“In the Company of Ancestors: Love, Lineage, and Citation at the 2022 Elevate Chicago Dance Festival” by Tempestt Hazel (Elevate 2022 Festival Writer)

As I write this I’m resisting the urge to quote the entirety of Judy B. Massey’s 1987 piece A Love Story Written in the Light. It is an essay of prose published by the Organization of Black American Culture (OBAC) in the anthology NOMMO: A Literary Legacy of Black Chicago (1967-1987). In only two pages, Massey gives an exquisite and blazing testimony on the ways that Ancestors show up in the very human struggles between mind, heart, spirit, logic, and love. Instead of quoting it in full, I’ll offer this excerpt: 

“Gently, the Ancestors encourage us to move toward what we see, holding our hands each step of the way and promising to stand near. This gives us the courage to open ourselves and hear the sound of the expression. A sound so sweet that we find ourselves dancing and losing control in the joy of the melody of the words as we find that the thoughts spoken bring form to the abstract ones of our own. We are swept closer and closer like a child in wonder and suddenly the image becomes clear and we see the face of a Warrior that is the essence of a beauty we hold dear. In it, we can trace a character, a spirit that has explored adventures similar to ours. And even drawn from them the same wisdom. Uncontrollably our hearts go out to them. Lay themselves bare before them and promise to love without question.”

I was reminded of this piece and this book in the wake of the most recent iteration of Elevate Chicago Dance because like Massey and the members of OBAC, the artists of the festival made a point to practice deference–not only practice it, but to hold it as an inextricable part of the works they were presenting. Many forebearers and predecessors of these pieces were conjured and embedded through sound, movement, and words. Through rhythm, lyricism, and a harnessing of earthly elements. With every work I witnessed, a new and stronger legacy connection was made and a pattern emerged beyond the obvious discipline-specific or site-specific linkages between the works. It was a festival of mirrors, reverberations, and pronounced citations, which is fertile ground for someone like myself who enjoys footnotes, bibliographies, and liner notes just as much as the work itself. 

I embraced the festival’s multiple invitations to go back to a place of basics, showing the many familiar ways that love shows up in our worlds, which is another reason why Massey’s prose frequently came to mind. Many of the literal and overt citations that prefaced or were presented with the works felt like love notes to the bodies of knowledge that the artists were giving their time, attention, and appreciation to. As references tend to do, their references beckoned me to the places where their work aligns and the shoulders on which it stands. The artists’ deliveries were vocal and physical, rendered through roll calls, shout outs, stylistic echos, and embodiments. Even within the abbreviated, adapted, and in-progress versions of some works, the artists found ways to both give space to something that is being created and recognize the material that allowed for its creation. There’s something loving about humbleness in praxis, and the intentional naming of who and what makes the work and ideas possible. 

That said, I’m taking a cue from these artists. In the tradition of the roll call as an act of love, acknowledgement, and honoring, I’m offering a few recounts of the moments when Ancestors, elders, and patron saints were called into the room, and everyone in attendance had a chance to experience them dancing with and through the artists, and know what it feels like to be in the company of their power.

“Shiny Stockings: a work-in-progress” Talk and demonstration with audience participation, including a re-staging of a historical dance by Shirley Hall Bass with original members of the Dyerettes and Sammy Dyer School of the Theatre alumni | Elevate Chicago Dance 2022 | Chicago Cultural Center | October 13, 2022 | Photo by Mallory Yanhan Qiu

I saw the first literal roll call at the point where I began the festival, which was with a documentary about the Dyerettes, a Chicago-born group of dancers that were formed by legendary choreographer Sammy Vashon Dyer in 1950. The original six Dyerettes—Florence Saunders (Jones), Muriel Burns (Foster), Shirley Hall (Bass), Jean Cornell (Robinson), Clarice White (Pruitt), Gloria Broussard (Wilkes)—were known for being versatile performers with a level of preciseness that was unmatched. This led them into opportunities to tour with and open for some of the most renowned musicians and performers of the mid twentieth century, such as Sarah Vaughn, Nat King Cole, Sammy Davis, Jr., and Count Basie. When several of the original members were interviewed, their reverence for Dyer and the mentors that surrounded them throughout their careers radiated throughout the Chicago Cultural Center’s Claudia Cassidy Theater. In the film, they each took turns citing how much care and attention was put into them as professional performers and what legacies they carried.

“Shiny Stockings: a work-in-progress” Talk and demonstration with audience participation, including a re-staging of a historical dance by Shirley Hall Bass with original members of the Dyerettes and Sammy Dyer School of the Theatre alumni | Elevate Chicago Dance 2022 | Chicago Cultural Center | October 13, 2022 | Photo by Mallory Yanhan Qiu

The reverence continued when Cristin Carole took the stage to pick up where the film left off. While standing proud in her place as the great niece of Shirley Hall Bass and a third generation student of the Sammy Dyer School of Theater, Carole wouldn’t allow the presentation to go on without first acknowledging the people who have already made their transition and whose lives and work made her current ensemble, Shiny Stockings, possible. In her Ancestor roll call she listed the names of important figures within the Dyer legacy, and dedicated the day’s event to Nichelle Nichols, a fellow alumna of the Dyer School of Theater. After delivering a deep history lesson, Carole welcomed Ms. Clarice White Pruitt and Ms. Muriel Burns Foster to the stage to speak about their memories of being Dyerettes. Then, it was breathtaking to watch five members of Shiny Stockings perform an excerpt of a choreographed piece followed by White Pruitt and Burns Foster giving honest and encouraging notes to the keepers and continuers of their heirlooms. The care that was taken within that hour made it clear that if you know Shiny Stockings, you will know Shirley Hall Bass, and if you know Shirley Hall Bass, then you will know the names of the other original Dyerettes, and if you know them, then you will know Sammy Dyer. You will be met with three generations of powerful educators and performers.

Ivelisse “Bombera de Corazón” Diaz and collaborators | Elevate Chicago Dance 2022 | Chicago Cultural Center | October 13, 2022 | Photos by Karen I. Hirsch

In a way, this opening hour set a tone for the rest of the festival, with Ancestors letting themselves be known across days, performances, and sites. The Chicago Cultural Center continued to be blessed through Ivelisse “Bombera de Corazón” Diaz and the artists she shared the stage with who all used the building’s halls and walls to amplify the sights, sounds, and history of Bomba. Between and throughout the songs, everyone in the room was schooled on how this distinctly Afro-Puerto Rican art form carries generations within it. There are entire heritages in every bang of the drum, snap of a skirt, or belt of Diaz’s voice. By the end of it all, we knew and felt within our bones that Bomba is much more than just a form of expression, it’s the language of its Ancestors.

“LUCA/Res Communis: ETHOS Episode III” by Ayako Kato/Art Union Humanscape | Performers: Susana Ollin Kuikatl Tekpatzia Bañuelos, Danielle Gallet, Ambrosio Martinez, Tuli Bera, Darling Squire, Sophie Allen, Silvita Diaz Brown, Angela Gronroos, Carla Gruby, Lydia Jekot, and Ayako Kato | Elevate Chicago Dance 2022 | Palmisano Nature Park | October 15, 2022 | Photos by Ricardo E Adame

I was reminded of Ayako Kato’s ETHOS in Massy’s words about the power of abstracted expression as a tool of Ancestors and its ability to bring clarity and expose connectivities across bodies of knowledge and experiences. In ETHOS, Kato is conducting an extended and episodic exploration into how dance can be used to create an ideology for humanity that holds awareness, acknowledgement, affirmation, allowance, and action as its anchors. Drawing from the practice of fūryū, a Japanese word meaning “wind flow” and styles of dance that are carried by or drift on the wind, Kato’s LUCA/Res Communis: ETHOS Episode III interweaves longstanding Japanese concepts into movements that honor Indigenous ancestral sites and histories of Zhigaagoong. Although I only experienced it remotely, the whip of the fabric in the musician and dancers’ garments and the rumble of the air in the recording of the live stream made the presence of the wind undeniably known and its call to be acknowledged and respected impossible to ignore. The wind as a source of wisdom and power in both Indigenous and Japanese traditions appeared to be converging in Palmisano Park that day.

