Critical Correspondence

Platform 2010: Back to NYC: Jen Rosenblit in conversation with Jean Butler

This three-part interview series investigates the relationship between executive director, curator and artist in Danspace Project’s exciting new curatorial initiative, Platforms 2010. First off in the series, artist Jen Rosenblit describes the Platform as a holistic approach to curating artists—“I feel like Juliette dove into my experience of making this work. Even Judy, when she is in front of me, all she wants to do is understand.” In the second interview, curator Juliette Mapp talks about the sustainability of the Platform and its need to be malleable—“It is so brand new, and it would have to have the ability to recreate itself every year, which is difficult. Maybe it wouldn’t be important in the future. It feels responsive to the moment now.” Rounding off the series is an upcoming interview with Danspace executive director Judy Hussie-Taylor.

[See also The New York Times article “Choreographers Are Becoming Curators, Too”]

photo by Addys Gonzalez

Jean Butler: I am sitting with Jen Rosenblit, one artist chosen to perform in Juliette Mapp’s guest-curated platform ‘Back to New York,’ which takes place at Danspace Project. I want to start with an introduction. Where you are from, when did you come to New York, and why New York?

Jen Rosenblit: I am from Maine. I went to Hampshire College for undergraduate in Massachusetts and I came to New York immediately after that, not in a planned fashion. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to, I just didn’t have another idea. Other people were moving here, so I did too. We looked for apartments and we got jobs. As soon as that settled, I started to slip into that situation of going to shows and learning what DTW was and learning what The Kitchen was.

Jean: And what was the gap between college and New York?

Jen: The gap, the timeframe was a month. I graduated and came. So I had to figure out things first before I could even think in my head-I am going to form a company and start making dances. I didn’t know how that even worked. I didn’t know what the structure was like here or outside of any collegiate setting. So, it took a little bit of time.

Jean: It sounds like you didn’t have an expectation of what the dance scene was like in New York, but now that you are here, how do you find it? Has the scene been inclusive or exclusive? How was the process of navigating your way?

Jen: I think the first clear thought in my head was, I wanted to understand what work was being presented and where, because I didn’t really have an understanding of the community or specific people. I took a free comp class with Tere O’Connor. I had met Tere when I interned in college at MAPP and Danspace and I had seen his work at my college. For the first two years that I was here, I was seeing a lot of work and building a vocabulary of people who were maybe two, three, four generations older than me. I didn’t really go into the class routine. I went to maybe one class at Dance New Amsterdam. I took another workshop with John Jasperse.

Jean: And during this time when you were finding your feet in the dance scene, were you choreographing or pursuing your practice at the same time?

Jen: Yes. Addys, the male who I work with and have worked with for a long time, lived together when we first moved here. We were making up little vignettes or little idea spurts in our apartment, not yet even to the point of renting space or even knowing where you go to rent space. Then one day, I bumped into Kimberly Branch, who happened to be the program manager at Dixon Place at the time. She asked me how I was doing, how I was adjusting to dance here. I was maybe at an anxiety moment where I said “I just don’t understand how you have a show, how can you get a show?” And she said, “Well, you have conversations like this.” Then she gave me just a little slot at Dixon Place—maybe 10 people came—but it was the feeling that I had something to work on. From there on I developed a really good relationship with Dixon Place and still guest curate there.

Jean: Do you feel that is a case of old fashioned networking?

Jen: I think it’s all networking, which I have definitely gotten better at, and was not comfortable with when I got here. I also wasn’t aware of certain issues surrounding being an artist in New York and making work, in the sense of both responding to the situation of being here, and letting it go and making your work despite it. So, my first two works had nothing to do with New York in a thematic sense. They were only my idea of what dance was and could be. I think through reaching out to people and networking—and uncomfortably saying my name to somebody just to get it out there—I started to understand certain issues surrounding money, power dynamics, hierarchies of presenters versus artists or some artists versus other artists.

Jean: Can you elaborate on this in relation to what Judy Hussie-Taylor is doing with Platforms? There is a transparency, which seems welcome in the dance world at the moment. Can you talk about the difficulties you faced with the opposite of this, the anti-transparency that exists?

Jen: I guess half of that anti-transparency is the responsibility of the artist to make somebody see you. I remember going to the Chocolate Factory when I first moved here. Brian Rogers, who I didn’t know, was at the door. I said to him, “I really love this space and I want to know what your process of curation is” or “I want to start a relationship”. But the feeling was, oh here we go, another person pitching work. I feel like it is hard to develop a relationship with either a presenter, an organization, a venue, or a group of people without people feeling like, “you’re just not ready yet,” or, “I need to see your show first,” or…

Jean: Is there a sense, particularly for young artists or new artists in New York, that you have to serve your time?

