Life as a Modern Dancer

Artist Profile #169: Liv Schaffer (Oakland, CA)

Photo: Liv Schaffer

Hometown: Algonquin, IL (Northwest suburbs of Chicago)

Current city: Oakland, CA

Age: 29

College and degree: Bachelors of Fine Arts from Alonzo King LINES Ballet BFA Program at Dominican University of California

How you pay the bills: Adjunct and administrative positions with University of San Francisco and Dominican University, studio classes, and private lessons

All of the dance hats you wear: Performer, Teacher/Professor, Choreographer, Community Engaged Artist/Facilitator, Administrator, and Audience Member

Non-dance work you do or have done in the past: Hospitality, Retail, Personal Assistant

Website: aliviaschaffer.com
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Describe your dance life…
 
High school: 
In high school, I danced 5-6 days per week at a small ballet studio in the suburbs focusing on The Nutcracker each Fall, other full length ballets in the Spring and more creative and alternative classes each summer. My year round training consisted of Ballet, Pointe, Variations, Modern, Jazz, Character, and lots of rehearsals for new work and studio company repertoire. As I began high school, a trusted teacher of mine invited me to join her over the August breaks to take the train into the city to attend open professional level ballet class. Through these journeys downtown, I became exposed to Lou Conte Dance Center/Hubbard Street, Luna Negra, Thodos Dance Chicago, Giordano, Deeply Rooted, Ruth Page Center for the Arts, and others. My identity as a Modern, then Contemporary, dancer began to form as I spent many long weekend or summer workshops immersed in the language of these vibrant Chicago-based dance companies. All the while, my loving and supportive parents were driving or training in with me and treating me to city walks and mango smoothies post sessions.

I visited San Francisco for the first time to attend the LINES Ballet Summer Program, and fell in love SF and Alonzo’s emphasis on artistry and working internally to create aesthetic. I was elated by the freedom to wear whatever I felt comfortable moving in to class. By my Senior year of high school, I had my college plans in place by November, I had graduated from public school a semester early, and opted to study more full time downtown instead of with my youth ballet studio to finish out the Spring semester while I took care of a parent who was ill at the time. I was always kind of the black sheep at the ballet studio; a little too over weight, outspoken, and excelled in the less classical roles. I was well ready to let myself grow in that direction.

College: 
I attended the LINES BFA Program from 2009-2013, straddling Dominican’s Marin campus and LINES’ San Francisco studios. This conservatory style program had its complete Freshman through Senior classes for the first time when my class arrived in the Fall of 2009. I loved feeling like I was a part of building a new program. We took a Contemporary Ballet class each morning followed by Modern or Gyrotonic®️ classes. Semesters were sprinkled with improvisation, Gaga, and composition courses that nurtured our explorative sides. We performed in original works by in-house and guest choreographers each semester, and created our own concert work in our final year. I performed and presented work at ACDA. I met and lived with some of my best friends. I traveled regularly as a student volunteer with the JUNTOS Collective to various countries in Central America, using dance as a bridge across cultural barriers in workshop and performance settings. A lightbulb switched on in my head - dance as social service?!

Academics paired down as the four years went by, leaving myself and a lot of my peers finishing the program spending less time on DU campus and more time at LINES. I felt like a dancer in the local scene, and it was a nice transition into an active arts community. I studied Arts Management until the loss of my Dad during the Spring semester of my Freshman year had me searching for something deeper. I ended up studying Religion, and was influenced deeply by the Professor who stewarded my Minor in Religious Studies, Gay Lynch. She taught a class on Spiritual Expression, framing bodies as catalysts for spiritual change and vessels for religious meaning. This rich scholarship on embodiment paired with the program’s concert rigor and small class sizes made for a special and safe four years for me to take risks, build networks, and work hard amidst my grief-stricken heart.

The first 2 years after college: 
My first 2 years after college were spent as a company member with DanceWorks Chicago under the Direction of Julie Nakagawa. DanceWorks is a rich laboratory style dance company providing early career artists with the training, collaboration, mentorship, and performance necessary to propel themselves into the field. Julie’s leadership style laid profound groundwork for my dance ethics. I identified my professional identity and voice. I felt appreciated and challenged to grow. I simply cannot say enough about this organization and the thoughtfulness it infuses into its artists. We toured nationally and internationally, performed at esteemed local venues, and overall I really felt like I had "made it" and achieved what I had always hoped for. Because of that I felt a sense of relief and relaxation that carried into the rest of my career pursuits. Lucky enough for me, being in Chicago also allowed me to take care of my Mom during her end of life and share this achievement with her. She was always my biggest fan, and there was some bit of closure knowing she could see me reach that goal before leaving this life. She passed away a year after I graduated, in between my two seasons at DanceWorks. Again, I was caught and held by a dance family during grief. I leaned further into my work as a home for my loss.

Now: 
Currently, I perform with Robert Moses’ Kin, Dance Exchange, and in my own work. I wear a few hats working at USF: teaching Contemporary Dance, directing an on-campus intergenerational dance company called Dance Generators, assisting with production and administration, and choreographing new works for semester culminating concerts. This year, I had been working on a new piece that connected my work at USF with my personal choreographic endeavors. I had cast undergraduate students, older adults, and professional dancers in the same work. I developed it during residencies at Jacob’s Pillow and throughout the beginnings of my time as a Margaret Jenkins Dance Company CHIME 2020 Mentee - we were set to premiere excerpts at USF and in full at Shawl-Anderson Dance Center just last week! Though the shows were all canceled, I continue to engage the cast through virtual intergenerational dance classes via Zoom, and through humble and distanced creative projects. We are caring for each other through creating together with no pressure to produce, making an investment in a different pace of research than we typically work at. I will spend my summer doing some online teaching and preparing for the classes I teach in the Fall. I will rest, cook, dance at home, and tend to my mental health.

Photo by Robbie Sweeny courtesy of University of San Francisco. Dance Generators performing Liv’s work, Mütterland, at USF’s Presentation Theater April 2019. Dancers: Cecilia London, Laura Trupin, Kathleen Moore, Ann DiFruscia, Nancy Mossa, Shelley Richanbach, Kate Carter and Leah Hanley.

