From political demonstrations to physical isolation, dance’s electrifying vanguard discusses what inspires them to move today
For Spring/Summer 2020, Document asked dance luminaries Bill T. Jones, Kyle Abraham, and Rashaun Mitchell + Silas Riener to nominate the most exciting new faces—and bodies—in the world of movement.
Bill T. Jones is the MacArthur “Genius” Grant-winning co-founder of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company and the winner of best choreography Tony Awards for shows like Spring Awakening and Fela! Last spring, Jones was set to star in the premiere of Deep Blue Sea at the Park Avenue Armory—his highly anticipated visual and intellectual mashup of movement, Moby Dick, and Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech.
Before he founded his own dance company, A.I.M., Kyle Abraham performed with several troupes, including Bill T. Jones’s. Known for his deeply personal and emotional performances, Abraham first gained critical acclaim for The Radio Show which earned him a “Bessie” award. Also a recipient of a MacArthur “Genius” Grant, Abraham has collaborated with Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in Untitled America, and his first production for the New York City Ballet, The Runaway, was hailed as the “Best Dance of 2018” by The New York Times. His newest work, An Untitled Love was set to premiere this summer.
Rashaun Mitchell and Silas Riener first worked together at the legendary Merce Cunningham Dance Company. In 2012 Mitchell earned a “Bessie” award for “Outstanding Emerging Choreographer.” Reiner likewise earned a “Bessie” the same year for his solo performance in Cunningham’s Split Sides. Together, their collaborative work has been presented at MoMA PS1, the Walker Art Center, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
To honor the full expression of the dancers’ physicality, Document dressed them in Issey Miyake, a brand that has privileged freedom of movement since its founding. In the days and weeks following the shoot, the dancers received word that their upcoming tours and shows had been canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Until the show can go on, we hope you will find inspiration in the power and resilience of the human spirit and the beauty and strength of the human form through this special portfolio featuring the new wave of modern movement.
Left: Stanley Gambucci wears coat and pants by Homme Plissé Issey Miyake. Right: Rakeem Hardy wears top, shirt, pants, and shorts by Homme Plissé Issey Miyake.
Document: You were nominated by Kyle Abraham as one of the most exciting dancers in the world of movement. How does this feel?
Rakeem: I vividly remember seeing Kyle’s company perform for the first time when I moved to New York a few years ago. It was a moment that expanded and redefined my ideas of what I could be to dance, and what dance could be to me—I felt like I used to when I was a kid, realizing the possibilities ahead of me and beyond what I knew. Before the heat of the pandemic, I had the pleasure of working with A.I.M. on a new show that was set to premiere this past June, which was a nice full-circle moment as this was one of the last creation processes I was in before leaving New York for some time. Kyle and his work carry so much of my love and respect and have inspired aspects of me that had yet to be awakened. To be nominated by him feels very special.
Document: What role does dance play in your life? What role do you see it playing in society at large?
Rakeem: I’m understanding more and more that dancing has been one of the best acts of service and helping people that I’ve done this far. I’ve had a few people over quarantine message me to tell me that they have missed watching me dance. I remember in those moments that when I dance, I give something to people, something good. And I feel that through dance, I’ve been able to carve out more space in this world for anyone who can see themselves in me. That is really important to me. I really want to help people.
Dance reminds me of how much power and agency I have as a singular entity to nurture and affect community. I see dance as something that connects us back to our humanity, especially in a world that often strips us away from it. It’s something that makes us look inward and ask a lot of questions and stir up a lot of conversation. It’s something that disrupts structure. And it makes us feel good!! I think we need more of that.
Document: What inspires your movement these days?
Rakeem: In this time of isolation and social distancing, I have a lot of noise in my head… so many thoughts and so few avenues to say or organize them. I’m really inspired right now by my body’s very strong urges to move and to be less ‘logical.’ And yet somehow in my attempts to be less analytical, I am actually more articulate through the dance. Dance has been my best access to problem-solving right now. Also, music!! Music these days has been taking on a lot of the responsibility of keeping me socialized in an environment in which I’m communicating less with people.
J. Bouey wears jacket and pants by Homme Plissé Issey Miyake. Maxfield Haynes, nominated by Rashaun Mitchell + Silas Riener, wears top and pants by Homme Plissé Issey Miyake. Rakeem Hardy, nominated by Kyle Abraham, wears top and pants by Homme Plissé Issey Miyake. Marc Crousillat, nominated by Rashaun Mitchell + Silas Riener, wears top, coat, and pants by Homme Plissé Issey Miyake. Ashley R.T. Yergens
, nominated by Bill T. Jones, wears top, jacket and pants by Homme Plissé Issey Miyake.
