Continuing our “Behind the Scenes” series, we recently spoke with Liz Lerman, Founding Artistic Director of the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange, and choreographer Keith Thompson about their upcoming performance, audience engagement, and the state of DC’s dance community.
vDC: Give us some insight into what we’ll be seeing from you at VelocityDC. I hear that you’ll be performing “Blueprints of Relentless Nature”.
LL: Well, I can give you my point of view about that as an outsider and then Keith can give you an insider’s point of view. It’s very physically driven, not necessarily fast but hard paced. It’s relentless in that regard although Keith gives them moments of pause. The dancers are close in on one another and it’s really kind of risky.
The piece was originally commissioned for a sustainability conference in Houston and I think that Keith’s response to the commission is interesting from his own perspective, but the fact that it was first seen as a question about sustainability and a question of how the dancers sustain themselves to get through the piece is a nifty subject
KT: I responded to the question about sustainability because this was my first commission through the Dance Exchange and I wanted to broach new territory. My main interest is usually in pure movement invention – I like to say that I like dance to stand on its own, undressed. It should be able to be seen without fancy lights and sets.
In this case, I got interested in this idea about sustainability which lead me to the concept of relentlessness and resilience in nature and how we as dancers and humans are connected to nature in many ways.
LL: Keith, at one point when you were talking about this you said that you were thinking about how geologic plates are arranged underneath. It looks like one thing above ground, but underground these things are smashing into each another and that idea of resilience is just so cool because, of course, resilience is about how we absorb these shocks.
KT: Right. That was another big thought I was thinking of.
vDC: Well, you know, that’s very interesting. I’ve heard the piece described as “extremely physically challenging” and “high velocity”. What a great way to preface what we’ll be seeing, especially for those of us who will be attending with limited experience with contemporary dance!
LL: I think that’s great and, again, Keith’s piece is an interesting in that regard. You can watch the piece just because it’s physical or you can watch the piece you think about nature and relentlessness, but you can also just watch the individual dancers in the piece and how they handle the problem that Keith has given them – the personal level of the dancing. The dancers in the piece are terrific . It’s just interesting.
I often think that dance audiences, especially people who are new to dance just don’t know that they can weave between those things; they can go back and forth.
KT: Yeah, they don’t have to necessary build a story with a throughline but they can connect to the movement and dance just from a human sensibility and I think that’s what this piece draws from the audience. They see these dancers trying to fulfill all these almost impossible tasks to keep going on and on. You hear them breathing and they’re sweating and it’s kind of like the audience turns into a cheerleader in a way. You want to stick with them to the end, so it’s pretty exciting!
vDC: This is an excellent place to transition into discussing artistic philosophy from the perspective of what the Dance Exchange’s philosophy is and how that works with Keith’s vision. Tell us about that.
LL: Well, I think one reason the Dance Exchange is called the Dance Exchange is because when I founded the organization, at that time there were certain ideas that were really important in dance and then I had my own ideas, too. I knew that I didn’t want a place with just one idea behind it; I wanted a place where ideas could be shared, exchanged, and messed with. I grew up in a world where if you studied ballet, you never studied modern. If you did this, then you never did that. That was my background, so it was very radical at the time!
What fulfilled that for me over a long period of time – because you know we are almost thirty –five years old now- is the “fresh blood”, the fresh people that come in. Keith has an incredible pedigree and background and we are thirsty for what he knows. This is just the first of what I hope will be many works that he will be able to play from and it’s already affected the dancers incredibly.
KT: Like Liz was saying, my background is very varied and a lot of it is from the post-modern world. I danced for Trisha Brown for ten years and when I decided to leave and delve into my own work, I wanted to identify myself differently and what makes me different, I feel, is the idea that I like to create movement invention from a human aspect. I like the dancers to be seen as humans , not as machines or technicians so that you are able to connect with their humanity through the movement. They are not just bodies moving through space and I try to keep achieving that through everything that I do.
vDC: In terms of thinking about audience engagement, how does that issue they fit in when you are creating a new piece, especially for an audience that hasn’t been exposed to contemporary forms of dance?
LL: Keith, I think that you do this through music. I feel like you use sound to give people an environment that they can easily enter in to.
I also think that anything counts as possible movement. Now when people look at what Keith has made, they are going to see movement and some of it is going to seem like a video camera running really fast. It’s just the things human beings do! (laughs)
I do think that shows like “So You Think You Can Dance” are really helping people get over this “I don’t get it” thing. I don’t know why people need to feel like they have to “get it”. The other thing is that I want people to be like they are when they go to the movies. Nobody says, “Gee, I’m not a moviemaker. I’m not sure that I have the right to say something here.” People are totally opinionated and that’s what we want from our audience.
