Intent, Process, Context

Below is a stream-of-consciousness account of making and presenting a work this spring. It is not well written, but seeing how the sausage gets made is never pretty.

Back in January a small militia of ranchers took occupation of a federal wildlife center in rural Oregon to protest the conviction of a few other ranchers who had misused federal lands. Perhaps you remember. At the time I was coming off a lot of rejection on a proposed project and just wanted to do something totally unrelated. The ongoing Malheur occupation piqued my fascination. Here these people were, believing that they were starting some kind of revolution, when of course nothing of the sort was going to happen. Very clearly these people were living in a very different reality than me or most of America, and the desperation with which they clung to this reality was at once pathetic and inspiring, because I think they were trying to do what they knew to be right, but were living in a fantasy. For me the whole scenario felt symbolic of a shifting zeitgeist—a few armed men holed up against the encroaching change of the world. The event created masterpieces such as this video of Chris Christie’s brother which is at once profoundly ridiculous and sad. It’s so loaded with statements about the human condition that I can probably never hope to make an art piece as brilliant as this fragment of unfiltered reality.

But I wanted to try. I wanted to experiment with loading humor and sadness and critique and empathy all into one dance piece. And I wanted to see if I could replicate this sense of conflicting, breaking realities, and the real distress that produces in the far right, within the structural format of a fracturing narrative.

The first conflicting reality was casting an all-female-identifying ensemble to play a set of hyper-masculine characters protest-occupying a theater. This was not meant so much to be a statement on gender, but a mechanism through which the audience could immediately recognize a reality that the characters didn’t, and a source of confusion for the characters as this line between realities became less clear, thus leading to a loss of control. At an early rehearsal one dancer asked me Why are we giving more space to these characters who get so much space already which is a great question and I think why it was important to me to have women playing these roles and telling this story.

Another way I tried to layer/fracture reality in the piece was the “shooting scene.” I had constructed a prop gun of three large nerf toys bolted together so that it was a ridiculously huge, very fake-looking gun. In the first half of the work the group does a little “target practice” scene where each takes a turn firing and the group claps in unison for the “gun sound.” It’s highly fake but the cast accepts it as real. Then later the scene repeats but this time one of the characters points out that the gun is not real and the rest of the characters have to reconcile this conflicting reality. Chaos and fear ensue.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. We started creating characters through me watching the cast improvise and pulling out archetypal features based on their energies. The characters were built on what I saw in these individuals, and so were not completely removed from the personality of the person playing them. Of course the cast deserves a great deal of credit for their creations. I had them write back-stories and journal entries because I wanted them to be characters and not caricatures as much as possible. We talked a lot as a cast, who as a group experiences a great deal of threat from the political right and struggled with how to be these people and not reconcile the very hurtful rhetoric that can be hurled from that side. But also on an individual level we know that most of these people are not bad people, they’re just operating under different assumptions about the world. And so our characters were all good people, because it didn’t seem necessary to point out what Seattleites already think—that the people on the other side are bad/evil/stupid/bigoted. Maybe they are or maybe they aren’t, but artistically I’m not interested in that. It was much more interesting when we began to become fond of them. There was kind of a magical time in rehearsal where everyone had become pretty comfortable in their characters and were goofing around in character all the time even when we were on break. We started to love these people we had created. We understood what they were good at and why they were important in their world and why they were funny.

As soon as we had strung together the semblance of a piece we had a showing at Open Flight. It was a very well-attended showing, so the pressure was definitely on. I wanted to get it in front of an audience, because I knew that would change things, but I did not know how much. The biggest thing was that people laughed. I mean A LOT. Of course there were moments throughout that were supposed to be funny, but people found things funny that I had no idea why. And laughing is contagious, so 50 people crammed into a tiny studio really feed off each other. And the dancers fed off it too. There was an explosion of energy coming off stage, I mean, the dancers were really hamming it up, so the more people laughed the funnier they got. These were top notch performers after all. And part of me was thrilled to hear all that laughter. And part of me knew that the nuance of the piece was being drowned out. It had become a parody. No one was catching on to my subtle layers of theatrical realities fracturing as metaphor for the fear of shifting American values!!! You guys: making concepts into art is hard.

The next week was pretty emotionally tumultuous for me, as I received feedback that it was both the funniest thing people had ever seen and that was hurtful on a number of levels. Neither of these results had been my intention. I feel really grateful to those people who reached out to me to let me know why the piece was hurtful and who gave me the opportunity to engage with them. It made me think about the way that I have reacted or given feedback in the past that did not invite that kind of dialogue or compassion. On the flipside, private conversation meant that the dialogue was not public. I feared that there were more people out there who had been hurt and felt alone. Or who had written me off as an asshole. Or talked shit about me behind my back. Perhaps that is a big part of writing this post. Because I need to make some of that dialogue public.

Major criticisms were that it was classist and made easy targets of stereotyped people. That it made light of a cause that was ridiculous, yes, but that one man gave his life for. I also received the same comment, almost word for word from several people, which was essentially Just because someone is rural or blue collar doesn’t mean they’re a bigot. And I realized that it didn’t matter that none of my characters did or said anything bigoted in the whole piece, or what my intentions were, because art exists within the context of the world around it. Stereotypes exist and if you get too close the idea that already exists it will superimpose on the one you’re presenting. Context matters.

After the showing I had basically three rehearsals to figure out how to solve these problems before our one night run at SIDF. My goals were: to return dignity to the characters, to add weight to the story, and to create greater distinction to the layers of reality. One solution was performative—reminding the dancers to believe they are the characters rather than keeping a parody-like separation themselves and the characters that allows a winking self-acknowledgment. That part was easy because the dancers are pros.

Another solution was character based. I theorized that because all the characters were “good” they just came off as a group of fools—their only struggle was against the pretty elusive enemy of the fracturing realities (which were not communicating anyways). I thought that if I made an more explicit antagonist (one bully character), that the other characters grappling with the bully would create empathy for the group in the audience rather than distance between the group and the audience.