“By Way Of Taps: A J Dilla Tribute” by Nico Rubio | Elevate Chicago Dance 2022 | Chicago Cultural Center | October 13, 2022 | Photo by Karen I. Hirsch

If you asked any hip hop head to name the patron saints of the culture, it would be tough to trust the opinion of anyone who didn’t have producer, musician, and definitive force J Dilla (a.k.a. Jay Dee or James Yancey) on their list. Through Nico Rubio’s By Way Of Taps: A J Dilla Tribute and its sonic suites, Jay Dee was called into the room through some classic and era-defining moments within his iconic repertoire. As each record was spinning at the hands of Rubio, everything from Slum Village to Erykah Badu, Q-Tip, The Pharcyde, and De La Soul, the four featured dancers–Rubio included–channeled the keepers and defining artists of tap using tactics seen across both art forms. The improvisation, sampling, and call-and-response that are characteristic of and wielded within J Dilla’s work was concurrently being used to call on and honor legends like Bill “Bojangles” Robinson, The Nicholas Brothers, the previously mentioned Sammy Davis, Jr., and Gregory Hines–not to mention all of the other forebearers of tap whose names were never recorded and have missed their place within the archives and history books.

“the Function” by Erin Kilmurray and collaborators | Performers: Hannah Michal Santistevan, Keyierra Collins, Kierah KIKI King, Maggie Vannucci | Elevate Chicago Dance 2022 | Mana Contemporary | October 15, 2022 | Photo by Ricardo E Adame

Then, there was the joy, sweat, and synergy of the Ancestors to be found, left, and extolled on the festival’s many pop-up dance floors, some of which felt much more like devised club scenes than festival stages. The artists of BraveSoul Movement with Chi Buck Movement as well as the artists who brought Erin Kilmurray’s The Function to life all proved what many of us already know to be true–that sound is a shapeshifter, our physical response to the music reaches new territories when it is uncontained and unscripted, and that the dance floor is anywhere. And like Kato’s ETHOS, which channeled the choreography held within the earth’s elements, BraveSoul, Chi Buck, and Kilmurray’s works each felt like falling into an ocean wave that’s poetically unpredictable, but offers currents where you’re involuntarily charmed towards falling into a flow with everyone and everything around you. Although they happened on different days and at different sites–one at the Chicago Cultural Center and the other at Mana Contemporary, respectively–these works were undoubtedly signaling to one another. 

“FORCE! an opera in three acts” (excerpt-in-progress) co-directed by Anna Martine Whitehead and Ayanna Woods | Performers: Kai Black, Rahila Coats, Teiana Davis, Jenn Po’Chop Freeman, Nexus J., Zachary Nicol, Daniella Pruitt, Tramaine Parker, Anna Martine Whitehead | Elevate Chicago Dance 2022 | Segundo Ruiz Belvis Cultural Center | October 14, 2022 | Photo by Ricardo E Adame

To get this far in an attempt to articulate what I experienced of the festival has a kind of miracle quality to it. When words and video serve as proxies, they often, if not always, fall short of being capable of translating an experience as indescribable as being in the presence of artists and Ancestors. How do I capture what it felt like to be in the sprawling, open arena of Segundo Ruiz Belvis Cultural Center and to experience a version of Force! an opera in three acts knowing that its shaping has been encased in the memories and accumulations of actions by multiple generations of abolitionists and Ancestors? And knowing that from this work entire libraries and lexicons on the relationship between waiting and liberation could be generated? What words can be strung together to communicate the moments during Juke for Liberation when Christopher “Mad Dog” Thomas honored his mother and the fraught history of public housing as he illustrated the astounding preservation practices of Black people that survived chattel slavery and show up as traces within transcendental and distinctly Chicago music and danceforms like house, juke, and footwork? What’s an adequate or expansive way to recount the recalling of how Enneréssa LaNette and Monique Haley were in terrifyingly unpredictable circumstances during a trip to Ghana at the height of the pandemic, they each placed their trust in godly and ancestral forces and ended up with a new understanding of themselves, their connections to other artists, and their artistry. 

“Juke for Liberation” by Christopher “Mad Dog” Thomas / Kuumba Lynx | Elevate Chicago Dance 2022 | Segundo Ruiz Belvis Cultural Center | October 14, 2022 | Photo by Ricardo E Adame

Although Massey writes so concisely about the ways of Ancestors, she also conveys “the challenges of expressing a talent that will not be contained.” Her words ask me to remember that it is not my responsibility to communicate this all with precision or comprehensiveness. Instead, it’s my privilege and duty to simply draw you in so that the artists and Ancestors can, together, do their work. 

Header Image: “LUCA/Res Communis: ETHOS Episode III” by Ayako Kato/Art Union Humanscape | Performers: Susana Ollin Kuikatl Tekpatzia Bañuelos, Danielle Gallet, Ambrosio Martinez, Tuli Bera, Darling Squire, Sophie Allen, Silvita Diaz Brown, Angela Gronroos, Carla Gruby, Lydia Jekot, and Ayako Kato | Elevate Chicago Dance 2022 | Palmisano Nature Park | October 15, 2022 | Photos by Ricardo E Adame

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“Considering Movement: Notes on the Elevate Chicago Dance Festival” by Gervais Marsh (Elevate 2022 Festival Writer)

Movement as an ever-shifting experience of relation, as one finds new and already known ways to live in this world. Movement as a mode of understanding one’s relationship to self and others. Movement as praxis, as fugitivity, as a way towards rest, as experimentation, as the way out of no way, as the way to make a way. Their feet move with a speed that exceeds the eyes’ ability to track, embodying a deeply cultivated precision. “Juke for Liberation” choreographed by Christopher “Mad Dog” Thomas and members of Kuumba Lynx, interweaves Chicago footwork with spoken word poetry, renditions of Black American spirituals and video recordings of disco inspired juke scenes. Reverberating beyond the stage, the three dancers juke together and channel a collective vibration that signals intimacy forged through this dance practice, which critically embodies Black quotidian experiences in Chicago. Thomas and Kumba Lynx hold the precarity of Black life alongside the possibilities to build new worlds, linking the environmental racism that has long impacted Altgeld Gardens in Chicago with the water crisis in Flint, Michigan or Jackson, Mississippi. 

Both Thomas’s “Juke for Liberation” and Anna Martine Whitehead’s “Force: An opera in three acts” speak to imaginings of liberation in nuanced, interconnected ways. “Force”, in its conceptual framing, provides an expanded perspective for thinking freedom without overdetermining the boundaries of what forms of liberation could/should/will look like. 

Wrapped in denim, bodies intertwined; they slowly roll across the floor towards the stage. Exertion is evident, a weight pulls them to the ground. They pause for collective moments of rest, lying in different configurations around a chair on the left of the stage. Zachary Nicol begins a sonic transition, soon joined by dancers Jenn Po’Chop Freeman and Rahila Coats gently swaying alongside him. Kai Black enters on drums with Teiana Davis playing keyboard, amplifying the voices of vocalists Daniella Pruitt, Tramaine Parker and Nexus J. Textured with emotion, the soundscape is spacious, oscillating between unbounded and grounded vocalizations that transport the audience outside the fixed space of the Segundo Ruiz Belvis Cultural Center into an elsewhere place, one that is in process perhaps never to be defined.

Whitehead sings briefly in French, describing “le trou,” or a hole, as a framework of possibility, a necessary reconsideration. What are the holes inside the w(h)ole? Holes as opportunities to escape, to think otherwise, as spaces of undoing. Coats and Nichol lock arms with Whitehead, carrying her to the back of the stage as her legs glide through the air. In the final scene, the heightened voices of the singers repeat, “This wall has to fall!” with a force that pulsates throughout the venue. The dancers spin their denim capes around their bodies in a moment of release, for the world cannot be undone until we let go of claims on what it currently is.   

“In Lieu of Flowers”, choreographed by Kia S. Smith, begins with sharp, precise movements that construct a strained tension, pulling me in as I follow the reactive energy vacillating between the two performers, Kelly Anderson and Taylor Yocum. A refusal of release, the emotions structuring the relational dynamic is unclear; they move in response to one another, tinged by the affective murmur of a looming transgression. As the soundtrack switches from the ominous hum to a doo wop song, the artists inhabit a robotic emotional register that feels ironic in the jarring change from the previous scene. The piece closes with another sonic shift, a violin signaling a return to the somber tone which the piece began with. This time the dancers are more in tune, though the constrained atmosphere remains. There is a difficulty throughout this piece, an inability to trust the vulnerability of intimacy. Accessing experiences of relation so often involves grappling with the defensive positions we each form. 

