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Note: This essay was first published in Stance on Dance’s spring/summer 2023 print issue. To learn more, visit stanceondance.com/print-publication.

Piñatas are radically punk. Create and destroy! While blindfolded, swing your stick at the papier-mâché doll while someone spins you around to make you more disoriented, while someone else pulls the rope of your target up and down, while all the rest of the people at the party are yelling to hit to the left when it’s really going right. ¡Dale, Dale, Dale! Eventually it breaks open, the kids race for the candy on the ground, and after the inequity is revealed among the slower or the faster children, tears are shed, and the older kids feel bad and realize it’s better to share in the end. Just in case, we moms make sure to have pre-wrapped bags of candies and toys for the have-nots.

How I wish our nation’s leaders could pull wisdom from the equity practices of the piñata ritual and demonstrate the value for human life. Instead, while we stand blindfolded, the US government violently hits the piñata right of center, allowing corporations to pull the rope for decades. They prioritize funding military defense which fuels the oil and defense companies. They prop up the industrial prison complex for corporations that exploit prisoners for cheap labor and continue to support privatized detention centers. They feed the war machine over caring for the earth or providing the most basic needs for disenfranchised people to live in dignity, seek asylum, or earn a living wage. They have dangerously prioritized profits of pharmaceutical companies over universal health care during a global pandemic and the fatal opioid epidemic.

As one of hundreds of dancers who disembark at the San Francisco Civic Center BART to attend classes or rehearsals at Alonzo King LINES Dance Center, I am acutely aware of stark contrasts of social and economic inequality in our world. On the street level, we traverse an open-air drug market swarming with unhoused, addicted, and traumatized individuals who are literally on their way to death. Above ground, the elevator operator takes us up to the fifth floor where dancers have the privilege of learning and creating with some of the most notable artists and teachers in the world. Moving through these two landscapes, I attune to the way my body first braces itself, then unwinds and attempts to metabolize the experience within the euphoric sounds of a grand piano. The heartbreak travels the path of the vagus nerve.

With over a decade delving into la piñata as a symbol of the temporary nature of the body and a container for themes related to creation, destruction, consumption, and regeneration, I feel a particularly thick sense of dread as I look to the year ahead. Regardless of my tenacity I inherited from my ancestors, or the beauty of piñatas surviving 500 years of imperialism and reappropriation, or perhaps due to it, I am looking at death and destruction as a reality of life, regardless of happy birthdays.

Make a wish, it’s 4:44 p.m. I always make a wish when I see all the numbers on the clock are the same. Today, I am facing my mortality and the mortality of the planet. Hence, I wish for radical change with the most positive and peaceful outcome. I wish for love to rule everything. I made that same wish at 5:55 p.m. yesterday, so I decided to recycle it.

The organization of which I am the artistic director, Festival of Latin American Contemporary Choreographers (FLACC), is turning 10 this fall. While it is something to celebrate, I am keeping a close watch on current events and political agendas that may impact not only Latinx artists but the world at large as well.

My concerns cause a serious pause and question: Are we escalating toward nuclear disaster, environmental catastrophe, and WWIII with our involvement in the war in Ukraine and our offensive stance toward China? Why aren’t others worrying as much as I am? Where is the peace movement? Are we too consumed with other important domestic struggles? Is media suppression and propaganda obscuring us from seeing the bigger picture? What if this downward spiral of war, sickness, and fragmentation of corporate greed in late capitalism is beyond hope? How are we managing the reality of despair? Is there liberation beyond hope and despair? Where do we seek or offer a deep refuge for ourselves and others?

In 2021, after the loss of my dear cousin to brain cancer and after I turned 50, I started facing my mortality. In so doing, I encountered my “death denial,” a term that refers to when we think death is something that happens to other people and is in the far future. We act as if we have time to kill. We engage in endless conflicts that feed the ego or we avoid them to maintain the status quo. As if we have time to kill.

The combination of getting older, personal losses, world politics, and the pandemic has made denial of death impossible for me. As the ones I love begin to leave this precious earth and my body begins to show signs of fallibility, my fear of loss takes center stage and can be overwhelming.

What does it mean to adopt a radical acceptance of the fact we are all going to die?

It doesn’t mean we stop dancing or stop engaging in political resistance. The path of self-determination is necessary for me, but it’s not always easy when one is grieving, injured, or having an existential crisis. We don’t have time to kill, yet we must make time to grieve, even when it’s time to make a wish and blow out the candles.

In a 2020 interview about my creative process, I was asked what I meant by the word “radical” by the moderator, Dr. Melissa Blanco Borelli, when referring to the term “radical aesthetics.” I use this term to describe my own work as a politicized contemporary choreographer. I also incorporate it into the mission statement for FLACC.^[1] My response was something to the effect of disrupting the status quo, accepting all movement as dance, and I tied it to my feminist ideologies of “the personal is political” in the context of gender, class, race, and power that guide much of my aesthetics around the body politic on concert stages. I am still exploring the question and I stand on the shoulders of many revolutionary thinkers who lead with love: bell hooks, Sonya Renee Taylor, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Fr. Óscar Romero, Dorothy Day, to name a few.

For me, radical change is about getting to the root of a problem. It’s a process of pushing through grief in all its forms to get to the goodies inside. I work with the arts as a decolonial performance practice confronting themes related to systemic oppression or the environmental crisis. I facilitate corrective experiences to care for the body, open creative pathways, and build self-acceptance through interdisciplinary dance practices. Sometimes these corrective experiences look like just having a great time, freeing the body, and taking up space. Other times it involves a more delicate process of witnessing personal stories that emerge from memories, emotions, or sensations held within the body. I engage in radical change by building alliances as a path to safety when facing a crisis.

As I examine my work over the past two decades, I notice a motif of honoring the dead. This existential theme is housed in the tropes of Latinidad, especially through the lens of El Día De Los Muertos (The Day of the Dead). In fact, many themes connected to grief and loss lie at the root of social and environmental change work in the arts. This labor includes memorializing family members, honoring ancestors and ancestral lands, naming victims of gender-based violence, gun violence, hate crimes, and police brutality, honoring victims of genocide, slavery, and displacement, dancing for lost waterways, fighting for clean air, crying for the forests, and mourning the extinction of animals.