The third solution was narrative. To create greater distinctions between realities, the entire last third of the piece changed. Instead of descending into chaos at the end, the second “shooting scene” leaves one character believing that another has been killed, while the rest of the cast realizes the gun is fake. I also had another cast member leave the narrative entirely, changing back into her actual person clothes and make tea.

Show week approached and we had our final rehearsal. And then Orlando happened. This scale of tragedy, this targeting of the queer community, this manifestation of hatred and fear—it knocked the wind out of me. I bear the burden with relative lightness to some, but I cannot help but have a deep sadness when I am reminded, so violently, of the wrongness in the world. And then in the wake of national tragedy, my dear grandmother passed, so I was also experiencing that more personal loss. That shifting of my own reality. Then the next day was tech, dress, and the show.

A lot went down this day. In summary, everyone was sad and no one was feeling it. Trying to be funny felt shitty. Pretending to use a toy gun felt shitty. I guess I can’t speak for my dancers, but at least telling people to do these things felt shitty. Because of schedules we didn’t get to talk or acknowledge Orlando before dress rehearsal, and the run was…not good. I was panicking because we had like 45 minutes between dress and the show and I realized that this piece reeeeeally backfires without a full performance commitment. And it’s reeeeeeally hard to commit to this kind of role when all is not right in the heart. We talked, we cried, we rallied. Some things still felt shitty but we didn’t have time to fully address them. I wish I could have been a better leader in that moment, but I was so short on time, and so emotionally spent, and so freaked out in the way choreographers are when about to present work. I can only thank my cast for stepping up and shouldering responsibility for the piece and figuring out what needed to happen so the show could go on.

I ended up doing a little pre-piece speech to acknowledge the fact that Orlando had happened and that doing a humorous piece with a gun in it felt shitty but we were going ahead with it anyways. For what it’s worth the piece gets suddenly not funny at the end, which is kind of the way guns are. Fun until they’re very much not fun. I’m sure lots of people who saw this version thought I was making a statement piece about gun violence, which of course I wasn’t (the gun was a metaphor, remember?) but my intentions don’t matter—context does.

This post is so long and rambling and yet I feel I’ve rushed and only barely summarized. The process in the studio, which was most of it, was so fun and rewarding and interesting. And then the performances were stressful and high stakes and a little traumatizing. It’s hard for me to separate out my experience of the project as a whole from the knowledge that my piece was hurtful to someone, or that I made the dancers feel shitty, or the death of my grandmother, or a time of national sorrow. It’s still a little open wound. How do I heal from this process of art making? There were so many great things, and yet somehow I still feel like I failed. There’s a lot of platitudes about failing being part of success, but what actually happens when you make yourself vulnerable and you come away burned? Are you really stronger?

The Agency of Artists and Authority of Performance

So here’s the back story. Friday afternoon I attended the dress rehearsal of Velocity’s 2016 Bridge Project. The yearly “four pieces in four weeks” program intended to connect emerging choreographers with emerging dancers through an audition and daily rehearsals. The last work, Nathan Blackwell’s, brought up some issues for me, and for context I will sum up what I witnessed here:

Note: I make some assumptions about gender identity here and throughout the article. If it is inaccurate let me know. I’m happy to correct.

One woman enters, chugs a rainier tall boy and sits on a chair, immediately opening another. A group of shirtless women with their breasts wrapped in plastic wrap dance with a sort of listless zombie quality with the occasional deer leap. Mood is subjective of course, but they seemed to portray extreme misery and lack of control. I would describe the dance more, but frankly I was too distracted by the first woman downing upwards of an entire 6 pack of tall boys in 20 minutes (I think 8, but I lost track). Then all the cast chugs a tallboy together. Then the drunk performer stumbles her way to center stage and spins a few times before stumbling off stage. The piece ends. She crashes at Nathan’s feet, and he laughs it off. Then she stumbles for the bathroom. I am assuming she is puking because someone who came out of the bathroom said so, but I don’t have definitive proof. I did not actually see it. I am thinking about the fact that it is 4:00pm, and the actual performance is only in 4 hours, where I assume this must happen again.

I found this piece to be problematic for a couple of reasons, and I felt like starting shit, so I posted on Facebook that I thought this was irresponsible art making. (To be accurate I actually posted something a little more snide at first, but amended it soon after to say essentially that it was irresponsible.) Then I went out of town and didn’t check facebook for a while. Remarkably, the dialogue following turned out to be pretty civil, but (unsurprisingly) I have more to say than a facebook comment allows, so here we are. The woman who drank the Rainiers (Britt) chimed in with some really interesting points/questions that I’d like to respond to. Here’s her post:

Let’s knock out a couple of easy things.

• Point taken. I should have said Nathan’s name from the beginning, but felt conflicted because I casually know Nathan and like him, so while I wanted to call out his piece I felt weird about writing his name. But that was silly because obviously I’m talking about him.
• Would my reaction have been same had it been a man excessively drinking? Yes, absolutely. Thank you for asking.

And now for the more complicated. I’m so glad Britt brought up agency. Let’s talk about that. Am I relieved that this performer is someone who is 100% behind this performance and not someone who just showed up from Bridge Project auditions and was asked to drink a six pack? Absolutely! Am I robbing you of your agency? No. I could have mid-performance literally interrupted the piece and taken the beers away. That’s what I would have done if you were a friend or a stranger or literally anyone who was not performing. But I didn’t because of the authority of performance.

Since we’re on the subject of agency though, I want to dive a little deeper into how much agency a performer actually has. I’m thinking now of the number of artistic processes that I have been in that I absolutely did not want to be in. Ones where the choreographer was incompetent, ones where the choreographer perpetually came on to me and the other dancers, ones where my body, time, and person were disrespected. I do not bring this up because I think Nathan did any of those things, but only to make the point that I am certainly a person with agency and I didn’t drop out of a single one of those terrible processes, despite not being contracted, and often not being paid. There are lots of reasons people choose to stick it out–often because they feel they committed to something and want to honor that commitment. If a performer is not okay with what they are asked to do, are they really free to say so? Because dropping out makes you look unreliable and inconveniences your cast. Because showing discomfort makes you look like a prude. Because taking a stand makes you seem high maintenance. I would argue that many of these dancers have a reputation to maintain within a small community and to Velocity, and don’t want to be discounted. But, let’s assume for the sake of argument that all of these dancers are 100% on board with the vision and down to chug Rainier in a plastic wrap tube top.

