All photos by Robbie Sweeny
a queer fantasy of improvised collaboration where body and land meet ancestry and futurity
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
TRY is a performance choreographed by Ishmael Houston-Jones created in deep collaboration with jose e. abad, Snowflake Calvert, Keith Hennessy, and Kevin O’Connor with music by Gabriel Nuñez de Arco and jose e. abad in an immersive installation by Monica Canilao & Kendra Azul~írís and lighting design by GG Torres.
TRY explores what Sadiya Hartman calls, “Acts of collaboration and improvisation that unfold within the space of enclosure.”
The TRY team’s collaborative work circles around the crises and potentials of land, healing, movement, consent, ownership and solidarity. We seek a soft experience where land acknowledgement and fascia can be woven into a single conversation. Where bodies are energies and powers at the same time, always entangled within the ecologies from which they emerge.
▼▼▼ DATES & TIMES ▼▼▼
:: ALL @ Z SPACE @ 7pm ::
Sat Nov 13
Tue Nov 16
Wed Nov 17
Fri Nov 19
Sat Nov 20
Credits
Choreographer: Ishmael Houston Jones
Collaborators & Performers: jose e. abad, Snowflake Calvert, Keith Hennessy, and Kevin O’Connor
Sound Designers: Gabriel Nunez de Arco in collaboration with jose e. abad
Visual Designers: Monica Canilao and Kendra Azul~írís
Lighting Designer: GG Torres
Technical Director: Zoe Klein
TRY, a rehearsal video: Cameras: Alex Romania (NYC) and Ainsley Tharp (SF); Sound score: josé e. abad; Editing and cinematography by Alex Romania; Directed by Ishmael Houston-Jones
Photos: An Pham and Robbie Sweeny
Producing Director: Alley Wilde
Biographies
jose e. abad (they/them) is a multidisciplinary performance artist, DJ, and curator based in unceded Ramaytush Ohlone Territory. Born in Olongapo City, Philippines to a Filipina Mother and an Afro-Carribean U.S. Naval Soldier, their work explores the complexities of cultural identity at the crossroads of gender, sexuality, class, and race in the United States. Through dance theater, sonic and visual experimentation, they unearth lost histories that reside in the body, that the mind has forgotten and dominant culture has erased.
Snowflake Calvert (Yaqui, Raramuri, and Tzotzil Mayan heritage) is a Two-Spirit artist who serves as the President of QUIL – Queers United for Intersectional Liberation. She produces queer events throughout California and Oregon that allow her to curate a vehicle for political, social, and cultural activism through the artistry of her radical queerness. In addition, she is a professional dancer, teacher, and entrepreneur. She was a member of The Haus of Towers, is affiliated with the Bay Area American Indian Two-Spirit Powwow, teaches decolonization through movement workshops, is the former owner/director of The Dance Zone Studio, hosts Two-Spirit talking circles, and is currently expanding her BIPOC collaborative work of “Seeds and Sequins” with Europa Grace.
Keith Hennessy is a frolicker, imperfectionist, and witch working in the fields of dance, performance, activism, affordable housing, and teaching. Raised on Atikameksheng Anishnawbek lands in Canada, living in Ramaytush Ohlone lands (San Francisco) since 1982, Keith tours internationally. Hennessy’s work is interdisciplinary and experimental, motivated by anti-racist, queer-feminist, and decolonial movements. He engages practices of improvisation, ritual, collaboration, play, and protest to respond to political crises and intense feelings. Hennessy directs Circo Zero, co-founded the dance/culture spaces 848 and CounterPulse, and was a member of Sara Mann’s Contraband, 1985-1994. Awards include Guggenheim, USArtist, NY Bessie, and Isadora Duncan Dance Awards and residencies at McDowell, Djerassi, Yaddo, MANCC, Kampnagel, Impulstanz, and Regards et Mouvements. Keith teaches experimental approaches to dance, performance, history, ritual, and healing at dance festivals, universities and independent studios internationally. 2021 gigs include Homo Novus Festival (Riga), ONCA Gallery (Brighton), Ponderosa (Germany), University of Hawaii, CORE (Atlanta), as well as BOFFO (NY) with TRY. With a focus on the politics of relationships, Keith has negotiated shared power with Ishmael Houston-Jones, Snowflake Calvert, Brontez Purnell, Nathaniel Moore, Peaches, Meg Stuart, jose e abad, J Jha, Annie Danger, Ryanaustin Dennis, Dohee Lee & Laterna, Sara Shelton Mann, and Gerald Casel.
