Chase Granoff – Critical Correspondence http://old.movementresearch.org/criticalcorrespondence/blog Critical Correspondence is an artist-driven project of Movement Research that aims to activate, develop and increase the visibility of critical discourse on dance and movement-based performance work. Fri, 17 Jun 2016 18:53:46 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.5.29 Chase Granoff, Clarinda MacLow and Larissa Velez-Jackson in conversation with Levi Gonzalez http://old.movementresearch.org/criticalcorrespondence/blog/?p=4206&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=chase-granoff-clarinda-maclow-and-larissa-velez-jackson-in-conversation-with-levi-gonzalez Tue, 17 Jan 2012 03:09:11 +0000 http://www.movementresearch.org/criticalcorrespondence/blog/?p=4206  

 

Levi Gonzalez talks to the 2011 Movement Research Spring Festival curators about their ideas and experiences surrounding the events they organized for June 2-5, 2011 in New York City.

Interview date: July 1, 2011

Download this conversation as a pdf

Download this interview as a podcast

Thumbnail Photo by Ian Douglas

Levi Gonzalez: I’m here talking to Clarinda MacLow, Chase Granoff and Larissa Velez-Jackson, three of the four curators of the most recent Movement Research Spring Festival called Festival!*. The fourth curator, Gabriel Rivera, unfortunately couldn’t be here.

I wanted to start by talking about the structure of the festival. Each day had a theme. There were very defined but also very open concepts or umbrellas for the festival to live in and I was wondering if that was an idea from the beginning or was it something that emerged?

Clarinda MacLow: I think it emerged fairly quickly. It happened through a variety of pragmatic and conceptual meeting places and it was probably Gabriel who really pushed it. He was like, “Okay we’re not doing this over a long period of time. We’re going to make this efficient, clear and succinct.”

Chase Granoff: We all walked into our initial meeting with overlapping concerns and ideas of what we wanted to accomplish with the festival. Internally we started naming days as a kind of organizational method for ourselves and at some point pretty early on we realized that those names would allow an outside approach or understanding into the festival. We were talking about different ways of mapping a spectator path through the festival, be it if they could just go once one day and then two days later they could go again, or if they could go to three events in one day or one event a day,[etc.] and then giving thematic concerns to each day. Sometimes with festivals it feels a little bit like a free for all, where you don’t know how to find yourself within it as a spectator so we were hoping to have some kind of path.

Levi: It felt from the outside like the easiest festival to …

Clarinda: Navigate.

Levi: Yes. Each day had a geographic location even.

SOCIAL: Curators and friends at Judson social, Photo by Daniel Clifton

Clarinda: That was part of our overlapping concerns. I was very interested in site and I think Gabriel and Chase had a similar thing.

Larissa Velez-Jackson: I remember the day of our first meeting being acutely aware that we were really busy working artists, and so is the community we’re serving, and we were talking about serving the community in a really pragmatic way. Organizing things around specific localities was really important in making it easy for people and making it easy for us to attend and also to organize.

Clarinda: So we could be present. We wanted to be really present and we knew our lives were complicated. And I think we were trying to be present not just as curators but as full-on participants, and create a sense of participatory excitement. So that you could go and just stay in Bushwick all day. I don’t know if anybody ever did, but that was the idea. And I feel like it was even important as a fantasy.

Levi: Do you remember some of those overlapping interests?

Chase: I think one of the first things I remember was not having just performances. There’s already so many of these happening. I always personally feel that the MR festival gets announced pretty late in the season and everybody tries to fit these auxiliary events within their schedule of seeing performances. I find that if you try to battle with performances it gets complicated, but the festival also has a privilege of expanding ideas of choreography or of people’s expanded practices within dance. Many people within dance have shared interests that relate to their performance and dance practice, but aren’t necessarily that. Poetry or food, urban foraging, all this stuff felt very related. An organization like the Kitchen or Dance Theater Workshop, they can’t easily program an event like that. The Festival has a privilege that it can.

Clarinda: Yeah, we really wanted to take advantage of the wide-open nature of it, and the edges of practice were definitely a common concern.

Larissa: I remember the first meeting. We were all bringing up ideas and mine in particular was something about the fact that mixed bill dance performances seemed reductive, especially with the openness that we’re presented with in curating this. It seemed like, in various ways, all four of us felt somewhat similarly, and this was really a surprise to us.

Clarinda: Yes, because we are all really different people. Our practices are different. I think we do share something secretly and that the curators were well-curated, but at the same time how we operate and what our concerns are, are ostensibly quite different from person to person. I think one thing we share is pushing at the boundary of discipline or the boundary of what performance is and where it belongs. We all are a little bit contrarian. We really want to turn things on their heads. The art dance show, for example: “Let’s do something where we don’t let people perform, but we bring them in to participate in a way that may challenge a part of themselves that they didn’t know was there.” Things like that where we’re really trying to expand practice.

Chase: Another thread of thought in the creation of that event was that in the visual art world there are many initiatives that say its okay for visual artists without a performance practice to suddenly make a performance but we couldn’t name an occasion where the opposite was true. Where dancers and choreographers, people with a performing practice, can just make a piece of visual art. All it takes is for some organization or some opportunity to exist to say that it’s okay. It was really exciting to realize that with this festival we can. It wasn’t so much about being a troublemaker or pushing buttons of other organizations but just saying that when you come together as a festival, this temporary organization, there’s certain things that you can say are okay. As an individual if I tried to organize something like that it wouldn’t have the same effect or resonance.

Clarinda: That’s true. It was institutional license to make something different happen. But because even this institution has an imprimatur, it contains it in a way that people can see. “Oh, there’s an organization that’s sponsoring this so it must be real.” That’s just how it is. I think that we were able to utilize that and celebrate it. It was very celebratory in the long run. There was a lot that felt really happy. I don’t know if we expected that necessarily.

Larissa: Expanding the definitions of things was constantly a theme for us, and there was such a generosity about it. Opening to audiences that might not normally come, through the poetry dinner, as an example, which was attended by only a few recognizable dancers. It was constantly this obsession for us to represent the breadth of contemporary practice, which is expansive.

