Writing, and dancing, and talking, and writing, and…

I’m going to get right to the point: next weekend, on Saturday, March 11 and Sunday, March 12, I am teaching a weekend workshop called “Dancing in Tongues." The workshop, which is part of the Kathleen Hermesdorf FRESH Festival, is taking place at Joe Goode Annex in San Francisco, from 10 am to 3 pm each day. It presupposes no previous dance experience and is for anyone broadly interested in cultivating any creative practice. Writers, dancers, artists, and others are welcome.

Here’s the class description for my workshop:

This workshop will center on the relationship between movement and language. What's up with words? How does dance connect to text? When does language emerge from the body, and when does it feel disembodied, oppressive, or just plain wrong? How can we choreograph our mouths, tongues, and teeth? In practical terms we will work with: (1) devising the best lip-sync performances in the world, (2) translating text into movement and vice versa, and (3) incorporating spoken text into physical, movement-based performances.

But Silk, you might wonder, what does all that even mean?

Let me break it down for you.

This workshop will center on the relationship between movement and language. We will put our collective energy and attention toward making intentional choices about how we work with movement and language. The relationship between the two can be somewhat automatic, and in this space, we'll make it more intentional and more strange, in order to tap in to the love-hate relationship between language and movement as a generative force for improvisational moving and writing.

What’s up with words? How does dance connect to text? We will do a lot of toggling back and forth between writing/speaking/sounding words and improvising/creating/feeling movements. Both forms have their own special magic and mystery, and toggling back and forth between the two modes (or doing them both at once) helps us create a third thing that can exceed the possibilities of either on its own.

When does language emerge from the body, and when does it feel disembodied, oppressive, or just plain wrong? This is a space for language to emerge as lovingly and as fluidly as possible. Think of that groggy state you might find yourself in right before you fall asleep or right after you wake up: how might words and movement arise in that sort of unguarded, free-associative headspace? How can a group of us working in a studio access “altered states” and find that sweet spot where words and movements can be more than just tools of communication? I want to preserve the strangeness of both language and movement, to preserve the mystery, intuition, and subtext behind feelings that, when put plainly into words or translated mutely into choreography, might feel plain or dull. We will try to accomplish this by crossing the boundaries that tell us that language and movement are separable to begin with.

How can we choreograph our mouths, tongues, and teeth? Look, at the end of the day, this workshop is part of a dance festival, and we're going to be in a beautiful, wide-open dance studio – we are thinking of both language and movement as deeply embodied here. For writers whose words tend to pour out of their fingers and hands, and for dancers whose mouths tend to be shut off from the rest of their body, I want this to be a space where the physicality and anatomy of language comes to the foreground: the word “language,” after all, comes from the Latin word for “tongue.” Let's tap into childhood and infancy, finding our first words not from our heads but from our throats, mouths, tongues, teeth, and breath. Language here can express, more than ideas, a vital inner force, an erotic, life-affirming, yearning to be connected, to shape the world around us, to share our insides with others. We will awaken and activate our voice, tongue, teeth, mouth, breath and throat with just as much precision and care as we would any other body part.

In practical terms we will work with: (1) devising the best lip-sync performances in the world, (2) translating text into movement and vice versa, and (3) incorporating spoken text into physical, movement-based performances. All of the exercises I’m planning for next weekend are geared toward group and solo improvisational activities that can jump-start individual participants' own creative practices. I've made a loose plan based on my own specific experience and interests as a drag queen, dancer, and writer whose practice is completely tied up in the relationship between movement and language. At the same time, this is all totally subject to change, and I’m excited to be in process with those whose practice is totally different from my own. I'm not sure who will be in the room and what they (you) will bring, and I’m looking forward to working with all of your different comfort zones and skills and curiosities. I can't stress enough that this workshop is an open space for anyone with a creative practice in any discipline or no discipline, whether it manifests in performance, writing, teaching, the art of everyday life, whatever it may be. The thing about movement and language is that they’re both unavoidable. I think that not only are the two not as different as they might appear, but also we’re all far more resourced and capable in both domains than we might think we are.

(If you're not in the Bay Area, my long-term plan is to compile the class exercises and my thinking behind them into a little zine-sized sourcebook for artists working with movement and language! So stay tuned for that, if you're far away—)

How to sign up:

• Register here if you want to come to both days and register here if you want to do a drop-in for either the Saturday or the Sunday class. This workshop is priced at $120 for both days or $65 for a one-day drop-in. If that's too steep for you but you really want to be there, I want you to be there too! FRESH is also offering work-study and NOTAFLOF spots and you can email them at freshreg2023@gmail.com to discuss that. (There's also bundle deals if you want to register for some of the other workshops this week.) I am so, so honored to be a part of FRESH Festival this year, and I'm so grateful to the team that's keeping it running. It's an absolute labor of love, and they could use your support with fundraising if you have any desire to donate. I did!

What I’m reading (and listening to):

• Are You For Sale?, a podcast created by Miguel Gutierrez. OK, I put off listening to this for a while because I get so angry and confused when I think about arts funding that I didn't want to listen to a whole podcast about it. However, if you are someone who works in dance or goes to see dance a lot, this is a must. Really thoroughly researched, well-done, and humorous take on the extremely depressing reality of seeking funding for dance in the US.
• Blood & Guts in High School by Kathy Acker. I'm really, really late to this party, and I'm not sure how it took me this long to read it. I've finally been bitten by the Acker bug, and I can't remember the last time a book made me feel as crazy as this one does.

What else is coming up:

• Angels at Aunt Charlie's Lounge, Tuesday, March 14!
• Juicy Fruit at Bar Part Time, Thursday, March 16!