In this episode, NCCAkron's Executive/Artistic Director, Christy Bolingbroke enters the 'studio' with New York City-based dancer, choreographer, filmmaker, and photographer, Kayla Farrish. Kayla is the founder and director of Kayla Farrish/Decent Structure Arts. Through which she shares her vision of intimate storytelling and makes work that delves into socio-political structures and the liberation of people. Her work has garnered residencies and film screenings across the country, as well as commissions by Gibney Dance and Danspace Project in New York.
In this episode, NCCAkron's Executive/Artistic Director, Christy Bolingbroke enters the 'studio' with New York City-based dancer, choreographer, filmmaker, and photographer, Kayla Farrish. Kayla is the founder and director of Kayla Farrish/Decent Structure Arts. Through which she shares her vision of intimate storytelling and makes work that delves into socio-political structures and the liberation of people. Her work has garnered residencies and film screenings across the country, as well as commissions by Gibney Dance and Danspace Project in New York.
INTRODUCTION: Thanks for joining us Inside the Dancer’s Studio where we bring listeners, like you, closer to the creative process. Inside the Dancer’s Studio is a program of The National Center for Choreography at The University of Akron, as part of our Ideas in Motion initiative. This episode was recorded in the presence of a virtual audience in the Spring of 2021. Today we join Christy Bolingbroke, our Executive / Artistic Director in conversation with New York City-based dancer, choreographer, filmmaker, and photographer, Kayla Farrish. She is the founder and director of Kayla Farrish/Decent Structure Arts. Through which she shares her vision of intimate storytelling and makes work that delves into socio-political structures, and the liberation of people. Her work has garnered residencies and film screenings across the country, as well as commissions by Gibney Dance and Danspace Project in New York.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: You are doing many different things and I know you work very interdisciplinary too, but from a choreographic standpoint, how or when did you know that you wanted to, to also own that hat? Or become, or be a choreographer?
KAYLA FARRISH: I, it’s interesting ‘cause since I was young I always was just making. And, and choreographing, yeah, from young, yeah, young age where people would be like, do you wanna, you know, make up a dance for here, for the school, for church, for the studios. I was like, you make up your own recital dances, so I feel like that was already interweaved, like interwoven for me at a young age. And so I, I actually at a young age, I just remember even getting to college programs or to different places and remember people having different experiences where they’re like oh this is my first time choreographing, and I was like oh, they didn’t have you make up your recital? I know, I was like, you know. Yeah, I guess like a, already like was practiced in it and already like when, like learning forms, or learning yeah different dance styles or hearing music, or what I read, or films I saw, like oh I could see this, I was already seeing dances happening. So, I feel like I knew for a while I wanted to choreograph. I was scared in college, I remember, I’m doing it from this Careers in Dance class that showed the cost of having a company, and I was like oh, I don’t know about this anymore. And, but what made different so, once I got to New York, I focused more on freelancing and performing and building my career in performance first, but I always had so many ideas, so I just kept my journal and I write them all down.I would try little snippets or make small works for this small dance festival, or this idea, until my, until a friend told me about dance residency programs and funding, yeah funding either through residences or small, space grants or something like that. And I felt like that was a huge shift, because I was like if I have support, I can, I can make these works. Yeah, so I know that was a roundabout question or answer.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: No but it also sounds like, whether it’s the opportunities of choreographing for your own recital growing up or using support in those opportunities as a filter for what sounds like a myriad of ideas. Cause when, you know, one of the things that I wanted to ask you was like so how do you start, right? I know some choreographers, that they will improvise, and they’ll work on an idea, you know, and then they’re like, oh this is a piece, and some that will start with writing, so it’s such a vast spectrum. What is your process? Where do you begin?
KAYLA FARRISH: I love content. Yeah, I get, I just, yeah, it’s an idea. And questions that I, like, there will be these large-scale questions that I don’t know if I’ll actually answer, like ever get to the full answer or, I know that’s kind of vague, I mean. Like one. Ok. I’m trying to figure out my way of grouping this. But yeah, I start with the idea and the content and, I think a lot of my ideas are around human experience. I am really interested in, in people and seeing us. Seeing our full range and then, and those questions hold up things like about myself or my history or what I’m thinking. My identity, what I wanted to see, what I wanted to change, and so a lot of my work did become more, yeah it has a lot of socio-political themes. So yeah, questioning power with race and gender. Like what society allows you to do, how we can push against that, looking at history, lived history. And defiance. But I know that those, these are the, you know, these are large questions whether they’re about these socio-political ideas or about like, how I could see myself at my fullest capacity. Like, the, but the opening questions cause, just hitting the mic, the openness of that question allows you to investigate that in so many ways. So, I do do a lot of improvisation, love improvisation. And writing, and then I, a big thing that happened for me, while in New York was picking up a camera. Because I was interested in imagery or photography to like scenes and filmmaking. I also, just like, portraiture. But that’s kind of, it’s already in the choreography of dance. Like while.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Well, not for everyone.