How do bodies respond to one another in the nightlife space? What fleeting encounters take place? In a dynamic closing performance at Mana Contemporary, amidst bright strobe lights and electronic and house beats, Erin Kilmurray’s piece “The Function” explores the intimacies forged during the experience of the rave. The four dancers conjure a dynamic presence, taking over the stage and transforming it into their own DIY world. Cheers of support can be heard throughout space as the dancers expand the relational potential of the performance to the audience. Energy is shared and built upon, with the dancers vibing off each other, weaving through choreography drawing on modern, hip hop and voguing movements. As the performance winds down, the dancers bring their bodies close together in a beautiful moment of collective touch. They roll across the floor, releasing their bodies to each other. Is there a possibility to build ephemeral moments of trust amongst strangers? While nightlife is a space of negotiating bodily responses structured by racial, gendered, and sexual power dynamics, this piece is a reminder that the rave may also be a space for forms of relationality which are often limited in our day to day lives.

Surrounded by the changing leaves on a chilly Fall afternoon, the Elevate Chicago Dance Festival has invited the audience to witness three performances in Big Marsh Park, located on Chicago’s Southeast Side. There is an anticipatory atmosphere to see how each performance will activate this space, which is markedly different from the more conventional sites utilized by the festival.

What did your mama tell you? This is the question that animates Aaliyah Christina’s piece Praise Mother. Opening to a big band horn set, the assembled dancers (Naomi Batty, Keyierra Collins, Felicia Holman, Deja Hood, Mekeba Malik, and Darling Shear) dressed in black with purple gloves begin with J-Setting inspired choreography, paying homage to the Southern roots that influence much of Black life in Chicago. As they move forward, leading the audience into a concrete skate park, the collective energy becomes increasingly playful. Evoking a desire to cultivate collective joy, the piece is a love letter with gratitude to maternal figures who have shared critical knowledge that has shaped the ways of understanding and being in the world for each dancer. Felicia Holman performs a short monologue, highlighting lessons from her mother, “My mother told me that when I was born, she said to herself, ‘I can’t wait until she learns how to talk, so that she can tell me who she is.’ Holman’s words affirm an autonomy that is reiterated throughout the piece by the collective, heard in their refrain, “Praise Mother, cuz we be fast, we want no problems, so y’all can stay mad.” In this chorus, the dancers reject the demands often placed on Black people to perform societal notions of respectability, asserting that they will live their lives as they see fit.

In a clearing above the skate park, “The Axe Forgets, The Tree Remembers” choreographed by Ysaÿe Alma begins a meditation on food justice, highlighting the relationships Black and indigenous communities have always had with growing food. Beautifully reverential, the interplay between the choreography and music suggests a recognition of human and other forms of natural life are intimately connected. Incorporating different dance styles, including West African and Modern with references to Jump Blues featuring the song “Beans and Cornbread” by Louis Jordan, the piece shifts between solos, duets and the quartet performing together. The dancers, Aaliyah Christina, Cecilia Slongo, Jada Rose and Ysaÿe Alma, close the work by displaying placards with information on dispossession of indigenous communities from their native lands, food insecurity in Black communities and the continued destruction of biodiversity, leaving the audience with a call to action.

Closing out Sunday’s performances in the park, “Anatomy for Interiors” devised by Jasmine Lupe Mendoza, Lia Kohl and Corey Smith begin with slow, deliberate movements inside a tunnelway. Both dancers find connections between their bodies and the cold metal of the tunnel, with X sliding their body slowly down its side. The piece continues with Mendoza placing the chair outside the tunnel, on a hilly incline, exploring the balance of tension between their body and the chair. An overcast sky gathering dark clouds above, the duo step deeper into the tunnel so that only their silhouettes are visible, slowly moving their bodies wrapped in translucent fabric. In one of the most compelling moments of the performance, the duo descends with a quick foot shuffle from the top of the incline, Mendoza wrapped in the cloth with Smith following behind, holding a radio that emits an intermixture of grainy music and broadcasts. An eerie beeping noise can be heard as the performers forcefully jerk their bodies at the opening to the tunnel, engaging in an embodied relational moment.

The Elevate Chicago Dance Festival provided an opportunity to both think expansively about conceptions of relationality and witness varied ways this can be manifested. A vibrant convening of Chicago’s performance communities, and a chance for artists to be in dialogue, it is a generative event that will undoubtedly leave viewers with reflections on movement, envisioned broadly, as a rich experience of being.

Header Image: “FORCE! an opera in three acts” (excerpt-in-progress) / Anna Martine Whitehead and collaborators at Segundo Ruiz Pelvis Cultural Center | October 14, 2022 | Photo by Ricardo E Adame

The post Considering Movement appeared first on Chicago DanceMakers Forum.

“Through Dance, For Dance, We Dance” by Maya Odim (Elevate 2022 Festival Writer)

This Fall I found time to attend a weekend of Chicago dance called, Elevate, hosted by the Chicago DanceMakers Forum who has also invited me to reflect and share a written response about what I saw, heard and experienced. To say the least I was excited, and honestly I was also honored to have a chance to—as a poet and a dancer, spread the word about another’s work(s). And following here, are my thoughts.

One piece of vocabulary to note is that in this summary I introduce the term witness, in place of the term audience, as I hope it will evoke in people the sentiment with which I reflect: as an accomplice rather than a critic. I am not a critic, I am an artist; I am a writer and a choreographer. Which leads me to this anecdote: The professor teaching my undergraduate Drawing 101 course told our class on the first day: Draw what you see, not what you think you see. And so it is from this preview too that I write, aiming for my writing to be only one picture of what was/is. Need I say: everyone’s eyes are different. Apart from this writing, I implore you to seek out the works reflected upon here in whatever way you can! They are something to be viewed again and shared many times over.  

***

“LUCA/Res Communis: ETHOS Episode III” by Ayako Kato/Art Union Humanscape | Performers: Susana Ollin Kuikatl Tekpatzia Bañuelos, Danielle Gallet, Ambrosio Martinez, Tuli Bera, Darling Squire, Sophie Allen, Silvita Diaz Brown, Angela Gronroos, Carla Gruby, Lydia Jekot, and Ayako Kato | Elevate Chicago Dance 2022 | Palmisano Nature Park | October 15, 2022 | Photos by Ricardo E Adame

Offering and Receiving: A Reflection About ETHOS III, A Performance at Palmisano Park

I witnessed “LUCA/Res Communis: ETHOS Episode III” (World Premiere), by Ayako Kato/Art Union Humanscape, for Palmisano Park. here is a show description found on Ayako’s website (https://www.ayakokatodance.com/new-events): 

LUCA/Res Communis: ETHOS Episode III at Palmisano Park is part of the ETHOS project by Ayako, that sets art practice in natural environments. Episode III draws on the land’s history as the quarry that built modern Chicago, acknowledges the past, present, and future Indigenous people living among us, and is created in collaboration. It is organized as timed dances, land and water acknowledgements, and a culminating circle. Visitors choose to be guided by docents, or roam on their own.

ETHOS Guidance Performers: Susana Ollin Kuikatl Tekpatzia Bañuelos (Aztec Nahua, vocal-music artist and storyteller, Aztec Dance Chicago), Danielle Gallet (water storyteller), Ambrosio Martinez (music, Aztec Dance Chicago).

ETHOS Team LUCA Dancers: Tuli Bera, Darling Squire, Sophie Allen, Silvita Diaz Brown, Angela Gronroos, Carla Gruby, Lydia Jekot, and Ayako Kato.

ETHOS Creative Collaborator: Joseph Lefthand (of Cheyenne-Arapaho, Taos, Zuni descent)

ETHOS Chromosome Dance & Cell Circle Dance Music (recording): Composed and Performed by Theresa Wong and Ellen Fullman, “Harbors Part 1, Harbors Part 2, Harbors Part 3,” HARBORS (room40 2020).

ETHOS Costume by: Darling Squire

ETHOS Consulting: Katsushi Hikasa

ETHOS Directed and Choreographed by: Ayako Kato.

This work demonstrates and encourages collaboration. The dancers moving through the park were collaborating with each other—in triplets and duets and group movement, with the witnesses as we moved through the landscape together/trusting and then following the dancers-movements/singers-singing/instruments-music. Within the landscape itself performers placed themselves amongst the rocks and the grass, along the metal pedway and up and down concrete stairs. Towards the end of—and as an end to the performance, witnesses were invited to join the ensemble in moving to a clearing in the park where everyone present formed a circe and learned directly from Aztec Dance Chicago: pedagogy of Aztec Dance techniques, vocabulary and themes performed when dancing,  and learning an Aztec choreographic phrase. 