Clarinda: That’s interesting you [Larissa] say generosity because I do think that people got that feeling. What they said to us was “Oh, I felt very included.” All-inclusive can be something that isn’t rigorous, and we were clear that we wanted to be both inclusive and rigorous.

Chase: We tried to have space in the festival so it wasn’t totally jam-packed. We wanted to have a fair amount of activity but also to have some space for contemplation. We talked about potentially setting up events that structured contemplation into the event. We didn’t do that, but that kind of idea stuck around. We wanted people to be able to think.

Clarinda: I was specifically interested in participation versus contemplation. I think that caught on and came into this idea of “Well, what is participatory?” Is watching a performance participatory or contemplative? It is a kind of contemplation but it’s funny. The performance we did at Tandem was so raucous. I don’t know if you would say, “Oh, that’s contemplation.” I like these lines that kept coming back and forth. We started to see all the this versus this is not really this versus this. This is this. This is contained within this. You can be participating in something and you can be very contemplative.

Levi: There was a lot of space for contemplation inside the events themselves. The events weren’t so much about constantly keeping you stimulated or feeding you something. The two events I went to, which were the art opening and the social at the end, actually required your participation. The festival felt really geared towards the spectator in that way. It wasn’t so much, “Oh, I have to see this performance because it’s going to be really interesting.” It was more like, “This is an opportunity for us to experience dance in a bar. This is an opportunity for us to be in nature together. This is an opportunity for us to socialize.” It really did seem like the events were not necessarily structured around serving the artists who were participating, although it was doing that too, but also around the people who would be there to experience the event.

Chase: I think, without getting too theoretical, the festival was curated in a post-relational aesthetics. (All laugh) We were always trying to create a relational situation. We were always creating events thinking of the intended audience and what that relationship might be. I think a lot of the choices of artists had to do with that kind of relationship. What kind of dialogue would that artist bring to this space, to this theme? We invited artists into themes. Rather than saying, “We want this artist, because we like their work.” It was often like “We have an idea of a day, now–”

Clarinda: –who would fit that?

CHAOS: Tandem Bar, Photo by Karli Cadel

Chase: Yeah. I think that was also a way for us to push ourselves to curate different kinds of artists that aren’t always umbrella’ed under Movement Research, although I know that is a very broad organization. Sometimes people perceive A.B.C. or X.Y.Z. artist as being more part of the Movement Research community than others. I think that we were kind of trying to–

Clarinda: –show that the ideas around Movement Research, that formed Movement Research are more broad-ranging than the artists that may be contained under that umbrella so far. These ideas that Movement Research represents, in my mind, are something that go beyond the people that embody it within the organizational structure right now. And that’s fine. It has to be embodied and people have to represent it, but I think the festival is that opportunity to say, “What are the ideas?” Because it’s such a beautiful range of ideas that make up where Movement Research came from and where it goes.

Chase: I think with the art show that was a really exciting thing. We thought it was going to be like 20 or 40 artists and at some point we decided we should try to make this as big as possible so we set the number to have 100 confirmed artists going into it, knowing that come the deadline not everybody would probably get their art to us.

Clarinda: How many did we end up with?

Chase: I think there were 91 works of art. Something around there. That was really an opportunity to cast a big net. I was really interested in trying in whatever subtle way possible to give some exposure to a national contemporary dance scene, recognizing that there’s interesting communities of dance outside of New York City: Philadelphia, Portland, Bay area, Minneapolis, Chicago, Seattle.

Levi: Because it’s easier to participate if you’re sending an object?

Chase: And also to invite artists from those cities that wouldn’t necessarily be at a point in their career where they would be getting a season here.

Levi: How did you arrive at the name: Festival?

Chase: It’s always hard to name things. One of us suggested that the name could be a sentence.

Clarinda: Remember it was Festival, exclamation point, asterisk. The name is that whole crazy thing we came up with. Festival is the abbreviated name.

Larissa: I think it was like a paragraph.

Clarinda: Chase came up with the sentence and then me and Larissa and Gabriel fucked around with it and then shifted and expanded it. We had all that text.

Larissa: And then we realized that for press that it would never be taken seriously to have a paragraph as the title of something so it became the Festival!*.

Chase: We also realized that some of the themes in the festival involved a lot of poetics. We had a poetry event but also walking performances and urban foraging. All this stuff feels like a kind of poetics. We talked about the title as being–

Clarinda: –a demonstration of that.

Chase: For us it made sense that the title was also the explanation of the festival. We knew, like Larissa said, that it would never get printed in its entirety anywhere. That’s why the cover of our brochure, which we tried to make like a poster, was that. So there wasn’t an image representing the festival. It was language representing the festival.

Clarinda: Language as image as text.

Larissa: Every step of the way we were fully aware that we were artists involved in answering every question or in figuring the entire thing out. So when it came to the title, our curatorial statement was a poem of our title. I don’t think we even had a curatorial statement because it was the title. At every point we exercised artistry.

Clarinda: Right. Our creative faculties or our desire to transform. We didn’t go into our separate corners and do things. We did it collaboratively. I think we all felt a little more responsibility for one thing or another, but it was really more like that. It was more responsibility than ownership.

Chase: We were very aware that we were artists, but we also weren’t scared to let our individual aesthetic and political concerns come through the festival. We were very comfortable with saying, “We are a festival organized by four artists. We’re going to allow our concerns within dance and choreography and performance come into this festival and manifest.”

Clarinda: I think that that made it more inclusive strangely. Maybe it’s a little bit how if you write very specifically about an experience that more people can relate to it than if you try to contain multitudes. When you really address a concern specifically a lot of people can enter into it either as empathetic or as curious as long as it’s clear and well-represented. It has integrity.

Levi: It also has to do with the nature of the events being so participatory and experiential. I didn’t feel the sense of getting bombarded with someone’s aesthetic vision. It felt like an offering. When I think about the festival, and knowing most of you personally, I could feel your personalities inside the fabric of the events. I also felt your presence as hosts.

