Sean Dorsey Dance, the company founded and run by dancer and choreographer Sean Dorsey, is celebrating its 20th anniversary, and Dorsey couldn't be more pleased. Dorsey's 20th has been filled with travel, performances, tours, classes and celebrations.
In addition to his whirlwind touring schedule, Dorsey and company will be returning home to the Bay Area, where they will bring a best of retrospective performance to Z Space from September 19-21. Z Space has long been the company's artistic base. It's a place that's near and dear to Dorsey's heart.
"It is stunningly gorgeous," Dorsey, a trans man, said in an interview with the Bay Area Reporter. "It's wheelchair-accessible, has all gender bathrooms, and has queer and trans staff."
Dorsey is thrilled to have reached the 20th anniversary milestone. For Dorsey, the most profound feelings of his 20th come from audience members who tell him how much his work has impacted them over the years. He's had young trans and non-binary dancers tell him that he is the reason they went into dance, that seeing him made them realize that a career in dance was possible for them.
"I never had any role models like this when I was young," he said. "So, to be providing a mirror, to hear that I am a possibility model is huge."
During the course of their 20th season, Sean Dorsey Dance will be performing in conservative red states like North Carolina, Utah and Georgia, among others, not safe places to be LGBT of any stripe.
"I am more fearful touring these places now then I was twenty years ago," he said. "The national anti-trans backlash right now is massive, it's well-funded, and it's entrenched by people's own states and local governments. I have always faced backlash and haters, ever since I was in dance school. But the vast majority of my lived experience as a dancemaker and activist is brimming with blessings. Getting to make powerful work, be in incredible collaborations and community relationships, teach and tour. Very few dance companies get to tour this much. I'm lucky."
Returning repertory
One of the pieces that SDD is bringing to the Z Space anniversary performance is "Lou," a suite of dances first choreographed in 2009. "Lou" tells the story of Lou Sullivan (1951-1991), a gay transman who lived and died in San Francisco, and who broke down many barriers.
Sullivan founded one of the first support groups for trans masculine people, did groundbreaking research and publishing on trans folk, and educated the medical community about trans identity. Dorsey spent a year reading and hand transcribing 30 years-worth of Sullivan's diaries.
"Then I spent months compiling and distilling thirty years of Lou's diaries into an original sound score which I narrated," Dorsey said. "Then I choreographed a suite of dances based on his remarkable journey. This is one of my favorite pieces from my entire twenty-year history. It's incredibly close to my heart, and I'm so proud to bring it back to the stage."
Another of the Z Space pieces is called "The Missing Generation," which Dorsey describes as a love letter to a forgotten generation, people who lived through the horrifying early years of the AIDS epidemic.
"Our culture has totally turned its back on this painful period of history and its survivors," he said. "It's very powerful to revisit excerpts of this show, especially because two of the elders I recorded interviews with have now passed, ABilly Hennin-Jones and Miss Cheryl Courtney-Evans. I was very, very lucky to get to know and become friends/family with these extraordinary activists."
A third piece in the retrospective is "The Secret History of Love." This piece is based on oral histories that Dorsey recorded with LGBTQ elders, asking them how they found love and community decades ago, when it was so much harder than today.
"The stories shared with and entrusted to me were harrowing, heartbreaking, hilarious, inspiring and just so powerful," Dorsey said. "Police raids on nightclubs, underground speakeasies, secret codes, first crushes and secret love affairs."
Dorsey spoke of what he hopes the audience will take from the 20th anniversary retrospective.
"At this brutal moment in America and the world, I hope audiences will be fueled by how our dances lift up the beauty, grace, strength, resilience and resistance of our communities, especially our elders and ancestors and trans-cestors," he said. "There is really something for everyone in this program, for dance lovers, for people who are afraid of modern dance, for theater lovers, for history buffs."
Sean Dorsey Dance's 20th Anniversary Home Season, September 19-21, 8pm, Z Space, 450 Florida St. $15-$35. Sept. 20 show is ASL interpreted. Sept. 21 show includes gala reception, KN95 masks provided and required, masks optional for gala reception.
www.seandorseydance.com
www.zspace.org
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