Big Yes: Mia J. Chong's Eight/Moves, Season 1
By Jill Randall
Opening Thoughts: a poem
Dancing -
Virtuosity, strength, range, power, whole body-ness
Small gestures
Big commitment
Fog
And satin shirts
And socks
And partnering
Effort exertion commitment endurance
Lift and uplift.
Gratitude
Yes, dance performances can be transactional. But beyond the dollars, can we note gratitude for the offering? The invitation into an experience, to a moment together. To see, feel, imagine. To witness vulnerability, a reveal, a statement, a stance. To see time and care and craft in front of us.
To sit together
To be in a space
To seek solace, connection, and possibly HOPE
I was incredibly grateful to witness the opening night and first season of Mia J. Chong’s new company, EIGHT/MOVES. I have not felt this way in a long time - joy, exhilaration, and inspiration. I felt alive in a way I have not for a while.
Trio of Dances
The dancing was just incredible. As I said to a few friends over the past few days - the cast had such strong technique and a palette of embodied skills. But it was not gratuitous. The vocabulary and training was grounded and used so skillfully by Mia Chong and collaborators to express the ideas. And quite simply - the dancers’ whole body-ness and aliveness was palpable to me in the audience.
The first dance - Common Gradient choreographed by Chong in collaboration with Keerati Jinakunwiphat - cycled through coming back to a posed portrait with the 6 dancers, gazing down stage left. There are swirls of attitude turns and round arms carving in space. The choreography kaleidoscopes between duets, two dancers lifting a third, and solo highlights. There are moments of unison. The costumes are satiny jewel tone tops and black pants. Common Gradient is a piece exploring connection - seeking connections and building connections. Most of all this dance sets the stage for an evening of bold physicality and showing off a cast of spectacular contemporary dancers with skill, subtly, and clearly a wholehearted commitment to Chong’s vision.
Themes of Remembering… is the second dance on the bill. Here Chong collaborates with Rena Butler. There are two casts for the dance, and I got to witness on Friday night a trio with Crystaldawn Bell, William Brewton Fowler Jr., and Kira Fargas. We head more into the underbelly of experience here. The dance begins with a lighter tone, with quick snapshots of dancers in a circle of light, seated, in a state of thinking of someone else. The song has lyrics to accompany this idea of another person. There are smiles and expressions of affection, remembering. “I’m very much in love with you.” Then the energy shifts into a world askew. How do memories haunt us, taunt us, rile us? We feel this with the tone in the music and use of body rolls, ripples, and head actions. While some dancers are on stage, others become shadowy figures upstage behind the cyc. The last piece of music appears to be the first one but played in reverse. The words are garbled and unrecognizable, yet the melody still offers a hopefulness.
There is a short intermission and then the longer piece of evening, Steam. Chong and KT Nelson collaborate on this journey. We enter into a new environment with heavy use of fog. It is otherworldly. The full cast participate in this dance. The choreography is big and full, taking my breath away. Two moments linger with me. One is in the middle of dance; the fog is low. The ensemble is in the clouds. They are in flux yet somehow held too in this moment. Second, there is a duet with Lani Yamanaka and Colin Frederick. The relationship is heart wrenching to witness. I feel transition, loss. I come back to Joan Didion’s book The Year of Magical Thinking multiple times throughout the piece. Liminality. Whether the piece is about personal loss or climate change, Steam’s beautiful rolling soundtrack of numerous pieces of music - and a strong sense of musicality, rhythms, and punctuation in the choreography - created a multisensory world to see, hear, feel, and think from my seat in the audience.
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The three dances are simply stunning, and the dancers give 110% through and through. The craft and intention sweeps you in. Chong clearly has a vision. In our post-pandemic world, we have gotten so far removed from partner work and lifts; we have lived a few long years of isolation and contactless living. The humanness of the choreography - and coming back to partnering, touch, and lifts - helps us rekindle the idea of meaningful connections.
Celebrating the Logistics
I also want to celebrate the whole event of Mia J. Chong launching her new company. In a post-pandemic time, and a particularly hard moment for arts organizations in the SF Bay Area to sustain, Mia J. Chong comes from a place of beautiful optimism. She has launched a company, with 7 dancers and a board of directors. She has secured funding. Chong said yes to collaboration and invited in three colleagues to participate in the journey. This was not the easy path or the fastest path for Season 1, but the choices offer a little window into Chong’s bold hope and what is driving her (which I feel is: vision, curiosity, story, and connection).
Every detail was so thoughtful - from her curtain speech to the casting to the order of the dances, to the 8 guiding principles of the company (create, uplift, build, expand, inspire, honor, care, and push).
I say a big yes to all of these ideas. I see and feel them already in action with EIGHT/MOVES. Congratulations on Season 1, and I cannot wait for the next opportunity to be a part of the work.
Jill Randall (she/her) is the founder of the site Life as a Modern Dancer, co-director of Shawl-Anderson Dance Center, and an adjunct assistant professor at Saint Mary’s College of California.
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Related links:
One Good Quote: Mia J. Chong’s EIGHT/MOVES in Season 1
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