I’m a parttime dance writer. It is this side-gig that got me invited to the Austin Dance Festival in July, to interview the artists after the performance
The date was July 16, 2022, and the program had eight performances by eight different choreographers. It was such a good, strong program of dance and I was practically vibrating after the show. I love dance.
The final piece had stunned me. The Jamal Jackson Dance Company of New York City, had come to Austin to show us “846,” a piece made after George Floyd had been murdered by Minneapolis police. Jackson had set the piece to Igor Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, a piece of music that, itself and with the famous dance by Vaslav Nijinsky, created quite a stir in Paris at its debut in 1913.
I interviewed the artists in the order that they performed, so Jackson was the final interview of the evening. I only had about 3 minutes for each interview, so they were quick and for the most part, I kept things light and moving. This interview took a turn for me. Before reading on, take the four minutes to watch this.
After I read Patty’s last entry, this interview came to mind, particularly where she described the complicated joy her drum group brings her. She immediately brought to mind Jackson’s self-question of how he and his work is complicit in things not getting better, even as he shines a light on what’s wrong.
You can probably see in my interview the turn I took as we talked, me realizing that what he’d made had more weight for him and his dancers to carry than we might have felt in the audience. I’ll confess that I hate how I ended the interview, a rushed ending because we had already exceeded the three-minute time limit, but even in the moment I felt like I may have as well have sent him a pretty Hallmark card saying, “thank you for your trauma.”
I’ve thought ever since how much trauma we consume in the name of entertainment, in the name of being enlightened, in the name of feeling liberal and woke and allied. (“We” being, primarily but not exclusively, white people.)
Did I thank him for making me feel like I saw important art created at the emotional labor of him and his company of dancers? Yes, I think I did.
Trauma. Catharsis. Complicity. Maybe they’re all wrapped up around each other and maybe not.
I’m sitting with that. I’m sitting with that and they way who in the audience matters (note his reference to “performing here is hard”—it was a predominantly white, Austin, middle class, liberal audience), how who is watching, receiving the artwork, changes the artwork. What are we watching for? What are we feeling? How does our skin affect how you receive art? What difference is it making?
Those aren’t even the beginning of all the questions, but I’m going to leave it at this for now. I’d only ask that you read Patty’s piece (hopefully again), and watch this video a few times, and sit with these and any other questions that come up.