Dance Festival aims to provoke thought
From the San Diego Union Tribune
'Blurred Borders' examines protest and human rights
By MARCIA MANNA | SPECIAL TO THE U-T
Saturday, May 19, 2012
"The notion of expressing multiple points of view through movement is a lofty ideal, especially when tackling issues surrounding human rights. That
has been the soul of the annual Blurred Borders International Dance Festival, an event founded by choreographer Patricia Rincon, head of dance at UC
San Diego’s Department of Theatre and Dance.
The festival is sponsored by the Patricia Rincon Dance Collective and features four works on Friday and Saturday at the Saville Theatre in San Diego.
This year, Rincon’s collective will perform “Protest Dance,” a work inspired by the history of protest and its link to the Occupy movement. Rincon
says she felt compelled to challenge social perceptions and fight injustice from an early age.
“In my generation, there were many cultural movements happening,” says Rincon, who boasts that she was a protester in high school in the 1960s. “There
were the Black Panthers, the Vietnam War and Cesar Chavez. I went back, looked at the film footage and found that it was truly about economic
inequality and a broken financial system. I thought people need to remember history.”
The beginning of “Protest Dance” is performed against a backdrop of protest videos related to events such as the Kent State shootings and the civil
rights marches led by Martin Luther King Jr.
“The dance lives within the images of protest,” Rincon explains. “Then it shifts into various movements or vignettes that reflect a group of people
who are oppressed and have something to say.”
In one segment, the dancers interact dressed in surgical gowns, caps and gloves. The idea sprouted from Rincon’s research about immigrants coming to
America at the turn of the century and how they were perceived.
“We view immigrants as ‘others,’ and I got the idea from people who work in kitchens, people who do the dirty jobs and must constantly sanitize
themselves,” Rincon says. “Sanitization, and how we have become neurotic about it, was interesting to me.”
Another vignette explores the tension surrounding gay marriage. Rincon instructed dancers Brian Bose and Thomas McDonnell to use movements that segue
from gentle discovery to aggression, with a muscled exchange of pushing and pulling.
“What I am trying to do is show the different qualities in a relationship,” Rincon says. “How it’s an investigation of sharing weight. It ignites so
that the movement becomes larger, bigger, more exciting.”
The Blurred Borders International Dance Festival is known for mixing things up with promising students, seasoned choreographers, cutting-edge troupes
and multimedia artists eager to add their flavor to the diverse mix.
This year, Kim Epifano’s Epiphany Productions Dance Theater, based in San Francisco, will perform “Alonesome/Twosome,” a poignant duet featuring a
deaf dancer, sign language and a hearing dancer.
Local choreographer Joe Alter has created “The End Is the Beginning” for the Tijuana-based troupe Lux Boreal.
And Rincon describes the premiere of “cracked melody…(UN)chained,” by New York-based choreographer Darcy Naganuma and musicians Kyle Adam Blair and
Andy Muehlausen, as “mythical urban magic.” The energetic and experimental new work includes a dive into a grand piano.
At the conclusion of “Protest Dance,” Bose will perform a monologue that draws from the slogans used during rallies in the 1960s and the Occupy
movement.
“It will build into an actual protest,” Rincon says. “I have extras coming in to do a major demonstration on the stage.”
The Patricia Rincon Dance Collective celebrates its 30th anniversary this year. When Rincon looks back, she considers the challenges she has overcome,
from the struggle to bring international dance troupes to San Diego after 9/11 to the impact the economy has had on the arts.
“I think we have held to our mission,” Rincon says, “to present work that ignites a conversation, work that represents a cross-fertilization of ideas.
“When I deal with budget cuts, I close my eyes and think, ‘What is the one thing I’m going to hold on to?’ It’s Blurred Borders. That is closest to my
heart as an artist. I believe in it.”
Marcia Manna is a San Diego arts writer
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow mindedness.”
—Mark Twain
\"La vida es dura, el corazon es puro, y cantamos hasta la madrugada.” (Life is hard, the heart is pure and we sing until dawn.)
—Kirsty MacColl, Mambo de la Luna
\"Alea iacta est.\"
—Julius Caesar
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