Inclusivity for Dummies, and by "Dummies," I mean all of us...

Here's a funny thing. Imagine you have an old blog account, let's say, oh, from 2008. And that blog account was never fully deactivated, because, well, who has time to pick up each and every crumb of your digital past lives? So let's say you (and by you I mean me) created a blog in 2008 for the sole purpose of complaining about the customers at your day job and the bosses at your night job and the undergrads to whom you taught with varying degrees of success, the 5 paragraph essay. And in your infinite wisdom (and by yours I mean mine), you thought: I won't use my name, I'll use a pseudonym: Mrs. God. I thought it was a combination of silly and otherworldly, which is probably what I hope everything I do is: a fifty fifty split on goofy and ghosty. It's also the name of my music project, so if anyone reading this is inclined to dig deeper (as an internet K hole aficionada, I would) feel free to checkout Mrs. God on soundcloud. The point being, if you're wondering why "Mrs. God" is talking to you through the Annenberg Beach House blog, it's because I can't figure out how to consciously uncouple myself from that old blogger account. And, maybe more significantly, I've decided it isn't that important.

So, hi. It's me, Analisa Raya-Flores, the current Artist in Residence at the Annenberg Beach House. I'm so so excited to be here and make art in this 100 year-old space that, wikipedia assures me, hosted guests like Charlie Chaplin, Greta Garbo, and Clark Gable. While here, I'll be working on a project called: The Legend of Graham Canyon. It's a myth about a woman born in the Old West who leaves her life in the Central Valley, starts dressing and living as a man and leads an adventurous life with a gang of criminals. It's good, trust me, and I definitely know that because it's definitely almost done. This is how manifesting works, right?

In addition to working on my own projects, I have the opportunity to host a few events, one of which just happened this past Tuesday. The event was titled, "Tragic Women of Color," and was intended as an exploration of the stereotypical portrayals of women of color in art, literature, and media. After a reading from our guests (poet Monique Mitchell, writer and cook Saehee Cho, content developer Wendy Cortez),we held a conversation. The audience was mostly friends and friends of friends, which turned out to be a good thing. Why? Because familiarity, in conversations that can so often be tricky, is a good thing.

One question, in particular, has been sticking with me. One of my friends asked (and I'll paraphrase for clarity): "How do I, as a white man, write for characters who are unlike me, and if I write for characters outside of my race, what is the line between representation and exploitation?" I'd like to pause briefly and share some context: this is a white, cis-gendered, hetero guy who asked a panel of POC female identifying folks this question. And while history has been full of cis-het white men getting plenty of polite applause, I think in this case, it's warranted. These are the questions that force us to take the first steps toward better representation in all facets of media. So I thank him for that. And now that I've thanked him, I'm going to take the question to task.

The question stuck with me, and after a few days, it hit me. It's the notion of fear. Why is it so "scary" to write outside of one's own race or ethnicity? It seems that the fear stems from writing exploitatively, inaccurately, or to boil it down: incorrectly. Perhaps white writers are afraid to write non-white characters for fear of getting them "wrong." Of course the problem with thinking there's a wrong way means that you think there's a right, or rather, singular way, to write a non-white character. There are first generation immigrant kids who talk like valley girls and there are others who speak the language of their parents. There are Afro-Cuban comic book nerds and Korean-American rappers. I'm being simplistic for the sake of a point, but the point remains there are just as many ways to be a non-white person as there are ways to be a white person.  It brings us right back to representation, and why it's so important. For the folks who aren't lucky enough to grow up in a diverse environment (and meet all the different types of non-white people) then what they see on television, or in film, or in the media.... well, it matters.

If you're up for it, here's a little writing prompt/thought experiment. The scenario: a person goes to the grocery store, gets cut in line. That's it. First, think of how you (just you!) would be in that person's shoes. Now swap in someone else, and consciously make it someone who is of a different race/ethnicity/sexuality/gender identity. Just go for it. Now compare. When you wrote it for you, what did you take into account? Your backstory, your bad or good day, what your grandmother thought of rude injustices, what your own neuroses told you about making a scene. So when you write the scene for this other person, this person that in some ways is "un-like" you, consider that they too have a backstory, a bad or good day, an authority figure who taught them not to cut in line, and a set of idiosyncrasies that keeps them teetering, moment to moment, on the edge of sanity. It's simple, but it's a start.

Let me be clear, this is a much longer and ongoing conversation, one I'm having internally (between myself and my voice memo app as I commute from the East Side), and externally (with other artists and friends). And it's a conversation I'll probably be having until I die, or my brain gets uploaded into the cloud, and then I'll be having it digitally under the username Mrs. God because I still won't have figured out how to change it.

