Happy Monday Framers!

We hope your week has started on the right foot, but either way this post from Sue Roginski will have you reflecting and reveling in whatever the week has in store for you. MFA Monday features reflections from Master of Fine Arts holders and Sue is a standout among the masters! 

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Part 2 of 3

MFA dance programs bring teachers/professors/mentors rich with information, creative talent of course, experience, and support. These important individuals are more than a pleasant perk and can offer serious guidance (beyond school-real life stuff included) at times in a challenging program.

Once you finish graduate school and become a “master”, the re-entrance to the art/dance/performance/teaching/professional world can get very lonely.

Shyness

(note to self…don’t be shy)

I think one of the most difficult things for me in graduate school was the fact that I had a hard time, and I mean a really hard time putting any kind of work: be it written-chorographic-fragmented ideas or investigations “out there” for feedback. Sharing creative stuff can wreak havoc on the sense-of-the-artist-self.

I’ve had many a conversation with grad school friends (pre and post) regarding the vulnerability that is felt when sharing choreography or just putting work out into a public space/arena. Once it is out there it is immediately exposed to critique, praise, dialogue, exposure: in other words… it becomes a potential thing/entity for CRITICISM.

On Feedback

During the process of creating the MFA project my committee chair/professor and mentor Susan Rose reminded me that all individuals viewing rehearsals would have quite varied and different sets of feedback. I remember she said, “Try not to have everyone in the studio at the same time”. This was an interesting concept to me. Whispering to myself a thought: I actually could choose what feedback would work for the project. I did not have to absorb and utilize all of the notes that were offered to me? Susan reminded me to sift out what was necessary for the work. I could then insert that feedback into my own process.

Feedback

It can be intense and can feel like one of the riskiest compromises of self and to self-confidence.

Seek out feedback

In a year you will be out there on your own, so seek out mentors-teachers-professors during your grad school experience.

Experiment

Try something in your work and choreographic process you may not try otherwise. After all you are inside (where?) the safe walls of an academic institution.

This is the time to try something and fail.

Fail…I know that word is loaded with negative connotations, but graduate school is a space where those misses or failures can be discussed and analyzed and given some important time. The mentors love to be in on your process/project.

Luxury of time

Time goes by so quickly in this space: grad school place

My advice is to remain in contact with your mentors.

They will most definitely want to know what you are working on after graduate school.

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Sue Roginski graduated from Wesleyan University in 1987 with a BA in Dance and from the University of California Riverside in 2007 with an MFA in Dance (experimental choreography). She is a teacher, choreographer, and performer who has produced her own work as well as performances to benefit Project Inform, Breast Cancer Action, and Women’s Cancer Resource Center. In the past few years, Sue has had the opportunity to share choreography at Anatomy Riot (LA), Highways Performance Space (Santa Monica), Unknown Theater (LA), AB Miller High School (Fontana), Culver Center of the Arts (Riverside), Society of Dance History Scholars (conferences ’08 and ’09), The Haven Café and Gallery (Banning), Back to the Grind Coffee House (Riverside), Heritage High School (Romoland), KUNST-STOFF arts (SF), and Riverside Ballet Arts (Riverside). She also has been privileged to dance and perform with Susan Rose and Dancers since 2005. Sue teaches at Mt. San Jacinto College and Riverside City College and divides her time between Riverside and San Francisco where she had a ten year career as dancer and collaborator with the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company. Sue performs with Dandelion Dancetheater (Bay Area based ensemble) and Christy Funsch (SF dance artist) whenever possible, and in 2010 created P.L.A.C.E. Performance (a dance collective) with friend and colleague Julie Satow Freeman. Her ongoing creative process infuses choreography with improvisation.

I hope you’re having a wonderful, healthy week!!  

Yes, you’ve guessed it…another bite sized recipe for you today!!

Happy Monday Framers!

Another busy week and another fabulous MFA Monday series! This is the FIRST post of three by Sue Roginski, enjoy!

