hi.  hello there :)  I was just wondering if you remember the first time we met.  I think it was a few years ago now...and I had been driving for days, and you were sitting there.  or no, you came outside to meet me.  yea, that's when we met.  you were standing and walking, not sitting.  But you had been there already, before that.  and my hair was longer and I smelled like I had been sitting in the car for too long, which I had.  and you were probably wearing a red shirt.  and your short thinning hair was cute and funny.  and you were cute and funny.  and I think we had tea, maybe.  perhaps I'm not remembering this perfectly...hmm.

so, we met and we stared and we felt and we touched and we, I guess, decided to travel alongside each other for a little while.  and we did travel.  and we looked and ate and experienced and saw.  

i learned.  i think you learned, too.

I find myself back at the American Dance Festival for the fifth time in six summers…that seems a bit much.  It’s strange for me to think about all that has come to pass since then.  People in the ground, companies emerging and folding, elections, recession, all that external mess that is context and environment and a certain kind of life.  More shocking, of course – and this is no surprise as it’s my own acute experience – are the changes which have taken place in my own life, internally.  When I came here for the first time, in 2004, I had just started to dance.  I knew what a tendu was, and a contraction…grande plie and battement and all that…but there was no talk of soul, there was no real thought of DOING this full time.  I hadn’t been to Russia, hadn’t performed in Poland or Hong Kong, had yet to begin developing ‘my own’ technique class…I was learning who Ohad Naharin was, and knew only one thing about William Forsythe – that I didn’t like him.  Pina Bausch was a faint whisper on the wind and turn out and extension remained, in my mind, paramount.  That summer I danced for Gerri Houlihan and took class with her and Brenda Daniels…of course that was also the summer that I met Tatyana Baganova…the crazy Russian who would drastically change my life (or at the very least my 20’s).  I return to the festival this year to teach one master class, visit a Russian who I last adventured with to the Arctic, and to visit another long lost friend…one whom I had met that first summer at ADF.  I come back here with some experience, some knowledge, perhaps too many opinions, and more questions than ever.  I seem to waiver between wanting to do great things, to BE something great, and having a much more peaceful and perhaps more realistic expectation for myself…that my true task in life is to simply be kind and empathetic, to help people (including myself) along their ways…to beautify the world in every way possible.  Not to be a revolutionary…but to be some sort of gardener.

Amidst the craziness of 200+ students at ADF every year…each visit has been accompanied by, for me, a fair amount of loneliness and reflection.  Maybe this is why I keep coming back here…it’s a sanctuary of sorts, with the slowing heat and deep forests…with teenagers buzzing about like flies on dung, and the occasional beautiful person/dancer/human who has some perspective, and may be a bit jaded, but who still chooses to come here and fly across the Ark and applaud the efforts of so many hard workers.  

Dancers are workers, after all.  The greater working force might not want to acknowledge this…as the dancer works alongside and with their art, all the time…their work is soulful and deep.  In some cases (unfortunately, all too rare) the work is accompanied by a living wage – but most importantly it is accompanied by rigor and fulfillment…something which I think many dancers can find in a simple port de bras, and many people, I fear, never find at all.

I will return to San Francisco, and to my company, in just a few days.  Many tasks will need to be accomplished as we head into our second season…as we prepare to continue.

The days and weeks used to seem too short…now the months and years seem to be spent too far in advance such that I’m planning, already, for my efforts at 30 – five years away.  I bought a new computer recently, that’s been nice.

There are so many choices one has to make amidst two non-options: 1.) we will end up dead and 2.) until we end up dead, we have only to continue forward.  This puts us folk in a tricky situation…I imagine life is a series of choices, navigating that situation…I’m constantly hoping that the questions which plague my 25 year old brain are those of youth and immaturity, but I fear (and suspect) that they persist throughout our journey.

The work with FACT/SF is good work; I only want to make it better.  I believe I can.  I miss Ekaterinburg and the balcony and thought and compassion and nicotine and whiskey.  I feel like I’m so rarely making art, and so rarely thinking about art…which is surprising because I am a full time artist.  Weird.

A good friend recently mentioned how the corporate world has pulled her away from art making…I wonder if the trappings of my own ‘corporate’ world have done the same.  Time to sleep, then go home, and get back to work.

http://counterpulse.org/blog/2009/02/20/dance-discourse-project-writing-about-dance/#comments

Everything here on this blog, throughout, is exciting, relevant, interesting, and necessary – to me at least, but presumably to others as well. I think sharing spaces where one might find additional readings (like Jess’ post about sarma.be) are helpful, regardless of where they are based…dance IN San Francisco surely has unique issues that concern it alone, but traveling as a dancer quickly reveals that dance is something that can be done anywhere, is relevant anywhere, and can therefore be written about, with relevance, anywhere…though the concerns might be different, some of the greater issues are applicable across the board.

My earlier post was focused primarily on my gripes about people griping. On some level artists (most of them it seems) are dissatisfied and, like most people in the general public, seem to be more prone to complaining than doing. The blog, the ddp, and all other forums are a useful method of not only venting, but also proposing helpful thoughts/suggestions and most importantly, hearing what others think about them. I know in my own ‘dance writing’ (if we can call it that) I’m learning by watching/reading what you are all posting…this influences how I write and think about dance…so without imposing a ‘way’ or ‘style’ in an authoritarian manner, you’re still helping me to identify ‘good’ writing from ‘bad’ writing…that is, there is a concern that blog spaces will become filled with half-baked, inarticulate mess that no one can sort through…and here we have a space with plenty to read, and mostly of the ‘good’ variety (will I get in trouble for trying to distinguish ‘good’ writing from ‘bad’ writing!?).