My journey has involved pushing through and carrying these themes. I memorialize to metabolize, to make space for sorrow in order to move through to the other side of it: joy, love, celebration, and cherished moments of liberation. While these states are all impermanent, the seeds I water are the ones that grow. Sometimes I water them with my tears.

During lockdown, I engaged in solo work, gathering footage and sound recordings for an upcoming project with my Piñata Dance Collective (PDC) called Cuatro Vientos: Middle of Nowhere. I explored environmental landscapes in Oakland/Ohlone territory and in Southern California including 10 weeks in Mojave/Cahuilla territory. When COVID mandates were lifted, I traveled to Guadalajara, Jalisco, and Mazunte, Oaxaca, for six weeks leading performance labs called “Mitología del Cuerpo” (Body Mythology).

Cuatro Vientos: Middle of Nowhere confronts my fears and ideas about freedom while being alone in a remote desert cabin as a woman and as the granddaughter of Mexican immigrants from the Sonoran desert. The piece is in honor of the global epidemic of murdered and missing women.

During the desert pilgrimage, I was staying only 20 miles from where the remains of a woman’s corpse were found near the local US Marine base in Twentynine Palms. Filming myself alone in the “middle of nowhere,” I was equally afraid of rattlesnakes and men with guns. Occasionally, dudes barreled through on their ATVs, growling through the winding dirt roads, waving various white supremacist flags, leading me to hide inside. When I went on walks, the sound of my shoes on dry gravel was so loud that I kept stopping to listen for predators before taking a few more steps. It didn’t feel much safer with my dog Lola by my side.

The experience became an investigation of how fear shows up somatically: fast heart rate, sweaty palms, hypervigilance, shallow breath, and slow inhibited movements. If I screamed, no one would hear me. It took me a week at the cabin to muster the courage to walk four miles around Goat Mountain. Each day, I walked a little further and worked on my breath to overcome the freeze response. Planting my feet into the earth, I let my breath expand into the membranes of my skin, meeting the vast beauty all around me.  Thus, I moved in slow, controlled, and directional sequences.

During the residency, I found refuge in being alive in my body, intimately held by the natural world. I created rituals to memorialize my own personal losses and the lost victims of femicide who whispered their stories on my path of solitude. While still cautious, I looked forward to my daily walks at sunset and fell in love with the spirit of the land, the extreme elements, and the profound sanctity of silence. With high temperatures, relentless winds, blankets of stars, nightly cries of coyotes, and the presence of an owl that lived in an abandoned shack nearby, I found a sense of belonging. I fed a bowl of water to the resident six-foot-long gopher snake that my son discovered in the back of the house on one of his visits, and I was blessed with the majestic encounter of a mountain lion.

With the support and generosity of expert staff, fellow artists, loved ones, and comrades, I have much to look forward to in the year ahead if I don’t lose my way.^[2] I will continue to move with the winds of change, follow the animal tracks of my longing for peace, and seek refuge in love as a radical act in this precarious and spectacular world.

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Piñata Dance Collective will perform Cuatro Vientos: Middle of Nowhere for the San Francisco International Arts Festival on June 8-10, 2023 at the Joe Goode Annex and on June 16-17, 2023 at Highways Performance Space in Santa Monica, CA. FLACC’s 10th anniversary will take place in October and November with a monthly archive program leading up to the celebration. For more information, visit lizboubion.org or flaccdanza.org.

Liz Duran Boubion, MFA, RSMT, is a second-generation Chicana and queer dance maker, instructor, presenter, and registered somatic movement therapist based in the San Francisco Bay Area for the past two decades. She is a Tamalpa Life/Art Process® practitioner who makes dances under her company name, Piñata Dance Collective, in the US and Mexico. She is the founding artistic director of the Festival of Latin American Contemporary Choreographers.

^[1] ¡FLACC! creates a platform of visibility and inclusion that amplifies the radical and traditional aesthetics of Latinx and Indigenous choreographers from the US and Latin America.

^[2] Referencia a la tradicional Piñata song: “!Dale dale dale, no pierdas el tino, porque si lo pierdes, pierdes el camino!” (Hit it hit it hit it, don’t lose your aim, because if you lose it you’ll lose your way!)

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Estética radical y vientos de cambio

Por Liz Durán Boubion

Las piñatas son radicalmente punk. ¡Crea y destruye! Con los ojos vendados, balanceas tu bastón hacia la muñeca de papel maché, mientras alguien te hace girar para desorientarte más, mientras alguien más tira de la cuerda de tu objetivo hacia arriba y hacia abajo, mientras el resto de la gente en la fiesta grita que golpees a la izquierda cuando en realidad es a la derecha. ¡Dale, dale, dale! Eventualmente se rompe, los niños corren por los dulces en el suelo, y después de que se revela la desigualdad entre los niños más lentos a los más rápidos, se derraman lágrimas y los niños mayores se sienten mal y se dan cuenta de que es mejor compartir al final. Por si acaso, las mamás nos aseguramos de tener bolsas de dulces y juguetes pre envueltos para los que no les tocó nada.

Cómo desearía que los líderes de nuestra nación, pudieran obtener sabiduría de las prácticas de equidad del ritual de la piñata y demostrar el valor de la vida humana. En cambio, mientras tenemos los ojos vendados, el gobierno de EE. UU. golpea violentamente la piñata fuera de centro, y permite que las corporaciones tiren de la cuerda durante décadas. El gobierno da prioridad a  la financiación de la defensa militar, la cual apoya a las empresas petroleras y de defensa. Apoyan el complejo penitenciario industrial y los centros de detención privatizados, que explotan a los presos para obtener una mano de obra barata que favorece a las corporaciones.

Alimentan la máquina de guerra en vez de cuidar a la Tierra o de proveer las necesidades más básicas a la gente más desfavorecida, para que puedan vivir con dignidad, busquen asilo o ganen un salario digno. Han priorizado las ganancias de las compañías farmacéuticas, arriesgando la atención médica universal, durante una pandemia global y la fatal epidemia de opioides.

