Car wheels rolling on the 110 North

Good Year Blimp is hung above blue-eyed

Skyscrapers, wretched horns, dirt and windshield

Fluid-

One

Two

Drops on your windshield

It is raining for the 5^th day in a row as the mouth

Of the sky opens in-between the Hollywood Mountains

You shove your car next to a barb wire fence and there.

You are in your body again

Your car is no longer holding you

We take off our clothes inside the ballet studio

To my rain-soaked boats, hair-ends,

Brown collared jacket, bare-arms

Up around my neck, a hand on my chest

“Up here, imagine there is a string attached at the top of your head”

Raise those legs, talking, sensing, 2^nd no 3^rd position,

Hot chocolate down the street, downpouring,

Red colored hands and a nose

The next morning windshield looks even worse

Cars can’t stay in their lanes

The studio is empty except for four of us

There is a leak from the roof panels

A wet spot we all avoid from our socks and bare toes

A month earlier, on the east side of Los Angeles

Sundown, leaving cloud lights carrying hemispheric tones

Of air bubbles all on a singular point in the sky

Car door shut, dad tennis shoes from Austin

A knitted sweater from Santa Cruz, eyebrow piercing,

Undershirt, Bat airy sleeved shirt, champion sweats

Hung loosely about my thighs

Pushed into the black floor

Moving from our pelvic bones

Twisting spines among our hands

Drum pedal machines on the surround sound

Use less, feel a shake within your gut, your car, Ana says,

Shake it all out, move about the floor, look at others in the room,

Run in place and about our explosive legs,

Turn and bounce in random directions

Know where you are in the room

Find where you are in the room

Pull your gut along the bed of your stoney legs

Groan, moan, mull yourself into a shape

Reform it, allow it to create and disappear

Learn from those around you, feel their sweat and their shoulders

Hold your hands out, offer something to the person next to you,

As though it is the weight of feathers, golden, brown,

Hoover, softly, tightly, loop yourself among your arm tendons,

Hurl into your face, smile, laugh, push your knees up and down,

A roadhouse of permanent records boxed in a house

A hill as large as a single-family home

Brown Acid, Zipper Cover-Sticky Fingers

Emily Yacina, Gracie Gray tuning guitars, beer caps,

Cigarette butts, lighter fluid, campfire stench,

A friend at my side, talking about exes and Washington state

Eastern turnpikes.

Easing your hoofy shoulders,

Loping about your ribs,

Feeling, fitting them into place,

Keyboard switches and an electronic device

In your feet

Shuffling about the sunken, checkered floor

The rain, heaving on your front mat,

Grasping at El Sereno caked roads

Laughing hysterically

Singing across your dashboard

We all breathe together

We sink deep into our core

We lurch a heavy hand on the ground in front

As though creaking-floorboards

Easing into our necks

Rotating, airy thighs

Moving about the pelted window

Draining, raincoats, warm heat

A few bodies and thank you for comings

~~

Benjie Salazar is an aspiring writer and dancer currently residing in Los Angeles. In their own words, “I grew up in North, Texas, as a Mexican-American. I am young, I drive across the southwest too often, I fall in love easily, I love oak trees, I love watching people walking by in cities I can disappear into. I write about ecology, bodies in close spaces, live music, and becoming a person. I write on different ways of loving and the spaces we occupy and revel in.”

Sarah Groth is an interdisciplinary performer, choreographer, teacher, poet, and mixed medium visual artist. After achieving a degree in Contemporary Dance and Intercultural Communications from the University of New Mexico, Sarah set out as an independent artist and traveler. She has had the privilege of moving, creating, and performing with renowned international artists across the world. Sarah has been published in the Albuquerque Journal, Blue Mesa Review, Daily Lobo, Stance on Dance, and Forty South. Sarah is committed to addressing the complexities of humanness in conjunction with self and community — aiming to bring the intensely intimate forward, creating openness within juxtaposition and identity.

