Throughout my time at the Bates Dance Festival, I’ve had the pleasure of facilitating a series of community conversations, as well as two pre-show talks. Artists tend to be most nervous about pre-show talks — they generally don’t want audiences to go in with preconceived notions about how to experience their work. If you happened to attend my talk before Doug Varone’s performance in the Schaeffer Theatre, you might recall I invited you to “bring yourself” to the performance and allow your personal stories to permeate your impressions of the work. In my conversations with Joanna, she was open about the process of creating “What Will We Be Like When We Get There,” but would prefer that we not spend time on what this show is “about.”

Instead, I’ve prepared some remarks about potlucks.

People tend to have strong opinions about potlucks. You either love them or hate them. Personally, I love them – even the ones where you don’t have to sign up for a dish to ensure all the food groups represented. I love potlucks comprised of four lasagnas and a chocolate cake. I love potlucks with a folding table full or unused plastic silverware, five varieties of chips and salsa, 12 cases of cheap beer, and those store-bought sugar cookies with a thick layer of icing.

When I’m invited to a potluck, I always bring deviled eggs – it’s kind of my thing – and no matter how many I make they always disappear before the last guest arrives.

Deviled eggs are a ridiculous appetizer, but also perfect in every way. They’re bite sized, contain an unreasonable helping of mayonnaise, and look much fancier then they actually are. The first few times I made deviled eggs I followed a recipe from the Betty Crocker cookbook, which is the gift every woman in my family receives when she first moves away from home.

Betty’s recipe is not that great, actually; it’s too salty and she definitely does not include enough mayonnaise. Over the years I’ve discovered a few ways to improve on Betty’s recipe, and now, I don’t follow a recipe. From experience, I know the perfect quantities of mayonnaise (read: a lot), salt and pepper, finely diced onion and paprika to add; I know that Dijon, pickles and celery don’t belong anywhere near my deviled eggs. God forbid you suggest using Miracle Whip.

Cooking in this controlled way is a solitary act, but I learned to cook with my Mom. Even as young kids my brother and I would stir ingredients or later learned to chop vegetables or made the side dishes. Some of those meals would have probably turned out better if she’d kicked us out of the kitchen, but working together to prepare a meal for our family was more important to her, and as a result, everything on our family table was delicious, because we’d made it together.

“What Will We Be Like When We Get There,” reminds me a little bit of those imperfect potlucks, and of those family meals prepared with my Mom. One of Joanna’s primary questions surrounding this work is, “How do we inhabit space together?” Four performers representing three genres of art – dance, music and visual art – get into the kitchen together with some shared goals and outcomes, and they don’t have a recipe to follow. Each brings a particular set of priorities into the space, and must spontaneously respond to the others. Continually, they must ask themselves what they’re willing to fight for, and what they’re willing to let go of.

We experience this process of compromise all the time, and not just in the kitchen. With your partner or children, among co-workers and collaborators, and even in the voting booth, we’re continuously faced with the need to pick our battles and prioritize the things that are most important to us. And by letting go of a little bit of control, we can benefit from the input and talents of others.

You might read in your festival brochure that Joanna began this process shortly after the 2016 election, but it’s not about that. Instead of looking for evidence of Donald Trump in the piece, consider how close the lines are between order and chaos, or humor and violence. Why do we laugh when the Three Stooges punch each other in the face? Why does a messy desk inhibit productivity and promote creativity?  Political polarization has simultaneously created vitriolic tirades and gut-busting monologues – reality is sometimes so wholly ridiculous that we can’t help but laugh at ourselves, even as we are continually shocked and appalled.

So “What Will We Be Like When We Get There,” in a way, is an exercise in collaboration, in which each performer must hear and respond to others. In the process, the cast is making something, or building toward a “there.” What, where and then “there” is is less important than who we allow ourselves to become in the process.

In watching it, you might find chaos is actually necessary, and beautiful. You might find it inspires you to challenge your assumptions and expectations about others. You might unveil a desire to engage with others and reach beyond your personal and political echochambers.

And if you invite me to your potluck, you might discover I’ve brought lumpy deviled eggs stuffed with too-big chunks of celery in them and a bit too much paprika. They’ll still be delicious, and they’ll still be gone before the last guest arrives.

Lauren’s Deviled Eggs:

Ingredients

• Hard boiled eggs (as many as you want)
• Real mayonnaise (not Miracle Whip)
• Very finely diced onion (optional)
• Salt (or celery salt) and pepper
• Dried yellow mustard (not French’s)
• Paprika

Instructions

1. Half each hard boiled egg, removing the yolks into a bowl and setting the whites aside on a platter. If you don’t have a deviled egg platter, you can strategically place lettuce or some other garnish around a platter to keep the eggs from toppling over.
2. Using a fork, mash the yolks and add onion, if desired; salt and pepper to taste; and a small pinch of dried mustard. A little goes a long way.
3. Add a big plop of mayonnaise to the bowl and blend with a fork or scrapper. Add enough to create a smooth, creamy consistency, but not so much that the mixture is just basically mayonnaise. Don’t bother getting your mixer dirty to whip the egg mixture unless you really need to impress someone and are making a large quantity of eggs.
4. Transfer the egg mixture to a pastry bag (I often use a plastic baggie and cut a small tip off of the corner instead of using a piping bag), and fill the egg white cups with a nice mound of egg goo.
5. Dust the tops with a dash of paprika. Scallion, bacon or lobster are tolerable garnishes, olives aren’t.