Como una de los cientos de bailarines que toman BART y desembarcan en la estación Civic Center de San Francisco para asistir a clases o ensayos en el Alonzo King Lines Dance Center, soy muy consciente de los contrastes de desigualdad social y económica en nuestro mundo. En las calles, atravesamos un mercado de drogas al aire libre, repleto de personas sin hogar, adictas y traumatizadas que están literalmente en camino a la muerte. Por encima del suelo, el ascensorista nos lleva al quinto piso, donde bailarines tienen el privilegio de aprender y crear con algunos de los artistas y maestros más destacados del mundo. Moviéndome a través de estos dos paisajes, me sintonizo con la forma en que mi cuerpo primero se tensa y luego se relaja, e intenta metabolizar la experiencia de los sonidos eufóricos de un piano de cola. El dolor en mi corazón recorre el camino del nervio vago.

Con más de una década profundizando en la piñata como símbolo de la naturaleza temporal del cuerpo y como contenedor de temas relacionados con la creación, la destrucción, el consumo y la regeneración, siento una sensación de temor particularmente espesa, al mirar hacia el año que viene. Independientemente de la tenacidad que heredé de mis ancestros, o de la belleza de las piñatas que sobrevivieron a 500 años de imperialismo y reapropiación, o tal vez por eso, estoy viendo la muerte y la destrucción como una realidad de vida, sin importar las fiestas de cumpleaños felices.

Pide un deseo, son las 4:44 p.m. Siempre pido un deseo cuando veo que todos los números en el reloj son iguales. Hoy enfrento mi mortalidad y la mortalidad del planeta. Por lo tanto, deseo un cambio radical con el resultado más positivo y pacífico. Deseo que el amor gobierne todo. Pedí ese mismo deseo a las 5:55 p.m. ayer, así que decidí reciclarlo.

La organización de la cual soy director artístico, Festival de Coreógrafos Latinoamericanos Contemporáneos (FLACC por sus siglas en inglés), cumple 10 años este otoño. Si bien es algo para celebrar, sigo de cerca los eventos actuales y las agendas políticas que podrían llegar a afectar no sólo a los artistas latinos, sino también al mundo en general.

Mis preocupaciones son motivo de una seria pausa: ¿Estamos escalando hacia un desastre nuclear, una catástrofe ambiental y la Tercera Guerra Mundial con nuestra participación en la guerra en Ucrania y nuestra postura ofensiva hacia China? ¿Por qué los demás no se preocupan tanto como yo? ¿Dónde está el movimiento por la paz? ¿Estamos demasiado consumidos con otras luchas domésticas importantes? ¿La supresión de los medios y la propaganda nos impiden ver todo el panorama? ¿Qué pasa si esta espiral descendente de guerra, enfermedad y fragmentación de la codicia corporativa en el capitalismo tardío está más allá de toda esperanza? ¿Cómo estamos gestionando la realidad de la desesperación? ¿Hay liberación más allá de la esperanza y la desesperación? ¿Dónde buscamos u ofrecemos un refugio profundo para nosotros y para los demás?

En 2021, después de la pérdida de mi querido primo por cáncer cerebral y después de cumplir 50 años, comencé a enfrentar mi mortalidad. Al hacerlo, me encontré con mi “negación de la muerte”, un término que se refiere a cuando pensamos que la muerte es algo que le sucede a otras personas y que está en un futuro lejano. Actuamos como si tuviéramos mucho tiempo que perder. Nos involucramos en un sinfín de conflictos que alimentan el ego o los evitamos para mantener el status quo. Como si tuviéramos tiempo para perder.

La combinación del envejecimiento, las pérdidas personales, la política mundial y la pandemia me ha hecho imposible negar la muerte. A medida que los que amo comienzan a dejar esta preciosa tierra y mi cuerpo comienza a mostrar signos de falibilidad, mi miedo a la pérdida ocupa un lugar central y puede llegar a ser abrumador.

¿Qué significa adoptar una aceptación radical del hecho de que todos vamos a morir?

No significa que dejemos de bailar o que dejemos de ser parte de la resistencia política. El camino de la autodeterminación es necesario para mí, pero no siempre es fácil cuando estás de duelo, herido o en una crisis existencial. No tenemos tiempo que perder, y  debemos hacer tiempo para llorar, aún cuando es momento de pedir un deseo y apagar las velas.

En una entrevista en 2020 acerca de mi proceso creativo, la moderadora, Dra. Melissa Blanco-Borelli, me preguntó qué quería decir con la palabra “radical” cuando me refería al término “estética radical”. Utilizo este término para describir mi propio trabajo como coreógrafa contemporánea politizada. También lo incorporo en la misión de FLACC. Mi respuesta fue algo en el sentido de romper el status quo, aceptando todo movimiento como danza, y lo vinculé a mis ideologías feministas de “lo personal es político” en el contexto de género, clase, raza y poder, que guían gran parte de mi estética en torno al cuerpo político en los escenarios de conciertos. Todavía estoy explorando esta pregunta,  y me apoyo en muchxs pensadores revolucionarios que lideran con amor: Bell Hooks, Sonya Renee Taylor, el Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Fr. Óscar Romero, Dorothy Day por nombrar algunos.

Para mí, el cambio radical se trata de llegar a la raíz de un problema. Es un proceso de superar el dolor en todas sus formas para llegar a lo bueno que hay adentro. Trabajo con las artes como una práctica performática decolonial que confronta temas relacionados con la opresión sistémica o la crisis ambiental. Facilito experiencias correctivas para cuidar el cuerpo, abrir caminos creativos y construir la autoaceptación a través de prácticas interdisciplinarias de danza. A veces, estas experiencias correctivas se reflejan en simplemente pasar un buen rato, liberar el cuerpo y tomar el espacio. Otras veces implica un proceso más delicado de presenciar historias personales que surgen de recuerdos, emociones o sensaciones contenidas en el cuerpo. Me comprometo con el cambio radical, mediante la construcción de alianzas como un camino hacia la seguridad frente a la crisis.

Mientras examino mi trabajo durante las últimas dos décadas, noto un motivo de honrar a los muertos. Este tema existencial está alojado en las figuras de la latinidad, especialmente a través del lente de El Dia De Los Muertos (El Día de los Muertos). De hecho, muchos temas relacionados con el duelo y la pérdida se encuentran en la raíz del trabajo de cambio social y ambiental en las artes. Este trabajo incluye conmemorar a los miembros de la familia, honrar a los antepasados y las tierras ancestrales, nombrar a las víctimas de la violencia de género, la violencia armada, los crímenes de odio y la brutalidad policial, honrar a las víctimas del genocidio, la esclavitud y el desplazamiento; bailar por las vías fluviales perdidas, luchar por aire limpio, llorar por los bosques, y de luto por la extinción de los animales.

