Jordan: People and Places

DTSB&Co  company members with friends at the University of Petra

DTSB&Co company members at Petra

Dancer Sarah with camel friend

DTSB&Co in Jordan: Teaching and Sightseeing in Amman

It's hard to believe that today is our last full day in Jordan. Our last few days here have been so full that they've gone by unusually fast.

On Saturday we came into Amman to teach workshops at the Princess Bosma Center for Youth. We taught two sessions; one for young women and one for young men.  Most (if not all) of them had never studied modern dance, so we were introducing them to some of its most basic concepts.  Unlike our classes at King's Academy, many of these students did not speak English, so we worked with a translator to communicate. We were all impressed by how gracious the kids were and how hard they worked at something that was entirely unfamiliar to them.

We also got the chance to walk around Amman a little bit. We visited a neighborhood called Sofia, which was very Western and had many of the shops that we were familiar with from the states.  Another neighborhood, El Hashmi, gave us more of a flavor of Jordanian culture. We tried some excellent pastries there called sambousek that were baked fresh in a small shop. It was just one of many delicious things we've had to eat on this trip.

We'll send updates soon from our performance at the Zhakarev of Motion festival, which we were set to perform at on Monday evening.

--- Sarah Halzack

DTSB&Co in Jordan: Petra - A True Wonder

Today we took a brief break from performing and teaching to visit Petra, an ancient city that has been named one of the new seven Wonders of the World.  

We all agreed it was an unforgettable experience.  The site dates back to about 400 B.C., when it was originally inhabited by the Nabathean tribe, and then was later inhabited by the Byzantines and Romans. The detail and ingenuity of the construction of the tombs and monasteries were awe-inspiring; it's hard to imagine that our ancestors were able to build something so magnificent and efficient without the help of modern technology and tools.  And because so many different peoples had made their homes there throughout history, the architecture is a singular mishmash of styles. 

In addition to the man-made structures, the site is full of unique rock formations and deep canyons.  In one area, our tour guide explained to us that the rift we were standing in was caused by an earthquake millions of years ago.  Erosion had gradually widdled the canyon to its current width.  Again, it's pretty wild to contemplate the depth of the history that exists in such a place. 

It was a long drive out to the ruins and a long, hot walk to get through them, but I think all the dancers agreed it was worth the trek!  

Tomorrow we are headed into Amman for the first time since we arrived.  We are all looking forward to being in an urban environment and seeing what the city has to offer. 

-- Sarah Halzack

Photos from Petra!

DTSB&Co in Jordan: Our day at the King's Academy

The Academy is an international boarding school outside of Amman.  It is quite an amazing facility  built as a major complex and educational think tank in 2007. It is surrounded by vast green gardens in the middle of the desert.  Every student speaks English, most are bilingual and the professors graduated  from top tier schools and Ivy's in the  the States.  Today we presented a lecture demonstration focused on introducing modern dance to the students while touching upon the cross disciplinary effects of creativity, as well as how art can build a positive self-identity.  Because so many students are from all over the world, identity whether it is tribal or national or  familial seems hyphenated.  Everyone somehow belongs to two or more groups.  The first question after our showing came from a freshman who asked, regarding the Palestinian crisis, if dance could be used to express and heal this situation.  I explained that many choreographers do focus specific works over their careers on political situations in order to voice the hope for resolution.  He was quite brave to want to know how art can create change in the world. 

Dancer Profile: Tati Valle-Riestra

Tati Valle-Riestra performs "Island." (Photo: Mary Noble Ours)

Tati Valle-Riestra of Lima, Perú has performed with Dana Tai Soon Burgess & Company for more than 12 years. In addition to dancing, she has an interest in painting as well as marine biology. When it comes to her art, she primarily works with watercolor and ink on paper creating images of human figures and beautiful landscapes.
According to Tati, she doesn't have just one favorite piece that she has performed with DTSB&Co. "I love each and every one of them in their own special way," she said. If she had to choose though, she admits she especially enjoyed dancing "Images from the Embers," "Island," "Tracings" and "Chino Latino."
When asked where she sees the DC dance community in 20 years, Tati said she imagines the community "evolving naturally with new artists and talents creating new works." As for herself, she hopes to be back in her homeland of Perú.

