How do you define queer? Does failure drive your work?
Keith Hennessy defines queer in many different ways…how do you define queer? Queer is the possibility of a river not a lake, mutable, with temporary pockets of stillness and rage. A multiplicity of velocities and viscosities, co-existing, influencing and remaining singular at the same time. A telescoping vision that manifests a 1000-fold prism (and then destroys it). A practice in endless questioning and uncertainty. Does failure...
How does the idea of failure relate to your artistic process?
How does the idea of failure relate to your artistic process? No experience did more to develop my theatrical ability than studying clown theatre with George Lewis at Freehold Theatre. The Clown lives in the moment of failure, makes discoveries in moments of failure, cuts the shit and opens up to reveal the true self in failure and connects sincerely with the audience in those moments of...
HooP
A whole football field of queer people, hula hooping in formation, moving in unison, individuals involved in a mass action together. This was my initial vision for this project. Early video art in the 1960’s was often used to document political events, ephemeral moments, and transient communities. New technology had turned its lens against mainstream media, and made room at the dinner table for alternate voices. What...
RE-POST: FRONT (pdx)
The following content originally appeared in FRONT, an amazing Portland newspaper devoted to sharing dialog from the contemporary dance world. Many thanks to Robert Tyree, Kaj-anne Pepper and Feyonce/Wayne Bund for allowing STANCE to share what you’ve been up to. We were excited to see the intersections of interest in exploring queerness, process and performance. Link to the must read publication here http://frontpaper.tumblr.com/ // FRONT -> KAJ-ANNE...
How do the words queer and failure relate to your process?
My queer body began in my arms, hands and wrists. I wouldn’t have called it “queer” when I was younger; I’d have called it “real” or “strong” or something less “gay.” It was only earlier this year—at a PICA symposium framing Keith Hennessy and A.L. Steiner’s work—that I could embrace a queer body culture. Club dancing was my first love. I haven’t been driven so much by...
Economy with Intent
I consider doing things with intent an important marker of queer identity. As a community, artists and queers of conscience generally strive to create things like art and community with intent. To me, “with intent” means we try to check our privilege, exploring the impact or potential impact of what we create on our community and the world. We think critically about our ideas and practices, what...
Topography
FROM THE ARTIST: I am an artist who reveres the tactility of objects and the ephemeral nature of performance. Through the use of garment, sculpture, video and performance, I create a world where another logic and another set of rules can take over in order to re-imagine feminine longing and desire. I evoke the uncanny or fairy tale as a means towards reinterpretation of the female body...
Questions inspired by Turbulence
STANCE asked Vanessa if she’d be willing to share some of the questions and responses Keith Hennessy and Circo Zero’s performance Turbulence: A dance about the economy and the Velocity Speakeasy talk THE ART OF POLITICS + THE POLITICS OF QUEER brought up for her regarding her own process as an artist, performer and artist supporter: If the premise is one of participation, then what is an...
How does the idea of failure relate to your artistic process?
An economy wrung dry, mixed with whiskey-soaked nights, stolen bikes, bad art shows and expensive health insurance: I began to learn what it was to fail. Crashing is hard. The crash was hard. But wishing wells spring up sometimes through cracks in the pavement, and we are born anew. I didn’t really understand the crash of 2008 until I graduated the following year. I’d never been...
Does failure drive your work? Does dissatisfaction?
If you are writing about failure and dissatisfaction, make sure you include Martha Graham’s famous quote about “divine dissatisfaction”: “There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and...
Julyen Hamilton and Angelina Baldoz
STANCE welcomes Beth Graczyk’s artist2artist to our INTERVIEWS page. The most recent artist2artist podcast features dance improviser and Seattle Festival of Dance Improvisation teaching artist Julyen Hamilton in conversation with composer Angelina Baldoz. This podcast was recorded August 3rd, 2012 in Steward studio at Velocity Dance Center, Seattle, WA. artist2artist is a podcast of conversations that source dance and dance making. These conversations are between artists engaged...
Q+A: Mary Margaret Moore
Mary Margaret Moore, one of the main mind’s behind STANCE, answers a few questions about the creation of the journal and why we want to talk about dance, performance and the possibility of levitation. What started STANCE? A conversation, a group of people, an idea, a dream, a combination of these things? Oh yes, a combination of all these things. When I arrived in Seattle in...