Jen: Yeah. I felt that and I still feel that. I just told Juliette Mapp the other day, this feeling I get from Judy is brilliant, because she has never once said young artist or new dance-maker in regards to me or in the same sentence as my name. And I know that I am and I know that plays a role in my work, but at a certain point, I don’t know how much good it does. But I do think a lot of those early feelings were also anxiety. It took a lot of effort on my part to open up to seeing these people, these presenters that I thought had control of the dance community. It really took big jumps and efforts to talk to them, and doing things that feel contradictory like auditioning for Fresh Tracks. But through that, beyond getting a show and a residency, I developed a relationship with Carla Peterson. It was a long enough situation where I could really talk with her and not pitch a show, but for her to understand things that I work with and how important these ideas are to me. But The Kitchen, for instance, is hard to get access to. It’s hard when you go to a show there to feel like there is a working consensus, that we are creating a community.

Jean: There seems to me that there is a trajectory to showing work in NY and I wonder if you could define your understanding of this trajectory?

Jen: It is that you get to know as many people as possible that use language that you like and appreciate. Also getting to know those people who don’t use that language, deciding if you want to communicate with them based on your differences and getting work shown, or not. The sad part is that in order to begin to have a dialogue, the show has to be a part of it. After a certain point that is not true any more, and I think when I first got here that was the daunting part. I saw certain people, who I now have relationships with, and I saw them at every show and I saw them outside of the venues and I was feeling like, there is a community, I see it, but I don’t know how to access it. And I know that they are in this sort of middle stage where they are not having to prove themselves every second. They do not have to show work, but they are part of this information source. They get to lend their opinions and ideas. There are things that have recently proven to me that it’s not a ‘they’ versus ‘me.’ It’s like an effort you have to put in. And things like getting sent to Moscow with the Suitcase Fund, those are things where it feels like yes, this is a step towards me not having to have a show to show you that I am intelligent and I am an artist. You trust me to go somewhere else and to just sit and watch and talk. So, it took a while to understand that being a choreographer and performer and dancer is a lifestyle.

Jean: You talked Dixon Place being the first place where you showed work and I wonder if you could time-line Dixon to where you are today.

Jen: I feel like I am moving still at a steady common-sense pace. I feel like there are some people looking out for me and not throwing me into situations I am not ready for. I had a couple of shows at Dixon Place that were split bills, where I was making 10-15 minute works. The next step was through a relationship with Tere, who curated me into a Food for Thought at Danspace. That was a much larger audience, and someone from Joyce Soho contacted me and notified me of Joyce Soho Presents. I applied for that and was accepted. I was still performing at Dixon Place and then Dixon Place inquired about my interest in curating, which I didn’t really have. I was still more concerned with myself at the time. I was still showing works and each year making about two 15-minute works. Then I went back to Joyce Soho and did The A.W.A.R.D. Show, which was another experience that I would never do again.

Jean: Tell us what The A.W.A.R.D. Show is about.

Jen: The A.W.A.R.D. Show, I forget about the amount of money, but maybe like $10, 000 was at stake. I wasn’t even really paying attention, because in the back of my head I knew it wasn’t going to work out to my benefit. They tell you, don’t worry, it’s not really a competition. But it is a competition—the audience votes on who they like best.

Jean: It sounds like something that should be on TV.

Jen: Yeah, it should have been. Especially when a 22-year-old was on the same bill as Larry Kegwin, who in my head, is a professional dance-maker. Whether I think we are on the same level of dialogue or artistry, I did recognize his name and I felt “what have I done?” I have gotten into a program that doesn’t register differences in careers. So that was the first moment where it really registered to me that I am a young dance-maker and that I need situations that are a bit more supportive. I need situations that require dialogue surrounding my work.

Then I surprised Addys with this idea of auditioning for Fresh Tracks, feeling tentative about it. But we talked a lot about it. I had gotten a deeper understanding of DTW and the people involved. I thought maybe there was a catch there. Maybe this is a competition, but it’s a supportive one, maybe something good can come of this. Whether we got it or not, when we auditioned we realized that we were capable of simultaneously examining performance and giving people what they want.

Jean: It’s fascinating because it wasn’t about rebellion, but it could have been viewed as such.

Jen: No, it was viewed as such. Which was brilliant, because I mean, it was part of the plan. All of the reviews pretty much suggested that this was…

Jean: Anarchy?

Jen: Yeah. You know another modern dance dancing to rap music… But the dance was essentially about my fear of losing my teeth because I had a lot of dentist appointments that year, no insurance and I thought, what happens if I have to lose my teeth? So, we made these oversize plastic silver and gold teeth that I stick in my mouth, I put in my pocket, he turns me upside down and shakes them out. The New York Times called it bling. This is funny because I played this song and these props now happen to be bling. Now they are starting to put words that suggest I have a deep connection to this information. But that was another layer of distraction we were applying. So, we essentially used expectation to grab people. It wasn’t a rebellion, but more like “I know this is the only way you’ll pay attention.”