Lida Winfield’s “Imaginary” was presented as part of Bates Dance Festival’s 2019 Performance Series, situating audiences on three sides of Gannett Theater. It was spiraling, it was colorful, it was wild, taking us on a journey animated by six magnificently potent performers, live music, mismatched green high heels, and emerald green tutus. A set covered in fabric reminded me of a structure you would see in a cozy reading nook in the children’s section of Barnes & Noble and transformed into a table, a mountain, and a wardrobe at various times throughout the piece.

Immediately it was like we had been dropped into a carnival for adults. The lights cast purple and green hues on the performers as they began to address the room and the audience through gestures, facial animations, and loping passes on the diagonal, demarcating us from them. I couldn’t see every minute detail, but I could feel it. I could feel the buzz of the room, which lived for the entirety of the piece, supporting its grandeur, eccentricity, and seriousness.

Whimsical absurdity became the through line. Laurel Jenkins was electric, pacing the space with loud and assured steps, sporting a large emerald green trench coat with shoulder pads. With convincing bravado, she launched into a performative monologue repeating, “Step right up, step right up,” as if turning into a game show host listing all the prizes that could be yours. Step right up, step right up.

Winfield and Maree ReMalia embarked on a duet with balloons strapped to their chests, communicating in staccato gestures, facial expressions, and gibberish babbles against fitful bursts of movement. Ellen Smith Ahern treated us to a scoping improvisation, playing with the audience as she traversed caveman-like states and moments of elongated beauty, all the while interspersing deadpan stares at the audience whenever they could no longer stifle their chuckles. Joseph Hall crafted a headdress out of a tutu, prompting musician and performer Matthew Evan Taylor to emerge from the corner while singing opera, prompting an operatic battle between Jenkins, Ahern, Hall and Taylor to break out amidst animal-like running, sliding, and falling on the diagonal. Choices like these, I could have watched forever.

Some of the most salientmoments came in the spaces where the lunacysimmered, allowing audiences to approach this perceived seriousness with the knowledge and memory of the caricatures and characters the performers had so fluidly inhabited just moments before.

This sense first arose when the five performers settled centerstage, eyes closed, carefully shifting through their feet like treading through sand with hands on each other’s shoulders. ReMalia stood at the helm, microphone in hand, saying, “You may or may not imagine…” followed by a statement of truth.

You may or may not imagine. What a way to frame a truth, to think about perception, to think about how our perception is wholly imaginary. Just moments before, we saw Remalia transform into a birdlike animation, wearing a tutu, balloons strapped to her chest. That was her, and this is her. Both are real, one is not imaginary.

From this truth telling, a series of physical tableaus erupted. With each tableau came the spoken frame of “This is.” “This is my childhood bedroom,” one said, as the performers stood, arms outstretched, mouths open wide, creating a cavernous hallway lined with their arms, which now served as branch-like objects.

Between each “This is,” they traversed the space: downstage, upstage, zigzagging in between. It became more staccato, more layered, each performer shouting with both voice and body, much less shape driven. “This is a dog getting hit by a car,” said another, as one by one they descended from the upstage corner, writhing their body like getting hit by lightning as they arrived centerstage. “This is church.” “This is an all-you-can-eat midnight buffet on a cruise ship.”

Eventually they knotted themselves in the corner. The tableaus shifted into solos, patterning and gridding through the space, moving en masse as each performer made their own statement of “This is.” Layered one over the other, it became more solitary, independent. It went on, immediately prompting a mood change:

“This is an ICE detention center.”
“This is the Mueller Report.”
“This is hashtag Me Too.”

It was somber. It held so much weight–partly because of how trivial what they had been doing before seemed, partly because of the mere mentions of the topics at hand. Regardless, it made me wonder about perception on a larger scope. How much of what is happening in our world is solely because of what we imagine, solely because of what we perceive to be true? What if our perceptions created false truths, impeding the potential for another, more inclusive, reality?

This, I believe, is the root of what Winfield was getting at. Everyone has an imaginary lens from which they view things. Everyone has a tendency to believe their “imaginary” as truth.

The imaginary isn’t poetic. This dance wasn’t. It was loud and in your face, but in exactly the way I wanted it to be. There were so many moments I wanted to keep reliving. But each moment, in the context of the piece, lasted for the exact right amount of time. There were morsels of these larger characters, these larger animations of self, these performative indulgences, these magnificent moments of absurdity and righteous silliness, that left me wholly satisfied but not overly full. It left me thinking more cheerfully, more seriously, more wholly about the way we see the world we inhabit and the people we share it with.

The piece ended with a chorus of truths, similar to the monologue of truths recited by ReMalia earlier. Ranging from funny, to serious, back to funny again, we were reminded the importance of not taking ourselves too seriously.

Imagine that.

It was during an in-class showing. She performed a solo inspired by tigers. She sat on the ground with her knees pulled into her chest, and opened her mouth to scream, without making a sound. In that same showing, I performed a solo inspired by social anxiety. I sat on the ground with my knees pulled into my chest, and opened my mouth to scream, without making a sound.

It was a total coincidence.

