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| Dante Alabastro and Alyse Romano in Edifice: Breaking Walls Photo: Lissa Resnick |
A Busy Fall For No Strings Attached Dance Company
Developed as part of the
Resident Artist Workshop (RAW) program at SAFEhouse Arts in 2017, Edifice: Breaking Walls is all about asking
questions. From challenging the perimeters of performance spaces to upending
the relationship between performer and audience to expanding and deepening collaborative
processes, Edifice seeks after new
understanding. Textural dimensions abound throughout. Natural materials like
wool, fiber, paper, canvas and cloth interact with texturally diverse
choreography. Delicate petit allegro – wispy glissades, sissones, pas de chats
and beaten jetés – meet task-based, gestural phrases and pedestrian running.
Turned out extensions are broken into flexion by the lightest, most subtle
impulse. Dancers on pointe and dancers in flat shoes perform side by side. And the
partnering sequences toggle between traditional pas de deux and unconventional
points of contact, like the top of the head.
As the lights rose on Type None, performed at West Wave Dance
Festival 25 last September at Z Space, a young boy sits at a table stage right
demonstrating the procedures associated with insulin injections – a tedious,
painful, relentless reality of life with diabetes. On the other side, a male
dancer turns in repeated fouettés before moving about the stage in an
expansive, lush solo full of extensions, spins and batterie. Voices of children
affected by the disease ring through the air as solos, duets, trios and full
ensemble statements unfold. Early on, the boy rises from his chair, joining in
a repeated port de bras sequence. Later he pushes and pulls the dancers out of
the way, exerting will and control. At other moments, he sits center stage, silent
and still, mesmerized by the movement. Is he watching a representation of the
cells within his body? Is he imagining freedom from constraint? Is he picturing
himself at different points in his life?
While two very distinct
dance works, Edifice: Breaking Walls and
Type None share a number of
commonalities. Each performance work is informed by curiosity and discovery, a deep
desire to look beyond held assumptions through rigorous creative exploration. Both
will have another life this coming fall, at separate events the weekend of
October 13th-15th. And they are both conceived and
composed by choreographer Lissa Resnick, Artistic Director of No Strings
Attached Dance Company.
A serious ballet student
from a young age, Resnick spent summers at Joffrey, Sacramento Ballet and San
Francisco Ballet and was invited to attend the full-time pre-professional
program at SFB, an intense schedule of classes, workshops, rehearsals and
performances. While fully committed to this demanding course of study, at the
same time, Resnick was aware that the total immersion-ness of pre-professional
life was somewhat limiting, at least for her. After being sidelined with an
injury, she, like many dance students, began to feel a pull toward other interests,
other pathways, particularly to math and science for which she had always had a
passion. And so, Resnick shifted gears away from full-time ballet and enrolled
in UC Davis, pursuing a Bachelor of Science degree.
While these undergraduate
years signaled a break from pointe work, dance was still part of the picture. In
fact, Resnick used this time to investigate different forms of movement and
physicality, eventually joining Bonnie Simoa Contemporary Dance Company (which
was affiliated with UC Davis), under the direction of Bonnie Simoa. This foray
into contemporary dance would be a formative period, as it would continue to
influence and be present in Resnick’s artistic journey.
Fast-forward a number of
years. Following a longer break from dance, Resnick found herself in LA, and
noticed a yearning to get back into the dance community. “I was missing dance,
but now I felt more of a draw to choreography,” remembers Resnick, “I was
fascinated with the notion of looking at the world and making my own work,
birthing something.” To that end, she began performing as a guest dance artist
for various projects in LA while simultaneously founding No Strings Attached
Dance Company, a platform where she could experiment with all kinds of genres,
including tapping into her long-term relationship with ballet. “Ballet is part
of my origin story, like a native language,” she adds, “but at the same time, I
didn’t want to fit into any particular mold; I wanted to be more open and try
to get outside of that rigorous training background.” Vocabulary-wise, that
meant that creating her own choreographic signature, certainly ballet-based but
also pulling from a number of other forms. Structurally, Resnick wanted to
examine alternate theatrical containers/spaces and work in a collaborative
environment, “I became very interested in looking beyond the proscenium,
linking different artforms and site specific work; the concept of bringing art
off the walls and off the typical stage.” And so, she sought after performance
opportunities out-of-doors and in galleries, attracted to mixed discipline projects
with dance, theater, opera and visual art. A few years later, Resnick relocated
back to the Bay Area. She continued guesting with companies like Dance Lumiere
as well as crafting new work with No Strings Attached. “The dancers inspire me,
I fall in love with them again with each project, and I’m continually inspired
by other artists, visual creators and musicians,” Resnick shares, “and at
another level, I want to unravel mysteries of things we think we understand,
particularly when it comes to the complexities of medical science and
research.”
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| Matthew Doolin and Curtis Resnick in Type None Photo: Lorelei Voorsanger Ghanizadeh |
Type None directly lives into that desire, a work that brings the medical and
performing arts communities together. Created in partnership with the Juvenile
Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF), the ensemble piece for eight dancers and
one youth actor is a personal one for Resnick. “A couple of years ago, my son
was diagnosed with Type I diabetes and Type
None is about caring for a child with chronic illness,” she shares, “the
JDRF really stepped up and supported me through this process.” A big effort
over the past year (it premiered at West Wave in 2016), No Strings Attached
will be performing an excerpt from Type
None at the upcoming Juvenile Diabetes One Walk, East Bay, being held on
Sunday, October 15th in San Ramon.
On the Friday before
(October 13th) at Coffee Shop in Lafayette, No Strings Attached will
be making another appearance in the East Bay, dancing Edifice: Uncovered as part of the inaugural Art Moves Project. Resnick
is wearing multiple hats for this event, both as a co-founder of the
organization and as a commissioned artist. “Art Moves looks at bringing more
progressive movement and dance into the community, engaging with and reaching
out to the audience,” Resnick explains, “it’s a public art initiative that will
have multiple locations in Lafayette, right in the hub of the downtown walking
areas.” After receiving an initial grant from the Lafayette Community
Foundation, Art Moves Project commissioned their first creative endeavor, Edifice: Uncovered, a collaboration
between Resnick and visual performance artist Marcia Barrow Taylor. For this
next chapter in the Edifice story,
Resnick is contemplating the question of “what lies beneath the surface; what’s
inside.” In addition, the piece is taking Resnick outside of her comfort zone.
Though informed by the primary question above, Edifice: Uncovered delves more into the abstract side of
dancemaking, in terms of form, structure and composition, and away from traditional
storytelling. With No Strings Attached’s strong commitment to mining the
unknown, it is no surprise that Resnick is venturing into this new terrain with
Edifice: Uncovered.
After this very busy
October, No Strings Attached will be gearing up for an equally packed late
Fall/early Winter. Resnick has been invited to create something new for the
next edition of Works in the Works, to be held this November at Western Sky
Studio on 8th Street in West Berkeley. Then, they are thrilled to
once again be participating in the annual San Francisco Movement Arts Festival
at Grace Cathedral in January of 2018. The repertory selection for the festival
is still in process, though Resnick is considering re-envisioning a duet based
on Hindu love poems, “the first iteration of the duet was developed back in
2012 and since then, it has been excerpted a number of times,” notes Resnick,
“it has infusions of classical Indian dance vocabulary and its main theme is
temptation.”
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