Dance Central January / February 2019

January/February 2019

Dance Central A Dance Centre Publication

Crafting Loop, Lull A conversation with Josh Martin and Lisa Gelley of Company 605 Page 2

On Craft A conversation with Andrew Nemr Page 8

Welcome to Dance Central

Welcome to the January/February 2019 issue of Dance Central. This issue features a conversation with Company 605 Artistic Directors Josh Martin and Lisa Gelley who recently presented their new work Loop, Lull at the 2019 PuSh Festival.

The 'Thinking Bodies' series continues with a conversation with tap artist and new Artistic Director of the Vancouver Tap Dance Society Andrew Nemr.

As always, we thank all the artists who have agreed to contribute and we welcome new writing and project ideas at any time, in order to continue to make Dance Central a more vital link to the community. Please send material by e-mail to members@thedancecentre.ca or call us at 604.606.6416. We continue to look forward to the conversation!

Andreas Kahre, Editor

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Dance Central Januar y/Februar y 2019

Critical Movements A conversation with Josh Martin and Lisa Gelley

Lull

Loop

y

AK: You recently presented a new work, Loop, Lull, at the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival.

How does performing in the context of PuSh compare to regular dance audiences?

JM: We have only done one PuSh performance before, in 2014 with a piece called Inheritor Album, also at Scotiabank Dance Centre. The really exciting thing about PuSh is that you end up with a different audience than the typical dance audience — often a very hip crowd. There are the usual artsy people who want to see new work, but with PuSh you get a lot of people who may like dance but don’t access it all the time. It feels like a great opportunity to merge audiences and get people to learn about who we are, and we are excited to be a part of the festival for that reason.

AK: PuSh has always had a strong ‘industry’ component — creating connections to presenters to get local work shown outside Vancouver. Has that made a difference in presenting your work?

JM: It is hard to quantify, but it does seem to create exposure. 2014 created some small opportunities, but for us it has always been about building relationships. We’ve also been a producing partner to Theatre Replacement to help run PuShOFF as part of the industry week, where we are trying to support local work, and where there are lots of good conversations happening between people who haven’t known each other before. We’re trying to show what the Vancouver community is doing in an interesting way. I think it is about building connections rather than just about selling work.

LG: With exposure comes a lot of pressure, in way, because we feel we need to represent ourselves accurately, but that is still exciting.

AK: 605 has been around for ten years now. What has remained constant and what has changed in that time?

JM: In some ways, the journey has been very similar from year to year, and in other ways it feels like

Dance Central Januar y/Februar y 2019

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Critical Movements A conversation with Josh Martin and Lisa Gelley

ment that the company is not the kind of collective it once was — as much as Lisa and I still want to have a collective mentality, and as collaboration remains at the forefront of our propositions.

brand new things are happening all the time. I think the way we

LG: There also seemed to be pressure from the outside to

are trying to approach the company is starting to change in that

clarify who is in charge, and who was making the things run,

we see ourselves as being able to do a number of different things

and the clearest way to make it less mysterious to people

that aren’t just about Lisa and I creating work together; there are

was that Josh and I direct the company itself, while every

so many other programs and components and ideas and artists

person we bring in is a creative collaborator. We wanted to

that we could be supporting through the structure that we now

keep the collective values within creation, but still show that

have. I think the most exciting thing about this tenth year of oper-

there was a designated accountability for the bigger picture.

ations is that, outside of the work with Lisa and our long relationship, we can start to look outward and imagine being a support to

JM: The word ‘collective’ in the Canadian dance community

the other artists we are working with on a regular basis.

is often associated with a temporary, startup group that will typically disperse and transform into something else —

AK: You are using an ‘associate artists’ model, similar to what

which ours did, so the name change acknowledged moving

many Vancouver theatre companies have taken on, although that

into the next phase.

can mean any number of things, depending on who you talk to.

AK: Did you rethink the company’s goals, or ‘mission stateJM: I feel really inspired by the Vancouver theatre community and

ment’?

the way, from what I know of it, that these organizations can pool capacity into different projects, and how people are merging all

LG: A little bit. We did some fine-tuning of what we really

the time. Someone might be the artistic director of one company

valued, but tried to keep the collaborative essence of work-

but is writing a play for another producing company, with yet

ing with artists from any genre as a central element.

another helping to put it on stage. Why can’t we do more of that with dance? I feel really inspired by the idea of working towards

AK: Has the transition changed the nature of your work?

that.