A few themes overarch the Bates Dance Festival, which director Shoni Currier says asks questions about identity, faith and artistry. Tangentially, several performances and conversations approach the topic of appropriation, creative license and intellectual property. It was probably ridiculous for my classmate to claim a silent scream as “hers,” but there’s a very real question in contemporary dance about “who did it first,” and who gets to claim a series of movements or an aesthetic as his own. As prolific choreographers seek to pass down or protect their legacies, topics like appropriation vs. inspiration and copyright laws intersect with the economy of dance. And how ever small that economy might be relative to other industries, it’s hard to argue that contempt for Beyonce’s gazillions of dollars made while repeatedly plagiarizing modern dance choreographers isn’t somehow motivated by a little bit of jealousy about her financial success.

Consider Netta Yerushalmy’s mammoth-sized “Paramodernities,” a miniseries of biopics (sort of) probing, remixing, deconstructing or reacting to works by six celebrated choreographers: Vaslav Nijinsky’s “The Rite of Spring,” Martha Graham’s “Night Journey,” Bob Fosse’s “Sweet Charity,” five dances by Merce Cunningham, George Balanchine’s “Agon” and Alvin Ailey’s “Revelations.”

“Paramodernities” was performed July 27 and 28 in the Schaeffer Theatre.

On her choices of which choreographers made the cut, Yerushalmy says she was looking for distance (as in, dead); name recognition; and a legible, well-documented aesthetic and/or codified technique. Working from fair-use materials and New York Public Library collections, she considered others who are notably absent – Pearl Primus, Mary Wigman, Doris Humphreys, Jose Limon, Paul Taylor and Ruth St. Denis as an incomplete list of examples – settling on these six for the reasons above, and pragmatically, because they had the most comprehensive, publicly available archives.

The question of whether or not Yerushalmy was plagiarizing these artists never really occurred to her – she completely reordered and restructured the steps, mashing parts in a blender and then putting them back together. Devoid of their original context, each episode is performed without music (excepting a jaunty instrumental piece layered into the Cunningham section), set to lectures by a series of academics, all but one of whom participates on stage with the dancers. The dancers are dressed in a variety of sweat suits which only hint at their source material.

Except for Nijinsky – perhaps because, as Yerushalmy said in our community conversation at the Portland Museum of Art, “He’s way dead,” – there are specific keepers of each of these choreographers’ legacies, held by their namesake companies in the case of Ailey and Graham, or by trusts and foundations set up to specifically preserve and police the work. Only one took issue with what Yerushalmy was doing; can you not guess who?

The topic of movement invention and intellectual property is also imbued within Yerushalmy’s choreography and the commentary from each scholar. Modern dance, often credited as an American artform with roots in German Expressionism, is riddled with cultural appropriation – one needn’t go further than Ruth St. Denis’s fascination with Egypt and India to start seeing the problems.

It might be helpful to remember that Ruth Denis was raised on a farm in New Jersey.

Many of Yerushalmy’s episodes acknowledge and explore modern dance’s problematic past, but Bob Fosse gets the brunt of it. This section zooms in on the roots of jazz dance, which largely originated in Africa. Whether he knew what he was doing or not, Fosse appropriated indigenous dances, dressed them in a high-cut leotard and heels, and sold the whole package for a profit.

Here’s the part where it comes back to Beyonce. You almost start to feel bad for Vanilla Ice once you notice how precariously Beyonce toes the line between inspiration and plagiarism. Uproar accompanied the similarities between “Countdown” and works by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, and in the past few days there’s been talk of the unmistakable parallels her new “Spirit” video shares with Petite Noir’s “La Maison Noir: The Gift and The Curse.” But, follow me here, if we just consider “Single Ladies,” which blatantly draws from Fosse’s “Mexican Breakfast,” could one propose that Beyonce was simply reclaiming movement that was, in essence, stolen in the first place?

I don’t know enough about Beyonce to say whether or not that’s giving her too much credit, but it doesn’t feel like too much of a stretch to extend the argument to Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, who’s lineage is in modern dance and questioned above.

One more thing about Beyonce: She’s clearly stated that these striking similarities are about inspiration, and not motivated by a malicious intent to steal people’s stuff. The ethical lines are technically in the hands of copyright courts. Aside: the estate of the guy who wrote “Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer” pays a temporary employee enough cash to live on for a year by hunting down copyright violations between Thanskgiving and Christmas. More often, they’re hashed out in the court of public opinion (read: Facebook).

By the way, Jumatatu M. Poe and Jermone Donte Beacham, who will perform a processional performance called “This is a Formation: Intervention” in Portland Friday and from Lewiston’s Tree Street Youth to the Bates College campus on Saturday, are incidentally involved. This travelling performance is part of an ongoing exploration of J-Sette. J-Sette’s origins are credited to Jackson State University, a sexy, flamboyant style adopted by Jackson State’s female majorette squad. The trend spread across Historically Black Colleges and Universities in the south as more and more drill teams ditched their batons, and J-Sette was soon embraced in gay clubs, predominantly by cisgender gay men. Poe and Beacham take the form out of its original habitats and place it on city streets, performed by people representing a wide range of gender and sexual identities and traveling through historically or pre-dominantly black neighborhoods. Amongst the many imbedded and important threads in this work, Poe and Beacham are also, in a way, reclaiming a form that has permeated pop culture. Indeed, J-Sette has been said to inspire a number of pop icons, including – you guessed it – Beyonce.

MaMa², comprised of Chicago’s Amirah Sackett (“Suga Mama”) and Detroiter Mary Mar (“BGirl Ma-Ma”), offered three short dances injected into more than 90-minutes of goodness by The Reminders, a music duo hailing from Colorado. The husband and wife team – Big Samir and Aja Black – alternate between rap and hip-hop with pinches of funk and soul sprinkled in, while Sackett offered two quintessential examples of her signature style of popping-and-locking. Mar’s solo is a brief, but wide-ranging journey telling the story of her family, who fled the Cambodian genocide to ultimately settle in Michigan, where she was born and became a B-girl.