It’s still irresponsible art.

First of all, I would argue that a 4 week process is simply not enough time to develop the trust required to do this kind of work.

Secondly, regardless of intentions or how empowered the cast was internally, from an outside perspective, these women looked disrespected. They did not seem to have agency within the piece. It looked like their bodies and persons were being treated like garbage. Perhaps it’s some kind of meta-statement, but if I saw any other piece presenting the image of such disempowered women, I would certainly call them out and historically I have.

And finally, the fact that Britt has agency and her independent art involves pushing herself to physical limits does not absolve Nathan of responsibility. By incorporating her work in his he is placing a stamp of approval on this act of self-harm. And by producing this work, so is Velocity. When you endorse self-harm you normalize it. You add value to it. You glorify the act of something with very real physical consequences somehow made okay through the authority of art. Calling out this work has nothing to do with my discomfort, or what I think art is, or whether my personal history/aesthetic aligns with the themes of the piece. It’s about this piece setting a precedent in my community of performers’ health and wellbeing being treated as if they were disposable.

And here’s where I’d like to talk about agency again, which is to bring up the agency of the audience. As an audience member, if I clap politely and don’t say anything, I am, through inaction, condoning the work. This is especially true for a person with power, which to a limited extent in the dance community, I am. I’m reminded of the famous Milgram psychological studies where a scientific authority figure directed participants to inflict electric shock to another participant, even as they heard that participant (an actor) screaming in the room next door. As much as we would all like to think we would refuse, this study found that most people will hurt innocent people to obey authority. When we watch performance that hurts others is that not what we’re doing? How many of us would standby and watch someone kill themselves under the authority of art? I think it’s important that we start talking about this before it gets to that point. That we start caring before we become morally culpable for a person’s life. That we say, This is not OK. As an audience member I can respect art and artists and still not be okay with this. In fact, me opposing this work is probably right in line with the expected reaction to this piece. Nathan is not naive. He created a piece that brought up these questions about where we draw the line.

One last point I want to address. Britt states that she would rather the audience “leave feeling a little uneasy than unchallenged.” I agree. And it’s tricky, because there are times when I’ve seen some very brutal art and that I had no problems with. I think it’s important to ask, What systems are in place to protect the wellbeing of the performers? Is this something that could cause sustained damage? How is the self-harm framed in the context of the piece? Is this necessary? Those questions were not satisfactorily answered for me in this instance.

Undoubtedly the actual danger involved is a big part of the desired effect of the piece. I understand that artistic experiences come in many forms and that art imitates life. I can see fearing for someone’s safety as an artistic experience, even if it’s one I don’t desire to have. But my critic brain has to ask, if this is about the “real-ness” of this experience, then why have the fiction of dancers? What are the dancers adding to Britt’s physical-limit-pushing art? Is the medium of dance being used to make interesting, creative, challenging decisions, or is it falling back on the extremeness of one non-dancer? The answer to this question is subjective, of course, but for me, if you’re going to make brutal art, I want to feel more about it than just feeling sorry for the performers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Experiencing Repetition, Rejection

Yesterday morning I took class with Zoe Scofield, who was subbing for Kate Wallich’s Thursday class. She placed particular emphasis (and I will try to paraphrase as accurately as possible) on doing movements as if we were discovering them for the first time, even if we’d done them thousands of times before. For example, while doing a spinal twist, she insisted that we follow the initiation from the base of the spine without skipping ahead (even intangibly) to what we know to be the finishing shape. Another time she demonstrated a movement exploration to the class, and we quickly began moving in the style she had demonstrated. She stopped us and said “Dancers are very good at mimicking,” while she noted that this is a good thing, she asked us not to mimic, but to actually spend time with the task, to assume you don’t know what the outcome will look like. To not short cut to a predicted result.

Then last night I went to see Petra Zanki’s Paces, an intimate showing of a solo piece at New Tomorrow. The piece was very repetitive, Petra rocking back and forth, seeming as if she could stay with this one task ad infinitum. But over the 40 minutes it shifted to a swinging arm, a turning head, a diving lunge. Always with the rhythm of back and forth. Several people left in the middle. With Zoe’s words from that morning still echoing in my head I wondered, Did they jump ahead to a predicted outcome? I wonder, because humans are so good at seeing and identifying patterns, if they just thought “ah, I know what this is. She’s just repeating this thing over and over. Boring.” Because I think if I looked at it that way, it would be hard for my attention to stay alive inside it. But instead I tried to maintain a mental state where I did not decide what the next thing was before it happened. Just because she had just swung her arm the same way 45 times, I tried not to assume what would happen on the 46th time. And in that place I found each iteration to be magically and subtly unique. I found there was an abundance of details to watch within the movement, that because of the repetition I got to focus in on a movement of the head here, a foot there, or a ribcage expanding and contracting. My sense of time and scale shifted, so that each gentle shift felt massive, and the pace of evolution felt swift.

I learned fairly recently that my proposed project, which I have been researching since June, was not accepted either to Bridge Project or NWNW. As a community, I don’t think we talk about rejection very much. At least not publicly. I know it is very normal to experience rejection in this field. A lot. I tell myself that all artists I know and respect have dealt with rejection time and time again and succeeded because they were persistent. I know this intellectually. But emotionally, it is hard not to jump to recognizing a pattern. Hard to see each repeated application as its own iteration. Hard to remember that just because the last 45 times have been “no thank yous” that I don’t know what the 46th time will be. Little dark thoughts sneak in. They didn’t accept my idea becomes they didn’t like my idea, which becomes this idea is not great, which becomes I am not great, which becomes I am a joke and probably everyone is laughing and rolling their eyes about what a fraud I am. Or worse yet, not even bothering to. I know that’s probably not true, but fears are amazingly resistant to logic.