I’ve written the following poem to describe some of what I witnessed:

The sounds around me. 

The color of the clothing, and the plants, 

the metal pedway cutting through the landscape. 

Their movements cut through the air. 

Sweep/wave. Rattle and waterfall; 

elbows, rocks, push, clumps of rocks they moved on delicately/delicate movements of pinching cloth/delicate amongst rough city and people greeting each other (we all just ended up here). 

Every so often the person next to me would raise their forearm in agreement, 

and for a brief moment touching their hand to the side of their head 

and leaning forward like one does when really leaning in to get something. 

And the person next to us started humming right at the moment 

movement from the dancers started faster and breakable/able to be broken. 

We made for ourselves as much as they made for us. 

Kids were running, people were moving, dancers were dancing: 

delicate bodies over clunky pieces, and the smooth energy of the ground. 

Folding into landscapes. 

Appearing in groups, in duets and in trios and all together again as one. 

We all  flocked and trusted, and followed each other, leading ourselves,  

leaning 

and following in a way leaves and plants do in the wind. 

Climbing. Descending and hanging. 

As dancers moved people moved in after them in space/like removing an object from a shelf 

and pulling forward the next item behind it to take its place. 

Dancers in public space are an example 

like this: almost literally showing us (an audience) a way, 

leaving huellas,

and this became empirically clear as I walked behind dancers and wrote this poem.

Witnessing this dance in the space of this park with all of these people, as we all stood around with each other took on an intimate quality, and as I thought about intimacy my mind visited ideas of love and commitment and what it means to enter into a promise with someone else. I thought of how entering into a promise with someone is like witnessing a performance with them: agreeing on a location, agreeing on an action, agreeing on doing this together/the viewing/the witness/sharing the experience together. I imagined the ped ways in this park becoming aisles as I imagined my friend and I marrying our senses as we processed down behind the wedding party/the ensemble (the reason we were there), the wedding party and myself; the witnesses are the “couples” getting married. The way marriage is a union of entities is what happens when witnessing a show: How is this something other than a union ceremony? We married our senses. We did.

The dancers pushed through air at times like one pushes through sand. I was reminded of rock climbing: one time the lead instructor brought out a bucket of uncooked rice and told us that because we’d be doing this concentrated motion of grabbing/holding with our fingers we needed to balance this for our muscles/our body by making the opposite motion with our hands by pushing our fist down into the bucket of rice and then expanding our hand pushing outwards. The resistance from the rice balances the motion we’d done previously. This park was the bucket, this world is the rice, and these dancers were one’s hands, taking a moment and pushing back. The dancing was the pushing back, the witnessing was the pushing back. 

Outside of a theater/stage/chairs the people witnessing with me were as important to this performance as the dancers who we’d come to see. We each walked around the park with energy and fervor ready to follow, ready to witness, ready even to jump in as was invited towards the end of the piece. And we thought about why we dance, why we are spiritual, why we move and for what and for whom we move.  

***

In the Round: Reflections About Performances at Mana Contemporary

“Extended Play” by Christopher Knowlton | Elevate Chicago Dance 2022 | Mana Contemporary | October 15, 2022 | Photos by Ricardo E Adame

“Extended Play (excerpt)”  

Direction, Choreography, Technology, Prop Design, Costuming and Performance(s): Christopher Knowlton

Music: “Imagine That” written and composed by Ani DiFranco, arrangement by John Cicora, “Cranky Bliss” by Dominic Johnson, “RagaVaikhari” by Saraswathi Ranganathan

Graphic Design: Anna Kong

First showing was “Extended Play” by Christopher Knowlton. The piece opened with an image of two people spinning on a circular cut-out projected onto a screen, Chris’s movement entered spinning. Chris spun through space tracing circles and pathways across the floor and at times in tandem with the spinning projection. The music was accented in Chris’s body as their attention and motion collided with and accompanied the projection show beside them. The movement was reminiscent of a mix of techniques embodied in sequences together, the body twirled and dragging, light and bouncy, taught and at times heavy. Then Chris extends the stage, literally, by approaching the projector and handling the cut-out/impacting the image now projected: Chris flips this disc (what appears to be a card board cut-out) and on the other side we see the image of earth, this circle now taking on another meaning and the bodies projected on top of it do too. Chris now projects an image of themselves on top of this earth cut-out and this digital image starts to move/to dance; as Chris moves through space holding this disc while the projection continues to show on the screen on stage. This digital image on Chris that is projected is wearing the same clothing as Chris is during this performance, and as Chris puts down the disc, and the camera we see them lie down next to the camera—their face enter the projection on screen, and Chris and the projected image of Chris start to perform the same sequence of choreography until the end of the performance when Chris exits the stage through a slit in the projection screen. I truly enjoyed the layers present in this piece as I thought about weighty topics of existence and airy ubiquitous topics like play; there were layers present in the technique of movement and the use of choreography, projection, recording and camera together with music and witness.

***

“Raíces to Roots (excerpt),” by María Luisa Torres and Luis Tubens | Performers: María Luisa Torres, Luis Tubens, Pete “Conga” Vale, Alyssa Harlston, Natalie Lande | Elevate Chicago Dance 2022 | Mana Contemporary | October 15, 2022 | Photos by Ricardo E Adame

​​“Raíces to Roots”

Performers and Collaborators:

María Luisa Torres

Luis Tubens

Pete “Conga” Vale

Alyssa Harlston

Natalie Lande

Angela Townsend- Choreography

Claritza Maldonado- Poem : “Listen, Witness, Don’t Touch”

This project is supported by DCASE

Showing next was “Raíces to Roots (excerpt),” by María Luisa Torres and Luis Tuben. This was a soulful and lively performance of both salsa and poetry with dancers performing alongside the poetry and music. The energy was electric! Raíces to Roots did not only perform, but they taught, inviting witnesses to come up and dance with them while encouraging the entire room to dance together by learning a few Salsa steps. Folks who stood up to dance were welcomed on stage and folks who stayed in their chairs clapped along and even found room to dance from the aisles themselves. And this is what salsa is like, culturally, it is a social dance, it is a dance people do with each other, it is a way for people to be with and be around each other. Having a chance to “try it on ” ourselves by learning from Raíces to Roots was an exhilarating experience.  But even before this group dance, we were led through a brief meditation asking us to breathe together, to become aware of our space together, to think about our bodies and notice our arms, and feet and the sounds and sights we are experiencing, together. These are familiar directions to the members of any ensemble to encourage group awareness. Specifically, everyone in the room was asked to think about home and what home was to us and to take a try at expressing this in movement, through our bodies. I watched all of us in that room move as one body, different movements but to the same direction: expressing home. And then again, as one body moving in different ways but to the same direction when we practiced the salsa moves Raíces to Roots taught us all. Raíces to Roots even left an opportunity for people to share the movement they associated with home. The entire way the performance was structured was reminiscent of being in community, at a house or in a backyard even though most of us in that room didn’t know each other. They could have told us this about salsa dance, but better they showed us. Raíces to Roots welcomed us, invited us and encouraged us by giving us an opportunity to dance together. I believe their performance was not just Raíces to Roots dancing, it was also the way us witnesses engaged with the scene set for us by Raíces to Roots.

***

“The F____, the Fawn, and the Boss (excerpt-in-progress)” by Nora Sharp | Elevate Chicago Dance 2022 | Mana Contemporary | October 15, 2022 | Photos by Ricardo E Adame

“The F_______, the Fawn, and the Boss” (excerpt-in-progress) 

Creation, performance, & sound by Nora Sharp

Next showing was “The F____, the Fawn, and the Boss (excerpt-in-progress)” by Nora Sharp

When I watch Nora dance I see the contemporary dance technique they are embodying and I can imagine the many other dance aesthetics that influence contemporary dance, a list too long to include here but a point to note in poetic language: Nora’s movement is layered, heavy, weighted and leaves imprint. This dance was both a performance of a character and a character study/an exploration into what makes up a character. It was fun to watch and to listen to as Nora incorporated the use of a loop machine into their performance. I was struck by the way Nora used the space, and more specifically the floor, and this struck me because the floor is the easiest element to forget about/funny how foundations are easy to forget about. And so, I have to wax poetic: The way Nora moved it was clear to me that they recognized the floor existed, they called out/called in a cypher (in the Hip-Hop sense of the word); the floor existed actively and not passively as a platform upon which they worked, quite the opposite, throughout the performance it was apparent to me that the floor was part of their performance. The way Nora covered space recognizing the parts of the floor behind them, at times in front of them when they turned around or to their right or left, or underneath them. We— all of us, forget this: the floor is to the right of us, to the left of us, behind us, in front of us and underneath us. So often I think people, performers, treat the floor as if all it is is underneath them. But not everyone, and not Nora.