I'll be at the Beach House most Sundays. Come say, "Hi." And if you'd like to find me digitally, I'm on twitter & instagram @anirayflo
Have a good week, Santa Monica.
-a.r.f.

Interactions 2

On Saturday September 7, I had my second experience interacting with visitors at the Annenberg Beach House, asking them, again (the first interaction happened at the begging of the residency), to imagine a dance piece on the facilities. This time the interaction happened within the patio area with orange umbrellas. 

All the visitors I approached this time coincidentally suggested to centered my performance on dances from different parts of the world, while they identify foreign expressions with colorful costumes and happy vibes. They felt the aesthetics of those dances matches the space. They suggested Polynesian dances, Hula dances, among other styles. A person even suggested to bring a blend of styles from different parts of the world to make the event even more exciting. All participants imagined a group of dancers moving and none of them suggested a solo or a duet. 

One of the visitors suggested as costumes white dresses with smooth and flowing fabrics that would move with the wind. This person says that her ideas about dances focus on the visuals while she is a photographer. 

A group of visitors that were siting in a table discussed their opinions within the group and came up to the conclusion as a collective that the music for the performance should be percussive and should start before the dancers enter the space. They also suggested that the dancers should enter the space one by one from different directions and that the audience should be all around the dancers while any perspective of the performers would be interesting.  

I had another interaction with a group of visitors from Argentina. Some of them did not speak english, so we had most of our conversation in Spanish. One of them suggested some type of Jewish dance for my performance, but the rest of the people in the table did not received well the proposal. They consider it was not pertinent for the space. Another person suggested a folkloric dance from Argentina. Another person suggested that the producers of the Annenberg performances should incorporate food as part of the event, so they can get some earnings out of it. Also this person said that food can work as a hook for people to come and see the performances. She also mentioned that it would be very important to offer some information about the history of the place as part of the performance. She believes that the community does not know enough about the donors and contributors that have made the Annenberg beach house a public space for all.  

That day of the public interactions, my son came with me, and before I started connecting with visitors, him and I participated in one of the guided visits at the guest house.  A sweet woman from Argentina showed us the guest house and shared with us details about its history.  Our tour was in Spanish, so my son had the opportunity so practice and show of his Spanish speaking skills and the guide made the experience it kids friendly. We had a wonderful time.

Rhythms

Willy, my collaborator, is not only an incredible dancer, but he is also a musician. I am fascinated by rhythm, and I have studied it through the lens of flamenco dancing for an extended period of time. However, I have always felt like an amateur in relationship to music.  Willy's dance training is in African and contemporary dance and my training is in flamenco, contemporary, some African dance and salsa. We share the interest in rhythm, and we both have experienced the challenges of navigating a dance world that is still mostly white and Euro-centric. My work belongs to both the center and the periphery, and it claims my double identity (triple, quadruple). My work fights for visibility for those dance styles and any hybrid form that exists outside of the "first world" culturally, politically, and economically.  

The Euro-centric dance traditions have a way to relate to rhythm that often differ from the perspective of "ethnic dances'" in this area. Once a flamenco teachers told me that you can not perform a flamenco sequence of steps unless you are able to sing it.  When I started dancing flamenco, sequences were a succession of movements that happen to produce a sound. But in flamenco dancing each step has a sound, so the sequence of steps eventually become like a songs in your brain. After years of flamenco practice I have noticed that if the musical information is clear in my brain, the specific technique required to perform the movements in a sequence is not longer that important, and the body would be able to figure if out the little details if the musical information is there to rely on. On the contrary, if I can not recall the specific sound of a step I would not be able to performed. I could move similarly, based on the organization of the body, but I would not be able to perform the step (or sequence of steps) as it is in the meter, while for that I would need to be able to sing "its song" and recall it "before" performing the step.

I have noticed a similar approach in this regards between flamenco and Ghanian dance while in both traditions steps are associated with rhythms that can be sang. In the case of flamenco the song comes from the sound that the steps produce, and in the case of Ghanian dances the songs come from the drumming.

On the other hand,  contemporary dance functions differently in relationship to movement and rhythm, while the timing of movements is relatively loose if one compares it with the specificity and intricacy of other styles. Within the contemporary dance context the rhythmical experience comes from breathing, from the time that it takes for the body to perform a specific task, or from an external source, such as the choreographer request, the musical track, but not from a song in my brain. So in this style one does not need to "recall a song" as a prerequisite to organize and deliver movement.

For the piece I am creating during my residency, I am looking for a multicultural approach about how rhythm and movement relate to each other. The perspective offered by the work includes different ways to organize the sound/movement interaction and its causality.