The post Gaga & Permanent Records Roadhouse appeared first on Stance on Dance.

air as it leaves the lungs

throat mouth lips

mouthpiece tubing bell

air as it goes through the horns

air that goes inside ears lips

mouth throat lungs

then

blood legs hips hands

air that rings and pleads and

cajoles that rigid core

air just like all the other air

air with brass and booze and spit and sweat

air in accord with dancing skin and slick crowd

~~

Tara King is a poet and choreographer who explores the space between bodies and language. Tara has published work in DASH Literary Journal, Avatar Review, and Jersey Devil Press. Their collection of poetry documented summer 2017 in real time. Tara also co-founded the award-winning, Minneapolis-based, dance-making collective Mad King Thomas in 2005. Tara has danced for Julyen Hamilton, Emily Johnson/Catalyst, Anna Shogren, HIJACK, Judith Howard, and Skewed Visions.  Tara lives in Albuquerque and is working on her first novel.

Sarah Groth is an interdisciplinary performer, choreographer, teacher, poet, and mixed medium visual artist. After achieving a degree in Contemporary Dance and Intercultural Communications from the University of New Mexico, Sarah set out as an independent artist and traveler. She has had the privilege of moving, creating, and performing with renowned international artists across the world. Sarah has been published in the Albuquerque Journal, Blue Mesa Review, Daily Lobo, Stance on Dance, and Forty South. Sarah is committed to addressing the complexities of humanness in conjunction with self and community — aiming to bring the intensely intimate forward, creating openness within juxtaposition and identity.

The post New Orleans appeared first on Stance on Dance.

I.

this shapelessness
expends
energy
a form of nothing
but piercing
into black

the fingernail finds
the node of entrance
into
disparity
an air where the breath
only comes in

II.

this shapelessness                                         omit narration of the dance
expends                                                           insert timestamp
energy                                                              omit presence of effort
a form of nothing
but piercing
into black                                                        omit languid fade

the fingernail finds                                       omit fingernail, insert wrist
the node of entrance
into disparity                                                 insert broad fissure
an air where the                                            omit balancing act
breath
only comes in                                                 omit deliberate inhale

III.

shapelessness
a form of nothing
but piercing
the node of entrance
into
breath

IV.

shapelessness                                                omit edges
a form of nothing                                         insert slippery sphere
but piercing
the node of entrance                                   omit precision, insert cloudiness
into                                                                 insert introspection
breath                                                             insert unbroken in-breath

V.

a form
but piercing
the entrance

~~

strikethrough #1 was part of a larger project creating choreographic scores using erasure poetry technique and culminated in the creation of the site www.strikethrough-score.org.

Maxine Flasher-Düzgüneş is a poet, dancer, and filmmaker from Northern California, a former US-UK Fulbright Finalist and alumna of the Djerassi Resident Artist Program. She is the First Place recipient of the Rubin Prize for Poetry (2020) from NYU and the author of heart-shaped box, a poetry chapbook from Ghost City Press (2022). 

Sarah Groth is an interdisciplinary performer, choreographer, teacher, poet, and mixed medium visual artist. After achieving a degree in Contemporary Dance and Intercultural Communications from the University of New Mexico, Sarah set out as an independent artist and traveler. She has had the privilege of moving, creating, and performing with renowned international artists across the world. Sarah has been published in the Albuquerque Journal, Blue Mesa Review, Daily Lobo, Stance on Dance, and Forty South. Sarah is committed to addressing the complexities of humanness in conjunction with self and community — aiming to bring the intensely intimate forward, creating openness within juxtaposition and identity.

The post strikethrough #1 appeared first on Stance on Dance.

The way a body moves conveys its soul-

Its hidden power to soothe, present, delight

Full knowingly bemused and in control

Each finger paints the space like form and light

A subtle tilt of cheek, the turnéd face

Craft salsa and romantic ballet’s flair

The port de bras is curved in soft embrace

And toes unclenched just touch the ankle there

Through every newborn day, grant space to twirl

In qualities of vital blue and pearl

Inversions spiral round as limbs unfurl

Loose from French-twisted hair a rogue, wild curl

Now chance to ask, “What may this movement mean?”

