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MOVING & MAKING BEYOND STATE & COLONIAL VIOLENCE
A Movement Workshop & Artist Talk Series | Winter Quarter 2024Department of Theater & Dance, University of California, Santa BarbaraPartially funded by the Non-Senate Faculty Professional Development Fund (June Yuen Ting 2023-24)
trav·erse |trəˈvərs| verb
I. To go against; to counter, oppose, or thwart.
II. To pass, travel, or extend through or across.
III. To move in a transverse or lateral direction.
IV. To cause to cross or be crossed.
Traverse brings together dance / movement / performance artists who have lived experience with borders as sites and systems of state violence—e.g. those who are or were undocumented, and those whose nations are crossed by colonial borders—and on the other hand, artists whose lived experience traverses or transcends the gender binary as a colonial construct—e.g. those who identify as two-spirit, trans, or non-binary.
In times of border imperialism and colonial wars, what does “traverse”—as an embodied experience and action—mean to the fields of dance, choreography, and performance? How do we move and make dances that traverse the borders of state and colonial violence while centering migrant justice and gender justice? Recognizing the intersection of these experiences, the series features artists who are / were undocumented or who identify as two-spirit / trans / non-binary as well as those who have the lived experience of both.
MOVEMENT WORKSHOPS
FEB 12 / MAGNOLIA YANG SAO YIA. 12:30-1:45pm @ HSSB 1151
Magnolia Yang Sao Yia (she/her) is a daughter of Hmong refugees and a former undocumented immigrant living on Tongva and Chumash lands (Inglewood, CA). She is a dance artist, scholar and educator. As a contemporary dance theater choreographer, she works to activate performers’ bodily histories and knowledges, including her own, on stage (the stage as an expansive term). Her work ranges from self-performed solo works and ensemble works and often centers the Hmong American woman subject as the site of feminist inquiry and critique. She has presented her dance work in L.A. (CA), Albuquerque (NM), Chicago (IL), and more widely in Minnesota such as the Walker Art Center, Cowles Center, Pillsbury House + Theater, Carleton College, and TU Dance School, to name a few.FEB 16 / JAE NEAL. 12:30-1:45pm @ HSSB 1151
Jae Neal was born and raised in Michigan and received their training from Western Michigan University. There, they performed in professional works such as Strict Love by Doug Varone, Temporal Trance by Frank Chavez and Harrison McEldowney’s Dance Sport. Since relocating to New York Jae has had the privilege of working with MSA talent agency as well as dancing with SYREN Modern Dance, Christina Noel Reaves and the creature, Catapult Entertainment, and Katherine Helen Fisher Dance. Jae joined A.I.M by Kyle Abraham in 2011 and has since focused their dance intentions primarily in being a collaborator and teacher for the company.MAR 1 / ISIS AVALOS-PEREZ. 12:30-1:45pm @ HSSB 1151Isis Avalos-Perez is a Mother, Bordercrosser, Teaching/Performing Dance Artist from South Texas, based in Los Angeles. Avalos received her Bachelor's in Fine Arts from the University of North Texas. She has more than 7 years experience touring nationally and internationally as a Teaching/Performing Dance Artist with LA-based non-profit CONTRA-TIEMPO Urban Latin Dance Theater. With her focus on identity politics, her activism through dance-making derives from her lived experience as an undocumented child from Mexico, growing up on the South Texas Borderland. Her movement is representative of her Mexican Heritage as well as Modern Release, House Dance and Cumbia rhythms that explore the intersections of what it means to live in the ‘in-between.’MAR 7 / JAS LIN. 1:00-2:15pm @ HSSB 1151
jas lin 林思穎 (they/them) is a performance artist, choreographer, and constant (un)becoming born and based on Tongva Land (Los Angeles). lin stages exorcisms and tantrums for purging choreographies of the learned body and shutting down internal and external surveillance cameras that suggest there is a Proper way to move through the world. jas worships the elsewhere and the otherwise, and loves to co-create shared fugitive worlds and live in them. their choreographies, films, workshops, and lectures have been shared around the world, including at Danshallerne Copenhagen, MOCA Los Angeles, Power Station of Art Shanghai, and Mitski’s Laurel Hell Tour.
VIRTUAL ARTIST TALKS
1:00-2:00pm PST on ZoomJAN 25 / GABRIEL MATA.