Document: You were nominated by Bill T. Jones as one of the most exciting dancers in the world of movement. How does this feel?
Ash: I briefly worked as the development associate at New York Live Arts. During my lunch breaks, I would run into Bill and we would talk about whatever felt urgent that day. Whenever I speak to Bill, I feel invigorated and understood. I don’t always feel that as a transgender maker and performer. To be nominated by this dance hero of mine has brought a deep sense of reassurance and belonging to me.
Document: How have you maintained your practice through the quarantine?
Ash: I started therapy. I’m working with a psychotherapist. We’re discussing how to navigate the invisibility and hypervisibility that often comes with trans masculinity. We’re interrogating and learning how to disrupt my complicity in white supremacy. And, we’re talking a lot about how all of these realities intersect with the consumption and making of dance. While I miss being in an empty theater and wondering how I could fill it, this has been the most creative and present time of my life.
Document: What role does dance play in your life? What role do you see it playing in society at large?
Ash: With or without a pandemic, I feel very confused about dance. As a transgender person who has medically transitioned, I don’t have a lot of reference points for existing, let alone succeeding, in this field.
Dance research and surveys inconsistently, or dare I say rarely, account for gender identity and especially for those of us who medically transition. So, it’s hard to even point to the disparities. On paper, it looks like we don’t exist. That being said, if you start to poke at the seams of dance, then it starts to fall apart and into your lap. How many trans-led dance institutions can you name? How many trans people fill major dance company roles? How many trans dance professors are on the tenure-track? How many trans choreographers routinely receive funding? Who gets to be trans in this field? Does a medical transition come at the expense of a dance career? I believe I’m the only person who has medically transitioned who’s involved in this article. Why is that? Is it because I’ve ‘succeeded’ at some sort of patriarchal convention? It’s easy to think of these questions and immediately feel lonely.
At the same time, because I believe dance is about expanding our experience and perceptions of the body, I think dance has the potential to open up some very tricky, messy, and necessary conversations about transgender ideas and experiences.
Left: Stanley Gambucci wears coat and pants by Homme Plissé Issey Miyake. Right: Jonathan Gonzáles wears top, jacket, and pants by Homme Plissé Issey Miyake.
Document: You were nominated by Rashaun Mitchell and Silas Riener as one of the most exciting dancers in the world of movement. How does this feel?
Maxfield: To be honest, I’m fully gagged by this nomination. It doesn’t even feel real…I came to this art form a lot later than almost everybody I have danced with in my professional life. I never did any competitions (YAGP, NYCDA, etc.) I never did this to be ranked. I just feel like I was called to do it. It’s an honor to be recognized for sharing my truth and my art.
I know Rashaun and Silas through my time at NYU. I had a really difficult time adjusting into academia from ballet school, but Rashaun really encouraged me to push through the difficulties I was experiencing and to make it out into the dance world. I am forever grateful for his guidance through that difficult period in my life.
Document: How have you maintained your practice through the quarantine?
Maxfield: The mental is just as important to, if not more important than the physical nature of this practice, and maintaining my mental health has been a struggle, to be honest. I will say though, it’s as if the universe has given me the opportunity to take a step back and reflect on the past decade of my experience with dance. We often hear the binary proposition of ‘are we dancers or are we humans?’ For me as a non-binary individual, I think that binaries are inherently violent, and I’ve spent so much time trying to be a dancer, I’ve neglected my human parts. This time away from the stage has let me focus on my humanity a bit more, which I’ve seen really serves my artistry. Even though the world feels like it’s on fire, I can still work on putting something beautiful out into the world using my practice to focus my energy.
Document: How do you feel when you dance?
Maxfield: It’s a feeling beyond bliss, beyond joy…it feels like I’m letting my soul shine. I can’t go a day without dancing. I feel truly at one with the world and at one with the universe when I’m dancing. It feels like the truest of loves and the brightest of lights.
Document: What inspires your movement these days?
Maxfield: I’ve been really inspired by the movement of protests as of late. I participated in many of the demonstrations calling for justice for Breonna Taylor in Louisville, and have experienced the fear and rush first hand of running away from tear gas and rubber bullets. The movement is powerful. Beyond that, I’ve been inspired to showcase the beauty inherent to blackness, and specifically relating to our hair. I’ve got an upcoming commission for the Guggenheim that addresses the beauty that exists there, that I’m really excited to share with the world.
