A dance film's journey through time and space

Ashley Anderson July 13, 2022

Below are two impressions of Traverse, a dance film that graced the stage of the Rose Wagner Theater a couple of weeks ago at the beginning of the month….

As someone who grew up in Utah and has had the opportunity to explore its many landscapes, I was looking forward to seeing Traverse, a dance film that would feature beautiful locations from all around the state. What I didn’t expect was the nostalgic, soft invitation into a journey that happened six years ago and has continued to grow into the work that was shared last week. Hearing cast members Samantha Matsukawa and Eliza Tappan discuss their relationship to the film then and now as part of a pre-show conversation, it was clear that the process has stayed with them since its creation, which speaks positively to the skills of the director, Chris Lee, in such a collaborative setting.

The opening number was a live performance choreographed by Nick Blaylock with performers that included some of the original cast members and some new ones. The movement was intimate and tactile with playful, dynamic partnering. I could see little stories everywhere in the solos that emerged from the soft, full-bodied group work and in the relationships that formed between the dancers. Every moment of the choreography was connected and thoughtful and the performers were unapologetically committed to the moments of risk and release. The lighting design for this piece, created by William Peterson, was stunning and framed solo moments beautifully amidst the constant movement around them. As the piece finished, I found myself holding my inhale, caught in a sense of hope and joy that continued onward and upwards.

The films themselves were aesthetically gorgeous and seemed to delve into one idea at a time. To accompany the movement, they chose popular, lyrical songs that directed most of the timing and feeling of each work, leading to a somewhat dramatic flair. The first film at a dry lake bed was entirely in slow motion, focusing on the grit of the dancers running and falling into the dirt. The second in a prairie felt like a battle of growth and movement that used a lot of mirroring effects and increased speed. Another in Goblin Valley was full of goofy isolations and detailed gestures matching the wild curves of the rock around them. One film around a large bonfire contrasted the speed of the movement with the sounds of the dancers’ breath, and the bright fire against the dark sky made each moment eerie and vast. Each film was short and to the point, but I still found myself aching for some more variety in the editing. A majority of the time the video had been slowed down or sped up, so we rarely got to see the dancers moving at their real speed, which did help to match the tone of the music but eventually felt monotonous after multiple vignettes that were almost entirely in slow motion. The movement in the live piece was so generous, I felt some of that energy had been lost in the editing of the films.

I really enjoyed seeing the process of the film creation, how it was open to and aware of the landscape and the joy and sincerity with which the individuals interacted with each site. The overexposed images and unsteady camera work between each featured film had me laughing and smiling as they documented their journey around Utah. I felt that the film as a whole was witness to how this journey and these landscapes changed the people involved, inspiring them to embrace the moment and each other full-heartedly. It left me hopeful and filled with gratitude for the land that I live on.

Kara Komarnitsky grew up in Salt Lake City and recently graduated with a BFA in Dance from Ohio State University with minors in Environmental Science and Business. Her work approaches the complexity of human interconnection with the planet, pulling inspiration from the natural world and environmental research. While her primary medium is dance, Kara regularly uses projections, film, sound, and interactive technology to create immersive performance experiences. Her piece Tales of the Deep (2018) recently won third place in the Midwest Climate Summit’s Climate Stories Competition and her thesis, Interconnect (2022), received an Honorable Mention at the OSU Denman Research Forum 2022. Other places her work has been presented includes the OSU Student Concert, OSU BFA Showcase, and the Ohio Dance Festival Professional Concert.

On July 1, 2022 the Jeanné Wagner Theatre premiered Traverse, a live performance and film screening six years in the making. The documentary meets screendance collaboration began as an idea proposed by Chris Lee, then an adjunct professor in the U Department of Film & Media Arts. The aim of the piece was to work indisplinarily, with dance professor Eric Handman and U student Nick Blaylock assembling a cast of six dancers who would embark on a five day road trip across Utah and make a screendance specific to each site.

The resulting film captured the behind the scenes of a series of screendances inspired by Utah’s diverse landscapes, from the deserts of Ibex Well to Moab. Each segment used a different movement vocabulary crafted in response to its setting. In the six years that have passed since this project, screendance has advanced into a more subtle field than when Traverse was born, which showed in the intensely stylized color filters and pop ballad songs used. Some of the sites created dances that were immersive; sprialing twists and intricate arm sequences of one scene by a crackling fire mesmerizingly matched the grit and texture of the environment. Other sites were overbearingly edited and leaned heavily into dramatic effects, gluing together scraps of theatrical snippets that masked the dancers’ abilities to make artistic choices by splicing their movement into seconds.