It is difficult, as a new member to the ‘community’, to know that people were complaining incessantly 25 years ago, because I wasn’t here…and like times in the past when people were complaining (insert here any of your favorite civil rights movements), ‘our’ movement, or call to action, doesn’t seem to have been well publicized or documented…and so far as I can tell holds a tiny space (if one at all) in the study/discussion of dance history. Thus, it’s extremely important for those who might be more established, and who have been around for longer, to tell us new kids how it was. The fact that arts organizations are starting to advocate and lobby government/politicians (this appears to be something happening now-ish for the first time, but correct me if I’m wrong) is promising. A good step in the right direction, yes?

It was thrilling to see how many people were at the discussion, and, in retrospect, to see that so many people had so much to say – that there was an interest in active participation, even if it was sometimes rather nearsighted. I’m wondering how we might include others in this dialogue…if we’re to take this discussion board as an example, why aren’t there 50-100 different people blogging on here (I don’t think it’s because we 8 have an inordinate amount of time on our hands). So, I’m reminded of Jess’ questions about who is reading dance writing…especially in the context of who is reading this blog? Presumably there are more people reading it than posting on it, but what is preventing them from writing? One of the ways to help in issues of underrepresentation is, if you’re underrepresented, to try to represent yourself more, right? It is not the only solution, of course, but is sometimes a greatly effective one.

So, perhaps at the next ddp, maybe the blog gets promoted more? And also, maybe we should be not only encouraging people to check it out, but also encouraging them to share their thoughts.

CounterPULSE, as one of the few ‘centers’ of dance/performance in SF, might be on track to creating documented discussions which can later (and now) be used to tell us where we are and hopefully provide us with readily-accessible information about where we might go.

Keep posting ya’ll.

~Charles

The well-intentioned community discussion last Thursday night at CounterPULSE, regarding the current state of dance writing, began with a sharing of insightful comments and opinions from a panel of some of the SF Bay Area’s better known dance writers. This efficient and informative beginning, however, quickly eroded into a disastrous Q&A of finger-pointing and scapegoating, with narcissistic and desperate explanations in self-defense against a (perceived) attacker which, instead of adding to the interesting conversation that was underway, threw it way off track. This, to a new resident of the fabled ‘Mecca of Tolerance’, was shocking, disappointing, and sad (although I suppose also extremely educational and eye-opening in its own right).

It is all well and good to ‘damn the man’ and talk about the ways in which ‘the system’ keeps people down. At best this can be constructive, helping people to gain a clear(er) idea of where they are and where they need to go. Sometimes, however, these explanations are accompanied by such ridiculous melodrama and outrageous accusations that they, in expressing an urgent desire for understanding, actually highlight a gross short-sightedness. Complaining about ‘the white people’ or pleading on behalf of the ‘immigrants’ cannot rightly be done without an entire series of qualifiers. So when someone stands up and makes a vague comment about these groups, my first questions are: Which white people? Which immigrants? Which definitions are you using? By white do you mean WASP? Or do you mean Greek, or maybe South African? (even these distinctions fall incredibly short and barely begin to get us somewhere useful). Immigrants can hail from Central and South American countries, but they can also come from Cambodia, Poland, Iran (or any where else), so while it is typical (I think) to imagine one type of oppressed group vs. one type of privileged group, we should keep in mind that some South American countries and their emigrants have a much higher standard of living than some European countries and theirs, and that there is not really a ‘white’ people just as there is no ‘black’ people. Racism directed towards the perceived group in power is still racism, and it’s not something you can combat effectively while promoting it at the same time.

Apart from this bizarre boxing of perceived racial/ethnic groups, there was another, similar set of claims that were equally surprising. Two of the artists present at the discussion have done a fair amount of work in Europe, so they would presumably have some important and nuanced ideas about ‘dance in Europe’. It seems to be common for young artists with less experience to talk about the beauty and ease of being an artist in Europe and the sad toiling in the trenches of being an artist in America. Things are great there, and horrible here; American artists are victimized while European artists are hailed as demigods. It is my opinion and experience that the US and Europe are both far too large and varied to make any valuable statements, really, comparing the two in such general ways. Europe does not only include La Monnaie in Brussels or Lucent Theatre in The Hague, but also decrepit, run-down theatres filled with asbestos and other unhealthy working conditions. Dancers in Europe are ALSO dancing for free, just like in the US, and some American companies ALSO have huge budgets and mostly-secured funding. So, when these two artists, who have experience living and working in Europe (these are the people who should know better), start ranting about the glory of Europe and the embarrassing state of things in the US, I wonder how much work they’ve done in poor Europe, or how much interaction they’ve had with some of its less ‘cultured’ communities.

The moral of the story is this, community leaders in San Francisco should be expected not only to be talented, smart, and driven, but also to be aware of their own prejudices, biases, and ill-founded opinions, and to perhaps keep this in mind before they open their mouths and start criticizing others. Preaching tolerance is necessary and wonderful, but it cannot ever be accompanied by blind intolerance or any sort of community-based/supported hatred. It is good to think about the differences between places, people, groups, etc. – but it is also good to realize that these ponderings are always based upon personal experience (and not much more), and so, just like this review, can hardly ever present observations which are both insightful and objective.

My proposal to make the next discussion more effective? Keep the Q&A’s, but limit response times. Jessica did a good job of moving people along after they’d commandeered the microphone for too long, but I think creating a system of order that kept comments brief and focused would move the discussion along more quickly and prevent community members from getting side tracked by their own personal issues, which frequently have little bearing on the topic at hand. It will be an exciting day when/if community discussions move away from ‘poor-me fests’ and become better at utilizing the intellectual wealth of the SF Bay Area to really do something, instead of just complaining about things not getting done.

Looking forward to the next one,

~Charles

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DAHMaBz_NCI