KAYLA FARRISH: Well, I guess cause we’re still a people, you, it is a moving image to me. Like you see, you see, we are people and there’s these relationships that come up or ideas that come up by us being onstage. Not, and it can be abstracted or can like really lean into, not the literal, I guess like, yeah, that translation of the, or communicating that story or what’s happening.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: I mean, I was gonna say that it’s, what I hear is that you don’t just limit yourself to I need to make a dance, all movement all day long. And we know that the creative process is not a linear one, so that openness for questioning. And what I also heard in you saying, you’re not gonna solve the big questions. So that idea too, that like, what you’re looking to be inspired by are maybe the unanswerable questions is really interesting because it is something that you can continue to riff off of and expand and finding the camera as another means to frame or shape the dance, I definitely saw in, in some of your work with, with ‘Sunnyside’ and the ‘Anchors of Iridescence,’ how you really used the opportunity of the camera to zero in on the humanness. Which I think speaks to your satiated interest around storytelling and dance theater as opposed to movement for movement's sake. How and when in the process are you making music choices? Or are you choosing your collaborators? And what do you look for in expanding the process to include those people?
KAYLA FARRISH: I was gonna, I was like, I want to say one thing too, I was thinking about the movement for movement's sake.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Please!
KAYLA FARRISH: Cause I was like, lately that’s been, I, cause sometimes I’m like, you know I work so hard on trying to, I guess communicate the intention or the internal dialogue that’s happening sometimes, sometimes when I feel like dance gets viewed, like, oh they’re dancing I don’t need to try to understand any more. I’m like, no, no sometimes we have like this intention. And intention can also be abstract.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: We’re people too.
KAYLA FARRISH: Right, right, we’re people too! I was like, wait, wait! But also, I’ve been really, I’ve been amazed at also letting myself, I think in other people’s processes when I’m freelancing, I like to play with form and movement for movement’s sake. And lately in my own process, they’re like, I’ve had some solos that were more based out of movement, like real movement games, like I said, anything is possible.And, and it felt very Cunningham-esque to me, where it’s just like, yeah the surprise of like what comes up and accepting it all, of all these different forms and textures, I was like, wow, just thinking about just how much movement spoke without me trying to curate that or be more human and, and also what feeling that, even idea of like anything is possible, anything is possible had such meaning to me as a person, because I was like, do I believe that?I’ve just been thinking about that question too, that might happen more in my choreography. But music, sometimes that’s what the idea is at the start. Like I’ll hear a song, or I play with text, I’m laughing cause my collaborators know, I’ll have my phone and I’ll record myself creating, just improvising and I, and it sometimes sounds crazy, but it just, it, all the things that just come out are so. Sometimes really.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: That sounds very 21st century too, right?
KAYLA FARRISH: Yeah. 21st century!
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Martha Graham couldn’t record herself on her phone.
KAYLA FARRISH: She could not, I didn’t think about that, that is a 21st century practice. But it’s made, it’s made my monologues, or certain audio texts that contain. That’s like, oh this is the content I’ve been trying to explain, and sometimes I’m satirical, sometimes it’s poetic and direct. But yeah, music, I’m really attached to music. And a really, I’m really inspired by what the sound score brings. Sometimes I edit the, make mixes of like these different, like if I’m trying to build a genre of, I just want to give a specific example. Like I was making a section called video honey and trying to explore kind of how women and women with sexuality and, and how, how that’s, how that’s negatively viewed. Or how that has a lens on it from the beginning. If, and, and yeah, and how women are even put on screen. And so, I like, put these different hip hop songs, or different songs that didn’t have necessarily the best meaning, but they’re, you know, like these popular songs, that we’re like, yeah. And I put them, just bits of them in order and side by side next to Audre Lorde’s texts empowering, trying to talk about empowering women and their uses of the erotic, but uses of, of feeling and intuition basically. But kind of flipping against those, but that felt really powerful to me, I was going back, you know, like really reflecting on what these sounds and what these words mean, and then putting that alongside, you know, someone’s writing or ideas on it. It’s like, oh I can kind of unpack this and not just bop along. But yeah. So, sound happens throughout my process. Yeah, sorry, didn’t mean to stop you.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: I was gonna reflect that, you know, hearing that very concrete example, it sounds like also how you treat the movement to explore the form a little bit and, and question it. Whereas a lot of people, they will not touch the score, right? Like, this music, this song even, it’s three and a half minutes, this is going to be a three-and-a-half-minute dance. So, the idea that you’re translating these same, these same questions both with the body and with music, I would imagine similarly with your film work too, ‘cause I notice that in how you, you really choreograph with the camera, the editing process that creates some of those different layers and sort of collage working if that might be a term to use for it. It’s the same skillset, but your mediums are moving along a vast spectrum. That’s what I hear.
