In Dance

Photo by Robbie Sweeny
[ID: A male dancer in a long-sleeved blue shirt reaches for a female dancer in a beige tank top as she looks away from him.]

---

I’ve always been fascinated by the list of traditional and contemporary anniversary gifts. While some may find it random or even silly, I think it’s quite telling. Each gift suggestion reveals so much about its corresponding milestone.

Take 15 for example – the year of crystal. An item of clarity, strength and specialness; of grace, transparency and attention to detail. A perfect symbol for the long-term, significant commitment that is 15 years. Everyone at Lenora Lee Dance (LLD) understands such power and preciousness. Founded in 2008 by dancer/choreographer/performer Lenora Lee, the company has always had several crystalline goals. Goals they continue to work at as they approach their 15th birthday this winter. To shine a light on personal stories. To share a broader perspective of marginalized populations. To cast a lens on urgent community narratives, be they historic or present day.

Attention to community was woven into Lee’s dance DNA early on, with three UCLA professors playing a pivotal, influential role. “Victoria Marks, David Gere and Peter Sellars instilled in me, as a college student, how crucial it was to create work about communities,” Lee recounts, “to really research, understand and delve into unique and particular stories.” After completing her studies and working as an independent artist in San Francisco for six years, Lee took that call bi-coastal, exploring her performance and choreographic career in both New York and SF. While she was drawn to the artistic drive and push in NYC, Lee eventually settled on the Bay Area, and it was in this place that LLD was birthed. A signature style evolved over time. One of mixed discipline, collaborative, immersive and site-specific work, where movement seamlessly unites with music, text, sculpture, video and visual art. The eagerness to tell stories never wavered, especially stories close to Lee’s heart, “It’s always been about the content for me; themes I felt were important to learn more about — immigration and migration; detention and incarceration; violence against women and human trafficking; shared suffering and healing.” That spirit has informed every LLD project for the past 15 years. 2019’s In the Skin of Her Hands brought the all-too-common diagnosis of breast cancer to the stage while 2017’s Within These Walls told of the Chinese immigration experience at the U.S. Immigration Station, Angel Island.

Immigration and migration are still front and center for LLD. Their upcoming program, which runs February 2nd-4th at Dance Mission Theater, features two world premieres, each one tackling a current regional reality of US immigration. An entirely immersive 15-minute work, In Visibility welcomes audiences into the immigration dialogue, utilizing several alternative spaces in the Dance Mission building. “In Visibility focuses on the community efforts to stop the prison to ICE detention pipeline in California, which itself touches on multiple issues – detention, incarceration, separation of families, but also the strength of community mobility,” adds Lee. Following the first piece, viewers will head into the main theater space at Dance Mission to witness Convergent Waves: El Paso. Journeying to that specific town in Texas, the 45-minute mixed discipline piece unpacks migration at that southern border, primarily from recent years, but also through the decades. An audio score of interview excerpts (from experts in the field as well as affected populations) coupled with video footage that Lee shot in El Paso will lay bare the realities facing Latin American migrants. Historic images will show years and years of Chinese migration to that region as well. And the choreography, by Lee in collaboration with each performer, will celebrate the richness and fullness of every distinct body, with solos and duets speaking to the intimate nature of migration stories.

While the February performances are certainly on everyone’s hearts and minds at LLD, a noteworthy occasion (like a 15th anniversary) does demand some reflection. “When I think about these past 15 years, I have a deep sense of gratitude for so many,” recalls Lee, “there are the different venues that have worked with us, the funding sources and individual donors that have been very consistent, along with all the organizations that have supported us, like the National Park Service, Asian Improv aRts, API Cultural Center, the Chinese Historical Society, and advocate groups in the immigrant rights and Asian American communities, just to name a few.” Lee also recognizes the privilege it has been to collaborate with so many interdisciplinary artists, including some who have become longtime LLD collaborators like saxophonist, composer, and mentor Francis Wong, and media and graphic designer Olivia Ting.

At the same time, milestones also tend to point folks toward the next chapter, to what may be, to unknown possibilities. And Lee is eager to see what the future holds. “I’m looking forward to contributing my processes and methodologies to the next generation, the next community of artists,” Lee shares, “and for LLD, I’m excited to broaden our scope, continue to develop and grow the company, and expand nationally and internationally.”

Whether looking back, navigating the present or dreaming of the future, LLD has been fortunate to have been guided by many constants over the last decade and a half. And the most important of these has been Lee’s belief that artists have a responsibility and can utilize their platform to say something with their work. For Lee, this has been to cast a lens on communities through performance – their realities, their complexities and their triumphs.

---

Lenora Lee Dance presents
In Visibility and Convergent Waves: EP
February 2-4, 2024: Fri-Sat 8pm, Sun 3pm at Dance Mission Theater

For more information, please visit: lenoraleedance.com/

---

This article appears in the Winter 2024 issue of In Dance.