Jean: This piece had the largest exposure to date. Do you feel the resonance of that piece and what it was about has followed you? Do you feel people have made a decision about what your work is about?

Jen: Slightly. For the people who I am really interested in having longstanding artistic relationships with, I think they get that there was a lot of superficial layer attached to that work. But what came out of that residency was “what does stick to my name and my work?” This dynamic the performer Addys and I have is a strong dynamic that has been there from the beginning. By strong, I don’t mean good or bad, I mean very apparent. And Juliette asked us to pinpoint it, talk about it, and decide if it was something we wanted to go with. She is very good at honing in on information that needs to be extracted. It’s this sidekick game almost. I do something funny and he follows. I make a weird face and he makes a pouty face. We got bored with this, this expectation of goofiness. I think we were doing it almost like space holders. We knew something needed to be in the moment, but we didn’t know what to do. We didn’t have the language to talk about how we weren’t there yet.

Jean: When did you first hear about the Danspace’s initiative, Platforms, and what was your reaction?

Jen: Juliette called me maybe two months after Fresh Tracks, April of 2009. I was confused because she didn’t really say I have a show that I want you to be in. I don’t think she was necessarily sure yet. I don’t think she was sure I was the right person at the right time. But she saw Fresh Tracks, and was also in the very early Food For Thought that Tere had curated. But this is what I wanted. I wanted to talk to people. So whether she likes my work or not, I wasn’t concerned. It was that I was developing a relationship with another working artist.

She noticed the relationship that Addys and I have had since the beginning. We talked about it for a while and then she asked if she could come visit the residency portion. We were making a new work but had no plans of showing it anywhere. It was a very strange experience because she was looking at something that wasn’t even in the plans of being looked at. She started to see this thing begin to open up between he and I with her in the room. Then she said, “There is this thing that I’m going to be curating. I don’t know how many artists are going to be there and I don’t know what it’s going to be about and I don’t know when it will happen.” And we left it like, well when you do know, we would love to be involved, we would love to make a new work. I had this belly of an idea of what was going to happen. And I knew where I wanted to start was a whole new exploration, one with a much deeper sense of subtlety than before.

Jean: It seems the antithesis to the work you had presented to date?

Jen: Yes. I was excited to not expect that somebody wouldn’t know me. I was excited to not worry about anything outside of what I wanted to make. Then it started getting clearer, she started mentioning this would be about New York City and people who have strong connections to it. This was perfect because what I do is very specific to the people and the issues here and though those issues are global and they reach pretty far, my audience is here now. The people I go see and are concerned with are here now.

Jean: You said you wanted to create a new work and Juliette wanted that as well. How much of the process was she involved in?

Jen: In the beginning she was pretty involved, a lot of emailing. She came to a rehearsal early on. What felt more important than her understanding of what the thing we were going to do looked like, was for her to develop an understanding of the relationship Addys and I have, which happened. We got coffee once and he got to talk a lot more than me and I think that at one point was leading this relationship. And at that point [Juliette] felt like a mentor rather than a curator.

Jean: Did you welcome that?

Jen: Oh yes. Juliette is a very sensitive woman. She’s very emotional and almost every conversation we have, both Addys and I want to cry at the end! It has nothing to do with sadness. She just knows how to get to a pointed part, very fast. Whereas Addys and I can go on for hours and hours and not even get the point that we want to get to, she comes in and sees us for five minutes and can get us to where we are trying to get. So, mentor was more potent than curator. Then we saw she was pregnant and we didn’t bother her for a long time. When she had her baby and we got back in contact, that’s when curator came in. She came to rehearsals and we were nearing completion of a structure. She still had very pointed questions, but they got a bit more global. They became more clearly about the space at St. Marks. We also talked a lot about the audience.

Jean: That would be specific to this event?

Jen: Yes. Our audience is sitting on the east and west of the church, looking at each other. I had a lot of concerns performing in the church. It’s a very strange space. I know a lot of people love it, and it’s not that I hate it. I am distracted most of the time I am there. The stain glass windows are very vibrant, the space up to the ceiling is very vibrant, everything leads to that arch. Then the seating is always hard. It’s in-between a frontal audience classical box space. That informed how Addys and I started making movement and ideas. We took this idea of in the round. The way I made up movement was ‘Cunnigham-esque’; your front is wherever you are. So, a lot of the movement has a 360-degree feeling. On top of that we created false sense of fronts. Sometimes it’s not an equal or a democratic way of performing. Some people are getting more than others. But we have this ending, that just might be awful, but we have to do it because everything has led up to it. I have never made a work with this idea that the audience is not sitting in front of me. So, in this ending we hope to reach another sense of democracy. We’re hoping that if somebody wasn’t getting the full view or somebody got the butts a lot of the time-the ending is there like a sacrificial lamb.

