8x8x8 is one of Paufve Dance's hallmark events, now in its 11th iteration. Eight artists performing in a space approximately 8x8 in size...$8 for the event at 8pm at The Uptown in downtown Oakland, California.
CriticalMasses is the latest layer of this Paufve Dance project - asking 8 people (participating artists and audience members alike) to respond and share about the event. Writing and reflecting during and after the experience.
8x8x8 took place on Thursday, January 25th with the following 8 artists, alongside emcee Nina Haft:
- American Wonder Woman/Inertia DeWitt
- Aviva Rose-Williams and Molly Rose-Williams
- Bandelion
- defDance/dana e. fitchett
- Detour Dance
- Fog Beast
- MoToR
- Nol Simonse
Detour Dance. Photo by Kaveri Seth.
From Bhumi Patel:
The room is crowded but the energy is good, excited, ready.
Nol creates intimacy arms open compacted.
They keep her in, until they don’t. Will they find her again?
What intimacy is there in freedom? In being free?
Connected disconnect
They touch. They push. They touch.
They touch.
The reverent and the animal, return to touch as both.
Power in hands – holding, rubbing, pushing, grabbing, tenderizing.
Do they see each other? Are you really alone if you’re alone.
Fog Beast floats. They sing. They float. They sing.
Asked to look around. Slow jam
Infect you
Ingest you
Infect me
Ingest me
There’s sunlight that you need.
There’s sunlight that we need.
It’s as though they’re creatures that emerge from the lagoon;
Creatures that return to the lagoon.
Molly and Aviva Rose-Williams reaching, swiping, playing, helping.
Playful tender
Playful lunar landings
Delicate landing / staccato gesture
What games do we play in familiarity? What games do with play in family?
What is family?
Clowny. Are we allowed to be silly with those that know us best?
They look to each other. They seek in each other.
Conversations in gesture.
Fairy tales end with walking into the setting sun, don’t they?
MoToR creates a storm. MoToR responds to today.
There is a circle of singing women.
Our fears come to rest, the storm may roar.
Is this stepping? Is there an element of appropriation to consider?
Refreshing. Refreshing. Refreshing.
Songs of resistance.
Singing in resistance to the things we face today.
There’s something gentle about this song of resistance.
detour dance presents filament.
Like a light bulb. Filament is made of wire/fiber/metal.
Creates light.
Pantomime of gypsy lee rose. Who is she? Where did she come from?
Are they going to the party? Am I invited to the party? Is the party now?
Sometimes when you open your music box a ballerina twirls.
What are they seeing above my head? Can anyone on the other side see what they see above my head?
They’re aliens.
Aliens in a play about humans
Aliens learning how to perform human
defDances is a duet.
Two women of colour. How refreshing.
I can’t believe how refreshing it is to see POC on stage.
I can’t believe that dance is so white that it is refreshing to see POC on stage.
It’s a bit disappointing isn’t it?
Safety for black bodies.
There’s a juxtaposition of dance forms. One considered more formal, one considered less formal.
These blend because they are one in the same.
These things can’t be separated. They come from one another.
To see dancers having fun on stage is lovely.
To see dancers floating lightly over the earth is beautiful.
Bandelion set up took quite a long time.
Dance music theater.
Capes, hoods, masks.
Stories about dragons.
Chaos chaos chaos. Overwhelmed.
We are all dragons in drag? Is this a commentary on gender?
If it’s a commentary on gender the story certainly follows a cis-heteronormative framework.
It feels a little bit appropriative.
When white folks speak of ritual, I have to ask, who’s ritual?
What are rituals of white folks? Communion? Baptism? Those are Christian I suppose. Many rituals, though, are grounded in religion because ritual creates belief and belonging.
I don’t know if I’m a dragon.
Being a dragon feels like externalizing my anxiety.
Bandelion. Photo by Kaveri Seth.
From Sarah JG Chenoweth:
8x8x8,
Where a crowned snake and water in a bone make giant orbits into and out of themselves, swaddling each other in lithe rushes of coil and breath,
Where Wonder Woman, brown and curly, galvanized by whip and voice, arrives to turn power ass-up, and dismantle our notions of and body and belonging,
Where rubbery smiles share a sacrament of slow-motion self-loving/loathing in a communal appeal to ratify our juiciest absurdities,
Where hips, arms and feet masterfully punctuate, toss and sustain pulsing jazz with the gratifying fluency of gladness,
Where the whole room morphs, no, matures into drag-ons, reviving ancient abilities to rhythmically writhe and shriek for fluidity in a world with too much shape,
Where wise witches concoct floating rainstorms, stomping and circling, humming and crooning, in celebration of our most fertile fears and sonorous love,
Where flawlessly twinned laughter, leaps and landings study how we ask each other questions and (don’t always) hear each other answer, where no closer or more honest a unison is possible,
Where glitter melts into goo, and ingestion means looking into a schmoozey mirror of consumerism and coerced acculturation,
Where the cocktail of the night is admiration, and eight is really just a clever container for superheroes and insurgency.