Ishmael Houston-Jones’ improvised dance and text work has been performed in world-wide. Drawn to collaborations as a way to move beyond boundaries and the known, Houston-Jones celebrates the political aspect of cooperation. Houston-Jones and Fred Holland shared a 1984 New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Award for Cowboys, Dreams and Ladders, which reintroduced the erased narrative of the Black cowboy back into the mythology of the American west. He was awarded his second “Bessie” Award for the 2010 revival of THEM, his 1985/86 collaboration with writer Dennis Cooper and composer Chris Cochrane. In 2017 he received a third “Bessie” for Variations on Themes from Lost and Found: Scenes from a Life and other Works by John Bernd. In 2020 he received a fourth “Bessie” for Service to the Field of Dance. Houston-Jones is the DraftWork curator for works-in-progress at Danspace Project in New York. Also at Danspace, he curated Platform 2012: Parallels which focused on choreographers from the African diaspora and postmodernism and co-curated with Will Rawls Platform 2016: Lost & Found, Dance, New York, HIV/AIDS, Then and Now. He has received awards from The Herb Alpert Foundation, The Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, The Foundation for Contemporary Arts, The Robert Rauschenberg Foundation and United States Artists.
Kevin O’Connor is a multidisciplinary artist working as a dance improviser, circus artist, and installation artist from Ontario, Canada, and now based in the Bay area. He is involved in a decade-long artistic collective exploring participatory de-colonizing performances within polluted watersheds in Ontario. Their collaborative art-making explores practices of togethering across radically different sense-abilities. www.ecologicalbodying.com
Gabriel Nuñez de Arco is a visual artist, composer, sound engineer, lighting designer and DJ from Oakland, CA (Chochenyo Ohlone land) with roots in La Paz, Bolivia (Aymara territory). They have performed and provided technical support at events across Australia, Bolivia and the United States with a focus on queer DIY dance spaces. Their work explores questions of belonging as a queer diasporic person, the contradictions of ancestral reverence in a body with a colonized bloodline, and the (re)formation of decolonized histories as a pathways to a decolonized future.
Grisel Torres / gg (they/she) is a lighting and sound designer, dj, energy and body work practitioner based in Ohlone Chochenyo Territory. They studied Light Design, Stage Management, and Props Design at SFSU’s School of Theatre and Dance and has been a staff lighting designer, carpenter, production manager and venue manager for various theatre companies in the SF Bay Area. gg is currently a freelance lighting and props designer for live and filmed movement-based works. She has established her own style of empathetic-intuitive-adaptive improvisational lighting scores. They see the stage as an altar and light design as a guiding ritual towards catharsis. As an artist and healer, the intention is to open and safely close portals for whole healing and a chance to dance with ancestral relatives. This practice of art ritual healing is also found in gg’s sound and energy work explorations.
Kednra Azul~Irís (they//them) Visions from Luminous non-human~centric Space, as their Vibrant Core Intentions :: Loves Evoking Visceral Spirit & Body Realizations ((Ideally Accessing as many Senses as Possible!)) Azul Weaves Mediums ~ Tangible, Sound Waves, Water, and Digital; with Feelings and Messages of Divine Textural Storytelling :: often Depicting Ephemeral Imaginative Spaces //&\\ Sensations. They Playfully Embody and Reflect Experiences of Being “Between Realms”. An Example such as :: Familial yet Delicate Spaces Between ~<