Given how long you’ve known Vicky and Jodi, has anything surprised you in making “Tides”?
I’m always mystified by things that I think will be totally fine—with Jodi, for instance, and she’s like, “I won’t be doing that.” So you know, we wrestle with it and something comes out of that. I do think that once I give a phrase to somebody, you have to have a kind of grace. I have to let go of a desire for it to be one thing when I can see it’s gonna be this other thing. The decision to work with somebody as a collaborator, whether as a composer, a musician, a designer, or a dancer, is the most important decision that you make. After that you have to fully trust the person and you have to embrace the situation. If odd things about balance are important, you might not want to put somebody on one leg again and again. There was a moment that came up in the rehearsal you saw. A lot of the unison has to do with weight—not “wait,” but there’s also cues to watch for. If the anxiety of being together in unison takes away that quality of weight because you’re trying to meet the impact at the same time, there’s no utility to it. We need to soften up about it: yeah, we’re going to try to be together, but we have to accept the qualitative is a more important piece.
I think it’s wonderful that we continue to see these gifted dancers onstage late in their careers. I find both Vicky and Jodi intoxicating to watch.
When I look at somebody like Steve Paxton, I’m like yes I see you’ve been in this your entire life. Where you arrived at in your 70s is completely different than when you were 20, but I see the presence of a lifetime commitment. That’s what I’m interested in.
What makes you keep going as an artist?
There was a moment a couple weeks ago when I was like, oh wow, that moment in the studio today. That’s why I keep making. I have moments where I wonder if the work will be legible to other people. And then we have a run where it happens. Enough of the pieces come into alignment, and then there’s a gravitational pull that sucks the other pieces along.
With so many worldly challenges to amplify the already difficult project of making art, I find it interesting that gratitude has been on your mind.
Despite all the challenges and questions that make art feel like Sisyphus pushing a rock up the hill, I still have a gratitude that I can be involved with this. At a moment when there’s so much coming at us, rage is understandable. I’m not saying we should be contemplative and not strident in our resistance to things that are about fundamentally dismantling the world as we know it. But in the midst of that, there’s an activist stance within art making itself that is paradoxically about having a gratitude and respect for those spaces where I can be in a kind of associative play, and how that changes me. To invite people to contemplate their humanity and what it means to be here is a big part of my goal.
LaMama Moves! Dance Festival runs from April 10 through May 4, with ten distinctive programs curated by Nicky Paraiso with Martita Abril, Blaze Ferrer, and Adham Hafez. Tickets and more information here.
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