Despite this, individual artistic choice was clearly displayed as a central theme of the project. The interlayed scenes of art and artmaking allowed the audience to connect with the dancers as people rather than performers. Unafraid of the camera, the dancers showed their effervescent personalities—playing pranks on one another and singing Paramore on the side of their broken down car. The film lovingly witnessed the friendships born of this project. Although the art in Traverse was at times laboriously serious, it was balanced by the documentary’s focus on the lighthearted youth of the artists and their excitement to create together. In a world where audiences are used to increased emotional accessibility through social media, this was a brilliant reconceptualization of art that reflects life.

Preceding the film screening, Blaylock debuted a new work that also featured six performers. Dancers Samantha Matsukawa and Eliza Tappan of the original Traverse cast reflected in an interview on their excitement to return to Blaylock’s process and their passion for the project. Their energy joined by new dancers displayed the growth of Blaylock’s choreographic abilities. His new piece felt similarly thematic to the film, with shifting horizontal formations that looked like rippling landscapes. Tumbling duets brought depth to the work, with dancers unfurling their arms and legs over each other in linked melding movements. Natalie Border’s solo was a stunning highlight of the piece that fully demonstrated the intricacy of her prowess.

Traverse as a student driven project was inspiring. The energy brought to the film through its subjects was heartwarming and softened the harshness of its editing. Watching the film in an audience full of Utah artists, the connections displayed through the film between dancers and the land were palpably present at its screening. Nick Blaylock’s new piece complemented and elevated the film, just as the artists in Traverse have matured. These works in tandem created a balanced experience that invited dancers to make friends, go new places, and appreciate the place we live in for its flaws and perfections.

Brianna Bernhardt is an artist, administrator, and freelance writer who graduated Magna Cum Laude from the University of Utah studying Modern Dance and Creative Writing. She currently works as the Community Development Coordinator at the Community Foundation of Utah and has interned with arts organizations like loveDANCEmore and SALT Contemporary Dance. She is driven by nonprofit development, arts advocacy, and community engaged learning. Her creative work and philanthropic aspirations seek to enrich life for all people.

An evening of reflection at an intimate house show

Ashley Anderson July 6, 2022

The traditional presentation of dance has grown increasingly inaccessible in these times, and often the staging of a performance is an artistic expression all its own. On the evening of June 17, in the basement and backyard of a suburban home in Draper, I attended one such act of performance. At its heart, An Evening of Reflection was an informal gathering of friends and family for the purpose of appreciating the creation of art, celebrated over champagne and casual conversation. A small gallery of paintings by Tarynn Kerr paired beautifully with the sunset and queer themes of the concert.

The show opened with Geeses Pieces, a cheeky reflection on the absurdity of aphorisms in the "Live, Laugh, Love" school of thought. Performed and choreographed by Victoria Raider and Hunter Hazard, the dancers paraded a series of quaint home-decor platitudes before the audience, each met with increasingly manic positivity and laughter. Flighty dance embraced the inherent silliness of the mantras before rising into an acknowledgement of the sometimes uncomfortable truths at their center.

In the next piece, Finite Moments, Franky DeMartino’s emotional floorwork was accompanied by an electronic poetry reading, robotically musing on love and loss. Hunter Hazard’s winding and reversing choreography cast long shadows behind dramatic red, painting the despairing movements in an almost alien light.

The third number, Safe Unsafe, choreographed by Franky DeMartino, featured two duets: the first a gay romance full of sultry lifts and intertwining limbs performed by Nathaniel Woolley and Hunter Hazard; the second a series of retreating embraces where lovers Franky DeMartino and Victoria Rader grasped at dwindling intimacy. The duets starkly contrasted the duality of relationships—masculine and feminine, joy and grief, growing together and breaking apart.

The final piece, Our Right Hearts, choreographed and performed by Eliza Kitchens, Becca Speechley, and Hunter Hazard, began with an exercise in self-hype set to an extatically shouted I Have Confidence. Then, wearing billowing dresses against mirror ball mood lighting, the scene became like an intimate sleepover, where queer friends examined their own reflections and their relationships to each other. A spot-lit duet unwound into the dancers rhythmically worshipping at an altar of Christmas lights and childhood toys, singing it heartfelt songs while cradling their shared feelings. Scattered lights from a disco ball, swung like a partner, illuminated a final bittersweet solo.

Nolan Williams is a professional and creative writer that is passionate about local art, despite being new to dance in Salt Lake City. He feels grateful to have learned so much about movement and expression already, and looks forward to experiencing more of what this welcoming community has to offer.

NOW ID returns to Salt Lake for a wrestling match

Ashley Anderson June 30, 2022

Firstly, Ally Up was a fantastic opportunity for people watching. During the pre-show hour or so of hotdog eating and mingling, I saw the highest number of mustaches in one place than any other event I’d been at and at least four feminist t-shirts in the wake of the Roe v. Wade decision, including one of a uterus giving the middle finger. The show took place in the parking lot behind the shops in the Mavin district, with different murals on the back of each building. Chairs were set up across from each other; like we were on the home and away bleachers of a high school football game and we were gearing up to fight the other side of the audience.

