If politicians dance around the issues, it can also be said that members of the dance community dance about them.
“Dance Under Construction XI ““ Choreographing Politics/The Politics of Choreography” is an annual conference that addresses dance research. Hosted by the UCLA Department of World Arts and Cultures and scheduled for May 1 and 2, it will explore the ever-evolving art form of dance in relation to the ongoing changes in politics.
Open to dancers and the UCLA community alike, DUC XI is a rare opportunity to explore multiple realms of dance through the perspectives of academia and choreography. The conference will include workshops, a screening of a dance film, round-table discussions and academic presentations by keynote speakers including professional choreographer Victoria Marks and dance scholar Randy Martin.
As an interdisciplinary forum, the organizers of DUC XI hope that the discussion of dance and politics will reveal the close relationship between the two.
“When you have been laboring in the trenches of academia and you attend something like this, you see that your work has broader implications. This conference offers the inspiration to see how a very specific aspect of the world such as dance and movement can illuminate the political world,” Martin said.
In the interest of exploring the broader implications of dance through various mediums, DUC XI will feature live performances from French ballet troupe Ballet Preljocaj and WAC graduate students, in addition to the screenings of several international films about dance.
“Dance is a lens to examine the world that we live in, and the new generation is drawing more and more on different cultural forms, both Western and non-Western,” Martin said. “Dance is not just about ballet anymore, and it will be both interesting and inspirational to see where these new forms take us.”
Participants in the conference will also have the opportunity to explore their own expression of movement. Marks will be leading “Choreographing Democracy,” a workshop in which participants will experiment with movement in relation to the concept of power.
“We will be exploring some ideas about democracy through our bodies, using improvisational structures that look at different ways in which we position power between us, such as leading and following, or moving as one group,” Marks said.
The inspiration for Marks’ workshop is rooted in her own experimental style of dance that incorporates multiple forms of movement ““ both conventional and unconventional ““ and political topics.
“I look at all movement literally,” Marks said. “All movement, all we do in our lives, is choreography. Organizing bodies is choreography. A campaign manager or a general in the army are both choreographers.”
Marks’ piece “Not About Iraq,” which will be showcased in the conference as a film excerpt, exemplifies the choreography of government as a moving commentary on the Iraq War in relation to the Bush administration ““ a situation, Marks argues, where the government took artistic liberties with the truth.
“I was trying to use the way in which information has been given to us, particularly in the last administration about the war in Iraq, as a way of giving information in the dance by positioning moves and choreography and dissonant layers of information,” Marks said. “The result is a lot of contradictory information. It is not a terribly honest dance.”
In addition to commenting on political movements of the past, the conference seeks to encourage a positive outlook on the future of the arts in light of the new presidential administration and the dramatic shift in political climate it represents.
“The election of Obama will come into play as a setting in which people think about dance,” Martin said. “There are new horizons to explore and a new sensibility of public support of the arts.”
The themes of hope and change, in both relation to the political realm and its influence on the arts, seem to be the pervading concepts of DUC XI as the dance community moves into a future of new possibility.
“I feel (the) American public is being positioned as much more of an engaged, active citizenship,” Marks said. “The power is less about being held up at the top and more about grassroot organizing, and for me, that bodes well for the arts ““ it is a trust in individual ingenuity.”