American Wonder Woman/Inertia DeWitt. Photo by Kaveri Seth.
From Colleen Swafford:
The 8x8x8 opening piece was done by a beautiful mocha-skinned goddess dressed as Wonder Woman. As soon as she stepped out on to the flag, I had a feeling it was going to be a good night. And it turned out to be an amazing night! The dancing was incredible! The connection on display between the dancers in each piece was palpable! The energy in the room filled me up! It almost made me cry, it felt so good! But as the night went on, I kept drifting back to Wonder Woman’s call to action.
I am a thirty-two year old newly black woman. Yes, newly black. That’s not to say that I suddenly became black, but basically…that’s what happened. I found out a couple of months after my thirtieth birthday that I was not half Sicilian like I grew up thinking I was, but that I was actually half black. And half black from a random revenge fuck at that. Naturally (or so I’ve been told), I struggle with this newfound knowledge and identity. Am I supposed to be black now? What does that even mean, being black? I mean, technically, I’ve been black all along, right? But that’s not what I grew up being. I grew up being a brown white girl.
How can I stand beside black women who have faced the obstacles that come with being a black woman? I don’t know what it feels like to sit in the waiting room for an interview and wonder if the color of my skin is going to affect my chances of getting the job. I don’t know what it’s like to be waiting for the train and wonder if the color of my skin makes me a more likely target of aggression. Maybe it’s happened to me and I just wasn’t aware, but it’s not something I ever considered.
Sounds a bit like white privilege, right? Being so removed from an issue that it’s not even something you could consider. Can a newly black formerly brown white girl have white privilege? I just don’t know. I want to stand with my strong, beautiful, black sisters…but I don’t know how. I don’t know how to stand with them. I don’t know where to stand with them. I know next to nothing about them. About me. About us. How can I take action and stand up for us when I don’t even know what we need. What we’re missing. What we have.
“I am not who you think I am; I am not who I think I am; I am who I think you think I am.” (Charles Horton Cooley) Last summer was the first time someone referred to me as black to my face. It just about knocked me on my ass. I had this moment of clarity. I had spent all of my life, up to that very moment, trying to be what I thought people thought I was and what I thought they wanted me to be. But in that moment, I realized that I’d been trying to be someone, something, that I could never ever be!
So, at thirty-two, I am slowly finding myself. I am letting myself be who I am, without judgement and without preconceptions. So I ask you Wonder Woman, to please hold space for me. It may take me some time to find out how to stand next to you and take action with and for you, for us, but I’m coming. Thank you for being a beacon along my path.
DefDance/dana e. fitchett. Photo by Kaveri Seth.
From Ann DiFruscia:
There's no other raucous, vibrant, passion-filled dance event equal to the "8's". Been participating all these years from the very first jam-filled show at the bar on Broadway to the Starry Plough to the Uptown. Randee's brilliant concept, the first of its kind locally, is always breaking new ground, inviting the unique spectrum of style, ethnicity, race and gender.
Now in its 11th year, 8x8x8 was true to form. From kick-ass wonder woman powerhouse (Inertia DeWitt) to the fresh, witty, playfulness of rough-and-tumble twin sisters (Molly & Aviva Rose-Willams), the 8's did not disappoint. The evening was sumptuous, raw, jovial, steep with fervor and irreverence. Fog Beast delighted in song, sarcasm, and humor; while Detour dancers juxtaposed off-beat, quirky characters against the soundtrack of old movies. Nol Simonse's lush, tender, and sensual trio revealed a quiet longing and intimacy. In contrast, the stompin', harmonizing, melodies and rhythms of the MoTor ladies delivered a down-home, funk and country groove; and defDances (dana e. fitchett) brought the house down with their exquisite range of eclectic, robust, movement styles that fully embodied and followed the music to perfection. And last but not least, Eric Kupers' lovely band-of-lions (Bandelion) got everyone up off their seats, closing the show with fable, ritual, anarchy, and complete abandonment!!
There is a need - a deep need to connect, support, and share. It happens at 8x8x8. A wild and wonderful playground of love and generosity. Randee's dance tribe event!