The second and final performance of this festival kick-off was July 14, with Bates Dance Festival events resuming tonight through August 4 in and around campus.

MaMa²’s work blends old school hip-hop with each woman’s Muslim faith, which produces a rich amalgamation of layers in their performances. But amidst the seriousness of the 2019 Bates Dance Festival’s overarching themes surrounding identity, culture, and the biases and assumptions germane to contemporary dance, they essentially threw a big party to kick off the season, backed by DJ Man-O-Wax fiercely spinning vinyl upstage.

What the back half of the audience soon came to find out, is that this first public event of the Bates Dance Festival (BDF) was, for the other half of the crowd, the end of their time in Lewiston, Maine. The Reminders, MaMa²and DJ Man-O-Wax were the penultimate event for youth enrolled in the Young Dancers Workshop (YDW), a three-week, pre-professional training program taking place each summer in conjunction with the performance season.

This year, the BDF schedule has been reorganized, condensing the presenting series over three weekends to overlap with the Professional Training Program (PTP), a series of intensives for college-aged and professional dancers. Hours before The Reminders hit the stage, YDW participants gave an informal showing for family and friends, and the night before, Sackett and her aforementioned friends led a hip-hop workshop and dance party as part of the festival’s Concerts on the Quad series (relocated, like the first BDF Beer Garden after Friday night’s show, to a covered terrace near the Bates College library due to rain).

The casual, outdoor venue was a wholly more natural atmosphere for such a thing, if you ask me, but that didn’t stop Friday’s guests from grooving to the infectiously joyful noise of The Reminders, who, at intervals, brought YDW dancers and other audience members, including an infant, a toddler and two other adorable kids, up on stage to jam with them.

From our seats, we became part of the show: standing up, shaking our hips, waving hands in the air, swaying, snapping, clapping and reciting words with them – like a rock concert with a bit more direction.

I don’t know why, but when I’m told to stand up and shake my hips, I almost always feel apprehensive. I, like a lot of people, I’m sure, struggle to abandon physical defenses and “let go.” In so doing, my actions probably counterintuitively draw more attention to me than if I were to join in – but an ear-to-ear smile and tiny bobbing of my knees to the beat of the song is enough to get by with, right?

I think people might interpret my hesitation as an unfortunate quality – something to be pitied, even – perhaps related to some level of insecurity, or a crippling lack of awareness or inhibition with my body, or an inability to really embrace what’s unfolding on stage.

That may be true for some, but for me, that’s not it at all.

Many choreographers and dancers talk of their desire to help “normal” people become “embodied,” as if to dance is to exist on some higher plane of kinesthetic awareness, self-knowledge or confidence (for some, it is; for some, it’s not). Artists who create immersive environments which require or encourage participation might view conventional theater spaces as relegating the audience a passive, uninvolved, detached entity, non-essential to the performance itself.

Is it fair to equate the above esoteric thought bubble to a couple of great musicians asking me to wave my hands in the air?

Heck, no. And to be clear, I personally felt safe and totally comfortable during this performance, and had a good time. (Furthermore, The Reminders shifted their approach when a comparatively subdued audience of Lewistonians and incoming PTP participants watching Sunday’s show were very clearly not going to be as exuberant as Friday’s audience).

But participation is something I’ve been thinking about within a larger discussion about audience expectations and consent, and it’s a theme that will arise throughout BDF this season.

The Reminders’ recommendations are tame compared to the demands of choreographers like Faye Driscoll, Yanira Castro or Haja Saranouffi, as three examples. And those choreographers are tame compared to artists who are really pushing participation to the edge.

It becomes even more complicated as festival directors and presenters realize that their audiences may not share the same values as their organizations. At least one, Pamela Tatge at Jacob’s Pillow, has publicly acknowledged this, which raises questions about what you can assume about your audience when you’ve evolved and they haven’t, and how much artists can therefore pressure their audiences into being vulnerable.

This is unfair, I suppose, when stadium tours and sports events aren’t given the same mandate. Maybe they should be. It’s impossible for the person who runs the “kiss cam” at hockey games to know whether they’re zooming in on an actual couple, or if cutting to commercial with a person wolfing down a hot dog at a ball game is how that spectator wants to be represented on TV. I’m not suggesting here that we eliminate or be offended by kiss cams or showing people eating hot dogs, or even inviting audience members on stage. Rather, I think I’m pointing out that permission is a thing, and this is a trickier subject that some artists might think.

As a not-so-serious example, I’ve watched Ohad Naharin’s “Minus 16” about a dozen times, mainly performed by Hubbard Street Dance Chicago. One of those times was last summer in Mexico City at the Danzatlan Festival, where a language barrier contributed to the most memorable viewing to-date. In the famous “Dean Martin” section, when the whole company falls down and leaves a lone audience member standing at center-center, she followed visual cues from her partner and laid down, spread-eagle, with the rest of the dancers.

