Setting the Stage: An Interview of Avery Wheless

interview by Summer Bowie

Avery Wheless is a Los Angeles-based painter who was born and raised in Petaluma, California. With her mother, a ballet instructor, and her father, an animator for LucasFilms, it’s no wonder she became a painter and video artist with a penchant for the theatrical. Her video works often depict movement artists performing choreography, and her painted portraits often depict everyday people engaging in the unconscious performativity of everyday life. Her current solo exhibition Stage, Presence on view at a private residence in Beverly Hills with BozoMag includes portrayals of the artist and her friends occupying glamorous spaces, caught in moments that subtly reveal the effort that comes with looking at ease. These acts are not celebrated or bemoaned. They just are. One friend reaches into the cocktail dress of another to lift and expose the fullness of her breast in anticipation of reuniting with an ex. Other figures unwittingly become subjects as they applaud an unseen performer or spy pensively on others while sipping martinis. The pageantry of hyper femininity is as vulnerable as it is manicured when you look at it from the right angle and Avery Wheless has a way of depicting it all simultaneously like an emotional lenticular on canvas.

SUMMER BOWIE: So, the title of your show is Stage, Presence and your work almost always relates to performance, but these works address it sort of indirectly. Can you talk about how that plays out in this body of work?

AVERY WHELESS: Well yeah, I like to explore performance in every way that it comes up in my life. My background is in dance and my mom was a ballet teacher, so performance was ingrained throughout my life. I started ballet when I was five and I always loved the make-believe worlds that you create in performance where you can be indulgent or take on another role. When I think of my body of work as a stage, it becomes a safe space for me to explore what it means to be a performer, whether it's in the more traditional sense of making art or just in my daily interactions. In this show, a lot of the images are taken from these in-between moments, whether it's friends getting ready or having intimate moments and conversations. I like capturing those moments when people may not realize they're already in this level of performance.

BOWIE: Right. We were talking a little bit about how your subjects are often captured in those moments when they're not actively performing, but they're preparing for the act.

WHELESS: Yeah. That comes up a lot. It's those moments when people don't realize they're getting ready for something or the stage isn't completely set. I find those moments more interesting and telling.

BOWIE: You often work from images that are taken in your everyday life, but then sometimes the paintings become amalgams of multiple images and memory. Can you talk a little bit about that process?

WHELESS: The images I take are sometimes these random, beautiful captures that I love of my friends when they're not fully aware that they're even being perceived by me. I like finding these softer, intimate moments with people. So I'm constantly hyper aware. It's also a way to process my environments and a feeling of being somewhat removed from a situation. Often when I'm surrounded by people, I feel like a bit of an outsider. So, I'll take those moments that I'm actually in physically and then there's other more emotional elements that come up that I'll adapt within the paintings to better explain where my body is in relation to what’s happening or what I'm thinking. Sometimes it's an object or it could be a motif that just comes out in the paintings naturally. It's a very subconscious kind of thing that just appears.

 
 

BOWIE: What was your early dance training like and what made you decide to paint instead?

WHELESS: Dance was always something I craved doing. My mom and also her mom did dance and they were from the South, so they were involved in a lot of Junior Miss pageants. But my mom didn't let me do ballet until I was five and I loved it. When I was ten, I went through a tomboy phase and did more sports with my brothers, like baseball. I realized that the playing field was also a stage space, just with more of a masculine take. But it was a safe place to get involved very emotionally. After a year of that, I went to see The Nutcracker with my mom and cried because I wasn't in it. So, I went back and was training really intensely. For our summer program, classes would start at nine in the morning and we wouldn't end until six. And I would dance with Moscow Ballet when they were on tour. I loved the ability to be so focused on your own body and how it worked in relation to other people. But then, I got injured. I was dealing with some health stuff, and so I had to stop my training and that's when I really dove into expressing myself on canvas. I just transferred the intense training of ballet into my painting practice, and I think it always comes up for me while I'm painting—this level of movement and physicality when I'm painting bodies and performers.

BOWIE: It’s interesting that your mom and grandmother were involved in actual beauty pageants, but on a more symbolic level, there’s a lot of pageantry in your depicted scenes. They tend to be lavish dining and nightlife spaces, or sometimes your figures are lounging poolside.

WHELESS: Yeah. I think of my paintings as these stages that I set as a sort of director. I like capturing these environments that are a little bit heightened and theatrical. That's just part of what interests me visually and conceptually. There's a dramatic sense of dark and light, or sometimes they're pulled from more of a dreamlike state too.

BOWIE: You also have such a very signature style in your video work, and there's a continuity between the two disciplines, because they also often feature contortionists, pole dancers, and movement artists of many different forms. I'm curious where you find your subjects.

WHELESS: Well, video is always something that I've enjoyed. My dad's in film and animation. So, it was always just fun to capture movers and then explore it more in my paintings. I was doing that very early on. But a lot of my subjects are just friends or other collaborators that I love working with. The dancers that I worked with for my solo exhibition earlier last year were cami [árboles]—who I shot for a designer friend that I was working with—and she had all these dancers that were really excited about performing in front of paintings because pole dancing isn't usually experienced in a gallery space and we were like, let's just play with this. I like having things that are an extension of what I'm thinking and then letting someone else run with it. So, I was like, “This is the score. This is what I have in mind. Now I wanna see how that manifests in your body.” And then, about year later we did a whole other adaptation of it where I projected the video from the exhibition performance and they performed in front of that. So, the video becomes a moving extension of what I've been thinking about and the amazing friends and collaborators I've been lucky enough to have play with me.

BOWIE: I love that. It’s almost like an exquisite corpse, but it’s not, because it always has the potential of being reborn in a new iteration. Your subjects are pretty invariably feminine. Can you talk about that?

WHELESS: I think most of the subjects in my paintings are women just because I identify as a woman and they are all extensions of how I see myself. It's a processing of how I relate to the other women in my life, like my mom and my sister and my grandmother. Those relationships are really beautiful and complicated. I think that's why I keep coming back to them. Thinking back to my days as a dancer, the corps de ballet is all women, so I was always in this ensemble of female bodies. I mean, I have painted men, but my most intimate moments and the relationships that I find the most complicated and intriguing are usually with other women in my life. So, the paintings are an exploration of that and also how I view myself. I'm not always intentionally doing it, but there is a level of self-portraiture in them.

BOWIE: How you define the female gaze?

WHELESS: I like to think of my paintings as creating a stage where women can be viewed comfortably and are aware of being viewed or engaged in a way that's not coming from a place of judgment or aggression. It's a place where you can be fully exposed and also completely held at the same time.

BOWIE: Aside from human figures, the show also features two images of horses. I'm curious what inspired you to incorporate them in the show?