Mi viaje ha implicado empujar y llevar estos temas. Conmemoro para metabolizar, para hacer espacio para el dolor a fin de pasar al otro lado: alegría, amor, celebración y preciados momentos de liberación. Si bien estos estados son impermanentes, las semillas que riego son las que crecen. A veces, las riego con mis lágrimas.

Durante la pandemia, me dediqué al trabajo en solitario, recopilando imágenes y grabaciones de sonido para un próximo proyecto con mi Piñata Dance Collective (PDC) llamado Cuatro Vientos (Four Winds). Exploré paisajes ambientales en el territorio de Oakland/Ohlone y en el sur de California, incluidas diez semanas en el territorio de Mojave/Coahuila. Cuando se levantaron los mandatos de COVID, viajé a Guadalajara, Jalisco y Mazunte, Oaxaca durante seis semanas liderando laboratorios de rendimiento llamados “Mitología del Cuerpo”.

Cuatro Vientos confronta mis miedos e ideas sobre la libertad, mientras estuve sola en una remota cabaña en el desierto como mujer y como nieta de inmigrantes mexicanos del desierto de Sonora. Esta pieza es en honor a la epidemia mundial de mujeres asesinadas y desaparecidas.

Durante la peregrinación por el desierto, me hospedé a solo 20 millas, cerca de la base local de la Marina de los Estados Unidos, donde se encontraron los restos del cadáver de una mujer. Al filmarme sola en el “medio de la nada”, tenía tanto miedo de las serpientes de cascabel como de los hombres armados. De vez en cuando, los tipos pasaban a toda velocidad en sus vehículos todo terreno, gruñendo a través de los sinuosos caminos de tierra, ondeando varias banderas de supremacía blanca, lo que me llevaba a esconderme adentro. Cuando salía a caminar, el sonido de mis zapatos sobre la grava seca era tan fuerte,  que continuamente me detenía para  poder escuchar a los depredadores antes de dar unos pasos más. No me sentía mucho más seguro con mi perra Lola a mi lado.

La experiencia se convirtió en una investigación de cómo el miedo aparece somáticamente: frecuencia cardíaca acelerada, palmas sudorosas, hipervigilancia, respiración superficial, movimientos lentos e inhibidos. Si gritaba, nadie me oiría. Me tomó una semana en la cabaña reunir el coraje para caminar cuatro millas alrededor de Goat Mountain. Cada día, caminaba un poco más y trabajaba en mi respiración para superar la respuesta de parálisis. Plantando mis pies en la tierra, dejé que mi aliento se expanda en las membranas de mi piel, encontrándome con la vasta belleza que me rodeaba. Me moví en secuencias lentas, controladas y direccionales.

Durante la residencia, encontré refugio en estar vivo en mi cuerpo, íntimamente sostenido por el mundo natural. Creé rituales para recordar mis propias pérdidas personales y las víctimas perdidas de feminicidios que susurraban sus historias en mi camino de soledad. Aunque todavía cauteloso, anhelaba mis caminatas diarias al atardecer y me enamoré del espíritu de la tierra, los elementos extremos y la profunda santidad del silencio. Con altas temperaturas, vientos implacables, mantas de estrellas, gritos nocturnos de coyotes y la presencia de un búho que vivía en una choza abandonada cercana, encontré un sentido de pertenencia. Le di un tazón de agua a la serpiente de tierra residente de seis pies de largo, que mi hijo, en una de sus visitas,  descubrió en la parte trasera de la casa y fui bendecida con el majestuoso encuentro con un león de montaña.

Con el apoyo y la generosidad del personal experto, compañeros artistas, seres queridos y camaradas, tengo mucho que esperar en el próximo año si no pierdo mi camino. Seguiré moviéndome con los vientos del cambio, siguiendo las huellas animales de mi anhelo de paz, y refugiándome en el amor como acto radical en este mundo precario y espectacular.

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Piñata Dance Collective interpretará Cuatro Vientos para el Festival Internacional de las Artes de San Francisco el 8 y 10 de junio de 2023 en el Joe Goode Annex. El décimo aniversario de FLACC tendrá lugar en octubre y noviembre con un programa de archivo mensual previo a la celebración. Para más información, visita lizboubion.org o flaccdanza.org.

Liz Duran Boubion, MFA, RSMT, es una creadora de danza chicana y queer de segunda generación, instructora, presentadora y terapeuta de movimiento somático registrada, residiendo en el Área de la Bahía de San Francisco por dos décadas. Ella es una practicante de Tamalpa Life/Art Process® que hace danza bajo el nombre de su compañía, Piñata Dance Collective, en los Estados Unidos y México. Es directora artística fundadora del Festival de Coreógrafos Latinoamericanos Contemporáneos.

The post Radical Aesthetics and the Winds of Change appeared first on Stance on Dance.

Happy 11^th birthday to Stance on Dance! When I started Stance on Dance in 2012, I had no idea I’d be continuing it more than a decade later, or that it would grow into its present iteration as a nonprofit and print publication. As Stance on Dance reaches its third print issue, I’m thrilled to have the opportunity to continue publishing the perspectives of myriad dance artists and sharing those perspectives with Stance on Dance’s donors as well as with students of dance around the country. I’m honored to be able to send a copy of each issue to folks who donate at least $25 a year to support Stance on Dance’s arts journalism nonprofit.

