Photo: Matt Haber
Hometown: Cleveland, OH/San Jose, CA
Current city: San Francisco
Age: 40ish
College and degree: BFA in dance performance from SUNY Purchase
Graduate school and degree: MFA in dramatic art (directing concentration) from UC Davis
Website: pushdance.org
How you pay the bills: Artistic Director of PUSH Dance Company
All of the dance hats you wear: Accountant, Creative Director, New Media & Technology Artist, Teacher, Advisor, Grant Writer, Magic-maker and Freelance Choreographer
Non-dance work you do or have done in the past: Computer consultant (college), 6 months at a retail job, Project Director of Bay Area Dance Week, Marketing Director for Zaccho Dance Theatre, Administrative Director for Fitness in Transit
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Describe your dance life…
College: Conservatory life was like a never ending dance boot camp, but while at university, I was exposed to far greater dance forms than the ballet technique I had in high school. I also took non-dance related classes like risk management, business law, photography, computer graphics and more. Classes like dance productions (e.g. lighting design) and music theory are still useful to this day. NYC was about 30 minutes away, and it offered a great deal of exposure to professional dance companies I couldn’t have seen in California.
The first 2 years after college: About a month after graduation, my father passed away, and I had no clue how much trauma I was truly holding onto until years later. I left New York on September 1, 2001, and 10-days later 9/11 happened. Due to uncertainty and grief, I quit dancing for a year and taught at a community college. Year 2 after college led me to take a class in San Francisco. I was lost, and I stepped into a dance studio hosting the last half hour of an audition. I just remember a really nice man who allowed me to attend the audition even though I was late. I was hired and three weeks later started touring with Robert Moses’ Kin.
Five years after college: Working with PUSH in its formative years unearthed a set of social issues associated with being a Woman of Color. For purposes of this blog, I’ll occasionally refer to my choreography as “work” because it signifies my approach to have what I do be equitable and respected. As a WOC in a leadership position, I’ve chosen to bypass certain opportunities if I feel them to be degrading to women or rooted in my racial oppression. My advice to young choreographers is to do your research on the event or a presenter. Don’t worry about taking every opportunity that comes your way; I promise you that something better will arise.
Ten years after college: A turning point came in my career when I decided to find my own innovative direction in dance. That is to say, I became obsessed with forming a strong identity as an artist by putting more emphasis on developing my process over the final production and doing away with rigid professional etiquette in order to make space for ancestral ritual. For the most part, I was both acknowledging my dance lineage and distilling my cultural mixed identity as a foundation for all my works.
Now: I’ve planned where I’ll be 5 years from now but I have difficulty determining what I’m doing in the next 5 minutes.
Photo: courtesy of PUSH Dance Company
Major influences:
Katherine Dunham managed to bridge dance technique and performance with ancestral links to spirituality found in movement. She managed to do all this during a time when most Black dancers were excluded from most segments of society including American concert dance. I also want to acknowledge a few scholars in my life who led me to research Dunham's life and writings like Halifu Osumare, Albirda Rose-Eberhardt, and Linda Goodrich. Robert Moses and Joanna Haigood definitely influenced my work as a choreographer.
Prior to shelter-in-place, what was a typical dance week like for you (teaching, rehearsing, choreographing, training, arts administration)?
A typical busy week for The Motley Experiment before getting COVID-cancelled
Saturday: Remote video and email rehearsal with Ayo Walker.
Sunday: Get ready for Monday
Monday: In-person research with Kao Vey Saephanh, JP Alejandro and Patrick Secrease. Patrick’s daughter and my son join us in rehearsal.
Tuesday: Office time. Audrey Johnson (the PUSH program assistant) and I discuss the curriculum for our student group called Pathways; marketing and other PUSH business are discussed.
Wednesdays: Pathways and PUSH Dancers are in rehearsals together. Everyone is busy with newly introduced large group segments and other breakout group tasks. In addition to Idris Ackamoor, my music collaborator attended rehearsal today.
Thursdays: PUSH Outreach Education Dance Program Day! I teach at the youth center and/or assist for the outreach program at our other sites as needed.
Fridays: A catch-all day to tie up loose ends in the choreography or start something new for smaller groups. The energy of the historic Bayview Opera House has vibrations that surge through the bodies as they sift through the space and dance.
Can you talk about when you took the leap and started your own company?
The name PUSH was born out of encouragement from a group of adult students I used to teach who had pushed me into starting my own dance company. Ironically, I wrote my undergrad thesis on how I would never become an Artistic Director of a dance company.
What are you exploring and focusing on as a choreographer right now?
