Showcasing Asian American Femme Dance Artists
An Interview with SanSan Kwan
BY EMMALY WIEDERHOLT
SanSan Kwan is chair in the Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies at UC Berkeley, as well as a longtime dancer with Lenora Lee Dance in San Francisco. She is presenting and curating Portals, an evening of dance showcasing the work of six Asian American femme choreographers. The program is anchored by SanSan’s piece, Two Doors, a choreographic study of the aftermaths of anti-Asian violence. SanSan shares the impetus for Two Doors and Portals, as well as why it’s important to showcase Asian American femme dance artists, now more than ever.
Photos by Robbie Sweeny.
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Can you share a little about your dance background and what shaped you as an artist?
I’ve been a dancer all my life, but in my adult career my primary identity has been as a dance scholar. I have a PhD in Performance Studies, I have written books on dance studies, and I teach in the department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies at UC Berkley, where I’m a professor and the department chair. That’s been what I do for the past 20 years, but all along, I’ve also been dancing. I danced professionally in New York City with a bunch of independent artists. In the Bay Area, I’ve been dancing with Lenora Lee Dance for going on 13 years. I’ve always seen myself as a dancer alongside my dance scholarship. Two years ago, I got an opportunity to choreograph my own work. I seized upon it because I was feeling ready for a new chapter and challenge. I was excited to explore a new medium.
What was the impetus for Portals?
I made a piece, titled Two Doors, with a cast of four plus an understudy that premiered last October. Then I got an opportunity to remount the piece this spring. We built such a strong and collaborative collective as we were making Two Doors that I thought that in addition to remounting it I would invite each of the cast members to present their own choreography. We would curate a show together. Each of the cast members, plus the understudy, will offer a 10-minute piece of their own in addition to the Two Doors remount.
How did you select the dancers you worked with and who are presenting work in the program?
I wanted Asian American femme folks. I wanted a mix of generations, so different ages. I wanted people who came from different aesthetic backgrounds, not wildly outside of contemporary dance, but slightly different movement styles and aesthetics. Two dancers are in their 40s or 50s, one dancer is in her 30s, and the other is in her 20s. The understudy, who is also offering a piece on the mixed bill, is also in her 20s.
I didn’t know Frances Sedayao prior, but she came highly recommended. I already knew the other dancers. Tatianna Steiner was a student in the dance department where I teach. I had done projects with Stacey Yuen before. Iu-Hui Chua teaches in my department. Lily Gee, our understudy, came highly recommended.
Iu-Hui has a background in butoh and Anna Halprin. Frances came to dance later in her life and is a sublime performer. The other three dancers come from trained contemporary dance backgrounds, but each have their own idiosyncratic movement vocabularies and expressive capabilities.
Your piece, Two Doors, is a choreographic study of the aftermaths of anti-Asian violence. Can you share more about the impetus for that piece and your choreographic process?
A professor of Asian American Studies and Art History at UC Davis whom I know approached me because, along with other researchers, they got a big grant to look at anti-Asian violence, its origins, and its trajectories. As part of their grant, they wanted to offer something creative, an embodied expression of the phenomenon of anti-Asian violence. They would be putting together lots of panels and talks, as well as a special issue of a journal. In addition, they wanted a creative response.
I immediately had a choreographic idea, so I applied for the commission and got it. There was an incident in March 2021 during which a middle-aged Filipina woman in New York City was walking on the sidewalk and got pushed down and beaten and kicked. It was captured on the security cameras of a nearby building’s lobby. You can see on the video that the doormen of the building close the lobby doors just after it happens. I had this image of two doors I wanted to use as a set piece. The dancers and I attended an online bystander intervention training to get ideas. We read scholarship on anti-Asian violence, as well as prison abolition and Black Asian solidarity. We read poetry. We journaled. One of the dancer’s husbands wanted her to take self-defense classes after the pandemic hit and there was the rise in anti-Asian violence. We used some of her self-defense training. We played around in the studio with different scores.
Did you give the other dancers any instructions in making their pieces?
I didn’t give them any thematic constraints, so they are making whatever they want. I just wanted to give a bunch of Asian American femme dance artists an opportunity to show their work. They are all at different stages of their careers. Two are young, and others have been around for awhile as dancers, but not as choreographers, so it’s an opportunity to stretch in that direction.
Why is it important to showcase Asian American femme choreographers, especially now?
There’s a great book called Choreographing Asian America by Yutian Wong. She talks about the ways that Asian Americans are typically seen as disembodied, as people who aren’t connected with their physicality, who are “good at math.” It’s important to me to showcase the ways Asian Americans can be corporeally expressive. As far as the femme part, that’s the perspective I know and the place from which I can speak. The phenomenon of anti-Asian violence has been perpetrated more particularly against women and the elderly. That’s why it was important for me to have Asian American femme dancers in my piece.
What do you hope audiences take away?
I do want a little bit of the viscerality of the feelings of trauma in the aftermath of a violent event to reverberate onto the audience. I don’t want to traumatize anyone, but I want them to feel the complicated feelings we pass through when a violent act happens, as well as giving folks a feeling of healing, resilience, and collective strength.
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Portals will premier April 25-27 in San Francisco. Learn more here.
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