The dancer's entrance was the best entrance I’ve ever seen. As the music grew louder and louder building anticipation, they rode in on the back of two massive motorcycles. As they stared each other down and the bikers revved their engines, I couldn’t stop myself from smiling.

The motorcycles, the deeply saturated makeup, the hair piled high, and the sound reverberating created the sense of something incredibly huge about to happen. Ally Up was partly inspired by “all-female wrestling match witnessed in Mexico” and everything up to this point felt like it was leading up to a real match about to happen. Throughout the three rounds of dance, this tension kept building then ebbing. The two dancers circled, convincingly looking like two people who wanted to beat each other up. Their high jumps on the pavement and stare downs with audience members were intimidating. The moments of physical contact, one dancer’s fingers prodding the other’s torso, stuck out in the stretches of unison. Sometimes the music would ramp up to an intensity that the choreography didn’t quite match, either a speed or some sense of bigness that was missing. In between rounds, assistants brought the fighters water and hairspray. Instead of a ring girl, a ring boy walked through carrying signs that said “winning cares” and “eat them all.” Rather than ending in victory for one dancer, the dance seemed to end in a draw, resolving the threat of physical violence.

What I kept thinking of while watching was if I was supposed to be reading this as queer. Maybe it’s just my own bias or seeing so much queer art during pride month, but the tension between the dancers seemed less violent and more homoerotic. I felt guilty at first at this conclusion that my brain jumped to. Because female sports are so often sexualized, is reading a relationship on the dancers a part of that sexualization? No, is my answer to that question. The show incorporated queer aesthetics. The hyper exaggerated makeup on the cheekbones and the massive hairstyles coming from drag culture’s play with femininity. The gender role reversal of the Ring Boy. The butch women driving the bikes. Two days later, I’m still thinking about reading art as queer even if it wasn’t intended that way.

On another note, I enjoyed their event organizing decisions. There were tiers of seating from the front row, second row, bring your own barstool, to the standing room. I chose “BYO barstool” which I think is a fun viewing option for any outdoor dance event. The show also featured the artwork of Jamie Clyde, including a large banner reading “I AM DEAD” in yellow letters that marked the event entrance. The hotdogs–both meat and veggie–and the drinks encouraged socializing both before and after the show. The show’s curation was thoughtful and intentional; they succeeded in combining the atmosphere of a wrestling match, a tailgate, and a ballet.

Tori Meyer is a performer, choreographer, and dance educator based in Salt Lake City. She received her Honors Bachelor of Fine Arts in Modern Dance from the University of Utah in 2021. Her choreographic work has been shown at loveDANCEmore’s Sunday Series, Deseret Experimental Opera, Queer Spectra Arts Festival, Damn These Heels Film Festival, Salty Showcase, Finch Lane Flash Projects, Salt Lake Unity Festival, and Red Butte Gardens.

Jamal Jackson’s Rite of Spring at the Arts Festival

Ashley Anderson June 30, 2022

The Utah Arts Festival has long hosted local and touring companies. This weekend I jumped on the opportunity to watch the Jamal Jackson Dance Company, a New York City-based company that works to raise awareness of the connections between African and American cultures. Their piece, 846, is Jackson’s take on The Rite of Spring, the well-known Stravinsky score that was originally used to tell the story of a pagan ritual that ended with the sacrifice of a young girl. 846 was choreographed in 2021 and produced as a film during the pandemic, but has taken to the stage on tour.

The dancers moved fluidly through West African, European, Modern, and street dance techniques, demonstrating how beautifully they can coexist in one body and making me question why we tend to draw such sharp distinctions between them. They wove together grooving, polyrhythmic steps and Krump gestures with Graham contractions and striking ballet attitudes. Their impressive use of these vocabularies clearly demonstrated how Eurocentric and Afrocentric techniques are in no way mutually exclusive. Moments of vague unison in unclear group forms and solos weaving throughout connected them to expectations of community dance more than codified performance structures. It felt more like a conversation than a speech. Their collective energy expressed how the impending sacrifice affects everyone in a community, not just the person who is killed, and – on the flip side of that coin – how everyone is also complicit in the act of the sacrifice.

The richness of this choreography resonated throughout the gestures and technique of the dancers, referencing the stories of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Andre Hill, Trayvon Martin, and other Black victims of police violence from the last few years. As with many Rite of Spring performances, there was a red cloth, this time a red hoodie. It began on top of a male dancer on the ground as we heard the story of his death and was passed through the group as the Stravinsky score began, building fear and tension in their bodies. Despite the many hands it passed through, eventually it made its way back to him, pooled beneath his head in the final image of death. As Jackson mentioned after the performance, we might describe many incidents of police violence as random tragedies, but in fact the violence is quite directed.