Clarinda: That was very conscious.

Levi: Much more strongly than I’ve felt in previous [Movement Research Spring] festivals. I really felt like you were there and I could approach you and talk about what was going on.

Larissa: Clarinda and I kept trying to get us to wear matching outfits but that never happened.

Clarinda: And that’s the one thing I regret! (It’s a pretty small regret.) But it was very conscious that we were present and available. And in some way that was a performative aspect. It certainly felt like it more than I realized it was going to. There was definitely a sense of “Okay, I’m on.” But it was also so we really could be available and serve in many ways.

Levi: I remember the art show being at Gabriel’s space and you [Chase] were barbecuing.

Chase: We just wanted to have a fun way to start the festival, to start it in a celebratory mode, as a social gathering. We didn’t start with a performance or an event.

Larissa: Yeah, get people drunk. Hang out. Talk about art.

Chase: I think it was a way of saying this festival is celebrating something. How can we actually manifest that celebration?

Clarinda: And Gabriel is always really good at putting on a party. I’ve only been there twice but every time it’s been a crazy good party. I think that that helps a lot, that we had his way of doing things and his space, and then all our intentions and our own individual celebratory–I have a feeling we all give really good parties when we give parties. I have a feeling that’s part of our characters. To me, it was nice to have a way to express that within a context and have it feel like a party and not just an event.

Chase: It was also exciting that we got to partner with Tandem Bar, because it ended up that the weekend we were doing something in Bushwick, it was also Bushwick Open Studios. So there was a really big audience outside of people who were coming just for the festival. Our attendance was double what we anticipated. We had budgeted for 150 people. We had almost 320.

Clarinda: That was another example of getting people in that would never have gotten in, because they just wanted to come to Tandem. They’d grumble and give their five dollars and go in and then end up dancing and watching crazy performances. I had no idea that it would actually work so well.

Levi: I heard it was kind of wild.

Larissa: Yeah and then the night continued on.

Clarinda: It got very wild.

Larissa: We basically just set up shop at this bar the entire day. Similarly to Chase being behind the grill at the [art dance show party], it was interesting for me to be in the sound booth. I kind of tech’d the whole thing, but I wasn’t just the production person doing stuff. I was running the timing of the entire evening and the night got crazier and crazier, more chaotic by the end. And for sure people were going to try and grab the mic and turn it into a free-for-all, but since I felt in a very privileged position to be the curator to press the microphone off and really craft what was going to happen.

Levi: You were an “experience” D.J.

Larissa: Yeah, very much. It was very organized chaos. It had the feel of this thing falling apart at the seams, but it was crafted in the way that we had been describing it and talking about it and figuring it out for months.

Clarinda: But it really did have a flavor of serious chaos, which was exciting. There were points where I think it could have gotten out of control. But when you invite the gods of chaos that’s what happens.

Larissa: It was about your ability to come and see a performance and your ability to come and get really drunk and dance and be a part of it all. It was a full blurring of performance and participation, as I feel like all of the events were in their own specific way.

Levi: Are there any other specific memories of events that you remember, or that struck a chord?

Clarinda: It’s all a bit of a blur.

NATURE: Poetry Dinner, Photo by Kim Olstad

Larissa: So many and they were all so different. I remember actually the day of the poetry dinner, watching Abigail’s slow motion falls, which was happening in Gowanus and a whole route on 3rd Avenue leading up to the poetry dinner. Some people attended but of course a lot of people from the street rode up on their bikes, curious. I just kept thinking how lucky I was to actually have been able to see all of these really different, beautiful experiences. Just to think that the night before was the madness at Tandem Bar, and then the day before that we were gallery hopping all over the place. We went to an incredible C.A.T. talk [Collective Arts Think-tank]. There was just incredible variation.

Clarinda: It’s more the juxtaposition than the specific events themselves, just the fact that you went from day to day and it was so different. Also just this wonder in the fact that the totally conceptual became manifest, and that doesn’t always happen. Usually it kind of gets away from you, which is okay too. I don’t know why it would be different, doing something curatorially rather than artistically, but it really was interesting to see something become fully manifest in that way.

Chase: One of the overall highlights of the festival was being able to partner with all these different organizations that are very artist-friendly and run by artists, but not necessarily typically involved with the New York dance and performance scene. The bakery Four and 20 Blackbirds, run by two sisters who are visual artists–I don’t think they know too much about dance and performance, but were super excited to be involved with the Movement Research Festival. A lot of the audience came because of knowing the bakery or knowing the chef. Definitely, there were some people there who do know poetry, but there was a good amount of people who aren’t used to poetry, at least not the kind of experimental and body based poetry that we had at that event. Tandem also, I think, is run by two sisters who are visual artists. I can’t remember. But they have some dancers that work there, so it was exciting then to collaborate with them. These two galleries on the Lower East Side that we worked with are super dance-friendly. It was interesting to have this C.A.T. (Collective Arts Think-tank) conversation happen not at a dance venue, but at a gallery. To have these gate-keepers of contemporary dance speak in a gallery setting.

Levi: It’s interesting to have the experience of these different spaces–the experience of Gowanus, the experience of your city, the experience of an art space or gallery with that conversation about dance. Hopefully that expansion exists beyond just the moment of the festival itself.

Clarinda: That would be nice.

Larissa: Or even the Monday night Judson. That expectation of coming to a Monday night Judson performance and actually just having a social gathering. Just celebrating being part of the community that you’re part of.

 

 

 

 

 

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Dance on Camera Studies Project RE-CAP http://old.movementresearch.org/criticalcorrespondence/blog/?p=3186&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=dance-on-camera-studies-project-re-cap Fri, 25 Feb 2011 21:35:20 +0000 http://www.movementresearch.org/criticalcorrespondence/blog/?p=3186 The Dance On Camera Studies Project took place on Tuesday January 25, 2011 at Judson Memorial Church. Read about the event, watch the videos that were screened, and listen to a podcast of the moderated discussion.