Major influences: 
My colleagues and mentors from Jacob’s Pillow - Elizabeth Johnson, Margot Greenlee, and Celeste Miller. My past boss from DanceWorks, Julie Nakagawa. My colleagues/friends/collaborators whom I admire. The communities I serve. The people who make up the various teams I work within daily. I’m influenced by what I think my mom would have said in a particular situation.

Prior to shelter in place, what was a typical dance week like for you (teaching, rehearsing, choreographing, training)?
Two days per week I would typically head to USF for full 10-12 hour days of physical and computer work. Other days were spent rehearsing for upcoming shows, personal training (yoga, taking class at Shawl-Anderson or LINES usually, going to the gym), and facilitating movement classes in a variety of senior centers or other community venues. I teach a weekly adult ballet class at SADC and fill remaining hours with the unending amount of personal administration and networking list items. Beyond that, I try my best to keep big chunks of time free to spend unplugged and connecting with my loved ones, resting, finding joy, or playing.

What are you exploring and focusing on as a performer right now? 
I rely heavily on interaction with audience in my performance, almost flirtatiously taking the temperature of the audience experience in ways that are sometimes funny and sometimes tender. I am wondering how to continue exercising those skills over digital or distanced platforms. What new skills will these platforms help us develop? What may we be able to intuit after a year’s time working digitally?

How about as a choreographer?
Who am I responsible to right now? Who would benefit from being engaged in a choreographic process right now? How can I sustain my collaborators? What does my work look like during the pandemic? A creative outdoor performance? Film? What do I need from my collaborators while we’re in a digital room? What do they need from me? What does rigor look like when creating while sheltering in place? Who is our online content truly for? I’m excited by the nature of our current state dissolving some preexisting rules and thus making more space for innovation. I am creating between the intimate and digitally exposed each day. I feel a need for both.

Photo by Grace Kathryn Landefeld courtesy of Jacob’s Pillow. Liv’s work Saludo being performed at Jacob’s Pillow Inside/Out August 2019. Dancers: Juliann Witt, Claire Fisher, Hayley Bowman, Alexis Staley, Cora Cliburn.

What does the phrase “teaching artist” mean to you?
I actually find that phrase often belittled in our field. Since working in arts integration and medical humanities programming with Jacob’s Pillow, I have been referred to as a “Community Engagement Artist,” which I prefer. Community Engagement Artist emphasizes the artistic vision and inquiry that I bring to a community. It allows tailored intimacy at the intersection of my personal artistry and the needs of the community I’m serving. I have been titled as a teaching artist in the past, and have been okay with it - each organization is different, and I’m happy to go with the flow. Ultimately, the title doesn’t matter much to me when not looking at the resume - my practice will likely be the same: my work as a choreographer, educator, and performer are all present as keepers, receivers, and exchangers of knowledge in the room. They all inform each other, and the communities I’m working with are informing each of them as well. Teaching Artist or Community Engagement Artist work is oftentimes a sub project of the work being produced that checks a grant friendly box. I am curious about how community engaged dance practices and experiences can shape concert product and ethos in meaningful ways.
 
Current training practices and care of the body: 
Finding a consistent sleep rhythm, being gentle with myself, taking friends’ yoga classes on Zoom, circuit workouts, small improvisations around the house, long walks.

Last show you saw that inspired you:
Margaret Jenkins CHIME Encounters Over 60 with Vicky Shick (see links below). I loved knowing the work was made so quickly; I loved absorbing the aesthetic from another geographic location and generation. Working as a CHIME Mentee during Encounters Over 60 has allowed for such a meaningful feeling of legacy and belonging to a broader dance lineage.

Non-dance activities, hobbies, and service work important to you: 
Painting, social time with friends, Burning Man community, playing frisbee, riding my bike, journaling.

Advice to dancers moving to the San Francisco Bay Area: 
Closed mouths are rarely fed. Reach out to people whose work you want to perform, or whose work interests you. Ask questions. Be the kind of dancer/human you want to cross paths with - this includes in the dressing rooms, lobbies, in emails, etc. Networking is a long haul game, so plant seeds with no expectations for immediate sowing, yet be open to unexpected harvest in time. There are a lot of doors to the same party; don’t be afraid to trailblaze.

Final thoughts: Hope/belief/love of the profession:
This profession has given me a relationship and connection to my body that predates shelter in place, meaning those of us lucky enough to dance regularly have some great tools for engaging our bodies during this uncertain time and in the face of trauma. I’ve always seen my work as a digestive container for my personal history, and its feeling amplified now. I am grateful.

Photo by Hilary Goidell . Liv and fellow SADC Dance Up Close/East Bay artist, Dazaun Soleyn, during a photoshoot for their canceled May 2020 performances. 

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Related posts:

Encounters Over 60 with Vicky Shick (Continuing to work on what you're working on - Megan Nicely)

Encounters with Vicky Shick - Valerie Gutwirth

Redefining Solo - Sima Belmar

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Shelter-in-Place Dance Dictionary: Leah Cox

Photo by Makayla Ferrick

 

Self space:

The generalized physical space that I take for granted, which is near enough to me to be mistaken for me or mine.  Self space is not a term of occupation, but imagination and spirit.  Where do I end?  How much do I encompass/encompasses me? 

Or

Where a person can take a time out.

Or

Where a person might collapse inward to feel the vastness of what is within; a wormhole into endless mystery. 

 

General space:

The space that I (incorrectly) consider not me, that I move in and perhaps take for granted as unremarkable or capable of being made remarkable only by my actions.  (As in, I must activate the space in order for it to be distinct.  Perhaps it only needs me to listen to it more carefully.)

Or

All that exists that supports me, with great love and abundance.

Or

Everything that has not been attended to and is cursed with an assumption of undifferentiated blandness. 

 

Proximity:

A measure of distance that organizes around the concept of nearness, as opposed to farness. 

Or

The distance I hold an object or idea in order for it to be maximally potent.  This might require drawing nearer to something or giving something distance.  What is the proximity of certain ideas that I regard as core to me, or the proximity of my daughter’s first drawing at any given moment? 