Molly Rose-Williams and Aviva Rose-Williams. Photo by Kaveri Seth.
From Molly Rose-Williams:
A Vote for The Uptown and Art in Public Space
When I walked into the performance space at 5:30pm last Thursday evening, I noticed in quick succession: 1) all the walls were black (like a black box!), 2) the floors were sticky, which produced a satisfying suction-like sound with each of my steps, and 3) the room was much smaller than I remembered.
I had only been to The Uptown twice before - once in its regular capacity as a nightclub, and once to 8x8x8 the previous year - so I wasn’t surprised that I hadn’t noticed the black walls or sticky floors before. Afterall, one time was after midnight (etc.), and both times there had been plenty of other things to pay attention to. But the vast difference between my memory of the size of the space and the (generous) hall-like room I now found myself standing in shocked me.
My sister, with whom I’d be performing a duet, turned to me. “It’s small,” she said. We’re often on the same page.
We ran through tech and figured out how to reorient a few of our longer passes to take advantage of the room’s narrow length. The sticky floor continued to offer sonic amusement (in spite of the meticulous mopping efforts on part of the production team), making a flatulent growling sound now with each turn of my bare feet. By the end, we were feeling good. “It’s small,” Aviva said, “but I think it will work.”
Two and a half hours later, we stood ready backstage. The energy filtering in from the performance space felt positively jubilant, like golden bubbles in a flute of champagne. As Aviva and I entered the room, I felt I was being plugged into a live outlet. “I am a live wire,” I thought. And then I stopped thinking words.
I didn’t notice the black walls, or the sticky floors (which at this point may no longer have been sticky - lots of people, humid energy). I saw only people, smiling faces, open hearts. The room felt expanded like a lung, like an open palm with enough space to hold us all. The stage space itself was even smaller than it had been in tech, edges overflowing with the limbs and jackets of people sitting in a circle on the floor. But walking into the center of the stage felt like circling to the middle of a vast amphitheater lined with people. I was amazed the room could hold us all. As we paused to take our first breath, the room paused with us. And then we began.
Performing in this show was one of the most thrilling performance experiences of my life. I have rarely had so much fun dancing. The energy of the audience felt almost ostentatious in its unfettered celebration. At once intimate, generous, and undeniably present.
And this I believe: while the artistry of every act was inspiring (shout-out to the incredible Randee Paufve for bringing together such a wonderful, eclectic mix of artists, and to the artists for sharing their work!), the production seamless (thanks to the supremely competent Jessi Barber), the hosting pitch perfect (by the indomitable Nina Haft), and everyone in the audience top notch (thanks y’all!), so much of the exuberance of 8x8x8, year after year, comes down to the absolutely quirky character of this unique venue and the promise that it holds for all those over 21 - that they are welcome. It felt like public space in a way that I have rarely experienced in performance contexts. Beyond the intimacy of house shows, the novel re-location and imagination of outdoor site specific work, the indiscriminate accessibility of large, well-known venues. Modern dance in a night club created a dream that we all could share and celebrate. We were there to gather, not simply to share, observe and perform. It was like a rave for art.
After the show, people stuck around to hang out. While a good third of the audience stayed in the performance space to shake, shout, and dance their hearts out with Eric Kupers and Bandelion, most of the rest of us flooded the bar in the space adjacent. People were boisterous and chatty, sharing their thoughts and impressions with an unselfconscious bravery that I have rarely experienced after artistic events. Yes, alcohol may loosen tongues. But more, the unspoken possibility of the novel context allowed me to hear thoughts and feedback from people that felt intimate, special, immediate and real.
Perhaps most special, a friend of mine with a self-professed aversion to most modern dance, came to see me perform for the first time in our two-year friendship. “Oh my god!” she said, after greeting me with an enormous grin and a hug, “This wasn’t at ALL what I thought modern dance was like. It was so great! It was so...FUN!” She fluttered her hands. “Wow. Khaled and I are even talking about making a dance now!” She motioned to her partner next to her, who confirmed with a sheepish grin. “It was just so inspiring,” he said. “I mean, maybe we should go to more dance shows.” I shrugged noncommittally. I’d love to believe they’d find other shows so inspiring, but for now, I have a hard time imagining any old show matching modern dance in a bar.
MoToR. Photo by Kaveri Seth.
From Valerie Gutwirth:
A performer, nearing the end of a line that wasn’t so long to begin with, responds to 8x8x8 2018.
This is the fourth time I’ve been a performer here. Four checks for a million dollars each, in psychic currency, the only kind that means anything.