Now, a more serious example: Watching Gauthier Dance perform the same piece a few months ago at the Harris Theater, one of the volunteers tripped and face-planted, belly flopping on the stage. She was fine (and an amazingly good sport), but there are so many what-ifs that went on in my brain when that happened. What if she’d been hurt? Dance doesn’t have “injury time-outs;” must the show go on if she’d busted her knee or blacked out? What does the process for picking volunteers look like? Could those volunteers be asked ahead of time, before the show? Would that create more inclusivity, allowing people with disabilities, people who’d love to do it with a little mental preparation, or even just the people in the middle of a row, to be considered? Picking “plants” from the audience – like, for example, what happens in Cirque du Soleil’s “O” when they strap an “audience member” to a harness and launch him 125 feet above the stage – would be inherently safer and more controlled in every regard. But it’s also contrived, quashing the beautiful variability and spontaneity that results from audience members (and the performers!) not exactly knowing what will happen – even when you’ve seen it a dozen times.

In an informal showing last week in the Shaeffer Theatre, the audience was given more than one trigger warning about nudity in the second of a trio of works in progress. By contrast, the third piece, during which the performers strongly recommended sitting in a circle on stage (though there was not enough room for everyone), showed what I considered to be images more triggering than naked bodies, and didn’t offer any disclaimers in advance. I’m not sure what the right approach is, but it’s important to consider the optics.

The most negative experience I’ve had at a dance show was within a supposedly inclusive environment. It was a burlesque cabaret which touts platitudes of queer positivity, body positivity and sex positivity, but made very clear that those who couldn’t let go of personal inhibitions toward participation were not welcome. I left at intermission.

Large, institutional dance companies and venues are, in increasing numbers, offering relaxed or sensory-friendly performances, creating an inclusive environment for individuals and families who are not able to, or are uncomfortable with remaining still and quiet in the dark for several hours. The house lights are dimmed, there’s no “shushing” allowed, and people are permitted to move around or go in and out of the theater as needed. Many experimental artists whose work hinges on participation do not seem to be picking up the other side of the issue by accepting that some audience members might need, or simply prefer to sit and watch. This is obviously a generalization; in my city alone, I can immediately offer Dropshift Dance, Zephyr Dance and Khecari as exceptions – three companies who play with audience interaction and almost always take meticulous care of the people in the room.

Art does not exist in a vacuum. Artists should seek to embrace everyone, or at least, manage the audience’s expectations. I don’t do conga lines. I don’t do mosh pits. I don’t want to wave my hands in the air, and I don’t enjoy getting up on stage during someone else’s performance. Nobody has the right to question this or ask why.

But I also love watching others who, with no hesitation, join in, and it doesn’t make me feel awkward to not be one of them. Seeing those YDW dancers oozing with joy, confidence and kinship for each other, dancing in the aisles and on stage as The Reminders’ lyrics drooled with positivity and love, I couldn’t help but stand up, smile and bob my knees to the beat, just a little.

I’m grateful to the Bates Dance Festival for creating spaces – digital and physical – for audience members and others to engage, not only with the work happening on stage but with these broader topics, too. I hope you will join me at one of the remaining Inside Dance events, in addition to all the festival performances, to discuss and digest the artists and subjects presented at BDF.

Image by Jonathan Hsu

This weekend is a celebration. The 35^th Anniversary Gala brings together artists who have been integral to the festival’s trajectory, replenishing and reinventing the spirit of BDF summer after summer. The celebration centers on the pillars of BDF, Marcy Plavin and Laura Faure, the two women responsible for nurturing the festival into what it is today. These indomitable women pioneered a community bonded by a love for movement and a commitment to cherish the individual, together. To Marcy Plavin, the founder of the festival 35 years ago, we say goodbye, we lovingly reminisce. To Laura Faure, the director of the festival for the past 30 years, who we lovingly celebrate, we say good luck. To both, we extend our deepest gratitude in the best way we know how: moving together.

Image by Jonathan Hsu

It feels only right that Bebe Miller returns once again to the festival, as she is the artist Laura first brought thirty years ago. This weekend she performs “In A Rhythm,” an excerpt from a new work in process. Miller and longtime collaborator Angie Hauser come together for an intricately woven improvisatory duet that reads like a conversation. The two women navigate a relationship rooted in language and physicality, juggling who is speaking and who is moving with care and reactivity. Their presence is consuming, their focus palpable. They are firecrackers, astutely perceptive to each other and the audience, continually nourishing the experience of making and doing with the experience of being watched. It is a sophisticated game of freeze dance, one with malleable rules and a buoyant sound score. The tone of reactivity is set from the beginning, when the two women are revealed onstage, both listening to the same device. The audience cannot hear, only the performers can. We are privy to this mystery only when they speak, Bebe and Angie, when they are awoken from their own listening, speaking phrases one can only assume have just been placed in their ear. The duet, although from a new work, is heavy with history, performed from a deep place of knowing, making the unknowing so satisfying.

Image by Jonathan Hsu

A Maine native, Riley Watts makes his festival premiere alongside longtime festival musician, Carl Landa. “Tonight’s Pattern” comes and goes in a flicker, ever-shifting and constantly renegotiating. It is an improvisation reliant entirely on memory and the present moment, emphasizing surprise, recognizing the sensation of being watched, and remembering the night before. Watts responds to the moment, constantly folding in on himself, never collapsing but expanding outward. It is a stream of consciousness, a deeply inquisitive investigation of dance thinking rubbing up against performative circumstance, demonstrating a technical prowess and an agility of thought. Through his physicality, you recognize the power of his mind. Watts expands into a superhuman and flashes into a firefly, redefining the trajectory of his solo, entirely contingent on this stage and this night. It is in the doing that the idea comes. The first move starts a journey, a spiraling and paradoxical train of thought that can only be resolved through the body. Circumstantially intuitive and technically stunning, “Tonight’s Pattern” is all consuming; inescapable and fully intangible.