So I’m trying to stay with each iteration. I submitted another proposal today. I’m trying to see the subtle shifts. How it’s a little different, maybe a little closer each time. I try to let my perception of time shift so that I see all that has happened in a year, and not get too obsessed with the never satisfactory level of accomplishment that the day-to-day can feel like. And when I allow myself experience each repetition as if it were new to me, evolution seems…well, maybe not swift, but at least I don’t want to walk out.

 

 

Community, Ceremony, Performance, Building

A few weeks ago I was talking to a friend. and he was relating how he craving a certain sort of ceremony in his life. Like how some cultures send their youth into the wilderness, and it’s hard and dangerous, and when they return home they are welcomed collectively by the community, understanding the difficulty and the growth. He had been through the hard stuff, he said, but no space in this culture for that collective recognition. But he realized he was, in a way, getting part of that community ritual every time he told his story to a friend. Their individual acknowledgment, piece-by-piece, making a community.

This idea of ceremony has been with me lately. A few weekends ago was JD’s memorial service. We went down to Puyallup where people gathered in the auditorium of his old high school to celebrate his memory. I didn’t know JD that well, but this ceremony was so clearly reflective of the life that he lived and the world that he built. The people he surrounded himself with and his weird, smart, mischievous, loving spirit. My cousin (JD’s sister-in-law) in all her eloquence and presence, lent gravity, humor, and thoughtfulness to the main proceedings, and each person who got up to speak did so with a grace that is hard for me to imagine, given the circumstances. We were also able to watch two of his short films and I’m so glad his quirky, imaginative creations were part of this solemn day. He got to speak for himself a little.

The next day included a 50th birthday party for VD which was put together by a few close friends and fellow artists. When I walked into Studio Current it was like plunging suddenly into a bath of warmth and love and glowing happiness. Of course it was. The space was made of the garden of friends VD has tended over the years. The specialness was instantly apparent. Potluck food spread over several tables, paper squirrel motifs covered every surface, and dozens paper dolls tucked in every corner held letters of admiration for VD to discover and read throughout. The munching and chit-chatting was interspersed with little performances contributed by the community to celebrate VD. The performances took the form of dances, poems read, beautiful handmade maps presented, a score passed around until everyone was taking part. Stories of many kinds. The singing of Happy Birthday spontaneously became the strangest (and probably best) rendition I’d ever heard, with each syllable being dragged out so long that it morphed into something unrecognizable. All of this happened, of course, because of the community that VD has built around her. And of course a few especially dedicated and creative friends that organized it all.

Add to this the experience of going to Wade and Eric’s strange, funny, touching, out-of-the-box halloween wedding, which included choreographed performances and a whole community of supporters hooting and hollering, and then hugging and dancing.

I guess I’ve been thinking about the way these life-passage ceremonies can take the form of performances. We go to birthdays, weddings, and memorial services, but these three ceremonies stood out to me in how they were clearly a reflection of what the celebrated persons had built in their lives through community and through art. I has me asking myself, what am I building? What am I hoping to build?  

**I actually wrote this post a few weeks ago and didn’t post it because I don’t have an answer to this or a clear summarizing statement. Something that brings it together tidily. For now I’m going to be okay with that and just say it’s enough to put out these loose threads.**

On Humanity

Last week I attended Velocity Dance Center’s Big Bang! which has been described by friends as sort of an annual dance zoo. You walk through the space, every part of which is cordoned off (including utility closets and parking spaces) for a different group or artist presenting some kind of installation or ongoing performance, often one-on-one or intimate in nature. Alyza DPM spelled out my name in a sort of dance alphabet inside a beautifully painted alter to color and letters. Vanessa Dewolf and her cohort of art-doctors invited me to sit in a tiny chair, attentively listened to my art-making grievances, questioned me, diagnosed me, and wrote me a prescription (a score) to ease my way. Kate Pope thrashed around gloriously in the entrance vestibule, greeting and welcoming each person who moved through the entrance, or who stayed and watched, expressing simultaneously her performance and her actual person. Simultaneous isn’t the right word, because they were in fact one and the same. Pol Rosenthal offered free bananas to accompany their work, and due to the nature of the space, you’d have to eat it within two feet of the performer to witness the piece. AU Collective created a feast on low tables, complete with door mat, coat tree, and shoe rack upon entering their territory. The idea was share food from their childhoods and talk, laugh, be. Elby Brosch brought me into his curtained-off, candle-lit oasis and after a hug and asking me how I was, performed for me alone, bare-chested and with easy, simple grace. Ryan Vinson and Josh Epstein met me in a car out front and after an un-rushed dialogue about what kind of weather I’d be, improvised a song about the conversation right then and there, ending with the line The wind always touches you gently with a very very strong finger. 

I hope I am communicating through these descriptions the level of intimacy and generosity I felt through the entire evening. It made me think about the role art can play not just to challenge, but to touch. I am usually so focused on the former that I forget the latter. I could not know how supportive those performances of community and humanity would be in the week to come. Sometimes things happen that supersede all normal priorities. Things that remind us that life is brief, delicate, unpredictable, and unfair. My cousin’s husband died suddenly last Monday, leaving behind three children and a world that is less good because he is not actively in it anymore. Followed by the reminder (as if we needed another) that we live in a thoroughly fucked up world where mass shootings are some kind of normal, and on Thursday 9 people, each with communities and loved ones of their own, left this world for no other reason than one man’s lack of humanity, sense of entitlement, and of course, the means to slaughter en masse.

I am not going to get into politics right now, but each event like this chips away at my already shaky faith in humanity, and adds to my disillusionment with this country. Despite being in a place of great personal happiness, it feels harder and harder for me to know how to be in this world. To continue in my life while I know how intrenched we are in injustice and broken-ness. I applaud those people who work within a broken system to try to eek out what progress they can. It’s a lot of perseverance. It is my greatest hope that art can be part of this great effort. However, I am at this time just personally grateful of these recent performances reminding me that the human experience can be love and not hate.

