The San Francisco
Movement Arts Festival is a mere six weeks away, arriving at Grace Cathedral with
its Stations of the Movement program on
Friday, January 25th. As it approaches, we are continuing our blog series highlighting
just a few of the many SFMAF choreographers/companies/dance artists. This month,
we caught up with Claire Calalo, Artistic Director of for change dance
collective.
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Pictured: for change dance collective Photo: Douglas Calalo Berry of DVB Photo |
Founded by Calalo,
Jessica de Leon and Lauren Baines, for change has been a part of the Bay Area
dance ecology for close to a decade. Back in 2010, Calalo, de Leon and Baines
found themselves craving a different kind of creative/artistic outlet. They
knew that they wanted to work together to create performance with a social
justice lens. But to do that, to shed light on issues like inequality and
entrenched systems, the traditional dance company format felt like a mismatch. “Hierarchical,
authoritarian pedagogy didn’t fit with the subject matter we wanted to
explore,” Calalo explains, “we wanted a highly collaborative environment where
all present have shared and equal ownership over the work, where everyone is
invited to contribute choreography and movement.” To that end, they formed for
change dance collective with the goal of living into this process of
“democratic dancemaking.” And the pursuit has been a fruitful success; the
collective has been quite busy since those early days. They have presented
three home seasons over eight years, the most recent entitled At Night, We Go Inside To Sleep this
past October at Dance Mission Theater. In addition to these full-length evening
endeavors, for change has also dipped their toe into the thriving Bay Area
dance festival circuit with several different appearances including, of course,
at the San Francisco Movement Arts Festival.
for change dance
collective is one of SFMAF’s veteran companies having participated in all three
past Stations of the Movement, and being
slated for 2019’s edition as well. In the first year, they brought work that
had been a part of a recent program; in 2017, an excerpt of a piece that had
been created for SAFEhouse Arts’ West Wave Dance Festival; and last year, gave
audiences a preview glimpse into what was percolating for the collective’s
upcoming home season. Being different works, each had their own payoffs and surprises;
challenges and lessons, but they did share something in common. All provided
the opportunity to take a deep dive into the site-specific process. “Adapting
the work to the space and responding to the environment in a site specific way,
the excerpts inevitably change,” Calalo describes, “they become less like an
excerpt from a larger idea and more like a dedicated, new experience.” for
change has also been fortunate to be able to dig into this site-specific
philosophy throughout the cathedral. Every year, they have been part of a
different station – the Station Behind the Main Altar, Station in Front of the
Nativity Chapel and Grace Chapel.
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Pictured: for change dance collective Photo: Douglas Calalo Berry of DVB Photo |
The trend continues this
year as the group will be part of yet another station, the Station by the Glass
Doors, directly to the left of the cathedral’s central pulpit. Certainly a
dramatic backdrop to frame for change’s dramatic 2019 offering. They will be revisiting
a section from their recent home season at Dance Mission, the result of their
years-long collaboration with Teatro Catalina, a non-profit organization that
provides arts education in rural Nicaragua. “Our collaborative project with
Teatro has been all about taking stories of survival and resilience and
translating them into a theatrical container,” relays Calalo. October’s home
season featured a series of multi-layered vignettes, and for SFMAF, they will
be bringing one of these penetrating stories, a narrative that centers on
motherhood, endurance, instinct and perseverance. Primarily a solo (though
other performers will join the scene from time to time) danced by for change
collective member and mother of three Ruth Perez, the choreography mines
gesture and modern genre physical vocabulary, with lots of floorwork and
release technique influences. And like most of for change’s work, spoken text
is incorporated, which in this case, was recorded by the woman who inspired the
piece, Dona Catalina. But with the Station by the Glass Doors being one of
spaces without recorded sound, for change is playing around with the idea of
having someone come in and speak the accompanying monologue. Be sure to come by
on January 25th and check out the final iteration devised for SFMAF.
Finally, we came to the
question being posed to all the SFMAF artists we are talking to ahead of this
year’s festival: why do you keep coming back year after year to perform at this
event? Like Lissa Resnick of No Strings Attached Dance Company, Calalo had a
number of thoughts. First, she credited producer James Tobin’s advocacy for
local dance, “we’ve known Jim for a long time through the dance community; he’s
always been such a strong supporter of dance, but equally of dancers, dancemakers
and dance artists.” Second she extolled SFMAF’s distinct qualities. “I can’t
think of another festival that is like SFMAF, it is so unique,” she says, “it
gives the audience this great opportunity to see a lot of work at the same time
and also challenges them to make decisions.” And lastly she spoke of how SFMAF facilitates
new connections for each participating artist. “Not only do we get to see what
other people are doing, but we also get to grow our audience and show our work
to more people,” Calalo adds, “our goal at for change is to convey the human
experience through storytelling and movement; we want to connect with people,
create material that folks can relate to and maybe even acquaint them with a
new perspective.”
To learn more about for change dance collective, please visit: https://forchangedance.org/
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