KAYLA FARRISH: I love that. Oh man, I’ve never noticed that. I was like, cause I, yeah, you’re right. Like all, a lot of, I haven’t gotten to collaborate with many musicians yet, which I am, I’m interested in that, but now that makes me think for those processes, it’s like how much can we play with the score or mix it up. Cause sometimes it, I’m like, do you need to fill up a whole song? Do you like I do like abrupt cuts, or letting things build. Yeah, that range, that's interesting and then you’re, you’re also, I feel like there’s a lot of heavy music influences once again from when I was younger, I think of like Sam Cooke and Nina Simone, Nina Simone came later for me, and then just doing the Louis Armstrong Project. And so, there’s like, these like soul singers that also did sociopolitical work and my dad loved musical theater. So, I was taking in all these different sounds. Yeah, so I, I am really inspired by music and music video. And then I want to answer your question about collaborators.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Yes.
KAYLA FARRISH: Yeah, when do I pick collaborators? I feel like some, I feel like it goes in different ways. Oftentimes when I am imagining the content or the ideas, I can, I, I can either see some of, they’re often people that I’ve been around or gotten to perform with in other company work, or just have seen. And, and I’m like, oh I can envision them in this, in this idea in, or I think they’re gonna challenge, challenge how I would move, or how I would respond. And I was like, I want a different perspective and, and yeah, I like a lot of discussion. So, I’ve really like, yeah, I like to work with collaborators that are interested in embodying content, questioning content with me.Yeah, I do, I’m like unpacking this, I do like a collaborative process, I really like the discussion and sound board that expands, you know the answers to those unanswerable questions. I’m just posing the question, and then I, you know, guide the trajectory of, of the work. Of like, ok, how are we gonna go through these answers and like what’s, what are really, what are we unfolding? What’s the intention, what’s this path? So, some of them end up all, some all those ideas end up in there, some of them don’t. And then other times, oh sorry.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: No, no, please continue, it’ll hold.
KAYLA FARRISH: And I enjoy a lot of partnering, and physical movement. So, it’s, it’s, I. I look at artists who have physicality or are also into partnering. And sometimes it’s just artists that I’m really interested in and I’m just like, can we make something? And, and that’s been really fruitful and lovely because it’ll be, sometimes it’s people I don’t have a relationship with and I’ll be like, I have this idea, will you come to the studio and try it? And it’s just this magic that I didn’t expect.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: What a rich invitation and, and also an openness to trust. Cause there are a lot of people who won’t invite those into the process until they’re like, we’ve, we’ve got to go in a couple states first. So, what I also appreciated and was gonna reflect is that unpacking what collaboration means, I think that’s becoming more jargon, both in, in dance, not just the performing arts, but in the world, right? We look for a collaborative team, we’re looking to hire someone that can work well with others and collaborate. And there are a lot of different ways that people can collaborate. And I've certainly seen this in the performing arts too, right? Like whether it’s a composer and a choreographer and the composer says, like, I will send you the score when it’s done, and there is no back and forth, there is no questioning of content. Or, or similarly a lighting designer who’s like, I’ll come in and I’ll watch one rehearsal and then, you know, I’ll, I’ll do my thing separate. So, it’s a little bit more, you know, just product oriented. As opposed to being a part of the process. So that, that’s something we hadn’t heard yet and I appreciate that you named it. A little more product oriented, I did want to ask, and this is a, a big question among our students, how do you name something? How do you, like, name a dance when it’s, it’s not fully done yet sometimes. Like, how, how do you do something that seems so finite for such an open process and way of working?