Stravinsky’s score was extremely loud and agitating, making the movement at first appear underwhelming in comparison, but over time I became drawn into the nuance of the gestures and tone. The dancers flowed through images of hands-up in innocence, taking a knee in solidarity, reaching to the sky in prayer, and hiding the face to block out the incessant reports of death. The red cloth at one point became like an umbilical cord, falling from the center of a dancer’s body between her legs as she slowly wrapped it back up as if in mourning for her lost child. Toward the end of the piece the group gathered behind the identified sacrifice, pounding their fists into their hands like a gavel, but at the same time like a stabbing motion creating a sense of inherent violence in the judgement being made. I could feel the last two years of police reports and protests washing over me.

Juxtaposed with the fear, violence, and drama of the music, were the voices of those who had lost someone to police violence, telling stories of their life, what they loved, and how they lived during a pause in the music. Jackson expanded on this moment after the show saying that he wanted to disrupt the trauma and be intentional about who tells these stories. He wanted to avoid only knowing victims as a hashtag and find more connection to who they were in life. There was a moment where the dancer who was chosen to be sacrificed walked through the group with the hoodie over his head, revealed his face and erupted in an energetic and powerful solo, expressing his fear and joy before he went towards his death. This moment in particular rang out with the love for Black life that we heard in the stories from victims’ families and that Jackson clearly strives to share with this work.

I really resonated with Jackson’s statement during the Q & A that, “If you’re not talking to me about something [with your art], I don’t want to hear it.” There is a certain enjoyment in aesthetics, but at the end of the day, art has the potential to support real change. It is clear that Jackson fully embraces this potential with his work and 846 provided ample material for starting conversations, moving mindsets, and shifting cultural attitudes about police violence in America.

Hip hop and parkour at the Arts Festival

Ashley Anderson June 30, 2022

1520 Arts drew a large crowd to their in-the-round performance space at the Utah Arts Festival at Library Square. Their time was part demonstration and part workshop. First, Joshua “Text” Perkins, one of the founders of 1520 Arts, presented a brief history of hip hop culture with help from dancers and their DJ. Then, they invited audience members up to learn some of the moves and participate in a cypher (a circle where the dancers each go in one at a time). Perkins was a fantastic presenter and covered a lot of hip hop culture while keeping the energy really high. The b-boys and b-girls, Sam Heng, Katie Hall, Tonga Lavulo, and Ben Ukoh-eke, showed off top-rocking, footwork, power moves, and freezes while Perkins walked the audience through what all of these elements mean in breaking. After demonstrating this vocabulary, the dancers showed us a battle, which was the most exciting thing I saw at the Arts Festival. What was a quiet audience at the start got much louder as the dancing became more explosive.

For their workshop, they invited audience members to the stage to try out breaking. Although Perkins was encouraging the adults to join in too, most of the takers were young kids. There were a lot of kids eager to get in the middle of a cypher and the dancers were really friendly and encouraging. This performance is one piece of 1520 Arts’s mission to introduce breaking and hip hop culture to wider audiences in Utah. Utah Arts Festival had a lot of areas and activities geared towards getting children involved with art. Especially since youth twelve and under get in free, the whole festival was very family friendly. During the workshop portion of 1520 Art’s performance, I felt a little odd as one of the only adults who wasn’t there to watch kids dance. However, 1520 Arts performed all four days of the festival, with a youth, adult, and open styles battle on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday respectively, so each of these events would likely draw in different crowds.

Earlier that day, I got to see Salt Lake Dance and Parkour, one of the festivals designated “Emerging Artists,” perform in the same space. Their presentation was also educational, starting by involving the audience in their warm-up and ending with inviting everyone to try some basic vaults and jumps on the stage. In the middle, they showed their work Sixes which blended parkour elements with modern dance composition sensibilities. It began very subtly different from their warm up, all four of them traveling in a circle, jumping over and over their wooden vault structures. The music faded underneath the quiet sound of their sneakers absorbing impact. The loudest sound was the rattle of their tallest wooden vaults when landed on. It made me wonder what they would do performing with more space to gather momentum or more solid structures like the series of concrete steps we were sitting on. Throughout, it felt casual and intentional: a dancer would take a break for some gatorade then set their sights on getting to the top of a concrete wall. Salt Lake Dance and Parkour was also performing for many families and by the end, the kids and a few adults were ready to try out what they had just seen. I’m excited about how excited all of the kids were to dance and I hope that 1520 Arts and Salt Lake Dance and Parkour have created some future dance lovers.

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