In a recent edition of Danceletter Picks, I mentioned that I might start mixing things up in this space to include some non-picks content, like interviews with artists. I’m pleased to report that I’ve actually followed through on that idea, and doubly pleased that it’s in the form of a conversation with the performer and choreographer Symara Sarai, who’s presenting a new solo, I want it to rain inside, on July 24 at Kestrels.
I first saw Symara’s work about a year and a half ago, in a festival organized by the collective Pioneers Go East. It was an improvisational solo with such an unflinching sense of risk, such total aliveness, that I left the theater in sort of a blissed-out daze, feeling lucky to have been there. That same electrifying energy infused her recent work for the Fresh Tracks series at New York Live Arts, Batty Juice, a trio for herself, Mikaila Ware, and Kentoria Earle, exploring ideas around Black women’s autonomy. With set design by Xinan Helen Ran — sculptural, almost creaturely metronomes planted around the stage — and a foreboding yet propulsive soundscape by CHIMI, Batty Juice seemed to flirt with impending doom, courting and repelling it, as the dancers ensnared themselves in tricky situations and matter-of-factly slipped back out.
When I talked to Symara for my New York Times story on Fresh Tracks, just a sliver of all we had covered wound up in print (as is often the case in the feature-writing process). Also, when I interview an artist leading up to a public event, we typically don’t get to check in after the event has happened, at least not on the record. So, I thought this newsletter could be a space to continue the conversation, and dive a little deeper, in a more relaxed format. Though the interview has been edited for clarity, length, and flow, it remains long-ish, because (a) we had such an interesting chat, I had trouble choosing what to cut, and (b) sometimes it’s just nice to sprawl out.
Symara, who’s 29, grew up in Portland, Oregon, training at Oregon Ballet Theater, and continued studying dance and choreography in Trinidad and Tobago (where her mom is from), at the Beijing Dance Academy, and at the Conservatory of Dance at Purchase College. In addition to making her own work, she’s a member of Urban Bush Women and performs with the contemporary choreographer Joanna Kotze. As I learned in the course of our conversation, over cold beverages at a coffee shop near Barclays Center (a halfway point between our apartments), she has a complex relationship to the kind of risk-taking I described above. We spoke about that and more.
Before diving in, one order of business: I’ve created a new Danceletter subscription option, the Artist/Freelancer Special. It’s 25% off the regular subscription price for artists, freelancers, and students, or really for anyone who’s more comfortable subscribing at this discounted rate. That’s $3.75/month or $30/year. I’m trying to strike a balance between compensating myself (a freelancer) for the time I put into this newsletter and making the offerings accessible. Anyone who’s interested can sign up at danceletter.substack.com/artist. Please feel free to spread the word!
And now for the first in what I hope will be an ongoing series of Danceletter Convos: a conversation with Symara Sarai.