Dance life now includes a certain responsibility to the field to ensure its longevity for future generations during the COVID-19 shelter in place. My choreographic work has been done remotely via online meetings. For instance, I’m doing a bit of cultural work like contributing to the Dancing Around Race cohort -- Gerald Casel, Sammay Dizon, Yayoi Kambara, David Herrera and myself -- for a few engagements and initiatives. In addition to the pandemic, the protests against police violence and George Floyd have unearthed larger system racism issues in this country, particularly in the dance field. On the surface, the San Francisco Bay Area looks like a bastion for diversity, however it has a long legacy of upholding what the International Association for Black Dance calls in their statement, “a white supremacist aesthetic.”
In the IABD statement, they aptly describe the phenomenon of how white dance organizations are all too often quick to put out nice statements about solidarity on racism without the actual commitment needed to dismantle the white supremacy systems that put Black, Indigenous and People of Color in harm's way. Many of us witnessed the blatant racism coming out of festival director Jim Tobin when he called systematic racism “a con job” during the Grace Cathedral incident. However, we now need to acknowledge that this case wasn’t an anomaly. I believe we need to do away with this type of performative white allyship that leaves BIPOC with the responsibility of dismantling racism. White led dance groups need to listen to BIPOC and then partake in the ongoing conversation around inclusion. I think we’re asking for accountability in the form of actionable movement to deal with these issues.
What I find most effective about the statement is how it doesn’t claim or purport the notion that white led dance organizations didn’t know about them being complicit or part of the problem. BIPOC choreographers have been putting the topics of injustice and systematic racism in our dances for decades. We’ve been creating resistance against the status quo but the question is why are white led organizations just now waking up to racism in dance? There’s a short list to help dismantling racism in dance like changing dance diversity hiring practices (tokenism), listening to our multiple calls to end white supremacy in dance education, erasing every obstacle in place to limit BIPOC’s access to arts funding, and acknowledging the cultural incompetency from gatekeepers like directors, staff and dance critics. BIPOC are exhausted because we’ve been working to end our own oppression. We don’t need white allies; we need accomplices to actually stand with us to build equitable inclusion in the dance field.
Photo: Michael Short
Can you talk about starting PUSHfest and its growth over the years? What do you love most about the festival? What are some of the challenges?
PUSHfest gathers choreographers spanning across varying dance geographies, genres and age groups. The festival now has a mentorship program between established and emerging choreographers and PUSHLab, its educational performance workshop. Each year a new round of panelists select the participants, and I advise on the overall curation of the festival. If you’ve never been to the festival in the past, I think what you’ll find is the concept of inclusivity as it relates to representing the depth of culture and diversity in the dance field.
What I love about the festival is how it always feels like a homecoming or reunion for the choreographers, performers and audiences. I try to visit as many tech rehearsals as possible before the show opens. For me personally, there’s always this sense of pluralized individuality that then manifests itself into a genuine feeling of unity at the close of the whole festival. I also love how the audience engages with each work through the peer voting system we have called the PUSHfest Audience Choice Awards. With multiple programs (usually two to four), we thought to have one choreographer from each program have a chance to be awarded the honor.
One challenge for the festival is the panelist process because the perceived notion of what professionalism is and how it’s defined can hurt some of the applicants. Enhancing the list of amazing choreographers we’ve had is important, but we must also make an effort to support emerging artists more who aren’t necessarily performance ready. I believe it is the role of a presenter or responsibility of a presenting organization to accept divisionary opinions and acknowledge one’s own biases.
Current training practices and care of the body:
During this shelter-in-place, my daily practice includes purification of the heart techniques found in eating chocolate, drinking Hojicha (tea) and fitting in 15 minutes of a KuKuwa workout. Oh yes, and taking down systematic racism.
Last shows you saw that inspired you:
Chloe Arnold’s piece at Black Choreographers Festival, Akram Khan’s solo at Zellerbach Hall, and Netta Yerushalmy’s "Paramodernities" online.
On being an artist and being a parent:
Parenthood is another form of choreography. When I took my baby to PUSH's Aspen Fringe Festival/Dance Carbondale residency performance in Colorado, we both caught a 24-hour stomach bug and ended up in the hospital. Perhaps the hardest thing for any mother is to be sick while simultaneously taking care of your sick child. It was possibly one of the worst things that could’ve happened to us at the time, but we made it out okay. I used to view parenting as a single step of just working while someone else (e.g. daycare) took care of the child. However, this experience has shown me to not separate my life/work as a choreographer from being a mother.
Most days of being a Mom-Choreographer means working in increments, creating time for cuddling and a lot of big picture thinking. Luckily, I was already set in my career when I became a parent so I didn’t necessarily have to worry about my job outlook. I’m constantly searching for balance in my life. Nevermind worrying about balance because that’s just a social construct that doesn’t exist. What I now have is a responsive relationship because once I figure out the formula for parenting... the formula changes.
Advice to dancers moving to the San Francisco Bay Area:
Find a mentor. Dance leaders in the Bay range from nurturing to upright blunt personalities. Don’t be afraid to reach out to us; it may only cost you a cup of tea.
Final thoughts: Hope/belief/love of the profession:
Now more than ever is the time to dance.
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