The spring/summer 2023 print issue features movement artist breana’s poignant poem about their history in ballet and subsequent trauma; Liz Duran Boubion’s meditation on how her residency in the desert has influenced her thoughts on death; Julia Cost’s sumptuous paintings of people in motion; Micaela Gardner’s reflections on making Resuenen, an interpretive dance film that explores the US-Mexico border; Mary Elizabeth Lenahan’s story of former dancer Adelaide and her son, Preston, who is on the autism spectrum and dances with Dance Express; Shannon Leypoldt’s intriguing look at the link between artistic practice and the menstrual cycle; Kevin O’Connor’s ode to his “dancestor” Billy and his suggestions for scores to improvise with one’s ancestors; and longtime dance teacher Diana Turner-Forte’s account of her experience facilitating a group of students with intellectual disabilities. This issue also includes my interviews with Maggie Bridger, a choreographer and PhD candidate who explores the relationship between pain, dance, and disability; and Wonyoung Kim, a choreographer, dancer, and lawyer who views choreography as metaphorically similar to law. If you’d like to receive a copy, please consider donating to Stance on Dance. Otherwise, all the articles and interviews will eventually be published online and will be free and accessible to anyone interested.

A big component of Stance on Dance is to not only create a platform for dance writers but also to send free copies of Stance on Dance to colleges and other dance learning spaces with the hope that the next generation of dance artists will become excited by the possibilities of dance journalism. To date, Stance on Dance has sent free copies to 20 dance programs around the country. If you work with a college dance program or other dance learning space and are interested in receiving free copies of Stance on Dance, please reach out to me at emmaly@stanceondance.com. And if you’re reading this and thinking, “I have a stance on dance!” don’t hesitate to get in touch!

Cover by Julia Cost
“Betty Ann’s Hula” (2014)
Oil on canvas, 16” x 12”

The post Supporting and Spreading Dance Journalism appeared first on Stance on Dance.

Photo by Su Pang

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What does your current regular dance practice look like?

I consider myself an experimental and interdisciplinary dance artist with a foundation in contemporary modern-release technique. I support this foundation with ballet, contact improvisation, somatic methodologies, Pilates, yoga and occasional cross-genre practices such as writing, singing, musical engineering or costume design. Recently, I started learning aerial bungee as part of a human-piñata installation I am working on. As a second-generation Chicana, queer and female choreographer raising my son in the Bay Area, I am interested in how multiple layers of identity reveal themselves through the body and can be supported within the language of dance theater.

I’m a dancer in my 40s and, while I would love to be in the studio every day, now that I am a presenter of the Festival of Latin American Contemporary Choreographers (FLACC) heading into its 5th year, much of my work is in the business of art: writing grants, developing alliances with local and international arts organizations, having production meetings, tackling administrative tasks, budgeting, publicity, etc. I am also a dance educator teaching creative movement, beginning ballet and yoga to children, contact improvisation and modern dance to adults, leading on-going motivational movement classes to seniors with memory loss, and I work as a Registered Somatic Movement Therapist (RSMT) based in the Tamalpa Life-Art® Process (TLAP) founded by Anna Halprin and her daughter Daria Halprin. TLAP is a movement-based expressive arts therapy model that has been instrumental in my healing process and in providing resources for my pedagogy and choreography whenever possible.

Would you call yourself a professional dancer?

Only when I spent a year dancing in Europe did I realize I was a professional dancer. After I graduated from the dance department at CSU Long Beach at age 21, I didn’t see myself as a professional because I only got paid a couple times for performing and I never felt I was dancing enough. While working three part-time jobs, I kept taking class and doing small projects, but I had some personal life challenges that took my dance path off the performance track and into the realm of dance therapy and somatic healing. Four years later, at 26, I sold my car and traveled to Europe to dance professionally (for pay) for a year in Germany. I showed a solo at a dance festival in Wurtzburg, I was hired as a dancer for the Frankfurt Opera, and I danced in several project-based companies while I was there. I was always paid for performing in Germany and was told that I was a professional dancer several times. It was a stark contrast to dance in a country where being an artist actually placed me somewhere in society, with a certain amount of status and privilege. Even though I was barely making ends meet in Germany, being a dancer was perceived as a viable profession that made me feel valued. Dancing for free simply was not an option.

When I returned to the US, dancing for free became the norm for me again, but I knew I was a professional dancer at that point. Everything I have done since then, including solo improvisations, dancing for other choreographers, offering performance labs to target populations, creating the Piñata Dance Collective, performing my work in the US and Mexico, deepening my research in somatics, teaching, curating and presenting, have all been part of my professional career. It has grown to include working for pay and working in larger venues and universities as I evolve.

What do you believe is necessary for a dancer to call themselves professional? Is part of being a professional getting paid?

I think it is necessary to both achieve a certain level of mastery of your craft and to choose dance as a career path. Some would say, dance has to choose you; it has to be something you can’t avoid. Or something that you always follow as it unfolds in your life. Whether as a dance educator, choreographer, performer, movement therapist, writer or dance historian, these are all professional tracks. It doesn’t always mean you get paid for your work as an artist but we are constantly training, collaborating and developing as artists in the community. Everything we do as dance professionals feeds into the tapestry of experience. Writing these responses for Stance on Dance is not a paid opportunity, but it is an investment in my art as a professional. It supports what I do and supports the field at large. There is something about being socially engaged, rather than in isolation, that is included in the title.

From my experience, I think there are real financial challenges for modern, experimental, contemporary and social change dancers in that there is often a deliberate choice not to be an entertainer, dancer-for-profit, or selling the body in a certain way. I remember adopting that philosophy as an anarchist/feminist dancer, making a shift from feeling objectified and artistically restricted as a competitive dancer in high school, to being an “artist” in college. It took me many years to realize that I do value dance as a form of entertainment and that one can have monetary value as an entertainer without being reduced to a product. I wish I had not equated commercial dance with the commodification of my female form. It is still an art and can be fun, clever and shiny. So, I respect the aerial dancer working for corporate parties, for example. Or the music video dancer who can do it all. Or erotic, pole, burlesque, drag and vogue dancers. Contrary to my former beliefs, dance doesn’t always have to be a service to others, as a somatic healing art, a social experiment or a political response. It can be a job to keep a roof over your head. There is no shame in that.

The competitive nature of the audition process was also a huge deterrent in my early career philosophy, so I did very few. In contemporary dance, it is known that if you attend the classes of the choreographer, you will eventually be asked to join the company organically. In my case, it was true to a certain extent and then I became a mother, which interrupted my focus again and sent me on a much more self-created dance path which came with more financial challenges. I think I am coming to terms with being a late bloomer as a dance professional but I am glad my creativity carried me though.

Is there a certain amount of training involved in becoming a professional dancer?