JM: Not as a direct result of that, but because our interests LG: We have had an 'Artistic Intern' every year for the past five

and perspective of dance is changing. At the beginning, we

years, and we try to support their interests that run parallel to

were really interested in creating visually cool shows, for

dance performance and dance-making, and this is the first year

example with Inheritor Album, working with an animation

that we have added the official title ‘Associate Artistic Producer’

artist and projections to try and create something quite

for Avery Smith, to support her as she is trying to develop initia-

spectacular. Now, seven years later, we are less and less

tives in the community that we feel our organization can get

interested in that kind of show. We want to look at what

behind and help make more viable.

dancers are doing, at how they really work, and how their skills as people, not just movers, can be brought into the

A: Speaking of the organization, you have gone from calling it

process. The research element, and the way we are staging

'The 605 Collective to 'Company 605'. Apart from the nomencla-

dance, is going further into territory we don’t know yet.

ture, what kind of shift does that represent?

LG: It also plays a role that it is easier to align two people’s JM: The company was co-founded as a collective, with Shay

vision than that of a larger group. It may just be that Josh and

Kuebler, Sasha Kozak, Maiko Miyauchi and ourselves, and even-

I have a unique ability to find each other on the same page

tually moved forward as a partnership between Shay, Lisa and

because we have to do that 24 hours a day, but it seems

me. When Shay bridged off with his own company as his primary

that we can focus more specifically in this configuration on

focus in 2013, we felt that there needed to be some acknowledg-

things we feel strongly about.

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Dance Central January/February 2019

"I think the most exciting thing about this tenth year of operations is that, outside of the work with Lisa and our long relationship, we can start to look outward and imagine being a support to the other artists we are working with on a regular basis."

AK: Looking back at some of the older work and comparing it to the rehearsal video for Loop, Lull, I noticed that it looks like you have shifted from close group material toward more direct contact. Is that part of a new direction, perhaps in relation to a shift from an inside to more of an outside choreographic view?

JM: It is a little bit like that. With this work, we are both on the outside, and our approach is different, trying to learn what is going on from the perspective of an audience member, whereas before we were building work that we felt we had to perform from the inside outwards. This idea of connectivity is really interesting to me. I am fascinated by dancers because I think they are incredible navigators and negotiators, and the way we are trying to move energy between them is about trying to look at these relationships further, beyond performers moving together, understanding what they are doing to make that happen.

LG: In the last work the main focus was on togetherness without unison movement, and that is carrying through into this new work. We didn’t ask them to stay connected all the time, but that came up from their own explorations, from these living tasks to explore their relationships. That interest carries forward, along with an emphasis on people being around each other not just as dancers.

AK: By the standards of, say, the Canada Council, you would now be considered ‘mid-career’. How does that kind of terminology apply to your work?

LG: Mid-Career — crisis? Well, we can’t ride just on being new anymore. We feel more responsibility toward the type and

quality of work from the inside, and there is a different expectation that we can feel coming from the outside. And there is also support coming from the outside, through the community, and especially from younger dancers who appreciate what our presence offers in the community, So we are definitely mid-career, but that doesn’t necessarily feel — JM: — so great all the time — LG: — sometimes you think the longer you do this the more successful your career will be. We are now, for many reasons in mid-career, which doesn’t necessarily mean we have become well-known, but we have settled into a role that has been formalized over the time we spent in Vancouver.

JM: I find it a bit harder, because, personally, the expectations I have on myself and on our work as an organization increase, but that doesn’t guarantee that I have the skills or the capacity, or that we are getting more funding. But I feel like I have been doing this for so long, and should be at a certain level of ‘good’ when I go into the studio, but when things aren’t working I feel more pressure: How is it possible I still can’t get this right, that I can’t find the thing I want, that I can’t figure out how to formulate my thoughts to the dancers to get clear action?

AK: It also appears that dancers, choreographers and ‘organizational leaders’ have very different ideas of what it means to be in mid-career, and of the language they use to frame their work. For example, I remember when I first read a 605 company statement, it mentioned ‘hyper-physicality’.

Has the meaning of that term changed over time?

Dance Central Januar y/Februar y 2019

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Dance Central The Dance Centre Scotiabank Dance Centre Level 6, 677 Davie Street Vancouver BC V6B 2G6 T 604.606.6400 F 604.606.6401 info@thedancecentre.ca www.thedancecentre.ca Dance Central is published every two months by The Dance Centre for its members and for the dance community. Opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent Dance Central or The Dance Centre.

The editor reserves the right to edit for clarity or length, or to meet house requirements.