Photo by My-Linh Le
[ID: Black and white photograph of the full cast of “Mud Water IV” posing shoulder to shoulder in a black box theater at the Joe Goode Annex.]

---

“It’s a live performance in the form of a mockumentary that takes place in 2032,” begins My-Linh Le, creative director of Mud Water Theatre. “At this time, the turfing community is having to find a way to preserve their dance form, and their culture, and the way they do this is by teaching an AI called Dance GPT everything that they can.”

At my prompting, Le is describing her company’s upcoming full-length theatrical dance piece, which will premiere at Dance Mission Theater Nov 17, 18 and 19, 2023. The answer launches us into conversation about belonging, and about strategies for cultivating and sustaining a sense of belonging in a rapidly changing world.

This is not surprising, I suppose, considering who Mud Water is. Le identifies primarily as a popper and is a member of the legendary popping crew Playboyz Inc. The company is comprised entirely of Turf dancers from across the Bay. Turfing, as readers may know, grew out of 1960s boogaloo culture and is one of the main components of the Hyphy movement that emerged in the early 2000s. Many locals may be familiar with Turfing from rapper E-40’s music videos, or a 2008 viral video “RIP Rich D” featuring the Turf Feinz dancing in the rain at the corner of Macarthur and 90th. It is an expressive form often characterized by a dancer’s bounce and playful style, seen by some as stylistically representing the Bay’s embrace of individuality, buoyant energy and general vibe. These are attributes, Le notes, that haven’t always been fully legible to national audiences.

This seems to have made claiming spaces and places of belonging especially important to Le, who herself feels the tension of her insider/outsider status in relation to Turfing. While she doesn’t identify as a Turfer, she is passionate about the preservation and visibility of the style, and is staging the upcoming piece as a theatricalized response to forces she sees negatively changing the ecology of the street dance scene in the past few years (ahem, Red Bull).

The dancers she has selected to perform can be seen on socials performing in the places Bay Area folks have come to expect to see the homegrown style of Turfing happening – in the dancers’ own homes, on BART station trains and platforms, on city sidewalks with traffic flowing by. Many of the dancers have also performed in the competition circuit, which pits Turfers and other street dancers against one another in (mostly) friendly competition. By signing on with Le, however, these dancers are taking on Mud Water’s explicit project of theatricalizing Turfing for the concert dance stage.

When I propose that this theatricalization of the form may also be changing the ecology of the street dance scene, and subsequently question if she and the dancers receive pushback from the community for performing in the theater, Le is quick to assert the act as something in line with the ethos of the form. “Turfing is highly adaptable. We are constantly creating in whatever space we’re given.”

Le explains that she views Turfing’s taking up of space on the concert dance floor not so much a shift in what Turfing is, but rather an exemplification of how Turfing can assert its belonging in different performance spaces. “I personally don’t think of the theater as a space that turfing has to adapt itself to, it’s more like I’m trying to adapt the theater to turfing.”

The ways in which the company intends to do this in its upcoming performances are still in process. Will the audience judge a battle? Will there be a dance battle with audience members invited to compete? While the methods are TBD, the message is unabashedly, ‘Turfing belongs here.’

 

Mud Water Theatre x Dance Mission Theater present
Mud Water IV
Fri-Sun, Nov 17-19

---

This article appears in the Fall 2023 issue of In Dance.

Photo by Kim Requesto
[ID: In the center of the photo is Boi Rosie Sula, an elder of the Tboli community in Lake Sebu, known for her powerful chanting. She is surrounded by community members as they hold round brass instruments as she continues to play while younger community members curiously observe.]

---

Editor’s Note: Requesto is a Spring 2023 CA$H grantee. This article highlights her funded activities and vision.

---

Rowena Richie: You use photography to, “Visually share the realities of Philippine citizens.” Why do you want to share the realities?  

Kim Requesto: When I think of sharing my work with an audience, I hope that everyone, regardless of their race, class, gender, sexuality, and ability, can learn, understand, and find connection. There are so many similarities and parallels to our lives, sometimes it takes art in order for us to see and feel it. 

Rowena: What stories do you want your photographs to tell?  

Kim: I want them to remind us that Philippine culture and Filipinx’s are more than just the trope of lumpia, boxing and mainstream personalities. To remember the power, we hold—our identities before colonization, imperialism and western influence.  

My photos interact with marginalized and Indigenous communities in the Philippines. Many of those communities are in Mindanao, which is considered an unsafe place because of how it has been portrayed in the media. Being able to share snippets of Mindanao, and different communities that have welcomed me with open arms, is important in combating this narrative and the prejudice that many people have felt.  

Rowena: What ethical issues do you face with your photography and dance practices? 