Image by Jonathan Hsu

The rest of the program is characterized by thought, play, and investigation. Larry Keigwin opens the show with a playful solo to lively music that invigorates the space. Patrik Widrig’s “…And Still Doing…” is dominated by a sense of urgency in physical intent accompanied by a strategic perplexity in spoken word. In “Dr. Pearson’s Guide to Loss and Fear” Sara Pearson sketches an autobiographical narrative emphasizing didactic textual impetus in a rooted bed of movement sensibility. She loses track and tracks her loss, her fear. Tania Isaac’s words vibrate through the theatre and white crumples hang from the ceiling as she navigates the space below, excavating herself between her words and her movement. Doug Varone’s poignant duet with Natalie Desch illuminates the facets of a deeply personal relationship. The evening closes with a group work created by Michael Foley on students of the festival, an intricate weaving of partnering and sensibility, a love letter to his mentor Marcy Plavin and friend Laura Faure.

Image by Jonathan Hsu

This show is full of love; love for dance and for this community. This incredible lineup of artists has come together to celebrate and honor this incredible world that has been created at the Bates Dance Festival. An evening of opulent and evocative work, these artists bring with them a history deeply influenced by the festival, by the two women who stand as pillars. Before, during, and after the show, we find ourselves returning to sentiments of gratitude. These sentiments live deeply within us, they always have; sentiments we sprinkle through the movement of our lives, reinvigorating the spirit of the Bates Dance Festival everywhere we go. For that, we have Marcy and Laura to thank.

This post was written by Phoebe Ballard. Phoebe is the BDF social media intern for the 2017 summer. 

Image by Jonathan Hsu

Within the first seven days of the Professional Training Program participants had seen two shows in the Schaeffer Theatre, had taken up to twenty dance classes, learned more about zoe|juniper in a show and tell event, participated in massage workshops, master classes, and panel discussions, auditioned for Michael Foley’s gala piece, jammed at the Contact Improvisation jam held by Nancy Stark Smith, and even hung out at the annual “Pants Party,” held by Melody Eggen.

Our daily classes, ranging from modern to ballet to creative process to Caribbean Dance Hall, have been lively and fun. Teachers strive to amplify community, which again and again proves to be a simple task, as students continually step foot in the classroom with that goal in mind. Openness and a willingness to try new things are staples of each classroom, a bolded point on the mutually-agreed-upon-but-never-handed-out syllabus. It is hot and it is sweaty, each space alive with the energy and heat generated in the class before. We are testing boundaries, redefining bravery, and emboldening each other, leaving a deep but fulfilling soreness in our bones, a soreness that makes it hard to sit down at dinner but a soreness that is the driving force bringing us back to class each day reinvigorated and reenergized.

Image by Jonathan Hsu

Contact builds community, and in this community, physical contact is key. Nancy Stark Smith led a masterful contact jam in Alumni Gym on Wednesday, which will be complimented by a follow up jam this coming Wednesday. At 7:30, participants filled the gym with their energy, and the rules of the space were established. No photos or videos, feel free to take it slow, invest deeply in your partner and the improvisation, you can dance or watch as much as you’d like, and, most importantly, no talking. Voices were absent from the space, amplifying the movement and making the room not quiet and not loud, but very full. Risk taking and human connection were primary, each participant navigating new bodies in a sea of support, both on the marley and off.

Image by Jonathan Hsu

The traditions begin to reveal themselves during the first week of PTP, taking the form of bonus workshops, panel discussions, lunchtime conversations, and, a true festival favorite, the “Pants Party”. Melody Eggen, our resident costume designer, brings a collection of wide-legged, loose, patterned pants, shirts, and jumpers, a tradition that has begun a festival-recognized-but-once-again-unspoken-dress code for BDF dancers and faculty. Gathering together in the living room of Frye House, people pick through, try on, and purchase brightly colored patterned pants that sprinkle Bates campus, bringing the spirit and magic of the festival into the dining hall, the quad, and the town of Lewiston. Melody’s creations live in the BDF Store for the remainder of the festival, so if you missed the party, be sure to head over.

The past week was full and set the tone for a great two weeks to come. This week, we have a flood of artists and alumni returning for the 35^th Anniversary Gala, which honors the legacy of both Marcy Plavin and Laura Faure and highlights and celebrates the eclectic and extensive history of the festival. The Musicians’ Concert takes place Monday night and each evening this week holds various activities sure to leave participants fulfilled (and slightly exhausted, but that’s exactly what’s expected).

This post was written by Phoebe Ballard. Phoebe is the BDF social media intern for the 2017 summer.

Scofield’s choreography is heavily influenced by her ballet training, upholding the technical prowess necessary to accomplish such feats, but breaking down the elements to find rhythmic and physical variance. Scofield’s visionary choreographic choices enrapture the space, sending dancers spiraling in very intentional paths coming into contact with one another only to find themselves alone shortly after. Trust is emphasized, blindfolds are worn, community is encouraged. It is rigorous and precise, provoking thoughtful inquiries and deeper thinking, a moving picture of brain, body, and being.