Editor, Art Director & Layout Andreas Kahre Copy Editor Hilary Maxwell Contributors to this issue: Josh Martin, Lisa Gelley, Andrew Nemr Photography: David Cooper (cover), pp. 2,3, 16, 19, Ryan Lash / TED (p.11), Bret Hartman/TED (pp. 8,9,12, back cover) Dance Centre Board Members Chair Sheila G. Evani Vice Chair Layla Casper Secretary Eve Leung Chang Treasurer Annelie Vistica Directors Carolyn S. Chan Jai Govinda Megan Halkett Anndraya T. Luui Rob Kitsos Dance Foundation Board Members Chair Linda Blankstein Secretary Anndraya T. Luui Treasurer Samantha Luo Directors Trent Berry, Sasha Morales, Mark Osburn, Janice Wells, Andrea R. Benzel Dance Centre Staff: Executive Director Mirna Zagar Programming Coordinator Raquel Alvaro Marketing Manager Heather Bray Digital Marketing Coordinator Lindsay Curtis Associate Producer Linda Blankstein Venue and Services Administrator Robin Naiman Development Director Sheri Urquhart Development Coordinator Gemma Crowe Lead Technician Chengyan Boon Accountant Elyn Dobbs Member Services and Outreach Coordinator Hilary Maxwell The Dance Centre is BC's primary resource centre for the dance profession and the public. The activities of The Dance Centre are made possible bynumerous individuals. Many thanks to our members, volunteers, community peers, board of directors and the public for your ongoing commitment to dance in BC. Your suggestions and feedback are always welcome. The operations of The Dance Centre are supported by the Canada Council for the Arts, the Province of British Columbia, the BC Arts Council, and the City of Vancouver through the Office of Cultural Affairs.

Critical Movements A conversation with Josh Martin and Lisa Gelley JM: There are those things you write when you start out… I am not sure what it means now, and of course there is always physicality in dance, but at the time when we started we were trying to take the body to a place that was extreme, in whatever direction. A place that was focused on the body and movement first, really refining and researching this physicality and athleticism to a point that might feel like ‘hyper-physicality’.

LG: It is a way of being committed to being in a body that requires a high amount of attention and rigor. But when we wrote those words in the beginning we were referring to crazy jumps and flying around the stage, whereas now it seems to be about the many other ways to express something like hyper-physicality, that doesn’t necessarily means tricks any more, but is still a very attuned relationship with your body.

JM: For example, the ability to move through the same movement repeatedly as exactly as possible, really knowing and defining each micro-movement of your body, having researched it to the point where the precision and details express a form of hyper-physicality.

AK: Thinking back on the early days of ‘hyper-physical’ performance, for example Louise Lecavalier’s headlong leaps across the stage, I remember that usually the space around her had been cleared, whereas in work like yours it has become common to see movement that is similar in intensity but in much tighter formations. Do you hit each other?

JM: Yes, and we have had collisions; it happens. But another crazy dancer skill is knowing how much space you take up, and this is so well honed with them. Our dancers have a personal ‘safety bubble’, but you can ask them to get closer and closer and they’ll figure out a way.

AK: If you think of mid-career as an opening to explore what is next in your work with the company, where to take it or what to let go of, what comes to mind?

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Dance Central Januar y/Februar y 2019

continued on page 16

"I am fascinated by dancers because I think they are incredible

navigators and negotiators, and the

way we are trying to move energy

between them is about trying to look at these relationships further, beyond performers

moving together, understanding

what they are doing to make that happen."

AK: Looking at your background, it appears that you have come full circle, back to Canada. How did your journey begin?

AN: I grew up in a dance studio, and started when I was three and a half years old in Alexandria Virginia.

AK: You were born in Edmonton?

AN: Yes, my parents are from Lebanon and left in 1976, and of all the places they landed in Edmonton, where I was born, but my first memories are of Alexandria, Virginia. I was an only child, my mother was homeschooling me, and my parents felt that I should have more contact with other kids, so they signed me up for dance class, after I watched one or two classes, without anyone knowing where it would lead.

AK: How did you train? Ballet, contemporary, jazz, or did you go straight to tap?

AN: At that age it was a 45 minute class of tap, tumbling and ballet, the recitals were song and dance routines, and then through my years of dance school it was tap, jazz and ballet, and a little gymnastics. I did this for seven years, and there are highly embarrassing photos of me in various costumes, but I got that foundation in dance. I wasn’t on a track to being in a conservatory, but it was solid dance training.

AK: When did you move to New York?

AN: When I was nine, I saw the movie Tap: Sammy Davis Junior, Gregory Hines, Savion Glover — and a host of older tap dancers. That was the first time I ever experienced improvisational tap dancing, and anything that had to do with tying tap to an expression of the voice, as opposed to a line dance production number, and I wanted to do what I saw in the film. So I went back home, with a life goal of meeting Gregory Hines — whatever I had to do I would do. I thought it

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Dance Central January/February 2019

ON CRAFT

Thinking Bodies A Conversation with Andrew Nemr

"In tap you have to respect the audible contribution of every other player, and the way you play with someone in the midst of four people having a continual conversation is to maybe acknowledge what someone says, or maybe you just hold space, or take what they say and send it into a different direction."

