TRY
a queer fantasy of improvised collaboration where body and land meet ancestry and futurity
Choreographed and performed by jose e. abad, Snowflake Calvert, Keith Hennessy, Ishmael Houston-Jones, and Kevin O’Connor in an immersive installation by Monica Canilao & Azul~írís with improvised lighting design by GG Torres and live electronic music by Madre Guía with jose e. abad.
TRY explores what Sadiya Hartman calls, “Acts of collaboration and improvisation that unfold within the space of enclosure.”
The TRY team’s collaborative work circles around the crises and potentials of land, healing, movement, consent, ownership and solidarity. We seek a soft experience where land acknowledgement and fascia can be woven into a single conversation. Where bodies are energies and powers at the same time, always entangled within the ecologies from which they emerge.
TRY’s artistic research questions the legacy of colonial social structures to expose the forces of individualism and whiteness (ie the production of alienated singular beings), to experiment with new models of interdependent practice, awareness, and being together. Haunted by colonial afterlives, TRY experiments with collectively improvised dancing and making as emergent tactics towards an unknown future where interdependence is both tangible and protected.
THEATRICAL PREMIERE PHOTOS
OUTDOOR PHOTOS
* * * * *
the weirdest shit can come true
making difference differently together
beyond beyond beyond
body and land meet ancestry and futurity
opening me up
trying togethering centering relational
collaboration as laboratory during crises of togetherness
circles of overlap growing, circles of separation remaining
these are the questions that haunt me
it won’t be revealed until it’s there
* * * * *
VIDEOS
PRESS
Arts ATL review “Queer performance ‘TRY’ gives powerful shoutout to ancestral land”
https://www.artsatl.org/review-queer-performance-try-gives-powerful-shout-out-to-ancestral-land
Arts ATL preview “Best Bets”
https://www.artsatl.org/best-bets-cinderella-giselle-the-wizard-are-in-town-plus-mozart-little-feat-more/
48 Hills review “With conch and shimmer, a taste of queer fantasy ‘TRY’” by Rita Felciano
https://48hills.org/2021/11/with-conch-and-shimmer-a-taste-of-queer-fantasy-try/
“Try, Try, Try Something Else Again or Follow the Foam…” By Ryanaustin Dennis
Click here to download PDF of the article
“Moving Through” by Claudia La Rocco
Click here to download PDF of the article
New Yorker feature of TRY film screening at Danspace Project
https://www.newyorker.com/goings-on-about-town/dance/afterwardsness-05-24-21
Danspace Project “a reflection on TRY, a rehearsal” by Maura Nguyen Donohue
https://danspaceproject.org/2021/08/04/a-reflection-on-try-a-rehearsal-donohue
BOFFO interviews Ishmael Houston Jones
Click here to view, scroll down for the interview
CREDITS
Collaborators & Performers: jose e. abad, Snowflake Calvert, Keith Hennessy, Ishmael Houston Jones, and Kevin O’Connor
Music/Performer: Madre Guía in collaboration with jose e. abad
Visual Designer/Performer: Monica Canilao
Lighting Designer/Performer: GG Torres
Producing Director: Alley Wilde
Additional Sound Design: Inéz Nuñez de Arco
Additional Visual Design: Azul Rosa
TRY, a rehearsal video: Cameras: Alex Romania (NYC) and Ainsley Tharp (SF); Sound score: josé e. abad; Editing and cinematography by Alex Romania; Directed by Ishmael Houston-Jones
Photos: An Pham and Robbie Sweeny
Producing Director: Alley Wilde
BIOS
jose esteban abad (they/them) is a multidisciplinary choreographer, DJ, and curator based in unceded Ramaytush Ohlone Territory (San Francisco, CA). Born in Olongapo City, Philippines to a Filipina Mother and an Afro-Carribean U.S. Naval Officer, their work explores the complexities of cultural identity at the crossroads of gender, sexuality, class, and race in the United States. Through dance theater, surrealist video, and sonic experimentation, their work unearths lost histories that reside in the body, that the mind has forgotten, and dominant culture has erased. Their choreography is rooted in collaboration and improvisation as tools of resistance and liberation. Their work centers QTBIPOC experimental collective process-based practices of becoming and re-membering. They are a cofounder of several QTBIPOC centered dance and performance projects that promote healing, community networking, and leadership capacity building including RUPTURE, the Hive, to be like the river residency, and SCHEME. They have also held residencies and produced work with organizations including CounterPulse, the Joe Goode Annex, Paul Dresher Studio, Saryyet Ramallah, Highways Performance Space and Hope Mohr Dance. abad has performed and taught nationally and internationally in the Philippines, Palestine, Mexico, Canada, and Europe, and has collaborated with established choreographers, including Anne Bluethenthal, Alleluia Panis, Joanna Haigood, Ishmael Houston-Jones, Keith Hennessey, Sara Shelton Mann, Brontez Purnell, BANDALOOP, Erika Chong Shuch, Sherwood Chen, and many others. Through this legacy, abad is committed to continuing the Bay Area’s tradition of radically queer, experimental, politically engaged dance.
