-face from strenuous activity in a mask to the point of seeming like it’s totally natural - check. Their verve and commitment to dance inspires.

Peck’s “Broad and Free” builds vocabulary out of attitude turns, enveloppé​, and port de bras above the head. The choreography follows Caroline Shaw’s piano and violin composition, never going against the music, but cruising in the wake of its melancholy. The structure and staging have the forward-facing unison common to competition dances. At one point the music slips into a mazurka and Peck quotes Balanachine’s “Stravinsky Violin Concerto.”

For “End, Middle, Beginning” Sonya Teh brings the viewer into the piece with cinema-verite-style filming. The camera moves through the wings onto the stage and out into the audience. For the rest of the piece the viewpoint is mostly static with crossfades as transitions. Group floorwork interrupted by standing solos define the dance. The interruptions lack the punch of creating a ceiling and breaking it, feeling more like a knock on the attic door. The somber music of Son Lux dulls Teh’s creative ideations on the Graham-Gaga lineage.

Speaking of Gaga, Bobbi Jene Smith’s “Ways of Listening” is a parade of solos overflowing with the pelvic floor and energetic mania endemic to the technique. Smith’s choreography and staging is the most dynamic in its use of the theater space. Thankfully she goes against the Nico Muhly cello (more strings) solo played live on stage. “Ways of wanting to be heard” is a more apt description of the dance. Soloists center the action while the rest of the cast stand still observing. The lunges, turns, gestures, and leaps become shouts into the void because of the static listening. Smith breaks the only-8-dancers rule in her climax. Twenty one bodies fill the stage in a tightly structured mix of unison and variations.

Matthew Neenan’s “The Solo 7,” set to String (!) Quintets by Mozart, has the idiosyncrasies of a dance made 10 years ago. Remember between 2009 to 2013 when every contemporary dance had the “flick” gesture (arms unfurl out and snap quickly at the wrist)? “The Solo 7” is of the era when ballet choreographers decided to incorporate the “flick” and other contemporary dance gestures into classical vocabulary. The dance has three costume changes: muted pedestrian, monochrome floor-length dresses, unison brown and black ensembles. The sartorial variation has little effect on the mood or tone of the piece.

Other than being set to strings, all of the dances have one commonality: socks. When did the mid-ankle length sock become the contemporary dance uniform, like pointe shoes to ballet? Each dance used the exact same type of socks, no variation in length or material. I love dancing in socks. It’s comfortable. Socks signify a coziness that contradicts the groundedness of modern dance, the connection to the earth. The Juilliard dancers move with precision and abandon. But through the screen and through the socks, the weight of a body floats away.

New Dances: Edition 2020-21 is available to stream for free on the Juilliard YouTube channel for 1 year.

 

Garth Grimball is a dance writer and artist based in Oakland, CA. He hosts the Reference Desk podcast and is the co-director of Wax Poet(s) performance collective.

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One Good Quote: "Portal" with RAWdance (September 3-5, 2021)

Claire Fisher in RAWdance's "Portal" at Salesforce Park. Photo by Kyle Adler.

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 "Portal" with RAWdance September 3-5, 2021, 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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How do cameras in the classroom revolutionize how we view and participate in dance?

Image: Camryn Eaglin

How do cameras in the classroom revolutionize how we view and participate in dance?

By Camryn Eaglin

The use of cameras, along with the growing popularity of social media, has revolutionized how dance is viewed and perceived. It has allowed our art form to be seen on the world stage in an instant, through someone’s smart phone or computer. I’d even argue that it creates another nuanced relationship between the student and their craft. Now studio owners, teachers, and dancers are utilizing the camera as a tool for promotion and maximizing reach more than ever. However, I pose the question---is it beneficial in the classroom? Do the cameras preserve or expose the private space the studio has held for dancers prior? 

I have been dancing for 19 years and I’ve witnessed this shift. As a kid, there was a mystical aspect of dance recitals because the occasion was only once a year. We would finally let our families in through a stage performance. It was as if we were sharing a secret we had kept for so long. The recital tape would be the only form of footage we had to show for the growth we made during the year. Around 12 years old I began uploading short clips to Facebook of me dancing in my tiny living room, only accessible to close friends and family. In the dance studio however, we began recording fun combinations on iPhones when I was around 14. My classmates and I would be eager to post our videos on Instagram, crossing our fingers that our dancing looked good enough on camera. I would think --- hopefully it translates to my followers. This was the culture that developed for a lot of dancers, where we would dance for the sake of posting. Fortunately I was able to keep a healthy relationship with the camera, where the studio was still a space of privacy.

I have recently observed that filming has become an integral part of class time. For some teachers it is built into the fabric of their “to do'' for training. As dancers, our teachers often repeated the phrase “Dance like no one’s watching” or “You’re always performing.” These statements can be contradictory to each other, especially when cameras are involved in class. Who are you dancing for? Filming can be used as a tool for dancers to see themselves from an outside perspective and as a way to make corrections. However, teachers often post videos to promote choreography. Dancers even upload videos to promote themselves and transform their social media into a sort of  online resume. It can be a great tool. Recently on Instagram Live celebrity choreographer Sean Bankhead said, “The content on your pages are so important, it’s the new resume. Upload good quality content, invest in your page, and invest in your camera work.” There is now high importance on taking and sharing footage from class. On that note, I’ve felt that filming can also make class less about the training and more about perception --- Am I doing better because I want to? Or am I doing better because I want this video to look great? It runs a fine line especially for young dancers. I’ve experienced several classes where you learn the combination in 30 minutes and a videographer comes in and films for an hour. Can you spot the potential problem? Where does the privacy and intimacy of class have time to cultivate in this environment?