The path, which to its fate, each soul might wind

Is drawn out on the stage of life, now lean…

With grace, and fall; In dancing, love we find!

Why Dance?

I dance for myself, dance for cows, bees, and flowers

Dance for friends, and ones too whom I haven’t yet met.

Even more, I make moves to uncover life’s rules-

Those I fear once I’ve died, I am apt to forget.

For dancing is saying “Hello, here I am.”

And feeling my soft soul might wish to be known.

It’s like spoken gesture, ungrasped, coming true

Urging life into view when my spirit’s outgrown

All the old ways of hiding in patterns of pity;

Now with limbs strong, and heart filled with power to be,

I’ll stand grounded and call forth blood’s hymn:

Rich sung tones, through my bones,

Which for you grants wild hope to be free.

~~

Cleo Person is a former professional ballet and modern dancer and an amateur writer. She now teaches movement to children and adults from many training backgrounds. She works with her students to build a foundation for confidence and expressive articulation in any form they choose to take on.

Sarah Groth is an interdisciplinary performer, choreographer, teacher, poet, and mixed medium visual artist. After achieving a degree in Contemporary Dance and Intercultural Communications from the University of New Mexico, Sarah set out as an independent artist and traveler. She has had the privilege of moving, creating, and performing with renowned international artists across the world. Sarah has been published in the Albuquerque Journal, Blue Mesa Review, Daily Lobo, Stance on Dance, and Forty South. Sarah is committed to addressing the complexities of humanness in conjunction with self and community — aiming to bring the intensely intimate forward, creating openness within juxtaposition and identity.

The post Emily appeared first on Stance on Dance.

In doorways and canyons and empty rooms,

on the edges of cities and in the middle of traffic

or a thunderstorm

At the ocean, by a lake, near the road and under bridges.

(Our) feet land on terra firma

with minds like antennae scanning the atmosphere

Seeking out the substance of space and time and a way to make it matter

With a sort of open eyed listening,

seeking the meaning of energy,

force, propulsion, rhythm and effort

with a lightness that is more divining than exacting.

This is a certain way to live in the world.

Walking around with open channels

receiving the nuanced broadcasts of shared realities . . .

The ones that float in the ether and arrive all at once at many places

Some of us look for these places, and name them like children.

We share a dream of a common language

which cannot actually ever be spoken

(and this makes all the difference)

As we live our lives absorbing chemistry, electricity, matter and emptiness (space)

Returning and departing

as often as we can.

~~

Aura Fischbeck-Wise is a San Francisco based choreographer/performer, improviser, movement educator and writer, a Philadelphia native, a first generation American of German descent, and a second-generation dance artist. Her work investigates the complexity of her lived experience through practices that invite noticing the interplay between perception, proprioception and presence. She moves towards the constancy of change as a way to locate herself as one who is committed to a life in motion. She orients towards the phenomenological world as moving towards more and more understanding of multiple realities unfolding simultaneously. She holds an MFA in dance from the University of the Arts in Philadelphia (2022) and a BA in dance and poetry from Naropa University. Aura Fischbeck Dance is fiscally sponsored by Dancers’ Group. www.aurafischbeckdance.org

Sarah Groth is an interdisciplinary performer, choreographer, teacher, poet, and mixed medium visual artist. After achieving a degree in Contemporary Dance and Intercultural Communications from the University of New Mexico, Sarah set out as an independent artist and traveler. She has had the privilege of moving, creating, and performing with renowned international artists across the world. Sarah has been published in the Albuquerque Journal, Blue Mesa Review, Daily Lobo, Stance on Dance, and Forty South. Sarah is committed to addressing the complexities of humanness in conjunction with self and community — aiming to bring the intensely intimate forward, creating openness within juxtaposition and identity.

The post dancer’s litany appeared first on Stance on Dance.

It feels wrong to dance

when there are people out there

who prioritize weapons over the welfare

of their children,

Who choke on power and greed

while the rest of us struggle to breathe.

It feels wrong to dance

on the graves of the thousands of people

who die daily

from war,

from hate,

from fear gone viral.

