“Drew [Silverman] and I, along with the executive director of our annual festival, Natasha Small, took over the company almost two years ago now after our founder was given a diagnosis that didn’t allow her to continue,” says KDH Dance Company’s artistic director Alyson Dolan. “And so we assembled a team in classic KDH fashion to figure out how we could move forward.”
Silverman(the company’s executive director and resident composer), Dolan, and the rest of KDH Dance are processing the passing of the company’s founder Kathy Dunn Hamrick in part by moving forward and producing their first new work since the loss, Love, Loss & OTHER CONSTELLATIONS.
“And this piece really feels like a reflection, not only of the last 5 months – which have included a lot of downs but also a lot of ups and really holding each other together – but also a reflection of the last couple of years in this pretty big transition for the company,” Dolan says.
“And that’s kind of what’s in the name, you know?” says Silverman. “It’s like this experience over the last two years, the experience over the last 5 months, have been a constellation of all sorts of things – feelings, love, loss, and other constellations being kind of these very large feelings that we’ve had. And then also like a constellation appearing of all of the people that she has touched and has employed and has become friends with and has worked with in this town over 25 years. And so… we felt really challenged starting this process after not having her to be a part of it anymore. But we also like realized, oh, there’s this network, there’s this beautiful constellation that she’s built that we can call upon and we’re trying our best to keep building it, keep expanding it.”
While Love, Loss & OTHER CONSTELLATIONS, Dolan says, there came a moment when she and the team had to trust themselves to make the important decisions instead of trying to guess what Kathy would’ve opted for. “She trusted all of us to move this forward,” Dolan says. “She wouldn’t have left it in our hands if she didn’t really trust us. And so I’m really trying to embody that and take that in. And yeah, I think we’re in a place right now where we feel really good about it and really excited about this show, which feels like a weird thing to say and feel since it’s our first show without her there. But I know that she would love this show, and she would be so excited about it! So that also makes me really happy because I feel like we’re taking some risks with our artistry and, yeah, trying some new things.”
When we spoke, the show was still about a week and a half in the future, which usually means that some final elements are falling into place but there’s still some work to do. “We definitely have a checklist of things,” Silverman says. “We feel really good and excited about the show. But it’s always this kind of like shifty amorphous thing that kind of comes together in this beautiful way at the end.”
KDH usually crafts a show by creating the choreography first, and then composing music to fit the movement. Silverman says that method leads to a lot of freedom for the musicians and dancers. “As far as musicians go,” he says, “really we’re all multi-instrumentalists. So, the cello player is also gonna play piano and the keyboard player is also gonna play bass and the sax player is gonna play flute and alto flute and so it’s definitely like a very big pastiche of styles. But they’re all such adventurous performers and players, so I really get to play with people who are not just gonna play the music but are gonna take chances and things like that. So every night will be a little different.”
“And we have this amazing team,” Dolan adds. “It’s not only original choreography, original live music, but also original costume design, lighting design… no AI, just all live human experiences brought to you by Austin artists. You’ll see five stunning movers and four amazing musicians. We love getting people together in a space to witness something and they don’t know what’s about to happen because every work that we make is really different. Because it’s modern dance, which is similar to modern art, which can be abstract, but a reflection of what’s going on. Each piece can really feel quite different. You know, what I want people to experience is just that feeling of being really present with something. It’s getting harder and harder to feel present with something and be fully engaged in a moment. And, yeah, I feel like building evening length, hour-long works with no intermission is maybe something of the past, but we really want to keep it relevant and present because it is [relevant] for so many of us. This is what we do. We love it.”
Love, Loss & OTHER CONSTELLATIONS runs May 29 – 31 at East Side Performing Arts