The movement is just one element of this performative expedition, wholly important yet only a piece. Juniper Shuey’s visual design gives a notion of roundness, centralizing the dancers and giving them boundless space within the performance area, allowing them to be fully and uniquely seen. A circular band of strings dangle magnificently from the ceiling, and beneath it, a warm ring imprints the floor – making these disconnected entities one – as if the band of strings had left this imprint, or the strings had risen from it. Shuey’s work hones in on center, centralizing and dispelling energy to the space and the borders, etching this memory within it, a space filled with dancers and audience members alike.

Washing over and padding the theatre, the work becomes even more enriched with aural movement and transposition. The sound for the work comes from traditions of Sacred Harp Singing, as does much of the inspiration for the work itself. The singing is live and allows audiences the opportunity to participate, mirroring the traditions of Sacred Harp Singing – in which it is not a performative act, but a ritual of participation. Local Maine singers and recorded sounds become atmospheric and resonate differently with each audience member, dependent entirely on their seat. It is rich and provocative. This, layered with Evan Anderson’s new compositions, heavily influenced by the elements of death metal, support the work, creating yet another unique and necessary entry point in.

“Clear and Sweet” provides each viewer with a unique experience from their particular angle. It feels like a hollow abstraction teeming with life. The choreographic, visual, and sonic elements come together to create a unique experience, one that examines ritual, redemption, and community, while highlighting and providing shifting points of perspective. It allows audiences the opportunity to be alone, together; filling a porous container that is constantly collapsing in and expanding out.

This post was written by Phoebe Ballard. Phoebe is the BDF Social Media intern for the 2017 summer. All images by Jonathan Hsu.

Image by Jonathan Hsu

“Aroundtown” is alive, constantly shifting, collectively together. It leaves a pit in your stomach, a yearning for more, a desire to go there, to do that. Grandiose movement phrases and daring feats of physical stamina mirror the sweeping tone of the work, finding beauty and intimacy in the mundane, determining and defining a sublime way of existing in the world. The music, new compositions by Liz de Lise, Sam Crawford, Zeb Gould, and Jeff Hudgins, are performed live and add yet another layer of robustly evocative humanity to this rich world. The process, which has spanned over two years, has been a constant practice of sorting through and seeing. This work, which is responsive to the current moment, thrives on a constant questioning of what the most important residue is, both within the company and within the world. The result is sensical and familiar, but all at once nonsensical and abandoned, presenting an honest exactness that is subject to change at any given moment.

Six dancers comprise the cast, the community. We see Kendra and Simon, Nik and Aya, Jordan and Jasmine. The work is contingent on them. We see these people, their whole being, not just their dancing body. Through the act of dancing they not only show themselves fully, they become themselves fully. The beauty comes with the togetherness of the dancers actively listening in the present moment, deeply sensing each other as humans above all else. Language is welcomed and necessary in this world, giving time and space to establish ideas and let them settle. Not just moving bodies, each dancer approaches the work from a deep place of truth, bringing with them their past and allowing it to mold their present. They support each other profoundly, sincerely, earnestly. Physical feats coupled with an unabashed outpouring of emotion create an emphatic world, wholly familiar and unfamiliar, sculpting a standard we, audience members and performers alike, relate to and strive for.

Image by Jonathan Hsu

The sense of community is palpable, a commonality in Dorfman’s work that is heavily amplified in “Aroundtown”. Impulsiveness stokes the dance, igniting performers and bringing them together, risking it all, physically and emotionally, individually as an entity. Touch is not just functional, it is an imprint left on each body, brought there physically and leaving a residue deeply infused with emotion. It is tender and it is human, it is all the things we cannot be alone. The work is constantly testing love and asking it to be real, not as a monumental or abstract idea, but as a glorious reality. “Aroundtown” functions as a real town, an enlivened community, the performers odd and model citizens. It is a thing everyone knows and recognizes; a folk dance we are all a part of and have different roles in.

This work is an astonishing and beautiful feat of humanity. “Aroundtown” is an alchemy of movement and language, calling upon familiarities evident in society to craft a world beautifully specific and universally recognized, held preciously in the bodies and spirits of the movers and in the hearts of the audience. It is something they (and we) do not get to realize unless we are together, and that doesn’t always mean in unison.

This post was written by Phoebe Ballard. Phoebe is the BDF social media intern for the 2017 summer. Special thanks to Kendra Portier and Simon Thomas-Train for their insightful words. 

Lida Winfield’s work, “In Search of Air,” has been performed across the U.S. over the past six years. This improvisational solo work falls within a tight structure with a set text, but still feels very much alive and malleable, as it shifts slightly with each performance, keeping the audience and Winfield curious and engaged. An embodied account of Winfield’s experience with dyslexia, “In Search of Air” recounts her journey and struggle, questioning and laying out how it happened that she did not learn to read until she was an adult. This work is a stark window into the educational system, a look at shame, and a heart-wrenching picture of humanity.

An artist and educator based out of Vermont, Winfield is a storyteller who uses words, movement, and performance. Throughout her creative process in relation to this work, she realized she could craft stories in her head without paper, saying them out loud in the woods, the shower, and the car, places she could talk out loud without feeling crazy. The stories were cemented in pacing, tone, volume, and emotion, and with each word, evocative movement ideas and qualities became apparent. The result is “In Search of Air,” a story that establishes dance as a lifeline, colored through the voice and body of a powerful artist; a vulnerable act not to be missed.