It feels wrong to dance

when respect for ourselves,

our neighbors,

our country

has been reduced to a sad, tattered rag

flapping in the wind.

It feels wrong to dance

on the surface of a planet

that has done everything it can

to support and nurture us,

and that we have only deceived and decimated.

Who are we to dance?

When so many can’t walk

or run

or sleep

without being targeted.

Who are we to dance?

When so many can’t safely leave their homes,

and so many others don’t have homes to leave.

Who are we to feel the joy that comes

when movement meets music

and creates magic?

It feels so wrong to dance,

to float across the floor to a beautiful melody

when there is so much chaos, darkness

and ugliness in the world.

Maybe that’s the point.

Maybe dance is the antidote to this poison,

a light in the darkness.

When you dance, you can’t scream hateful rhetoric.

You can’t throw rocks or blame.

You can’t break windows or bones.

Your anger is channeled

and transformed into calm.

When we’re calm, we can hear each other.

When we’re calm, we can help each other.

So even though it feels wrong to dance,

perhaps we must.

Perhaps we must dance

because we need its magic.

The magic that happens when chaotic emotion is transformed

into powerful rhythm.

Perhaps we must dance

to reintroduce balance, flow,

beauty and peace

back into the world.

Perhaps we must dance to save ourselves

and to save each other.

So dance, my dear dancers,

but do it with purpose.

Dance here, now, so your light can shine.

Dance to listen.

Dance to understand.

Dance to empower and inspire good in this world.

Dance with trust, reason, and compassion.

Dance for others

and dance for yourself.

Remember:

We are the music makers,

    And we are the dreamers of dreams,

Wandering by lone sea-breakers,

    And sitting by desolate streams; —

World-losers and world-forsakers,

    On whom the pale moon gleams:

Yet we are the movers and shakers

    Of the world for ever, it seems.

-Ode by Arthur O’Shaughnessy

~~

Katie Flashner, a.k.a. The Girl with the Tree Tattoo, is a published author, blogger, and dancer based in mid-coast Maine. She loves exploring her creativity through nature, movement, and the written word, and revels in living in a place where there are more trees than people. You can catch her wandering through the woods on Instagram at @thegirlwiththetreetattoo.

Sarah Groth is an interdisciplinary performer, choreographer, teacher, poet, and mixed medium visual artist. After achieving a degree in Contemporary Dance and Intercultural Communications from the University of New Mexico, Sarah set out as an independent artist and traveler. She has had the privilege of moving, creating, and performing with renowned international artists across the world. Sarah has been published in the Albuquerque Journal, Blue Mesa Review, Daily Lobo, Stance on Dance, and Forty South. Sarah is committed to addressing the complexities of humanness in conjunction with self and community — aiming to bring the intensely intimate forward, creating openness within juxtaposition and identity.

The post It Feels Wrong to Dance appeared first on Stance on Dance.

It happened laying on my back

Under an aggression of stars

A realization

That I can be inspired and awestruck by the sky

Because I lay on the earth

And my earthy body gives me everything I need

To localize to a point

That can perceive

In the way that earth matter holds me

I can be wrecked divine

By what the stars can show me

~~

Tracy Broyles is an embodiment facilitator, dancer, energy worker, writer, artist, and storyteller. Tracy is invested in creating experiences that allow people to engage with her life-long research into how the unseen worlds of the psyche, emotions, energies, and ancestors braid into our tangible physical reality.  She has been based in the Pacific Northwest for more than 20 years. To contact her or learn more about her work visit tracybroyles.com.

Sarah Groth is an interdisciplinary performer, choreographer, teacher, poet, and mixed medium visual artist. After achieving a degree in Contemporary Dance and Intercultural Communications from the University of New Mexico, Sarah set out as an independent artist and traveler. She has had the privilege of moving, creating, and performing with renowned international artists across the world. Sarah has been published in the Albuquerque Journal, Blue Mesa Review, Daily Lobo, Stance on Dance, and Forty South. Sarah is committed to addressing the complexities of humanness in conjunction with self and community — aiming to bring the intensely intimate forward, creating openness within juxtaposition and identity.

