ASU dance professor to premiere original work in New York City

Arizona State University Professor Keith Thompson will premiere his original work “Love Alone Anthology Project” in the 20th anniversary La MaMa Moves! Dance Festival in New York City April 10–13.

“I’m really honored to have my work presented there,” said Thompson. “It’s kind of surreal. I can’t believe it’s actually happening.”

Thompson, professor and assistant director of dance in the School of Music, Dance and Theatre in the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, has been working on the piece for nine years.

“I am able to do these types of things because ASU wants us to all be contributors to our fields,” said Thompson. “It’s the fabric of who we are at ASU and what we strive to achieve. As faculty, we continue to work and take time to build and create with colleagues outside of the university. That magnifies ASU as a global presence and that connects us to the world.”

The piece is inspired by “Love Alone: 18 Elegies for Rog,” written by AIDS activist Paul Monette in 1988. Monette wrote the collection of unstructured poems in honor of his lover, Roger Horwitz.

“It’s a rollercoaster of emotions, and I fell in love with it,” said Thompson. “It is also personal for me, because I lived through the era of the AIDS epidemic. There’s so much that is still relevant around an epidemic in general, but there’s also so much history — going from thousands of people dying, friends and colleagues I knew, and now people living with it. That in itself is such a tribute to medicine, endurance and humanity.”

Longtime friend and collaborator Brendan McCall, who performs in the piece, introduced Thompson to the book. Thompson was drawn to the material not only for its content but also for the structure — or lack of it. Monette’s poems reference different times in history and jump back and forth between experiences and conversations. This fit well with Thompson’s choreographic style.

“I don’t love linear storytelling,” said Thompson. “I prefer storytelling that has more depth and layers and enough space that anyone watching it can react to it because of their own experiences.”

Thompson said the performance is meant to be a conversation between the viewer and the performers, with the audience imagining how they connect to the story.

“It could be you, the viewer watching, talking about any of the stories you’re hearing,” said Thompson. “It has so much passion and love, but also anger and sadness and humor inside of it.”

Dancers Clarence Brooks, Shawn Brush, Aidan Feldman and Brendan McCall represent a range of ages, from 32 to 64. They will portray six of the 18 elegies through solos, duets and one trio. Members of Thompson’s danceTactics performance group, they collaborate together on creating the material. Thompson guides and directs the process.

“They’ve made it really easy and fun; they’re inquisitive and smart,” said Thompson about the dancers. “They also challenge me to grow, to be authentic about what I’m sharing with them. The way that they think about history and how they research something and what that means to them is really different from how I think about it. It gives me a bigger toolbox because of what they bring to the table.”

The performance will also include spoken word, sound composition and recordings of the dancers’ voices. Thompson worked with composers Albert Mathias, Maesa Pullman and Dalal Bruckmann to score the chapters. Projection designer David Fishel and visual artist/photographer Robert Flynt worked on the project as well with lighting design by Joe Levasseur. Lacey Garcia, an alum of the ASU dance program, is the stage manager.

“It’s really collaborative,” said Thompson. “There’s a lot of experimentation. I give the dancers prompts based on things we have talked about, then I look at the material and mix it and manipulate it. The composers watch the videos and develop ideas of the types of soundscapes we need. It’s all going on at the same time, and it’s really beautiful.”

The La Mama Moves! Dance Festival runs for three weeks in April. Thompson’s work is part of the opening weekend of the festival.

Thompson said this work has felt like an important part of history.

“It’s part of my job as an educator and an artist to help educate dancers that I work with who aren’t connected to the lineage of the material,” he said. “The way that the lineage is passed down is handled in a thoughtful, respectful way.”