LA's BlakTinx choreographers featured in video series

The June 2020 BlakTinx Dance Festival: Dancing on the Edge
was presented online by Bootleg Theater.

At some early (now forgotten) point during the confusion of the past few months of our troubled planet, a thought surfaced. Unbidden and, from that moment on, completely unexplored, it was composed of three simple words:

I miss choreography.

I thought it and...yeah...left it right there.

I think I realized how unpopular it might be in the "new normal" of EXCITEMENT!!! over EVERYTHING THAT DANCE CAN BE!!! now that it can't be what it once was, which--as we all know--was terrible. Absolutely terrible.

I'm not even going to try to argue what about dance might not have been so terrible. Because now that the fact of its terribleness is up in our faces, we can finally do something about it, right? No more procrastination.

All I can tell you is that, of the tons of content emerging online since the pandemic first divided us from one another, I have consumed a lot of virtual theater and music, many thoughtful conversations and informative panels and...a smattering of dance. Of that dance, what I've most enjoyed--although not completely--happened to be recordings of full productions of works from prior months and years. I am still waiting for up-to-the-minute made-for-Zooms to knock me out of my desk chair.

I still love you all, but these virtual solos-in-place; these housebound duets danced safely with your significant other, these whimsical improvs, these trippings of the light fantastic around your backyard are giving me an ache for something I'm apparently not supposed to continue to yearn for because there were, I'm hearing, all these problems with it.

So, come on, Eva. Get happy.

I thought about this I miss choreography thought again when I was watching the YouTube video series Dancing on the Edge, the 2020 edition of Bootleg Theater's BlakTinx Dance Festival that presents work by Los Angeles-based Black and Latinx choreographers, all alumni of the festival from years past. I had accepted Bootleg's request to view and review the four-part series out of curiosity about a dance community largely unfamiliar to me, a New Yorker, and because the brief new and archival works were all by Black and Latinx artists, twenty-five strong, responding to this double-whammy of social distancing and social uprising.

These compilations--a resilient adaptation to the extreme realities of our times--turned out not to be the best way to get to know these artists, the legacies that shaped them, their histories in the field, the contexts in which they regularly work and the meaning they may hold within their respective communities. I'm also wondering if enough time has passed for any artist to deeply process all that has happened since coronavirus began its deadly spread and since George Floyd's death awakened a passionate movement. Have they had time to dive and return with something not obvious but truly incisive and unique to them?

With all that in mind, and after having watched Dancing on the Edge  without sufficient background, I'm not going to review these works--which is to say, I'm not going to white-supremacist this thing.

Catch my drift?

I'll give you the BlakTinx Theater Festivals channel links for your own exploration:

Program 1: https://youtu.be/Le-9yWLPz2o

Program 2: https://youtu.be/CkRS_eIDSzw

Program 3: https://youtu.be/lSJfVjtJWcA

Program 4: https://youtu.be/fdNjj_3BnQE

And let me just point out some items that most captured my imagination. Someday, I might make it out west to learn more--that is, if we're ever safely back to seeing dance in the flesh.

From Program 1:

Add Water & Stir (excerpt from a 2017 performance)
Brigette Dunn-Korpela
B.Dunn Movement/Dance & Theatre Company
www.bdunnmovement.com

Ghostly 1950s white housewives swan around ghostly domiciles and stir bowls of mysterious ingredients, literally sidelined by Dunn-Korpela's bustling troupe. While the white-folks imagery quickly gets relegated to a small oval in one corner of the screen, dancers of color churn through and own the space in a physically-demanding piece that references the deaths of Emmett Till, Tamir Rice and Eric Garner.

Como los Pájaros
Andrea Ordaz
A.Ordaz Dance
http://www.andreaordaz.com/

Super-short, lyrical video featuring the body of a dancer in a flowery blouse and wind-blown hair sliding over a dark grey sky with bright, scattered clouds. In program notes, Ordaz sites Puerto Rican poet Willie Perdomo's The Crazy Bunch:

How to describe that sound when the birds flutter like a deck
         of cards being shuffled? Where to find your uplift &
         hallelujah, hosanna & hero, campana & chorus?

Although severely restricted by narrowed space and limited time, Ordaz manages to convey a flight of freedom.

From Program 2:

Baile de Cuarentena
Briseyda Zárate
https://briseydazarateflamenco.wordpress.com
https://instagram.com/briseydazarate

One of a few festival entries centered in the art of flamenco, Baile de Cuarentena (quarantine dance) approaches pandemic apocalypse with a mask but no filters. Also, no costuming and no heavy footwork that might disturb Zárate's downstairs neighbors. You can feel the energy of frustration along with determination to keep flamenco--and hope--alive.