WHELESS: Yeah, I wasn't aware of them really until I noticed that they were central to a couple of the paintings. It started with a horse figurine at this restaurant called Delilah in Miami where I was having an intense conversation. There's a breath work exercise I like to do when I want to ground myself if I'm feeling sort of out of my body. I'll look at something in the room and really study it to bring myself back into a present state. I even did this as a kid when I would get reprimanded or if I was in trouble, I would look at a person's face and draw it on my lap with my finger. So, there was this horse figurine right next to me that I was studying while going through this heightened sense of awareness and it just stayed with me visually. And then, my friend sent me a photo of her with her hands around this other horse figurine and it was funny because it had the same color palette and her hands were lit really intensely by the flash. I was wrapping up works for the show and I had this one painting of a sleeping woman that I kind of liked, but I didn't love it. So, I painted over it, but I left the woman's face sort of visible. The horse and the hands are made with this really gestural, vigorous, frenzied mark making. It was almost violent because I was just processing a lot at the time. I was having these anxiety dreams and fever dreams, which happens when I'm stressed out. But yeah, with the horses, one came from a calming exercise, and the other came from a deep state of anxiety.

BOWIE: It's interesting because horses also have this duality of both wildness and bourgeois pageantry. I want to come back to self-portraiture because you talk about the female figures in your works being a form of self-portraiture, but then you also incorporate some direct self-portraiture. There's one in the piece that was adapted from a photo that a friend took of you. What was it about this particular image that made you want to paint it?

WHELESS: It was just a fun snapshot that my friend Bella [Gadsby] took randomly. But it was more about how the perspective of the foot makes it look almost like I'm stomping something out, but it's also playful. I'm relaxing at home with a friend, but my body is pushing forward in the frame and then also receding at the same time. In all of the paintings, there's a tightness, a looseness, and a kind of falling apart. I'll go into certain areas and make them as defined as I want and then the rest of it is this hazy, dreamlike state. But it's all held together by one anchoring point. In most shows, there's always one self-portrait that I end up doing subconsciously. And after it's done, I realize how it ties into the rest of the works.

 
 

BOWIE: Can you tell us about anything that you're painting in the studio right now?

WHELESS: Well, I just got this new studio space, so I'm slowly starting to to dive into some works for NADA Miami, which I'll be doing with Bozo Mag. There's a circus theme I'm exploring, which is just another extension of the stage that I like because it’s really glamorous but also grungy at the same time. So, I've been thinking a lot about that.

Stage, Presence is on view through May 11 at a private residence in Beverly Hills. Contact BozoMag to book an appointment.

The Way We Handle One Another: An Interview of Choreographer Holly Blakey

Photograph by Max Barnett


interview by Lara Monro

Born in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, Holly Blakey found contemporary dance as a teenager. After she was rejected by a number of well-known dance schools, she attended University of Roehampton where teaching dance was the only option. What was initially a devastating and painful life transition turned out to be a profound moment for Blakey, leading to a fruitful career as a choreographer. Free from the confines of institutional models and languages of dance, she created her own — one that advocates drama and our lived experiences. 

Honesty, intimacy, and a sense of community feed into her work, as does her fascination with music, film, and TV. Her ability to emulate pop culture has led Blakey to traverse multiple creative industries such as directing music videos for musicians who include Florence Welch and Coldplay. She also had a longstanding collaboration with the late fashion designer Vivienne Westwood, whose widower Andreas Kronthaler, has designed the costumes for the return of her performance of Cowpuncher My Ass. This Wild West dance show, scored by Mica Levi, takes the notion of the hyper masculine, yet camp cowboy, as a starting point to explore the archetypes of masculinity through non-linear perspectives.  

Cowpuncher My Ass will be playing at Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, Wednesday 15 February at 7:30 pm. 

Autre’s London editor at large, Lara Monro, spoke with Blakey in between rehearsals to discuss how the performance challenges what might be deemed acceptable in choreography and much more. 

LARA MONRO: How would you say your transition from being a dancer to teaching has impacted your approach to choreography? 

HOLLY BLAKEY: Well, I think because it was so non-linear it meant I had to reframe what its potential could be and think of new ways of accessing it. I found a separate authenticity so that I could practice in a way that felt clear and realistic to who I was and what I was doing. It really did feel like the end of the world at the time because I'd danced all my life and I now think it was my biggest gift because I had to shift the way I was accessing things and I had to adjust my way of thinking. I think it's led to me have a practice that hasn't been so shaped by others. It’s allowed me to find my own language, I hope! So, I'm always quite grateful for that failure. 

MONRO: Where do your ideas often come from and what's the process there? 

BLAKEY: Well, I suppose like any kind of author, in a way it's about how you feel or experience life and the things you find sweet, or not. I'm more interested in people than I am in dancers or dancing, per say. I'm more interested in seeing the person within it. Even though I work with dancers, it's always about setting what the dancing is and then learning who the people are inside of the moving. That's what I'm most interested in. 

Photograph by Grace Horton

MONRO: So, when you are putting together a piece of choreography, how do you choose the dancers that you work with? 

BLAKEY: Well, the dancers I'm working with in Cowpuncher My Ass I've worked with for about ten years. Some of them since they were 18. So, we have a secret language, you know, and an understanding about what it is we're doing, or want to do. We share that feeling of rigor and I think they get me. With other dancers who might join the cast, it will be a more simple audition process. It will be logistical. 

MONRO: Cowpuncher My Ass stems from a fascination with the archetypal idea of the cowboy and themes of masculinity, right? 

BLAKEY: Right. It's mainly about people and the threat of masculinity being a loud voice within that. It isn’t about masculinity from one perspective. I remember speaking to my boyfriend recently and he said to me, “How do you think I feel when I walk down the street and I see a load of lads with their shirts off?” The idea and threat of masculinity is one that impacts all of us, you know? And sometimes we can forget that. So I suppose that although masculinity is vital in the conversation, it's about people, ultimately, and the way we handle one another.

MONRO: Can you tell me more about the choreographic style of the piece?

BLAKEY: What's important about Cowpuncher is that while a narrative is unraveling, at the same time, there is this confrontation with what's acceptable in choreography, what's acceptable to put on a stage, and what is dance. So, while we're having this conversation, we're also trying to look at what we can do as makers and to dismantle the ideas of expectation. There are so many different styles within one performance because we experiment so much. And it's also this idea of it being messy; that it doesn't have to be one specific style. It can be lots of different things. It's doesn't have to be linear. 

Photograph by Max Barnett

MONRO: How do you want your performances to impact your audience? 

BLAKEY: What I really want my work to do is to be like when you read an amazing book and you believe it's been written about you. You feel like what’s unfolding is about your own life—that you see yourself within it. That's the most important thing. And for it to feel like a shared experience. At the beginning of Cowpuncher, for example, we have the lights on, which is a lot about the audience feeling situated in what's going on, recognizing themselves in the space, you know, feeling the people who are sat next to them. The dancers are watching you, watching them, and there becomes this continual conversation. So, you're invited into the experiences of the dancers in a very intimate way. 

MONRO: What are your influences around that notion? Are there any in particular? 

BLAKEY: Well, I'm someone who's more interested in films and television than I am in dance. I go and watch a lot of dance, but I try to not think too hard about what other people are making choreographically. I like movies, I like cinematography. In a way I'm more inspired by capturing narrative. I recently spoke about the Sopranos. It is one of my favorite things ever to have experienced. It's those scenes with Tony and Carmela where they're just in the kitchen and they're moving around that really grab me the most. How, how do you create something so beautiful and simple and show people in such an amazing way? I'm kind of more interested in that. 

MONRO: I read that you want there to be a sense of community in your performances. Does this partly stem from your appreciation of club culture? 

