I decided to not let another year go by between newsletter posts. It’s been a while since I’ve sent a “what I’ve been working on” type of update, so here is one of those! Also, thanks for the kind responses to “Top 10 Shows I Didn’t See This Year.” Three weeks into 2023, and I already have at least two contenders for next December’s list.
A transition
This month I’m leaving a job I’ve had for three and a half years — and which I don’t often talk about in this space — as a representative for the union of contingent faculty at Barnard, where I teach. I won’t go into depth here about what this job has meant to me, because I’m actually not yet sure how to articulate it. Suffice it to say that the past few years of this work, which involved negotiating a new union contract last summer (and many months of planning leading up to that), have been a time of major personal growth. Moving on — which I’m doing voluntarily, having started to recognize some signs of burnout in myself — feels like a big transition, bigger than I anticipated.
I never expected to get involved in union organizing, and I had no background in it whatsoever when, in 2015, I joined up with some adjunct faculty colleagues who were in the very early stages of forming a union. It’s kind of mind-blowing to think of all we’ve collectively accomplished since then, even as there’s still a lot of progress to be made. I’m not sure how one finds closure in stepping away from work like this, or if it’s just a matter of time. If anyone out there has words of wisdom, I’m all ears. (My no-nonsense brother has lovingly advised me to “put a bow on it.” Easier said than done!)
I’m hoping that this transition opens up space to connect more deeply with other things that matter a lot to me, like writing, reading, moving my body, and hanging out with my family and friends — including, of course, my newest family member:
My writing
On the writing front, January has been busy so far. Here in New York, it’s APAP-adjacent festival season, which is feeling like itself for the first time in a while, thanks in part to a new festival organized by the interdisciplinary arts collective Pioneers Go East. (APAP, for those wondering, refers to the annual Association of Performing Arts Professionals conference.) Here’s my critic’s notebook on the inaugural edition of Out-FRONT! with a focus on works by Jasmine Hearn, Arien Wilkerson/Tnmot Aztro, and Symara Johnson. I also wrote about a powerful new piece by Daina Ashbee at Gibney, and a visit from Israel’s Vertigo Dance Company at Baryshnikov Arts Center.
Since I sent no updates in 2022, I’ll also share a few memorable writing moments from the latter part of the year. It felt extra-special to write about Twyla Tharp’s In the Upper Room at City Center and LaTasha Barnes’s The Jazz Continuum at the Joyce. I’m still reflecting on the mighty challenge that was reviewing Yvonne Rainer’s last dance. (For another perspective on Rainer, which really resonated with me, read Jennifer Krasinski’s “Year in Performance.”) I got back into writing a bit for Artforum, where I reviewed Mina Nishimura’s Mapping a Forest While Searching for an Opposite Term of Exorcist (that title!) and Tere O’Connor’s Rivulets. And I had the pleasure of speaking with the stellar Jacquelin Harris about her evolution as a dancer at Ailey and beyond.
Mike’s writing
In the other room right now, I can hear Mike (my husband — still getting used to it) reading aloud as he makes the final edits to his book about mixed martial arts, which he’s been working on since we met six years ago — and which you can now preorder, because it’s coming out from Simon & Schuster in June! The publisher calls Cage Kings “a cultural and business history of the UFC, tracing the unlikely rise of mixed martial arts from what was derided in the ’90s as ‘human cockfighting’ — more violence than sport — to a global pop culture phenomenon.” Mike is the least self-promotional person I know and probably just won’t even mention that he wrote a book, beyond what’s contractually required of him, so I am mentioning it! He’s also very private about his writing and has shared barely a word with me, so I’m as excited as anyone to read it for the first time. It’s been a huge labor of love, and I’m super proud of him.
Wooster Street, 1970
I’m keeping alive the Danceletter tradition of signing off with a dance video, mostly because I struggle with endings, and this gives me a way to end. Plus, it’s fun!
School has started up again, and I always begin my spring course, Dance in New York City, with a discussion of Trisha Brown’s Man Walking Down the Side of a Building, to shake up ideas in the room about what constitutes “dance.” Typically this also means fumbling around with my worn-out copy of the “Trisha Brown: Early Works” DVD, but this year I found what I needed on YouTube, where I selfishly hope it stays:
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