 

Solo practice:

An act of mental deception in which I pretend I am alone. 

Or

A spiritual practice of differentiation in which I prepare to walk alone into the abyss.

Or

A practice of aloneness that results in the recognition of and Great Feeling for everything that I cannot separate from. 

 

Rigor:

Disciplined practices of intensity engaged in regularly and regardless of desire. 

Or

The relentless, dogged approach to tasks that must be employed for a person to experience transcendence or extreme release into unknown bliss. 

 

Unison:

Many people giving up all their ego shit so as to become lock-step with others, perhaps resulting in a state of communitas.

Or

The state of being together in such deep harmony that we all become blurred and perhaps more like One than many. 

 

Audience:

Those who engage in deep witnessing of an event created by other people, and do so together, with complete strangers, close friends, lovers, frenemies, and acquaintances.

Or

Pleasure addicts who get their fix of bliss by witnessing acts of human creativity, the sublime, and the really unreal. 

 

Feedback:

The undercurrent of sensational and linguistic chatter in my brain and body that exists every moment of my life and founds the impulse to get wiser in general so as to upgrade the quality of chatter that’s bouncing around in me at any given hour.

 

Documentation:

The movements of a person’s body, the practices they make habitual, and the ideas they allow to recur and flow out of themselves, all of which form patterns that are indisputably present and evident.  This archival practice occurs regardless of whether a person is consciously enacting it. 

(Said at a whisper: Indelible imprints occurring all the time.)

And so

How can I become more aware of all that I have documented in my heart, my bones, my movements?  The actions keep slipping away before I can grasp them; I cannot become conscious enough to appreciate it all.  I am not yet wise enough, so onward I go! 

 

These definitions are documentation of my state of being and thinking in this moment… for now…

 

 

Leah Cox is Dean of the American Dance Festival, Associate Professor of Dance at the University of Texas at Austin, and a dancer in Liz Lerman’s latest project, Wicked Bodies. In these unusual times, her house has turned into a nursery, preschool, and offsite satellite for higher education and remotely realized summer intensive learning experiences. She shelters-in-place with her husband, four-year-old daughter, and seven-month-old son. 

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Related posts:

Shelter-in-Place Dance Dictionary: Jae Neal

Shelter-in-Place Dance Dictionary: Raja Feather Kelly

Shelter-in-Place Dance Dictionary: Colleen Thomas

Shelter-in-Place Dance Dictionary: Christy Funsch

 

Studio Practice/Studio Time: Leah Cox

Featured Artist on the Blog: Leah Cox

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Virtual Book Group: How to Land by Ann Cooper Albright

I have wanted to read this book for a few months, and I thought that now is the time! Can you join me? We will do a few weeks of an online check-in through my blog, and then the final session might be a Zoom call to talk about the book as a whole.

How to Land: Finding Ground in an Unstable World foregrounds the importance of embodiment as a means of surviving the disorientation of our twenty-first century world. Linking somatics and politics, author Ann Cooper Albright argues that a renewed attention to gravity as both a metaphoric sensibility and a physical experience can help transform moments of personal disorientation into an opportunity to reflect on the important relationship between individual resiliency and communal responsibility. (From The King's English Bookshop website)

 

Some buying options:

Books Inc in the SF Bay Area

The King's English Bookshop in Salt Lake City

Greenlight Bookstore in Brooklyn

Amazon.com (paperback and e-book)

 

Here is the reading/discussion/comment timeline:

Wednesday, May 27th: Introduction and Chapter 1 (Falling); 48 pages

Wednesday, June 3rd: Chapters 2 and 3 (Disorientation and Suspension); 57 pages

Wednesday, June 10th: Chapters 4 and 5 (Gravity and Resilience); 61 pages

Wednesday, June 17th: Chapter 6 and Afterword (Connection); 38 pages

 

If you can join in, please make a comment below. Thank you!

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Shelter-in-Place Dance Dictionary: Jae Neal

Photo: Aeric Meredith-Goujon

 

Improvisation - my life in general at the moment. Every move I make from waking up to falling asleep is a study in improvisation. How I use my desires and goals to get me through the day. All I’ve got is time and not many people, places, or things asking much of me. I feel like a professional juggler standing on one leg juggling one small ball. I'm used to using so much more of me; it's a constant study in figuring out what I can do with my other limbs while I hold on to just one thing.

 

Rhythm - the sequence of pounds, taps and slaps I make in and around my heartbeat.

 

Audience - when will we gather again? How can we see around our old customs on what makes an audience? I have so many questions around this word. With the growing importance of digital communications it seems to me audiences are getting smaller and more specific i.e. “click-ish” people seek out in a key word search what they want and attend only that. Boundaries begin to be pushed less and the mixed audiences I’ve grown to love and yearn to share with are becoming more separate. How can I convince, encourage, and inspire more than 10 people to gather more than 6’ apart to bear witness to live art. Maybe we’re all audience and the only real live art we get is people watching from our window.

 

Documentation - bless the smart phone! Does anyone use Laban notation anymore?

 

Teaching - something so sacred and special has turned into the next passing fad i.e. Instagram Live workshops and Zoom classes. The rise of this pandemic has brought on an onslaught of people thinking/assuming that teaching is their calling, if only because they have the space and some personal knowledge. It would be my hope that the true sharers and progressors of our industry would be the ones educating. But it seems to me that too many of the wrong teachers are teaching. It requires an immense amount of selflessness to offer yourself up as a teacher. Especially in this time it is so important for our students to know why dance is still important and what it is we need to be holding on to and what it is that we should be asking more questions about. I’m not sure that all that has been figured out yet, but I remain hopeful.

 

Dance making - who can be called a dance maker now? I find this time to be a blessing. When all at once I couldn’t find the time or resources to give myself space to create, this series of isolation has forced me to become resourceful in the most humble of ways and ask my creative tendencies to settle for less than my mind dreams up if only to produce something over nothing. All production in this time feels safe and self reflective. Informative and inspiring. I look forward to sharing the thoughts, ideas, and projects I’ve been working on.

 

Rehearsing - something I have a hard time convincing myself is worth while right now.