BLAKEY: My first work that toured was called Some Greater Class (2012/2013). That was a lot about being in the club; this notion of social dancing. This sense of social dancing is a loud part of what I look at—I want to be able to articulate the power of this moment within a party or communal dance. 

MONRO: You talk about being influenced by TV— soaps, the Sopranos. How do you translate these into movement? 

BLAKEY: I think I'm trying to harness an idea: How does that make me feel? What does it remind me of? How does it relate to my past? What was that in my past? Why the need to recreate this? Where is all this sadness coming from? Why do I need to expel this feeling? How can I communicate this to a group of people? Oh, they understand too. They've experienced life. You know, it's like the looping of it all. So, it's about trying to execute that and let the dancers practice it; unravel it in their own kind of way to begin with and then, okay, this works, and then oh, what did you feel there? Okay. This reads like this to me. Try it like this. Try it like it's two o'clock in the morning. Try like your dog just died, you know? Okay, now I read this. There's a lot of drama. I love drama and I'm not afraid of drama. I had a very crucial conversation the other day with my friend Eve Stainton, the artist and performance maker, who helped me realize just how important drama is to me! I don't want to steer away from the feeling of things being dramatic. I want it to feel like that. Why shouldn’t we embrace it?

Photograph by Daniele Fummo

Love & Action: An Interview Of Director Fiona Jane Burgess

interview by Lara Monro

Fiona Jane Burgess, UK-based film director specializing in music videos, commercials, documentaries and fashion films, owes much of her career success to experiencing a number of challenges. Burgess found herself having to rethink her career path at 28, a time when she was also facing the realities of motherhood and the breakup of her band, Woman’s Hour. Fortunately, her natural flare as a director, which she exercised when shooting her own music videos, determined her career segue into film direction. Since delving into the film industry, Burgess has worked on diverse campaigns that span music videos, personal projects, and working with the UK’s No.1 baby feeding brand, Tommee Tippee, as well as some of fashion’s most recognized names, including Gucci and Burberry. 

A proud feminist, Burgess is attracted to projects that empower women and provoke debate, amongst many other themes and subjects. COVID-19 highlighted the economic constraints faced by women in the workplace and their predicament of being expected to sacrifice their own economic viability to provide care at home. Burgess recently posted on Instagram around the need to empower working mothers. She spoke passionately to Autre about the response to her recent post, a new film she’s directed for Nowness X AGL, motherhood, and the collective power of sisterhood.  

LARA MONRO: It is great to be speaking with you full stop and also timely given the amazing response you have received to your recent Instagram post around women in the workplace and childcare. Did you expect this reaction? 

FIONA JANE BURGESS: My mind is blown! I am so humbled by the response. These conversations aren't new, we just so rarely have them openly. For this reason, Instagram can be a powerful platform as it provides the ability to have these sorts of debates, and most importantly, allows others to see them. The burden of childcare on anyone is mammoth. This is bringing to the forefront what it means to be a parent in the film industry, but also the workplace at large. It shows the evident gender inequality that exists and that women are expected to take on the burden of childcare. It is comforting to know what I am saying resonates with so many, but at the same time, deeply frustrating and saddening as so many women feel stuck and trapped. One message that really resonated touched on the creative industry, where for many it isn't just about a financial incentive, but it’s also driven by passion and creative need. When women are forced out of these roles, their mental health suffers as a consequence of not having a creative outlet. This can provoke feelings of guilt, that being a mother isn't good enough. I can fully associate myself with this. I am a mother, but am not first and foremost a mother. It is part of my makeup but it is not my whole, and anyone who wants to simply label me as a mother is missing the point. I have so many different needs. I don't need to just give and receive love from my children. When women become mothers their identity gets put on hold. I disagree with that. How we facilitate mothers in the workplace is an essential, ongoing, question as we work to achieve gender equality.

MONRO: You changed professions at 28, the same year you became a mother to twins and ended up leaving your music career. How did you make the jump into moving image? 

BURGESS: When you become a mother, your identity comes into question and everything is focused on the baby. I needed more of a purpose. I was left completely questioning everything after the band broke up as it was so important for me to have my work and role. Around this time a few people asked me to make music videos for them since I had for Woman’s Hour. It made sense for me to do it for the band as it saved money, but I never saw it as a profession! Then, I did it and the penny dropped! It was a really exciting time and everything fell into place. It wasn't easy though. I threw myself into the new industry, but felt so out of my depth. It is such a big industry and I had no connections. I felt alone again in it and all I had was a burning desire and a small seed of self belief—and a very supportive partner. I began my journey. I hadn't pitched before, Suddenly I was sent briefs to pitch on and had to write treatments, which I had also never done. It was a good learning curve but at the same time, after a few months of rejection, I stopped pitching. I realized that I didn't have a crew of people I trusted and wanted to work with. So, I decided to connect with creatives that I did want to work with. It evolved from there. I met a choreographer online and we self-funded a film together. I directed and edited it and this allowed me to get an idea of what my interests were and what I wanted! Personally, my experience of having children was a very traumatizing one, but it also released a crazy energy in me; a desire to have a voice and not shy away from who I am. I was much less willing to compromise on my own happiness. I think this really helped me get to where I wanted to be.

MONRO: You recently directed a short film for Nowness X AGL. It is set within the recognizable, brutalist structure of the Tate Modern and your overarching theme is centered around an anthology of feminist writings from the 1970s Women’s Liberation Movement. Can you tell me more about that?

BURGESS: Yes. The [Feminist] Manifesto was a seminal piece in the feminist movement and allowed women from all walks of life to discuss their own experiences of womanhood; both positive and negative, and what they felt needed to change to create gender equality. There are so many differences between women, to collectively call women one thing is wrong. We aren't first and foremost anything. I don't have sisters (I have 3 brothers!) but in a wider context the sisters I choose—who I am collectively connected to—it felt that the manifesto tied in beautifully with what I was trying to get across through the film.

MONRO: How would you say the film embraces sisterhood? 

BURGESS: When I was invited to be part of this it was apparent that my role was not only to facilitate the technical aspect, but also to create a crew and a collective of people who would also input. It felt like the perfect opportunity to call on my sisterhood and embrace the power of our collectivity. I am so often trying to empower and connect with other female creatives, so with this film I ran with that opportunity. I didn't want the theme to be surface level, but part of the process. 

MONRO: The singer & songwriter, Lapsley, created a voiceover specifically for the film; can you tell me how this collaboration came about? 

BURGESS: I am such a fan of hers. Her album was the soundtrack to my 2020. It includes a number of songs around her experiences of being a woman, so I knew she would be interested in the theme. I sent her the Gloria Steinem quote: “Any woman who chooses to behave like a full human being should be warned that the armies of the status quo will treat her as something of a dirty joke. She will need her sisterhood,” and she came back to me with a beautiful song and very powerful voiceover for the film:

“We run in cycles, chase the morning, pave the way like those before them. It's love and action and its gaining traction This beauty is beyond the surface. She reminds me of my purpose when I feel worthlessness. Its like good love, my sisterhood.”

