Watch two excellent excepts from the documentary Artists in Exile: A Story of Dance in San Francisco. This clip highlights Contraband, a highly physical multidisciplinary dance company active in the Bay Area from the 1980′s -1990′s.
This excerpt from the feature documentary, Artists in Exile: A Story of Dance in San Francisco, highlights Contraband, a highly physical, multidisciplinary dance company active in the Bay Area from the 1980s -1990s. Artists in Exile was produced and directed by Austin Forbord and Shelley Trott of Rapt Productions and also features Bay Area dance artists Anna Halprin, Tumbleweed, Mangrove, Dance Brigade/Wallflower Order, Margaret Jenkins, Joe Goode, and ODC Dance.
california (2)
Baywood, CA
Montaña de Oro, CA (Spooner's Cove)
Bishop's Peak, San Luis Obispo, CA
Morro Bay (Morro Rock), CA
San Luis Obispo, CA1.4.2009Wow, I can’t believe I have not written. Life really does fly by. I have been the laziest son well… daughter of a bitch. (That sounds bad... sorry mom.) I mean I’ve been doing a lot… a lot of hanging out. A lot of exercising and be in my optimum dancer body, sans studio and indoor rehearsals... A lot of buying things that I don’t need, then going through my storage unit and keeping everything. I am trying to get rid of some nick-knacks and sentimentalities, but it’s not working. I look at the things I own and think… “Someday, when I have a house, I will put this in it somewhere and use it.” I don’t want to bring anything back to NY because my roommate will just throw it away. I can’t trust him around objects. But I can’t keep all of my things in a vault.Everything has been in storage for almost four years. That’s a long time to be separated from a life that was not quite right--without a thorough visitation. Graduate school was such a dream. Things were set-up and people just did a lot of thinking and made art and worked on papers. It was really hard, I don’t want to make it sound simple or easy… I honestly thought it would lead me to something, like a job. I’m still trying to understand what I gained from my experience there, besides debt. I know. I remember now. One of my crucial decisions in going to school there was because it was close to my grandparents.......I keep asking myself what’s wrong with me? The past 8 months on the road those questions surface… what’s wrong with me? For many years it is easy to blame others for personal or professional misfires, but when one spends so much time alone that question is both surprising and inevitable amidst the bliss of such a trip. The travel. The life. The past 8 months have been the best of my life, which states much. I have traveled in Nepal and hiked in the Himalayas. I have spent three-months living in London and a month in Vienna at a fantastic dance festival. And many other events which could lead to a full anthology of Berkeley, Olympia, Seattle, Portland, Columbus, San Luis Obispo and now New York/Brooklyn/Dominicahassidica.The past months brought me something that I have been missing my whole life, a true connection with this landmass. I was able to see such amazing natural beauty, ponder the people of this land, spend time with Isadora, go wherever I wanted when I wanted, and figure my artistic body and expand my choreographic voice. The independence was exhilarating. In NY I am depressed roughly fifty-probably-sixty percent of the time, while traveling, toward the end, when I was used to seeing new things all the time and could anticipate my encounters, then my depression entered the van. That’s when I stopped blaming anyone else but myself. The depression changed into a puzzle. What did I do? How could I change it? Could I change anything? Do I care? I like the way I am, why would I want to change? I am still pondering these things and wondering if the energy I put into thinking about other people is a personal barrier. Or is it just the way I look? I’ve wondered that too. I’m not pretty, I’m not ugly; although, I know can be beautiful in the right light. My body is not great. Perhaps I’m just so averagewowmid-sentence I fell asleep for 45 minutes. Not very interested in non-existent issues. Many other things to think about, or just sleep. Sleeping is an entirely acceptable place to go when pondering one’s own looks.Onward and outward
Morro Bay (Morro Rock), CA
Avila Beach, CA
San Luis Obispo, CA... Sunrise... with Isadora
