Exploring Intersectionality

Through Dance
February 16, 2017

An Interview with Alice Sheppard

BY EMMALY WIEDERHOLT; PHOTOS BY ROBBIE SWEENEY

Alice Sheppard is a dancer and choreographer who splits her time between
San Francisco, New York and the United Kingdom. Her work is most
notable for exploring the intersections between disability, race, gender and
sexuality. Her newest work, Descent from Beauty, is performed on a large
ramp, and takes its inspiration from the sculpture of Rodin.

~~

What motivated you to create Descent from Beauty?

The first inspiration was that feeling of riding downhill, like on a bicycle.
There is tremendous movement pleasure in just letting go and riding a slope.
I know that sounds like a small thing to say, but it’s such a simple act.
Something my friend Simi Linton said in her film, Invitation to Dance, is that
movement pleasure is not often recognized for disabled people. I hope
Descent from Beauty both communicates movement pleasure and invites
others to share in it.

With that is an observation not new to me alone. Wheelchair users have often
noticed how ramps that give access to buildings are often around the back, or
next to the dumpsters, and often not designed aesthetically. They are seen as
functional devices but are rarely integrated into the building. There’s a way in
which this is discriminatory. It’s not enough to just get in the door. Separate
is not equal; we know this from other contexts. It’s a question of how we enter
the aesthetics of architecture. What is the social and cultural meaning of
making an entry?

These ideas intersect with the work of Sara Hendren, whose project, Slope
Intercept, explores movement access at play and in public spaces. I connected
with Sara through a friend, and asked if she would be able to make a ramp. I
didn’t really know what I was asking, but Sara shared the project with a
colleague, Yevgeniya Zastavker, and her students at Olin College. In the
course of one semester, we worked together on several possible designs.
Finally, the students built a prototype which we then took to be the final
design for the ramp.

As far as the movement vocabulary, it engages ideas of race, disability,

queerness and beauty by using projections of Rodin’s sculptures. Rodin was a
pivotal figure in defining feminine beauty in a Western Classical European
context. But he’s quite fascinating; the stuff he says about race, femininity,
beauty and deformity is wild and out there. For instance, the statue of Venus
and Andromeda has often been read as queer, with two women in suggestive
positions. Andromeda is traditionally Ethiopian in Greek mythology but, by
the Renaissance, she’s been whitened. In some ways, what I’m doing is trying
to restore that racial and ethnic heritage with my own body. From there, I
investigate the relationship between Venus and Andromeda as interracial. We
literally embody the statues in and out of our chairs.

Disability is often presented as white; people are not used to thinking about
intersectionality in disability work. Once disability appears in the public
imagination, other intersections fade. One thing I’ve found difficult is
balancing the attention the ramp has received against the larger themes in the
piece. I refer to the ramp as a dance partner because it dictates the
choreography; we can’t dance on it as we would a flat surface. At the same
time, the damn ramp is upstaging us!

As a choreographer, how important is it to you to be recognized as

black/female/having a disability? Is it important that people view your
work through these identifiers?

I understand there is a double trap here. The stakes are different for each
identity. I am very unhappy when I get defined by what somebody else means
by the identifying word, rather than what I mean by the identifying word. For
example, people will often say, “I don’t want to be defined by my disability.” I
get that, but what I hear the person saying is: “I don’t want to be defined by
the negative stuff societally attached to the medical diagnosis that is my
impairment.” Disability is more than an impairment, and I personally choose
to work from the larger aspects of disability as history, culture, tradition and
aesthetic. I understand my definition does not meet most people’s definition
of disability. There is very little connection between the two. I own who I am
and want to bring it to my work. That’s what I mean when I bring disability
into the context of my work.

Ditto my race. There are ways in which I can engage with the history of racial
injustice, and ways in which I can engage with my personal experience. I’m
looking at what kind of cultural and aesthetic contributions are available to
me from activating and intentionally living and working from that
perspective.

What changes do you believe need to be made in dance culture to support

better representation of voices?

We need to allow for more complex narratives, and not have there be one
notion of black dance or one notion of disability/integrated dance. Teachers,
students, dancers, presenters and funders need to take risks, and also to step
out of the way. I feel like I need to say that booking a disabled artist is not
necessarily any bigger of a risk than booking any other artist. However, we
need to allow the complexity in the field to emerge, and to support it.

What do you hope audiences take away after seeing your work?
I believe any work of art has the power to change someone. That being said,
I’m not sure I want there to be a specific take-away.

In the disability sphere, and also with regards to work about race, we’re
constantly hoping that those who are outside those identity categories will be
changed, and the world will be a better place because of that change. When
we do that, we forget to make work for those of us within those identity
categories.

I don’t necessarily need there to be change, and I don’t think there is one
takeaway. But I do want people to have an experience. I hope they are stirred
up. But I don’t want to prescribe or predetermine any outcome as a result of
seeing my work.

~~

Descent from Beauty will be presented throughout the next year. Visit
KineticLight.org for more information.

Pictured in photos: Alice with dancer Laurel Lawson

Alice Sheppard studied ballet and modern with Kitty Lunn and made her
debut with Infinity Dance Theater. After an apprenticeship, she joined AXIS
Dance Company, with whom she toured nationally and taught in the
company’s education and outreach programs. Since becoming an
independent artist, she has danced in projects with Ballet Cymru, GDance
and Marc Brew in the United Kingdom. In the United States, she has worked
with Marjani Forté, MBDance, Infinity Dance Theater and Steve Paxton. As
a guest artist, she has danced with AXIS Dance Company, Full Radius
Dance Company, and MOMENTA Dance Company. Alice’s choreography
has been commissioned by CRIPSiE, Full Radius Dance Company, and
MOMENTA Dance Company. Alice is the founder and artistic lead for
Kinetic Light, a collaboration with dancer Laurel Lawson, lighting and
video artist Michael Maag, and professors Sara Hendren and Yevgeniya
Zastavker of Olin College.