Absolutely. I’m a snob in that way. Like any profession, there are long hours of developing your craft and it takes dedication, time and learning to be a dancer. Whether it is the trees, wind, YouTube, or the culture you grow up in that teaches you how and why you move, there is a relationship to the spirit of dance and to the field of dance at large, that can grow you professionally. It doesn’t matter what the dance style is; it is how it has informed your body that allows you to carry it. One can be born with a natural ability to dance but there is always a practice leading to professionalism, I believe.

According to the 2016 New England Foundation for the Arts National Dance Project’s report “Moving Dance Forward,” 80 percent of respondents said they were doing project-based work and 50 percent said they were doing solo work (there was room for crossover). Do you consider project-based and solo work to be professional?

The cost of living and the lack of funding for the arts forces many artists to work alone or work very fast with who is available for a single project. There are very few salaried positions. However, there is an enormous amount of generosity, creativity and love that allows us to make work within this inherently social art-form. From individual monetary donations, to commissioned work, to artist residencies, to self-made costumes and work exchanges, there are many forms of in-kind donations such as: donated studio space, free professional consultation, cross-promotion by fellow artists, or the many volunteers who help out during a production. All of this and more supports the professional artist where our government doesn’t or when grant funding can’t cover costs. It’s a major hustle that definitely impacts our work as artists, but we become very resourceful.

For example, in order for me to make a month-long residency in Mexico feasible in the summer of 2014, I had to sublet my apartment, have my 13 yr-old son stay with his father while I was gone, and I held a benefit showing at Shawl Anderson Dance Center where I was given free space and publicity, raising about $1,400 for travel costs and artist fees. When I arrived in Jalisco, the artist residency included an apartment and a small stipend in Chapala, but it was a little too far from Guadalajara, so I contacted my friend, Maria Di Maruka, who knew the artist Lila Dipp, who knew Ailyn Arelles and Ramón Vázquez, who produced my show at a live-work space and connected me to the dancers and musicians at the Centro Cultural de Barrio San Diego where I took classes and held auditions for the show. I was really supported from all directions without any grant funding at the time. I paid 12 artists and two tech staff small stipends and I was invited to return to teach and perform in Guadalajara the following year. I also made life-long friends.

Do you think the definition of a professional dancer is different than it was 25 or 50 years ago? If so, do you have any ideas why it might have changed?

I’m noticing the semantic difference between “professional dancer” and “dance professional.” Today, I think we could be seeing the definition of a professional dancer embracing a broader spectrum of dance styles internationally, which is more inclusive of diverse backgrounds and body types. And the dance professional can encompass numerous career tracks within the field.

Also, I believe the approach to teaching is becoming more anatomically sound and emotionally healthy, making it more sustainable for dancers physically and psychologically.

According to the NEA, there is less funding for the arts now than there was 25 years ago, so this has had an impact on the whole ecosystem of dance. And while there is now a thing called “crowfunding,” I think it is more competitive overall.

Are there instances when people apply the term “professional” to a dancer or group of dancers when you feel it shouldn’t be applied?

This is dangerous territory. I would hate to offend anyone. But it’s a dynamic conversation.

It makes me think of male athletes who become paid contemporary dancers on salary with only a year of formal dance training under their belts and little knowledge of the form. But then again, what is dance? They have essentially been training all their lives with an intense physical practice that has developed a highly intelligent body to learn steps very quickly. What is more central to that conversation is how men in this country are discouraged to dance professionally and how it creates a gender imbalance for the field overall.

I would also say it is an unfit title for someone who is making money by appropriating or plagiarizing material from cultures outside their own or from other dance professionals in the field without crediting them. There are several untrained dance entrepreneurs leading entire communities of people to free their bodies via social dance or exercise. They are making a huge impact increasing the accessibility of dance to the general public while earning a profitable living from the practice. Some of these trademarked dance forms are methods that actually can carry a lot of wisdom and change people’s lives. It only gets tricky when the wisdom is borrowed or taken from other traditions or from other dancers without any permission.

Vice versa, are there instances when people don’t apply the term “professional” to a dancer or group of dancers when you feel it should be applied?

Yes.

Erotic, burlesque, pole, vogue, drag and queer dancers etc. are professionals and can be highly skillful technically or artistically.

Cultural dance forms, ceremonial dances rooted in Indigenous traditions, or dance/movement as a therapeutic and healing modality can be professionalized, performed, taught and hold monetary value.

Dance improvisation can also be developed as a highly sophisticated skill in performance and taught in academia or elsewhere.

How might your cultural perspective – where you live, where you’re from, what form of dance you practice – influence what you think of as professional?

To elaborate on my earlier statements, the art of dance (and theater) is generally visual and centered on the body and its politics. Issues of race, class, body type, age, ability, gender, culture, geography and other influences effect the credibility and the accessibility to certain dance genres for many aspiring dancers. However, where there is creativity and commitment, anything is possible.

As mentioned above, I am a queer, female, Chicana, divorced, low-income, single mother and dancer. I was raised the youngest of seven in the suburbs of LA county with a Mexican-American father who grew up poor in a culture that believed dancing was only a hobby for Mexicans and was instead for privileged, rich, white people. There was some truth in that. My Euro/Canadian mother believed that it was too late for me to be a dancer because I didn’t have formal ballet training until I started college. There was some truth in that too… but thank goodness, they didn’t block me from taking on the challenge. If I had listened to their cultural beliefs, I would not have formed a life as a dancer, which has given me a powerful language to communicate thought, emotion, energy and metaphor. It’s a language that crosses borders and cultures connecting me to people internationally. I would not have found a personal place of belonging, a source of strength, joy, freedom, healing, knowledge and wisdom, right inside my own moving body. I would not have helped others do the same. I have developed a unique skill set that I am passionate about sharing. It has not come without enormous effort and challenge, and I am simultaneously aware of my privilege based off my skin color, body type, education and eventual formal training that I embarked on at a relatively late stage of my physical development.