Honestly speaking. Who are we kidding? Dance, art, and the world alike will never be the same following the pandemic or “these troubling times.” A statement that can be said generally about any time in life, but the weight and the importance of one's voice is more tender than ever now. I feel almost narcissistic believing that what I was responsible for creating, prior to the pandemic, was so forward thinking and profound that it still holds the same importance and relevance now. Artists are historians, and while it’s obvious that looking back and repeating has proven to be an effective method of artistic communication, we are experiencing a highlighted moment in time for the globe. Rehearsing what we did before seems reductive. It is important to remember what we've done and are doing, no doubt, but I feel our time spent rehearsing as art makers and historians should be spent with more research and introspect and less repetition and complacency. The questions and thought-provoking motives need to be pointed at now and what’s to come and what we need, and what we can get. We don’t know when audiences will feel comfortable being audiences again; shows will not be the same for some time. But our work needs to be shared. There are still people out there that need to have difficult conversations through art, who need to feel mindless joy and visual stimulation, who need to be reminded of magic, and illusion and innovation. How do we do that?

 

Training - practice in maintaining and improving a specific set of skills or discipline.

 

Ex. I try to take Yoga to the People at 11am 5-6 times a week to maintain a centered mind-body connection and to continue my journey in improved posture, strength and balance.

 

Level changes - walking up and down my 4 floor walk up for essentials. Sitting up to find the remote.

 

Dynamic changes - noticeable changes from one feeling/texture/energy to another, possibly along the same spectrum.

 

Ex. Thick to thin, dry to wet, spastic to mellow

 

Proximity - nearness to my refrigerator, the big hand and little hand at 4, and my Beau.

 

Photo: Dustin Dacier

 

Jae Neal is a performing artist and choreographer born and raised in Michigan. They received their training from Western Michigan University, performing in professional works such as "Strict Love" by Doug Varone, "Temporal Trance" by Frank Chavez and Harrison McEldowney’s "Dance Sport." Since relocating to New York Jae has had the privilege of working with SYREN Modern Dance, Christina Noel Reaves, MSA Agency, Netta Yerushalmy, Catapult Entertainment, Katherine Helen Fisher Dance, and Nathan Trice. Jae joined Kyle Abraham’s A.I.M in 2011.

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Related posts:

Artist Profile: Jae Neal

Shelter-in-Place Dance Dictionary: Raja Feather Kelly

Shelter-in-Place Dance Dictionary: Colleen Thomas

Shelter-in-Place Dance Dictionary: Christy Funsch

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Shelter-in-Place Dance Dictionary: Raja Feather Kelly

 

Shelter-in-Place Dance Dictionary

By Raja Feather Kelly

 

I will preface by saying, as an artist I am not changed. Though my circumstances have, my integrity tells me I am ready, prepared, and willing to move myself through this time. These definitions are representative of my understanding.

 

 

Level Changes - a description for shifts in energetic capacity. Like a gas tank; fluctuation in what you have the energy for at any given time. 

 

Proximity - the perceived distance from the memory or reminder of the life you lead before and the variable associated with how you're moving forward. 

 

Improvisation - describes the time in which we are in. The Great Improvisation. For now that everything is known, we are forced to respond spontaneously to the molecular accumulation of information. 

 

Rigor - the dedication to the practice of being honest comfortable with responding and not reacting to any given situation at any given time. 

 

Unison - the replacement word for "together." We are not together, we are apart, but we are in unison; under similar circumstances. 

 

Time - an organizing principal to measure the duration of completing one task to another. 

 

Dancemaking - the algebra of time, space, movement, organization, improvisation, practice, measure, choice, within any given circumstance. 

 

Documentation - a dramaturgical process of wanting to remember things, feelings, and experienced as they are in the moment that they happen. 

 

Reflection - the manual process of a boomerang, sending something out in the world and then going out to get it to bring it back, taking in all that is seen in the process. 

 

 

Raja Feather Kelly is a dance-theater-media maker living and working in New York City.

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Related posts:

 

Artist profile: Raja Feather Kelly

 

Shelter-in-Place Dance Dictionary: Colleen Thomas

 

Shelter-in-Place Dance Dictionary as Biography as Bibliography: Christy Funsch

 

 

Shelter-in-Place Dance Dictionary: Colleen Thomas

Shelter-in-Place Dance Dictionary

by Colleen Thomas

Day #49

 

Self-space / self spās / noun

1. the area drawn (mentally - like a force field) in a 6 foot radius around one’s body. Penetrable by young children. Teenage children sometimes need to soften before entering self-space. Husband mostly allowed if in a good mood or if is answering the many questions about coronavirus news and computer glitches.

 

Locomotor movement / lōkə mōdər mōōvment / noun

1. the movement in the organs, blood, cells….even the thoughts…the thoughts and memories are now the biggest locomotor movement.

 

Level changes / levəl chānjez / noun

1. a fluctuation.

ex. movement in the mind and body from freedom to fear, or claustrophobia to safety. And most importantly, constraint to creation.

 

Site-specific / sīt spisifik / noun

1. everything.

Ex. Life is site specific. Life is dance. Dance is life.

 

Improv / imp prāv/ noun

1. to be in the moment and aware of the senses.

 

Training / trānING / noun

1. everything we have learned before now.

 

Warm up / wōr mep / noun

1. a progression one actually enjoys and makes sense to the mechanics of their own mind and body.

Ex. During self isolation I listened to my body and created my own personal warm up just like Janet Lilly and Jan Erkert taught me.

 

Daily practice / dālē praktas / noun

1. a personal system 

ex. Wake. Enjoy the quiet. Eat. Worry about the future of my city and community. Meditate. Be grateful for this pause. Move. Fight with husband about something like, eggs. Talk to academic colleagues that are worried about the future but holding it together for family and students. Email students and try not to seem crazy. Help with 3^rd grade math. Look up 3^rd grade math on Google to make it look like I understand it and can do it. Have some fun with kids (body break, game, plant). Walk into teenager’s room and immediately get yelled at for walking in. Say, “I love you.” Get an "I love you" back and leave. Repeat three more times throughout the day with minimal changes. Sleep and have crazy ass dreams. Repeat.

 

Teaching / tēching / verb

1. trying to unlock points of freedom in others.