For now, she has truly enjoyed dancing and learning with the company. "What I enjoy most about being part of DTSB&Co is simply being part of Dana's company. He is a special person with an incredible charisma," she said. "Being part of his group has been a great opportunity to learn from him continuously for so many years and I feel motivated by his beautiful movement and his artistic vision. A very important part too is the group itself, dancers and other members of the company. I feel closely linked to all of them and enjoy immensely the routine time we share together in class, warm ups and rehearsals." For more information about Tati, read her dancer biography.

Dana featured in Huffington Post

The Huffington Post has featured Dana's comments!  Read the blog post

Dana comments on DC councilman Barry's racially charged comments

Dana Tai Soon Burgess & Co. has joined with many groups in Washington, DC and beyond calling on DC Councilmember Marion Barry to at the least apologize for his recent comments about Asian-Americans.

Dana writes:

Earlier this week, I was among a handful of local leaders who met with D.C. Council  member Marion Barry about bigoted comments he made about Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders; first he talked about “dirty” Asian-owned carryouts and on Monday Filipino nurses were the objects of his spewing. These statements come on the eve of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.

As a fourth generation Korean-American and a choreographer whose family moved to the U.S. in 1903 as indentured plantation workers for the sugar and pineapple plantations of Oahu, Hawaii, I have spent the past two decades creating art that addresses issues of identity.

In my testimony before Barry and the others who were gathered at the District Building I recalled the long line of troubling historical events that led us to this moment in time.

For example, I reminded them that, in 1882, the federal Chinese Exclusion Act permitted the U.S. to suspend Chinese immigration. The ban wasn’t repealed until 1943.  I described how President Franklin Roosevelt’s 1942 Executive Order 9066 forced the relocation of Japanese Americans to internment camps, and how the Supreme Court’s shameful confirmation of that discrimination destroyed many lives and livelihoods for decades.

I reminded the gathering of the brutal beating death in 1982 of Chinese auto worker Vincent Chin in Michigan after layoffs in Detroit's automotive industry were attributed to the increasing market share of Japanese automakers. And I described the scene in 1992 when Los Angeles riots hit Koreatown harder than any other part of the city. Police were forced out by rioters, many Koreans were attacked and beaten and countless businesses were looted and burned. To this day, I’m haunted by memories of those 20-year-old images.

Mr. Barry’s recent comments add a new chapter to our country’s long and painful history of bigotry against Asian Americans. When people attack Asian Americans – whether physically or verbally – or any minority group, for that matter, the entire community suffers. I long for the day when we can look beyond color boundaries and start to understand diversity and inclusion as an American standard which enlivens our educational system, our economy and our community and is a basic fiber of our multi-faceted American tapestry.

Mr. Barry listened as I provided the historical context for his hurtful comments. Then, to my surprise, he blamed the press for his hateful words. I had a sense that an apology was the furthest thing from his mind.

As I left the District Building, a faraway memory crossed my mind. I recalled a six year old and his mother who were walking down the street when a stranger called out to her: “Tokyo Rose go home.” That six year old was me. It was hurtful then, and it is hurtful now.

I am more convinced now than I was earlier in the week: the best and most appropriate response is Mr. Barry's immediate resignation.

Read more in the Washington Post's District of DeBonis blog.

Dancer Sarah Halzack featured in DC Neighborhood Blog

DC dance blogger and our newest Board member Cecile Oreste writes about DTSB&Co dancer Sarah Halzack in the Borderstan blog.

20th Anniversay Spring Performance Rehearsal Photos

DTSB&Co in the news!

The Washington Blade features a story on Dana, DTSB&Co's 20th anniversary and other upcoming performances.

Dana featured at AAPI site

Dana was highlighted in the I AM AAPI IN DC site!

Dana on film!