This past weekend I performed a new solo at Spin the Bottle (Annex Theatre). It was part of the research I have been doing for my Crucible Project and my goal (in brief) had been to give dimension to the character of Abigail Williams, and play on both her development through the story and explore her possible motivations. While I think I did this intellectually, the piece turned out very “witchy” and “spooky,” which are aesthetics I’m interested in, but I think I did not succeed in humanizing her. And wasn’t that the whole point of filling out her character? To make her more human and not less? I am missing the part of the performance that is generous, but I don’t know what that would look like yet. The examples I had from Big Bang were seemingly about community and connection. How do I approach something darker, more sinister, but still have the same giving quality? Still locate the love?

On Saturday I saw Pat Graney’s Girl Gods at On the Boards. The subject matter was certainly dark, but I felt an empathetic relationship to the bodies on stage. I’m still trying to put my finger on it. What does it mean to perform generously? Is it about vulnerability? How do you connect with people? There’s probably not a simple or single answer to that. Over the course of the show the performers suffered with the same problems, but independently, alone, despite being together on stage. I wondered, would they end up supporting one another? Would the audience be given some kind of resolution of community and connection for the women’s lonely plights? And as if I had wished for it, one reached out for another and the piece culminated in a sort of healing ritual that was potent with the most complex imagery of the evening. It was beautiful without being sentimental. I didn’t feel forced. It wasn’t clean or happy or easy, but it was humanity and I am glad for it.

Critical writing and hierarchy aesthetics. A response to the response: AU Collective Review

I’d like to share a conversation that has been happening via Facebook in Seattle, re: the recent AU show and the corresponding Seattle Dances review.

Posted by Cheryl Delostrinos:

From Au Collective:

Hi everyone, we want to share a review that was published about our show we had at 12th Avenue Arts. The only reason we’re sharing this with you is because we need to address a specific issue that we know extends beyond our show.

“the structure of the choreography, along with changes in the lighting’s brightness and design, reflected the musical dynamic too closely to suggest more than surface level decision making.”

We have an issue with how the reviewer writes about our relationship to our music. The reviewer operates with the assumption that dancing to the dynamics of the music make the movement, or the piece in general, void of artistic integrity. Throughout our show, and within our general aesthetic, there are conscious and intentional references to hip-hop and other styles of dance that strongly relate to the music. The fact that we move to the music and use contemporary pop songs or an “electronic sound score,” are choices we made fully conscious of what we were presenting and how these specific choices read in the mainstream. The review follows the same hierarchy of aesthetics that we see in the greater arts community, and it’s not a new critique. It’s the same critique that’s been used time and time again to invalidate or undermine dance forms outside of the traditional, Euro-centric forms like ballet and modern dance. Art rooted in communities of color, like hip hop for example, is often deemed as less artistic and just ‘fun’ and ‘devoid of much meaning or significance’, while art that has a greater white lineage, or has been appropriated by the white mainstream, is often considered more artistic and valid. Often it is white tastemakers and audiences that get to decide what’s more valuable. This is the issue with bringing our perspectives to the stage.

As artists of color, we are not looked at through the same lens as white artists. It was not assumed we did indeed create dance with more than “surface level decision making” and that at times, closely resembling the dynamics of the music were choices we made very much on purpose. I’m certain that reviewer feels she doesn’t view art through this lens, but I assure you she does and most of us do as well. Most of us do because that is what we have been taught as a society. It’s not as simple as disagreeing on whether dance that closely resembles musical dynamics is good or not. She even said she liked some of the dances. The issue lies in the offensive assumption that there are no deeper meanings and that we created dance without searching for any, simply because the reviewer had preconceived notions about what it meant to dance with dynamics that closely resemble the music. With that said, it is valid to make dance that is just movement, it is also valid to make dance that is solely focused on the conceptual, and it’s valid to create outside of this binary as well. It is not valid to not have the freedom to choose either of these options or anything in between.

And here is the discussion that followed:

Woah, that’s a lot to unpack. I did not chime in because I find the medium of Facebook discussions to be…tedious…and I also think it cultivates a kind of opinion popularity contest that does not create a solid foundation for productive discussions. That being said, I’m really glad Cheryl Delostrinos posted this on Facebook because I think it is an issue that needs addressing and the more people know the better.

More than the quote from Cheryl above, this statement from the article in question stuck out to me:

“Delostrinos’ choices in hip costuming, electronic sound score, and unaffected performativity suggested that the audience look not to deeper meanings, but rather enjoy the movement as an offering to be taken at face value.”

It leads me to ask, why would hip costuming, electronic score, or unaffected performativity suggest that the audience not look for deeper meanings? I don’t understand that logic. I saw the show myself, and while I several of the pieces did not strike me as ultra-deep, it was more because of their light subject matter and lack of tension that they read that way. I did not find the crafting lazy. I do not think that a lack of depth and a lack of decision making are connected. Some pieces are about falling in love and being happy. And thank god for that. Other pieces of the evening, like Closer, the duet between Cheryl and Fausto Rivera, two., the duet between El Nyberg and Lorraine Laou, and Randy Ford’s Freedom is Mine, I thought were incredibly deep. But I also want to look at this work within the context of what AU’s stated goals were for this concert. They were aiming to make a show that bridged communities, that made modern dance accessible to those outside of the often insular scene, to remove some of the elitist, classist, and racist hierarchies that pervade who and what is art, and who is permitted to partake. It seems the priority of AU is not their depth, but their width.

I will also admit that though I appreciated these works, none resonated particularly with me personally. They weren’t my favorite aesthetic. They didn’t approach the subjects that I’m perpetually interested in. I didn’t find myself identifying with the dances on a deeper level. I might guess that the author of the article, Philippa Myler (like me, highly educated in dance and white) felt similarly. And perhaps its because these dances are not catered to us. And why should they be? So much is already.