Kim: Western photography often objectifies Indigenous persons through the lens. It has been important for me to get consent and be cognizant of the language I use surrounding the act of photography. To consider my relationship and connection to the communities as a visitor, but also as a photographer. 

I always try to travel with a Polaroid camera to create two photos of a moment: 1 for them, 1 for me. We’ve seen many times in anthropological photographical history, Indigenous people rarely get to see and hold physical photos of themselves. Additionally, not everyone has the privilege to access technology to be able to see uploaded photos.

I’ve visited one family since 2015. On my last visit we were able to compare all the photos from the previous years. Connecting over photos is a big part of why I fell in love with photography. 

With dance, I involve my mentors and culture bearers. I share movements that have any hint of a cultural practice in them with my mentors so they can collaborate with me.  

My director in Parangal Dance Company, Eric Solano, has had such an influence and impact on my practice. Going on research trips with him and being able to observe how he interacts with the different communities has taught me that cultural dance is community work. 

Rowena: Your CA$H-awarded project, Pasalamat Sa Mga Ina, translates to “Thanks to the Mothers.” What’s the significance of mothers in a patriarchal world? 

Kim: Both American and Philippine cultures tend to lean heavy towards patriarchy. However, before colonization in the Philippines, women were regarded highly, even held positions of power. They were regarded as equals. It’s time to reclaim that. To remember the power, we hold in the histories of our matriarchal lineage. 

Rowena: Your great lola (grandmother) Juana’s memoir dates back to the 1920s. Nearly 100 years later, you’re sharing her stories. Why? What’s the connection to Pasalamat Sa Mga Ina? 

Kim: In her memoir, my great lola writes: “I would like to start writing today interesting events that my beloved ones may enjoy reading about, especially when I am already gone.” I want to share this drive of hers to create joy for others. This joy is ours to inherit through shared memory. 

Pasalamat Sa Mga Ina stems from this desire of wanting those we love to be happy. It uplifts and honors this—the act and intention of creating joy so that we may remember.

Rowena: What can younger generations learn from your great lola’s memoir?

Kim: The power in our own narratives and our voice. Even in the subtle act of wanting to remember so that those you love remember, too.

Rowena: How do you imagine your legacy inspiring future descendants?  

Kim: I hope it inspires folks to archive our personal histories, create more Filipinx diasporic work, and keep to the tradition of passing down our families’ legacies. 

Rowena: You describe yourself as a “Philippine born, Mission District-raised Cultural Worker.” As a cultural worker how do you balance empowering marginalized communities of Filipinos with raising awareness outside of the Filipinx community?  

Kim: When it comes to cultural work, it’s important to remember that our work intersects with so many different cultures and communities. Dance and photography that uplifts marginalized communities of Filipinos has given cultural entry points to audience members. By sharing my art and speaking on it, I uplift those Indigenous communities while educating others. 

Rowena: How can we in the broader Bay Area dance community help you? 

Kim: Create more funding opportunities for artists to continue to be able to share and create their work! More opportunities to collaborate with other artists to showcase what we can and have been doing. 

Rowena: Anything else you want to add?  

Kim: Parangal Dance Company is having our 15th Anniversary show, Paglinang, soon. I’ve been teaching senior citizens Philippine Folk Dance for the past few weeks as part of a SOMA Pilipinas program called Restorative Theater Arts for Seniors (RETAS) and they’ll be performing!  

Parangal and SOMA Pilipinas: Paglinang 
Sat, Oct 7, 2023 , 2pm and 7pm
Blue Shield of California Theater at YBCA, San Francisco 

---

This article appears in the Fall 2023 issue of In Dance.

Photo by Ivy Chen
[ID: Joshua Estrada, wearing a dark hat, t-shirt and jeans is holding a handstand freeze in the middle of the dance floor while surrounded by a crowd. He has tattoos on his stomach and both of his wrists/forearms.]

---

Editor’s Note: Karla Flores is a Spring 2023 CA$H grantee. This article highlights her funded activities and vision.

---

AfroRooted is something new. And at the same time, has existed long before the name was even created.

It is holding up hip hop culture, and tracing its roots back to the drum. The first code.

It is recognizing the births and histories of these freestyle dances, and asking, “What more is there? Outside of the Black and Brown communities that catapulted house, waacking, breakin, rock dance, turfin and vogue into battles and onto world stages?”

The circle, the cypher (or cipher), existed long before these freestyle art forms began. This is not to generalize, more to emphasize that AfroRooted has been done several times over and over. The “cypher” existed in traditional dances from indigenous communities telling stories through movement. Honoring ancestors and connecting to Earth.

***

Lilian Maxmillian Nabaggala and me, Karla “Karlita” Flores, two women active in choreographic work, battles, performance and community organizing, met officially back in 2015 through the State Department cultural network, Next Level—an international hip hop diplomacy initiative. Meeting in Kampala, Uganda, we connected through our love of the dance style waacking. We learned each others’ teachings from freestyle and traditional movements. Some of these sessions would take place on hostel rooftops in Kampala.