 

Learning / lərniNG / verb

1. listening in order to understand, connect, and feel freedom and curiosity.

 

Time / tīm / noun

1. the continuation of existence which is the same but different every day.

Ex. It is the end of times. JK it's not the end of times it just feels like it. First (well not first but…) with Trump and all the shit and now this. What happened? 2020 was supposed to be our year!

 

Dancemaking / dancemāking / noun

1. creating movement. You are your actions. If you are moving you are dance-making.

 

Reflection / re flekSHen / noun

1. the ability to look back and realize you lived for work and you worked to live in a city that runs on this mentality.

2. the ability to notice that you can't relax unless you’ve hit burnout first.

3. to notice and have the time to heal old wounds.

4. to feel the love around you and want to give love to those who you notice now are always there for you.

Hindsight is 2020 in 2020.

 

Non-dance activities / non dans ak tivədēs / noun

1. NA

 

Self-care / self ker / noun

1. everything from now on. I swear this time!!!

 

Colleen Thomas is a New York-based choreographer and performing artist. She is the director of Colleen Thomas Dance, co-director of Bill Young/Colleen Thomas Co., and co- curator for LIT (loft into theater).  Her work has been seen throughout the United States as well as in Europe, Asia, and South America. Her recent research includes: a new evening length work with artists from Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, and USA that premiered at La MaMa Theater in May 2019 and a recent published scientific study looking at brain activity in contact improvisers with Dr. Andrew Goldman (Goldman, A., Thomas, C., & Sajda, P. (2019). Contact improvisation dance practice predicts greater mu rhythm desynchronization during action observation. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts. Advance online publication. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/aca0000255.)    In her newest work, light and desire, Thomas joins five women artists from Venezuela (Carla Forte), Hungary/Germany (Ildiko Toth), Poland (Joanna Lesnierowska), Albania/ Greece (Ermira Goro), and North America (Rosalynde LeBlanc), taking a personal and universal look at how women artists cope under oppressive and manipulative power structures. This feminist collective looks at the many moments of transition and asks how women hold, embody and express power. The world premiere performances will take place at New York Live Arts in New York City from April14-17, 2021 once we have come through this.

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Related posts:

Catching Up with Colleen Thomas

Artist Profile: Colleen Thomas

Artist Profile: Jan Erkert

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Shelter-in-Place Dance Dictionary as Biography as Bibliography….

Photo: Noah Lewis

Shelter-in-Place Dance Dictionary as Biography as Bibliography….

By Christy Funsch

 

Self-space:

“You are changing space. The space has never been changed quite like this before.” Deborah Hay

Spatial awareness:

Zaha Hadid; “Architecture is how the person places herself in the space. Fashion is about how you place the object on the person.”

Spaciousness:

“One part of the body is not compressing any other part” Julie Mayo; Skinner Releasing class, Movement Research; April 2020

Site-specific:

Carsick, John Waters; 2014

Site-adaptive:

Dogville;Lars von Trier; 2004

Exorcism of Desire:

Rowena Richie 

Improvisation: 

Aura Fischbeck Shelter in place score (written 3/27/2020):

“Occupy as much space as you can, with your body, your breath and/or your mind/spirit. Hold onto this feeling for a while (as long as it takes to feel a change) and then gradually let the feeling evaporate. There is movement in this (as much or as little is pleasurable). Then. Slowly. Deflate. It’s ok. Time to disappear. Rest like it’s your fucking job. Like it’s your fucking paycheck paying job. Rest. Really, really rest.”

Studio practice:

Inging and nonstopping; Jeanine Durning; “…as opposed to continuous, [which] implies 'going with the flow,' nonstop points to the critical nature of what it takes to keep going in the midst of, and despite, questions, doubts, limitations, and of course, inevitable failures.”

Solo practice:

Patti Smith; “As far as I'm concerned, being any gender is a drag.”

Daily practice:

A Choreographic Mind; Susan Rethorst; “Dailiness and nothing. These too are critical to this choreographer’s work. Susan often cites John Cage as a major influence. Cage once said 'I have nothing to say, I am saying it, and that is poetry.' To this Susan might reply 'I have nothing to do, I am doing it, and that is dance.' ” Judy Hussie-Taylor 

Rigorous Fun:

Michael Maslin; dailiness and whimsy 

Teaching:

Cynthia Oliver: “I want to get dirty, acknowledge demons, hail the angels, tell secrets, question and celebrate conflicted, complicated, glorious lives fully lived.”

Moving together:

“You Can Have it All;” George McCrae

Time:

Luciana Achugar: “I make work with a desire to escape the oppression of the arrow of time; to arrive at a place of beyond time, Body time… In Marissa Perel’s words when writing about OTRO TEATRO (2014): 'But then to think about time differently. To go toward the slippage from one kind of time into another. OTRO TEATRO was three hours long, but it felt to me like no time. It was ritual time. It was a suspension of that other time, the schedule. […] It was an experience of another time with other bodies, it was an experience of a space that held all the bodies, and it was also a mass revolt. It was our task to be in this together, to allow ourselves to be overcome and to surrender to sensation.'”

Tempo and Pace:

Vera Mantero; “Life is a terribly complicated and rich phenomenon and I see the work I do as a continuous fight against the impoverishment of the spirit, both mine and others, a fight that I consider essential now and always.”

Rhythm:

Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan; process and perception

Duration and unconscious continuance:

Lydia Davis; pushing the form; “There was a very useful writing book, whose name I’ve forgotten now, that I used to give to students. The author had an interesting pattern of conscious versus unconscious. In other words, conscious writing and organizing and then unconscious and less controlled writing. It has to do with allowing the less conscious and controlled part of your brain to continue to work. I find this happens all the time and it’s very important. I’ve been working on something, and then I stop because I’m going to make lunch, but my brain doesn’t stop. That’s why I feel the advice is crucial, because if I went to the kitchen and turned on the radio or started talking to someone, then this couldn’t happen, it would not be possible. But if I don’t do any of those things, then, as I’m making the sandwich, or whatever, my brain will continue to work on what I was working on and come up with another idea or a better phrasing or an expansion of a sentence.” From Five Dials interview, Winter 2019-20

Audience:

“A landscape doesn’t demand from the spectator his “understanding,” his imputations of significance, his anxieties and sympathies; it demands, rather, his absence, it asks that he not add anything to it. Contemplation, strictly speaking, entails self-forgetfulness on the part of the spectator: an object worthy of contemplation is one which, in effect, annihilates the perceiving subject.” Susan Sontag; On Style; 1965.

