Critical Correspondence
BodyCartography in conversation with HIJACK
BodyCartography co-directors Olive Bieringa and Otto Ramstad speak with HIJACK collaborators Kristin Van Loon and Arwen Wilder about the premiere of HIJACK’s premiere of “redundant, ready, reading, radish, Red Eye” at the Walker Art Center. The interview took place in Olive and Otto’s home in November 2013. Download a PDF of this […]
Richard Move in conversation with Abigail Levine
In 1996, five years after Martha Graham’s death, Richard Move began summoning her to the stage, using his own body as the medium for her performance. Move refers to the dances he performs as Graham’s works, although he has always engaged in a process of “de-reconstruction” of the choreography, making them his own creations as […]
Alyssa Gersony in conversation with Simon Dove, former Director of the School of Dance at ASU
I was a sophomore at ASU in 2009 when Arizona State University’s School of Dance began its curriculum overhaul. I witnessed the silence and skepticism both in the classroom and at the National Dance Educators Organization National Conference as former Director Simon Dove and Assistant Professor Karen Schupp asserted the importance of “personal movement practices” […]
Photo by Yu-Chen WuAlyssa Gersony in conversation with Karen Schupp
In this conversation, Karen Schupp, Assistant Professor at The School outlines the foci of “Dance 2050” from both 2012 and 2013, her personal research about the effectiveness of the ASU curriculum, and her own pedagogical approaches to cultivating leadership in the classroom. Karen also offers her perspective on the currency of Master’s degrees in dance, […]
Jeanine Durning in Conversation with Lightsey Darst
Last December I went to Minneapolis’s Soo Gallery to watch New York-based choreographer Jeanine Durning’s inging. I didn’t know what to expect. The past weekend I’d seen Durning perform in two of Deborah Hay’s brainy, unpredictable, ultra-detailed dance works, and my circuits were accordingly rewired. From her performance of Hay’s dances I knew Durning was […]
Carla Peterson in conversation with AUNTS and CATCH
Following a two-day event in February in which the performance series’ AUNTS and CATCH took turns trading curatorial and production practices, Carla Peterson, Artistic Director of New York Live Arts, interviewed CATCH curators Andrew Dinwiddie, Caleb Hammons and Jeff Larson, and AUNTS organizers Laurie Berg and Liliana Dirks-Goodman about the experience and what it revealed […]
Sally Silvers and Bruce Andrews: An Interview by Scott Thurston
As part of a research project on the relationship between innovative poetry and experimental dance practices, Scott Thurston interviewed Sally Silvers and Bruce Andrews about their collaborations with language and movement after seeing Clarinda Mac Low’s “40 Dancers do 40 Dances for the Dancers” in September 2012 (read his review for CC here). The conversation […]
Joshua Lubin-Levy in conversation with Neal Beasley
As we at CC turn our attention to the critical issues that emerge in dance’s current encounter with the museum, this conversation covering Neal Beasley’s career with the Trisha Brown Dance Company as well as his own choreographic interests, offers practical and theoretical insights into the embodied forms of archiving that take place in the […]
The Coalition for Diasporan Scholars Moving, part 2 — A Conversation with A’Keitha Carey and Liana Conyers
To deepen the conversation around issues addressed in Jaamil Olawale Kosoko’s discussion with Brenda Dixon Gottschild, we asked two dancer-scholars to share personal stories that point to the racism that often goes unnamed in university dance programs. Here they describe the way assumptions and stereotypes made about their bodies, identities, backgrounds, and interests have affected […]
Jessie Gold and Sam Gordon in conversation with Alyssa Gersony
The New Art Dealers Alliance (NADA) held the second edition of its art fair – NADA New York – May 10th through May 12th at Pier 36, Basketball City, showcasing over 70 international visual art galleries, representing 13 countries. This year, amidst the traditional art fair model, NADA also hosted Contemporary Dancing under the curation and organization of Sam […]
Joanna Kotze in conversation with Jesse Zaritt
Dancer/choreographer/educator Jesse Zaritt talks with dancer/choreographer Joanna Kotze about her creative practices and choreographic investigations, the role that New York has played in her development as an artist, her trajectory as an architect-turned-dance student, and the notions of perception and audience experience. Her newest work “it happened it had happened it is happening it will happen” will be shown at Danspace Project, May 30-June 1, 2013.
Michelle Boulé in conversation with Matthew Walker
ISSUE Project Room was first introduced to Michelle Boule through her participation in cellist/composer/improviser Okkyung Lee’s 2011 Artist-in-Residency at ISSUE. As evidenced by her collaborative performance with Lee, Boule’s layered and transfixing engagement with movement, light, performance space, and audience suggested she would be an ideal fit for our 2012 Emerging Artists Commission program, which sought to reach outside our normal sound-oriented range of focus to encompass transdisciplinary practices. ISSUE Development Director Matthew Walker discusses process, authenticity, vulnerability and texture in performance with dancer/choreographer Michelle Boule in anticipation of her upcoming premiere, WONDER, May 30-31.
Marissa Perel in conversation with Katy Pyle, Jules Skloot, Cassie Mey, Francis Weiss Rabkin, Sam Greenleaf Miller, Effie Bowen, and Lindsay Reuter
In February 2012, artist/writer/curator Marissa Perel spoke with dancer/choreographer Katy Pyle about her queered ballet form, Ballez, and the early stages of her latest piece, “The Firebird,” which was presented at Danspace Project, May 16-18. Here, members of the cast of “The Firebird” join Perel and Pyle to discuss motivations for the piece, each performer's experience of Ballez, and alternative approaches to the idea of failure in queer performance.
The Coalition for Diasporan Scholars Moving, part 1 – Brenda Dixon Gottschild in conversation with Jaamil Olawale Kosoko
Curator/choreographer/performer Jaamil Olawale Kosoko talks with Brenda Dixon Gottschild, whose scholarship on the presence and influence of Africanist aesthetics in American dance forms has made an indelible intervention in the genealogy of dance history and contemporary dance. Here they discuss what led her to a career of writing about dance through the embodied perspective of a black female dancer. Their conversation also touches upon Gottscchild's most recent endeavor, the Coalition for Diasporan Scholars Moving; a nation-wide network of support organized to assist black scholars who have encountered racism in their attempts to attain degrees, tenure, diversity, etc. within U.S. university dance programs. This interview is part one of a two part series dedicated to this issue. Check back for a conversation between two dance scholars who found support through this resource.
Rosie Herrera in conversation with Celeste Fraser Delgado
Dance critic and scholar Celeste Fraser Delgado talks with Miami-based choreographer Rosie Herrera, of Rosie Herrera Dance Theater, about her piece “Dining Alone,” running Thursday and Friday at the Baryshnikov Arts Center (Thursday 7:30 and 9:30 and Friday 7:30, tickets $20). They explore how a girl from a post-communist compound in the Cuban ghetto of Hialeah, Florida grew up to love opera, big ensembles, and even bigger emotions.