Jean: It sounds like this piece is an alchemy of the entire Platform, the person curating it, your dialogue with Juliette, the space it is going to be in. A lot of consideration has gone into things outside of the dance that will be presented.

Jen: Yes, I personally have never put so much into a show and I have never gotten so much back already. Juliette and Judy, the catalogue, all of these things, sort of preemptively discussing the work. It really is the first time that the work is the last thing to come. But it’s very considered. I was just saying to Juliette the other day that this would be heaven—if all shows were this considered.

Jean: And you had this support?

Jen: Yes, there was a large chunk of time and essentially the making of the work was not ‘mama’d’ in the way that everything else was. But it is extremely holistic, and I keep using that word when I’m talking to the staff at Danspace Project. It’s a very holistic approach to curating artists. This is the first time when I’ve been in a process where the word curating–to curate something–I understand what it means. I’ve definitely put together shows, but I haven’t curated artists. I feel like Juliette dove into my experience of making this work. I don’t know how else she could get to pinpoint questions if she didn’t. Even Judy, who obviously doesn’t have as much time for me as Juliette does, when she is in front of me all she wants to do is understand.

Jean: What you are saying makes me think of this word, curation, in a new sense. As a model for presenting, maybe you could talk about the benefits it will/can have?

Jen: Well, it speaks directly to those early concerns of how do I have a relationship to this community without having a show. And though I get a show at the end of all this, I now have what I feel to be a comfortable relationship with Judy, the director of Danspace. Do I feel like she is going to offer me an evening length after this? No. Would I ask for that? No. But, I do feel that it’s not just passing time. The shows I had at Joyce Soho, I don’t even know who the director of Joyce Soho is. The farthest I got was the woman who sits at the front desk, you know? So I feel like this is finally the model to really develop these relationships that I see happening. I just saw, last night, Shelley Senter and David Thomson’s dress [rehearsal]. They are what I am talking about, about those generations older than me who have history going on. They know people, people know their body of work and who they’ve worked with. That comes with time. But I feel like in the past there was a closer-knit sensation of the people involved in Judson, the early DTW crowd. I guess a feeling that I have only read about, which is the idea of collectives. It is this model that answers my question, how do you get a show in New York.

Jean: Do you have an expectation about participating in this and what it will mean afterwards?

Jen: I have an expectation or a hope that there are people looking who are concerned about what my next best move is. I think Juliette took on a lot of responsibility to take me from performing works with many other people in one evening under the guidance of Fresh Tracks. She took me out of that context. I am still a young dance-maker. She didn’t treat me that way and that label is nowhere on this program. I think she was really happy that I took this as seriously as I did. It’s a jump to go from making 20-minute works to 30-minute works and it will be even bigger jump to go to an evening length. To sustain a sincere thought for that long! When I see evening length works I am blown away because I have yet to understand how you sustain a practice for that long in front of people. So, my expectation is whatever the next best step for me is. And that it will be as supportive as this one was.

Jean: So, to come full circle in our conversation, you were talking at the start about part of your responsibility, as an artist, is to try and penetrate the dance world and presenters. It should be a mutual responsibility, or a dialogue, ideally. Is there anything else you wanted to say?

Jen: Well, in support of the model and how I would approach the next thing, I feel like it spans outside the actual making of the dance. The emails and publicity that I sent out were much more coiled and delicate. This time I sent out separate emails to artists who mean a lot to me and those I haven’t really interacted with but somehow got a hold of their email. I sent out an email to presenters and a separate one to my family and friends. I feel Juliette has really paid a lot of attention to having different approaches to different artists. I am sure she works with me differently from how she works with Katy Pyle. That sensitivity is very important to my approach about how I relate further to the community. I really reached out to artists because Addys and I were in heavy conversation about how we actually made this work for our peer artists and the generation older than us. We’ve finally got to this point where we are making work for a very specific group of people. We appreciate anyone from off the street to come into the show, but I am very aware there is a little niche of people who enjoy this stuff, or read about it, or really take the time to sit through 30 minutes of hard stuff. It’s already started to affect how I am.

Jean: There seems to be a really grounded settled confidence about you and this work. And I wonder, did you always have this? Or is it specific to this time you are in and this process?

Jen: I think I am pretty grounded and settled by nature. The confidence part is definitely coming with time. I actually don’t have much to prove because I am making it for people who I have a feeling want to see it, whether they like it or not. People who I see at every show, I am assuming they do not like every single thing they see. But we continue to go and support people’s efforts of making things. Tere O’Connor is a huge mentor. I admire him on many different levels, but that doesn’t mean every single thing of his I love. But I’ll see every piece of [his] work for the rest of my lifetime. It’s with that feeling, that like and dislike are no longer part of it.