 A shorts program curated by Movement Research 2010 Artists-in-Residence Anna Azrieli, Laurie Berg, Yve Laris Cohen and Chase Granoff, in collaboration with Dance Films Association Director Deirdre Towers, and overseen by MR Program and Event Manager Rebecca Brooks. This event was a part of DFA’s 39th Annual Dance on Camera Festival. This partnership between Movement Research and Dance Films Association, now in its third year, was originally initiated by Mathew Heggem as part of DFA’s Annual Dance on Camera Festival. www.dancefilms.org

Thumbnail photo: Still from Yak Films’ RIP Oscar Grant

 

– PART 1 –

The evening’s viewing and discussion radiated out from an initial grouping of three short films selected from submissions to Dance Film Association’s 2011 Dance On Camera Festival. Each film centers around movement in relationship to landscapes, ranging from the natural world to the urban environment. The films posit the moving body as an active agent that designs its surroundings, while still being subject to the sublime. Watch them here!

30 CECIL STREET

Dan Canham/Will Hanke, UK, 2010, 7:20m

Shot in the dilapidated premises of the Theatre Royal in the Limerick Athenaeum building, Ireland. With a history that stretches back over 150 years, the Royal Theatre has been closed to the public for the last 13 years. Engaging with the atmosphere and past of this near-derelict building and using the soundtrack made up of four sounds and interviews with people associated with the Athenaeum, this short explores the state of a building once the hub of cultural activity.


DUNE DANCE

Zena Bibler, USA, 2010, 2:08m

Dune(s) dance on a blustery day in Wellfleet, Massachusetts. Choreographed, danced, and filmed on the spot in May 2010.


OANNES

Ivo Serra, USA, 2007, 6m
 

Oannes represents The GOD of knowledge to the Babylonian (Ea) and to the Greeks, cultures, and he was the last mythological figure to be connected with the lost city Atlantis. The artist sought to make this mythological being appear.


– PART 2 –

The second part of the evening featured films and videos selected by the curators, responding to issues brought up by themes in the original films, as well as this event’s curatorial process. Watch them here:

Anna Azrieli’s picks:

SMALL DANCE (performer Steve Paxton)
Olive Bieringa, USA, 2007, 1:30m


SMALL DANCE
(performer Lisa Nelson)
Olive Bieringa, USA, 2007, 1:30m


Laurie Berg’s pick:

SUB PLEXUS
Sarah White-Ayon, USA, 2009, 6m


Chase Granoff’s picks:

MY HOME IS MY SHOES
Deborah Anzalone/Century Films, USA, 2009, 3:40m


WILL
unknown
, USA, 1995, 6m

 


Yve Laris Cohen’s pick:

RIP Oscar Grant
Yak Films (Yoram Savion and Kash Gaines), USA, 2010, 7:30m

 

 


– PART 3 –

Samuael Topiary moderated a discussion that engaged all of the films and discourses surrounding this event:

Download and listen to a podcast of the discussion here!

Or get more information on this Movement Research podcast here

Movement Research’s Studies Project series is an artist-curated series of panel discussions, performances and/or other formats that focus on provocative and timely issues of aesthetics and philosophy in the intersection of dance and social politics, confronting and instigated by the dance and performance community. Questions? email: rebeccabrooks@movementresearch.org

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University Project: Notes on DTW Lobby TALKS, Part Three http://old.movementresearch.org/criticalcorrespondence/blog/?p=1822&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=university-project-notes-on-dtw-lobby-talks-part-three Mon, 05 Apr 2010 18:08:36 +0000 http://www.movementresearch.org/criticalcorrespondence/blog/?p=1822 Relevance of the University – Lobby TALKS at DTW organized by Chase Granoff, 2/9/10

Notes by Levi Gonzalez

Moderated by Maura Nguyen Donohue

Panel Participants: Gerald Casel, Maura Nguyen Donohue, Jana Feinman, Susan Marshall, Juliana F. May, David Neumann, Chase Granoff

The second round of talks on the Relevance of the University drew a smaller crowd and was a more narrowly focused conversation, though certainly some of the themes from the first talk resurfaced, and some ideas seem to have developed further with the passage of time. As it was a small group, the assembled audience formed a circle amongst the panelists and contributed occasionally to the discussion. Some in attendance included Andy Horowitz (writer and editor of Culturebot), Andrew Champlin (student at the New School’s Liberal Arts program), Cecilia Faranesi (current Movement Research Intern from Italy), Augustina Camera (visiting from Argentina where she studied Architecture as well as Dance and Theater), Biba Bell (choreographer and performer currently working towards her PhD in Performance Studies at NYU), and Carla Peterson (Artistic Director of DTW).

Chase started things off by asking some questions and thoughts of his own. “How does the University contribute to the decentralization of dance in the US?”

He mentioned that presenting institutions such as DTW, The Kitchen, were all originally founded by artists whereas Universities are more historically an institution without that same grassroots history.

He also discussed the responsibility of presenting institutions to cultivate an audience and that one of the luxuries of the University was that it didn’t have to concern itself quite so much with this.

Many people expressed concern over how the Universities can assist in the survival of the field.

Susan Marshall was thinking about how Universities can help the field directly – through commissioning, audience building, developing a donor base. Also thinking about how experience with dance can serve people in other fields. There is no dance major at Princeton, though she felt many of the students were quite dedicated and talented and some would most likely go on to a career in dance.

Jana Feinman discussed the history of Hunter College, where she is head of the dance department. Hunter has had a dance department since 1972 and is about to start an MFA and MA Program. Jana is interested in how academia and the professional arts community can find ways to support each other.

David Neumann discussed his role as a teacher of Movement for Actors at Sarah Lawrence College. He said he takes advantage of the fact that theater departments often don’t have a clear understanding of dance or movement as a pedagogy and how it frees him to teach more or less whatever he wants.

