Photo by Tim Walter
Renay Aumiller
Renay Aumiller has been changing, and it’s not just in response to the politics of the moment. It’s about her, the art she makes, and the process by which she makes it. It’s also in the context of a dance community that felt small and close-knit to her when she moved here in 2011 but has grown considerably larger and more diffuse since then.
Aumiller’s work with aerial dance and large props has been seen in prior Durham Independent Dance Artists shows Blood Moon and boneGlow. This weekend, she opens DIDA’s late-arriving fifth season (see sidebar below) with RAW, a showcase of solos by Aumiller, Murielle Elizéon, Megan Mazarick, Tommy Noonan, and Matthew Young.
Taking place in spaces throughout The Fruit, the evening expresses the individuality of the five artists as both a distinguishing and uniting characteristic—and conjures some of the intentional community Aumiller missed from the Durham dance scene of yore. We recently spoke with her about the tension between solo and group work and the relationship between intention and the unknown.
INDY: How is the audience going to move throughout the many spaces within The Fruit to see these five solos?
RENAY AUMILLER: We’d really like the audience to explore on their own—unstructured but within a structure. We’ll only allow about forty people per show, because each area is so small, and we’re going to split them up into two groups. We have a map of a journey that they could take. But we left a lot of time within the show on purpose. If people just want to go immediately to the next area and take a peek, awesome. There’s a lot of agency built in for the audience.
How did your group approach using such a varied space?
I do want the audience to be engaged in a traditional theater way, but I was getting kind of—I don’t know if “bored” is the right word, but I felt like there was something more that I could offer in terms of engagement. I didn’t want to take away a sense of choice. At the same time, with my own work, I was really feeling the need for a change. I’ve been working in this structure that I’m the choreographer and I work with dancers. The authoritarian triangle down was just so not who I am. This show is a response to that. The entire structure has been developed in direct conversation with the other four choreographers and dancers. We’ve really created this together. All of us are exposing this raw sense of self but in very different ways.
For example, Tommy [Noonan] and I are making experiences that rely on the audience to be there. It’s not anything choreographed, and it’s not an improvisation. It’s actually an experience created with, and because, an audience is witnessing it. Tommy’s relying on a witness, but each thing is going to be different. But it’s not a work in progress, it’s very much a practice.
I’m pushing the same way. I’m asking the audience to partner with me to choreograph in the moment, expanding on something I presented recently in the Proxemic Media series at Empower Dance Studio. Matthew [Young], who is an improvisational artist, usually works within group settings, so this is the first time he’s really doing a solo work. And Megan [Mazarick] is trying something new by really delving into a character-driven political realm.
These are five solos, but this is also a collaborative experience that you’re all putting together. What happened in those group discussions about the evening as a whole, and how did those discussions feed back on the solos that each of you created?
That whole question was the impetus to do this show. It was sitting down with Tommy, Murielle, Matthew, and Megan, all separately, and saying, “Hey, I really would love some support and community from people who are all kind of in the same boat.” Working on solos can be freeing but also lonely. I get caught up in my head, and I don’t have that outside eye. I wanted the show to be about us coming together each month to talk and share ideas and feedback. That discussion was what I felt I needed as an artist—just a group that I could share something with and feel comfortable. And also disagreeing in a safe and constructive way.
It sounds like, through this show, you've drawn a line in the sand. If community doesn’t just happen on its own, let's create one in order to produce opportunities and work like this.
That’s exactly what happened. When I moved here in 2011, we would have potlucks and clothing swaps all the time. The dance community was small enough then that that was doable. We don’t really have that anymore. It’s too big, and we don’t all know each other anymore, which is actually a good problem to have. So I created a community, because that’s what I had been missing. I know we couldn’t go back to the way it used to be—that would feel very artificial. But this whole way of working is me trying to figure out how to make work that has the level of artistry I want to experience, but at the same time have a group so we can support one another.
—Chris Vitiello
Hey, Where's DIDA Been?
Durham Independent Dance Artists usually yokes its seasons to the academic year. But for its fifth season, DIDA streamlined, delaying the opening until this week and paring it down to five shows (plus two bonus events). The organizers took the fall off to address issues stemming from their own success, which had made them the accidental gatekeepers of the dance scene.
“I would echo what Renay said about the declining frequency of meet-ups,” says DIDA co-organizer Alyssa Noble. As the scene grew, its center dispersed, and new entrants didn’t always feel like part of it. “We found ourselves being handed big issues in the dance community, and we weren’t equipped to handle all of them. There was a need for these meet-ups to start again for us to kind of pass the baton, making sure people knew that they didn’t need our permission.”
DIDA spent the fall sparking meet-ups and having individual conversations as the organization tries to rethink its goals for the dance scene it helped galvanize.
“The meet-ups have been a mix of folks who’ve been in the community and folks who are newer or a little greener, just starting to choreograph work and think about entrenched challenges,” Noble says. “DIDA was formed to alleviate everyone having to reinvent the wheel when they wanted to to self-produce, and now, folks have new questions. Having someone who’s already experienced what you’re going through and can help—that’s what community is, right?”
DIDA is also examining the ways in which it might be inadvertently creating barriers to entry rather than breaking them down.
“We realized DIDA was reinforcing hierarchies in that it emphasized evening-length works, which has proved over time to be exclusive,” Noble says, citing the cost and Eurocentric bias of the format. “It’s important to partner with artists in a way that feels authentic to them.”
Indeed, after helping to centralize local dance, DIDA's new project is to decentralize itself.
“One of the challenges in curating a season in a small community is that DIDA has become the de facto tastemaker,” Noble says. “This is an opportunity to re-emphasize that the DIDA season is a sampler. It's not the only good dance happening in Durham.” —Brian Howe
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