So yesterday afternoon Justine and Alexa
and I conducted our first interview. It was with my SFU colleague Rob Kitsos,
who graciously agreed to sit down with us following his gig guest-teaching at
Modus Operandi. Using our basic template of five W-questions, we were able to
elicit some amazing memories and anecdotes and insights from Rob.
As Rob’s move to the city in 2004 precedes
our historical purview by only two years, his perspective on the evolution of
the city’s dance scene over the last ten years in some senses reflects his own
progressive immersion into local aesthetic practices and collaborations and
modes of making work. Also, because Rob trained in the US and teaches and
creates within an academic setting, he brings with him and is likewise
producing different genealogies of influence. As Justine said following the
conversation, our rhizomatic map just got that much bigger and intersectional.
Most exciting for me, however, was the
sensory experience of both watching and listening to Rob remember (and
sometimes mis-remember) not just the genesis of some of the first pieces he
created after arriving in the city, but also the context of his collaborations
with local dance artists: Did he dance for Serge Bennathan before Peter Bingham
or after? When did he first meet Susan Elliott? And so on. The gestures he
produced in recounting this narrative will also be amazing fodder for our
embodied performance archive.
Can’t wait for the next interview: Vanessa
Goodman.
P.
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