There is a general consensus that it is hard to feel secure in continued funding for dance departments, and challenging to attain the relatively small resources dance departments need to continue to function. This extends from Ivy-League Princeton to City Colleges such as Hunter. There was discussion about how schools hire well-known “names” in the field to try to draw students, such as Xavier LeRoy at MIT (though this was an interdisciplinary hire and not a dance hire). There is a growing consciousness of looking at the artist as a researcher, using a similar model as the science researcher though the fields and goals of the fields are different. There is some speculation as to whether scientists are starting to see this relationhip more and more as objective academic scientific research is losing much of its funding to corporate-sponsored research.

Someone (sadly the quote is unattributed in my notes) said, “As arts practicioners, we have to start renegotiating the language of what we do. We are researchers. We are relevant.”

David Neumann talked about his relationship with a very progressive scientist named David Lin who sees scientists and artists as inextricably linked and with much to teach other. Lin organizes conferences and events where scientists and artists can interact and share knowledge. His view is that both share a sense of wonder at the natural world but artists have the invaluable skill of communicating that to the world at large.

Also discussed was the Rubin Muesum of Art’s rather broad approach to culture as another model of this idea of artistic practice as knowledge. Andrew Champlin discussed a class offered by The New School and taught by Wally Cardona that dealt with phenomenology. The class used readings from various sources such as Merleau-Ponty as well as engaging in physical practices and studies, such as examining a score which asks “What if the body can perceive time and space as new and original in every moment?” This was an exciting model to the panel of a way in which practice and research and knowledge gathering can be integrated and the practice of movement valued.

In general, though academic institutions can be rigid and challenging in their lack of awareness of what the medium can do, and financial resources are limited, there was a sense of hope in the panel that new partnerships and new strategies seem to be emerging to increase the visibility and reach of movement as a source of transformation in our culture.

Note on Lobby TALKS: Lobby TALKS creates a forum for open and in-depth discourse on contemporary issues in dance and performance. Organized around specific themes, each meeting uses as a starting point one of more of the artistic investigations, methodologies, and motivations that can be seen in performance today. Subjects will be investigated, challenged, and considered by an invited group of artists, critics, theorists, and is opento all who would like to join the conversation.

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University Project: Notes on DTW’s Lobby Talks, Part Two http://old.movementresearch.org/criticalcorrespondence/blog/?p=1815&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=university-project-notes-on-dtws-lobby-talks-part-two Tue, 21 Apr 2009 18:05:32 +0000 http://www.movementresearch.org/criticalcorrespondence/blog/?p=1815 Relevance of the University – Lobby TALKS at DTW organized by Chase Granoff, 4/14/09

Notes by Levi Gonzalez (with assistance from Alejandra Martorell)

As the discussion continued, an articulation of the difference between being a working artist based in New York City and an artist who teaches at other places in the country for a significant amount of time as part of their artistic career began to emerge, particularly in light of Bebe’s post at OSU and Jen Monson’s post at UI.

“One of the largest things,” Bebe confessed, “and I hadn’t anticipate it, was making work and not having to make a living off it. It was profound, getting rid of that anxiety. What are the artistic choices I can make outside of that? In my case, being exposed to all these resources. I went into dance technology because I could, because I was there—spending a good 5 – 7 years exploring something I didn’t know.”

Jen, reflecting on the challenges and benefits that arise from working outside of your peer group, added: “Physical environments are really potent. I’m used to loft spaces that have multiple uses you can smell and touch. Grey Marley studios make me really sad. But everything there is flat in a way that the world falls away from me and that never happens in New York. It’s a way to face the interiority of myself. Very challenging.” It also gives a “much broader experience of this country. It’s so moving to meet an 18-year old from Chicago. Their realities are so different from mine.”

From here the topic of “justifying” dance to Deans and Presidents was addressed by many of the panelists and attendees, reflecting for the most part that it remains an inevitable task for these artists and educators. Many echoed the need to continually lobby for dance, by bringing to the attention of administrators any news, statistic, publication and press that grants dance importance and status. It was often cited that dance classes will frequently be worth less credits than other classes simply because aadministrators “don’t know what they do in there.”

Cherylyn Lavagnino pointed out that the way this is done can also prove counterproductive or simply unsuccessful, and argued against the combative or “victimized” model. In her case, “I feel like our Dean is one of those people,” speaking of Mary Schmit Camp, Dean of Tisch School of the Arts and an art historian. “She created a whole arts professor role to be equal to tenure—full arts professors who didn’t necessarily have MFAs. There is a respect for the artist. Within this huge institution there is this shift going on.”

Bebe felt the shift was not quite happening yet “in a deep level.” She talked about a successful project at OSU involving Will Forsyth and “inviting people from different fields to look at this piece–how else do people look at dance, organization and action? That is very sexy and successful in that way.”

This led Chase to wonder: “How much in the University becomes driven by the students… The dance studio for contemporary dance artists is not just that room with the mirror and ballet barre.” He talked about a friend who wanted to combine interests in Performance Studies at NYU with their studio practice, and how difficult it was to navigate the institutional structures of the school to make that happen. He felt there are “exciting convergences that could potentially occur. It sounds like it is starting to happen in these pockets… How much is it rogue professors making it happen?”

Donna Faye felt that this shift always comes “from the work out… instead of from the outside in.” Bebe added, “Its also tapping into those scrappy research fellows with weird ideas. Doesn’t come from the administration down.”

Jana Feinman at Hunter College echoed this challenge of having to constantly argue for support but also felt the “paradigm of fighting and fighting doesn’t work anymore – you’re seen as troublemaker. After all these years, working without any support, the students are the ones who prove themselves in the world – then they come back and get the attention of the dean and the president. That’s what happens over the course of years.”

This led into a discussion of the current burgeoning interest in interdisciplinarity within dance as a form, and how the ideas and concerns behind dancing can attach themselves to other ideas, including language and research. The quetstion then emerged – does attaching our interests to more intellectual pursuits water down the “practice” and “experientiality” of dancing?

Bebe felt that we “owe it to ourselves to go in as dancers and not dance. Just develop ideas of what we do. Not, ‘let me show you what I can make’, but that we also write, we talk. It’s not about ‘I’m smart too’ but following our curiosity outside of the studio. How do you build your own institution of connection?”