Sue Roginski graduated from Wesleyan University in 1987 with a BA in Dance and from the University of California Riverside in 2007 with an MFA in Dance (experimental choreography). She is a teacher, choreographer, and performer who has produced her own work as well as performances to benefit Project Inform, Breast Cancer Action, and Women’s Cancer Resource Center. In the past few years, Sue has had the opportunity to share choreography at Anatomy Riot (LA), Highways Performance Space (Santa Monica), Unknown Theater (LA), AB Miller High School (Fontana), Culver Center of the Arts (Riverside), Society of Dance History Scholars (conferences ’08 and ’09), The Haven Café and Gallery (Banning), Back to the Grind Coffee House (Riverside), Heritage High School (Romoland), KUNST-STOFF arts (SF), and Riverside Ballet Arts (Riverside). She also has been privileged to dance and perform with Susan Rose and Dancers since 2005. Sue teaches at Mt. San Jacinto College and Riverside City College and divides her time between Riverside and San Francisco where she had a ten year career as dancer and collaborator with the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company. Sue performs with Dandelion Dancetheater (Bay Area based ensemble) and Christy Funsch (SF dance artist) whenever possible, and in 2010 created P.L.A.C.E. Performance (a dance collective) with friend and colleague Julie Satow Freeman. Her ongoing creative process infuses choreography with improvisation.

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Part 1 of 3

At 40 I sent in my acceptance letter to the UC Riverside Department of Dance for the MFA in Experimental Choreography. I had been dancing in San Francisco for 17 years and was feeling the need for a change-shake-up-something new when I encountered an information session for UCR’s MFA/PHD program in SF.

the unknown 

It was a big deal to say the least to leave a community I was a part of for 17 years: a leap into the unknown. No worries about missing friends, community or city, graduate school sucked me in and under, and for two years I was immersed, overwhelmed, invigorated, challenged, inspired, overworked, and in desperate need of a comb or brush. Not that everyone does grad school the way that I did, but haircuts and daily moments of primping become a low priority when reading 300-500 pages a week become part of a dance experience. The program at UCR: “Critical Dance Studies” requires MFA students to take the PHD seminars. The four core classes blend cultural, historical, political and rhetorical “approaches” to the practice of making work as a choreographer. Rigorous in nature, theoretical and in depth, the program does not ask you to let go of everything you bring with you, but does require an open mind and sponge-like willingness to absorb what is covered.

the uncomfortable

In a week I was IN, and there was no turning back. The first PHD seminar had us reading Michel de Certeau and Foucault, and in the MFA studio course dancing representations, we considered the dances that needed “program notes” and HOW to proceed in the making of a dance without those.  “Representations” includes a series of choreographic studies. Create a gendered portrait. Such a good assignment, but the hard part of course was actually being exposed to performing a solo again, being watched, and the feeling of being under a microscope. You must be willing to put your self out there and at times embrace the failure. The class not only consists of receiving feedback after sharing the study, but offering thoughts in the moment after a colleague performs her/his study. Dance, respond, observe, articulate, think, move, create, absorb, share, expose, unearth, contribute – just scratches the surface of grad school tasks.

Graduate school seems to have many of those performing moments. In seminar imagine that you’ve done all of the readings, have a solid understanding of what was read, and can contribute articulately to the discussion in class. I cannot imagine that. That was never the case for me. I would have a hard time grasping the reading material and through seminar would think intensely about what I could add to the dialogue. During year one I couldn’t/didn’t speak. I wasn’t ready at the time, but didn’t realize that. I spent many moments in seminar trying to figure out what to say. It was debilitating. I almost forgot I had been OUT of school for some time at age 40. Everyone was so smart! I could have just practiced listening, being.

side thought

Graduate school is a ton of work condensed into a short amount of time, so there is a lot of doing and expectations always dancing alongside the doing.

process

As a dancer and performer, there is much emphasis placed on product, the performance, or the “show”. I feel as an artist there is ego involved so you want to be praised or complimented. It took me about a year to settle into the concept of process as the crux of an MFA rather than “performing”. Of course, show up, be in the moment, be present, but don’t over analyze what you are contributing each moment that you’ve just contributed something. Experiment and investigate AND hold onto a bit of you while you are moving outside of a comfort zone. After all it is you who got into the program.

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Stay tuned for more from Sue next Monday!

Hey Framers!

It’s Friday! It’s Friday! It’s Friday!

Whewwww it’s be a loooong week, but it’s finally the weekend! What better way to start than to peruse a few links we liked from this week??? Enjoy!

A beautiful series of photos in honor of 50 years of Texas Ballet Theatre. 

If you haven’t watched this great video of an afternoon with Frame composers, do it NOW!

 Get pumped for Ecouter coming June 28-29!!!