Here is Dana while filming a PSA on being Asian American in DC for the Office of the Mayor of DC

DTSB&Co sighting at the National Cherry Blossom Festival

Washington, DC mayor Vincent C. Gray speaks at the opening of the National Cherry Blossom Festival below larger than life photos of DTSB&Co company members!

Musings on Muses

Our 20th Anniversary Season shows are April 5-6 at the Marvin Center Betts Theatre!

As I look back at the last 20 years I am struck by the wonderful dancers and designers who I have had the honor to work with.  It is an amazingly generous feat for a dancer to give their youth to a choreographer and to believe in an aesthetic.  A dancer's life is amazingly short and I have worked with so many beautiful dancers over the years who have given their talent and youth to allowing me to create work on them.  These dancers include Sarah Craft my amazing dance partner for many years and confident who found her way to the first wave of DTSB&Co at only 16. What a gift she had. Her mother Polly was the early muse of  John Neumeier's, now the powerhouse of Hamburg. When I was at a very pivotal moment in my career Polly sponsored me  to visit Hamburg introduced me to John.  I flew to Hamburg to work with his school and sit in on his process. To see him in his prime at work was quite a gift.  I learned so much about the process of creating dances that speak to storytelling and the human experience.  He is  the archetypal scholar and storyteller of dance.

I am not sure what makes  a muse but Miyako Nitadori, Connie Fink, Kelly Southall and Ricardo Alvarez embody this quality for me. They have inspired essential dances for me from Island, to Charlie Chan and the Mystery of Love. I am thinking tonight how a choreographer finds dancers to embody their subconscious, the realm from which dances stem.  I keep a dream journal and devoutly follow Jungian archetypes.  These wonderful people embody archetypes for me from their dancing to the way they embrace life. 

I also have been ruminating on how designers change a choreographer's perspective.  I remember distinctly a conversation I had with Jennifer Tipton while working on a project with sculptor John Dreyfuss. She said, "remember light is an entity on stage as vital as another dancer,  if you project a relationship to light the audience will feel it completely".  Words to live by!  I never take the advice and talents of a designer lightly.  Also of major importance were my experiences with musical composer Jon Jang and visual designers Sara Brown and Laura McDonald. What generous people; they give completely to the process of dance.

Ultimately it takes a large community to breath life into the ephemeral form of dance. This communal process is what makes dance art.

Thank you!
Dana

International Dialogues

As I was showing Felipe Oyarzun, our new dancer from Santiago, Chile around DC today I started thinking about the importance of international dialogues.  I feel very lucky to have traveled with the company so much in the last 10 years because it has expanded our network and opened our eyes as to how vital it is to engage in a global dialogue.  Dance is a universal language and to invest in relations with other countries is extremely important, especially for America right now.  It expands how I choreographically create work and informs how my work can speak to all cultures.  One of the major factors to learning how to choreograph effectively has been our travels and the many conversations we have had artists abroad. These travels and friendships help me create works that are universal vs. just American in aesthetic. I am in search of universal archetypes; I am very happy to support and sponsor our dance artists from Mongolia, Korea and Chile this year. I know that their experiences here will propel them and me  to new heights.  I especially look forward to our tour to Jordan in May.  Understanding the Middle East through the arts will help us all get along. It will continue a shared humanitarian conversation and allow our young dancers to further their careers in the near future. 

More soon! Dana

Friends of DTSB&Co Gather at Bistrot Lepic!

Cyrille Brenac, Congressman Mike Honda, Julie Koo and Dana

A wonderful event last night filled with friends of the company at Bistrot Lepic. The event announced our 20th Anniversary Season and was a fundraiser for our spring performances. It was wonderful of Congressman Mike Honda to attend.  He eloquently spoke about the dance company as the District's arts organization that allows young Asian Americans the chance to see and imagine a future in the arts.  After 20 years, it was truly wonderful to see so many familiar faces at the event and to remember that everyone in a community grows together. Our rehearsals are going very well and I can't wait for the big show on April 5 and 6!

How do we rebuild our DC dance community?