As a reviewer (and for the publication in question) I keep returning to the question of why write critical reviews? There are a number of reasons but the one I keep coming back to is the idea of creating dialogue, and that is exactly what has happened here. It is not easy to post a defense of your work without coming off defensive, but I believe Cheryl has done so gracefully and extends her criticism beyond the scope of this article to address systems of value and white aesthetics that shape what is taken seriously in the art world…and what isn’t. It makes me ask myself, how integrated are these values to the point that we can’t see them? Once Cheryl had made the point it seemed obvious, but would have I noticed had I read the review first? How has my education and my tastes, been influenced by a perceived value of white aesthetics? Have I ever written a review that criticized a dance piece from a similar point of view? Had an opinion that I explained based on a principal I was taught and assumed to be true? I haven’t gone back through my cannon of work, but it seems very very likely.

One problem with writing from the 3rd person perspective (Seattle Dances style) is it encourages you to write your personal aesthetic as objective truth, even when you know its not. I also know as a reviewer, especially one who is volunteering, that sometimes it doesn’t work out. You have very little time. Rarely is your review a masterpiece. Sometimes you are not proud of it. Sometimes you even half-ass it because life. Sometimes you make mistakes. And then you have to have the guts to put it out there for all to read. That’s not easy. It isn’t self-serving. I have compassion for that.

I also understand what it’s like to receive a review that’s based on bullshit. Even a positive one. Like Omar Willey’s manifesto on the age of the choreographer in 2013’s BOOST review. Sorry Omar, I respect you, you even gave us some great feedback, but the premise of the whole piece was garbage. BUT I learned from that experience that I need to back up the opinions I have (and probably not with biographical data that I find through googling someone’s birthday). I think I’m a better writer now for that experience. I understand this is not a perfect alignment to the present situation, since I don’t experience the burden of centuries of oppression for being young, but my take-away is that from this experience I hope that I, and the other writers at Seattle Dances, can add to our collective consciousness and write better.

More stuff I don’t know, plus some REALLY COOL LINKS

The saga continues…I’ll be brief this time.

Don’t know if the desires I have to make technical movement are actually “feel like I shoulds”

Don’t know if trying to do this process that doesn’t come naturally is:
A. a good challenge and good practice
or
B. Me denying my actual interests/instincts

Today I said, what if I don’t fight for it and just do the easy thing. The thing I want to do. AKA got some props and did not-a-one GOOD DANCING MOVES. So I did that.

Was it more accessible way in? Absolutely. Do I like the results better? Meh.

Keep chipping away tomorrow.

In the meantime, here are some links I have been really into:

This hour-long lecture by Caroline Woolard is so worth it. There’s a lot in there so I won’t try to sum it up. She gets to the connection of things. So relevant for today and for Seattle (even though it’s generally about New York) After you watch it let me know and we’ll go start our artist commune together.

Enter Achilles by DV8 Physical Theater maybe a relic from 20 years ago but I guess “bro” culture isn’t new. The awfulness and humanity of these characters are presented intertwined. YES for that muddiness. Be forewarned: Parts are NSFW and the last 10 minutes or so have some graphic sexual violence with a blow-up doll. I understand why it’s there, but if you don’t want to watch that kind of thing cut it short.

THIS: FeralFeminisms.com is an online journal that is dense with interesting pieces ranging from historical to theoretical to poetry. The call for submissions for the next issue (on Feral Theory) asked a lot of great questions on its own, so I recommend reading it.

This talk by Crystal Pite is the one I referred to in my last post. There are a lot of great nuggets in there about her creative process and it’s framed for non-dancers which is nice. And I have to say that aside from being a creative genius, she also seems like a generous and awesome human being.

Dance moves: the bane of my existence.

I’m working on a concept for a piece I’m really excited about. The problem is…that at this point it really is just a concept. I’m perpetually confounded by the task of making a concept into a physicalized idea. Essentially, how do these things become dance? I have all these ideas about what the piece is about, but when I get in the studio, alone, and must somehow do something relevant to these ideas with my body–this is completely overwhelming to me.

I know some people think it’s a process of translation or symbolism (i.e. this represents this) but I’ve found that it’s a much muddier process than this. You’re not just shifting an idea across mediums, but shifting out of a linear idea and into the logic of art. The idea becomes something entirely different and unknowable. And when you’re excited about a concept it’s a lot of pressure to get things right. Since I experience a kind of paralysis under this pressure, I’ve been looking for ways in. I saw an interview with Crystal Pite (all hail) where she spoke about having a concept and then just creating a huge bank of dance material that is almost arbitrary. Then she can ask herself, “what can I use to express this idea?”, scan her bank for something that feels relevant, and assemble from there. Sounds easy enough, right? I just need to make some dance moves.

Here is the thing…this is actually really fucking hard. It is a tortuous, tedious process for me. This fact gives me some serious indignation, like Really? 25 years of dance training and you can’t come up with some stupid dance moves that interest you? REALLY? But it’s true and I’m totally in awe of choreographers who can just bust it out. There are more than a few contributing factors to this (like I’ve been slow at reading and writing forever and recording material feels very similar, brain-wise) but the factors I’ve been thinking about are fear-based.

Maybe my biggest fear is that I will hurt myself. Unlike many fears, this is actually very real. I want to do things that are interesting and on the edge of my ability, but am afraid to actually go there and try things because of the very real possibility that I could hurt myself and that could pretty much destroy my life for a while. While I’m not actively injured right now that doesn’t mean I’m not living in a body with a history of things that could act up at any moment. In some ways I am so very very able and I am grateful for that, but I am also constantly afraid and constantly in a condition of achy-this or tweaked-that and those little things can really disrupt my life and my progress toward a healed free-feeling body.

