Photo by Jon Dahlin
Brownbody_Quiet As It's Kept
Quiet As It's Kept from its 2015 world premiere. Skaters from left to right are Rohene Ward, Chrissy Lipscomb, Devinai Hobbs, Simeon Hanks, Deneane Richburg.
Brownbody, led by artistic director Deneane Richburg, is a combination of modern dance, theater, and ice skating, and it has teamed up with New York’s Urban Bush Women (UBW) to present CoMotion.
In a way, the collaboration couldn't have been a better fit: Brownbody was founded in 2007 by Richburg when she wanted to merge her love for figure skating and dance with sociocultural issues. The acclaimed Urban Bush Women was founded in 1984 to bring untold and overlooked stories of "disenfranchised people" back to the forefront through dance. Put the two together, and you have a powerhouse of artistic expression that focuses on sparking discussion and giving people ownership of their narratives.
CoMotion included a couple months of programming such as donation-based ice skating lessons, dance lessons, and discussion panels, and a performance that runs from June 1-4.
The full CoMotion performance is made of four pieces, two from UBW’s repertoire that have been translated to the ice. The pieces cover post-Civil War Reconstruction, recall the activists of the past and call forward activists of the present, and more.
Some of the pieces have original music and lyrics; all use the ice for movement and power; all use music. It’s a lot of ways that Richburg and UBW are getting their emotions and thoughts across, but as Richburg says, “I want as many people as possible to access the work.”
When people look at the description of Brownbody’s work—modern dance, theater, and ice skating—what really pops out is the ice skating. Why did you want to add that?
I grew up competing as a figure skater. It got to a point where I really discovered this thing called expression. I would get on the ice and turn on my favorite piece of music and just make stuff up out on the spot. Throughout my entire figure skating competitive career I was taking dance to compliment skating training, and when I was in my early 20s, I injured my knee and couldn’t jump the way I needed to jump. But I still yearned to be expressive and tell stories using the body, and so I began to take dance much more seriously.
With that I was always really, really interested in African American literature of telling stories that characterized my cultural lineage. I always felt as a young child, walking into ice arena, I had to check my blackness at the door. I never felt comfortable bringing race into these predominantly white figure skating places, and I knew I was not alone. So I was like, “How can we open ice arena doors and tell stories that are significant about my cultural lineage that is deeply respectful and deeply rooted—the stories come from an African diaspora place as opposed to coming form a more mainstream American, Euro-centered perspective?”
It’s not only about the ice. It’s just as much about the movement in the torso, the movement in the hips, the arms, the gestures in the head and the neck, and the nuance of all of that movement. From time to time you’ll see a jump or a spin or a quote-on-quote “trick.” But that’s not what’s central. What’s central are the nuances of the stories that are being told using the body.
Your pieces oftentimes seem to be centered on racial and cultural themes. Do you think all art has to have a message behind it?
I don’t know. I know that I choose the foundation for my perspective and my reality and my being from an African diasporic perspective. This is where I’m rooted, this is my reality, so this is where my work is rooted. Everybody’s place of rooted-ness place is different, so different artists are going to create work about different things. Some people don’t create work around any specific theme, which is just as valid. Honestly, my work isn’t really centered around a specific theme per say. I just feel like it’s rooted in my reality just as I think all artists’ work is somehow connected or informed by their realities.
What do you want the audience to take away from the performances? Do you want them to look at each piece individually or as a whole?
Each work is so unique and so different that I think each person is going to walk away with something different. I think that’s wonderful. I think that’s a testament to the multiplicity of perspectives, the multi-dimensionality of perspectives, realities, and truths that characterize an African diaspora experience.
How did the collaboration between Urban Bush Women (UBW) and Brownbody come about?
I actually was introduced to the founder and the artistic director of UBW, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, years and years ago, back in 2002, 2003, through Dipankar Mukherjee, Pangea’s artistic director, here in Minneapolis. I was young and I hadn’t even really thought about what the potential could be with combining dance and skating. A couple of years ago, the Dance/USA Conference was held and Jawole was attending, and we got a chance to talk and interact, and it was like okay, let’s try to make things happen. I have been a fan of UBW ever since I was a teenager, and they were an organization that I wanted to collaborate with—not even to collaborate, but just to be in the energy of their artistic work. So I feel like I put it out to the ethers when I was a teenager, and it’s come to fruition.
What was it like translating UBW’s two pieces, Giving Your Hands to the Struggle and Walking with ‘Trane?
Each artist contributed to the translation of UBW’s work. People would do what made sense and felt right in their bodies. We learned the piece off the ice so we could understand the ebb and flow, which movement took what type of energy. For instance, there were some jumps that were happening off the ice—stag jumps—and I understood energetically what that was. They wanted a pop and a relax, pop and relax. I can’t do that same jump exactly on the ice because I’m in blades, but I found what in the skating repertory had that energy and worked it in. The essence and energy of the work is the same, but the exact movements, of course, the precise movements have to be changed.
This is more or less the finale of months of programming with UBW. Could you tell me more about this part of CoMotion?
I remember going to plays and performances as a child and being so blown away from what I was seeing. I would leave thinking, “I want to do that,” and “What must that feel like to be on stage and to sing and dance and act these lines” or whatever. So how can I provide people with that experience and not only that but [the experience I have] when I’m making work? UBW is in town for rehearsals: How can I provide as much face time between these amazing artists and everyone else and just let the conversation go? Let people ask the questions they want to ask? Hear the ideas that these artists are thinking about as they’re creating work? That was the impetus behind trying to do as many as the events as we could.
You talked about having each artist contribute to UBW’s translation of the work, but you do that with every piece. Could you go into that a bit more?
In order to fully perform—I don’t even like the use term perform. In order to embody the work, each skater, each artist is bringing their full selves to the work: heart, mind, souls, spirits, physicality. But there are a lot of instances where we tell the artist to stop and have fun. “This next set of eight is how you move, so make this part your own.”
There’s definitely a narrative and storyline in Quiet As It’s Kept, and they’re being asked to live that storyline in their hearts and their minds because that level of awareness that they carry with them is visible in the body. We want them to take the audience on that same journey.
With A Journey to Solace [a solo piece featuring Rohene Ward], Rohene is such a powerful mover and skater, and my goal with that work was to lay the foundation so that Rohene could really enter into and embody the movement. I was talking with a UBW artist about this, and it’s like wearing a garment, your favorite piece of clothing. It’s not wearing you; you’re wearing it, and when people see you in that clothing, they see you. I don’t want to impede the Rohene we are seeing, so he has the movement, he has the choreography.
When the artist is as authentic and true and rooted in themselves as they’re doing the work, that’s when everything comes together.
CoMotion. June 1 - 4, various times, Tickets are $33 in advance and $35 at the door, Charles M. Schulz-Highland Ice Arena, 800 Snelling Ave. S, St. Paul, brownbody.org.