We have experimented a lot about who leads who?  We have tried one person producing their own sound and dancing at the same time. For this exercise each individual has sang songs that correspond to the sequences of steps that he/she is doing, and he/she has performed those movement sequences while singing.

We have also tried to deliver movements that do not belong to the song that we are singing, and to deliver movements that belong to the contemporary dance style while still singing rhythms that are related to steps from other dance traditions. It is challenging to detach the sound of a given step from the step it self. It feels like speaking two different languages at the same time: flamenco with your voice and contemporary dance with your body.

We have also explored the option of having one mover and one speaker/singer. In one version of the exercises the task for the mover is to react to the sound heard by replicating a movement that is "the same" as the sound heard and to deliver the movement at the same time that the sound is happening, so the mover would have to anticipate the rhythm.

We also have tried the option of the mover developing other types of connections with the sound heard.  The mover could replicate or not what the singer is bringing into the conversation and would not longer be a follower of the sound, who monotonously accentuating the strong beats of the music.  The mover would have more independence, and their task would be to build layers into the movement-sound dialogue that stimulate complex interactions that involve tension, contrast and a notion of balance and harmony that is not flat and predictable.

In another exercise a mover and a singer are interacting having the dancer as the leader.  The singer task is to follow the mover by delivering a song that replicates what the dancer is doing, so the singer would have to anticipate the dancer's choices. Using this same structure, we have have explored using the whole body as a percussive instrument that follows the movements, instead of producing sound only with the voice.

Partnering Dancing

Willy, my dance collaborator, amazing performer with extensive training in Contemporary and African Dance, does not have experience with social dancing, and that is why I am particularly interested in exploring with him salsa and other partnering dance styles. My intension is not to teach him how to dance salsa, or merengue, but to witness a body making choices within a foreign territory. I have noticed that no matter the movement background and the long term experience in dancing, keeping the ongoing pattern of the lower body within the rhythm, independently from the interaction that is happening with the other person in the upper body, it's always a challenge.

I learned how to dance latin styles and particularly salsa at a young age in my country Colombia. I never took a dance lesson for that. The skills were gained by dancing in parties and gatherings, and by interacting with other bodies in "real time".  Back then social dancing was a fundamental part of social life. I studied in a "girls only" school until I graduated from high school, so my interactions and connections with boys throughout my teenage years happened almost exclusively in parties and through dancing. The gender roles in dancing were very strict and well defined: Females would wait until a male invited them to dance, and males lead, while females follow. It would basically mean that as a female you would have to always listen your partner's movement proposal,  process the information, and accept any movement initiative that the male would generate by delivering with your body the expected movement or some movement would matches his own.

Sometimes when I have explained "the follower role" to people that did not grew up in the culture of social dancing, the idea of being a follower arises strong reactions while they perceive the movement power dynamics, as unfair. I can see why, and I understand the social and political connotations of someone having to follow over and over someone else's ideas with out a space to disagree or state openly their own statements. However, there is little in this world that gives me more pleasure than following a good salsa partner.  I feel complete freedom in my 'submissive role" of doing what my partner is asking me to do. I feel relieved from having to answer the question "what to do", while I am only focusing in how to do it. I can direct my attention in little details such as delaying an action (that I am not even been very concious about what it is), to hit an accent in the music, or making a decision about how much strength or resistance I am going to bring into the "conversation", or how much weight I am going to release to my partner at any given movement. I can also chose not think anything at all, just listen to the music while paying attention to my partner's body. I is like a guessing game. The What is often not part of my experience, nor are the specifics about the movement or the space in relationship to the directions in which I am turning, nor what arm or leg I am using at any given time. All of that is taking care for me by my body/non conscious brain. My body knows better than my conscious mind how to handle that, so I don't have to think rationally to be able to  deliver a movement while in this context, it just happens automatically. I could think rationally about what I am doing, but I don't have to, and I am often amazed by the level of difficulty in the tasks that my body performs while salsa dancing without the help of my rational brain. It feels like having the chance to experience the joy of movement without having to even think about it. So putting that rational brain on pause, definitely feels like a liberation instead of a subjugation.

But pausing that rational brain and trusting the body you are interacting with takes time. I have noticed that the issue is precisely overthinking about what is happening. Throughout the weeks Willy is starting to trust and allow his body to take control over the situation. It is very interesting when we arrive into blurry places where the partnering is something in between contact improve and social dancing. Those are the events I am interesting in capturing in the piece: Physical interactions that are stylistically undefined and that can belong to more than one place.

Houses

I have been looking for stories that help me to build a narrative for the piece I am developing in the Beach House. In the past, I mostly built the narratives of my works by incorporating performers' personal stories. This time I thought the focus of those stories was going to be the moment of the departure from home. However, speaking with Willy I realized that the topic was not going to work for us, while Willy already built a whole solo based on that very moment of his life. After asking questions, a conversation about houses emerged.