Admittedly, I have not yet reached my professional goals. With a BA in Dance, an MFA in Interdisciplinary Art and a certification in the Tamalpa Life-Art Process, I still do not have job security teaching in higher education. I am living month to month in my Oakland apartment, on Medi-Cal, dancing on a precarious edge of time as a project-based choreographer, presenter and dance educator. It feels like I am still hustling, but dance is at the center of my life. Some people think this is a measure of success but I am still climbing. Thank the lord, I am still dancing in good health, which is more than many dancers at my age, and I’ve remained committed to the coalescence of technique, somatics and cultural wellness as a form of livelihood that supports who I am.  My cultural background and my life experiences are all resources with which to create art and to help others learn, connect, grow and achieve. By curating, presenting and teaching, I am working to provide more accessibility to the art-form and hopefully more accessibility to funding as well.

What do you wish people wouldn’t assume about the dance profession?

That you can’t dance past 40. Or with a disability. Or with a kid.

That you have to start training when you are pre-pubescent.

That it requires classical training.

That it is only for entertainment.

That we aren’t artists.

That all male dancers are gay.

That all female dancers are straight.

That dancers are dumb.

That it is easy.

That it is only a hobby.

That we don’t need to be paid for our work.

Photo by Yvonne Portra

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Liz Duran Boubion, MFA, RSMT, is the artistic director of Piñata Dance Collective and co-director of ¡FLACC! Festival of Latin American Contemporary Choreographers. She has been choreographing and teaching in the San Francisco Bay Area since 2001. Her work embraces the temporal nature of the body and a shapeshifting attention on identity politics, mental health and strategic cultural curating. She teaches on-going dance classes to youth, adults and to elders with neurodegenerative diseases. Visit www.lizboubion.org and www.flaccdanza.org for more information.

The post The Credibility and Accessibility of Professional Dance appeared first on Stance on Dance.

This article is part of a series on contemporary dance and its extended implications.

Liz Durán Boubion is a Bay Area dancer/choreographer, artistic director of the Piñata Dance Collective, and a second generation Mexican American. A few years ago, she went to Mexico for an artistic residency, and there met a handful of contemporary dance artists wanting to present work in the U.S. This sparked the Festival of Latin American Contemporary Choreographers (¡FLACC!). Now in its third year, ¡FLACC! will be presenting 16 dance artists in its upcoming season December 9-11, with one company coming from as far away as Guatemala.

In a form dominated by the white Western purview, a contemporary dance festival that specifically gives voice to Latin American artists allows for discussion on cultural identity. “A lot of the artists have been making work that is culturally relevant to their identities and trying to find spaces where they don’t have to assimilate, compromise or translate. It’s something I think the community has been wanting,” says Liz. “It’s nice to let these artists bring their content to a space that really invites it.”

This year’s artists include Momentum Dance from Guatemala, Dancing Earth’s bi-local company directed by Rulan Tangen in New Mexico and San Francisco, Primera Generación Dance from Los Angeles, as well as 12 choreographers from the San Francisco Bay Area including Detour Dance, Victor Talledos, Sebastian Hernandez, Javier Stell-Frésquez, Davalos Dance Company, Diana Lara, Karla Quintero, Juliana Mendonca, Gabriel Mata, Zoё Klein, Adrian Arias and Cuicacalli Dance Company.

I posed to several of the artists this question: What is the value of contemporary dance to the Latin American community?

I have migrated multiple times since I left Honduras in the 1980s, the country where I was born. I started my performance and choreography career in Honduras and I developed it further in Mexico where I lived for 25 years. While I was in Mexico, my creative work was informed by a process of recognition of myself as a woman separated from my family, and my need to integrate into a new society. In my artistic career, I have felt embraced and inspired by many other artists in the U.S. who have paved the way for identity and migration inquiry.

The piece I will present at ¡FLACC! is “Where, Dónde? Living or Witnessing Life,” a somatic exploration of membranes around the lungs and the heart, in order to grieve the loss of my mother who died in Honduras while I was in the U.S. In the process of creation, and influenced by the assassination of the Honduran indigenous leader Berta Cáceres, it became a universal exploration of witnessing and grieving hostilities from faraway.

—Diana Lara: choreographer, somatic educator and public health researcher

My contemporary performance practice empowers me to investigate the multiplicity of my identity as a Queer first-generation Cuban-American artist, and allows me to situate myself in a larger context. As part of an ongoing research process, I have invited my mother, father and three brothers to choreograph short solos on me, with me, for me. The work is called “Us and Ours,” and provides a glimpse into where and who I come from.

—Eric Garcia: co-director of detour dance and the Tiny Dance Film Festival

The world we live in seems to be going through some really unbelievable shifts. As a contemporary dance choreographer, I find it easier to express my feelings and opinions about what’s currently happening around us. I am not just here to entertain; I am here to express the voice of our people, of our communities. I am here to yell until we are heard. I am here to show support as well as to educate and inform the younger generations. Dance in general has a great value in education and society. I believe it helps to create better individuals and better citizens by teaching discipline and hard work. It gives useful tools applicable to any field, to life in general. As for Latin communities, most if not all have a lot of taboos about dance, and I believe it’s time we break those barriers. More than a place to showcase our work, ¡FLACC! is a place to get together and unite, especially now that we are targeted and our safety is at risk.

—Victor Talledos: dancer and choreographer

I am a first-generation American of Colombian and Nicaraguan descent. My artistic output references the imaginative spirit and passion for story-telling particular to these two cultures. The practice and study of contemporary dance has offered me ways of seeing the world that were less accessible in my upbringing. Abstraction and a deep anatomical awareness, for example, are things that I’ve been exposed to specifically through the culture of contemporary dance. I find great value in sharing this embodied knowledge in small ways with my parents. Last time I visited, I was able to get my mom to feel secure on her “standing leg.” I also gave my massage ball to my dad and showed him how to massage the muscles on the bottom of his foot.

I don’t doubt that each culture has access to this knowledge of the body and the mind. In this case, however, contemporary dance perhaps provides a more straightforward path to unearthing and employing it.

—Karla Quintero: dancer and choreographer

Because my work has a political and social message, the modern use of the body is important to me because I’m trying to connect with my audience in a way that is relevant and accessible. There is often a stereotype that the Latino dancer is trained in traditional movement, but that is not my case; I’m only trained in Western forms. Contemporary dance allows me to be as transparent with my audience as possible by using movement vocabulary that is embodied.