Another fear/reality is being not good enough. On a physical/technical/performance level, it is hard to get excited about the movement you are making if you are critical of what you look like doing it. Generally I only feel this way about my own work. When I’m in class and I have someone else’s material to learn, like a problem to solve, I get it or I don’t but generally it doesn’t affect my self-image. But I feel like when doing my own movement, I should be less awkward, should be more articulate, etc. Video is a very useful tool for recording what you did and getting a perspective on what something looks like, but it is also the perfect medium to manifest all your fears and insecurities. It is not shy about telling you that you are pretty mediocre. The knowledge of your own mediocrity and continued pursuit of lifelong dream is either very brave or pretty stupid. I try to have a “do the work” attitude, because most of me believes that that’s how you arrive at something great. Part of me, however, wants to ask what the point of making dance is if there are people already making dance that is greater than you could ever imagine making. Of course there will (almost) always be someone (lots of people) better. It’s unreasonable to expect to be the best at anything. However, the fear is real and it is not a great co-choreographer.

This is also tied to my personal desire right now to increase my strength, performance, and ability. To use the technique that I have. I’ve been going to class almost daily, which maybe doesn’t seem like a big deal but it’s not an easy schedule to maintain. If I’m going to be the best (on a technique level) that I can possibly be I think the opportunity for that in my life is closing rapidly. I know that there are other mountains to ascend as one ages as a dancer and as life priorities shift. Other things that are more important. But this one has a time limit.

For my current project I am interested in challenging myself to get back to the material–the dance vocabulary itself. I have almost never approached choreography from there. Usually my way in is a spatial pattern, or image, or problem that must be solved. Or a personal favorite: I make my dancers make up material and then I tweak it, shifting the burden of virgin birth to them. ; ) I like making in all these ways, but I feel a bit lost identity-wise as to what my dance-move-aesthetic is. What actually comes out of my body that I’m interested in? Can I engage with my choreography without distancing it from myself? I have a lot of respect for choreographers I see who have really made choices about what kind of movement they want to create. Often their choreography has a kind of precision and detail and clarity that I would love to have. Mostly what tends to come out in my improvisations are weird little creatures. I would be lying if I said that wasn’t part of my aesthetic. I love them. And they are easy to get into because I don’t feel afraid of hurting myself and additionally I already know I look ugly doing them so I’m not afraid of not looking good. BUT I would like to make some work that is not being a monster or awkward pre-teen character.

I actually have some physical ideas for what I want to do with groups of people. I think I could easily get into making duet material. Something to work against, something to give context, hold the space. But the solo is my kryptonite. Yesterday I spent three hours in the studio and came up with maybe 25 seconds of material that I felt like I could live with. Begrudgingly. I am trying to go into studio time with some scores to make this easier on myself. I ran into Vanessa after rehearsal and we listed some potential scores. Most are vague, but are things that could be prepared in advance to feel a little less untethered during rehearsal. Here was our brainstorm:

-Create a map to follow
-Pathways/destinations
-Recipe (ingredients/directions)
-A series of images to respond to in order
-An emotional progression (ex. happy–>guilty–>impatient)
-Drawing symbols and then interpreting them
-An arrangement of props/objects in space
-Finding the transitions between movements I already have and expanding them.

Maybe I am speaking into the void here, but if there are any artists out there with a way in or a perspective I haven’t thought of, or a score worth trying, I’d love to hear it.

Selling the Self

This week:

I’ve been preparing for my classes that are starting up this weekend. This means designing new warm ups, writing up curricula, and, the great beast: shameless self-promotion. Luckily for me, my dear college professor Jim Coleman was in town a few weeks ago and took me out for a photoshoot. The result is an armory of images I can use to promote myself where I look cool/skilled/youthful/sexy and most importantly, eye-catching. In no small thanks to Jim as a photographer. On one hand, I’m all: I LOOK AWESOME THIS IS AWESOME/it is okay for me to own my cool/skill/youth,etc., right?

And on the other I have some nagging questions re:publicity photos. What exactly am I trying to say? I’m cool, so come to my class? Coolness has very little to do with how well you teach (but perhaps realistically impacts how many people show up to your class).

From the least flattering perspective, it seems like I might be trying to assert my value using systems that I fundamentally disagree with. You know, the ones that are being forced down our throats all the time. And I pretty much ace the test when it comes to conventional value systems, so by promoting my image am I also promoting those values? These are systems that dance, when used correctly, has great capacity to break down. Isn’t this a big part of the reason I’m drawn to teach dance?

At the same time, an artist’s personal branding is, in some ways, a reflection of that person’s taste and therefore their art and therefore their values. At least that’s the idea. The act of personal branding feels like a necessity for the survival of the modern artist, and in the times of social media, commonplace among all kinds of people. Maybe it’s not a new idea to increase one’s career success by increasing their personal “cool” factor. It makes sense that people want to support people they like. In a business (art) so concerned with “authenticity” it can feel like a farce.

But also, I chose those clothes. I did actually do those leaps and spins. And I did actually do the training so that I could do those things. Training that has completely formed who I am. Training that I feel inclined to pass on to others. Perhaps the nature of teaching is one of self-elevation, of declaring that you have something of value to give, and the authority to give it. I think this is the source of my intense nervousness surrounding teaching. Once I get in the studio with students it goes away. I have immediate feedback that I know what I’m doing (or occasionally don’t). But between classes…I get anxious that I might be some incredible imposter. That no one will respect the authority of someone so young/blonde/awkward/perky… claiming this authority has a way of making you face your insecurities.

Also, on the topic of selling one’s self:

Last night I saw Peggy Piacenza’s Touch Me Here at Velocity. I saw this show in it’s original iteration at Washington Hall last winter. I remember leaving and thinking that I liked parts of it but it didn’t coalesce for me. This second time it did. I don’t know if it just needed two viewings or if it read better in the more intimate space or if her performance sharpened. The piece had a poetic depth I won’t compromise by trying to explain what the piece was about here. Suffice to say, it dealt with Piacenza’s experience working as a stripper. Throughout the piece she was flipping back and forth between this very sexy, detached persona and this very matter-of-fact, personable, middle-aged woman. And at the end they began to meld together. The biggest revelation for me is that she contains both of them. That was very exciting for me–to understand that that which makes a person is malleable enough and large enough to contain a lot. That we aren’t in our lives just making choices that reduce potentials until we come into our inevitable one-dimensionality. That it is not about looking for our one true “selves.” It was exciting to see a person fleshed out in that way.

