BODY AND SOUL: Kayhan Irani: stories from the waters of memory

Kayhan Irani (photo: Jehangir Irani)

 

Kayhan, dark hair and dark eyes, sits sideways on a bench. Her arms are folded as they rest across the back the bench. She is looking slightly off camera to someone as if she's in conversation.

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Kayhan Irani--writer, performer, artivist, mother--finds herself  aswirl in a constellation of stories, savoring books by writers of color whose values point the way to a positive future. Come be inspired by Irani's beautiful talk on the textures of memory and how stories help us re-weave community.

Listen to the podcast episode here.

Subscribe to Body and Soul for more.

Read below for more about my special guest, Kayhan Irani!

Eva Yaa Asantewaa

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Kayhan Irani performs There is a Portal in Philadelphia (photo: Aidan Un)

Kayhan, standing on a dark stage with eyes shut. She is in profile and a spotlight illuminates her face and chest. Her left arm is lifted up above her head, palm closed as if holding something. Her lips are slightly as she exhales.

BIO: I am Kayhan Irani, a writer, a performer, a cultural organizer, and a Theater of the Oppressed Joker. For the past twenty I have used the tools of participatory theater and storytelling, internationally and in the US, to develop grassroots leaders and seed transformative change. I make art that brings people together to deepen our relationships to each other through story. Performance as conversation, as memory, as a way to return to ourselves what we have disregarded. My current project, There is a Portal, is performance as pedagogy. A deeply personal, reflective digital journey, coupled with in-person spaces of gentle, collective inquiry and local/diasporic storytelling. The project offers embodied poetic exploration to help us divest from narratives of erasure, restore our core metaphors, and build narratives that orient us toward self-belonging.

www.artivista.org/

BODY AND SOUL: Maxine Montilus: To teach is to learn

Maxine Montilus (photo: ShocPhoto LLC)

 

A black woman with long dreadlocks is wearing a black sleeveless dress.  She is suspended in the air in a double attitude jump, with her left and right arms placed in fourth position with palms facing outward.  The background is blurred with shades of green and white colors.

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Maxine Montilus has served many roles in dance--performer, choreographer, administrator, writer, and educator. I asked her to focus this podcast episode on her experience and ideas as a passionate and imaginative dance teacher across ages and levels. It was a delight to listen to her, and I hope you will enjoy this, too!

Listen to her segment on Body and Soul podcast here.

Subscribe to Body and Soul for more.

Read below to learn more about Maxine.

Eva Yaa Asantewaa

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BIO: Maxine Montilus is a dance artist from Brooklyn, New York. As an educator, Maxine is currently a Visiting Professor in the Theatre and Dance department at Indiana University. She is also a principal facilitator and teaching artist with Camille A. Brown & Dancers’ EVERY BODY MOVE Community Engagement platform, and was recently an adjunct dance professor at both Hunter College and SUNY Old Wetsbury. She has also served as a teaching artist for Haiti Cultural Exchange, Caribbean Cultural Center Africa Diaspora Institute, and Opus Dance Theatre. From 2015-2018, she was a full-time dance teacher for the New York City Department of Education. Maxine has also served as an arts administrator in arts education, coordinating programs for public schools, studios and healthcare facilities at The Juilliard School, Marquis Studios and Dancewave. www.maxinemontilus.com/

BODY AND SOUL: devynn emory: dancing in the liminal

devynn emory on set for Grandmother Cindy, 2022 (photo: Reilly Horan)

emory with bronzed skin, dark black faded hair stands in their grandmother's warm fuzzy coat covered in polar bears looking directly at the camera while clasping their hands in anticipation of the performance beginning soon. behind them is a silver sterile table with bowls of medicine placed in preparation, their performer/collaborator Joseph M. Pierce (Cherokee Nation) and their cinematographer Jorge Cousineau. two figures draped in yellow fabric hold the space, representing devynn's ancestors.

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There's no reason to build a wall of labels around devynn emory and their work in this world and between worlds. They care for body, spirit, and community in a multitude of ways--from nursing to choreography, from mediumship to bodywork, from writing to work with death and grieving. This rich interweaving of skills and services sounds strange only in a society that deliberately separates body and soul and fails to respect the multiplicity of ways of knowing and healing. devynn, however, stays attuned to ancient ways and what the land teaches.

Listen to their segment on Body and Soul podcast here.

Subscribe to Body and Soul for more.

Read below to learn more about devynn.

