This year is the 15th year for the KH FRESH Festival. It is an incredible feat to keep a project going and thriving over the years. Check out the full list of its exciting offerings here.
This week I got to talk with Abby Crain, a longtime festival team member since 2011. She works on a range of things from teaching to curation to production.
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With each year, how do you keep Kathleen Hermesdorf’s legacy alive and to keep honoring her work?
We talk about this a lot! One of the things that became clear to me when Kathleen passed was that Kathleen had a lot of different legacies. She meant a lot of different things to a lot of different people. Some of these to be honest I am still learning about.
In my thinking, there are two legacies that are being held right now by FRESH. One is the legacy of the festival as a place that made a temporary, annual, and loving home for dance artists whose work often fell outside the mainstream. Kathleen was incredible at saying to young and independent artists, “I see you! Teach a class. Make your work! I trust you!” This part of her work was transformational in my own life and artistic development, and is something I am passionate about the festival holding at the center of its work. The fact that the festival is now curated by the collective of Clarissa Rivera Dyas, ainsley tharp, gizeh muñiz vengel, and Chibueze Crouch, and that they have then asked other artists like Asian Babe Gang, Maria Silk and Brittany Smears to curate events during the festival, is an extension of this legacy of trust, collaboration and generosity.
And the second legacy that the festival is aiming to keep alive is of course that of Kathleen’s teaching and choreographic work. We tend to this through ways that are shifting each year; I am amazed by how many artists show up and work generously to make this happen. Last year we had a week of classes that were taught by artists who had worked with Kathleen as mentors, students, or colleagues, and held a daily practice of doing her phrases every lunchtime that anyone could participate in. We also had a birthday party and a conversation about her teaching work. This year Hannah Wasielewski is hosting an experiential event in honor of Kathleen’s teaching legacy on February 13th that her longtime collaborator, Albert Mathias, will be present for. Also gizeh muñiz vengel, KHfresh team member and student of Kathleen, will be teaching class in collaboration with musician Albert Mathias the first weekend that will be a blending of gizeh’s floorwork teaching with the dance/music/space/state work that Kathleen and Albert developed.
Also, I am excited to share that we will be screening one of Kathleen and Albert’s pieces on February 10th at YBCA. The work was made in 2018 and is called Tonic. It is one of my personal favorites. There will be a conversation about the work with Albert to follow.
Lastly, the opening night party with Albert Mathias. He played for every one of KK’s birthday events that I ever attended. There will be cake.
Can you offer a window into your curation process for FRESH?
Last year and this year, the team has been gizeh muñiz vengel, Clarissa Rivera Dyas, ainsley tharp, and Chibueze Crouch.
They are incredible curators. They have been centering BIPOC artists, queer artists, and femme artists in the festival curation.
Curation is through invitation, and has always been through invitation. Folks have reached out over the years asking to perform or teach, but KK reserved the right to invite who she was inspired by. At the present, we continue to work this way. There is something special that happens for an artist when they are sought out and invited.
Last year there was also an open call process for RIPE that was conducted by The Performance Primers. It was amazing to see the work of folks we would not have necessarily known about otherwise. I imagine this is something that will continue to also happen in various ways.
Kathleen always gave different people the chance to curate various portions of the festival. This year, as I mentioned earlier, two of the festival events are guest curated.
The money of it. What is your funding, and how can everyone participate (ie scholarships, WEX, sliding scale)?
It is NOTAFLOF, for every event of the festival. (No one turned away for lack of funds)
This year the Bridge Project is a co-sponsor of FRESH. This is especially applied to the NOTAFLOF program. Our private donors also support that.
FRESH has about 15-20 artists doing WEX (work exchange). One hour of work is equal to 1 hour of class. The WEX has always been a huge part of what makes the festival magic. You're in class with someone, and then you are helping with their lights or someone is running your lights, then late night you are all there together cleaning up. This process of working together side by side to pull this thing off builds a sense of community that is really lovely.
In terms of funding, Chibueze did a lot of work and wrote a lot of grants! Our primary funders are the California Arts Council, Grants for the Arts, and Zellerbach Family Foundation.
Our community co-sponsor is the Bridge Project, and the private donations.
The private donations are really key. I cannot underscore that enough. We invite out of town artists. This is not a cheap thing to do, and something that CA funders do not fund. People come from all over. We absolutely depend on our donors to make this possible.
What are you personally excited about and looking forward to?
I am really excited that mayfield brooks is coming. mayfield has deep roots in the Bay but has been in New York for a while. We are screening their piece “Whale Fall” at YBCA on the 18th. They are also doing a performance on the 16th and 17th with an electronic cellist, Dorothy, for “Wail Fall.” This is within an evening with Sara Shelton Mann and Jesse Zaritt. I cannot wait.
I am also really looking forward to a workshop on the 17th with Sonja Pregard from Croatia. Sonja was here last year participating in FRESH and we are thrilled to be able to present her work this year. The workshop structure sounds absolutely genius to me – in it she will guide us through a multi disciplinary process of making a performance….Also, on Sunday, February 11 she is going to show a solo called Object of Dance that won performance of the year in Croatia…
As an organizer of the festival to be honest I am excited about all of the performances we are presenting: enNingúnLugar from Mexico whose work I am dying to see, Clarissa Rivera Dyas and ainsley tharp (of the KHFRESH team), Sara Shelton Mann, Jesse Zaritt…..Art is good.
FRESH is also partnering with YBCA for a few events this year. Thanks to Jose Ome Navarrete Mazatl who was a part of FRESH for many many years, we were asked to curate an afternoon of performances on Sat 2/17 at 3:30 alongside the Bay Area Now exhibition. Audrey Johnson, Dazaun Soleyn, and Rama Hall are making work specifically for this event, and from the way things are shaping up I am certain this will be one of the most magical events of the Festival.
The list of things I am looking forward to goes on and on… Creatures of the Night at Aunt Charlie’s Lounge in the Tenderloin on the 13th, RIPE, the KK legacy event...
Words for this moment: engagement, healing, and hope.
Engagement - it’s immersive, it's a deep dive. You go into FRESH, and there is the potential to emerge transformed. You can be swimming in dance with amazing people who you might just fall in love with…18 hours a day, for 10 days.
Healing - I think the work of dance has the potential to be incredibly healing. To be in the room with other people involved in this practice of dancing which involves really paying attention and seeing each other on multiple levels is deep work. In even the most conventional dance class, really seeing people is part of the practice. One has to study the people one is learning from so closely, getting every detail of the ways they are working and moving. Not only that, but then you try their movement yourself - the people you are studying from, the people you are studying with. You then become the work; you take it on; you do it with others…. empathy practice in a way…To me there is something healing that that process of dancing does.
For example, being in gizeh’s class last year with so many people doing her phrases across the floor…the excitement and joy of what it feels like to be in a room like that is hard to beat.
We have 3 parties in ten days - that is part of the healing too! Kathleen was such a devout partier! There is a real importance to that. To play together is incredible, and a beautifully healing thing!
Hope: Being a dancer is hard. There are so many different pockets that dancing happens in in the Bay, and they are often so spread out. FRESH brings people who don’t usually cross paths into the room together. When that happens, it is hopeful. These meetings are often seeds for things that happen all year long. Inspiration is shared. Resources are shared. This is hopeful.
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Related Links:
Artist Profile: Kathleen Hermesdorf
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