Hometown: Stamford, CT
Current city: Brooklyn, NY
Age: 37
College and degree: Sarah Lawrence College, BA (concentration in dance)
Website: rashaunsilasdance.com
How you pay the bills: I am in my 3rd year as a full-time assistant arts professor at Tisch School of the Arts at NYU.
All of the dance hats you wear: I choreograph and design much of the visual design of the work. I perform in other people’s work as well, just finished performing at Danspace Project in Moriah Evans’s Social Dance 9-12: Encounter.
Non-dance work you have done in the past: I have been lucky in that most of my work has been dance related, but early on I did some food service work, catering and temp/admin work.
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Describe your dance life….
5 years after college: After college I did a lot of freelance work with NYC based choreographers such as Pam Tanowitz, Risa Jaroslow, Donna Uchizono, etc. I also became an understudy with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. I remember trekking all over the city each day for multiple rehearsals and eating a bagel for breakfast and a slice of pizza for dinner because I had no money. I was never certain about how the bills would be paid, but I loved that time of my life and the freedom I felt.
10 years after college: At this point, I was deeply entrenched in the touring company lifestyle. I was away from home probably half of the time. I saw so many different places and experienced so many different cultures. Sometimes I would forget where I was. I lived in hotels more than in my own home. This was exhilarating and also tiring. My home life was very ambiguous. I was also seeing an end to this lifestyle fast approaching. Merce had died and we were on the legacy tour. I performed numerous dances and revivals. In my body I was mostly trying to hold it together and keep injuries at bay. It now feels like a blur.
Now: Now I’m busier than I’ve ever been. I spend about 2 hours every morning preparing my body to move. I have various breathing/meditative exercises, core-strengthening exercises, stretching and rolling and warm-up exercises that I engage in before planning and teaching my technique classes. My classes range from improvisation to somatic to more traditional technique classes. I then usually stretch after class before diving into emails or other administrative work. In the afternoons I rehearse by myself, with my ongoing collaborator (Silas Riener), and/or with my group of dancers on various projects in different states of development. In the evening I usually go to a show or try to find time for my social life. But I’m usually too exhausted for that. I try to get away from this routine as much as possible --- to visit new places, get some perspective, recharge the batteries.
Rashaun Mitchell and Silas Reiner
Major influences:
I read and watch a lot of science fiction and fantasy. I love fashion. Nature inspires me or at least offers me a space to think and dream. The people around me inspire me.
What is on your calendar for the next year’s time (teaching, choreographing, performing)?
I teach 4 days a week. I’m currently co-choreographing, with Silas Riener, a 3d film in collaboration with Charles Atlas. We finish filming at the end of November. On December 4th, I’m performing at Art Basel in Miami, something as of yet unknown. The next week I perform an improvisational response to Claudia LaRocco’s novel, published at The Chocolate Factory.
In January, during my break from school, we present a group dance installation at Moma/Ps1 as part of the Greater New York exhibit. Then I start teaching again and auditioning prospective students for the following year. I’m trying to give myself the spring semester to focus on my work in the department, to give myself a break from creating work.
In May, I pick back up with my dancers to begin creating a companion live piece to the 3d film. We will be developing new material in a series of residencies, and then perform various work-in-progress excerpts at Vail International Festival, Rockaway “Beach Session” and some other places that I can’t announce yet. We eventually premiere the 2-part work at EMPAC in January of 2017.
Current training practices:
I study pilates and gyrotonics with Clarice Marshall. I improvise. Occasionally, if I have time, I check out classes at Movement Research, and if I’m feeling really ambitious I may take a Cunningham class at City Center studios. I swim every other day. I love to walk and hike. I think cross-training is essential.
What is the role of teaching within your dance life? What do you love about teaching? What does the phrase “teaching artist” mean to you?
Teaching is an art form. It requires subtle calibration and sensitivity to the students in front of you. I’m lucky in that I get to teach students who have specifically chosen a conservatory program. They really want to be there and remain engaged in the ongoing process of learning. I get to see young artists develop over time. I get to build lasting relationships with young people entering the field, driving new questions into the mix. I learn a lot from them. The responsibility involved in the contract keeps me searching for new information all of the time. I feel very full. I’m able to experiment with some of my choreographic ideas in a trusting and supportive environment of very talented young artists.
Role models and inspiration for your teaching practice and pedagogy:
Viola Farber was always so demanding and so rhythmically complex. To paraphrase Merce, “There should be something in the class that everyone can do and something that no one can do." I love the way Rebecca Lazier, who teaches at Princeton, mixes so many forms and so much disparate knowledge into her teaching methodologies. Juliette Mapp creates a very encouraging and supportive environment for exploring the dancing body with others. Andre Zachary makes the impossible possible through simple and strategic steps that build towards very complex, virtuosic floor movement.
Do you use the term “modern dance” or “contemporary dance” to describe your work?
I use the term experimental dance. Sometimes it incorporates ideas from the past. It always attempts to look at them anew. My work creates polymodal systems.
What does collaboration mean to you in your artmaking? How did you begin working with Silas Riener?
The collaborative nature of dance enables a kind of community building that produces systems for the sharing of ideas. It supports a continual renewal of primal experiences, and intellectual questioning. I am deeply honored to have the capacity to connect individuals to a larger purpose and to create meaning out of driven folly. I see myself as an enabler of collective action. Silas and I met as dancers in the Cunningham Company. Our relationship developed naturally and supernaturally from there. It’s one of mutual respect and a friction of differences. We have a lot of overlapping interests and wholly different ways of engaging in those interests.
Can you talk a little about your interest in site-specific work? What is your choreographic aesthetic in terms of space, place, audience engagement, access, etc?
I like that site-specificity forces a new contract of engagement with movement, space, time and modes of presentation and interaction. I’m drawn to dancing and performing because it happens in specific places associated with specific histories, cultural signifiers, and particular environmental and architectural features. I use this aspect as a choreographic vehicle for communicating metaphorical, inter-textual, and sense-based ideas and experiences. This process of creating resists redundancy through a constant reinvention of organizing principles connected to vital aspects of the natural world or built environment. I like to question the way bodies behave in public spaces. I like to put things in places that aren’t normally there.
Please list a few artists who have made a large impact on your life as a performer, teacher, and choreographer (colleagues, teachers, etc. who you have directly worked with):
Besides Silas, Claudia LaRocco has helped me to contextualize and frame my work. We both share a love for ambiguity and psychic space within a work’s structure. Tere O’Connor is a hero for really sticking with the language of dance and not succumbing to anxiety over its value in our society. His work is both physically rich and intellectually stimulating. Martha Friedman’s (sculptor) large scale work that deals with gender and the vulgarity and comedy of the human body is an inspiration. Charles Atlas (filmmaker) has done everything and continues to push himself. He creates without ego. His work is intuitively stimulating and genre defying.
Please also list a few artists who inspire you (that you personally don’t know, but have seen their work or read about them):
Sarah Michelson (choreographer), Thomas Hauert (choreographer), Samuel Delaney (writer), Michael Rider (fashion designer)
Non-dance interests, specialities, service work, or hobbies important to you:
The health of the environment is an issue that I care deeply about. My hobbies and service work are centered around this sensitivity.
Advice to dancers wanting to move to NYC:
Train as much as you can in as many ways as you can. Read everything. See everything. Think about who you want to work with; get to know their work. Try to develop other skills besides dancing. Save up a lot of money!
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