Body and Soul

"My life is a dance," says dancer-healer-teacher Italy Bianca, "How am I going to stage it, each and every day?"

Body and soul are connected, she knows from personal experience of trauma, healing, and creativity. In this talk to inspire other artists, teachers, caregivers, and anyone, Italy invokes what she has learned through modalities such as massage, acupuncture, herbalism, spiritual practice, and the use of sensory deprivation tanks.

Like her bestie Tamisha A. Guy, who spoke in our previous episode, Dallas native Catherine Kirk is a ten-year veteran of A.I.M by Kyle Abraham and a thrilling performer. Kirk describes herself as "an artist of many measures," one fascinated by stories and questions of "why humans are the way we are."

Caribbean-born dancer Tamisha A. Guy celebrates her tenth year with A.I.M by Kyle Abraham--the New York-based, award-winning troupe which recently completed a triumphant spring season at The Joyce Theater. Acknowledging a time of deep contemplation and yearning for home, Guy speaks of her own fervent aim--to perform live for her family and community in Trinidad.

My guest, Dr. Iquail Shaheed, Artistic Director of Philadelphia-based DANCE IQUAIL!, sits in to talk about his desire to reflect the "three pillars of creating a new world" and how working with incarcerated populations has led to his new work, Public Enemy.

During the pandemic, dance artist and photographer Ricarrdo Valentine continued to work towards a graduate degree in Dance, keenly aware of academia's toll on body, mind, and spirit. Influenced by healing philosophies, such as the famed Nap Ministry of Tricia Hersey, Valentine shares what he has learned about self-compassion and rest, critical tools of liberation from capitalism and grind culture.

US-raised Palestinian artist Samar Haddad King (Artistic/Founding Director of Yaa Samar! Dance Theatre) ruminates on what pregnancy, birth, and raising her daughter have taught her about time.

In her work with Afro-Puerto Rican bomba traditions and contemporary dance, Megan Curet considers the relationship between movement, sound, and decolonization within communal practice in Black diaspora.  She says, "I wanted to be a part of the conversation that shakes up the body, that shakes up the way we think, and I believe no other approach does so better than the act of moving, the act of repeating movement, and that act of coming into space together."

Russian-born dance artist and educator Elena Demyanenko traveled from her adopted home in New York to Berlin to support the growing community of artists fleeing Russia's devastating war on Ukraine. In this moving talk, Demyanenko reflects on questions for herself and other artists making work in times of war, propaganda, censorship, and courageous disobedience.

Cory Nakasue sees complexity all around us and within us--from the cosmic realm above to the most intimate spaces below here on planet Earth.  Self-described as "a theater artist, writer, and astrologer whose work  includes choreography, dramaturgy, and video," Nakasue likely inhabits far more than even those multiple identities and roles. In this talk for Body and Soul, she shares thoughts about how our tendency to avoid complexity denies us the pleasure of engaging with what's real.

My guest today, george emilio sanchez, is a passionate and critical voice for our times. A skilled artist and activist, he brings a gift for blending factual historical and cultural knowledge, lived experience, and creative storytelling in solo performances that inform, captivate, and challenge audiences. In this episode of Body and Soul, sanchez discusses a 19th-century Supreme Court ruling that violated indigenous tribal sovereignty; In the Court of the Conqueror, a performance in collaboration with visual artist Patty Ortiz; and The Shed's great exhibition on Brazil's indigenous Yanomami people. 

Bessie Award-winning Stephanie Skura is widely noted not only for her long career as a performer, maker, and teacher of post-modern dance but for being a magical catalyst for other artists' creativity. In today's talk, she shares how her imaginative practice, called scores, opens up liberating possibilities. For Skura, dance is a path to consciousness; a method to access the balancing, healing capacity of intuition; a way to play her role in repairing the world.

Ballet dancer Daphne Lee, currently with world-renowned Dance Theatre of Harlem, has learned much about the joys and rigors of touring. In this talk, she shares her observations, concerns, and tips for young performers and challenges the dance field to consider how it develops new leaders.

Initially trained in dance in her native Cuba, Judith Sánchez Ruíz has enjoyed an illustrious international career that includes performing for one of the towering figures of post-modern dance, Trisha Brown, who died in 2017.  Fans of both Sánchez and Brown rejoiced last year when the Trisha Brown Dance Company named Sánchez as the troupe's first commissioned guest choreographer.

I was honored when Sánchez agreed to take time out from her whirlwind  schedule--we're talking about zipping from Hong Kong to Münster to Brooklyn to Switzerland!--to record this wonderful talk for Body and Soul podcast!

"As the original nomads knew, I needed to affirm, accept, and embrace the idea that home is where our bodies already are and that migrating to new homes is a human right."

Journey along with Brinda Guha through memories of family, community, culture, the inner world, and performance--from Kathak to flamenco to contemporary dance.

Kayhan Irani--writer, performer, mother--finds herself in a swirling constellation of stories, savoring books by writers of color pointing the way to liberatory values and a possible future.

Maxine Montilus has served many roles in dance--performer,  choreographer, administrator, writer, and educator. I asked her to focus  this podcast episode on her experience and ideas as a passionate and  imaginative dance teacher across ages and levels. It was a delight to listen to her, and I hope you will enjoy this, too!

There's no reason to build a wall of labels around devynn emory and their work in this world and between worlds. They care for body, spirit, and community in a multitude of ways--from nursing to choreography, from mediumship to bodywork, from writing to work with death and grieving. This rich interweaving of skills and services sounds strange only in a society that deliberately separates body and soul and fails to respect the multiplicity of ways of knowing and healing. devynn, however, stays attuned to ancient ways and what the land teaches.

Hello, again, everyone! It certainly has been a long, long time!

I'm reviving my long-abandoned podcast Body and Soul and, in the course of doing so, reviving my InfiniteBody blog as well!

I hope you'll inspired by this first new episode featuring dance and interdisciplinary artist Ziiomi Law, US born and raised, now residing in Panama City, Panama. I asked  Ziiomi to talk about what helps them--as a person and artist--reach  beyond restrictions to be all they can be.