INTERVIEW: Kari Hoaas’s ‘distant episodes’ will (finally) happen at La MaMa festival
Photo: Kari Hoaas will bring HEAT — the distant episodes to La MaMa’s Moves! Dance Festival, which will be all virtual in 2021. Photo courtesy of Marius Hauge / Provided by artist with permission.
The La MaMa Moves! Dance Festival is moving online for its 2021 edition. That should come as no surprise to dance enthusiasts because the art form has largely been relegated to virtual offerings during the COVID-19 pandemic. Still, despite the change in scenery, La MaMa has amassed an impressive slate of choreographers and dance companies for the annual outing.
In addition to work by Kevin Augustine, Anabella Lenzu, Tamar Rogoff and Mei Yamanka, this year’s Moves! Dance Festival will also include Kari Hoaas’s HEAT — the distant episodes, running Jan. 20 and 26 at 7 p.m., according to press notes. The work was created specifically to address the COVID-19 pandemic.
La MaMa bills HEAT as a series of digital dance haikus that offer moments of pause and contemplation on listening and seeing. The choreography is pulled from Kari Hoaas Productions’ original evening-length work HEAT from 2018. As a choreographer, Hoaas is “known to create physical and complex performances that allow for ambiguity and contradiction, while retaining a profoundly human quality connected to our broader culture,” according to her official biography. She has toured her company to 20 countries on three continents, and she serves as associate professor at Kristiania University College in Oslo.
Recently Hollywood Soapbox exchanged emails with the Norwegian dance-maker. Questions and answers have been slightly edited for style.
When during the pandemic did the idea for the distant episodes project first come to you?
Spring 2020 was the year I was supposed to return to New York City to present my dance work as a choreographer.
Offering some background here: I spent a pivotal year as a young dancer at Los Angeles County High School for the Arts in the late ’80s, at 15-16 years old, and felt a true connection to American dance after that. I returned to my native Oslo to finish high school, at the Norwegian Opera and Ballet’s elite high school program, and after that I only wanted to return to the U.S. So I moved to New York at the tender age of 20, after a year in London where I did not feel I fit in.
New York is where I forged my path as an artist. It’s where I first performed with major companies, explored my own choreography and presented my first work. I moved back to Oslo in stages: first, in 2004, my evening-length piece Paradise, which was commissioned by and premiered at P.S. 122 [now Performance Space New York], had the opportunity to tour to three cities in Norway. This led to me receiving more funding from the Norwegian Arts Council, as well as a job opportunity for a teaching position at the Norwegian College of Dance. So, in 2005, I relocated part time to Oslo, but kept traveling back and forth to New York, working in both places until 2007.
Since then I have dreamed of returning to the U.S. to present my own choreographic work on one of New York’s downtown stages, the community I feel I grew up in as an artist — to return home, in many ways. And 2020 was the year I had finally got that gig confirmed. I was so excited for the opportunity to open the La MaMa Moves! Dance Festival with my performance Be Like Water in the Ellen Stewart Theater. This venue is very special to me: I performed there back in the ’90s for Poppo and the Go-Go Boys, and Maureen Fleming; and La MaMa is one of few downtown stages left from that time. So many things have changed in New York since the time I first moved there, so I treasured this opportunity. The performances for Be Like Water were originally scheduled for May 2020.
When the pandemic hit us all last spring, Norway and Oslo went into lockdown on March 12. I had of course booked studio rehearsal space in April and May for the upcoming tour. All my collaborators are independent freelancers, and I worried about canceling this engagement for the dancers especially, what the negative impact could have on them, both financially and otherwise. But with the closing of everything, all of the restrictions on the international dancers in my group, all of this made it impossible to engage. In April in Oslo, it did become all right for people to meet in small groups again, though — a maximum of five people at a time, while keeping two meters’ distance from one another.