Process versus product:

Cornelia Parker; process; “I like to take man-made objects and push them to the point where they almost lose their reference, so that they become something else, take on other alliances.”

Documentation:

“What’s the difference between reading about something you’ve experienced and being exposed to something that you’re opening yourself to for the first time through that exposure? Can words and images actually convey movement worlds? I believe they can.” Nancy Stark Smith; “Sensation as Portal: Worlds within worlds within words;” Contact Quarterly Journal; Winter/Spring 2015

Reflection….Refraction:

Sarah Cooper; @sarahcpr; https://thecooperreview.com/10-tricks-appear-smart-meetings/; How to Be Successful Without Hurting Men's Feelings

Self-care:

“Breathe and be ready to change. Change is here to stay.” Irmgard Bartenieff

 

Christy Funsch formed Funsch Dance in 2002 and has since been presented nationally and internationally. She has enjoyed rich collaborations with Stephen Pelton, Nol Simonse, Julie Mayo, Peiling Kao, and she has also worked with Susan Rethorst, Katie Faulkner, Dandelion Dancetheater, and many others. She holds an MFA and a Laban Movement Analysis Certification, and she has been awarded choreographic residencies at CounterPULSE, Djerassi, Shawl-Anderson, the U Cross Foundation, and Yaddo. She has been an artist in residence at James Madison University, University of Nebraska Lincoln, and Virginia Commonwealth University. In 2014, Christy was mentored by Tere O’Connor, presented in Yerba Buena’s Bay Area Now Series, and named one of Dance Magazine’s “25 to Watch.” In 2015 she taught her improvisational practice 100 Days Score at ImpulsTANZ, and she became the first woman to be granted permission to perform Daniel Nagrin’s 1965 solo, Path. She was a Fulbright Scholar at Lisbon’s Escola Superior de Dança in 2019. Visit www.funschdance.org.

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Related posts:

Artist profile: Christy Funsch

Artist profile: Jeanine Durning

The Choreographic Moment: Jeanine Durning

Artist profile: Cynthia Oliver

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Movement Poem #52

 

Movement Poem #52

A poem for May 5, 2020 by Jill Randall

 

commitment

will

willing

 

throughlines

 

curiosities

 

scanning the space

 

committed to myself

to this practice

to another day

 

to moving

to exhaling

to playing

and making

and diving

and loving

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Hello! Today is the last poem for this project. I wanted to make 52 poems, and here we are!

Today's music selection is "9x" by Michael Wall, #10 on this playlist.

I would begin with the two words or lines that resonate for you today. (I selected "scanning the space" and "committed to myself.") Improvise for a minute or two with these words.

Build a movement phrase for the whole poem today. It is a commitment to yourself, a gift for yourself.

Here's to more dancing and more joy in the weeks ahead. Thank you!

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Redefining Solo

 

Redefining Solo

By Sima Belmar

What: From One to Many: Six Solos Shared

An online performance premiere and artist Q&A featuring six commissioned choreographers presenting brand new solos made in their homes for this time of physical distancing to the music of composer Michael Wall.  

Who: Works by Melecio Estrella, Molly Heller, Molly Rose-Williams, natalya shoaf, Liv Schaffer, and Erin Yen

When: May 2, 2020

Where: On YouTube and in domestic spaces with access to internet and a capacity for navigating Zoom

Why: What, you’ve got something better to do?

 

Ding dong! The Zoom bell rings. I appreciate the effort to sound like a real doorbell. 

Clickety click clack clicky. The sound of Jessi Barber, our fearless virtual stage manager, furiously fielding questions from audience members about how to get to the show. 

… … … Me, muted, trying to get attention from the faces I know by waving and mugging. Even if someone is waving back at me, I can’t tell.

Clickety click clack clicky. Me using the chat box to connect with friends.

“We shut our doors on March 13.” Shawl-Anderson Dance Center Artistic Director Jill Randall welcoming us. “How can we keep making art and supporting artists?” Jill explains how she reached out to composer Michael Wall for music to springboard solos by six invited artists, culled from prior, current, and visiting artists-in-residence.

100 people on the Zoom call!

There’s Chingchi Yu sipping tea against a backdrop of (real) Redwoods. A woman I don’t know looks cute in her Princess Leia headphones. Andrew Merrell! I love your Donna Summer hair! Couples in bed, drinking tea or water or maybe schnapps. Melecio has a cat statue seated among crystals.

The artists introduce themselves. The introductions will be my program notes.

Molly Heller, in Salt Lake City, was supposed to be in residence in May at SADC. Describes her solo: contrasts, writing and movement, body/architecture, ease/resistance, buoyancy/density, and something else I miss. Something about the desire to desire and the relentlessness of wanting.

Molly Rose-Williams with a new buzz cut asks “what it means to play when I can’t play in community or in contact.”

Erin Yen, self-described “emerging dancer and dance-maker in the Bay Area,” explores the idea that “movement arts are essential in the movement and technology relationships to come.” She performs in a warehouse in San Francisco against a backdrop of animations by Coal Rietenbach.

natalya shoaf is excited to share through this “weird and necessary way to communicate.”

Liv Schaffer. I think she talked about space. I had stopped typing to listen more carefully for a second. Look where that got me.

Melecio Estrella dedicates his piece to Nancy Stark Smith, one of the founders of contact improvisation who died on May 1. Many if not most of us did not know she had died.

Michael Wall, also in Salt Lake City, tells us he has been collaborating with choreographers remotely for 15 years, first by mailing VHS tapes back and forth, now on his iPad. Wall sings the praises of Instagram—glad my teenager isn’t listening. Points out that we couldn’t have this many people in the SADC theater. Asks the artists in the audience what they need from a musician/accompanist during these times.