KAYLA FARRISH: Names for me, it’s like, I feel, I feel like I have a harder time usually with descriptions actually of like trying to really, I think cause the questions I ask are so big, maybe that’s why, they’re so ranging, or like the content is so ranging, that when it’s really early on in the process, it’s like, I can tell you what it might be about but I really don’t know. The titles, I feel like the titles really, what helped me was all the writing, or is just writing in general. Cause sometimes, sometimes I pull it from poetry, sometimes I’m pulling it from the writing that I was doing on, on the work, just getting ready for it. It just the, the titles normally, how I know that it, it that it fits is just, I don’t know, to me it just feels, it feels right. I don’t know, like it has feeling and it, and whether I know what the piece is or not, it just feels like it contains what I hope to say. Even if it’s like the edge of it, and so sometimes mine is like, I think I, long titles so. Sometimes mine is almost a sentence, like a fragment and sometimes it’s. I was like do I have single word ones? I don’t have many single word ones. ‘Black Body Sonata,’ ‘Anchors of Iridescence.’ I think there, something with feeling or something I can see working on something called ‘The Beat That Came Apart Midair.’ And that came from me watching a, I was watching a show and I was like, yeah, it’s. It has the metaphor and the symbolism of what I see this new idea to be. Yeah, I don’t know if that, if that helps.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: I love that.
KAYLA FARRISH: And just trust the gut and feeling.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: No, it does. It, it’s something, I think it’s reframing the challenge around, right? Like when we ask someone for a title that that can come across very limiting, but even hearing you be able to name, like you don’t do one-word titles, or you haven’t yet and that sometimes it’s a sentence, it immediately evoked more for me that a title is not meant to be a box or a container, but a prompt for the audience to consider when they’re watching your work. And so, I love that. I was like, ok. And you also alluded a little bit to like you were watching, you know, a show and that, you, you know, gave you a title or related to something you were working on. Someone tuned in, from tuning in in Akron has asked, so what is some content that is inspiring you right now? I think cause we’re all maybe a little screen, you know, like wiped and, but still like absorbing so much, what, what sort of content are you vibing on?
KAYLA FARRISH: Hello, thank you for writing in. I, I’m really into, so I’m working on this current film ‘Martyr’s Fiction’ on dreaming and surrealism. And at the start I could not really tell you about surrealism, I was like, what is that? And, and, and just in that starting question of surrealism, while I know it relates to reality, it began this like big question just because the dreaming was so open. I, I was like, who gets to afford to dream? Like, who, like, cause sometimes when you’re just thinking about survival, as we are in a pandemic and also thinking about race and power and, I mean there’s different, oppression, there’s lots of different people that experience this. Yeah, it was like, do you really have space to dream? And that’s really morphed into, or you do have space to dream, do you, sorry that, that’s not the full question I want to say, but that morphed into, people were telling me the themes I was talking about sound more like magical realism. So, this new idea I’m thinking about is, is if I could travel, if we could travel through history and look at different ways that people have survived and like make that our power, or realize that, or realize that we have that power within us. Like there’s just a lot that I want to explore in that, and that I want to explore in that, and I want to explore culturally about Black people. And, and in ode and in celebration, and some things within my own history, like documentary style. So, I, I guess that yeah, some of the content that I’m inspired by is magical realism and sometimes that comes from literally the people around me, like getting to talk to my family members. Some of the physical content I’ve been watching. I love ‘Lovecraft Country,' if anyone’s watched that? People have been telling me like Octavia Butler for the books. And Toni Morrison and some Latin-American artist, I am forgetting their name right now, but someone else wrote a name, Isabel Allende. Yeah so I...
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: We take recommendations too.
KAYLA FARRISH: Taking ‘em, taking ‘em. And music, lots, I’ve just been taking a lot of music in over this pandemic time. Just sound and walking around outside and imagining, imagining different worlds.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: You have such a spirit of abundance. Which just speaks to me that something, it’s a curatorial value we hold at NCCAkron as well, so I can’t imagine, but at the same time, I’m sure we all have these days. And for our non-choreographers, anyone who’s had to face the blank page, or a big deadline. What do you do when you are facing a rut? A creative rut, you’ve hit a wall, but yet you’ve got to keep making. You’re working against something, do you have any, you know, tools that you might share, or practices to kind of circumvent that challenge?