***

“In Lieu of Flowers” by South Chicago Dance Theatre, choreographed by Kia S. Smith | Performers: Kelly Anderson and Taylor Yocum | Elevate Chicago Dance 2022 | Mana Contemporary | October 15, 2022 | Photos by Ricardo E Adame

“In Lieu of Flowers” 

Performers South Chicago Dance Theatre artists Kelly Anderson and Taylor Yocum

Choreographer Kia S. Smith

Costume Design Kia S Smith

Rehearsal Director Jessica Tomlinson

Original Lighting Design Julie Ballard

Next showing was “In Lieu of Flowers” by South Chicago Dance Theatre, choreographed by Kia S. Smith  They were not waiting for the room to quiet down—I think: sorrow doesn’t wait for you to be ready either, the dancing is what quieted the room down.  Choreographed beautifully for the dancers who performed this piece, these two dancers  became stage, prop, set, scene and actor. The piece was a combination of angular movement executed with the precision of crashing waves: there were smooth transitions between every hard stop and airy breaths left floating alongside tableaus you’d miss if you blinked.  As these dancers performed a duet I saw them supporting the same movements with their bodies and also almost being taken a hold of by movement/or having been taken a hold of by the other dancer’s direction for them to move. I found myself thinking about the way ideas, practices and other people guide and direct us too. Emotions do this too. Coupled with these thoughts about movement were my thoughts about the title which  reminds of how the body/the human/the expression can be an offering.  Without assigning any meaning to the choreographer’s choices, I started to think about the way control can become a duet but what I’m still deciding upon is between which two parties: the emotions/the person/the scenario/the timing/the memory?

***

“the Function” by Erin Kilmurray and collaborators | Performers: Hannah Michal Santistevan, Keyierra Collins, Kierah KIKI King, Maggie Vannucci | Elevate Chicago Dance 2022 | Mana Contemporary | October 15, 2022 | Photo by Ricardo E Adame

“the Function” 

Concept + Direction by Erin Kilmurray

Choreography developed with Performers

Hannah Michal Santistevan

Keyierra Collins

Kierah KIKI King

Maggie Vannucci

as well as Sarah Ellen Miller (assistant director / understudy) and Dee Alaba and Tia Monet Greer (original dancing collaborators)

Sound Design by VITIGRRL aka Hannah Viti

Stage Management by Anastar Alvarez

Technical Direction by Bran Moorhead

Dramaturgy by Dani Wieder

Styling by Sal Yvat

Closing the evening was “the Function” by Erin Kilmurray and collaborators. Witnesses here experienced a performance and picked up a zine. Please contact Erin about viewing a copy if you’re intrigued. Some thoughts as I witnessed were: 

Boom crack/boom bap! Catching a rhythm, what does that actually mean, warring in a rhythm, bypassing or relying on rhythm. What does it mean to rely on a rhythm? A person, yourself? What does it mean to stand and fall and reassemble? What does it mean to breathe? What is the cypher/what does it mean to watch, what does it mean to uphold, what does it mean to support? What does it mean to perform? What does it mean to reach and have and jump and see what does it mean to see? What does it mean feeling your jungle and your garden? What does it mean to be free in your jungle and in your garden? What does it mean to play in both? What does it mean to share a vibe?  Are you happy for me? In Nigeria we spray people and here tonight they sprayed each other with gel light covers, we sprayed the dancers with our noise and our loud, with our eyes and our hands. What does it mean to bond? What is bond? Is it word, is it movement, is life both, so is it both? Your word is your bond. How you move is your bond. What is the weather but another track? 

There were lights changing, fans blowing, extension cords plugging and unplugging, ladders climbed and moved, gel lights visible and not, all operated by the dancers. What does it mean to be under yourself watching as you fall towards the depths of your soul? Moving and adding and rearranging props was for everyone. This approach is deliberate, this approach is: All hands on deck! This approach is about, in Erin’s words, dancers’ ability to operate what is happening in their scene; an approach I identify as both radical and rebellious. And this pedagogy was built into a performance where Erin supported the work this ensemble did as each member engaged in choreography & set-up of scenes and props.   

***

On the Screen: Reflections About Films Shown at the Chicago Cultural Center

by Maya Odim

It’s always quiet before a movie starts. This odd settledness of waiting, this level of noise some of us  never achieve in libraries, or in the hallways of buildings where no one else is making noise, we are somehow all able to reach— this same pitch of quietness, before a movie. It is not quiet out of respect. I think the anticipation of exaltation steals or rather catches the senses and that leaves us in awe: in awe of the possibilities, what could this movie hold? That’s what it is, a film awes the senses before it starts and until we pull ourselves away (at any point) it holds our senses in place. Here, in place in this room in the Chicago Cultural Center we all watched as dancers, and dance films projected across a screen caught our senses.

“far from the 掛包: a memoir of reintegration”

expanding upon the work the artist was developing in their bedroom during quarantine, they investigate american midwestern aesthetics of queer-ness, asian-ness, and movement practice. the film’s visual and metaphorical language is steeped in perspective gained from two years teaching english and dance on remote taiwanese islands, kinmen and penghu. the film is a work of self-documentary-autobiographical-fiction and aims to use the internet as a compass back to living in the united states and specifically chicago.

Gabriel Bruno Eng Gonzalez (he/they) graduated from Beloit College in 2020. He is a fulbright scholar, dance maker, writer, sociologist, cyclist, swimmer, and video artist. Gabriel’s love of dance and teaching allows space for him and others to feel human, queer, and mixed without a sense of shame. Through our imaginations we allow ourselves and our stories to be in the world. Gabriel’s choreographic and written work has been exhibited at Chelonia, ACDA, Zullo Raw Movement’s Queerly Contemporary Festival, WIM Dance, This Body Lives, Elgin Fringe Festival, Counterpulse, Hello Giggles, and Teen Vogue. He has had the pleasure of working with Katy Pyle, jess pretty, Estrellx Supernova, Katlin Michael Bourgeois, Chris Johnson, Gina T’ai, Ching-i Chang, and more.

Opening the afternoon was  far from the 掛包: a memoir of reintegration” by Gabriel Bruno Enrique Lopez Eng Gonzalez Images and sounds moved across and through the screen, one, then another layering on top of it, then another in a corner until the screen was full and a sound scape was playing in the background. Sounds and images layered in the way I imagine a human to be, thick. A surrealist would have interpreted this as a self portrait, as a poem object, as a collage. And I think I’m becoming a surrealist because I would label this film as these. The film was definitely the latter, which is in effect both the middle and the former. I imagine the portrait to be of someone’s landing or navigation, and view of what was navigated or more appropriately: what one is continuously navigating. At points their image was hanging upside down and at points right side up mimicking what I’d identify as the rearranging that takes place internally as one engages in the making or realizing of self.

“The Real Dance: A Micro Reality TV Show – Episode 2”

The Real Dance: A Micro Reality TV Show is a film series that approaches contemporary dancemaking through the low-stakes, high-investment aesthetic & entertainment lens of reality TV, focusing on the daily lives, dramas, personalities, and backstories of people who make dance. Episode 2, co-directed by and co-starring Grace McCants and Nora Sharp with cinematography by Bea Cabrera, Sydney Sullivan, and Spence Warren, explores dynamics of codependence and interdependence at the intersection of relationships and artmaking.

Co-directed, performed, and edited by Grace McCants and Nora Sharp

Assistant Editing by Sydney Sullivan

Videography by Bea Cabrera, Spence Warren, and Sydney Sullivan

Music:

“Love Is a Hurtin’ Thing” performed by: Gloria Ann Taylor, Writer(s)/Composer(s) Ben Raleigh & David Linden, Courtesy of Ubiquity Recordings, Inc., Wise Brothers Music LLC ASCAP, & Wixen Music Publishing obo Rawlou Music BMI. All Rights Reserved.