Time up the River
Alan Pérez
film: Christopher Lopez
@alan.lperez

Shelter-in-place can be unsafe for LGBTQ+ folx forced to share space with homophobic/transphobic families. Choreographer Pérez took that reality as the premise for this duet with Robert Gomez dancing in a tight spot of liminal domestic space with some mirrors for self-reflection and a bit of light from the outside world.

From Program 4:

What the Hell is Going On
Rubí Danielle Morales 
Videography: Crystal Morales 
IG: rubi_so_oh
FB: https://m.facebook.com/rubi.morales.37?ref=bookmarks

Hemmed in by the stark angles of a kitchen space, Morales responds with similar starkness and angularity of movement in this disturbing solo before a restless, intrusive camera.


Dancing on the Edge choreographers:

Anthony Aceves
Bernard Brown
Sofia Carreras
Joshua Estrada-Romero
Regina Ferguson
Kassy Francis
Michelle Funderburk
Primera Generación
Nancy Rivera Gomez
Vannia Ibargüen
Irishia Hubbard
Brigette Dunn-Korpela
Keilah Glover-Lomotey
Amber Morales
Rubi Morales
Andrea Ordaz
Yarrow Perea
Alan Perez
Dorcas Román
Eluza Santos
Stacey Strickland
Maura Townsend
Shantel Ureña
Sadie Yarrington
Briseyda Zárate

For more information about LA's Bootleg Theater, click here.

******

DISCLAIMER: In addition to my work on InfiniteBody, I serve, at Gibney, as Senior Director of Artist Development and Curation and Editorial Director. The postings on this site are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views, strategies or opinions of Gibney.

******

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The Joyce's American Dance Platform welcomes Caleb Teicher and BODYTRAFFIC

Dancer-choreographer Caleb Teicher
and below with dancer Nathan Bugh
(photos: Scott Shaw)

The powers-that-be are only offering you one more chance to catch New York's fantastic Caleb Teicher & Company along with BODYTRAFFIC, a dance ensemble from Los Angeles, at The Joyce Theater this season during American Dance Platform, curated by Christine Tschida. The entertaining ten-year-old LA troupe focuses on contemporary repertory from a variety of choreographers such as Kyle Abraham, Sidra Bell and Andrea Miller. On the ADP program, the dancers radiated charisma in works by Richard Siegal (The New 45, from 2015) and Matthew Neenan (the previewed A Million Voices) and demonstrated sturdy technique and fierce energy in Hofesh Shechter's dismal Dust (2015). They look thoroughly capable, ready and eager for any challenge a dancemaker might bring.

BODYTRAFFIC in Hofesh Shechter's Dust
(photo courtesy of American Dance Platform)

Nothing, though, charms quite as magically, quite as indelibly as the sight of two men--superb Caleb Teicher and Nathan Bugh--dancing romantic partnership like it has always and everywhere been just another part of life's scenery. And dancing it to the most delicious vocals by Ella Fitzgerald (Meet Ella, 2016), letting the smooth, graceful follow-through and crunchy nuttiness of their movement style ironically and ingeniously intertwine. This generous fantasia, originally shown at Gibney Dance in 2016, sparkles on the Joyce stage where the two bodies manage to write flourished signatures across unbounded space. I often thought of The Nicholas Brothers while watching Teicher, in particular, with his flash and fearlessness, his expansive angularity and impeccable jazz timing and flow. In Bugh, he has an all-in, springy and sassy partner in swing and humor and dance-scatting, both of them working musicality and surprise for all they're worth. Like some of my favorite dance artists, their deep knowledge of the music and their joy make me want to get up and dance, too. Really, what more can one ask?

On the program, too, a trio from Variations (2015), an intricate showpiece set to Glenn Gould's 1955 recording of The Goldberg Variations danced by Teicher, Brittany DeStefano and--watch, especially, for a mindboggling solo by this one--Gabe Winns Ortiz.

Caleb Teicher & Company and BODYTRAFFIC continues with a final performance on Sunday, January 14 at 7:30pm. For information and tickets, click here.

For schedule information and tickets for other shared programs on the American Dance Platform series, on now through Sunday, January 14, click here.