MONRO: You worked with the choreographer Alex Green, referencing the work of 1970s postmodern choreographers Trisha Brown, Simone Forti and Yvonne Rainer. Can you say how you incorporated their approach to dance as a visual manifestation of stability and strength through focusing on the subtlety of physical support?

BURGESS: I am very inspired by choreographers from the 1970s. If I could go back to one time it would be 1970s New York! Trisha Brown, Simone Forti and Yvonne Rainer were all doing different things, but generally questioning traditional balletic gestures and adopting more everyday gestures. With Trisha Brown, I took a lot of inspiration from her Leaning Duet piece as I often think the simple ideas are the best. This is a great example of that. For me, her choreography pieces are visual manifestations of the simplicity of human support. I wanted to include the three female dancers as AGL was started by three women. And I also wanted to highlight the difficulty of holding a position for a long time, to signify stillness as a symbol for strength. I am interested in creating moments of connection between women that relies on physical balance and support; this idea that if they were to let go they would fall. I also wanted this to show physical manifestations of support structures, of invisible reliance on one another, and to show that—even without knowing—we sometimes rely on the work of others. I think that collective sisterhood is so integral to gender equality as we have a duty and responsibility to hold each other up. To push and challenge one another. In my mind, it's using bodies to embody cultural messages. Distribution of weight is quite difficult: getting the balance right is hard! The simplest things require a lot. Focus and harmony are dependent upon everybody who is involved; giving and receiving the weight, the burden and the responsibility. This is what drew me to this concept. 

MONRO: It seems you always bring a personal element to the films you work on. Your recent film for Jo Malone Hope Blooms, for example, shines a light on the charities supported by the brand (Thrive and St Mungo’s) and their horticultural therapy programmes for people who are homeless, or struggling with their mental health in some way. How do you decide on your projects? 

BURGESS: Every project is different and has varied requirements, but there has to be a personal and emotional connection. The Jo Malone piece, that was amazing, as on a personal level, I am open about having been in therapy for most of my adult life, and have benefited from being privileged enough to spend that time and energy on myself. I trained in Applied Theatre and worked in a number of community spaces; using art for social change. That is my background and I still host workshops in an adolescent psychiatric unit to support young people who are either in or out patients struggling with mental health issues. My work aims to have a positive interaction that communicates a positive experience.

MONRO: A number of your films have been shot in 16mm including High Snobiety X Gucci, Nowness X AGL and Hope Blooms for Jo Malone. What draws you to the medium? 

BURGESS: Whenever I can, I shoot on film. I would say I am leaning more and more towards just working with the medium. I am drawn to film’s imperfections, its risks, uncertainty, and spontaneity. Also, there is a tactility to the physical process that excites me. My uncle ran a photographic shop so everyone who needed film developed would go to Quick Snaps. When I was a teenager and learning about cameras—I got an SLR from him and I would take pictures of my friends/landscape—every Saturday I would drop off and pick up a roll of film. That physical exchange and process was special. Respecting the process and the time that goes into it, the physical labor—that is powerful. There is also an element of nostalgia. I will always have that connection to film as part of my history and love of cinema and photography: the physical imagery.

The Grandeur of His Epic: An Interview With Choreographer Jay Carlon

interview by Summer Bowie

photos by Oliver Kupper

Defining a culture that comprises 7100 islands, centuries of colonization, and an overwhelming desire to assimilate is profound and Sisyphean. Unlike a migration that takes place over land, the ocean seems to wash away all evidence of the traveled path. The historical narrative that has framed Filipino-American immigration is fraught with this eternal question of identity and belonging. Being part Filipino myself, I learned very little about my grandmother’s life story while she was alive. It wasn’t until after she passed away and my grandfather published her memoirs that I learned just how harrowing her journey had been.

After attending the world premiere of FLEX, a dance theater piece that explores primarily the story of choreographer, Jay Carlon’s father and his immigration from the Philippines to the States, I realized that the erasure of these stories is rather commonplace. Jay’s father was not only a senior citizen by the time Jay was born, but it seems that he liked to let others tell his story for him. It wasn’t until his father passed away that Jay started to make heads and tails of the man versus the myth, and the role that he and other Filipino-Americans played in the United States throughout the 20th century, from World War II, to the Labor Rights Movement, the Civil Rights Movement, and beyond. The work explores the story of Honorio Carlon and his immigration to the States, as well as that of several other Filipino-Americans and their children. This pastiche of memories serves as a paean to those whose stories have been lost in the shuffle of sublimation. In the following conversation, we discuss everything from the Filipino sartorial sensibility, to the homoerotic Renaissance paintings of “Jacob Wrestling the Angel” in the book of Genesis, to the implications that result when one must prioritize survival over preservation.

SUMMER BOWIE: First, I want to talk about your upbringing as the youngest of 12 children, and what that’s like to have such wide age gaps between both your siblings and your parents. Were you all very close?

JAY CARLON: I suppose this question is difficult to answer succinctly. My dad had 3 wives and my mom was the last. Let me provide some context: My dad, Honorio Carlon, immigrated to America in 1932 during the Great Depression, while the Philippines was under US occupation. Filipino immigrants were almost exclusively men due to gender expectations in the workplace. These immigrant men started bachelor societies for solidarity. Due to anti-miscegenation laws (anti-interracial marriage laws) these men found it difficult to start families in America. Despite this, my father married twice and had 6 children. It wasn’t until the 1970s when my dad was able to make it back to the Philippines to eventually meet my mother and bring her back to the US. Now back to the question, my siblings: 6 of them are my half siblings and the other 5 are my full siblings. Naturally, because of age and generations, I am closest to my full siblings. The strange thing is some of my half siblings are older than my mom, which is a weird dynamic having half-brothers older than your mom. My relationship with my father, however, was somewhat distant. Ever since I was born, his death was imminent. He was 74 when I was born. He kept to himself; perhaps my expectation of him as a father was to simply maintain this “Big Fish” legacy and the grandeur of his Epic, being among the first wave of Filipino immigrants in America. He lived through the Great Depression, World War II, the Labor Rights Movement, the Civil Rights Movement, etc. He never talked to me about his experiences, also I was a child, so I couldn’t really understand why any of this was important/interesting. However, doing all the research I’ve done for FLEX, I’ve been able to fill in some of these gaps in his memory, his narrative.

BOWIE: I grew up in a suburb of San Diego with a large Filipino population, and my being only a quarter Filipino meant that I had a lot of Filipino friends, but I was never Filipino enough to call the parents of my friends Auntie and Uncle the way they did with each other. Did you grow up with that idea of the extended cultural family?

CARLON: I grew up in a large Filipino community and both my parents are from the same very small island in Philippines. My dad immigrated here with a group of about 8 men, some his cousins and some his friends. Those 8 men stuck together and worked as migrant workers throughout the Southwest. Every Labor Day Weekend, they would all come together and have a fiesta. This tradition has been going on since the ‘50s and still happens today. From those 8 pioneers, there are now over 500 descendants, and we all still gather in Santa Maria, California. All those 500+ extended family members are my uncles and aunties, whether I’m related to them or not! 

BOWIE: It seems like you did an extraordinary level of research into your father’s life while in the process of creating this work. Do you feel like you see your father in a different light now that the work has been fully actualized?