“Space Chess,” “Zero Gravity Interlude,” #1479, and #9677 by Yuri

Creative Consultation by Gina Hoch-Stall and Aaron Greer

This project is partially supported by an Individual Artists Program Grant from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events, as well as a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency, a state agency through federal funds provided by the National Endowment for the Arts. Originally premiered at the Pivot Arts Festival 2022.

Grace McCants grew up studying gymnastics in Madison, WI, holds a degree in Dance from Oberlin College, and has called Brooklyn home for most of her adult life. She has worked on the product and strategy side of social justice and accessibility tech at AnnieCannons and Bocoup. Grace performed with Nora Sharp & crew in the premiere of Family Reunion, an hour-long improvisation of movement, conversation, video, and queer community, at Steppenwolf Theatre’s LookOut Series in early 2020. In 2022, she has worked with The Syndicate workshopping Hal Cosentino’s new play Lineage. Nora Sharp is a creator and performer whose work has been presented by On the Boards, Steppenwolf Theatre’s LookOut Series, Movement Research at the Judson Church, the Fly Honey Show, and Midwest RAD Fest among elsewhere, and supported by residencies at the Hambidge Center, Links Hall, and High Concept Labs. Nora also for 5 years facilitated the works-in-progress series Research Project, which provided a community platform for performance and response at OuterSpace Studios, and in 2019 created THE AMTRAKLOR, a fundraiser for Links Hall that gifted a roundtrip train ticket to a local artist for creative research. Nora can be heard as a guest on Volume 3 of Alyssa Gregory’s podcast The Process with co-host Tia Greer.

Next shown was “The Real Dance: A Micro Reality TV Show – Episode 2” by Nora Sharp and Grace McCants There was a loose yet fitting quality to this piece. It’s baggy clothing that is still your size, it is a huge bowl with just the right amount of soup, it is a pair of socks that are warmer because they are slightly bigger and fold over your toes.  Part of it is about collaboration and I believe part of this film is about understanding your understanding, and another part understanding what you do and another part understanding relationships. Uncertain buildings, cord progression, back and forth about sharing this book. The topics they covered were wide and varied, the work they demonstrated was also. Soulful soundtrack which I think speaks to the nature of the topics overlapped with their bodies as their voices did also at times. It reminded me of how I learned to choreograph, pour out what’s inside of you and sift through this. It’s how I’ve written this, I wrote pages and pages for this that I’ve sifted through to get these paragraphs. I think about how being too attached to what you’re going through can impede getting it or getting through it. For better or for worse. 

“Cuckoo in the Depths of the Woods”,  “Aquarium”, and “Characters with Long Ears”

In response to the inability to safely convene live audiences in 2020 and 2021, Every house has a door continued working in small and careful ways culminating these three short films. Each film is relates to and is embedded within the large-scale, multi-year project The Carnival of the Animals.

In 2020 and 2021, during the Covid-19 pandemic, out of desire to continue working together and make progress on unfinished works, we began making films in a converted garage and later a un-used art gallery. Attuned to the particular needs of the moment each work reflects the evolving possibilities of working in proximity that were possible at the time of filming. The Three short films screened in the festival are embedded within the larger series of modular performance, The Carnival of the Animals. This multi-year collaboration follows the 14-movement structure of Camille Saint-Saëns’s 1886 musical suite for children. The Every house Carnival considers endangered and extinct species, with an original performance devised in response to each of Saint-Saëns’s titles, following those imaginative classifications.

“Cuckoo in the Depths of the Woods”

Lin Hixson, direction

Sarah Skaggs, production and company management

Julia Pello, Cinematography and Editing

Essi Kausalainen, Costumes and Textiles

Corey Smith, Sound and Music

Matthew Goulish, Dramaturgy

Christine Shallenberg , Lighting

Elise Cowin, performance

Alex Bradley Cohen, performance

Bryan Saner, performance

Narration written by Matthew Goulish and performed by Abhay Ghiara

“Aquarium”

Lin Hixson, direction

Matthew Goulish, dramaturgy

Essi Kausalainen, costume design

Hadley Austin, cinematography and editing

Yoni Goldstein, cinematography and editing

Christine Shallenberg, lighting design

Sarah Skaggs, production and company management

Elise Cowin, performance

Bryan Saner, performance

Alex Bradley Cohen, performance

Madeleine Aguilar, song arrangement and performance (short film)

“Characters with Long Ears”

Lin Hixson, direction

Matthew Goulish, dramaturgy and writing

Essi Kausalainen, costumes and textiles

Julia Pello, cinematography and editing

David Hall, sound

Christine Shallenberg, lighting

Elise Cowin, performance

Bryan Saner, performance

Alex Bradley Cohen, performance

Isaac Cresswell, performance

Sky Cubacub, performance

Tim Kinsella, ending score

Jenny Polus, ending score

Sarah Skaggs, production and company management

Lin Hixson, director, and Matthew Goulish, dramaturg, formed Every house has a door in 2008 to convene diverse, intergenerational project-specific teams of specialists, including emerging as well as internationally recognized artists. Drawn to historically or critically neglected subjects, Every house creates performance works and performance-related projects in many media. Based in Chicago, the company presents work for local, national and international audiences.

Next shown were a series of short films by Every house has a door.  The first of these films was: “Cuckoo in the Depths of the Woods,” (Lin Hixson and Matthew Goulish) I imagine the woods could be a metaphor for a city, or state, or country/a nation, and the depths, existing. The opening scenes were of a room/an apartment that appeared empty but for purposefully hung cloth and undisturbed shadows. I imagine this apartment was to represent a landscape. The narration talked about running and existing, leaving behind and finding, and guilt. It rustled up thoughts of cultural artifacts—objects used to represent and in cultural practices, along with ideas about how one gets places/or has gotten to a place, and thoughts about the borders people cross and the borders people set up (within and outside of themselves). The large portions of cloth made from many smaller pieces of cloth were what hung around the room, and these along with the ensemble, became visible as the camera continuously pans the scene in a circular motion. This made me think about circles not only in our viewing but also in the stories of families, or people or neighborhoods: what people repeat/what people continually experience. Watching this I keep thinking about cultural artifacts. And the clothes that dancers were wearing were all made of scraps of other clothes, enough scraps collected and sewn together made their clothes. I could not deny this parallel to human existence/to human beings: we are made up of these patches of all of these different parts that we are. I thought of palomncests.The use of props, both furniture and clothing in this film was eye opening to see, the way props were shared, used and displayed was a dance in and of itself. You feel like your freedom wasn’t earned because you ran to get it but you didn’t fight to get it. But I say: people train for marathons. People build their stamina up to run. Partway through the film what I thought was a wall became a platform/a shelf with the introduction of someone moving on top of it, a realization that led me to think about how the perceptions of what an object is used for change based upon how an object is witnessed in use. As each ensemble member entered this room everything I’d been introduced to in the room started to change, in ways taking on new meaning. 

The second of this trio was “Aquarium” I first saw this piece performed outside at the Humboldt Park Boat House on a cold, rainy windy day in September. It was pouring in fact, and a friend and I laughed about how they must have made coven with the weather because it could not have been more perfect for the topic: torment of storm from the sky and we all witnessed the way humans have tormented the land. But we didn’t run from our reflections…It was as powerful witnessing this film at the Chicago Cultural Center, indoors, in dryer and warmer conditions. If I had a chance to experience both again I would. Both. In costume the ensemble moved through the space—noticeably taking turns, embodying aquatic animals, minerals, and humans each living for moments on screen and then fading out of view. The cement, wood panel and dry walls that make up the room where these scenes are set take on double meaning for me: they are the aquarium but they are also what juxtaposes the life of the aquarium, so I saw this set, chameleon like, taking on different meanings as the scenes changed. The film sparked thoughts about terms like, interaction, environment, and imprint. 

The third of this trio was: “Characters with Long Ears,” “I heard a word inside of every word and a sound inside of every sound.”Because I am a dancer I register all movement as able to be danced and because I am a poet I tend to recognize all creative language as poetry, where others may hear a phrase as dialogue. “Characters with Long Ears,” opened with poetry, one line is: “An achorn drops like a comet to the horizon”; and another line is asking: “What does moonlight sound like to characters with long ears?” The simile and synesthesia of the opening words are the invitation, and the characters and the way their facial expressions dance are the event, decorated without doubt by the narration of these character’s stories. This dialogue of the face coupled with the narrator told a story—I’m not sure how to recount without spoiling—that left me thinking about the topics of place—where one makes it and if it’s respected, and community—with whom we gather.  

