The American Presidential Election at the End of Last Year Sent Shock Waves Through the Nation. Marina Harss Investigates How Ne

The American 43 presidential election at the end of SIGN last year sent shock waves through the nation. Marina Harss investigates how New York’s dance community is O F responding. here are exceptions,’ Joseph V Melillo, the executive producer of the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) told the New York Times a few years ago, ‘but the majority of contemporary choreographers in the US today do not think about their place ‘Tas citizen-artists in response to the political atmosphere.’ Melillo said this in 2007, four years into the Iraq War. He went on: ‘That’s not to say they don’t talk about the war Protest art?… (opposite) when they’re having a cup of coffee at Dean & Deluca, but Tiler Peck and Amar they’re not doing that in their art. There’s a disconnect.’ Ramasar in Justin Peck’s It’s an odd thing to hear from someone leading one of The Times Are Racing and (above) the Women’s the most progressive art institutions in the United States. exacerbated by the arrival of a chief executive for whom March in New York Photos: But he certainly has a point, if one defines political art in bluster and insensitivity seem to be preferred modes of Erin Baiano; Jessica Gordon the most narrow, literal sense. Despite the upheavals since communication. Since last November, the US has in many THE 9/11, the country is not awash in political art as it was in ways been a nation in shock. the 1930s, 60s, or even 80s; we are not experiencing a Like everyone, many dancers and choreographers wave of new dance works that address the current social are feeling a crushing sense of crisis, even if it’s not and political situation head-on, in the manner of Kurt always immediately apparent in the work. Outside the Jooss’ The Green Table (1932), Martha Graham’s Chronicle studio, people from the dance world have participated (1936) or Bill T Jones’ Last Supper at Uncle Tom’s Cabin / in protests, called their congressmen, griped over coffee. The Promised Land (1990). Groups of Miami City Ballet dancers posted photos It is perhaps too early to know whether this will holding homemade signs with messages like ‘LGBT Rights change with the presidency of Donald Trump, one of the are Human Rights’ and ‘Our Bodies Our Choices’ on the most – if not the most – divisive figures in recent American day of the Women’s March on Washington, in January. political history. The fact that he was elected in the midst Members of the theatre community marched as a group of a national reckoning concerning the corrosive effects in New York, under the banner #BroadwayStrong. A sign of racism and inequality makes the situation all the more spotted at the DC march featured a pair of pointe shoes raw and disconcerting. Police shootings and brutality, and the words ‘Ballerinas on Pointe For Peace.’ In times poverty, mass imprisonment, the erosion of privacy, fear of of confusion, action can sometimes feel more productive ecological disaster – all are issues that hang heavily on the than art. (In some cases, the transition from choreography TIMES American consciousness. This new age of anxiety is only to social action is complete, as with the former Forsythe 44 SIGN OF THE TIMES Waking up… Kyle Abraham’s 45 Untitled: America (Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater) ‘It’s one thing to say Photo: Paul Kolnik something, but it’s another to make it hit home. That’s where the artistry lies’ KYLE ABRAHAM Company dancer Dana Casperson, who uses choreographic aftermath of the election in front of a sometimes agitated techniques to orchestrate mass dialogues about racism, audience of about 100 people. immigration and violence.) Where Lebowitz exclaimed her fury and There have been very few visible examples of incomprehension at the result, Jones advocated for greater open support for the new government. In one case, an empathy and understanding. ‘We were smug,’ he said of American Ballet Theatre dancer posted a photo of herself artists’ and city-dwellers’ attitude toward the struggling on Instagram alongside a somewhat younger version of white, working-class voters who came out en masse for The Donald. Though declining to reveal which way she Trump. But Jones was not advocating for a new kind of had voted, she captioned the photograph with the hashtag art to respond to these times of political upheaval and #thisismypresident. Some responses were cruel. ‘alternative facts’. His hope, he said, was to stay ‘above the Dance companies, particularly ballet companies, noise.’ ‘I think that what I do,’ he elaborated, ‘when it is who depend on large donations from wealthy donors and right, is sacred.’ Would our new political reality affect his corporations, have remained more or less neutral in the approach to making art, I asked. No, he answered. face of the political tide. At the same time, Griff Braun of Other, less high-minded, choreographers have AGMA (the union that represents many dancers) knows admitted to feeling a different level of urgency since the of no examples where political activity has been actively election. Justin Peck, the choreographer-in-residence discouraged. ‘They’re pretty hands off,’ he says of the at New York City Ballet, is more known for his swift, companies. The precision dance company the Rockettes sophisticated use of the corps than for big ideas. However, (part of a different union, the American Guild of Variety his first work of 2017, The Times Are Racing, had a Artists) performed at Trump’s inauguration; James L decidedly rebellious, restive feel. To driving music by the Dolan, the executive chairman of the Madison Square electronic-alt-rocker Dan Deacon, the dancers careened Company, is a longtime friend of the incoming president. across the stage, limbs flying, as if fighting back an In the end, each individual dancer was allowed to choose invisible force. Costumes included t-shirts by designer whether or not to take part. Humberto León emblazoned with the words Unite, Fight, Some company directors have been forthright about React. At times the dance became almost a cliché: a highly their dismay at the government’s move to the right. On manicured rebellion performed for a privileged few. And the eve of the election, the choreographer Bill T Jones, yet, because of its sincerity, it was compelling. who has never shied away from burning questions In the press, Peck stopped short of calling his piece (perceptions of blackness, AIDS, death, desire) sent political, but admitted being influenced by the anxiety out an extraordinary email to his contacts in the dance he and his fellow-dancers felt when it was being made, community. He urged people to get out and vote, to ‘reach at the end of 2016. The dancer Devin Alberda was more out to any and all in the swing states,’ and to heed the forthcoming on Instagram, calling it ‘an exuberant call to words of Hillary Clinton: ‘How will you feel the day after arms,’ voicing the dancers’ dismay at ‘the largest setback to this election?’ In a very public, direct and personal way, progressive politics in my lifetime.’ he took a side. More recently, he has hosted a series of Another work with political overtones, Kyle conversations at New York Live Arts, including one with Abraham’s Untitled: America, premiered in December writer and humourist Fran Lebowitz. They discussed the at Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. The subject 46 SIGN OF THE TIMES ISSUE 2 — 2017 47 A dancer called Peck’s work ‘an exuberant call to arms’ ‘We were smug’… Bill T Jones (right) in discussion with Carrie May Weems Photo: Paul B Goode was heavy: the emotional trauma visited upon African This is a sentiment echoed by Reggie Wilson, the American families who lose sons and husbands to police director of Fist and Heel Performance Group, whose Citizen shootings or protracted jail terms. Abraham used repeated recently premièred at BAM. The work, he told me, is about images of bodies falling, bound hands, consolation, and ‘belonging and not belonging, which I think is the basic powerlessness. The sound-score was woven through with function or construct of what civic duty is about.’ But the voices of real people whose lives had been shattered by a person could easily watch it and come out with a extended prison stays: lovers separated, families broken, completely different message, or none at all. The dance feelings of shame and anger. is built upon a series of solos constructed out of specific Unite, fight… Tiler Peck and As Abraham points out, his interest in topics relating building blocks of movement, reconfigured in various NYCB in The Times Are Racing Photo: Paul Kolnik to African American life predates the election and the ways. And it is anything but explicit about its intentions. Black Lives Matter movement. But the process took on a I asked Wilson the same question I had posed to Jones: new emotional edge as news of killings of unarmed black Does making art feel different since the election of Trump? book Secondhand Time, Svetlana Alexeivich writes, ‘the its relevance and intentionality, even though the work was men and youths mounted. And yet, Abraham too feels a Again, the answer was no. Do you consider yourself a barricades are a dangerous place for an artist. They’re a made a while ago. That’s the thing that was fascinating and certain ambivalence about his work being seen as protest political artist? With some coyness, he answered: ‘I don’t trap. They ruin your vision, narrow your pupils, drain the troubling.

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