CARLON: Like I stated earlier, a lot of my knowledge surrounding my father’s history was from oral stories told by uncles, and aunties, and cousins. Some of these stories seemed to be conflated or exaggerated, as most memories are. 

Last year, I was interviewed by an Asian periodical and was asked how my work was influenced by my identity as a Filipino American. The question really caught me off guard and I felt uneasy and confronted with this responsibility to be more or less Filipino. I am a contemporary dance choreographer. Some of my work is abstract, some of it is conceptual, and some of it is expressionistic. The general topic of my work was often surrounding migrant issues and labor rights, but as far as a direct Filipino relation to my work, I was stumped. I thought of an article that I came across by Miguel Gutierrez in BOMB Magazine called “Does Abstraction Belong to White People.” The article resonated with me and elicited introspection: as a Filipino-American abstract choreographer, what am I doing here, and why, and how did I get here? Soon after being asked the question about my identity and coming across this article, L.A. Dance Project asked me to be their first recipient of the MAKING:LA Residency, a new work by a Los Angeles-based artist. I knew I wanted to make an unapologetic work about the diverse tapestry of Southern California. My father’s, mother’s, and my story seemed to be the perfect backdrop for that opportunity to create and share a hella Filipino [untold] history.

To return to the question: the process of researching my father’s history and filling in the gaps of his narrative allowed me to create a more human understanding of who he was. My dad was this historical figure to me once I was born. I wouldn’t say we were emotionally close. I have few memories of him, some of which include dropping me off to kindergarten with whiskey on the dashboard. (Laughs), it was a different time I suppose. But I never had conversations in length with my dad. Doing all the research I’ve been doing has made him become a more human and tangible person in my life. This research has also served my relationship with my mother, who is still alive and thriving. I seem to understand her better; why she is the way she is. My mother and I never had conversations beyond the weather or my financial situation, but now we talk about memories, family back in the Philippines, and emotions (which, for a Filipino family is huge).

BOWIE: You grew up training as a competitive wrestler. How did you find dance, and how do you think your wrestling background has influenced your approach to choreography?

CARLON: My first introduction to physicality was wrestling at the Boys and Girls Club. I followed my older brothers, who joined the wrestling team to stay out of the streets. I was 5 years old when I started wrestling and competed throughout my teens. I learned partnering and momentum, strength and velocity, and nuance between force and flow. I loved these concepts, but hated competing. Wrestling is brutal. I watch videos on YouTube now and think, “Goddamn! I grew up doing that?” I found the arts in high school, first with architecture, then voice (choir), and eventually the body (dance). I knew that I could channel these learned skills into a different medium.

I am also inspired by the image of “Jacob Wrestling the Angel” (Genesis 32:22–32). The story has been depicted by many Renaissance artists in painting and sculpture form. The artworks inspired by this scripture tend to look very homoerotic. I wanted to use this image as inspiration for FLEX to represent the Filipino peoples’ resistance to colonization, and perhaps the obedience as a result of colonization. The image also reminded me of Filipino male affection, and I wanted to use this image as a way to display the way different cultures showcase affection.

BOWIE: FLEX tells the stories of several Filipino-American immigrants and their children. There’s a very militant scene, it feels like boot camp and the dancers are counting in Tagalog, I believe. Can you talk a bit about that scene and the story behind it?

CARLON: I love that scene. I wanted to integrate Filipino languages in the work. I don’t speak Visayan (my family’s dialect), but counting seemed to be a natural and relatively easy way to integrate Tagalog (the national dialect of the Philippines) into the work. We made 16 gestures/movements and gave them each a number. I noticed the sequence of movements with the counting in Tagalog sounded very militant. This section made me think of the Philippine American War (1989-1902), where the Philippines fought for their freedom and independence from America.  I wanted to create a scene where the wrestling drills, something I grew up doing in America, paralleled the guerilla warfare in the Philippines.

BOWIE: The dancers you cast for this piece are all incredibly athletic, they’re poetic with their movement, and they’re multi-talented. At times they lend voice, either in narrative or song, and your choreography demands a certain versatility as well. How did you go about casting the work?

CARLON: I only cast people I trust. Trust is a very important component of my work, for the performers, the audience, all the natural and simulated elements, etc. I have worked with all my collaborators in the past on projects at REDCAT or The Annenberg Community Beach House. In my process, I like to [safely and consensually] push physical and emotional boundaries. I also like to work as a multidisciplinary director and see how I can integrate each and every individual's skill[s] into the work.  The cast of FLEX is incredibly dynamic and I had a wonderful time learning about their multiple talents and how I could incorporate them into the work.

BOWIE: Your dancers seem to go through a marathon from the beginning to the end of the piece. Some of their faces were dripping within the first 3 minutes, and you see the way that the movement becomes increasingly more demanding, pushing them into a deeper synchronicity with one another. What is the warm-up and rehearsal process like for a project like this?

CARLON: I often like to focus on sensory improvisational tasks to begin a process. I like to work with eyes closed to privilege the other senses, especially touch. We start with an improvisation with eyes closed while being guided through the space. The participant with the eyes closed will recall a memory and tell that memory to the person guiding them around the room safely. This mode of embodiment and memory primes the dancers for the process of creating FLEX.

BOWIE: There are two very deep Americana references that you included in this piece, the first being the opening monologue from Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie, the second being Patti Page’s “Tennessee Waltz.” The Tennessee connection seems coincidental, but can you talk a little bit about those choices, and the Filipino rendition of the song that you included? Where did it come from?

CARLON: I wanted to create a 1950s Filipino American ballroom, a place in which my father and his comrades found solidarity--the only place they could escape and have fun without judgment. My dad loved the Cha Cha and music from the ‘50s. The Tennessee Waltz was incorporated into the work because the lyrics reminded me of the loss of their home. 

We also changed “Tennessee” to “Philippine” in the live version of the song. I did this because I wanted it to be clear that these Americana attributes were coming from a sense of otherness, or perhaps reappropriation.

I was dancing with my darling to the Tennessee Waltz
When an old friend I happened to see
I introduced her to my loved one
And while they were dancing
My friend stole my sweetheart from me

I remember the night and the Tennessee Waltz
Now I know just how much I have lost
Yes, I lost my little darling the night they were playing
The beautiful Tennessee Waltz

BOWIE: The musical score was really beautiful. I think Alex Wand did a phenomenal job. How did that collaboration come about, and what was it like?

CARLON: I began working with Alex Wand on a previous project that took place in a parking lot with my car about mental health and stability. We used audio recording from the iconic moon landing as well as solar system sonifications (using the orbital speeds of the planets and creating a sound score). After that project, we became obsessed with sonifications and played with amplifying sounds of a cardboard stage, we made synth sounds activated by waves by putting Wii controllers in a buoy at the beach, and made a resonant frequency plate that used sand to predict the vibrational sound, etc. Prior to FLEX, Alex went on an epic bike tour across the Mexico-American border, biking from LA to Michoacan (the Monarch Butterfly migration path). We used field recordings from his bike ride for the ambient and environmental sounds in FLEX. I love finding parallels with Alex’s interest in ecological sustainability, like with the Monarch Butterfly migration and my interests in immigrant stories, and visible vs. invisible borders.