Willy shared that he grew up in huge house, almost a monstrous place because of his dimensions.  Apparently the house was more like a complex unit with several houses connected, and where a very big family lived together. The experience of growing within that environment contribute to make of Willy, who he is today. The houses we lived in, shaped us. I have lived in many houses, but two of them have been the most important ones in my life. One was built by my grandfather and the other one was built by me, both are houses with personalities. They are both a statement about the lives of their builders, and these two houses have evolved and changed drastically throughout time to fulfill the needs of its owners and habitants.

When I was a child my favorite bed time story was about a trolley that became old fashion and was about to be disposed as junk, but a poor family found it and transform it into their happy house. I don't remember the name of the story, and until very recently I did not have any recollection about the story itself, but I remember now now how much I like it. And I wonder if that story influenced me, by creating a mind set in me that later on encouraged me to buy an old Airstream, remodeled it and make a home in it to live with my kids, like the family in the bedtime story.

I am curious to see what stories about houses is Gabriel going to bring into the conversation.
Willy's houses story and my special houses' stories are definitely relevant to the piece we are creating.  At the end this is a a site specific work in a house, and it is about its owners, its visitors and the way it has has been transformed through out time.

In one of the interactions/casual interviews I did with some Annenberg House beach visitors during the month of July, a woman told me that my piece should reflect how the Beach House was once a house for the elites and how it has become a space for all. I think she is right, but I don't know very well yet how to do it. Part of me feels that just by doing a piece in the facilities of the Annenberg House, I am making that statement already, but I keep thinking about it.

Bringing the the housing topic into the piece, builds a bridge between the personal stories of the performers, and the topic of Nomadism, that I always feel should be part of this work I am creating in Santa Monica. Now my challenge is to find out how I am going to incorporate the stories of the houses within the dance piece.

After a few weeks of wondering around the spaces of the Annenberg Beach House, I have defined four forces that will drive the rest of the creative process:

1. To explore the relationship between movement and rhythm from a multicultural perspective
2. To explore partnering interactions in diverse dance contexts rhythmically and culturally,
3. To identify, design, build and/or incorporate, objects, paths, and relationships that bring in to the piece the concepts of nomadism, migration, wondering, traveling, gypsy life style, displacement, and any other way of living in which the concept of home evolved into a notion that is no longer linked to stability nor to a specific piece of land.
4. To build an open narrative that serves as an anchor point from where to imagine possibilities.

I still wonder what is the role of the sea within the piece, and how the history and evolution of the Beach House is related to the driving forces of the piece. I feel that I should find those connections to be able to claim my work to be site specific, but I haven't yet.  So far the connections with the space are mostly stablished by intuition and attraction.

Last Friday Willy Souly, my movement collaborator, and I had our first rehearsal/studio encounter. We talked about the driving force of the piece and we improvised. We also exchanged movements and information about how each one of us understand rhythm in relationship to our specific training and background. I participated in his African dance class last Friday and it was not only very fun but it helped me to start to understand who he is and where does he comes from.

Last Sunday I had my first meeting with our costume designer who is building two costume pieces. We made decision about colors and materials based some fabrics samples that she brought to the meeting. We also started to define a timeline.

Last week I started my 3 month artistic residency at the Annenberg Beach House at Santa Monica, with some inspiring interactions with the house visitors. I worked in two locations of the facility, in the water splashes and at the pool. It was a relatively intimate experience while I was interacting with one individual at a time or maximum two.

I would approach people, introduce my self as the artist in residency, and would ask them for help to create my movement piece. The task was to imagine a dance in the space, and then to share their thoughts with me. After asking the question, I would give them time to think about it, and I would come back to hear their answers.

When I first asked for help, most of the visitors were apologetic, saying that they were not going to be helpful because of their lack of training and expertise in dancing, but little after they open their eyes and their harts, start observing the space, and ideas would come to them.

Their answers were all wonderful, coherent, naturally connected to concerns of their personal stage in life and personal preferences. Through out their answers I was getting a lot of information about those people, and we were sharing a moment of unexpected connection through out their fantasies. Their suggestions were very different from one person to the other, and would involve specific colors in the costumes, the historical and social connotations of the building and how they should inform my dance piece, space organization, styles of music, recommendations about the floor, and about the general concept that should tight together the whole piece. They were all very passionate about the ideas they found for me. It was very obvious that they enjoyed participating in the process of imagining a dance. Those visitors helped me see some movement pieces in the space that I would have never imagined by myself. The experience was not only very fun, but it was like a bridge to effectively connect with strangers with a level of honesty that truly surprised me.