This is a poem inspired by viewing this film:

Do You Know Who Is Here?

The face shows everything the body does

a settledness, fear, calm, shock, regret, intrigue, 

anger, 

energy.

Everyone’s ears are different,

their tassels hang differently.

Shoulders notice hands purposefully placed

and the chest sees the body draped in cloth.

All of it can be heard, every single part; 

the listening is not hard, but getting someone to listen

seems almost impossible.

“What I know” by Rahila Coats

“Radiate” by Maggie Bridger

“Leverage” by Rachel Damon/Aaron Greer

Taking time to watch a woman move as a soloist, from her own power, in both subtlety and intensity, unafraid for her body to be seen, is a radical act. Synapse Arts presents a suite of three woman-made screendances and aims to position these works within respectful discourse that moves our field forward. The three screendances were produced as part of the company’s 2021 New Works program during pandemic shutdowns. Together, Rahila Coats’ “what I know,” Maggie Bridger’s “Radiate,” and Rachel Damon/Aaron Greer’s “Leverage” represent women artists figuring out how to retain what is most important in the expression of their artwork in the face of a pandemic.

In “what I know,” Coats’ investigates issues of race and gender within the relationships Black women have with their grandmothers. Working with Jenn Freeman/Po’ Chop, Coats offers this solo that is now both a dance film and a live performance. Bridger’s unique artistic vision explores the generative potential of pain in creating movement. Her film “Radiate” brings the viewer into the intimacy of her home and studio practices. Damon co-directed “Leverage” with filmmaker Aaron Greer, exploring the freedoms and tensions that are inherent in creating. The turns of chance and decisions weighted by opportunities to be leveraged are made visible as women reveal and conceal their own bodies and voices.

“what I know”

Rahila Naomi Stadem Coats, Choreographer

Grace Kerpan, Photographer

Max Lazarus, Composer

Curtis Coats and 2020 Bly/Coats Family Tree Book, Influences

Sean Rafferty and Jenai Cutcher, Videographers

Rahila Coats, Editor

Jenn Freeman/Po’ Chop, Mentor

what i know stemmed from a cloudy perception of my paternal grandmother and my women ancestors. I used this time to investigate anger, exhaustion, and comfort.

“Radiate”

Maggie Bridger, Director and Choreographer

Bryan Saner, Mentor

“Radiate” poses embodied questions about the nature of pain and illness through the mediums of film and movement. Contrasting dominant understandings of pain that situate it as solely personal and tragic, choreographer Maggie Bridger draws on the tools, movements and practices she uses to calm her pain to offer alternate visions for what pain is and does. “Radiate” invites the viewer into Maggie’s home and studio practice, engaging with themes of intimacy, time and care as it depicts the frustration, humor and mundanity of pain as she experiences it.

“LEVERAGE”

Synopsis:This introspective film grapples with the challenges of creativity, gender, and an embodied sense of overwhelm, by giving four women dancers agency to conceal or reveal their own bodies and voices.

Cast and Crew

Produced and Directed for the screen by Aaron Greer & Rachel Damon

Choreography and Lighting by Rachel Damon

Performers Amanda Ramirez, Dylan Roth, Gretchen Soechting-McGuire, Laura Tennal

Cinematographer Mitch Fowler

Sound Designer Ryan Ingebritsen

Editor Aaron Greer

Synapse Arts works towards a world where individuals are free to develop their unique talents and express their singular visions using their minds and whole bodies. We specifically encourage individuals whose creativity is not fully supported by the dominant society, most notably women; those who identify as LGBTQIAA+ and our allies; families of varying economic, ethnic and cultural origins; and children. While valuing the development of each individual, Synapse equally values cooperation and affords situations in which people come together in creative work, collective processes, and ensemble efforts. Based in Chicago, we work locally and think globally, recognizing that our vision can move through social and artistic networks that defy geographic boundaries.

Rahila Naomi Stadem Coats is an improviser, choreographer, performer, and teaching artist. Her works have been shown through the support of Twenty Percent Productions, 2018 Jerusalem Jazz Festival, MN Fringe Festival, Company Projects, Synapse Arts, and University of Ghana- Legon. Currently she dances with Red Clay Dance Company, performs with music group Family Junket, and works in CONDUIT alongside Gina Hoch-Stall and Ann Marie Iego. In 2021, She received Chicago’s 3Art’s Make A Wave Award along with 120 other artists. She holds gratitude for her family that has brought her to Chicago and celebrates the community she learns and loves from in the city.

Maggie Bridger (MS) is a PhD Candidate at University of Illinois, Chicago and a dance artist. Her research and artistic interests center around disabled bodyminds in dance, with a focus on reimagining pain through dancemaking. Maggie is a co-founder of the Inclusive Dance Workshop Series and serves on the committee to organize Chicago’s integrated dance concert, CounterBalance. She is currently an Artist in Residence with High Concept Labs and will be in residence at the Chicago Cultural Center’s Learning Lab beginning October 16, 2022 where she will pilot a program to further support and cultivate Chicago’s disability dance community.

Rachel Damon is a Chicago-based theatrical designer, choreographer, and performer whose career. She uses her multidisciplinary skills to spearhead performance works created through collaboration, improvisation, and teamwork. Damon is co-founder and Artistic Director of Synapse Arts in Chicago. Aaron Greer is an independent filmmaker and professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Next shown was a film by Synapse Arts titled “what I know” by Rahila Coats. This was a magnificent mixing of both choreographic work and movement styles. What I recognized were contemporary, afro-caribbean, hip-hop and jazz dance forms. Moving along with the dancer—moved by wind and the dancer, was a plastic sheet, used as prop: used as restraint and also as stage, shown and danced with, buried and unearthed, wrapped and used as something to wrap. This work was performed and filmed on sand, and the dancer’s heels were leaving visible imprints in the ground, the sand was gathering and dispersing depending on the movement on top of it, yet the moment was firm and clear and solid even as it sunk ever so slightly into the ground beneath it. I found the juxtaposition of the clarity of the movement with the unpredictability of the physical terrain magical to watch. 

This poem was inspired by the film:

Carrying Something

waves as the feet move making more than footprints, 

making places that hold in the sand that collapse, that 

are rolled into, ground into and enveloped by this plastic 

over these places, changing scenes, changing energy

familiar energy, recognizable energy and here now with 

this plastic. It stretches, it moves sometimes in the wind 

without propositioning, sometimes it’ll be cradled or wrapped

and it wraps, wrapping around the senses, but even fell into 

it doesn’t seem to catch: you could be suffocating, you could 

suffocate…I’d yell: don’t play with that plastic!

Don’t wrap that plastic like that! 

That plastic reminds me of something, that plastic wrapping itself, 

that plastic wrapped, that plastic makes me think of other things 

that do that; that are that; that suffocate, that keep your head down 

as you try to keep it up. It’s dangerous until the plastic comes off,

until it changes look, like a cape, like something held, like something 

buried and unearthed without shame

like its not suffocating anything.

Next shown was “Radiate” by Maggie Bridger. This film sets scenes between two locations—what appear to be an apartment and a dance studio, with one dancer moving through both spaces, sometimes moving and sometimes resting but always attentive to their body/attentive to the muscles of their back. The dancer, and main character, communicated a beautiful slow and deliberate commitment to the act of healing—they were using a heating pad on their back muscles throughout the piece, and what emerged as choreography was the way this dancer moved with this heating pad/with this muscle healing. This film is made of both the dancers’ movements & the audio description which accompany each scene. I was expecting the creativity of the movement and I deeply enjoyed the accurate and creative-narrative quality of the audio descriptions. It was wonderful to see these two elements positioned to work together in this film, neither an afterthought of the other.

Next shown was “Leverage” by Rachel Damon/Aaron Greer There was a erie quality about this that I enjoyed, it reminded me of an ancient phrase which is often misquoted that I will quote correctly here: “the blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb.” This piece reminded me of the strength of bonds formed between comrades, it reminded me of the power of having and being an accomplice. It reminded me how what we do is chosen and with whom we do it, we have a hand in choosing too. This piece was not scary but the use of light , shadow and whispered dialogue had me on the edge of my seat and smiling as I thought of words a friend once shared with me: “We are not afraid of the dark, we are afraid of what we think is in it.”