BOWIE: The costumes were really lovely. I understand that many pieces were from your father’s wardrobe. There’s one story you tell, called The Filipino and the Drunkard by William Saroyan. Can you talk about your father’s sartorial sense and the role that the costuming plays in this piece?

CARLON: My dad, though being a strawberry picker for over 50 years, never left the house without a suit. He never wanted people to know we were poor. He wore pressed suits and tailored clothes daily.  He taught me how to shine my shoes and slick my hair back. I always felt that Filipinos had this sense of showing off, and I never understood why. When I heard The Filipino and the Drunkard, it brought to light the complexity of Filipinos not wanting to look poor, to assimilate. This is one factor why I decided to call this work FLEX--slang, to show off.

Over 70% of the costumes were sourced from my father’s wardrobe. However, the garments were quite large and boxy. Ching Ching Wong, soloist for FLEX, also served as a costume production assistant and tailored the costumes to fit the performers. 

BOWIE: Throughout the show, there are times when characters can be seen in the back folding, unfolding, and refolding jackets. You also have a previous work literally called, Fold, Unfold, Refold. Can you explain this theme a bit?

CARLON: The integration of the folding in the background came out of this notion of hidden labor.  I integrate labor a lot into my work. The work Fold, Unfold, Refold was a work about monotony, and repetitive gestures, and the performance of labor. I’m obsessed with the performance of labor. The folding in the background of FLEX was inspired by my mom’s immigration story. My mom lived in the shadow of my father’s epic and I wanted to pay homage to her. I thought about the invisibility of domesticity within our Western culture. I tried to incorporate as much folding in the background as possible to remind the audience of a sense of forgotten work.

BOWIE: The history of Filipino-American culture and its contribution to American development has been widely overlooked. However, Filipinos are the second-largest population of Asian-Americans, second only to Chinese-Americans. Why do you think this history is so easily overlooked?

CARLON: The Philippines is such a uniquely eclectic culture that is constantly evolving and trying to understand itself. From the 7,100 islands within the archipelago to the large amount of immigrants all over the world, Filipinos are great at adapting to cultures while still maintaining their own culture. There are so many influences, mainly because of colonization, but it’s hard to pinpoint what a Filipino is. I think assimilation, the desire to fit in, is a result of our culture being forgotten. I also think erasure is just a part of the Filipino diaspora; through centuries of resistance, the Filipino mentality is primarily survival, not preservation. That’s why I think it’s important for more Filipino stories to make their way into pop culture, and media, and academia. I think we’re getting there.

BOWIE: Where else would you like to take the work from here? It’s so emotionally compelling and educationally-rich that I could see it playing at a number of different venues.

CARLON: My dream is to share this story with other Filipino-Americans. I want to focus on touring this work throughout California, to start. From San Diego to the Bay, California is home to the highest number of Filipinos outside of the Philippines. I would also like to take the work to New York and other Filipino populated cities. It would, of course, be a dream to even take this to the Philippines.

Follow @carlondance on Instagram to learn more about FLEX.

The Tao of Maceo: An Interview Of Multi-Disciplinary Artist & Behavioral Economist Maceo Paisley

interview by Summer Bowie

photographs by Dan Johnson

What does it mean to be a twenty-first century renaissance man? For Maceo Paisley, a wide range of disciplines comes together in a positive feedback loop that supports his indefatigable exploration of human behavior. Using embodied inquiry, he investigates his own identity and presents his findings in performance and film. A prolific writer of prose, he just released his first book Tao of Maceo, which takes inventory of his personal beliefs and aims to define his perspective more acutely. Stepping off the stage, he cultivates community through his Chinatown gallery, Nous Tous and a multi-pronged community practice/social innovation agency called Citizens of Culture. When he’s not writing, choreographing, curating, advising, and organizing, you might find him modeling or dancing for the likes of AirBnb or Justin Timberlake, respectively. Or you might find him enjoying a day to himself with a great book in hand. In the following interview, we learned about Maceo’s ever-expanding artistic practice, his time in the Army, and his unique approach to community organizing.

SUMMER BOWIE: Your short film, Dynamite investigates gender and identity, specifically the black, male experience through embodied inquiry. Can you talk a bit about the concept of embodied inquiry and any discoveries you made about your identity through this process?

MACEO PAISLEY: Yes, embodied inquiry, as I see it is a practice that deepens the thinking process by approaching ideas through the body. From the neurological perspective, we tap into kinetic intelligence, and somatics. From the more spiritual or philosophical perspective we tap into the bodies natural, sensual wisdom, as a reference point for our conceptual understanding.  

The most interesting discoveries have been around relationships, in partner dancing, where trust, communication, vulnerability, and boundaries aren’t just metaphorically applied, but fully actualized in the bodies of two dancers.

BOWIE: Speaking of masculine expression, I understand that before your career as an entrepreneurial creative, you earned a Bronze Star for your service with the Army in Iraq. Can you describe your tour in Iraq and do you feel this is a testament to your masculinity, or something else completely?

PAISLEY: I think that my time in the Army, was challenging, but it gave me access to a kind of masculinity that, when untempered appears as violent aggression, but when honed, can actually be useful as clarity and assertion.  It took me going to the extreme to know what limits I was comfortable with, but through that expression and exploration I was able to find a balance point and operate from there.

Iraq was a mixed bag, everyday was different, some days were almost boring, and other days there were mortar rounds blasting over our heads.

BOWIE: Aside from being a multi-disciplinary artist, you’re also a model, behavioral economist, an entrepreneur, a writer/magazine publisher, the president and director of Nous Tous Gallery in Chinatown and you oversee strategy and vision for a nonprofit called Citizens of Culture. That’s a lot to unpack and we’ll come back to these projects in detail, but have you always been such a polymathic person, and how do you manage to wear so many hats?

PAISLEY: It seems to me that my work is actually quite dynamic in practice but almost singular in focus. At core, I am deeply interested in the humanities as a field, so that might be the qualitative measurement of human behavior, or it could be the observational study of a couple arguing in a coffee shop, or the of publishing of works across whichever medium is most suitable for the audience.  

Art & science are often posed as opposites, but I believe that they are like twins separated at birth, who are both often misunderstood, yet each necessary to gain as robust a picture of humanity and it’s surroundings as possible.

BOWIE: You just had your first book published, Tao of Maceo, a personal inventory of your beliefs in writing. You say that by putting your views on paper, you gain a better understanding of your fallacies and limiting beliefs. What’s the most important thing you learned about yourself through the writing process?

PAISLEY: The most important thing I learned about myself has to be that for as much as I am open and perceived as vulnerable in my work, I am a very private person, who isn’t nearly as open in my relationships as I am in the controlled context of sharing art.

BOWIE: You’re an avid reader and you publish a biannual print magazine called Correspondence. Who are some of the authors and magazines that inspire your writing and publishing, respectively? 

PAISLEY: Well, in 2016 I read about 115 books, both fiction and non-fiction. I really have to say that Oliver Sacks is one of my favorite non-fiction writers because of his range of experience dealing with the human mind. In the fiction realm, Octavia Butler is really a titan, that I keep wanting to go back to. As far as periodicals, I really love the Copenhagen Institute for Cultural Studies magazine SCENARIO, it has the most fabulous images, and deep insights about culture and identity from the individual and macro perspective.