We wait in awkward silence for someone to unmute themselves or be unmuted, a warped version of the talking stick. Meanwhile, I text with an audience member who is keeping her video off.

Jessi informs us that Zoom has limited the meeting to 100 but there are others trying to get it. I envision legions of dance-lovers storming the virtual palace.

Jill asks us to jump over to YouTube. The show is about to start. Ooh, so cool! It’s counting down with groovy music—by Michael Wall?—and some colorful graphics. The big countdown from 10 begins and I count along with it as if I’m in Times Square on New Year’s Eve.

I wish I was in my bed watching on my laptop but I need two computers. I watch on my desktop. I type on my laptop. Usually I’m scribbling illegible notes on the backs of programs in dark theaters. I’m excited to be able to capture so much and also wonder if this is a good thing. 

The house lights in my imagination go down.

 

Dance No. 1. Molly Heller’s Falling. Molly stands in what looks like a living room cleared for the performance. Behind her, against the wall, lean two large, square, black canvases with “before” written in white on one and “after” on the other. Right above her head hangs an enormous lamp that seems like an old school beauty salon overhead hair dryer frozen in mid descent. She’s in black and barefoot. There are exposed outlets and a piece of furniture that do not seem to be intentional parts of the scenic design. She raises her arms and twists on half point, lands on her heels, a torso and arm dance. Heller hovers between the words, dipping into their diagonal spaces, crossing into one, then the other. Before. After. Before. After. A clear and compelling mover. There are lots of presentational gestures, reaching and retreating, and gorgeous head-tail connection. Her flow morphs into staccato hopping and I start to notice the repetition of balled fists, put-up-your-dukes gestures, and facial changes that move from ferocity to disgust to sickly sweetness, a whole world of expression. I am drawn in by the contrast of movement precision and face dancing.

Dance No. 2. Molly Rose-Williams’ Today or Tomorrow. Outside. A chain link fence enclosing a schoolyard. Two signs. One reads “Reserved for Principal,” the other advertises the company that built the fence. Tree, fence. A jogger runs by on the sidewalk that runs perpendicular to the fence. The birds are loud. Molly pops up behind the fence under the Principal sign. Molly climbs. We see her arms and torso but not her face. Bicyclists go by. Molly climbs to the top of the fence. Now we see torso and legs. Pedestrians glance over at her as they pass. Molly hangs over the top of the fence, balancing at her hip crease. With a finger, she traces the words on the sign, her feet dangling and kicking lightly, slightly, a leisurely paddle through liquid sky. She walks sideways across the fence, one foot at time, two feet at a time. Two women walk by. One gestures as if to move something from right to left. Wall’s music whistles with slow guitar that gives me a telenovela feel, which really works for me. Molly tries to touch both signs at the same time, with a foot and a hand, with each foot. She is a curved shape in burgundy. Like Heller, this Molly too suddenly hops, two feet across the fence’s middle bar. She comes to the wide pole nearest the sidewalk and shimmies down. Molly hits the sidewalk. Done. Molly calls this a game. I call it an exploration. Is there a difference?

Dance No. 3. Erin Yen’s Taking In. A warehouse space with an unfinished wood wall, a tarp floor, and Yen in yellow track pants. There’s a lone office chair in the back corner. A rectangle of light creates her shadow. The rectangle of light is a screen across which a red blobby circle swims. The released, acrobatic movement feels improvised but not necessarily in response to the shaking vertical lines of light that trap her face and torso. She looks hunted, haunted, her long ponytail whipping against red mountain ranges that turn white. A fluid mover whose big movement stops and gets micro, fingers rubbing together. The animations shift from yellow square on zebra crossing to purple disk. Shapes move, Yen moves, humans are shapes? Suddenly, a word appears, upside down and backwards so I can’t read it. Yen sits cross-legged breathing, while a fire burns behind her. She strikes poses—martial arts, The Thinker. Her dancing and Wall’s music seem to suggest that her body is a piece of technology among others, particularly when she’s twitchy. She comes close to the camera and gestures around her face, repeating a phrase that involves slicing, catching her hands. The repetition doesn’t clarify the story for me. The affect is sweaty, disturbed but not terribly, somehow coherent but hard to name. A paint can drips red, the red blob returns. Yen runs and leaps in and out of frame. The dance ends with Yen on her knees, vigorously swatting at some invisible nuisance getting in her way.

Dance No. 4. natalya shoaf’s Shift. shoaf sits facing the camera in a room lit by fairy lights. It is night and there is an orchid. We see only her torso at first. Arms rise. The tone feels serious, not quite ominous, maybe a little bit witchy. A dance of upper limbs in relation—head and arms, hands and face. Sensual. Her hand pushes down toward her head, the space feels like it’s closing in. shoaf reaches toward the camera, bows her head, disappears. She crouches like a fairy tale crone and then, legs—strong and bare. Like Yen, there is twitching but then a languorous pose like a pinup, an arabesque. The music is minimal. There are books on the floor, postcards on the wall, city lights outside. shoaf upends herself, looks around. Is she being pursued? Possessed? There is instability as the room presses down. The room is bigger than the enclosure she creates by staying close to the camera. She strikes poses an artist might want to draw. I feel inside a hot summer night as shoaf breaks and contorts a balletic leg. I love when her face comes in and out of view as her body deconstructs classic female figures. Her face contorts as Heller’s did, as Yen’s did. Something is going on with the face. Modern dance face is gone. Where did it go? (Good riddance.) Also like Heller, there are muscle man, bicep flexing gestures. What are we fighting against? Sometimes shoaf looks like a college student in her dorm, other times like something wilder.