“ELEMENTS”

 Directed by Bobbi Mann.

“ELEMENTS” is a selection from a series of short dance films I directed with filmmaker Bobbi Mann. The collective’s channel is called Chicago Movement Series and features local dancers in site-specific works.

CAST:

Orb Box as AIR

Romero as ETHER

Doc Sach as WATER

Andrew Coleman as EARTH

Isaiah Johnson as FIRE

Music by Noetik the Alchemist “Old Tree”, “Origin of Drum”

Evgeny Teilor “Floating Mind”

Ocean Jams “Case Closed”

Drake Stafford “Nonconceptual”

Anchor Hill “Jungle Heat”

Shanae Mosely & Orb Box “Bad Bitch Queen Goddess”

Arpebu “Red Hot”

Poetry by Breael Kokeb

Directed by Carolyn Castillo Production Bobbi Mann Email us: chicagomovementseries@gmail.com

Orb Box (Lawrence Young) died in May 2021 and Andrew Coleman in May 2022. I dedicate this screening to their artistry and incredible lives.

Next shown was a film called ELEMENTS” by Carolyn Castillo aka GoldGrrl / Chicago Movement Series. This film laid scape in places that are in nature: on human made plateaus jutting out onto the water, on grass fields, on stretches of ground mostly rock & dirt, in a vacant concrete building. These landscapes— the plateau, the lots and fields and the building set the scene to engage with these dancers, also characters, who were performing a creation story involving the elements Air, Ether, Water, Fire, and Earth. Each element was performed by a different dancer, each embodying different movement techniques and qualities of movement representative of the elements they embodied. Each dancer/each element was performing/performed differently: tutting, popping & locking, voguing, all styles, elements of breaking, jazz movement aesthetics and tableaus. Each dancer fully embodied both the element and the techniques they were performing to demonstrate characteristics of each element. And the story, the narration— dare I say poetry, was enchanting and refreshing. The story was about the world as we know it birthed from the elements. In this film the elements were personified and they were engaging, playing, tricking and helping each other in the not yet populated world. And the same way the open landscape backdrop propositioned a feeling of the world beginning it ironically in the last scene of the film I found myself wondering: is this not  also what the world will look like once everything else is gone: open landscape air, ether, water, fire, and earth, ending how we started?

Next shown was “sunken” by JaNiah Cooper. This film was both specific and nebulous, it told the story of a clear topic: abduction, and communicated the intangible: emotional ways the body, mind, and spirit respond to this happening. Movement forms, ways of dancing, were used in the film to communicate feelings I can imagine would be embodied by a person abducted and by their community searching for them. Also demonstrated bonds and support from one’s community. I saw memory & hope positioned as beacons of light in the darkness that sadness can bring. he film flashed stark images of what became clear for me was the way loss is an amalgamation of everything you’ve already had and everything you are hoping for. It would be remiss of me not to share that the dancers in this film are BIPOC and adductions of people from these communities (locally and globally) is a pandemic: abductions from these communities are solved at a lower rate, taken less seriously and covered less often by news platforms. This film is both a creative expression and social reflection, and I hope the rhyming nature of that phrase only communicates that these ideas are two sides of the same coin.  

“Winter Studies”

Winter Studies explores the feeling of isolation as a result of combined pandemic/winter months in Chicago, and a desire to connect to my physical body while battling with apathy and lack of motivation. An empty dark apartment serves as sanctuary for meditative exploration and healing.

Nadia Oussenko is a choreographer, filmmaker, photographer, and educator. She completed a Master of Fine Arts degree in Dance at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she discovered her desire to pursue choreography for the camera. Oussenko is a former Chicago Dancemakers Forum Lab Artist, and her dance films have been screened at festivals around the world, such as the San Francisco Dance Film Festival, Moves International Festival of Movement on Screen in Manchester, England, the Dance on Camera Festival in New York, ADF Dancing for the Camera Festival in Durham, NC, and The Chicago International Movies and Music Festival. As an educator, Nadia works as a teaching artist with Dancing With Class, and is an adjunct dance faculty member at Governors State University.

The afternoon closed with a film by Nadia Oussenko called, “Winter Studies.”  What we notice is powerful and noticing can become a superpower, noticing is also a tool. The actual space where this piece was filmed is not a common space where Nadia practices—this she shared with me in conversation, in fact the only reason she ended up dancing, and then filming in the space was because she noticed it unused. She noticed this space, she noticed it was big enough, bare enough, small enough and furnished perfectly enough with windows and mirrors to hold her dancing body. Nadia mentioned not planning to make a film but rather planning to move and as she started to visit the space and develop a regular rehearsal practice in the space she started thinking about keeping record of what she was doing and how she was moving when there. Nadia thought about the way a video recording will become a record of both movement, sound & light: the sound of the wooden floor, the sound of her feet, the sounds in the hallway, the shadows in the space and in what could be thought of as a living room as she moved throughout the entirety of this vacant home where she found home for her practice. Nadia said this about her work, and this work specifically: “you don’t have to dance all the time to dance sometimes.” The impetus for this film was Elevate’s open call for submission, but the impetus to dance in this space was the need, the goal, the aim to start moving regularly/moving regularly again/dancing. Nadia was looking for a place to dance and found it, I contend, because she was looking. 

This poem was inspired by this film:

Moving through parts of the body

locating tension and locating a way to release it

releasing it

and coming back for more

releasing it

and coming back for thirds

releasing it and coming back so that a pattern can be built

coming back deliberately, coming back and working

working with no answer

working until the answer is found 

really, starting the work with no answer and working until the answer is found.

***

“Antarabhava” (excerpt-in-progress) by Kinnari Vora / Ishti Collective | Performers: Tuli Bera, Bob Garrett, Emily Loar, Chitra Nair, Lauren Reed, Ashaand Simone, Preeti Veerlapati, Kinnari Vora | Elevate Chicago Dance 2022 | 21c Museum Hotel Chicago | October 16, 2022 | Photo by Karen I. Hirsch

Reflections About “Antarabhava” (excerpt-in-progress) by Kinnari Vora / Ishti Collective

 “Antarabhava” (excerpt-in-progress)

Performers: Tuli Bera, Bob Garrett, Emily Loar, Chitra Nair, Lauren Reed, Ashaand Simone, Preeti Veerlapati, Kinnari Vora

The culminating performance in this year’s Elevate festival was “Antarabhava”, an excerpt in progress by Kinnari Vora / Ishti Collective, shown at 21c Museum Hotel. The work was introduced as a piece about mortality and impermanence, a very fitting theme (and piece) for the end of an annual weekend of dance. The Ensemble enters— with a strong and heavy presence, the music is bold and quiet, and both in partners and individually the ensemble starts laying down brightly colored pink flour  in specific places on the floor. The sand is arranged in both a large circle in the middle most part of the room/stage, and also in shapes in different places around and outside of this circle. While still laying sand and on top of the music playing the ensemble starts to sing—some might say chant, together as they continue through what is presenting itself as a ritual: the words they recite together from memory and the way they are arranging this sand in shapes around and in front of both themselves and the witnesses. Witnesses are seated in a circle around the dancers who are also moving in and out of circles as they perform. 

There are layers of circles: the repeated recitation, the movement the ensemble repeated reaching/pouring/spreading/leaning/waving/spinning, the shapes in the sand, the way the sand was wiped away by the performance, or one could say it was wiped away during the performance but I contend the performance—the act of performing on top of the flour is what moved and removed it, returning the floor to the way it was viewed before the show, the movements of the ensemble through and around each other and themselves, encircled by witnesses. Along with the sand which became this impermanent fixture in the space as the dancers moved on top of it, I saw too their movements as impermanent fixtures/movements present for moments at a time.  The impermanence of something does not impact its importance/breadth or the depth of its reach/impact. This was one translation of the theme for me, the temporariness of the props and the movement, and the circles, the circular relationship of life & death and the perpetual circles of impermanence. I look forward to following the performers and collective to have a chance to view this piece in its full length!

Header Image: “Antarabhava” (excerpt-in-progress) by Kinnari Vora / Ishti Collective | Performers: Tuli Bera, Bob Garrett, Emily Loar, Chitra Nair, Lauren Reed, Ashaand Simone, Preeti Veerlapati, Kinnari Vora | Elevate Chicago Dance 2022 | 21c Museum Hotel Chicago | October 16, 2022 | Photo by Karen L. Hirsch

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