The work I’m presenting, “Cruising,” is an excerpt of a longer evening-length work I’m in the process of creating, “Son,” which is an examination of the patriarchy in my Mexican culture. The thematic material I’m using is the low-rider. The two men in the piece demonstrate machismo that then moves toward feminine vocabulary.

In this current political climate, contemporary dance is a place for me to express my concerns about where our country is headed. I feel called to make work about my identity as a Chicana through movement and voice.

—Cathy Davalos: director of Davalos Dance Company

The value of contemporary dance in Latin American communities, or in any community, is subjectively assessed, and varies across borders, economic classes and cultures within the diaspora. ¡FLACC! is in the process of finding out what that value is by creating a platform for Latinx and Native voices in San Francisco. 

As artists, it is easy to say this has tremendous value for us personally, because it affirms that a huge part of our identity (Latinx) has value within the dominant culture of contemporary dance, which has historically given limited access to our people. Ballet, modern dance, aerial dance, and “high art” performance in general is expensive and requires compromise and sacrifice for the working class, or undocumented, to train and/or attend shows. 

For Latinos who are educated, privileged and do have access, I would say tradition, and in this case traditional dance, is one of the highest values as a way to preserve our culture, which presents a bit of a challenge for ¡FLACC!. Contemporary dance threatens to erase that tradition based on the western roots of our movement languages as well as the overtly queer, feminist or indigenous voices we support. However, ¡FLACC!  is a space for the mestizaje de danza, where the multi-lingual dancer emerges. We are versed in different dance styles and can bring our culturally-mixed bodies (and voices) to the stage. As the Festival of Latin American Contemporary Choreographers forms this new tradition, FLACCistas get to make innovative choices about the amount of translating they do for their artistry and for their audiences.

Like the breaking of a Piñata, ¡FLACC! breaks stereotypical portrayals of Latinos for white audiences, and it breaks the tradition of hetero-normative dances that assign patriarchal gender roles. It also breaks open the recognizable or familiar, and allows for individuality, a tilted axis of perception, and the naked truth of our lived experience to pour out.

—Liz Durán Boubion: curator of ¡FLACC! and artistic director of the Piñata Dance Collective

To learn more, visit flaccdanza.org.

The post Contemporary Dance through a Latin American Lens appeared first on Stance on Dance.

Meet our director and editor:

Emmaly Wiederholt is a dance artist and arts journalist based in Albuquerque, NM. She founded Stance on Dance in 2012. Emmaly earned her MA in Arts Journalism from the University of Southern California and her BFA in Ballet and BS in Political Science from the University of Utah. She further trained at the San Francisco Conservatory of Dance and performed extensively around the Bay Area. Her first book, Beauty is Experience: Dancing 50 and Beyond, was published in 2017, and her second book, Breadth of Bodies: Discussing Disability in Dance, was published in 2022. Emmaly is also a master DanceAbility instructor and facilitates movement groups at the UNM Hospital adult psychiatric ward, as well as is a founding member of the dance advocacy nonprofit ABQ Dance Connect. She continues to perform throughout the Southwest.

Photo by Allen Winston

Our contributors have included:

Snowflake Arizmendi-Calvert, a performance artist and organizer in the Bay Area.

Gregory Bartning, a photographer in Portland, OR.

Liz Duran Boubion, the director of the Festival of Latin American Contemporary Choreographers in the Bay Area.

Liz Brent-Maldonado, an artist, writer, educator, and producer in San Francisco, CA.

Michelle Chaviano, a ballet dancer with Ballet North Texas.

Bradford Chin, a disabled dance artist and accessibility consultant in Chicago, IL, and San Francisco, CA.

Shebana Coelho, a writer and performer currently studying flamenco in Spain.

breana connor, an interdisciplinary artist, facilitator + healer in Albuquerque, NM.

Lauren Coons, an interdisciplinary artist, performer, healer and educator in Albuquerque, NM.

Julia Cost, a painter, textile designer, sewist, and dancer in Maui, HI.

Sophia Diehl, a dancer in New York City.

Bonnie Eissner, a writer in New York City.

Katie Flashner, a.k.a. The Girl with the Tree Tattoo, a World Champion ballroom dancer and author in ME.

Micaela Gardner, a dancer and choreographer in Baja, Mexico.

Sarah Groth, an interdisciplinary artist from Albuquerque, NM.

Cherie Hill, a dance educator and choreographer based in the Bay Area.

Lorie House, a dancer, choreographer, and lawyer in NM.

Silva Laukkanen, a dance educator and disability advocate in Austin, TX.

Mary Elizabeth Lenahan, the director of Dance Express in Fort Collins, CO.

Shannon Leypoldt, a dance artist, teacher, and sports massage therapist in Berlin.

Erin Malley, a dance artist and tango teacher based in West Michigan.

Julianna Massa, a dance artist in Albuquerque, NM.

Aiano Nakagawa, a dance artist, educator, facilitator, writer, and event producer in the Bay Area.

Jessie Nowak, a dance artist and filmmaker in Portland, OR.

Kevin O’Connor, a multidisciplinary artist in London, Ontario, and the San Francisco Bay Area.

Bhumi B Patel, an artist/activist based in the Bay Area.

Stephanie Potreck, a sports nutritionist and health advocate who currently resides in Germany.

Jill Randall, artistic director of Shawl-Anderson Dance Center in Berkeley, CA.

Kathryn Roszak, a choreographer, filmmaker, educator, and activist in the Bay Area.

Donna Schoenherr, director of Ballet4Life and Move into Wellbeing in London, UK.

Maggie Stack, a dancer and teacher in Reno, NV.

Camille Taft, a CO front range-based mover and visual artist.

Mary Trunk, a filmmaker, choreographer, and multimedia artist in Altadena, CA.

Diana Turner-Forte, a teaching artist, healing arts coach, and writer in NC.

Ana Vrbaski, a body music practitioner in Serbia.

Nikhita Winkler, a dancer, choreographer, and teacher from Namibia who currently resides in Spain.

Erica Pisarchuk Wilson, a dance artist, visual artist and poet in Albuquerque, NM.

Rebecca Zeh, an interdisciplinary artist in Sarasota Springs, NY.

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Our board:

Snowflake Arizmendi-Calvert

Cathy Intemann

Alana Isiguen

Courtney King

Malinda LaVelle

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The post People appeared first on Stance on Dance.