We talk about: attention as a material, the politics of audio description, queer abstraction, tuning ensemble in improvisation, avoiding saying "no" when directing, translating site-specific improvisation to a proscenium context, the difference between impulse and desire, refusal as a practice, making experimental dance with AI, and much more…

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Rashaun Mitchell + Silas Riener's work involves the building of collaborative worlds through improvisational techniques, digital technologies, and material construction. They met as dancers in the Merce Cunningham Dance company and since 2010 they have created over 25 multidisciplinary dance works including site-responsive installations, concert dances, gallery performances and dances for film in venues such as the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Barbican Centre, REDCAT, The Walker Art Center, and MoMA/PS1. Throughout they have maintained a commitment to queer culture and aesthetics. Their partnership intentionally blurs authorship and maintains a deep commitment to collaboration with a diverse community of dancers, performers, artists and cultural institutions.

https://www.rashaunsilasdance.com/

@rashaun.silas

SHOW NOTES

Rashaun Mitchell, Silas Riener, and Claudia LaRocco, Already & Not Yet: Rashaun Mitchell and Silas Riener in Conversation with Claudia La Rocco, SFMOMA's Open Space, Nov. 7, 2019

Megan Metcalf, Future Formers, Former Futures, SFMOMA's Open Space, February 13, 2018

Ted Chiang, Why AI isn't going to Make Art, The New Yorker

Hope Mohr, Self and System, SFMOMA's Open Space, Oct. 24, 2019

Signals from the West: Bay Area Artists in Conversation with Merce Cunningham at 100

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