A great list of “Angel” startups – how many do you recognize?? See all the up-and-comers of data, electronics, cooking, education start-ups!

This will make you swoon from cuteness!!! An adorable 2 year old and his father perform “Don’t Let Me Down” by the Beatles.

A little random, but it made me smile because everyone is a dancer!

Long live Chicago the musical and its inspired dance numbers!!!

Have a Happy Weekend!

love

Frame

In case you’re not caught up with Frame’s newest weekly series, Thesis Thursday, you can catch up on the last two blog posts here. In a nutshell, this series features installments of my senior thesis written for Rice University’s Center for the Study of Women, Gender and Sexuality. It explores the topics of Contact Improvisation, Feminism, feminist performance art, and female empowerment through movement.

Here’s a re-cap of my initial post:

I will argue that CI is a complex feminist practice. The relationship CI has to feminism is complex because it is not inherently feminist, but enables women to have a feminist experience.

If you don’t have time to catch up on the first two posts, have no fear! It’s a perfect week to dive in! This is the first post to go beyond the introductory material and into the “meat” of my first chapter. Enjoy!

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Chapter One: Influences, Feminist Connections and Contact Improvisation

Part I. Modernist Influences

By Lena Silva

Contact Improvisation, like feminist performance art, has a clear link to modern and postmodern dance as shown through the early career of Steve Paxton. He considered himself an outsider to the dance establishment. Despite having studied gymnastics in his childhood and modern dance at the University of Arizona, Paxton did not believe he was a “real dancer.” Only while dancing for the Merce Cunningham Dance Company at age 22 did Paxton begin to identify as a dancer. Paxton admits, “It took me a long time to admit that I was a ‘dancer’…Because I held dancers in such high esteem… it took me a long time to feel I was part of [the New York arts scene]”.[1] Perhaps his affinity with postmodern dance and egalitarian approach to dance making was related to his outsider mentality.

Steve Paxton worked alongside or under many women and men during his formative years as a dancer before CI was initiated. These included Merce Cunningham, José Limón, and Yvonne Rainer. Rainer identified as a feminist performance artist, and Paxton had other colleagues that did so as well. Feminist belonged to the three dance communities that were most influential for Paxton: the Judson Dance Theatre, The Living Theater, and the Grand Union. These individuals and groups provided an influential legacy of egalitarianism and non-hierarchical organization for CI.

Steve Paxton

Merce Cunningham (1919–2009), a major influence on Steve Paxton, was a dancer, choreographer and leader in the American avant-garde for over fifty years, at his most prolific in the 1950’s and 60’s when he worked with Paxton.[2] The most important legacy of Cunningham’s for Paxton was Cunningham’s reliance on collaboration with artists of many different types (including musicians, architects, painter, and actors) and his willingness to experiment. He coined the postmodern technique of chance choreography, which required collaboration John Cage a musician and Cunningham’s life partner. Cage composed musical scores for the dance shows independently of Cunningham’s choreography so that the resulting dance abandoned conventional efforts for dance to match music.

Merce Cunningham

However, Paxton’s style of dance making diverged from Cunningham’s insistence on heteronormative partnering. According to Sally Banes, “Cunningham could not, or would not, escape the heritage of classical ballet… men still supported and lifted women…in quite traditional ways. Men did not partner men, nor did women lift or support women.”[3] Paxton and other members of Cunningham’s company questioned the heteronormative conventions, which opened them to a less traditional choreography of gender relations in dance. As early as 1961, while still dancing with Cunningham, Paxton began complicating the gendered nature of choreography in “Proxy,” which the female dancer of the duet lifts the male dancer.[4]

Also during the early 1960’s in New York City, Paxton spent one year dancing with one of the most influential modern dancers in history, José Limón. Limón refused to codify his technique to avoid stifling the creativity of his students. He encouraged them to find their individual expression of a movement, an improvisational element shared by postmodern dance.[5] Limón’s sensitivity toward creative hierarchy was important for Paxton who also chose to set out a minimal frame of reference of movement for dancers rather than impose on them the necessity to dance exactly like him.