The Joyce Theater
175 Eighth Avenue (at 19th Street), Manhattan
(map/directions)

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Gary Austin, 75

Gary Austin, Who Founded the Groundlings Improv Troupe, Dies at 75
by Liam Stack, The New York Times, April 3, 2017

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Gordon Davidson, 83

Gordon Davidson, Mark Taper Forum founder and L.A.'s 'Moses of theater,' dies at 83
by Mark Boehm, Los Angeles Times, October 3, 2016

Noah Davis, 32

Noah Davis, Los Angeles Painter and Founder of the Underground Museum, Dies at 32
by Alex Greenberger, ArtNews, August 30, 2015

Rachel Rosenthal, 88

Rachel Rosenthal, Bold Performance Artist, Dies at 88
by Margalit Fox, The New York Times, May 13, 2015

Chris Burden, 69

Chris Burden dies at 69: artist's light sculpture at LACMA is symbol of L.A.
by Christopher Knight, The Los Angeles Times, May 10, 2015

Also see:

Chris Burden, Pioneering Performance Artist and Large-Scale Sculptor, Dead at 69
by Benjamin Sutton, Hyperallergic, May 10, 2015

BLACK LIVES MATTER matters

At the LA Art Book Fair, a Missed Opportunity to Address Race
by Abe Ahn, Hyperallergic, January 30, 2015

Charles Champlin, 88

Charles Champlin, Critic and Memoirist, Dies at 88
by Bruce Weber, The New York Times, November 18, 2014

Artist Betye Saar wins 2014 Edward MacDowell Medal

L.A. artist Betye Saar wins art colony medal, joining elite club
by Mike Boehm, The Los Angeles Times, April 10, 2014

For LA poet Eloise Klein Healy, a time to heal and reconnect

Eloise Klein Healy finds poetry in her recovery from encephalitis
by Patt Morrison, Los Angeles Times, January 8, 2014

Rechy's "City of Night" turns 50

A First Gay Novel, a Poor Latino Boyhood and the Confluence
by Gregg Barrios, The New York Times, November 30, 2013

Wanda Coleman, 67

Wanda Coleman

Wanda Coleman dies at 67; Watts native, L.A.'s unofficial poet laureate

by Elaine Woo, Los Angeles Times, November 23, 2013

During four decades as a force on the L.A. poetry scene, Coleman produced works that compelled attention to racism and hatred.

(Read more.) 

TCM and LA's Debra Levine pay tribute to Jack Cole

Jack Cole will live again -- on Turner Classic Movies
by Debra Levine, arts*meme

Refreshing: UCLA's performing arts series

Fresh name and perspective for UCLA's performing arts series
by Mike Boehm, Los Angeles Times, April 26, 2012

Yvonne Rainer trashes Abramovic plan

Yvonne Rainer Denounces Marina Abramovic's Planned MOCA Gala Performance as "Grotesque"
by Julia Halperin, ARTINFO, November 11, 2011

Full text of Rainer letter

The Future of LGBT Literature

Support Lambda Literary Foundation's Writers' Retreat for Emerging LGBT Voice! Give to the Scholarship Fund.

The Future of LGBT Literature

Color me...itchy

LA-based itch is at it again. Hot off the email, here's their latest call for submissions!

*****

Calling all writers, dreamers, bunnies, drifters and drawers...

Please find below the call for submissions to itch #13. We hope that you will share something with us. The submission deadline is April 15th.

Feel free to send questions to us (submit@itchjournal.org)

in love,
team itch

*****

For 2011, the Year of the Rabbit, we present
itch #13 -- The Magic Rabbit: a coloring book of expulsions for embracing radical vibrations


You underdog you... Ahem,"rabbit". You never really wanted to fight. You taught us to expel murkiness and fear, and in exchange embrace the bizarre and irreconcilable things that we love, that give life to our living.

Your hidden teachings taught us to take to our curiosity. That living by our own wits can be an act of protest in and of itself... To approach living and art-making the same way we did our favorite coloring book: draw big bold outlines around the things that matter and turn it all polychromatic.

Besides, we never stopped loving coloring books. They provided us the important exercise of recognizing grossly oversimplified (for better or worse) visions of the world and the opportunity to place our colorful mess within it. Crayons were our first lesson in a type of intervention that was about dreaming up a world we wanted to see and inserting the details that mattered.

How did you color?

In this year of the rabbit and itch's 5th anniversary, we offer up an invitation to talk about celebrations, new modes of protest and approaches to making a mark in the world. Let's bring back the soft, meandering clarity of our childhood minds as a force for re-conceiving the past, present and future. Dream us up a fable, a drawing, or share your research, first-hand experiences or future fantasies.


Some rabbits/suggestions we've pulled out of the hat:

how do you mark space to honor your capacity to occupy, do, love, create and act as you desire?

In what (magic rabbit) ways do you wander across templates, borders, language, policy, etc?

What frames do you create, recreate, or otherwise make visible the world you want to live in?

How do you personalize/magical-ize/colorize your surroundings?

How do you mess with the codes of art-making, living, socializing, political action, etc?

What does play mean? How do you maintain play in your life?

What irreconcilable things can't you live without?

Lover but not a fighter? Discuss.

What's making you happy these days?