Vinson Fraley, nominated by Bill T. Jones and Kyle Abraham, wears top and pants by Homme Plissé Issey Miyake. Huiwang Zhang, nominated by Kyle Abraham, wears coat and pants by Homme Plissé Issey Miyake.
Document: You were nominated by Bill T. Jones as one of the most exciting dancers in the world of movement. How does this feel?
Huiwang: The syntactic structure of the sentence ‘the most exciting’ frightens me as much as it excites me. Ten seconds later the excitement quickly melted away on the sunlit marley floor. I still have a phrase to accomplish. It’s 6pm.
Document: What role does dance play in your life? What role do you see it playing in society at large?
Huiwang: Dance engages people similar to the idea littérature engagée Jean Paul Sartre invoked in the mid-twentieth century. Or like Bill once said, ‘dance doesn’t have to do a god damn thing.’ I meander through these two ideas.
Someone said attending a concert is a thing of the past. In this day of screen dominated world, attending live dance performances is a rarity. But it is something human, all too human, screen can never replace.
Document: What inspires your movement these days?
Huiwang: Simply the action of moving itself. I find it in the rotation of my pelvis and shoulders and the support of my weight on both standing legs and most of the time on a single one. It is the faculty of kinesthetic sympathy that we inherently have as a physical being, as John Cage put it, ‘it is the faculty we employ when, seeing the flight of birds, we ourselves, by identification, fly up, glide, and soar.’
J. Bouey wears top, coat, and pants by Homme Plissé Issey Miyake. Marc Crousillat wears shirt, pants, and shorts by Homme Plissé Issey Miyake.
Document: You were nominated by Rashaun Mitchell and Silas Riener as one of the most exciting dancers in the world of movement. How does this feel?
Marc: I am so grateful for the support Rashaun and Silas have given me over the years. I was humbled to learn that they nominated me for this editorial. I met Rashaun in the summer of 2012 as an understudy for a work by Merce Cunningham that he was restaging. Over the years we have kept crossing paths, and I was lucky enough to perform in a work with Silas choreographed by Tere O’Connor. Their contribution to the legacy of Merce Cunningham followed by their own choreographic pursuits have always been a major source of inspiration.
Document: What role does dance play in your life? What role do you see it playing in society at large?
Marc: Dance has always been one of the primary ways I relate to the world. I see it not just as a form of entertainment but as a way to embody ideas and to imagine new realities for our bodies. I think there is an immense value to the act of moving without a product in mind. We are all living in these complicated and impacted systems, and I think movement allows space to reflect on what it means to inhabit our bodies and to build compassion and empathy from there.
Document: What inspires your movement these days?
Marc: The sheer act of moving these days feels like a success to me. It is a small way for me to mobilize my thoughts in a more abstract and felt way. It takes me out of the digital sphere and reminds me that there is growth to be had.
Left: J.Bouey and Stanley Gambucci, nominated by Bill T. Jones, wears tops, coats, and pants by Homme Plissé Issey Miyake. Right: Stanley Gambucci wears coat by Homme Plissé Issey Miyake.
Document: You were nominated by Bill T. Jones as one of the most exciting dancers in the world of movement. How does this feel?
J.: It feels mundane. And, I love that! It speaks to how normal Bill is in my life when he was once a huge figure. I prefer to see the greatness in the human, but remember to see the human first. Bill, this human, is a cool friend.
Document: How have you maintained your practice through the quarantine?
J.: I have decided to let it adapt. Still listening to it now. I can tell you want I’m interested in. Jazz phrasing. Short story writing. Film making. Iconography. I am not sure I know what that means yet, but as an artist, I get to not know and focus on listening.
Document: What inspires your movement these days?
J.: Right now, it’s play. Like, as I am writing this, it’s play. I also don’t need inspiration to move. I move because I and dedicated to the relationship.
Hair Evanie Frausto. Make-up Kuma. Movement Director Emma Chadwick. Photo Assistants Mattias Satterstrom, Kyle May, and Alex Hodor-Lee. Stylist Assistants Diana Choi, James Kelley, Bella Lucio. Set Design Priscilla Jeong. Set Design Assistant Olivia Perce. Production Ryker Allen at Mini Title. Production Assistant Ky Naylor. Location Street Studios. Post Production Chan Photographic Studio London and Studio RM.