Phyllis Lamhut, a longtime dancer and also faculty at NYU, cautioned against “getting decapitated” and stressed that we shouldn’t over-intellectualize the form out of a “fear of physicality and stereotypes” about dance as well as the larger institutional ghettoization of the form.

To which Dean Moss responded by advocating “expanding the visceral. What is visceral beyond the body? What does my audience feels is visceral? How is my body reflected in migration? In traffic flow? I can bring up visceral sensation based on those things. Dance can go there taking all the information you have on experience and placing it on something conceptual. The act of separation is less useful at this point in our exploration of the practice.”

Jen added, “I feel there is a real blurring. The level at which people are articulating their art and choreographic practice in this dialogue could not happen if it was not completely felt and embodied.”

Vincent suggested that this blurring and shifting could in some ways be responsible for why we find it difficult to gain the attention of the “powers that be” – that they have a hard time defining us.

To which Dean stated, “The answer is we are ahead of them. They haven’t caught up to us. The world is moving towards this interdisciplinary, amorphous model.”

Bebe discussed the artist Eiko working with graduate architecture students. She was the only one evaluating the work who got down on her knees and really experienced the work physically. “The body, the curiousity of it. How does this feel? That’s what we do.”

The question of interdisciplinarity and the fluidity of different ideas about technique and mastery contributed to a spirited debate about how we learn practices in our contemporary age. Is it practical to always be exploring the edges of our boundaries and definitions? Is it relevant? Is it useful?

Ben, an undergraduate at the New School, voiced his concern or questions as to where exactly these more open-ended pedagogies were taking him. “I dance with non-dancers, engage in awesome esoteric processes. What is that trying to give me after school?”

To which Vernon added, echoing the sentiments of many in the room, “How can you explore outside the box if you’ve never been in the box?”

Some unattributed comments that followed:

“It’s part of being in this world. Technology, access to information, experience. Why wouldn’t you be interdisciplinary? Institutions follow at a slower pace, part of the role of the artist is to push, and get the attention of the institutions which don’t have the luxury of moving so quickly.”

“I take issue with the idea that if you are interdisciplinary you don’t have technical excellence.”

“You make a choice. You don’t have to go into chemical analysis of your sweat to figutre out where that’s going. If it’s not of interest, it’s not of interest.”

“I teach at the graphic design department at Parsons. Something problematic for this university is that faculty create a group of students that are goal oriented and not process oriented. Which button on this Macintosh makes me famous? They don’t want to be involved in the process. I want to come to it every day as a practice, somehow through that practice my rent is paid, I can go to yoga, I can afford DTW. Your goal is to enjoy the process.”

These questions and concerns – sometimes opposing, sometimes not – seem to be at the heart of determining and helping to shape the future directions and partnerships between working artists and Universities as well as our fundamental methodologies of learning and teaching. Please feel free to respond to any of the comments or questions that come up here. If you were there, feel free to correct, attribute, or add on to anything that was said.

Some potential readings were also floated at the end of the conversation:

Daniel Pink, “A Whole New Mind” Malcolm Miles “New Practices, New Pedagogies: A Reader (Innovations in Art and Design)” Also a roundtable from a recent issue of BookforumThe New Geography

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University Project: Notes on DTW’s Lobby Talks, Part One http://old.movementresearch.org/criticalcorrespondence/blog/?p=1655&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=university-project-notes-on-dtws-lobby-talks-part-one Mon, 20 Apr 2009 13:09:31 +0000 http://www.movementresearch.org/criticalcorrespondence/blog/?p=1655 Relevance of the University, Lobby TALKS series at DTW organized by Chase Granoff, 4/14/09

Notes by Alejandra Martorell

Last night we had the opportunity to participate in a group discussion centered on some of the same questions The University Project set out to disseminate. Organized by Chase Granoff and sponsored by DTW, the Lobby TALK “Relevance of the University” went on for over two hours and was a lively exchange among panelists and attendees. This is a first attempt at summing up some of the salient topics and perspectives. You are invited to ask, correct or add more information by posting a comment.

From the program: “This conversation will explore the relationship between the academic world and the working artist. Recent shifts and developments in the creation of Professorships allow artists to remain active and engaged with the field of dance. How does this mutually benefit the University and the dance community?”

Panelists: Donna Faye Burchfield, Artistic Director of Hollins University/American Dance Festival M.F.A. program; Mary Cochran, Department of Dance Chair and Artistic Director at Barnard College of Columbia University; Maura Nguyen Donohue, Assistant Professor of Dance at Queens College; Cherylyn Lavagnino, Chair, Department of Dance, Associate Arts Professor at Tisch School of the Arts; Bebe Miller, Professor, Department of Dance at Ohio State University, Columbus, OH; Jennifer Monson, Professor, University of Illinois at Champaign Urbana; and Dean Moss, Visiting Lecturer on Visual and Environmental Studies, Harvard University.

[[Lobby TALKS creates a forum for open and in-depth discourse on contemporary issues in dance and performance. Organized around specific themes, each meeting uses as a starting point one or more of the artistic investigations, methodologies, and motivations that can be seen in performance today. Subjects will be investigated, challenged, and considered by an invited group of artists, critics, and theorists, and is open to all who would like to join the conversation.]]

Organizer Chase Granoff framed the conversation with intentional looseness, sharing that his interest was a response to seeing changes at various dance programs, such as the development of low-residency MFAs at Hollins and Milwaukee; increased commissions for younger choreographers from colleges and universities; and a few unique professorships that allow active choreographers to crisscross the country between teaching and performing.