By that time, I had communicated with my funders from the Norwegian Arts Council, the City of Oslo and more on possibilities to use my company’s touring funds to the U.S. instead for digital or new/other ways of disseminating our work. I am grateful that I got a clear go ahead to use our funding for these digital options instead of the live tour, which gave birth to these distant episodes, which I think of as ‘dance haikus.’ I wanted to do something. I felt a need to engage in the situation, somehow, and as an employer I felt the dancers needed to work. I was observing all the wonderful generation of digital dance work happening from around the world, all of these videotaped performances and everything that our dance community all of a sudden presented online. I wanted to contribute to that.
At the same time, I needed to find a form to appropriately fit the circumstance. I had only three of six dancers here; we could not physically interact. I also felt the need to see human bodies and dancers move, without the constant shifting of perspective by the editor or filmmaker. ‘Dance without editing.’ When I originally began making Be Like Water in 2015, poetry was a huge influence, and particularly the Japanese form of Haiku. I like this form’s very distinct and singular focus, its connection to nature, and so the idea of Haiku came from that experience during that time in lockdown.
I myself hungered for some sustained imagery onscreen, without all those fast edits and camera shifts; I missed the feeling of being allowed to shift my gaze, like I do in the theater. Fast editing doesn’t allow for that. These distant episodes, these ‘dance haikus,’ are one-shot singular frame dance pieces. The solo form came from the pandemic — we weren’t allowed to move close anyway — and also I think the lonely dancer reflects this state of isolation we felt and are still going through nearly one year later.
Oslo, in general, is a city surrounded by nature. Frysja, the dance studio I work in, is at the edge of the city limits, close to the riverbank. I think the easy access to nature is rare here, and I wanted to give that to my audience online. We decided to do shots of solo work first set around that pond next to the studio. We chose to frame the shots carefully so the location was distinct, but the dancing — the adapting of the Be Like Water choreography within the location itself — that was the most important piece within each of the first cycle of films, which were shown online for La MaMa back in October 2020.
These ideas continued when next we moved into abandoned office spaces for HEAT — the distant episodes, the second part of this series I am showing this month. These ‘dance haikus’ occur in Oslo’s former airport, which has been restored and renovated as offices — unused, of course, during the pandemic. Three of my six dancers were also here in Oslo. I had the studio for us to work, and so we thought this would be an interesting continuation of this series.
For the unbeknownst, what exactly is a ‘dance haiku’?
A Haiku is a Japanese form of poetry focusing on just one theme within a few concise lines, often connected to nature. Simply put, a haiku just looks at one thing, one aspect, and makes that into a poem. A haiku looks at a specific detail and says something very precise about that, not looking at everything. I find this kind of poetry very inspiring and decided to take that haiku form as inspiration for framing my choreography into a digital platform.
Do you feel that moments of pause and contemplation are key to understanding and processing this pandemic?
Well, many people might feel that this pandemic has provided too much pause? But I personally question whether this pause has been a truly good and reflective one.
Myself, as a mother with young children, this period has been extraordinarily hectic. I think pausing to look at what is important, to really dare to see what is exactly in front of you, to not disappear online into social media or news, but what is right here and right now, and take that reality in — that’s not always easy. I think there has been both quiet and at the same time a lot of noise during this time of Covid, so far. As an artist, I hope these distant episodes can provide a possibility to look and see again, to appreciate what is in front of us. Even if it is only for five minutes at a time on a screen, before having to return to our other screens.
Is the audience’s experience with this digital dance performance similar to the experience of watching a live performance, or are they drastically different?
All digital performance is film; it’s two-dimensional. Dance, all live performance art in the theater is three-dimensional, so this is a fundamental difference.
I decided not to edit any of these ‘dance haikus.’ The whole concept is to see what is … so they are each shot in one take. In that regard, they simulate a theater environment, in a way; the audience has one point of view towards a traditional stage, but the view is narrower. I hope by choosing one continuous take that the dancers’ energy and the choreographic purpose translate more clearly, like it would if we were seeing it live. But I have of course added the art direction of the location in each shot, so that is not stage or scenography; that’s deliberate. I think they are their own little dance films, maybe introducing the new form of the ‘dance haiku film’? Maybe a scholar out there can answer this question better than me?