KAYLA FARRISH: The rut! I feel like the rut for me this year was being resistant to, to change. Or new, or not understanding, like, for me it wasn’t creatively running out of ideas, but it was like. Sometimes not trusting my ideas or judging them, but also, I think, I don’t want to say, when you’re unclear. Like being in a really unclear, muggy places and having a deadline, I’m like, I was like, is this what I want to do? Cause like.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Like, where to go from here?
KAYLA FARRISH: Yeah. But I think those are very human places, and I think they’re very honest places. And all the, and all these different places you haven’t experienced before. I’m always surprised, it just, I’m always surprised, again we’re 21st century practices, when I set up my camera or my phone, and watching myself on like days or rehearsals where I’m like, I don’t know what I’m doing, like I’m not gonna use any of this. And I come back like a month later and watch it, and I was like, that was brilliant. I’ve never made anything like that in my life. And just being in that different headspace, or, or you’re in a new space and new things come out of that.So, I, I mean that was one side of it is just thinking, is just trusting a bit more the process, or like the process will, it will reveal itself. But things that I do for ruts are, is there another way to question this idea? Is there another entry in? Like maybe the entry, like, maybe this isn’t the entry point, like, I’m having a hard time getting in, so I’m like this doesn’t make sense for me right now or feel right. And then sometimes for me it’s just doing it, like using other mediums. Or looking at other, looking at maybe how other people have responded to that. Like taking in other artwork. What are you seeing, what are you reading? What are you experiencing? Cause sometimes you’re so in it, you just need to open out. I can’t solve it!
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: Right, right. You’re too close to it. That’s a great note. Yes. It’s been so lovely to get to talk with you, I have one last question. And, and that is, in making a creative life, what advice might you offer to folks who are in the process of doing that right now, or are students who are also thinking about what’s next as they continue their college career before entering the real world?
KAYLA FARRISH: Yeah, I think. Well first I think all of you are so bold and brave and also, it’s gonna be so great when you’re out here. I know, I feel like I know pandemic, I was gonna say, pandemic land, I don’t want to make light of it, pandemic time adds on certain fears. And I think what helped me the most coming to New York. I chose New York without having a secure job or anything like that. I chose it because of opportunity and the range. Whether that was in freelance performance, whether that was in creating, making work. Different industries. But I feel like that openness to, to the puzzle pieces, like the openness to, ok I’m gonna try, I want to try it and see what this company’s process is like. I’m gonna, you know, you were talking to me before, I’m gonna work with Helen, I’m gonna work with Kate, I’m gonna tour with Aim, I’m going to try ‘Sleep No More’ dance theater, which is a totally, different practices. I’m gonna make a music video, you know. I’m, I’m, yeah, I’m gonna make something for the stage. And those opportunities, sometimes they just come up. Like people, you know, see what you’re doing, and they’re like, hey can you do this? And I think you should, I think you should, like if it speaks to you, even if it is something that you’re afraid of, I think you should do it and see what comes out of it. Cause you could, I don’t know, I feel like I found different loves and different dreams, I thought I was gonna have one, like a couple, like the same dream and then I got here and I was like, oh I want, there’s, there’s so much I want to do. So, I think just being open and seeing what you’re really excited about. And then you can prioritize, or hopefully, yeah you can form around what you’re really excited about. That’s what makes me feel like I’m building my creative life. Now that I know more about like what I want to do. And that will probably still change now that I’ve just said that, but, and that’s ok.
CHRISTY BOLINGBROKE: But no, and with the magical realism and introducing dreaming, this, this encouragement to have more than one dream. I couldn’t imagine a better ending. Kayla, thank you, thank you so much for dreaming with us, for going out on a limb and telling us a little bit more about your practice.
KAYLA FARRISH: Bye thank you, bye.
OUTRODUCTION: Inside the Dancer’s Studio lunchtime talk series is supported by NCCAkron, The University of Akron, The University of Akron Foundation, and the Mary Schiller Myers Lecture Series in the Arts. Our podcast program is produced by Jennifer Edwards, Ellis Rovin is our composer and editor, transcription by Madeline Greenberg, theme music by Floco Torres, cover art by Micah Kraus, and Julian Curet and Kat Wentz are our artist coordinators. To learn more about NCCAkron, please visit us online at nccakron.org and follow us on Instagram or Facebook @nccakron. We hope you enjoyed this episode, and we encourage you to subscribe on your favorite podcast streaming platform by searching for Inside the Dancer’s Studio. Thank you for listening and stay curious.