How do we rebuild our DC dance community?  Dance is an ephemeral art form, perhaps the most fragile of the arts and yet perhaps the oldest in terms of a global humanity.  Mankind danced before it wrote, before it painted or sculpted. So in many ways it is a precious link to a shared collective unconscious.  Dance has the capacity to bridge socio-economic and cultural differences.  But dance is fragile, it is here for the moment, slightly varies from presentation to presentation as well as time and financially intensive with very specific  rehearsal and theater space needs.
 
In Washington, DC over the past 5 years we have had a major wave of theater based capital campaigns which started pre-2008. As money from the District Government, Foundations and Corporations poured into buildings and the theater community, dance began to feel a drain of funds that were available for general operating funds and choreographic projects.  As the economy began to recess this strain increased.  So now we live with a new grouping of theater spaces without dance floors which are too expensive for the dance community to rent, with virtually no presenters for dance in the face of funders strained to upkeep  new  spaces.  Dance in DC is at risk and facing an all new Darwinian terrain. We must look for new models for management and funding quickly to ensure existing and new dance artists will survive and thrive.  I believe that we must explore shared management models which are not top heavy.  We must continue to explore innovative partnerships such as those with universities, museums, art galleries, schools and more.  Such partnerships can build audiences and create non traditional funding proposals and projects in non traditional spaces which can re-enliven our community.

Recently I began reaching out to directors of companies, art institutions and universities to explore new models for dance and have had some wonderful success including recent projects at the National Portrait Gallery and the Corcoran Gallery of Art. The DC Metro Dance organization which has undergone a slow decline also has the potential to restructure at this time and be a clear lobbying voice for dance. If leaders in dance and other art forms can work together to create a clear concerted strategic plan for dance then we can structurally clarify milestones of stability and growth.  We also greatly need national support to become available to in DC.  Unlike NY we do not have the finance and large industry available to us. We are a government based city with a handful of foundations with art in their portfolios and an individual funding base which is often transient due to its relation to movement on the hill. Individuals often arrive and leave in a 4 year span. So we are in need of larger foundations such as Ford, Rockefeller, MacAurthur and Mellon to assist us at this time. We need to get the word out in a concerted effort. Otherwise even innovative partnerships will quickly hit a glass ceiling of support. As leaders in dance continue to talk I will be sharing info with you! Keep making dances!

2005 Tour to Latvia

Latvia...

In 2003 after a performance of our work Tracings which is about my family's history as plantation workers in Hawaii in the early 20th century, I was approached by a curator from the Latvian Opera house who was in the audience.  In 2005 the company toured to Riga.  It was our first time as a complete company tour in the Baltic States region.  We were the first contemporary company to perform in a beautiful black box space that was built into the Opera House complex.  We warmed up and rehearsed in a ballroom complete with chandeliers and a view of a snow covered square. 

Riga is a beautiful city because many of the original art nouveau buildings still exist there and were not destroyed during the WWII. We taught classes throughout the snowy city because modern dance was fairly new to Latvia at this time and people were hungry to see and understand what it is.  I have a great memory of teaching class at the Opera Ballet School where Baryshnikov originally trained.  We lay on the floor and I slid down to the mirrors as I demonstrated the movement combinations I kept tripping on the sharp incline because the studios were raked with the same angle as many of the older stages of European theaters.  

Riga is a city of Latvian culture at odds with new Russian values and aesthetics.  It has a rich artistic history and a burgeoning artistic potential. There is a deep melancholia and reserved aspect to its arts aesthetic which one can hear in many Baltic musical compositions today. I look forward to seeing more dance come from Latvia and the Baltic States in the future.  

--Dana 

Our History with Peru

Peru....The company has a 10 year history with Peru.  I was first asked to go to Peru by the US State Department when the director of the National Ballet of Peru was in search of a contemporary choreographer.  The director, Olga Shimasaki is a gifted Japanese Peruvian dance artist.  The Japanese Peruvians are similar to the plantation Japanese and Koreans of Hawaii in that they immigrated to Peru to be agricultural workers at the turn of the last century.  They have since become very involved in the arts landscape of Peru from dance to the visual and plastic arts.  Peru is a great love of mine because I don't think there is any other country in the world where an Asian immigrant family's child could have become President.  Fujimori was a fascinating individual that represents the cultural openness and fluidity of the Peruvian psyche.