After the panelists introduced themselves, introductions came from the “floor” and began to shape the conversation: Melissa Beatty, founder of WAX, was curious about how academia is preparing students in practical ways for the world outside. Ben, an undergrad at The New School, spoke about his concern around entering the real world. Margaret Morrison, a lecturer in tap at Barnard and incoming MFA at Hollins, expressed her interest in moving tap dance into academia as a way to help the form grow. Vernon Scott had attended several colleges starting in architecture, switching to dance at NYU, then onto Julliard and then dancing for 20 years with major companies like Elisa Monte, Mark Morris and White Oak: “I had a career where I supported myself as a dancer. After I stopped, I went into the corporate world for nine years and now I’m an intern at DTW because it wasn’t part of my world, being on the road a lot, and I want to know what I missed.” Tessa Chandler comes from a classical ballet background and is now in the Hollins MFA program. “It’s opening my eyes to the rest of dance and I’m loving it. I’m curious now to hear from all of these artists. How you interact with the primarily verbal focus of academia, justifying what you do in a verbal world. I don’t want to put negative connotation in using these words. I just find it an interesting tension for dance.”

Tessa’s comment on the potential friction between a verbal-based world (academia) and a physical, experiential-based world (dance), had a lasting effect in framing the conversation, which didn’t stray too far from navigating this old paradigm—and articulating a new, alternative one—that poses the binary body/mind as somewhat mutually exclusive. It resurfaced in echoing binomials throughout the conversation—research university (liberal arts) vs. conservatory education, and interdisciplinary approach vs. defending “the form”, technique, or having a “foundation”— that appeared to be breaking apart or, alternatively, resurrecting from the dead.

dance as research

It was mentioned by several people at different instances that dance practice is beginning to be recognized as research in academia, parallel and comparable to scientific and social research (see the reading list). Jennifer Monson’s position at the University of Illinois as part of a “cluster hire” of geography, history, philosophy, religion, natural resources and art specialists is a positive sign in that direction.

Dean Moss spoke from the perspective of a studio class (at Harvard University) that doesn’t need to respond to the demands of a program or major in dance, and at which students come from all diverse fields: “There’s a lot of talk, but it’s a studio class and we do work. They are asked to come in with projects that then we dismantle and have other people do again. They get to see that whole process. They learn to have a critical conversation about the work. Also to talk about how they feel when they see what other people do with the work they originated. The conversations are broader, based not only in structures of aesthetic, but also on interpersonal relationships.”

“It becomes my job to take what Dean just said and shift the paradigm,” said Donna Faye, extrapolating from Dean’s course description to the work at Hollins. “I have to go and convince the administration that this stuff is research—it’s in action, it’s embodied.”

The context and focus of each particular school dictates to some degree the ‘who, how and what’ is taught. At Hollins, clarifies Donna, “the classes are not called technique, they are called movement studios. We had to do it because it’s a liberal arts school—we can’t only teach dance students, we have to teach everyone.”

Ironically, given her own hire, Urbana-Champaign is “not a liberal arts college yet,” said Jennifer. “We’re trying to change the curriculum to reflect that model more. The students still have to take a number of ballet classes, I teach a composition class – they still call it composition—and they don’t consider what I do technique.”

Cherylyn Lavagnino places Tisch somewhere in the middle: “We are both—a conservatory within a University—and definitely a place creating individual artists.” In response to the preoccupation of preparing students for the so-called real world, she added: “in a philosophical sense, the process-oriented experience they are gaining is going to allow that individual to have a well-suited tool kit.”

Anna Sperber, who graduated from SUNY Purchase, spoke about her frustration with that conservatory model, where the battle to bring exciting artists to teach still seems to be tremendous. To which Donna answered with a creative, three-dimensional image of two intersecting planes: “the horizontal is the contemporary and the vertical is the history, the tradition. In these times, the horizontal plane is vast!” And she added, “I think they are not mutually exclusive–the conservatory and the university–they can’t be. If you’re thinking, you’re aesthetically creating, and vice versa. Thinking and dancing do happen together.”

It seemed as though Jennifer’s position at UI was a real hands-on experience of these two planes coming together and rubbing against each other to find new thinking and doing models: “That makes me think about this particular community that I’m a part of [in New York], and how our research into somatic knowledge doesn’t happen in academia. And now it’s infiltrating that world in a very profound way.” In response to the original question on verbal and written language versus dance practice: “When our graduate students wrote their thesis and they wrote about something else as the source for the dancing, the research that we’re writing about is in the body.”

Levi mentioned a job posting from Arizona State University that made maintaining an active professional engagement as an artist a requirement for the position as an example of the shifting terrain: “Then there’s the Adjunct issue,” he said, pointing to the other side of bringing working artists to the campus as temporary work, without support for their lives, as artists or otherwise.

“I talked to Simon Dove about that posting,” said Bebe. “It was called Creative Practitioner. Professor was not a term used. I think they are looking at research in a more inter- and intra-disciplinary level. I also think it’s hard to imagine an institution that is nimble enough to respond quickly to these changes.”

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MR Festival 2008: Vera Mantero in conversation with Chase Granoff http://old.movementresearch.org/criticalcorrespondence/blog/?p=573&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=vera-mantero-in-conversation-with-chase-granoff Thu, 11 Dec 2008 19:22:56 +0000 http://www.movementresearch.org/criticalcorrespondence/blog/?p=573 Listen to this interview

From Sidewinder – Movement Research’s most recent Fall Festival: a conversation between choreographers Vera Mantero, from Portugal, and Chase Granoff, based in New York.

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MR Festival 2008: wikidancing: chase granoff at dtw by Eva Yaa Asantewaa http://old.movementresearch.org/criticalcorrespondence/blog/?p=712&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=mr-festival-2008-wikidancing-chase-granoff-at-dtw-by-eva-yaa-asantewaa Fri, 13 Jun 2008 22:28:15 +0000 http://www.movementresearch.org/criticalcorrespondence/blog/?p=712 by Eva Yaa Asantewaa
MR Festival Spring 2008: Somewhere Out There

one door closes and another

opens again again again it’s hell in the hallway

balls and blocks the scrape of the curtain rod the roar

of the crowd no printer cartridges were harmed

in the making of this performance

hubbada hubbada hubbada

shoosh the leaky valve

heartbeat of america

tiny heels a decision to just lie there

sharing is caring

i’m kinda bored of trio a pile up

what is the equivalent of knowing

something as a dancer to embody it

generation that’s my decentralized

mimics went to a juggling act

and postmodern dance broke out

went to a conversation and a

batch of equipment broke out

went to a studio and a rampage

broke out there

‘s a reason for houselights down

to distract you from you

paper paper paper paper how green

was my evening

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I wanted to add something here about how I began to see the audience as a set, but I’m not sure how to do that. So, I will leave this partial poem as is, and I invite you to think of it as a wiki-poem, copy the oriig and add/subtract/invent as you see fit.