Following intermission, Betsy Miller and Matthew Cumbie take on whimsy in their duet, “The (still perfectly fine) Adventures of Unicorn Hair and Dragon Heartstring”. Miller, BDF’s current box office associate and house manager, has been a member of the BDF family for almost twelve years, and Cumbie, for five. Five years ago, the two came together to embark on their first process; which began here at the festival. It felt like the beginning, and in 2016, the two had the opportunity to return to the process to create this new work, building upon what was started five years ago at the Bates Dance Festival. Now, at very different points in their lives, they are returning; returning to a process and a relationship with a strong and enlivened residue that is still very much alive in their bodies and memories. The dichotomy of the two – the present and the memory – are put together in this duet, resulting in a lively investigation of their relationship, their selves, and how they interact with the world around them.

The whimsy of this duet lives in the performance, the props, and the artists, a performance reminiscent of the process. Wildly playful, Miller and Cumbie give themselves permission to be their most authentic selves, a rare practice which, in this case, is integral. The act of making is central to the work: the histories, the eccentricities, the returning. Returning to their childhoods, their relationship, and the place where it all began. The piece comes to life inside this. The “what if’s” which often live only in the studio, are part of the performative score, creating an experience rooted in fantasy and openness for performers and audiences alike. “The (still perfectly fine) Adventures of Unicorn Hair and Dragon Heartstring” conquers and cultivates ideals of openness and vulnerability, establishing standards of how we all should strive to exist in this world: together, with a touch of whimsy.

This performance is not to be missed, a gathering of artists vulnerably presenting original, complex, and imaginative work. This program runs only on Friday, July 7, at 7:30pm in the Schaeffer Theater, and promises to delight, entertain, and remind audiences of the reality of humanity and the art of existing in this world. We kick off our 2017 Performance Season with Lida Winfield, Betsy Miller, and Matthew Cumbie. We welcome you into this world.

This post was written by Phoebe Ballard. Phoebe is the social media intern for the 2017 summer. 

What has been unexpected in your time here so far at YDW?

Sophia: The most unexpected thing has been this environment we exist in; it is so unique and so special. Everyone in the environment is so respectful and so supportive of each other; everyone is celebrating everyone else’s successes. I am trying new things and progressing in every mode. There is such a focus on growing as a human being and not just growing as a dancer, and that has been really wonderful for me.

Lihle: Everything was so unexpected to me because I am not used to four classes a day. I usually do one and that is it. It is physically and intellectually draining, but really good.

Nyna: Just being here is really unexpected for me, I wasn’t sure I would be able to come, but I am so grateful I got to come. I feel like I’m really improving and learning as a person and it is a lot of information but I am really grateful.

Zaria: It has been a really eye-opening experience for me, I am very used to a traditional approach to dance and this has challenged me to see dance from so many different angles and perspectives. Who knew that just walking and using nonverbal communication could be so powerful, even more powerful than words. That with this intimate sense of community gives me a new perspective on dance. You don’t always have to do big tricks, it’s about moving with passion and conviction.

What is something a teacher has said that has stuck with you or resonated with you?

Sophia: Everything Lida says. I just want her to be my life coach. The two things that I really like are: “don’t apologize for taking up space,” and, “if the dance is boring it is your responsibility to change it”. It is all about having accountability for what you’re doing.

Nyna: Something Dante said really resonated with me when we were working on the solo piece in rep. He told me to dance for myself and not try and imitate other people. He told me I didn’t have to do what I thought other people would think was right, but to do what I thought was right.

Lihle: All the teachers are very encouraging, which makes me want to do my best and keep trying even when I am exhausted.

Zaria: Another thing Lida says in her class is “you have nowhere else to be but here”. I realized that I am always thinking ahead, but when she says that, it reminds me to be present in the moment and give 100% to this moment because we can’t know what’s next. This is our life right now.

Aside from the dancing, what is your favorite thing about being here?

Nyna: Getting soaked twice in a monsoon on our way to the improv jam.

Sophia: Generally at summer programs I’ve been at, the counselors are just there for liability. But here, I feel like they are making such an impact on all of us. It is so cool to have role models like them to look up to and get to be close with. I think that is really special about this program.

Zaria: I think all the leaders that are here are always encouraging and want to see you succeed. They want to help your abilities and are always pushing you to try harder, but the whole time they are right there next to you.

Lihle: It is really fun with the counselors and the teachers. Being here for me is really special. Yeah, it’s just really special.

What is one thing you are seeking or working on?

Sophia: It was kind of by chance that I ended up here. I’m very interested in modern but do a lot of ballet at home. I am looking for the grounding modern dance brings, and I have realized all the different outlets for dance. Laura has said a couple of times, “dance is a vehicle to change the world” and I think that is so cool. Coming away from this, I have a goal of using my dancing to make an impact in some way.

Lihle: One of the big reasons I am here is because I want to make a change. Where I come from, people can be so judge-y. They think ballet is just for white people, just for gay people. I am here to start making changes. It is my dream to become a professional dancer here.

Nyna: Before I came to Bates, I was considering quitting dancing because I felt kind of stuck, but once I got here, my mind started to change. I think I’m going to keep up with it. It’s hard, but I want to stick with it.

Zaria: One of my goals is to reach outside my comfort zone while I’m here, exploring new styles and stretching my abilities and myself and really just learning as much as I can. Observing all these professionals in these classes will really help me in my future career because I think I eventually want to teach and learning from them will really help me.

Anything else you want to add?

Bates is great.

It’s amazing.

It’s unlike any other program I’ve been at, in a good way.

This post was written by Phoebe Ballard. Phoebe Ballard is the Social Media Intern for the 2017 summer.