Jose Limon

Limón appointed Doris Humphrey to be the artistic director of his company rather than personally assuming the position. That he chose a woman is notable. Despite the prestige some women had in the modern dance world, such as Isadora Duncan and Martha Graham, many others struggled to attain prominence at the level of their male contemporaries. Humphrey is acclaimed for opening up modern dance to the nuances of gravity with her principle of “fall and recovery,” which focuses on organic falls and rebounds of the body that arise from shifts in weight.[6] Humphrey said gravity was “…the very core of all movement, in my opinion.”[7] Her style is similar to what became central to CI movement technique: focusing on gravity and sharing changes in weight between partners as impetus for spontaneous movement.

Dorris Humphrey

Happy Wednesday Framers!

Another thing I love about these carrot cake bites is how simple the recipe is.  

Really, really simple.  You don’t even have to turn on the oven, LOVE!!!

Here is what you need:

• 1 1/2 cups old-fashioned oats
• 1/3 cups unroasted pecans, chopped
• 1 tbsp ground flax seed
• 3/4 cup almond butter
• 3 tbsp agave nectar or honey
• 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
• 3/4 cup (packed) grated carrot
• 1/3 cup raisins

Here is what you do:

• In a large bowl, mix together the oats, pecans and flax seed.
• Stir in the almond butter, agave nectar and cinnamon until well combined.
• Stir in the grated carrot and raisins.
• Using 2 tablespoons (packed) of the mixture for each bite, roll the mixture into bite-sized balls. Using a medium-sized cookie scoop makes this process easier. Also, spray your hands with cooking spray to stop the mixture from sticking.
• Place the granola bites on a baking sheet, cover and refrigerate for 1 hour. Serve.
• Store the remaining granola bites in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.
• This recipe makes about 22 Carrot Cake Bites and they come in at around 100 calories and 4 grams of sugar per bite.  Great nutrition stats for this yummy treat!!

Let me know how you like these little carrot cake bites.
Leave a comment below!

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Jill Wentworth is leading us Wednesday by Wednesday into making better food choices and being more healthful. Tune in every Wednesday to get some great recipes and advice from someone who really knows health. In an effort to fuel her passion to serve as well has enhance the lives of others through their nutritional choices, she started Eat Well SA(San Antonio). Her vision is to educate you on how to incorporate a healthy array of foods into your life. Eat Well is not a diet, nor does it embrace any one specific dietary agenda. She also offers customized programs that are educational and teach you the tools you need to maintain healthy, well balanced eating for your busy lives.

Hey Framers! Happy Friday! Kick off the weekend right with a few fabulous links that we like!

If you’re ever in Bridgeport, Connecticut check out Bloodroot a feminist collective that functions as a restaurant. Anybody know of any restaurants like this in Houston? Maybe we could start an artists collective restaurant… yum!

If you’ve read Links We Like before, you know that I’m a little infatuated with Justin Timberlake here is a mashup between J.T. and Daft Punk.

Requisite dance YouTube videos that always provide for endless procrastination:

This first one isn’t a YouTube video, but it is a vimeo featuring Frame composers for our upcoming event Ecouter June 28-29 at 8pm, stay tuned to buy your tickets!

A great hip-hop routine featuring award-winning Les Twins helped me procrastinate some of my work this week.

The inspirational and hilarious Montrose roller blading man. Have you seen him?

And of course, each week I try to find a new dance company to be obsessed with and this week was no exception: BARE Dance Company of NY

Of all the cities in America Houston is second fastest growing! Proud to be a Houstonian!

And last, but not least, A Letter From Your Dance Teacher. This article appeared in Huffington Post last week and I wanted to bring it up again because, frankly I didn’t really like it that much. I find that it oversimplifies the issue of asking for feedback and humbling oneself in dance class by making it a generational issue rather than a very big issue that effects just about all people (artists or otherwise). Thoughts?

Hey Framers, it’s almost the weekend!

Why not start the end of the week with a good read?

Well… at least I think it’s pretty good, but I’m a little biased. Check out this second installment of my senior honors thesis written for Rice University’s Center for the Study of Women, Gender and Sexuality. It explores the topics of Contact Improvisation, Feminism, feminist performance art, and female empowerment through movement. 

Here’s a re-cap of last week’s initial post:

I will argue that CI is a complex feminist practice. The relationship CI has to feminism is complex because it is not inherently feminist, but enables women to have a feminist experience.

If you have time read the full article!