The bad-ass chains in front of the blue velvet curtain.
The code to upstairs feels like the keys to the city.
Tech, which is really just rehearsal. The room is way too empty. I want people closer. I want to breathe in their breath. I am eager for the Thing that happens here, every time, the Thing that makes this unlike any other performance space for me, where the membrane between audience and performers disappears. Running the piece for spacing, sound, details, that skin is still there.
Squeals and jumping up and down backstage as old friends, who didn’t know they were on the same bill, meet.
The artistic sharing starts immediately, upstairs. Contacts exchanged. Laughter. Conversations. Thoughtful eyes drifting. A duet is rehearsed mutely, via gesture, in an impossibly small corner. Then again, different corner. When I see it live later it is vast, the dancers devouring the space. Days later, I try without success to calculate the difference in area between those corners and the actual performance space. Not that big a difference, really.
Watching the first dance, feeling the embrace of the rest of the crowd. We hold Inertia’s depths, passion, anger, violence – without flinching, or budging, or resisting. We absorb. We germinate and expand. We join. We’ll hold me too, and us, and each other.
Somehow the different performances refer to each other. I feel this as I’m performing, echoes of Melecio and Patricia (“I want to INFECT you”), of Nol’s group’s careful hands, Molly and Aviva’s eyes across the space. I channel Inertia’s fierceness. I sing to my friends, six inches from me, here on their first night out after their daughter’s birth. Later in the piece, I am face to face with my husband. For a moment, I forget to sing.
Nol Simonse. Photo by Kaveri Seth.
Sima Belmar and Ramona Naddaff (twitter exchange):
Sima:
@rmpaufve #8x8x8 “never going to do anything in a theater again”
Sima:
American Wonder Woman has face planted the flag
American Wonder Woman is Catholic among other gestures
American Wonder Woman accumulation @TrishaBrown another American Wonder Woman at #8x8x8 that makes 3 so far
American Wonder Woman does yoga while sweeping the cigarette butts off the floor. If Trisha is here, so are the cigarettes
Chaturanga dandasana meets hand up don’t shoot?
American Wonder Woman is praying for an embodied revolution
American Wonder Woman whips the flag and the lights come up gutturally
Sima:
Antlers baptism magical unison offset by Amy Foley lunging
Small and cinematic
Mohawk. Fearless raising of shoulders towards the ears
Sima:
Melecio and Patricia tempered steel and glitter in a fishbowl
Ramona:
Movement and song. All in tune.
Sima:
Citizenship in the room. “I just want to infect you.” “I just want to ingest you.”
Ramona:
Her back is moving. Their voices rising. Humor. Grace intertwined
Sima:
“I’ll find a way over your membrane I’ll be gentle you won’t feel a thing.”
Ramona:
Her shoulders move as her voice rises. And the@ her hand. And then the sound. Water. Flood. Hip.
Dangling hands.
The swarm. Happens to be an unfortunate philosophic concept.
Jesse appears. Anticipation.
Molly and alibis. Appear. They aren’t in class.
They are fighting and not fighting. Dancing and no dancing.
Sima:
Molly and Aviva dancing sisters stage fighting. Gives me hope for my girls
Gesture studies in action
Ramona:
What did they throw, Sima?
Perfect plie. Wow. And so many parts moving. Body.
Cheerleaders.
Air. Air. Please. I come to you for air.
They look. They look at each other and fall backwards. To the ground. And then rise to the air.
Sima:
Molly and Aviva paralyzed my tweeting finger
Ramona:
Charlie Chaplin visited uptown. Just now.
Horses.
Sima:
Co-tweeting with @McKaneFalls
MOTOR @EvieLadin old time witches
Ramona:
You read book reviews as if they are books
Those blank faves. Come from nowhere.
Sima:
Detour Dance filaments. Gypsy Rose Lee. Party hats. Dutch masters collars. Air basketball. Breathy breathing.
Sima:
#8x8x8 Dana E Fitchett (sp?) @BrendaDixonGott thinking of you
Softest softshoe in town. Joy. All the instruments in two bodies.
Multiple rhythm tributes. The kinesthesia of sound.
Sima:
Bandelion—the house band of #8x8x8
Snuggle up folks!
Bandelion working with dragons
Take Eric Kupers’ word for it—there’s a dragon in you
Sing in dragonese. Modern dance scores sitting standing lying down. Skullcap and Olympia.
Making shapes on the odds
Honoring Della Davidson—red dresses
Putting beginner material in the work—yes!
Bandelion getting their drag-on
Fog Beast. Photo by Kaveri Seth.
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