Thinking Bodies A Conversation with Andrew Nemr

it meant to dance with a live musician, and learned the jazz canon as best I could. It was a more organic than formalized process. I asked an older tap dancer how you learned the

would take thirty years, so with the support of my parents I started looking through the paper for ‘rhythm tap’ as we learned that kind of tap dancing was called, and I found a dance school in Washington, D.C., a youth ensemble. I was told I needed to learn how to listen, but I got in, and two months later the artistic director handed me a flyer that said ‘Gregory Hines and Savion Glover, Tap Workshop in New York City’, and next thing I was in a car on the way to meeting Gregory Hines — AK: Twenty seven years earlier than you had expected.

AN: I had thought this would happen at the end of the story but it was in fact the beginning. I ended up meeting Savion and worked with him a couple months later during his residency in D.C., in a company he named the D.C. Crew, which happened for about three years, and out of that group he pulled a number of boys, including me, and formed a little company called Real Tap Skills, which lasted for about five years, at which time my family and I moved to New York.

I was about 13 and I got into a very good high school, so my family packed up house and moved. Then Bring in ‘da Noise, bring in ‘da Funk happened on Broadway, and that was the first time I encountered 'show business', and the idea that things that happen outside commercial dance don’t always happen inside dance. Here I was, the youngest in a crew, the only Lebanese among African Americans, and most of the guys ended up in the show, and idealistic as I was, I didn’t understand why I couldn’t be a part of it.

AK: Blackface was not an option, I imagine...

AN: Definitely not. My folks, who were not show business people, were going through the processing with me, and since I couldn’t process it verbally and couldn’t get an answer, I could only do one thing and that was to dance. So when it was too late to go to the studio, I put a little piece of wood into my room, turned the lights off, blasted the music and danced. It was the first time in my life I wasn’t worried about doing a correct step, but tried to figure out what would come out of me if I just let what was there come out. It was a bizarre process that lasted five or six years. I would also go to tap jams, and started to learn what 10

Dance Central January/February 2019

music, and his advice was to go find a sampler of jazz standards in a music store. Then you find the song you like, get all the versions you can find, and then find the artist you like, and get all the albums by that artist, and you follow that. This happened in the context of the communal atmosphere of the jam sessions, in an intergenerational relationship. Both Savion and Gregory introduced me to their mentors, who saw fit to take me in and show me things, which in an oral tradition you couldn’t assume they had shown to anyone else, and those became my foundational tenets of the craft. A lot of these guys had never taught in a formal or institutional setting, so all the information they had was carried in other people, and if you bumped in to someone who had trained with them you had to compare notes. That’s how the craft was passed on, and I was very blessed, young as I was, to be at the tail end of that experience. A lot of those cats started to pass on just as I was getting on the scene. Those five years were the formative experience, with a lot of solo time. I would take day trips up to Boston trying to find Jimmy Slyde and Dianne Walker, or to New York to find time with Buster Brown, or whenever Brownie Brown was in town I would try to find time with him.

It sounds like name dropping, until you realize that time with Brownie Brown meant that I was the one who drove him from the venue he was performing in to the last club that was playing music that night, and those thirty minutes in the car and sitting with him at the club, as he was singing every tune the band played, as the band was playing, was the lesson. He knew the music better than the musicians, humming lines he knew from the original band in the thirties. From the outside it may have looked like hang time, but from the inside, if you are trying to embody the craft you are looking at this man as a model — maybe not the entirety of their lives, but as a model of how they approached the craft, so later it became a huge gift when I could pick up the phone and invite a guy like Brownie to a company rehearsal and ask “Is this right, does this move you in the way you were moved in the past?” and if he said yes, you get a check plus, and if not, you know you have to go back to the drawing board.

AK: You mentioned jazz standards. What is your musical repertory?

AN: In the sessions that I frequented most often you had a range of depth: Basic standards were Ellington, Monk, Miles

Davis, a lot of straight ahead and Big Band stuff.

Some of my first tunes were Satin Doll, Don’t Get Around Much Anymore, Sister Sadie, Saint Tho mas, Blue Monk, Round Midnight, and then there are interesting things when you see how older tap dancers dealt with the music. Buster Brown had a ballad called Laura that he played up-tem-

"I look at tap dance as a microcosm, and in no way antithetical to conversations that happen in the dance community, or in the not–for–profit world, or in the truth and reconciliation world."

po. So I began to think ‘what are the things that I could adapt?

AK: Do you play an instrument?

AN: Unfortunately not. I tried to play drums for a week and a half in high school, and I can sit at a keyboard, but I was too impatient. It would have been beneficial to stick it out, but what I do is listen to musicians and transcribe their lines with my feet. When I realized that every jazz sax player would pay their dues by transcribing certain solos, I followed that path, not only with drummers, but with music like Jaco Pastorius’ Teen Town, for example. My practice was very similar to what a jazz musician would do, but not with the entire canon.

