An experimental dance film installation about radical aliveness and intimacy
by Anya Cloud
Photo Credit: Justin Morrison
it's the love in between is an experimental film installation that centers the intergenerational embodied intersection of four important experimental dance artists of our time: Ishmael Houston-Jones, Sara Shelton Mann, taisha paggett, and Makisig Akin. It explores radical expressions of ways to be within duet form to reveal intimate and epic portals of connection, divergence, and aliveness. it's the love in between is a ritual and a reckoning. Through immediacy, touch, sweat, laughter, and exquisitely shifting compositions, this installation ignites the imagination and activates spaces for transformation.
This work was made possible through the B2 Creative Residency Program. Learn more here.
Anya Cloud (she/her)
Intersectional and cross-disciplinary artist-activist collaboration is central to my work. I am devoted to practicing, researching, teaching, and performing experimental dance through anti-oppression methodologies. My work has been produced/supported by Movement Research, Workshop Foundation, freeskewl, Screen Dance Festival Stockholm, La MaMa, Los Angeles PerformancePractice, REDCAT, Tanzquartier, and Guatemala Department of Culture among others. I have worked with and/or performed for Sara Shelton Mann, Nancy Stark Smith, Ishmael Houston-Jones, Karen Schaffman, Karen Nelson, Makisig Akin, Mary Pearson, and Nhu Nguyen among others. I am Assistant Professor of Dance at CU Boulder, hold an MFA in Dance Theatre, and trained in Feldenkrais®.
Makisig Akin (they/them)
I am a queer, transgender Filipino born in the Philippines and currently based in Berlin, Germany. My artistic work focuses on strengthening the recognition of intersectional identities, reconnecting with my ancestry, and decentralizing Western ideologies in dance-making. I create dance platforms to engage with socio-political topics within the queer and BiPOC community. My work draws from Filipino Traditional Dance, Contact Improvisation, Kung Fu, Improvisation, walking meditation, Authentic Movement, Bouldering/Climbing and Contemporary Dance. My work has been supported by Tanzfabrik, Uferstudios, Dock 11, Nah Dran Extended/ADA studios, Fonds Darstellende Künste #TakeHeart 2022, Schloss Bröllin Residency 2022.
Tara Knight (she/her)
Tara Knight is a filmmaker, animator, and media designer for live performance.
Her broad range of media practices includes animated shorts, dance collaborations, world-premiere projection designs at La Jolla Playhouse, and media installations. The Floating World, a performance she co-created with Malashock Dance, was awarded an Emmy in 2011. Her Mikumentary series of films have screened in institutions ranging from pop culture to fine arts, including: New York Comic Con, South by Southwest Interactive panel, Time Warner’s “Future of Storytelling,” animation festivals in Britain, Hong Kong, and Mexico, toured with Miku the hologram herself in North America, and at the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo.
Rebecca Salzer (she/her)
Rebecca is an intermedia dance artist/educator, Associate Professor of Dance, and Director of the Collaborative Arts Research Initiative at The University of Alabama. Her award-winning films and videos have been programmed in national and international venues and on public affiliate television stations. Rebecca is a Jacob K. Javits Fellow, holds a B.A. from Yale, and an MFA. in Dance Theatre from UC San Diego. Rebecca also serves as Project Director for the Dancing Digital Project, supported by the NEHH(dancingdigital.org), which works toward creating and facilitating more centralized, accessible, equitable, and forward-thinking dance resources online.