AfroRooted is the continued “conversation” between dances from the African diaspora and the freestyle dances of today. It officially launched in 2019, forging a new community of Bay Area folks from the competitive street dance world and the traditional African dance world.

In 2020, AfroRooted evolved further, forming partnerships with Afrobeats Oakland, Elements and Dimensions Dance Theater. The festival was held at the historic Malonga Casquelourd Center for the Arts, a major cultural arts center and home to many African diasporic dance companies and master teachers such as Diamouna Coura West African Dance Company, SambaFunk! and Fua Dia Congo. The format was set as a 2 v. 2 open styles battle format danced to Afrohouse, afrobeats and other genres from Africa. The cyphers happened in between the battles and the event wrapped up with live African drumming. During those two years, AfroRooted became a healing and celebratory multi-ethnic, multi-generational festival. As Dance/USA Fellow and guest judge Muisi-kongo Malonga said in 2019, “Drum is the first code and these dances, these movements, have been done before.”

The third installment of AfroRooted is set for spring 2024 in Oakland, California. It will follow a similar format as before, with a community “battle” exploring the question of where our freestyle dances evolved from? What happens when we strip down genres to the foundational drum patterns? How can we connect what was done to what is still practiced today, to how these freestyle forms continue to evolve? The cypher, where we tell our stories…the connections and exchanges we do in “battles” and “cyphering,” it’s all interconnected. And more importantly, how the drum is the first code.

To keep updated on AfroRooted Volume 3, follow @afrorooted

---

This article appears in the Fall 2023 issue of In Dance.

Photo by Bay Chaconas
[ID: A confident young African American woman striking a dance pose atop a rocky peak on a partially sunny day.]

---

Editor’s Note: Conni McKenzie is a Spring 2023 CA$H grantee. This article highlights her funded activities and vision.

---

Imagine you are walking along a long winding path, stretching for miles, over hills and through forests. As you finally settle into a comfortable spot, you pause to take a deep, refreshing breath of air. In that moment you realize something profound—you can breathe deeply, and you have nowhere else to be. You can tackle challenges, but you can also find solace in rest. Right here, right now, you’re fully present in this moment, and this moment is just for you. These are a few lessons I’ve learned from my encounters with nature. 

Flow originated from two primary motivations. First and foremost, it was born out of my yearning to establish deeper alignment in my daily life. Second, I desired to converge my dance and digital practice into something that concretely expressed what mattered to me.  

Outside of dance practice, I thoroughly enjoy outdoor travel and have documented my experiences through photography and video. Over the course of several years I have developed an archive of thousands of photos, videos and stories from around the world. But 99% of what I have captured has never been shared with anyone. Flow aims to reveal a portion of these archives, coupled with accompanying narratives and an integrated sound design. 

Flow is an immersive experience that offers a meditative journey uniquely designed by and with Black people in mind—an uncommon occurrence in the art world. While Flow can offer something to everyone,​​ it’s important to recognize that conventional narratives about nature frequently omit the experiences of Black individuals. It’s essential to remember that all people can benefit from connecting with nature, and this project emphasizes that perspective. 

Flow also aims to bridge the gap between nature and those who may seldom experience it. The broader context of access to nature in North America, particularly in relation to our colonial history and resulting disparities, underpins the project’s aspiration: to immerse individuals, especially those with limited access or transportation challenges, in the therapeutic embrace of nature. 

Flow will unfold within a three-room exhibit, delving into digital immersion through the mediums of photography, video and sound. Visitors will have the opportunity to settle in comfortably while contemplating thought-provoking prompts displayed throughout the exhibit. Additionally, on five evenings I will be joined by three talented performers for a unique premiere of Flow, integrating dance performances and engaging dialogues that encourage audiences to consider how they can invite more flow into their lives. 

I invite people to come to the exhibition to discover something new about themselves. In the midst of urban life, our exhibit offers a unique opportunity to compress the profound effects of extended time in nature into a brief yet impactful experience. As the Artistic Director, my goal is to create a space where everyone can find their own meaning. I appreciate the diversity of attendees and their varied perspectives, as they bring richness and depth to the project’s overall impact.  

Nature serves as a powerful reminder of our capacity for stillness and vitality, as well as the inherent impermanence of existence. Water, in particular, emerges as a symbol that links us to our inner workings and the intricate chaos of life itself. Through the Flow exhibition and performances, my aim is to introduce individuals to these concepts and, for those who already possess a connection, further deepen their understanding of the interplay between our inner flow and the flow of nature. 

 

Flow Exhibition & Performance
Wed-Sat, October 4-15, 2023
Paul Dresher Studio, Oakland

---

This article appears in the Fall 2023 issue of In Dance.