AK: It is interesting how tap approaches rhythm, compared to the role of music in contemporary dance, where it is more related to mood, space, even pulse, but rarely to the specific rhythm.

AN: You get a range in tap, too. There are dancers who just use the pulse, and dancers who want to be a part of the band, rather than be a soloist out front. And within that you get a range all the way from New Orleans jazz to late Coltrane, where the rhythm is open, or implied but not articulated. It is really interesting to see that breadth and understand that we have audible feedback, and that we are playing with the band.

It is perhaps similar in a way to contact improvisation in contemporary dance where you have to respect and acknowledge the body of every other dancer. In tap you have to respect the audible contribution of every other player, and the way you play with someone in the midst of four people having a continual conversation is to maybe acknowledge what someone says, or Dance Central Januar y/Februar y 2019

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Thinking Bodies A Conversation with Andrew Nemr

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Dance Central January/February 2019

I speak of the craft, because your interaction with the thing shifts for the sake of execution.

When I play the instrument — the floor, wood on wood, on wood — it is very different from the little board I use for practice. That is why ‘craft’ is the word I choose to use, rather than ‘the dance’.

maybe you just hold space, or take what they say and send

institutions usually trace back to very well known commercial

it into a different direction. The trick for us as tap dancers

dancers or choreographers, in part because soon after tap

is first to acknowledge that, whether or not we known this,

developed as a cultural expression, a commercial form

this is actually happening, even if most of our time is spent

developed, but initially it ridiculed the cultural one. One of

without musicians. It is difficult to find tap dancers who have

the first exponents of performance tap dance was a white

enough musical knowledge to play with live musician, or

performer in blackface ridiculing African American dance on

live musicians who enjoying trying figure out what it is like to

the stages of minstrels shows.

play with tap dancers, because in most formal environments these forms are separated. But it happens: I recently saw a

AK: One of the earliest Disney cartoons featured a line of

piece about a band that invited social dancers into the studio

thick-lipped, black-clad creatures tap dancing...

while they are recoding their new album in order to enliven the recording.

AN: That was the first commercial expression of tap, and you could attempt to pull one narrative, that the entire progres-

AK: How did you find your way to running a non-profit orga-

sion of tap has been from ridicule to actual expression, in an

nization?

attempt to find out what this craft would be if what we did on stage had been the original tradition of percussive dancing

AN: In my twenties, when most dancers would go to a

with music.

conservatory, my training was all in the public eye. I toured three years with Savion in a group called TiDii. Meanwhile,

AK: The apprenticeship model, which was also part of jazz,

I went to college and got a degree in Computer Animation.

transformed when recordings became available, which meant

That gave me a foundation in the visual arts and also affected

that students could listen and learn remotely, without

my dance practice, in how I see the stage, and it gave me

personal contact.

an institutional foundation. Three years later, I co-founded the Tap Legacy Foundation with Gregory Hines in an effort

AN: The same thing happened with tap. We are now experi-

to create what I saw as a lack of support for oral traditions.

encing the same process with YouTube, and video-based plat-

How do we ‘un-silo’ the collections that are in institutions, as

forms, but the same challenges apply. When you hear Max

well as those in a box in somebody’s attic, to support those

Roach on a recording, you don’t experience how he is actually

who are engaging in the craft today but will not have access

hitting the kit. In tap you see almost everything, but you don’t

to the older dancers. The only solution is to create as fully

have the context, you don’t know where the dancer is coming

documented a history as possible. That got me engaged in

from, why the step exists, or the specific techniques, and the

non-profits, and in 2005 I started my own dance company

audio is really low quality, which flattens the dynamic range of

called Cats Paying Dues. We self-produced and toured,

the craft, just as Mp3 compression does with music. Because

mainly in the Northeast of the United States.

of technology, upcoming generations won’t know the difference until they actually hear an unamplified jazz band and feel

AK: You keep using the term ‘craft’ when you talk about tap. A

the vibrations coming from the band stand, and understand

lot of dancers talk about the 'art' or the 'practice'. Terminology

that this is different from what’s coming through their head-

indicates something about attitude and expectation. How do

phones. Part of what I have been able to experience from a

you use the word?

dancer's perspective is the entire range, with five years in that kind of situation with a New Orleans style Jazz band, with no

AN: I have held onto that word because my journey has

drums, two guitars, a bass, a vocalist, a harmonica player and

really been that of an apprenticeship-based craft. There are

occasionally a mandolin, or violin, clarinet, and sometimes a

very few places in the world where you can get formalized

piano. I would sit in with them for a couple of tunes and then

tap dance training, and where they exist, they rarely trace

I would have to play percussion, because they didn’t want

back to the lineage of dancers who were major contributors

somebody to just solo over the entire piece. From there it

in the improvisational craft. The formalized training

was going on the road with Savion, and playing with in-ear Dance Central Januar y/Februar y 2019