The post EARTH BODY SKY MIND appeared first on Stance on Dance.

Editor’s note: The following illustrations and poetry were created by Sarah Groth for the fall 2022/winter 2023 print publication of Stance on Dance. Sarah’s only direction was to create something related to dance and movement. Enjoy!

Touched.

It sinks.

Deeper.

Everything inside.

Swirling. Holding. Pushing.

Opened.

The pieces are floating.

Blown into expansiveness.

Freeing.

The body emerges.

Gifted.

Beyond the bounds.

Ebbing in stillness.

Connections held.

The movement of becoming.

Sarah Groth (she/her) is an interdisciplinary artist working within the realms of dance, choreography, and mixed medium visual art. Sarah graduated with a BA in Contemporary Dance and Intercultural Communications from the University of New Mexico. She was a 2022 UETF (Urban Enhancement Trust Fund) Resiliency Residency awardee, working on an interdisciplinary piece, bodies. Sarah has been published in the Albuquerque Journal, Blue Mesa Review, and Daily Lobo. Currently traveling and working internationally, she is addressing the complexities of the body — aiming to bring the intensely intimate forward to invoke the heartbreakingly beautiful heterogeneity of being human.

The post The Movement of Becoming appeared first on Stance on Dance.

I’m excited to announce the release of Stance on Dance’s second issue! In case you haven’t heard, Stance on Dance launched a twice-a-year print publication this past summer. Each issue features 6-8 dance writers from across the country and globe who share their stories and perspectives. I’m excited 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. I also send free copies to college dance programs and other dance learning spaces. And because Stance on Dance is devoted to ensuring access, all the articles in the print publication will be published on stanceondance.com over the next couple months.

In this upcoming fall 2022 issue, there are several informative and thoughtful articles in store: Snowflake Calvert’s edifying essay on pretendians in dance, Michelle Chaviano’s vulnerable essay about her road to loving her body, Shebana Coelho’s musings and encounters while studying flamenco in Spain, Sarah Groth’s whimsical and other-worldly illustrations, Aiano Nakagawa’s story of overcoming her teenage body image demons, Kathryn Roszak’s profile of Wendy Whelan, Janet Eilber, and Lia Cirio, all women leaders in the dance field, Mary Trunk’s meditative essay on her process making a film about aging in dance, and Nikita Winkler’s profile of traditional Namibian dance artist West Uarije. Also included are interviews I conducted with Ralph Buck, Head of Dance Studies at the University of Auckland and UNESCO’s first Co-Chair on Dance and Social Inclusion, and Yashoda Thakore, a Kuchipudi dancer and scholar in India whose current research focuses on women temple dancers. I’m excited to include so many voices and perspectives in this issue, and to give these dance writers a platform to practice and share their craft!

Cover art by Sarah Groth

In addition to covering dance artists and supporting dance writers, another integral part of Stance on Dance’s mission is distributing dance journalism to the next generation of dance artists. That’s why we have given away more than 80 free copies of our print publication to several college dance programs and other dance learning spaces, including California State University East Bay, Florida International University, University of San Francisco, University of Richmond, University of Florida, University of Silicon Andhra, Old Dominion University, Texas Christian University, Antioch University New England, Shawl-Anderson Dance Center, and Ohio State University. My hope is that students pick up a copy of Stance on Dance, learn about the vast and myriad ways there are to be a dance artist, and perhaps even get excited about dance journalism.

If you work with a college dance program or other dance learning space and would like to learn more about this program, please reach out to me at emmaly@stanceondance.com. And if you’re reading this and thinking, “I would love to write about dance!” then of course get in touch! My goal is to elevate dance journalism by making it accessible for anyone who has a stance on dance.

Even Doozle is reading Stance on Dance!

The post Working to Fulfill Stance on Dance’s Mission 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.

~~

Our board:

Snowflake Arizmendi-Calvert

Cathy Intemann

Alana Isiguen

Courtney King

Malinda LaVelle

~~

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