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In Conversation with choreograph.net: First Response http://old.movementresearch.org/criticalcorrespondence/blog/?p=829&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=in-conversation-with-choreograph-net-first-response Sat, 19 Apr 2008 14:43:38 +0000 http://www.movementresearch.org/criticalcorrespondence/blog/?p=829 hi levi,

many thanks for your email. i had frankly given up on you guys, so this a really pleasant surprise. i had one bright idea while taking with chase: we are currently developing this site re content, audience, format, presentation. it seems you are doing the same. how about an editorial meta-logue about between yourselves and i about what we are trying to do, how it fits into the goals of our parent organizations, the importance or consequences of talking about dance & choreography in the particular ways that we do…

otherwise, any dialogues we could set up between artist/thinkers on each side of the virtual and literal pond would be a bonus. let’s think of people we know who’d like to be in exchange, the kinds of people they’d like to exchange with, and the topics of choice.

great to be moving

jeffrey

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In Conversation with choreograph.net: An Invitation http://old.movementresearch.org/criticalcorrespondence/blog/?p=825&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=825 Sat, 19 Apr 2008 14:41:14 +0000 http://www.movementresearch.org/criticalcorrespondence/blog/?p=825 Hi Jeffrey

We received your contact information from Chase Granoff, who told us of your interest in some kind of collaboration with the website administered through Movement Research in NYC – Critical Correspondence.

Alejandra Martorell and I are currently the two editors of the site, and we would be very interested in some form of written collaboration, as would the organization of Movement Research. MR recognizes the unique opportunities provided by the Internet to engage in discourse across large physical distances and communities. Chase speaks very highly of the goals of your site and I think it would be great to work together.

That said, I’m wondering if you have any specific proposals in mind. Currently, CC is in a bit of a holding pattern. MR just got money to redesign their entire website and greater integrate CC into it, but that process is moving pretty slowly at the moment. We are unhappy with the design of the site, but feel it is important to keep it active and keep content coming in. I think the role CC plays in MR will be changing as the web presence of MR changes, but for now we want to keep supporting artists writing about or talking about art, and approaching issues on critical discourse that affect artists in the dance and performance field.

Also, as I just said before, we think CC will be a natural part of MR where there can be a discourse shared among physically distant areas and a way of maintaining a connection with the international dance community.

As for the delay in getting in touch with you, I can only say that we have been swamped and then the summer was not a time I could focus on the site. I did try to email you earlier and the mail was returned to me because of a full mailbox. So I’m hoping this one finds you.

Let me know any ideas you may have, would love to get something started.

Best,

Levi Gonzalez

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In Conversation with choreograph.net: metalogue first movement, from Jeff Gormly http://old.movementresearch.org/criticalcorrespondence/blog/?p=820&utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=in-conversation-with-choreograph-net-metalogue-first-movement-from-jeff-gormly Sat, 19 Apr 2008 14:36:19 +0000 http://www.movementresearch.org/criticalcorrespondence/blog/?p=820 Here is where I’m going to pick up our conversation, from Alejandra’s email:

**more on the conceptual side, and possibly related to the previous topic, I’m impressed by Daghdha’s capacity to state views of what dance is or can be. It makes me think and feel my own inability, but also perhaps from an institutional or organizational perspective, to speak in definite terms or commit to language and traditions of thought the same way. This is to me an interesting and vulnerable spot**.

I consider what daghdha is doing in terms of talking about dance and choreography, in creating definitions, extremely important. choreographdotnet is in one regard part of that process of creating thought about dance. But it is key to understand that this thinking about dance, and articulation of that thinking which happens in dance presentations as well as in words, is less for consumption and cycling through the normal digestive organs of the dance world, the world body of dancers choreographers companies etc more importantly, these gestures reach out to other bodies of thought, stiff stagnant sciences or humanisms, thinkers who do not dance, in order to **get the whole system movedancing**, to get the state of excitation that we associate with dance and which promotes fluidity, mobility, grace, and an ability to GO WITH CHANGE

moving from suburban university campus into a beautifully renovated old church, in a graveyard, in the heart of the traditional citycentre of limerick, this is part of that attempt to get things moving, to collapse notions of art, community, thoughtful enquiry, education, and sacred space, onto one surface and one field of wildly differing, but absolutely conceptually related, dance choreographic research activities and initiatives.

what energises this process is a deep frustration within ourselves as artists at having to confine our activities inside the ‘ghetto’ of art, when all around is work that needs to be done on the canvas/dancefloor of REALITY. This is a state for emergency we are living in, these times. There is a major flaw in the way we humans are actually putting together our picture of the world, in the way we organise our perceptions. The mindset that has created the challenges we currently face is not the one that will overcome the challenge. The solution is or at least involves a complete reframing of the problem. We believe that for a start we can begin from the place of movement, change, aesthetics, radical subjectivity and its desire for dynamic interaction with other radical subjectivities ie from the place of **dance**, where mind and body are not separate, and there is an intuitive understanding of and trust in the body’s own ability to think for itself.

And the funny thing is, I’m not a “dancer” or a “choreographer’.. I’m a writer and a theatre experimentalist. An original thinker who got entangled with dance, and it works. Thinking about dance, dancing thought, is the way to start thinking about everything. Choreography as an aesthetics of change, choreography as a negotiation of how we organise our perceptions of reality and thereby reality itself, it makes sense, and I come across more and more writing from philosophers or dance academics that actually articulates a new way of thinking FULL STOP not thinking as categorisation of classes and hierarchies of objects and forces but THINKING AS MOVEMENT

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