Eva Yaa Asantewaa

 

devynn emory filming Cindy Sessions: LAND on the lands of the Serrano peoples

 

BIO: devynn emory is a choreographer/dance artist, dual-licensed bodyworker, ritual guide, medium and registered nurse- practicing in the fields of acute/critical care, hospice, COVID and integrative health. emory's performance company devynnemory/beastproductions finds the intersection of these fields, walking the edges of thresholds–drawing from their multiple in-between states of being, holding space for liminal bodies bridging multiple planes of transition, finding reciprocity practice as a constant decolonial practice. they are currently working on a trilogy centering medical mannequins holding the wisdom of end-of-life experiences. (deadbird + can anybody help me hold this body, 2021, Cindy Sessions: Grandmother Cindy + Cindy Sessions LOVE, LOSS, LAND 2022, boiling-rain tbd). emory is a research group fellow at danspace 2020-2023, a recipient of the Onassis Eureka award, an FCA emergency grant recipient, and an Art Matters Artist2Artist fellow. born on Lenape Land, emory is a reconnecting descendant of mixed Lenape/Blackfoot/settler ancestry. www.devynnemory.com

BODY AND SOUL: María de los Angeles Rodríguez Jiménez: Earth and Spirit

 

 

María de los Angeles Rodríguez Jiménez (photo: Lucas Cardoso)

 

I am wearing a white shirt, framed glasses, ultramarine blue pants, and a clipped-up casual hair updo, sitting inside of a cave. Picture is taken from inside of the cave, looking out into a green tropical landscape. I have in my hand a small cup with natural red ochre pigment dye (found from the same cave) and in the other a paintbrush, as I doodle on a rock. I am looking directly at the viewer/camera.

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I first learned about María de los Angeles Rodríguez Jiménez and her research when I was invited to an upcoming dance-and-ecology symposium presented by the New York Public Library's Jerome Robbins Dance Division (January 27; livestream February 3). I was immediately drawn to the direction of her interdisciplinary work which infuses performance with Afro-Atlantic spiritual traditions of reverence and care for the natural world. I was eager to learn more about Jiménez and share her ideas with you. I highly recommend the symposium which will also feature presentations by five other members of the 2022-2023 cohort of Dance Research Fellows--Juli Brandano, Rosemary Candelario, Lindsey Jones, Richard Move, and Rachna Nivas. Information and free RSVP for the in-person or livestreamed event here.

Listen to the Body and Soul podcast episode here.

Subscribe to Body and Soul for more.

Read below to learn more about María!

Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Jiménez in Ora Yêyê o (photo: Lucas Cardoso)

Location: Chapada Diamantina, Bahia, Brazil. Ora Yêyê o (performance still with mask ii), 2022. Duration 00:08:57

This performance is an homage to the orixá Oxúm of freshwater and femininity. Video still shows me wearing a knitted and crochet yellow and white mask looking to the right. Attached to the mask are beads made of eucalyptus seeds and black beans. I am inside of a small lake that has yellowish water wearing a white dress, the white dress looks yellow when submerged in the water. Image shows me sitting in the water with the mask at the center and the rest of the frame is the lake water and its reflections surrounding me.

BIO: María de los Angeles Rodríguez Jiménez is an interdisciplinary artist born in 1992 in Holguín, Cuba. She lives and works between Brooklyn, NY and Salvador, Bahia.She received her BFA from The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in 2015 and MFA in Painting and Printmaking from Yale University in 2020. New York Public Library Jerome Robbins Dance Division Fellow, 2022-2023. Fulbright Research Fellow, Brazil, 2020–2022. https://www.mariadlarj.com/

BODY AND SOUL: Lisa La Touche: Tap 4 The People

Lisa La Touche (photo: Jeremy Fokkens)

 

Tap dancer Lisa La Touche is wearing a red cropped T-shirt with a Canadian brand "roots" logo and light blue denim shorts cropped just above the knee.  Lisa is focused on a rhythm with one legs crossing in front of her reaching for a particular step.  The room is a warehouse with light beige brick and a wooden surface underneath her.  Her tap shoes are a mix of light and dark caramel colors.

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I'm delighted to feature the wonderful tap artist and filmmaker Lisa La Touche as my next guest. Born in Canada and, for a time, residing in New York's Harlem, Lisa has traveled the world with her tap shoes--drumming the earth, finding community, and realizing the power of artistic legacy.

Listen to the podcast episode here.

Subscribe to Body and Soul for more. 

Read below to learn more about Lisa!

Eva Yaa Asantewaa

(photo: Joel Varjassy)

 Lisa is wearing a casual white denim dress with her arm crossed in front of her while looking at the horizon. She is outside in front of the Canadian Rocky Mountains with a train track behind her.  This is taken a moment before she begins to dance.

Lisa is wearing a black blouse and earth-green and greyish-brown leopard print leggings with dark and light caramel colored tap shoes. She is dancing on a wooden boardwalk with the city of Calgary's skyline behind her. She is in mid-action dancing with her hips twisted to one side, her arm reaching above her and her focus at her feet while reaching for a rhythm.

BIO: From both Alberta and New York, Lisa La Touche’s credits include: Broadway’s Shuffle Along, receiving the Fred Astaire Award and the Actor’s Equity Award for Outstanding Broadway Chorus, touring with the Savion Glover and the cast of STOMP. She is Founder of Tap Phonics, a tap dance based performance and production company. She is an educator/professor and co-curator of Dance Immersion’s Tap Dance Legacy Series with Travis Knights servicing black communities with free access to cultural history. She is also a filmmaker recently debuting TRAX encompassing her journey back to Alberta while discovering important local black history. http://www.lisalatouche.com