After my first travels to Peru when I set repertory work on the ballet, I returned to create Accoralada or corralled to a live orchestra.  It was my first experience with a full live orchestra, an experience which is almost unheard of anymore in dance in America due to cost limitations of the music union.  I learned so much and even collaborated with a Japanese Peruvian visual artist on the set design.  I was in a constant deja vu state in Lima because it felt so much like Santa Fe, NM where I grew up, also a colony of Spain, that I returned through two consecutive Fulbrights to make works for the San Marcos Ballet where I also taught modern dance.  It is directed by a wonderful ex-pat named Vera Stasny whom after a Fulbright stayed in Lima. My company came down each trip to tour all over Peru.  We have wonderful friends from Arequipa to Cuzco.  I felt so strongly about the incredible artist there that we assisted in sponsoring the first tour of the National Ballet to the Kennedy Center and have hosted many Peruvian dance artists to DC since.  I believe that the best American dance programs are reciprocal.  Friendships should be maintained for years to come and so I am very proud of the company's continued relations with the Peruvian community of dance.  The fundamental component of arts diplomacy is to create lasting friendship through which we can better understand a global perspective.  I can honestly say that I am still inspired by Peru and our repertory work Chino Latino about  Asian Latino immigration relationships is still one of my favorite works.  It demystifies how Asian and Latin cultures have historically worked together and is set to historic music scores from all over Latin and South America that reference Asian communities living in Latin counties.  No wonder my nickname as a child was "Chino"!

-- Dana

Meeting Artists Abroad

I decided to write about past international experiences and the impact of meeting artists abroad has had on my work and the way I view dance. This is my first installment. In 1999 I was invited to Pakistan to interact with dance artists and travel to the historic sites of Alexander the Great because I was working on a new dance for the Kennedy Center about Alexander's life. The current salt flats of Pakistan are the farthest reaches of Alexander's campaigns. The great artwork of Gandhara, now in the regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan, are where the first images of the Buddha emerged. Prior to this time he was depicted by symbols, such as footprints or hands but never in full body form. The artisans left behind by Alexander depicted a Greek pantheon of gods at home and thus gave the Buddha physical form in Pakistan. These Buddhas are beautiful, cloaked in Greecian garb with Amerasian features. As a child I was so fascinated by them that when I reached the great Buddhist temple ruins of Pakistan I was overwhelmed.

In 1999 these sites were under attack from militant Muslims. The art was considered a threat. I remember visiting a chained up museum of Buddhist art that had been recently looted by the Taliban. In the dark, using a flashlight to look at the works that had survived with a security team in tow, these ancient works unfolded before me. Pakistan's people are so diverse being at the cross roads of the East and West for centuries. Faces in the Swat Valley are informed by multiple Semetic tribes, the Chinese, Europeans and more.

I visited 6 dance artists in Pakistan. I choose not to name them to protect them. At the time under strict Muslim law, dancing was illegal but not always enforced as so. Dancers survived under the radar. I met with dancers, watched their choreography, exchanged ideas on art and even thoughts on the effects of the Partician on Katak which is a often thought of as a Hindu based form. My final artist exchange occurred near the tribal areas with a talented Katak dancer. In her home was a man recovering from a gun shot wound. He had been shot for dancing. He had almost died. He appeared to be in his early twenties and was very thin and weak. We sat together and I was so moved by the fact that they danced with the full fear of being killed for practicing their art. They believed so wholeheartedly in dance that it was tantamount to their own physical safety. I will never forget these wonderful dancers. It has stayed with me for years. Now when I hear a dancer question their belief in their work, their funding, their lack of accolades, and a plethora of other woes, these are the dancers that come to mind. How lucky we are to be able to dance freely and express ourselves openly. We have the freedom to build dances with a sheer sense of openness and to communicate our thoughts and ideas through dance to others. May we all find a place to dance with freedom and remember what a gift freedom of expression is and strive to help our fellow artists.

--Dana