BOWIE: You seem to be on a highly proactive odyssey toward excellence. Are you seeking an arrival point, or are you simply trying to see how much you can accomplish within your lifespan?

PAISLEY: The latter, I don’t know that “excellence” is the goal, it certainly was at one point. Now, I am more focused on finding peace and living in an urban environment, and contemporary society makes that a worthy challenge. My biggest goal at the moment is to understand what “enough” means to me, and how that idea changes accordingly with changes in my environment, and at various stages of life.

BOWIE: I want to talk about Nous Tous (French for all of us). What made you decide to open a gallery/community space and what does the decision process look like when curating artists and hosting events?

PAISLEY: Well, to be frank, we’ve never really said “No.” to anyone who wanted to show at Nous Tous. It would be contradictory to the name if we were to be exclusionary. Instead, I see my role as gallerist to be more of an editor, highlighting the best elements of whatever work is brought my way, and to coach the artist to trust in a shared vision, or in some cases, simply submit to the artist’s vision, and work to support it as best we can within our parameters and resources.

We have a manifesto that we reference, and works that fit naturally within it are usually what we attract, and other times we offer rental agreements to allow works to be shown with more autonomy. We then use that financial support to uplift other programs.

BOWIE: Can you talk a bit about Citizens of Culture? How it came about and what you guys do.

PAISLEY: Citizens Of Culture is really about creating a place to have all the conversations we find difficulty having otherwise. Whether it be race, sex, politics, death, money, or morality, we support individuals and businesses as they approach cultural challenges in the hopes of providing the kind of clarity that can inform values-based actions. Practically, we are consultants for innovation, diversity and belonging, in companies, and that work supports, free or low-cost programs that are art-based, therapeutic, or support economic empowerment.

We have weekly meetings on Wednesdays, 7pm at Nous Tous in Chinatown if anyone wants to pop in and check it out.

BOWIE: Through Citizens of Culture you conducted a dating social experiment called, No Pressure, No Shame. What do you think are some of the current challenges that single people face in our current dating culture, and do you have any wisdom to impart for those who are currently trying to navigate the dating scene?

PAISLEY: The biggest challenge is that we have only been trying to marry for love for a short while in human history, and we don’t really have stale or universal definitions for what “love” is. So there is this mythology around it that we are trying to live up to, all while the ground shifts beneath us as to how we are supposed to go about achieving a loving relationship.

We first try to encourage people to clarify their intentions in the dating world, and that might mean having a flexible, working definition of what love looks like, and how a romantic partner might fit in to an ideal life. The next thing would be to set up some goals and boundaries that feel appropriate for our stage in life, and realizing that the work is never really done, so having compassion for ourselves and others along the way.

BOWIE: Is this an ongoing project or was it more of a one-time thing?

PAISLEY: No Pressure No Shame, started in 2015 with a 150-person queer, sex-positive, consent-based dating event, and we have been activating different iterations of the program as talks, art events, and parties ever since then. We activate something larger each October.

BOWIE: I’m really interested in a video series you feature on Citizens of Culture called Talking in Circles. Can you talk a bit about the concept of this series and any future topics you plan to cover?

PAISLEY: We believe that every great movement in humanity starts with people coming together to make collective decisions. Every one of our programs has some element of this, in the past we have covered technology, religion, police brutality, gentrification, and other issues, and moving forward I think we should be speaking more to addiction, sex-work, ideas of normalcy, economy, and mental health. As we move forward, we would like to be a go-to place for all of the most important conversations of our time.

Maceo Paisley will be officially releasing Tao of Maceo and signing books Thursday March 14 from 7:30-9:30pm @ NAVEL 1611 South Hope Street. Please join us for a screening and performance of DYNAMITE, as well as a short Q&A with Maceo Paisley & Summer Bowie.

Rebuilding the Model: An Interview of Contemporary Choreographer Chris Bordenave

 

text by Summer Bowie

 

How could anybody forget Toulouse-Lautrec’s paintings of Loie Fuller at the Folies Bergère, or Picasso’s myriad costumes and set designs for the Ballets Russes? Even if they've become less household over the years, those images made an indelible mark on mainstream society. Then there's the almost completely forgotten gems, like the stage set that Jasper Johns created for Merce Cunningham’s Walkaround Time, a pastiche of images from Duchamp’s “The Bride Stripped By Her Bachelor’s” in clear plastic pillows. The 20th century offered a spoil of fantastic collaborations between the visual and performing arts: Eadweard Muybridge’s iconic photos of Isadora Duncan, Léon Bakst’s costumes and set design for Nijinsky’s Afternoon of a Faun, or Isamu Noguchi’s set for Martha Graham’s Appalachian Spring  – just to name a few. Unfortunately, I find myself hard-pressed to find any similar contemporary examples, which is why I was so pleasantly surprised to discover Chris Bordenave.

A classically trained, multi-disciplinary choreographer, who is one of the 3 founding members of a dance company called No)one. Art House., Bordenave has recently been working with a number of musical artists, such as Anderson Paak, Mayer Hawthorne, and more recently Solange and Kelela. He has also been creating site-specific works for institutions such as the California African American Museum, Hauser + Wirth, and Solange’s SAINT HERON House. I caught up with the young choreographer at the Annenberg Beach House, one beautiful autumn day, where he was rehearsing. We discussed his early training, the current state of dance affairs, and dance’s ceremonious relationship to visual art. Whether this current century will bear witness to dance and art finally renewing their vows is still a mystery, but if it is the case, Bordenave is one choreographer making a clear gesture that he's ready to meet in the middle.

SUMMER BOWIE: I want to start by asking you about your performance this past weekend at the Hollywood Bowl with Solange, how did it go?

CHRIS BORDENAVE: It was good. She brought me on to help with coordinating the additional performers that she had. She had twelve or fourteen extra horn players and she had a full string arrangement. I was just helping out with getting their choreography and their entrances and exits together. Just kind of helping out with whatever else she needed.

BOWIE: Is that your first time choreographing musicians in their movements, or is that something you’ve been doing?

BORDENAVE: I’ve been doing it. I’ve worked with Mayer Hawthorne, Anderson Paak, Empress Of, and a few other artists, just choreographing them in music videos. It was my first time doing a live performance — actually no that’s not true, I did Anderson Paak on the Ellen Show.

BOWIE: What are you rehearsing for right now?

BORDENAVE: Right now we are doing a performance at the Bootleg Theater. It’s going to be me with a vocalist and she made some songs out of these old black poems about the Great Migration. So this performance is one man’s journey through these songs, dance, theater, and projection mapping. It’s about their experiences moving from the South to the North during that time, what they went through, and how layered the experience is.

BOWIE: Since founding No)One. Art House, you’ve been performing and collaborating with a wide range of musical artists and art institutions. Is that bridge between musically driven work and performance-art driven dance what you were originally aiming for with No)One.?

BORDENAVE: Yeah, we knew that we wanted to educate and also challenge audiences in LA, because LA is a bit new to concert dance. We figured bringing it physically closer to the audience would impact them a bit more. Doing it inside of a proscenium stage doesn’t really connect, especially with contemporary dance. So, we found that when we do it in galleries, or unconventional spaces where we can physically get closer to the audience. They feel more connected to the work.

