Recently, the B.A.R. asked choreographers Jesse Hewit and Jess Curtis to have a dialogue about contemporary dance, body politics and Curtis' new project, The Symmetry Project.
Jesse Hewit: On your website, you write about using your dance company as a research vehicle for "very live" art vs. live art. What do you think separates the two?
Jess Curtis: My interest is in being engaging, having something in my work that I'm interested in. I like speaking to a popular audience, not just super smartypants and artgoers who have MFAs in choreography already. I believe that smart art can be very exciting and based in the body, and sweaty and very alive. I'm interested in creating art where the body is very central, where my breathing and my heart-beating are really an essential part of that experience.
You have a fascination with bodies and what they do.
Well, I have a body. I am a body. My experience is very connected to my body. The more I live this life, the more interested I am in the relationships of my sensations and experiences with the construction of meaning, which is an essential human trait. Some people have even categorized it as the most essential human trait. We make meaning, we make gods and goddesses, and stories and myths about our lives. Being a dancer, my body is a filter for where that meaning happens. What I see comes through my eyes, and my way of experiencing the world is coming through this physical medium.
You focus on your body in relation to other bodies, or your body and other bodies that are differently abled or sexed.
The way we appear to each other, our first impression is a visual impression of a person's physical body. Maybe less now as we live more and more mediated lives. I can have a year of experiences with somebody just exchanging e-mails. But in a day-to-day kind of way, a lot of our experiences with each other have to with our bodies. Our most intimate and important relationships certainly have to do with how we smell, how we look, how we touch, how we sound to each other. These are very much embodied qualities and experiences.
One of the pieces in The Symmetry Project is performed by two dancers with different physical abilities.
Every cast of people that I make dances with has various abilities. Part of what has come out of my circus experiences [Curtis worked in France with Cie Cahin Caha and Cirque Batard] was this idea that everyone has very different training and abilities. I cannot walk a tightrope, but I have a dance ability. So when I started working with the "disability arts," I started seeing that everyone has special abilities and different limitations. One of the things that this has brought up for me is the richness of difference, that beauty can exist in a really wide variety of ways in our bodies.
The second part of The Symmetry Project is a duet for you and Maria Francesca Scaroni. Obviously, your bodies have a lot in common, and in this case the two bodies are male and female.
One of the things I've really loved is putting the posters up around town. People have looked at the picture on the poster and said, "I couldn't figure out if that was a man or a woman." I've joked with a few of them and said it's actually both. It's Maria's back and my head and arms, and its not photoshopped, it's choreography that blends our two bodies and makes one thing.
Jess Curtis/Gravity (with Maria Francesca Scaroni) presents Intercontinental Collaborations 3 –The Symmetry Project at CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission St., SF. March 27-April 6 at 8 p.m. Tickets ($18-$20): (800) 838-3006.