I’ve also begun reading Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me. I’m about halfway through. I’m already going to say: you should read this book. It fleshes out and makes real the American black experience in a way that both speaks to the common experience and draws out the individual so often washed away in discussions of race. He lets us into his thought process, his realizations, his loves. It feels very intimate. Again I am awed by the depth of the human experience and the capacity for breadth. Though different topics, the effect of this book and Piacenza’s work are not dissimilar. Or perhaps I feel that way because of proximity in my experience. It’s hard to know.

OWL Book Club 8/29

Before it escapes me, I just want to quickly recap discussions at last night’s OWL book club at Studio Current, understanding that the content has been filtered through my memory and will undoubtedly have lost many details.

Present are myself, Vanessa, Kris, Christin, and (later) Markeith.

Vanessa hosted and gathered a variety of books, most of which were anthologies. Vanessa is currently interested in community art making/organizations/documentation (among other things) especially pertaining to documentation of the happenings of Studio Current as it reaches its completion (after 11 years) this fall.

I picked up Conversation Pieces (Kester) which from my limited reading of it, appeared to be about creating conversations as the art work. Examples included WochenKlauser organizing 3-hour boat trips in Zurich with policy makers and drug-addicted prostitutes. This was an environment where these people could communicate “outside the rhetorical demands of their official status” and resulted in social resolutions. Another example was a group of youth in Oakland broadcasting a conversation and reframing America’s terrible mass media-driven perception of the area’s youth.

I am interested in this idea of conversation/dialogue outside of the constraints of expected social construct. That maybe performance is a place where I could say things I’m continually not saying, or feel like I would be somehow “othered” by saying. Given some recent personal circumstances, this has been on my mind lately. I am reminded of an idea I had a while ago to implement a sort of “honest conversation” performance experiment in which I can express these things. Probably for Sh*t Gold. For me this also connects to my Crucible project. Owen had asked me what kept pulling me back to this text in particular and in a recent reading of the text I think it finally realized that the environment of non-dissent is perhaps the most personally threatening to me. The forced polarity of “if you’re not with us you’re against us” mentality. Or of not being able to question an idea without being delegitimized or in the case of the Crucible, hanged for witchery. More relevant to my life, I see questioning to be an act of positive engagement rather than of unsupportive-ness. I am still not sure how this connects to a physical movement idea, however.

Christin asked some questions regarding the completion of a work. In her writing experience she felt a clear cut finalization to her work after an editorial stage. With performance she does not have this same clarity. In art school she was told that the painting is completed when the audience views it, but what if no one sees a work? Does it not exist?

Kris offered that she had heard that a painting is finished when it looks back at it’s creator. Does the creator not witness the work? There was also some conjecture about the potential difference between mediums (namely temporal/ephemeral mediums and “permanent” mediums) that could lead to more/less feelings of completion. Christin offered that in writing there is more control, the words are chosen, and it is what it is. In performance there are too many variables of which not all of them go exactly “right” and the elements themselves are less concrete than words, so they always have the potential to be improved. There is also the factor that one piece could be performed multiple times and the performance and audience resulting in a fairly different work night-to-night. I also brought up something my book discussed, which is the traditional “banking” functionality of an art object, meaning that the artist’s experienced is “banked” in the object and then withdrawn later in the form of the viewer’s experience. In performance of course, these thing are going on simultaneously, so perhaps it never reaches completion because it is being “withdrawn” before it can ever finish.

Kris wondered if the element of time passing contributed to completion. I wondered if completion was felt when you were no longer the person who would make that piece. Markeith discussed the concept of “Mastery” as an ever and ongoing relationship to work, where the making of something is a stair step to the next thing that you make but there is no completion. Kris mentioned that the art she is making now in some way is the same as her first comp project in college in the 70s. Vanessa related a story of being in college and feeling like she was creating a bunch of disparate works until an insightful professor said, “Ah, so you’re making a series.” So perhaps we are always our whole lives making a series.

Vanessa brought up the medium of the written play, which by nature is incomplete (as it desires production) and yet they are often wholes that stand on their own. She spoke of having just as deep and complete experiences reading plays as novels. I added that the reason is that Vanessa’s imagination is doing the completion, playing the role of producer. Kris noted that perhaps completion is a collaborative effort where the audience is completing the created experience with their own experience and thus there are as many different works of art as people who view it. Christin noted that this had circled back to her original question regarding the responsibility of audience in art making.

I recounted that Joyce interviewed me after HOT MESS which allowed me to explain my intentions for the work, which were at that time not so much about the end product as about exploring certain processes. That the opportunity to articulate myself in a written capacity had given me closure to that project and a sense of completion. So perhaps documentation is a part or could be a part of completing ephemeral works? However, it was discussed (and I think agreed upon) that reviews, etc. from an outside perspective did not fill this role and that whether an audience liked it or not had very little to do with how you yourself felt about your work. Christin noted that it depended on how much she felt she’d been seen. Markeith expressed a desire to put forward his intentions as a way to push back/create dialogue with outside criticism and also as a way to control the context in which the piece is framed.

Christin recalled an blog post by Wendy Perron (I can’t find the original article, but it’s discussed and quoted here) that suggested that young choreographers should not blog about their processes***, but Christin noted that in the visual art world one was always expected to be able to discuss their intentions and that often through writing artists found greater understanding and refinement of their own ideas. Kris recounted that 70s dance school in her experience was pretty non-intellectual and Vanessa noted that she thought their was a major shift in the 80s towards intellectualism and artists writing about their own work.

***Because I can’t find the original text it is hard to say what this article intended. Christin’s take away was that Perron saw blogging about process as ruining the “mystery” of the art-making. From what I can tell from the “Slow Muse” post responding, Perron attributes desire to write about work as serving a publicity function and there is some discussion about protecting a pre-verbal space and perhaps there’s some merit to that. Either way, the tone of the quote (which maybe just sets off my “older people know best” alarm) is mildly irritating.