Gabriel Mata (pronounced: gah-bryehl mah-tah) is a Mexican American dance choreographer, educator, film maker, and performer. He navigates the world as queer, Latinx, immigrant, and as of recently a permanent resident to the United States. He received his MFA in dance from the University of Maryland – College Park. Centered on movement, Mata’s multidisciplinary approach offers access to intersectionality and narrative. A theme that is currently at the forefront of his research is the presence and development of BIPOC art and narrative. His artistic research and practice stems from social activation, egalitarian processes in dance education, and decentering concert dance through collective movement making.
FEB 1 / CHRISTOPHER UNPEZVERDE NÚÑEZ.
Christopher “Unpezverde” Núñez is a Visually Impaired choreographer, dramaturg, educator and Disability advocate based in NYC. Núñez is a Jerome Hill Artist Fellow 23', a Dance/USA Fellow 22', a Princeton University Arts Fellow 22', and a Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art Fellow 18'. His performances have been presented by The Joyce Theater, The Brooklyn Museum-The Immigrant Artist Biennale, The Kitchen, Danspace Project, Movement Research at The Judson Church, The Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art, CUE Art Foundation, Battery Dance Festival, Performance Mix Festival and Dixon Place, among others. Núñez received his green card in 2018 and continues to be an advocate for the rights of undocumented disabled immigrants.FEB 8 / ZAVÉ MARTOHARDJONO.
zavé martohardjono is a queer, trans, Indonesian-American artist working in performance, dance, installation, video, and poetry. Dwelling in their ancestors’ mythologies, with dreams of a more just future, they make work that contends with the political histories our bodies carry. zavé has been presented at the 92Y, BAAD!, Bronx Museum of the Arts, Center for Performance Research, El Museo del Barrio, HERE Arts, Issue Project Room, The Kennedy Center, Storm King Art Center, the Wild Project, Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Boston Center for the Arts, and Tufts University. They were a 2022 MRX/Movement Research Exchange program artist in Skopje, Macedonia, a 2021 NYPL Dance Research Fellow, and a 2020 Gibney Dance in Process artist.FEB 15 / JUAN MANUEL ALDAPE MUÑOZ.
Dr. Juan Manuel Aldape Muñoz’s research is at the intersection of performance studies, illegality and citizenship, borderlands studies, critical phenomenology, and critical dance studies. He is an interdisciplinary scholar with a research and teaching focus on creative ethnography and (Afro)Latinx/Latin American undocumented cultural production. He’s an assistant professor in the Department of Performing and Media Arts at Cornell University. In addition to writing about performance’s role in transforming society and ideas of citizenship, he is a choreographer and professional dancer whose work has been presented internationally. Dr. Aldape Muñoz is a first-generation formerly undocumented scholar.FEB 22 / ANGEL SHANEL EDWARDS.
angel shanel edwards is a tender flame, a blackqueerandtrans first-gen Jamaican/Philly rooted healer. Through movement channeling, laying hands on scalps, witnessing through photography, tender poetics, and filmmaking, they compass towards liberation and abundance. edwards has been an artist in residence at Urban Movement Arts, Philadelphia, and their film THIS IS FOR US (2019) has been featured in film festivals internationally. Their creative work has been supported by the Leeway Foundation, Small But Mighty Arts, Mural Arts Philadelphia, and an Eva Yaa Asantewaa Grant from Queer|Art. In 2021 they became a Pew Fellow.FEB 28 / ANITO GAVINO.
Annielille “Anito” Gavino, affectionately known as Anito (meaning "Spirit" in Tagalog), is a Filipinx movement artist, choreographer, educator, writer, cultural worker, and multidisciplinary storyteller native to the island of Panay, Philippines. Since immigrating to the United States in 2000, Gavino has danced professionally with Rod Rodgers Dance Company, Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Ensemble, Dallas Black Dance Theatre, Latin Ballet of Virginia, Kun Yang-Lin/Dancers, Ananya Dance Theater. In Philadelphia, she directs her project-based company Ani/Malayaworks where she utilizes dance, film and literature as vessels for inscription, community engagement, resistance, and spiritual journeys.Faculty organizer / June Yuen Ting is a movement worker who currently divides their time between Chumash land (Santa Barbara) and London, UK. In this academic year, June has been sharing dances with students as a visiting lecturer at the University of California, Santa Barbara and University of Roehampton, London. They hold a MFA in dance and embodied practice from the University of Roehampton, and recently became a student in the professional doctorate program in performing arts at the University of East London.
Cover picture: Banksy's Flying Balloon Girl near the Qalandia checkpoint, West Bank, Palestine
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