Professional dancer and educator Kyrah Gradford says she occasionally participates in class filming. She quotes, “I like to see small nuances that I feel like I don’t do, and I can see it on video and correct it but I don't like the stigma of getting a video and feeling forced, pressured, or  having the anxiety of posting it for social media.” Social media creates the illusion of perfection. In return, this can directly affect how dancers experience classes and combinations when professional filming is involved. Gradford also broke down the process of filming and receiving a professional recorded video. “When it comes to a professional camera, 9 times out of 10, the videographer already has the video, the choreographer has the video, and then it takes a minute to get to you. So it has already been seen by two, three other people. Then that choreographer sometimes chooses to put that out to the world probably without your permission.” This brings up the idea of consent and asking students if they are okay with being filmed instead of assuming.  

Cameras in the classroom seem to be a preference based on the dancer, teacher, and community. Although we have to constantly adapt to changing times and mediums, there is always benefit in balance. Teachers should consider how they can still incorporate cameras occasionally while also giving their students the privacy to just train. This is a great conversation to have between studio owners, teachers, and students so that the healthiest environment can be created for all.

Video filmed by Alyssa Grabinski. Photo taken by Camryn Eaglin.

Camryn Eaglin is a professional dancer and writer earning a Bachelor of Science in Dance and a minor in Broadcast Journalism from Wayne State University. She is a diversely trained dancer with an interest in all facets of the dance community.

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Resource/Reading List: For a Somatics Course

Design by Claire Calalo Berry of Flourish and Frost

From Blog Director Jill Randall:

Each August, I love connecting with college professors as they prepare their syllabi and course material. Today I want to share resources from the blog for a Somatics Course.

 

Somatic Writing Series

In Spring 2021, nine dancers shared ideas around somatic themes and how these themes played out in their lives - such as softening, allowing, activating, and slowing down to feel.

Like "flash fiction writing," each writer took on the challenge of sharing their ideas in 100 words or less.
I hope you might get inspired to write on these themes as well, succinctly and poetically within this word limit.

Somatic Writing Series

52 Movement Poems

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and shelter-in-place, in Spring 2020, I started sharing Movement Poems on the blog. The idea was to offer improvisation and composition prompts that we could easily do at home. I paired each poem with a piece of music by Michael Wall, easily accessed on his site soundformovement.com.

Here is the complete list of 52 poems. Somatic concepts and language are woven throughout the poems.

Invitations: 52 Movement Poems (the complete list)

Books Recommendations

A short list of books to browse and consider for your courses:

The Natural Body in Somatics Dance Training (Doran George, edited by Susan Leigh Foster)

Mindful Movement: The Evolution of the Somatic Arts and Conscious Action (Martha Eddy)

My Grandmother's Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies (Resmaa Menakem)

Diverse Bodies, Diverse Practices: Towards an Inclusive Somatics (Don Hanlon Johnson)

The Place of Dance: A Somatic Guide to Dancing and Dance Making (Andrea Olsen)

The Embodied Teen: A Somatic Curriculum for Teaching Body-Mind Awareness, Kinesthetic Intelligence, and Social and Emotional Skills--50 Activities in Somatic Movement Education (Susan Bauer)

Other Resources, Podcasts, and Connections

I also want to mention the incredible work of Prentis Hemphill, The Embodiment Institute, and The Nap Ministry. I encourage you to explore these links as well as you prepare your classes.

Plus, this is a short journal to print out:

Intro Spective Wellness: 10 Writing Prompts to Examine Your Beliefs around Intersectional Wellness by Chanel Durley

Lastly, I do want to give a shameless little pitch for this deck of dancer wellness cards Claire Calalo Berry and I made in 2020. There are 31 cards, many with somatically based words on them (receive, soften, listen, etc). Consider pulling a card for each day of class. Purchase the cards through Etsy here.

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A New Journal for Your College-Level Technique Course This Semester (Free to Download)

From Blog Director Jill Randall:

Over the years, it has been really fun to create these journals for undergraduate level and graduate level technique courses. Today I share the 4th iteration. This one is meant to be a co-learning experience --- where students and professors alike write in a journal each week as part of a course. I hope that you will check it out.

The journal can be used for a variety of dance styles and levels, and there are multiple formats to select from here. If you have the ability to print and bind copies for your students at your school's print shop, that would be a really great option.

 

Version 1: a PDF for students to print at home

Download: On Technique IV Print at Home

Version 2: a PDF to print at a print shop

Download: On Technique IV Print at a Print Shop

Version 3: a PDF in which you can type

Download: On Technique IV Fillable PDF Version

 

Also, check out the 3 previous journals as well if seeking a variety of options!

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