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Part II of Points of Contact: Contact Improvisation and Feminism

I will substantiate my argument by focusing on facets of CI that its founders acknowledge as fundamental: gender non-conformity, rejection of sensual repression, rejection of hierarchical and commerce-driven demands on the production of art, and complication of the sexual consummation ideal. This will be accomplished through examination of interviews with founding members of CI, some conducted specifically for this project and some recorded by others, as well as an examination of the periodical Contact Quarterly, founded in 1975 as a forum for the discussion of CI as it was emerging. This evidence will be supplemented by secondary sources from authorities, including Ann Cooper Albright, Cynthia Novack and Cheryl Pallant. These authors highlight the egalitarian and anti-hierarchical nature of the dance form.[1] I link the history of CI to feminist performance art and the recent forms of CI to feminist theories of sexuality, gender equity and embodiment.[2] To accomplish this, I will draw upon accounts from practitioners who testify to the usefulness of CI in solidifying their sexual autonomy, helping them cope with gender-based violence and body image issues, and liberating their experience of gender from the feminine-masculine dichotomy.

I had a blast going through old articles from the Contact Quarterly – dating all the way back to the 70′s! 

My first chapter provides a historical analysis of the proximity of CI to the feminist art movement of the 1960’s and 70’s. The feminist art movement emerged in the late 1960’s precisely at the time that CI was conceptualized. According to dramaturg and English scholar, Jeanie Forte, “Within this movement, women’s performance emerges as a specific strategy that allies postmodernism and feminism, adding the critique of gender/patriarchy to the already damaging critique of modernism inherent in the activity.”[3] The “personal as political” became a mantra for many feminists of the time who sought to politicize their personal experiences of gender in order to draw attention to sexism and criticize patriarchy.[4] Also according to Forte, “Women’s performance art operates to unmask this function of ‘Woman,’ responding to the weight of representation by creating an acute awareness of all that signifies Woman, or femininity.”[5] To accomplish this, feminist artists made use of autobiographical narratives, their physical bodies, and emerging gender politics, which simultaneously opened up the nature of performance art itself. Carolee Schneeman, Yoko Ono and the Guerrilla Girls are recognized as significant feminist performance artists from the past few decades.[6]

I read Rainer’s autobiography, Feelings Are Facts, to give me more background and perspective on her work and relationship to CI. The book was recommended to me by Nancy Stark Smith in one of our conversations.

Chapter One focuses on the collaboration between feminist performance artist Yvonne Rainer and Steve Paxton during the inception of CI. To analyze feminist thought as it emerged in the feminist performance art movement and alongside the development and practice of CI, I will use writings by art historian, Linda Nochlin, feminist philosopher, Judith Butler and historian Alice Echols. These scholars outline the power of structural conditions, performativity of gender, and importance of representation. All of which are engaged with, in some way, by feminist performance art and CI. I will also look at video recordings of the first CI performances in order to analyze gendered politics of movement and partnering. I will discuss interviews I conducted with Nancy Stark Smith on her stance on feminism and CI. Her remarks reveal the politicizing effects of CI and contribute to my larger claim about the dance form as a complex feminist practice.

Time for a little update. We are in the process of creating a new fun (and dare I say, energetic?) show. It’s called Ecouter. We had so much fun last week when Lena came into rehearsal. She blogged about it last week and also took these amazing photos. She is a great photographer, I need to get her in on rehearsal more often! And for crying out loud, if you aren’t following us on Facebook, do it now. I’ll wait. NOW.

The show has new and recent work on it. We’ve received some crazy fine reviews on To the Brim (composer is Charles Halka) and on Quiver (composer if Mark Hirsch). Quiver was even included in the best 8 memories of the season by Culture Map. Stoked? Yes, we are. Read it here. And then we have our super exciting premiere to composer Rob McClure’s music. He’s the winner of the Frame Dance Composition Competition this year. His music is exciting, percussive, fresh, loud….

We’ve been deep in the seriousness of the artistic process. The composers and I made this little vid to allow you to get to know them before the big show. Watch this:

An Afternoon with the Composers of Ecouter

Also, please save the dates for our Cultured Cocktails party at Boheme and of course, for our next show, Ecouter: three composers, thee dances.

June 20 from 5-7pm, Cultured Cocktails at Boheme Bar. A portion of EVERYTHING you drink will go to our art.

June 28-29 8pm, Ecouter at Studio 101. Three composers, Three dances. Choreographed by yours truly.

To Art!

L