EDITOR’S NOTE: As previously mentioned, recent events in the Seattle dance world have generated interesting conversation about the art-form. Reviews and audience talk-backs during The A.W.A.R.D. Show!, aggressively questioning the inclusion of some artists whose work ranges outside the standard dance vocabulary, caused consternation and generated stong responses. TSB invited Jody Kuehner and Ricki Mason, whose The Cherdonna and Lou Show is a gender-bending postmodern duo, to respond to those who questioned whether their work fits the definition of “dance.”

Guest post by Jody Kuehner & Ricki Mason

Last month we participated in The A.W.A.R.D. Show! at On the Boards. This program gave the audience the opportunity to vote on which of twelve choreographers would receive $10,000 in funding for their next project. Essentially, it’s a dance contest for contemporary dance artists. The weekend sparked a lot of conversations, including a debate about what dance is, how we categorize art, and what effect those categories have on artists and audiences.  Jeremy Barker asked us to write a little bit about our experience as artists and how our work fits into this debate.

Our background and process roots our work firmly in the lineage of contemporary dance. As contemporary dance artists, we are shaped by the world we live in, conscientiously appropriating aspects of culture and art. The nature of contemporary art is to engage with what’s current. In addition to being a hub for contemporary dance, Seattle is home to vibrant burlesque, cabaret, drag, and theater scenes. Seattle also has one of the largest LBGTQ identifying communities in the US. The majority of dance artists in Seattle reference these cultural elements, blurring the lines between genres of performance.

We are queer, gender-bending dance artists working in an abstract medium. The most literal elements of our work are those that are borrowed from other genres, like our drag aesthetic and the theatrical premises of our work. As a result, audiences and critics tend to identify these literal elements before absorbing the abstracted content, categorizing it as drag or cabaret and NOT dance. We are excited to discuss how our work fits into the history of any and all of these categories, but we are unwilling to be excluded from our true form and first language of dance. George Balanchine, Miguel Guiterrez, Steve Paxton, Twyla Tharp, Eiko and Koma, Anna Halprin, Merce Cunningham, Yvonne Rainer, and Pina Bausch are all dance artists whose work looks vastly different. Dance also looks like The Cherdonna and Lou Show.

Dance will never evolve if we stunt it with semantics.  If every time a dance artist forges into new territory we kick it out of the club, then dance ceases to be a living, changing form. When work is dismissed because it doesn’t fit neatly into an existing genre, an opportunity is missed. The conversation becomes only about the category. The work itself is not looked at, talked about, or digested. It is simply ignored and thus devalued. The repercussions for artists are huge. Grants are designated for specific genres of art. If an artist’s work isn’t fitting neatly into a genre, it often slips through the cracks, reinforcing a limited definition of that genre.

Presenters, critics, funders, and educators hold a great responsibility to cultivate in audiences a more fluid notion of what any given category may look like. Artists are responsible for continuing to authentically create work. Dance artist Tonya Lockyer shared the following on the subject: “In a talk between Charles Reinhart (ADF) and Anna Halprin, Reinhart said that whenever someone’s work was called ‘not dance’ he knew they were onto something. I don’t think anyone questions Halprin as a dance artist anymore. But so often, when dance moves forward, it gets disowned by its own.

Artists’ Note: Jody Kuehner (Cherdonna Shinatra) and Ricki Mason (Lou Henry Hoover) are contemporary dance artists who began working together in Seattle in 2004. They soon discovered a synergy of comedic timing and a shared passion for character driven movement. Jody and Ricki invented The Cherdonna and Lou Show in 2009 to combine their choreographic backgrounds with their desire to create comedic politicized and personal performance. The Cherdonna and Lou Show has been supported by 4Culture, Artist Trust, and The Mayor’s Office for Arts and Cultural Affairs.