KT: Exactly. Whatever they’re feeling, whatever they’re thinking, whatever they’re seeing that’s what I want them to see. I don’t want to hit them over the head with it. I actually want them to experience something that I probably don’t even experience when I see the dance. So I’m trying to give them a kinetic palette to work with. That’s what I think about a lot. I want to challenge them and I also want them to be creative in their viewing as well.
vDC: Give us your insight on the direction and relative growth of the dance community in Washington. Liz, given that you’ve been in the area for so many years what are the current challenges and what are you excited about?
LL: I do want to say that the VelocityDC Festival is fantastic and I’m really happy to see WPAS and others doing that. It’s so good.
What I think has changed tremendously is how much dance we have from other cultures, how much of that is going on and how great is that. It’s wonderful. There is also a lot more dance happening around the city, not just in the city. You have these wonderful dance centers occupying the close-in and the far-out suburbs which means that the level of participation is great. We have a range of artists. A lot of people who have companies now in Washington are people who came through the Dance Exchange – Gesel , Adrian, Dana – I mean all kinds of people and they chose to stay which is really great. You just get more going on.
We need Keith here because besides being a great choreographer, he is also a great teacher. I don’t mean to put down anything or anyone because I think anyone who is teaching is doing God’s work, but Keith knows things that the professional dancers need. I’m not talking about the general public here, I’m talking about the professional dancers. He danced with Trisha Brown for ten years and has a history that we don’t have in this city.
vDC: Keith, what are your thoughts?
KT: I have a lot to live up to here! (laughs)
LL: You will, you will! (laughs)
vDC: How long have you been affiliated with the Dance Exchange, Keith?
KT: It’s been a year and a half now, March 2008 was when I first became part of the process. Prior to that I actually lived in DC for one year, but I worked out at George Mason as faculty. The little bit that I did see of the dance scene, I felt that it had begun to grow in multiple ways. There is a lot more cross collaboration of work going on instead of just ballet, just modern, or just contemporary. There is even a lot of cross collaboration across artistic genres, like dance theatre which is exciting to see.
vDC: One of the things that we’ve heard is that there is a marked concern about the recession and its potential to change the face of the dance community. What are your thoughts about that and what are some ways we can make it through this period?
LL: The recession has been brutal. In the case of dance companies, what we consider earned income – when we go touring and they pay us – that money is contributed on their end. It’s earned for us, but they had to raise that money to bring us. So, the fact that foundations and individual giving in arts have fallen in the way they have effects a company like the Dance Exchange on multiple levels. It’s not just our own capacity to find donors; it affects people that we work with around the country and around the world. We had partnerships in Japan and Ireland all calling and saying,” We can’t continue right this now. We’ll continue it later.” Everybody wants to get back to it, but right now it’s been really hard on all the partnering.
On the other hand, I always say – and I’m sure Keith feels this way, too – that we’ll stop when we decide to stop not because someone else says, “You should stop. There’s no money there.” That has never stopped us. Never. And so you tighten up again and look at the numbers again.
vDC: Keith, any thoughts?
KT: I think the newest model right now is partnership. I think a lot of new companies are trying to partner together to support each other’s work because one company may have a bit more stability, or to bring on other companies to also show their work, or b y giving choreographers access to additional resources like dancers.
vDC: With this issue in mind, how can DC become an even better place for artists to work given that it generally is known more for its politics than its thriving arts scene especially when contrasted against other art centers like San Francisco and New York?
LL: When I started out I actually thought it was an advantage that we were known for our politics and not our art because I felt that the public was really smart, but not necessarily smart about the latest artistic trends. I felt that that meant that I could count on really smart audiences but not feel oppressed by whatever style was “in” or “not in”. So in my beginning periods, I actually appreciated that there was an odd openness about it.
The part that I don’t appreciate is that I don’t think that the city knows how to celebrate what’s here. When we toured the second biggest town in Denmark, there are 76 theaters companies in that town and that sentence lead off every absolutely single brochure or anything you ever saw about that city.
Here, you wouldn’t know about theater and dance in the city until you go down twenty or thirty paragraphs and find that we have a thriving arts scene. Part of it is the nature of who gets to talk and who do we listen to.
I think the theatre community has done a really good job at making everyone more aware of its existence. Another thing about that is that there is a deep appreciation in theater companies for multiple types of theater and multiple generations of leadership. I don’t think we’ve quite build that in the dance world in the same way. You need the big and the small, the old and the young. You need all of that going; you don’t just want to support one end of it because that doesn’t get the job done.
KT: I totally agree with Liz. I think DC is the nation’s capitol and it needs to lead or at least strive to lead as the nation’s arts capitol. We have the best people in politics here and we also want to celebrate and embrace the best artistic voices here as well. It’s not just New York, it’s not just Philadelphia, it’s not just San Francisco or wherever. I think it’s just about pushing what’s already here and embracing that.
Keith Thompson and Dance Exchange will be performing on Saturday, October 3rd at 7:30pm
Want to see them live at Harman Hall? Don’t miss out – Get your tickets now!
