Effervescent Collective Production of Turn Into
We are not a band, but we communicate through groove. We are not a theater group, but we want you to feel what we feel. We are not a company, but close ranks around our personal goals. We are not a nonprofit, but we are motivated by heart. We are not a sports team, but we are athletes improvising on the field. We are not a school, but we are teachers of research and method. We call our selves a dance-making organization, but we try not to rely on hyphenated explanations. We are the most popular dance company in the city, three years running, measured by audience attendance and BOB votes, but we remain ‘emergent’ and ‘underground.’ We are not in New York and we don’t give a fuck.
What I can say definitively about Effervescent Collective is as simplified and defensive as it is rallying. At the get go, when I first committed to Baltimore for dance-making dreams, I got all pumped up to trick you into coming to dance. It worked. Now I’m standing on the stoop of what we’ve built in Baltimore, learning how to invite you in nicely.
From Butter Knife, Sierra Daselvia center and Rachel Boss left. taken by James Oshida during Coward Shoe premeire
Being a ‘member’ of Effervescent is a fluid idea. The baseline is attending class. Here is the starting point: accepting my premise that there is worthwhile work for self-sculpted movers in pursuit of an infinite physical capacity, rather than focus alone on the mastery of a single form. Coming to class every week is accepting my vision while forgiving that I am not a master. I am invested in finding the elements of different methods that support our vision: A ballerina’s ups with a breakers’ downs. A martial artist’s precise force with a yogi’s internal flow. A higher thinking human with an animal’s 360 degree instinct. To date, the best conduits for this kind of training is Gaga and Systema. Gaga is movement training from Israel, now taught at Julliard and in major dance captials in the USA and Europe. Systema is a traditional Russian martial art of survival and longevity. Both enhance the power and complexity of any technique, including ballet and yoga. Both connect to what our animal self knows, but our cultural self cancels, and are therefore uncomfortable and ugly at times. I want that. Coming to class is working inside a definition of dance as physical effort in connection to a groove.
Effervescent has become a breeding ground for movement artists returning to or arriving at dance. We have a diaspora in Philly, Chicago, Seattle, and beyond. Dancing in another members’ work is practice for how to make your own, just as it is practice for how to rehearse more efficiently, memorize more accurately, embody movements more swiftly, and provide feedback with neutrality. Along with my long-form creations, we sew patchwork evenings full of short dances, such as our new show next week, Tendão.
Tendão is an oxymoron, a cabaret of raw beginnings enabled by our age as an organization and the passing of time as a continued presence in Baltimore. Effervescent Collective is–holy shit–going on five years old. We’ve been producing multiple dance based wonders a year in and around Baltimore for the last three years. Name a space with any substantial square footage, and we’ve danced there. We have cracked the Natty Boh on new spaces for dance; our own short-lived Lumberhaus, the Coward Shoe, and most recently Now Child Soundstage. We’ve worked on innumerable musical collaborations. We’ve thrown down for any festival open to dance, with a loyalty to High Zero’s commitment to presenting of avant-garde dance making.
The crew at the Round Robin by Nicole Munchel
For the first time, we have a standing repertoire piece, Butter Knife, made possible by a small committed cast (Rachel Boss, Erin Reid, Sierra DeSalvia, Brittany Grant) and the dedication and generosity of composer Louis Weeks, assisted by vocalist Serena Shapero. We know by now to work with musicians who want to make our process and collaboration a commitment, rather than a side project. The talent and generosity of a musician does not stand in for understanding of how the dance works. Butter Knife is a quartet of choices and vulnerability, exposing the layers of our conversation with music. Butter Knife benefitted from one of our longest rehearsal stretches, to build our bodies into instruments harmonious, making for some of the strongest dancing we’ve done to date. It opened in September and we ran it again this January. It’s the longest surviving dance we have; an exercise in editing both our physical movement and the compositional whole. As a dance-maker, I believe the non-narrative is most powerful when specific; I hope our editing and our practice can whittle out of each moment of big inspiration.
Effervescent’s loyal volunteer squad
Our time in rehearsals is a sparse resource. New ideas keep coming at a much faster rate than we can turn them into dances, while we remain within 4-8 hours of weekly rehearsal. Our productions are powered by love in an arts scene infused with an economy of favors. Therefore, to date we have tried to make every project a first; always something new, a risk, a challenge. My main criticism of our work is that because we are running an uphill job at a downhill pace, our artistry gets cut off. Our long form works, like Pluto Dances or Butter Knife, maxing at 45 minutes, could be longer. We find more when we travel farther with a dance vocabulary.
Unlike Butter Knife, Tendão does not live in the pulsing core of our philosophy and practice. Instead, it’s a walk around the periphery. I invited loyal dancers and class attendees to create new short works; the only requirement is to articulate a challenge. For some of us, it is to risk the failure of comedy. For others, it is digging deeper into a political statement or personal fear as the kernel for future development. For others, it is a solo or a new partnership. Do the thing you think is quintessentially you at the moment. Do the thing that is farthest from your regular practice, find your habits and your limits. Keep going.
Tendão is Portuguese for ‘tendon.’ Simplistically, tendons connect muscle to bone, absorbing tension. It’s not a subtle metaphor. And it just sounds cooler in Portuguese, as most things do. Portuguese is my adopted language, after English. The evening is about our individual adopted languages and our little dialects, our accents and our slang that we nourish still while refining our common tongue.
Tendão is two days only at Now Child Soundstage, 409 E. Preston St.
Friday February 22 @ 8 pm, w/ after party soul from Bosley
Saturday February 23 @ 2 pm, matinee.
$5-$15 sliding.
www.effervescentcollective.org
https://vimeo.com/58992491
Tendao Teaser from effervescent collective on Vimeo.