When you stage a dance in a nontraditional space, what is gained? Is there an added level of atmosphere for the dancers?
Over my career, I have worked with dance and choreography in many different locations. Working site-specific is its own field completely and is utterly fascinating. I have worked in that form, and working for the camera is the latest exciting challenge for me. In these dance haikus I of course gain the specific associative landscape I set the dance in, namely the waterfall. The river’s edge of the first ones I created initially, the spaces within the former airport with all of its aspects of modern architecture and form. Setting the dances in this architectural gem (if I might say so) the dancers and I got to work, allowing ourselves to be inspired by the lines, the light, the forms of that specific place.
In the first series of the distant episodes, in nature, I worked with the lines and forms of nature itself. I think this also worked for the piece in the parking lot facing those buildings and architecture. So we had moments of studying and responding to buildings and the examples of the urban constructed spaces we as humans today move through on a daily basis. Hopefully giving moments to reflect on that movement and maybe seeing it fresh.
How much has COVID-19 disrupted your company’s creative output this year?
Oh goodness! Like all choreographers and dancers everywhere, Covid has completely disrupted everything. I was supposed to have restaged Be Like Water and tour it in Oslo, New York and Seattle. The dancers and I were supposed to offer workshops as well. Another work of mine, HEAT, also had some touring engagements, all of which had to be canceled or postponed. I was supposed to do residencies in Trondheim, Norway, and Reykjavik, Iceland, for a new work. None of this was able to happen. I am very happy that I came up with the distant episodes series, as that gave my dancers some work. I even collaborated with one dancer as he was stuck in quarantine in Barcelona!
This past autumn, I was able to do most of HEAT live, but had to replace the ensemble with new dancers. Only one in the original cast lives in Oslo. The other two dancers in Sweden and Denmark had to be replaced, as I simply could not afford having dancers do a two-week quarantine period before beginning to rehearse and perform working in Norway. The funding here does not allow for that.
I also incorporated students into this new version of HEAT, which was great, and we included a live stream in accordance to the current safety regulations for the show. I even had my costume person sew 300 face masks for audiences, as I wanted to make this a safe and aesthetic experience for those who came. Unfortunately, the city of Oslo closed down all performances and gatherings in November only two days before our show premiered, so we couldn’t have any audience, regardless how small.
We went ahead and did the live-stream. The show is still available as video-on-demand. A silver lining, at least, is that I learned how to live-stream and discovered that we could use this technology to reach a larger audience, but the dancers and I really missed that feeling of a live performance. And as we now move into one more year of this I miss relating directly to live audiences. Maybe private performances can be a thing of the future? But I have to be honest, I miss that thrilling surge of energy that only a large auditorium filled with anticipation can generate— that sizzling feeling of excitement, knowing it is now or never, sharing that moment with a group. Well. This I, and I bet most of my colleagues, really miss. I am so looking forward to experiencing that again.
Lastly, I want to acknowledge that I am an artist with extraordinary privilege, residing in a country like Norway. During this time that has become even more clear. I have the privilege to make work. I have the privilege of keeping my salary at the university I teach at and to keep the grants my company was awarded, even though this pandemic changed the circumstances of our touring and our activities. I am truly aware of this privilege, and I believe it obligates me to really make good use of everything. I cannot receive these funds and then not offer the world the best artistic work I can. I have also been diligent to honor all of my international and foreign collaborators’ contracts, trying to offer my foreign dancers some kind of employment during these times, as best I can. I believe it is necessary and good for all of us to keep engaged and work. I am of course just one artist with limited possibilities, but I believe doing what I can is important. La MaMa, offering me this digital platform, is also in that spirit.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
The La MaMa Moves! Dance Festival, featuring Kari Hoaas’s HEAT — the distant episodes will screen Jan. 20 and 26 at 7 p.m. Click here for more information and tickets.