13

Thinking Bodies A Conversation with Andrew Nemr

differences in geographic styles may not be apparent to a general audience. In tap we have lost some of these differences, because we have gatherings that create intense learning experiences but they take place in festival

monitors to a recorded piece of classical music, and trying to

situations, and a teacher from San Francisco may have

balance what is coming from your feet to the recorded sound,

students in Berlin, so the information is no longer geo-

while you have no idea what the audience is hearing. That is

graphically based. The relationship that tap dance has

why I speak of the craft, because your interaction with the

to other percussive dances is very interesting in that the

thing shifts for the sake of execution. When I play the instru-

form is very fluid, and similar to other forms born out of

ment — the floor, wood on wood, on wood — it is very differ-

the North American experience, where a form evolves

ent from the little board I use for practice. That is why ‘craft’ is

very quickly, with multiple commercial expressions, and

the word I choose to use, rather than ‘the dance’.

it becomes very difficult to trace the lineages. We know it originates where different cultures met — like in jazz—but it

AK: When you speak about the floor as an act of ‘playing the

is hard to tell. There are ‘ethics’ such as the circle with hip

instrument’ it suggests a very different relationship to it than

hop, that are also a part of tap, which once was a cultural

in other forms of dance.

expression, but that is difficult because formalized training operates in a different context.

AN: Of course you will hear dancers talk about their connection to the floor, but for us it has to do with touch, and

AK: And unlike line dancing or Highland dancing it is not

with the sound of the strike. Also, our connection is very fluid

a social dance. How did you decide to bring tap back to

because we are continually moving for the sake of the cre-

Vancouver?

ation of the sound. We still have to deal with balance, which is interesting when you consider that the bottom of the front

AN: There are only half a dozen organizations in the world

tap show is not a flat surface. So talking with a dancer who is

that cover the range of activities of the Vancouver Tap

engaging with tap for the first time, their sense of connection

Dance Society. Those include formalized training from a

with the floor will be completely different, for here you have

very young age up to adults, the production of a festival

metal and leather before you connect to the foot.

type event that attracts outside teachers and provides education and performance opportunities for local dancers,

AK: Do you maintain a connection to other percussive dance

and a youth tap ensemble which offers pre-professional

forms, like Flamenco?

training and performance opportunities.

AN: Yes, and there are a number of percussive forms: Fla-

AK: And you have a building.

menco, Kathak, Appalachian cloggers. They have all developed in particular ways because of the music they play with,

AN: There it is — especially in cities with boom and crash

and some of their music have had a longer evolution than tap,

real estate markets it is nerve-wracking to find yourself with your lease coming to an end. In New York you might

AK: I was thinking of Flamenco in particular because of the

pay thirty or forty thousand dollars a month for a small

parallels, as a form that involves specialized shoes and devel-

basement. I also started feeling more drawn to how

oped relatively recently alongside what was then a contem-

people interacted around the craft, more than the craft

porary form of music, but I am not sure they think of the floor

itself. The process is clear, but the question is 'how do we

as an instrument in a similar way to tap artists.

get people excited enough to participate?'

AN: I don’t know if they do, but I think they have a similar

AK: For a number of years, interactive technology has

experience in the tension between a cultural and commercial

been developing that can recognize and react to body

situation, in the transfer of intergenerational knowledge, and

position, gesture, and impulse. Is it at a point where it is of

the challenge in understanding the vocabulary that developed

interest to tap artists as a way to control music, or lights,

in the craft, which in recent years has flattened because the

or space?

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Dance Central January/February 2019

AN; Yes, there is lots of work, starting with the work featured

a piece from the 1920s has to be made relevant to the here

in the movie Tap where Gregory Hines wears controllers and

and now. That is where I see my role, to provide as much

triggers a composition while dancing. I tried developing shoes

context for the journey, to fill in gaps when kids see Jimmy

in the late 90s, but latency and other technical issues made it

Slyde and want to know how his personality informed his

awkward, and I think that even now, the speed at which tap

craft. It is a continual challenge and I have been very blessed

dancers execute is still a challenge for technology, because

to have had someone who very clearly articulated failures in

there are two elements that would have to be in place for that

previous generations, to make sure we don’t idolize previous

dream to come true: for every sound to be tracked and for the

generations but to help improve and develop the craft. So to

machine to know which actual tap hit occurred and respond to

return to the question about Vancouver, it was very attracted

it. There are some very interesting instruments that have been

to help create a situation for young dancers, give them a safe

developed recently, that can be used to trigger sounds based

environment and help them with the transition from student

on striking a surface like a table, but when we tested in on a tap

to performer.

floor we found that it is still too hard for the machine to discern individual strikes. It is definitely an interesting idea to play space,

AK: Sas Selfjord recently retired as Executive Director of the

but I found more joy in experimenting with how to get six

Vancouver Tap Dance Society. You have taken over as the

people to play together.