Snowflake Arizmendi-Calvert (she/her) is a Yaqui and Tzotzil Two-Spirit artist, celebrated as a dancer, drag performer, event host, entrepreneur, and filmmaker. Her artistry serves as a platform for political, social, and cultural activism, notably within the LGBTQ+ community. With leadership roles at Groundswell Institute/QUIL and the Yaquis of Southern California, Snowflake demonstrates unwavering commitment to advocacy. Her career spans diverse experiences, from principal ballet dancer to hosting fundraisers and collaborating with esteemed organizations like BAAITS Powwow. Internationally recognized for her dance talent, Snowflake also nurtured budding talents as owner of The Dance Zone Studio. As president of Queers United for Intersectional Liberation, she furthered LGBTQ+ advocacy. Currently, Snowflake co-produces Seeds and Sequins and collaborates with The TRY Project, while contributing to The Queering Dance Festival’s Steering Committee. Additionally, her filmmaking endeavors include co-producing, writing, and acting in the short-film "Chaac + Yum." Through her vibrant artistry, activism, and dedication, Snowflake Arizmendi-Calvert champions inclusivity and leaves an indelible mark on the performing arts landscape.
Keith Hennessy, is a frolicker, imperfectionist, and witch working in the fields of dance, performance, affordable housing, and gay sexuality. Raised on Atikameksheng Anishnawbek lands in Canada and living since 1982 on Ramaytush Ohlone lands (San Francisco), Keith tours internationally. Awards include Guggenheim, USArtist, Bessie, and Izzies. His work is interdisciplinary and experimental, motivated by anti-racist, queer-feminist, and anarchist movement. Hennessy engages practices of improvisation, ritual, collaboration, and play to respond to political crises. With a focus on the politics of relationships, Keith has negotiated shared power and creativity with Ishmael Houston-Jones, Sarah Crowell, Meg Stuart, Brontez Purnell, Snowflake Calvert, jose abad, Gerald Casel, Faustin Linyekula, Jassem Hindi, Peaches… and several collaboratives. Hennessy directs Circo Zero, co-founded the culture spaces 848 and CounterPulse, and was a member of Sara Mann’s Contraband. Keith’s work has been presented at Ponderosa, Impulstanz, NYLA, Black Box, YBCA, HZT, SNDO, Arsenic, Hollins, Cornell, mumok, The New Museum, SF MOMA, CounterPulse, and contact improv festivals in many countries. Hennesy earned an MFA and PhD from UC Davis. His favorite place to be is zero gravity dancing under water.
Ishmael Houston-Jones is a choreographer, author, performer, teacher, and curator. His improvised dance and text work has been performed world-wide. He has received three New York Dance and Performance “Bessie” Awards for collaborations with writer Dennis Cooper, choreographers Miguel Gutierrez and Fred Holland and composers Chris Cochrane and Nick Hallett, and a fourth "Bessie" for contributions to the field of dance. Houston-Jones curated Platform 2012: Parallels which concentrated on choreographers from the African diaspora and postmodernism and co-curated with Will Rawls Platform 2016: Lost & Found, Dance, New York, HIV/AIDS, Then and Now. As an author Houston-Jones' essays, fiction, interviews, and performance texts have been published in several anthologies. His first book, FAT and other stories, was published in June 2018 by Yonkers International Press. Houston-Jones has received both the Guggenheim and USArtist Fellowships. His work has been awarded by the Alpert, Doris Duke, and Rauschenberg Foundations.
Kevin O’Connor (he/they) is a multidisciplinary artist (Gaelic, Sicilian heritage) whose work is rooted in community-engaged arts, somatics, ecology, and queer activism. He works as a choreographer, dancer, teacher, improviser, circus artist, writer, and film producer between London Ontario, and the Bay Area. O’Connor’s artistic practice engages improvisation, ritual, imagination, and collective score-making as tools for imagining emergent relational worlds. He is involved in a decade-long artistic collective, "Sweet Labour Art Collective " working across settler and Oneida Nation worlds in London. The collective’s works within the friction and paradoxes of the colonial relations that brought us all together. Their current work, "Togethering," is a collaboration with institutional care workers and care receivers receiving complex care. Over the last 15 years, O’Connor has also worked with NAKA dance in Oakland, Skywatchers in the Bay Area, Oncogrrrls feminist art collective in Spain, Anandam in Toronto, and collaborated with Inuit hunter and designer Paulette Metuq on a project in Eastern Arctic. He holds a degree in ecology from the University of British Columbia, a diploma from the National Circus School of Montreal, an MFA in choreography, a Ph.D. in performance studies/ feminist science studies from UC Davis, and is a biodynamic craniosacral practitioner.