Alternative modes of competition...

What acts do you expel in the quest for magic?


Also: Coloring book illustration portfolio contest
draw, steal, dream up an image that you'd like to have colored in.

Let’s make a mess together.

Submission deadline: April 15th, 2011

 
Send submissions, questions and provocations as attached, uncompressed word files or pdfs to submit@itchjournal.org
 
No pre-published submissions, please.

Please include a short bio (2-3 sentences) and your mailing address with your submission.

itch is an evolving art project in the form of a journal that aspires to serve the community of dancers and other artists of the Los Angeles area and beyond. Practice participation in the developing LA dance culture: insert your thoughts, your body, your voice. help itch grow should you be enhanced by it...

submit volunteer donate distribute subscribe participate!

Signify, Sanctify, Believe: The Library of Sacred Technologies

Every now and then, an announcement comes along that is way too good to not share. Here's the latest!

A Call for Contributions
Signify, Sanctify, Believe: The Library of Sacred Technologies

archivists: Tanya Rubbak and Adam Overton
at The Church of Public Fiction in Highland Park (Los Angeles)
in April 2011

dear friends,

do you ever feel like you see things that are invisible to others? 

do you ever intuit the presence of other possible realities?

do you ever sense a thickness of energies swirling within the materials around you?

do you ever look at plants and animals and think, “I know what you’re thinking.”

perhaps you’re interested in age-old traditions, but tired of age-old religions?

perhaps you hanker for sacred acts that history has forgotten,

or better yet, perhaps you’ve discovered NEW ways to gently channel the magic in your life?

sceptic or saint, believer or apostate, we’d like to talk to YOU …

about being a part of something very, very SPECIAL ...

The Library of Sacred Technologies

we would like to invite you to participate in our library/reading room in April as part of a residency at the Church of Public Fiction in Highland Park. the space will feature several artists and groups from February through April 2011 as it transforms itself into a church and spiritual center.

our library aims to intercept and illuminate a relationship between contemporary religious and artistic pursuit. we are interested in overlapping the sisterly processes of signification and sanctification, which we view as being innately creative and living in spirit.

with a mixture of found and invented ephemera in the form of pamphlets, newsletters, and articles of faith, the library will capture a communal voice as we celebrate a tradition of religious experimentation in the city of Los Angeles.

Do you hear the call? Will you heed it?

we invite you to temporarily become a best-selling self-published self-helper, a charismatic guru or spiritual leader, a religious anthropologist, or any other type of sincerely mystical dabbler from the past, present or future. we primarily desire text(s) and images to include in printed ephemera, but will consider video and sound documents as well. to whet your appetite, we’ve posted below a list of possible technologies we might be looking to collect. you’re welcome to contribute as much or as little as you’d like, and it can be as [in]comprehensive and [in]comprehensible as you please.

we plan to compile, design, and display these materials for visitors of our Library of Sacred Technologies opening in April 2011. meanwhile, artist-led sermons, services, and workshops based around the temporary observance of [semi-]fictional religious practices will be taking place throughout the month that, with your permission, may or may not incorporate some of these documents. (if you’re interested in leading one of these, please let us know and we’ll contact you as soon as we finish developing a separate call for that portion of the residency.)

here are some starting points for religious invention that we pray you’ll contemplate and contribute:

a religion of the hour

a religion of the day

a religion of the month

a religion of the year

alternative horoscope systems and charts

dance instructions that direct the kundalini or the schizophrenic flow

shaman seances to commune with animal spirit helpers

guided meditations for sudden reality shifts

cures for tardiness

recipes for honesty

maps, formulae and visualizations for time travel

guides to local vortex and portal areas

exorcisms of deep heteronormative conditioning

automatic writing to channel the language of light-beings

alternate creation myths

incantations for accessing the transverbal space of the semiotic chora

harmonic science scores of the ancients that modifies DNA

visualizations for clearing debt

scriptures on radical responsibility

ceremonies that deal with water, driving or synaesthesia

rituals for loss, or lost rituals

prayers and hymns for making new friends

resurrections, fortune-telling, channeling, oracles, predictions and sooth-sayings on the matter of anything you please

et cetera, et cetera, et cetera ...

please send your submissions to: sacredtechnologies@plus1plus1plus.org

deadline for text and image submissions is January 15, 2011

deadline for audio and video submissions is February 1, 2011

also: stay tuned, as we hope to convene a couple sacred technology group writing sessions in late December and early January

New at UCLA Live

Heading to LA?

There's a totally classy new website (and a season announcement with great folks like John Cale, Taj Mahal, Richard Thompson, Alice Coltrane, John Waters, Lucinda Childs and David Sedaris) for UCLA Live. Check it out!