Artistic Director. How does that change or help the way in which you engage with the dance community?

AK: Given that your hands are free, would that allow them to control the soundscape? I imagine there is more going on in the

AN: One of the joys of this ‘position’ are the interactions it

upper body than is apparent?

enabled. I have had great conversations with people like Mirna Zagar at The Dance Centre about the Vancouver dance

AN: The stereotype of tap being from the waist down is a fal-

scene. The Dance Centre has been collaborating with our

lacy — even for dancers who don’t believe that the upper body

Festival for a long time, and it felt very good to walk into that.

is important. When I first began working with Savion, I came

Vancouver is small enough that you can’t 'silo' yourself and

from big productions where the arms played a big role. When

expect to have a healthy organization. You have to work in

I asked him what to do with my arms, he said” drop them’, and

partnership and collaboration with whoever else is doing

it took me ten years to figure out that he didn’t mean they don’t

likeminded work, and for me tap is one example of a cultural

do anything but that they need to take whatever shape sup-

craft that has spread around the world and continues to work

ports the feet. Tap dance is both an audible and a visual expres-

through questions of culture versus commerce, individual

sion, and within the form and the community people draw lines

versus community, codification versus evolution, and be-

about where to put effort and emphasis. I think that you have to

cause my individual journey has been to use tap as a way

deal with both, and in the dealing you are making choices how

to find answers for all the questions about life, I look at tap

you pay attention to them.

dance as a microcosm, and in no way antithetical to conversations that happen in the dance community, or in the not for

AK: Speaking of mentorship and apprenticeship models, I imag-

profit world, or in the truth and reconciliation world. These

ine you are now at a stage where you are being called upon to

are ongoing conversations that allow us to learn from each

pass on your knowledge. How does that feel?

other. What does community actually mean? How do we create relationships that provide guidance for children that

AN: It feels weird because I am very young. Having gone to a

come into the work with a seed that we need to grow? I am

number of funerals of my own mentors, it became evident that

very encouraged so far by the conversations I have had and

I was now a holder of that craft, and with that comes respon-

the interactions with the dance community. I don’t consider

sibility, but how do you deal with that in the middle of your

myself outside of it and that might be part of a larger cultural

own journey of learning and discovery? I think I now feel more

shift for tap, and a shift in the dance community that will

comfortable saying ‘This is what I have been told, and what I

allow for more seamless conversations.

have experienced. You need to go with that knowledge into the room and figure it out’. Part of the ethic of tap dance is that

AK: Thank you!

it is continually relevant and not presented in nostalgia. Even Dance Central Januar y/Februar y 2019

15

"I am becoming more interested in what is found when a group of people

can develop a practice together, and how this can become the seed before we begin the work.

That’s where the company wants to go: a process of research where we try to really dig far into an idea before deciding how it becomes a performance."

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Dance Central September/October 2018

Critical Movements A conversation with Josh Martin and Lisa Gelley continued from page 6

what they have to do with anything, but then there are moments where you are working and the dancers will land on something you may not have asked for but you wonder: Why do I like this? Why is it doing this to me? With the two of us doing this, a lot of material is generated…and also later

JM: I don’t think I have ever really thought of ‘letting go of

thrown out.

things’ as a way to move forward, but maybe I should think of it that way. It has been more a focus on what we are driving

AK: Do you now mainly work from the inside, or the out-

towards, and an accumulation of things we learn along the

side, or do you trade?

way. Rather than building something by immediately starting to compose it for performance, I am becoming more inter-

JM: For a research process we are both inside and outside.

ested in what is found when a group of people can develop a

Once we’re in the presentation stage, like we are now,

practice together, and how this can become the seed before

things change based on the project, and we might move

we begin the work. That’s where the company wants to go: a

outside of the work. Sometimes it’s been that I stay on the

process of research where we try to really dig far into an idea

inside and Lisa has been on the outside. But during the

before deciding how it becomes a performance.

research process, I very much use my own body to try and search for what I am doing, to search for the words to tell

AK: How do you formulate ideas?

the dancers, and to find a formal language, but it is very much rooted in the body.

JM: Often it is from a curiosity that we had during the previous process. Sometimes we decide something we find is much

AK: What role does improvisation play during the research?

too big to include what we are working on at that moment, but that leads us onward to the next thing.

LG: There is a lot of improvisation but often within set structures.