BOWIE: On the music side, you’ve been working with everyone from Solange, to Kelela, to Mayer Hawthorne, to Anderson Paak. How do you approach those kinds of commissions from a choreographic perspective?

BORDENAVE: First it goes off of their original vision. Right now I’m working with Kelela, and it’s nice to be working with her at this point because it’s really the first time she’s headlining shows, and it’s going to be her first album. It’s kind of a new arrangement for her, it’s very fresh and very new. So, it’s nice because I’m able to bring my concert dance art sensibility to this kind of commercial, mainstream element.

BOWIE: On the art side, you’re going to be presenting work at Hauser & Wirth in LA, the California African American Museum, and the SAINT HERON house. Does your approach change dramatically in accordance with the different types of venues that commission you?

BORDENAVE: Totally, it’s all about the space. It doesn’t really benefit anyone if we keep doing the same thing in different spaces. We want people to feel connected. We want them to feel like they are the work, that their role is as vital as that of the performers.

BOWIE: So, let’s go back to the beginning, you started dancing when you were about nine. What was your training like at that age?

BORDENAVE: I started at the Lula Washington Dance Theatre here in LA, and we did a lot of modern, African, jazz, and hip hop. Kind of everything, she wanted us to have a lot of tools under our belts so that we could work and do whatever we were asked to do. Then I went to the Debbie Allen Dance Academy once she opened up her school. When I graduated from high school, I moved to New York and went to the Ailey school, then I graduated from the LINES Ballet BFA program in San Francisco.

BOWIE: So you went to Ailey then came over to Alonzo King and finished your education?

BORDENAVE: Right. I was part of the inaugural class for their joint program with Dominican University. That was mainly contemporary ballet and I danced with the LINES company for a little bit after I graduated. Afterwards, I danced with Morphosis in New York, and then Luna Negra in Chicago. I moved back here because the state of affairs with dance companies in this country is failing. A lot of the most prominent contemporary dance companies have closed because people don’t care anymore about dance and they don’t want to give money to it. I basically started this new company with some friends as a way of rebuilding the model, because the old model clearly isn’t working. We thought that LA would be ideal, not only because it’s our home, but because it doesn’t really exist here. There’s definitely a void, but concert dance in LA is quickly becoming more popular.

BOWIE: It seems like your dance practice itself has been moving stylistically as well as geographically. From the examples you just gave, you’ve gone from ballet, to latin-based contemporary, to contemporary, to gaga-based movement…and I’m sure you’ve done a whole wealth of work in between. Would you say there’s a single motivating factor behind your overall trajectory?

BORDENAVE: The direction. It was always really important for me to work for someone who I knew could change a dancer. Every time I would go and see LINES, I had no idea how the dancers were doing it. I wanted to learn from whoever was directing. Gustavo Ramirez Sansano (who took over Luna Negra before it closed), he really trained me how to dance and how to work with different choreographers; to not only be true to what they’re doing, but also to be true to myself.

BOWIE: When we look at dance history, at least from a Western perspective, dance and fine art really developed in tandem, especially over the 20th century from the avant-garde movement, to modern, and finally the postmodern movement. Then we get to contemporary, and it seems like contemporary art has gone in a very conceptual direction and contemporary dance has been very commercially driven. Do you have any theories as to why that phenomenon may be occurring?

BORDENAVE: I think contemporary jazz dance has gone commercial for sure. But true contemporary dance, I wouldn’t say that it’s gone commercial quite yet. I think people just get confused about the differences between the genres. A lot of people think what they’re doing on So You Think You Can Dance? is contemporary dance, and it’s not. It’s contemporary jazz dance, which is very different. A big aim for me, and the reason why I always try to perform in these fine art institutions, is because that’s the only way that people will understand it’s at the same level as fine art, as visual art. In this country, unless you’re doing ballet or commercial dance, there’s no funding. The level of what you’re seeing on stage is usually very basic because the funding isn’t there. But when you go to Europe or when contemporary companies tour here, you see the scale is so large, and so much more than what we’re doing here. It’s sad that we have to bring outside companies from around the world to show us what the next level of dance is.

BOWIE: Do you think that academically, our institutions are doing justice by American dancers?

BORDENAVE: No! I’ve found that the institutions that have dance programs usually keep the same faculty for decades. Decades upon decades upon decades. People who have not worked, people who have not been in the field for years. So, of course, if you have this outdated information that you keep perpetuating to your students, they’re not going to know what’s going on. I would say there are about four conservatory programs in this country that can compete with companies outside the U.S.

BOWIE: Which would you say those four are?

BORDENAVE: I would say they are USC, Juilliard, San Francisco Conservatory, and SUNY Purchase… and LINES. So, five.

BOWIE: Do you have any predictions for what the future of dance will look like, both academically and commercially?

BORDENAVE: I think people are starting to wake up to contemporary dance for sure. It’s becoming more prevalent with people like Ryan Heffington. They’re bringing it into fashion and music videos and to film. There’s definitely a slow progression, it’ just... slow.

BOWIE: What do you think is the most valuable lesson you’ve learned as a performer?

BORDENAVE: That it’s important to see dance, to see all forms of art, to let it inform you, to be influenced, and also to copy. I feel like I’ve only been able to be so versatile because I’ve been able to really observe and listen and then copy and then let it influence my work. People are always scared like, “Oh no, I can’t be like them.” But Michael Jackson stole the moonwalk. All these influential people steal. Beyoncé steals... she does. It is a form of flattery. I don’t see why people get so upset when Beyoncé steals their work. Their work would never have been seen by that many people unless someone like her was to do it. Of course, there’s artistic integrity and all of that, but I still think that there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s okay.

BOWIE: Finally, I feel like we see a lot of young people who’ve fallen in love with dancing but then they don’t know how to continue the practice as adults. Do you have any advice for young adults who struggle with feeding that passion?

BORDENAVE: That’s a great question. As soon as I moved back here, people came up to me like, “Oh are you still dancing?” You know, of course. It’s what I am. It just goes back to arts education. I know USC is definitely teaching them the business side of it, because that’s a reality. Especially now with social media, you have to be able to market yourself. You have to be able to know what you look like, what to post, you have to know the avenues you can go down. You can be an arts manager, you can be a publicist, you can be a gallerist, you can do so many things within the art world even if you’re not the one performing or creating the work. I taught myself how to curate, how to reach out to magazines, how to do all of these things just by seeing what other people are doing and trying. I think it’s important to know that you can’t just dance anymore. You have to be able to promote yourself, promote your work, promote every aspect of what you’re doing. Even if you’re not that good.

No)one. Art House will be performing at 8pm November 9 at Hauser & Wirth Los Angeles, as well as 7-9pm December 19 at the California African American Museum. Follow Chris Bordenave on Instagram @chrisemile, follow No)one. Arthouse @no_one.arthouse, follow AUTRE @autremagazine. Look out for this interview, as well as interviews with Yayoi Kusama, Agnes Varda, Harmony Korine, Judith Bernstein and many more in the Winter 2017 issue of AUTRE. Available for pre-order now! This is a limited-edition issue, get your copy while supplies last!