The American Dance Festival (ADF) is a summer festival promoting and supporting modern dance via classes, performance, teaching, choreography and community outreach. In existence since 1934 (then as part of Bennington College), the festival majorly impacts the field of modern dance around the nation and in the course of its history, hosted over 600 world premieres.
This fall, due to an extended season (due in part to the warming temperatures in the summer in North Carolina, where it is held), ADF commissioned a site-specific work from Carl Flink of Black Label Movement, in which he delves into the impact of war on us all. Dance Informa spoke with both Flink and ADF Executive Director Jodee Nimerichter about the administrative side of dance, what drove Flink to create this work.
Often times, the administrative work of creating dance goes unnoticed and, as such, could be a bit mysterious to many readers. Jodee, could you share a little about the process of finding companies and artists to perform at a festival such as ADF?
Jodee Nimerichter
“One of the most thrilling and difficult parts of my job is curating the season. The older I get, I realize more how much power you have in curating something. You have so few opportunities to give to all the talent that’s out in the world, making great work. I try to see as much work as I possibly can, both in North Carolina by the local choreographers, and traveling internationally. Following work over time where I see talent, uniqueness, and something different helps ADF show work that’s being made at any given time, while paying respect to great classic pieces and pushing boundaries forward – really trying to see the widest breath of work being made. It’s a whole gamut of possibilities.”
Carl, the work commissioned for ADF is a big effort and a big topic; essentially you’re exploring the concept of America’s Forever War, as you call it. Beyond that, the work itself will be a site-specific piece on a blueberry farm that utilizes actual dirt as the ‘stage’. How did the idea for a piece like this begin?
Carl Flink
“I’ve always had a very intellectual interest in what I call the United States Forever War and its consequences, intellectually and politically. But as I have lived in this realm of dance, I started to find the way perpetual war feels – how it situates in my own body. I wanted to talk from my personal framework, as a United States citizen.”
Jodee, what interests you in this type of site-specific work, and how do you see the topic and the immersive nature of the performance benefiting each other?
Nimerichter
“I love having environment play a part in what you’re experiencing. At first, we talked about doing this in a theater. But the way he was describing the work, I said it would be so amazing to see it in a natural environment and have that rawness be part of it, so things coincided. A former board member of ADF recently bought a blueberry farm and she has said to me, ‘If you ever think of something to do on the farm, let me know.’ Sometimes, it just takes the right piece, the right time, and the right partnerships to see how something could really come fully realized in a way that you never imagined before.”
Carl, clearly the dirt is a major element in the work, entitled Battleground. What compelled you to consider this direction as it relates to the topic of forever, or perpetual, war?
Flink
“What are the energies that come with this perpetual conflict? This idea came…what about in dirt, 10 inches of dirt, and what would be the consequences of how dance artists or athletes respond to that? That also dovetails with this longtime collaboration I have with a biomedical engineer named David Odie. David is a very advanced researcher in cancer tumors, and he taught me the interior of the human cell is a very ballistic, volatile space with things ramming into each other and that idea of the natural violence inside of our cells. We developed a technique in my company, an impact technique, which allows us to do athletic level, impact work. When you combine that wonderful collaboration with a scientist, wondering about the effects of this extended, decades long war we’ve existed in, and then you put it in 10 inches of dirt, you can suddenly be tackling people into the ground with a level of a progression you can’t ever see on a studio floor. Those threads coming together really brought forward this idea of Battleground.“
Jodee, what excites you about finally being able to bring an immersive work like this to the festival?
Nimerichter
“I’m grateful that we had the capacity to commission him and for all of the amazing work he’s doing. I’m also really grateful that he was willing to go on a conversation of the back and forth, the pros, the cons, the good and the bad about where this ultimately should be. It’s going to be very invigorating for us all to be outside and be totally immersed in the piece. When you’re immersed in a piece with the wind, the heat, the coolness, the trees and everything surrounding it, especially with the conversation about war and the high intensity of that, being outside adds another layer to the whole conversation.”
Carl, what excites you about bringing the piece and this topic to life in this way?
Flink
“It lets the performers experience this idea of battleground more…not to distance them from the moral implications of humans hitting each other, to also understand there’s not anything inherently wrong with a volatile moment, like when a volcano erupts. It’s not wrong or right. It just does. And one of the things that we’ve contemplated is if part of the human species is this endless need for conflict, and if we can explore it without immediately labeling it as good, bad, right, wrong but just say it is – that’s what we’re trying to do in Battleground.“
Carl Flink’s Battleground for Black Label Movement will be presented at the American Dance Festival from October 11-13. For more information, visit americandancefestival.org/event/black-label-movement/2024-10-11.
By Emily Sarkissian of Dance Informa.
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