LG: We really love this process of researching, even when there are things that come up that we have to bank because

JM: I will often improvise for days in the studio, alone, and

they are not immediately related to the work.

try to piece together something that I can put on dancers, as information for them to understand what I was after, and

AK: What does that research look like in the room?

that informs their process in building movement, or to use what I have created and make it fit their own interests and

JM: It is really messy, especially with the two of us, where we

bodies.

try to dig for and pull apart all the ideas, and segment them into all the different ways they could exist. It is multiple itera-

AK: Do they get specific direction during the creation re-

tions around a theme. Let’s say we are researching looping,

search?

looking at all the different ways of looping, we then work with each of the definitions and find physicalisations, and then each

JM: We don’t use the idea of setting material along the

dancer might come up individually with five different ways of

lines of ‘my body transferred to you’ during the process

interpreting that definition. So now you have five definitions

anymore. But there are some things your body can find

each, with five different ways of physicalizing those definitions,

and explain just by doing it that you can’t really articulate

and the work is to take apart all these possibilities and figure

verbally.

out which ones pop out, and then pull that apart and expand it and try to learn more about it. Often it is a trial of experiments

AK: Speaking of articulating movement, where did the title

where we take one layer of an idea and combine it with other

Loop, Lull come from?

layers until it takes a shape, and once it does that we mess with it to find out how it works, or why it works. There are a

JM: We knew that there would be lulls in the work, and

lot of things that show up that are cool even if you don’t know

those were places where we would be digging further;

Dance Central January/February 2019

17

Critical Movements A conversation with Josh Martin and Lisa Gelley

sense of where your company fits in the grand scheme of the Vancouver and Canadian dance community?

JM: I don’t really know where we fit, but it has always been

places where you would have get bored in order to then

important to us to feel like we can be a connector. I feel re-

see the movement differently. The 'Loop' is what we are

ally strongly with 605 that this role of supporting connectivity

working with as the primary container of how the dancers

between many different artists could be our place as a group. In

work together, how sound exists, even how lights exist,

the ecology of things, we’re not a huge structure but we’re not

and the 'Lull' is an acknowledgment that it may not all be

tiny, so that in between place, and the associations we have with

coming at you, but that there are moments when you may

organizations and artists in either direction helps us bridge it all

have to let things settle and wait. It is us identifying where

together. We’re fighting against isolation.

there may be a time of change or transition, moments when you are waiting for a big collapse, or a tipping point

LG: We now have some stability, and it is important that, as we

to occur.

get further afield from Vancouver, we also take on some responsibility to be a support for other artists here, and to help grow

AK: Working with music is critical in getting an audience to

new opportunities for local artists to be in the national commu-

stay in a state, How do you negotiate this with the com-

nity.

poser?

AK: Is there something more that you would like to say to the JM: That is hard, because everyone has a different limit,

community?

and so we are just going with our gut. On this project we are working with Matthew Tomkinson and we are trying

JM: Right before the premiere of Loop, Lull, we felt really sup-

to figure out ‘how long does it take to watch what they are

ported by other artists who struggle to make work, just like us,

watching?’ How long before they understand and grow

because this has been a really hard process. Trying to make

tired of it? How long do they need before they will allow

something different and challenging, and being in this place of

themselves to go further? The music can be super sup-

unsure for so long feels really heavy, but I have felt so much sup-

portive, but it can also really counter that. When you have

port by speaking to other artists who experience the exact same

something that is really monotonous visually, and when

heaviness at this point in their career. I just feel really inspired by

you put something musically really active behind it, it can

them, because making work makes you feel super vulnerable,

really support it, but other times it can prevent you from

and I wish there was more that could be done to connect artists

digging further into it, or it will feel like it is trying to pull

around those times.

your attention away from the monotony when we want to say to the audience: ‘Yup, it’s monotonous, so stay with it!’

AK: Can you think of a way to facilitate this?

AK: Do you think that asking audiences, who are getting

LG: We are working on one.

ever more used to being distracted all the time, to stay with that monotony is going to be harder than in the past?

JM: As Dance Centre artists-in-residence we are trying to build a series along with our Associate Artistic Producer Avery Smith,

LG: Yes, for people who are used to the higher pace of our

which we are calling ‘Making Conversation’, to meet twice a

older works, this will be different. Going back to the title,

month, a session of two hours where artists can meet and share

I am hopeful that having put these words in the name will

bits from their process, talk about what they’re doing and how

give people permission to fall into a lull and not expect to

they are trying to do it, to compare their experiences, and create

experience change at the rate they might be accustomed

a dialogue about the act of making. If the experiment works, this

to in a 605 show.

is something that Company 605 could continue to do. We would really like to see something that happen in our community.

AK: Returning to the ‘mid-career’ question and your current residency through The Dance Centre, do you have 18

Dance Central January/February 2019

AK: Thank you!

"…We are trying to figure out ‘how long does

it take to watch what they are watching?’

How long before they understand and grow tired of it? How long do they need before they will allow themselves to go further?"

Dance Central January/February 2019

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Dance Central January/February 2019