Dance No. 5. Liv Schaffer’s Cagebird. First, just a hardwood floor, partially illuminated. Photos cascade to the floor to a deep organ (accordion?) sound. Black and white photos, color photos, an elderly couple posed for a portrait, a wedding cake, a person with a tennis racket, time and place stamps on a photo’s flipside. Liv’s shadow appears in the lit corner, then her feet and cuffed green pants, green hoodie. She starts arranging the photos without showing her face. I marvel at her scalp, the strings of her hoodie dangling. She slows down at a portrait of a man in a suit, sepia print. She strokes her chest and lets something go. She is kneeling in a heart chakra dance. She closes her eyes, opens them to look at her hand. Melancholia and loss, her body shifts like a typewriter, hiccoughs echoing the twitches of the earlier dances. The camera is above her so she looks like a supplicant to a higher power. She draws a circle around the photos with her fingers then lies down on top of them, her nose touching the side of a woman’s face. She shoots herself across the floor disrupting the organization. She moves in and out of the frame. The music finally tugs hard enough that I start to cry, just a little. Her pelvis resisting gravitational pull with taffy pull makes me cry a little more. She’s like a child alone with photographs. I was a child alone with photographs. I’m getting it right in the solar plexus now. Liv nears the camera, a stack of photos in her hand. We now see them close up. Is that Liv as a child? Is that my aunt Mildred? Who are these people in the catamaran, on the steps in the house Brady Bunch style, at the shore? Are they here? Are they gone? Balloons and birthday cake. The back of Liv’s foot lifts from the floor with froggy suction feet, treading and swiping so we see the underside and the articulation. That nearly does me in. The light in the room changes, it presses Liv down beneath it. Prone she lays. She rolls, caresses her face, her neck, her collar bone, pushes herself across the floor and out of the frame again. The last thing we see is her hand. Is that a cello? Gone. 

Dance No. 6. Melecio Estrella’s House Plant. Ah, Melecio, in your yellow tank top in a taupe-colored room in front of a gray curtain hanging from a white doorframe, making us laugh. Face dance: pondering, smiling, pandering. Your jaw works, your eyes blink. You show us a white watering can. You pour water into a small mason jar, toast us, take a sip, nod, take another sip. Your lips are working, you look at us—you know we’re watching you! Then, boom!, your heads bobs down and dramatic heartbeat footstep music rises. You bring your hands to your face and, what? Ha! Another set of hands come up. But it’s only funny for a second. The four hands smear all over your face. Whose fingers are those going into your mouth, exploring your teeth, palate, inner cheeks? All that face touching really knocks the wind out of me. I think about hand sanitizer. Your eyes are closed in this sensual and somehow macabre dance. Silver or platinum wedding bands glint. You stand up and we see your floral print shorts. In front of the curtain, you are, I believe, improvising. Looks like Gaga. Looks like Authentic Movement. Again, the typewriter body, a little robotic. And then every part of you is undulating, torso, arms, fingers, rib cage, undulating with hiccoughs. Is that a clock ticking? Are you being swallowed by the energy that courses through you, forcing your head to nod, your arm to get stuck behind your back? Who’s in control here? I can’t keep track of what body part is in charge—arms follow spine, legs follow arms, knees give into wingspan. And then you burst through the curtain—I had expected this at the beginning of the dance but by the time it happens, I’d forgotten and was surprised. The curtain drops, revealing a dark room full of house plants. The leaves become the hands that smeared your face. They massage your whole body. You luxuriate in the leaves. The plants dwarf you then eat you alive, a vernal quicksand. All of this and then “Amazing grace.” You disappear. Black out.

 

We return to the Zoom meeting and the silent applause of 112 participants erupts.

Jill moderates the discussion. People post questions to the chat.

Michael Wall: “Don’t think about trying to copy what we’ve done before. What are the tools we have now? What’s unique to this? None of the things we just saw could happen on a stage with very little budget.”

Molly Rose-Williams: “It doesn’t feel like a solo in the theater because the act of performing feels like a collective effort.” I stopped typing and lost the exact words, but she talked about the fact that unfolded cell membranes would cover the earth 4 times over. She wants to go in and unfold into huge space, to “allow small spaces to unfold into their vast magnitude.”

Molly Heller: “I felt quite distant from my body. It took time to find a relationship with myself.”

Liv: “All of you seeing into my home both in the video and on Zoom.” “Viewpoints audiences haven’t had to see me from before.”

I have been asked to watch an inordinate amount of dance content lately and it’s too much. But this event asked me to commit to a time and a place. I didn’t know I needed that. I didn’t know I missed that. I think we need things like this: a dedicated time to gather to watch together at the same time. To feel beholden to the community. To be held by a container of time.

Shawl-Anderson is my community. Executive Director Rebecca Johnson held up a picture of Frank Shawl, reminding us that Frank and Victor are always with us. They showed up. We all showed up.

 

Sima Belmar, Ph.D., is a Lecturer in the Department of Theater, Dance, & Performance Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, and the ODC Writer in Residence. To keep up with Sima’s writing please subscribe to tinyletter.com/simabelmar.

Movement Poem #51 (Remembering Kites)

Remembering Kites

A Movement Poem for May 4, 2020 by Jill Randall

 

all @ once

fluttering

suspending

balancing

upward

seeking equilibrium

agile

 

present,

and nodding

it is okay,

when it is time

to return

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Hello!

Today's music selection is "Rainy Day" by Michael Wall, which is 8th on this playlist.

Today's imagery of kites aims to evoke flight, loft, and levity. Subtle movements.

I would first select two words or lines from the poem that most pop out to you today. (Mine are "seeking equilibrium" and "fluttering.") Put on the music and improvise for 1-2 minutes with these words.

Shape a short movement phrase that captures the essence of today's poem. Play with levels, pathways, and directionality with the limbs and eyes.

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Movement Poem #50 (New Directions)

New Directions

A Movement Poem for May 3, 2020 by Jill Randall

 

outward

upward

skyward

far reaching

extending

expanding

exhaling

fulfilling

completing

 

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Hello!

Today I want to reference another project of mine, "365 Dance." From August 2014 to August 2015, I wrote down one word or phrase every day related to my dance practice. This poem reminds me of October 11, 2014 and something from Elizebeth Randall's ballet class. As I noted back in October 2014, she talked about "spaciousness + possibilities" in her class. That is the idea behind this poem today as well.

Today's music selection is "4 102" by Michael Wall, #22 on this playlist. I appreciate the drive and energy of the song.

"Spaciousness + possibilities." Improvising with reach, moving outward, core/distal, and focus. Playing with stationary movement, traveling work, and dancing on the floor.

I hope that you will build a short phrase today! Thank you.

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