Monica Canilao is a Bay Area native with a deep investment in home, community, and the passage of time. Fascinated with the imprint people leave behind, she utilizes recycled materials in both her art practice and personal life generating a personal and living history. This visual record from salvaged objects and weathered images results in work spanning from massive paper and fabric structures, site-specific installations, murals, meticulous paintings, mixed media works, jewelry constructions, sculptures, costuming and performance art. She creates new forms and alternate fantastical worlds from salvaged objects and weathered images. Her large fabric structures, installations and sculptures revitalize broken-down forms and celebrate the spirit of mutual aid and resourcefulness of marginalized communities. Canilao creates costuming, headpieces and jewelry constructions meant to imbue the wearer with both power and protection and is made to accentuate the actions of bodies and the wearers to uplift and invoke a spirit that is uplifted. She received a BFA from California College of Arts and Crafts and has shown in galleries, community spaces, abandoned places and … worldwide.
Madre Guía (she/they) is the DJ moniker of Stephanie Hewett, an interdisciplinary artist from Lenape land/The Bronx, New York currently based in Huichin-Ohlone land/Oakland, CA. She works with movement and dance music production to create rhythms rooted in the Afro-Caribbean diasporic experience that offer a somatic roadmap towards healing. Her work celebrates and uplifts Black Queer innovation in dance music while also challenging the oppressive systems that are inherently antithetical to Black liberation. She is a member of the BlaQ(ueer) collective RUPTURE, has toured and performed nationally and internationally as both a dancer and DJ, and most recently premiered (E)cho (Q)ueue at The Lab in San Francisco, a new multimedia work that reinforces techno music as an inherently Black American invention.
GG Torres (they/she) is a mexican artist born and based on Ohlone Territory. As a lighting designer for movement-based theater works, GG enjoys every opportunity to explore improvisational scores and seeks to compliment whatever poetic dichotomy that longs to be found. Artistically, she is held by close-by ancestral relatives, a subjugated and hungry earth, queers that push back, special spherical orbs above us, Aretha Franklin, and the mise-en-scène of every living moment. GG is currently serving as the Producing Technical Director at the San Francisco experimental dance venue CounterPulse (FKA 848 Performance Space). Over the last 10 years, GG has designed lights for Bay Area experimental art makers such as as Oysterknife, Kat Cole, jose e. abad, FRESH dance festival, Kularts, Joshua Icban, 7000COILS, Keith Hennessy/Circo Zero/TRY, Sara Shelton Mann, Golden Thread Productions, Joe Goode Performance Group, Campo Santo, SF 2 Spirit Performance Festival: Weaving Spirits, Ainsley E. Tharp, Kim Ip, Fresh Meat Festival, as well as numerous local underground dance events. You can also hear GG’s sound works in collaboration with cellist Peekaboo Salinas in the sound bath series Resting Between Waveforms and movement artists Gizeh Muñis Vengal and Ernesto Peart (MX) in Auiga which premieres in June 2024.
PAST EVENTS
TRY Austrian Premiere
August 9-11, 2024 @ Halle G, presented by ImPulsTanz
TRY Community Workshop
Mar 19, 2022 @ B-Complex, Atlanta presented by CORE Dance
TRY Atlanta Premiere
Mar 18-19, 2022 @ B-Complex, Atlanta presented by CORE Dance
Community Class, Artist Talk, and Lunch
Mar 17, 2022 @ CORE Studios, Atlanta
Artist and Activist Brunch
Mar 13, 2022 @ B-Complex, Atlanta produced by CORE Dance
TRY Film Premiere
Jan 10, 2022 as part of Kathleen Hermesdorf’s FRESH Festival
TRY World Premiere
Nov 16-20, 2021 @ Z Space, San Francisco
TRY In-Process Showing
Nov 13, 2021 @ Z Space, San Francisco
TRY + Alta Fe Collective Function
Nov 6, 2021 @ The Lab, San Francisco
TRY In-Process Showing
Nov 6, 2021 @ The Lab, San Francisco
TRY Open to All Practice Lab
Led by Keith Hennessy, Ishmael Houston-Jones, and Kevin O’Connor with live music by Gabriel Nuñez de Arco
Nov 4, 2021 @ The Lab, San Francisco
TRY BIPOC Practice Lab
Led by Ishmael Houston-Jones jose abad, and Snowflake Calvert with live music by Gabriel Nuñez de Arco
Nov 2, 2021 @ The Lab, San Francisco
TRY Site-Specific Outdoor Performance
Sep 3, 2021 on Bernal Hill, San Francisco
TRY/ING Workshop with Movement Research :: Online
July 19-23 @ 1:30pm-3:00pm (PST)
TRY Residency w. Numerous Public Events
July 6 - 25 at BOFFO Fire Island, NY
TRY, a rehearsal Film Screening by Danspace :: Online ::
Fri May 21, 2021 @ 2pm (PST)
TRY Residency
March 1-11, 2021 at Saratoga Springs, Lake County CA (territory of Habematolel Pomo of Upper Lake)
TRY/ING Workshop with Movement Research :: Online
Part of MR’s Winter MELT January 2021
FUNDING
TRY is produced by Circo Zero and supported by the Hewlett Foundation 50 Arts Commission, The Kenneth Rainin Foundation, The California Arts Council, The San Francisco Arts Commission, MAP Fund, The Boffo Foundation, Danspace Project, a co-commission as part of the Eureka Commissions program by the Onassis Foundation, The Lab (please consider joining their community of members), and Z Space’s Technical Development Residency Program funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.