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Thursday, January 16, 2025

Kayla Hamilton on Incapacity as Technique and Entry as Artistry


Bronx-based dancer, director, and educator Kayla Hamilton is at a transitional second in her profession. Her largest ensemble mission but, How one can Bend Down / How one can Choose It Up—a multidisciplinary efficiency exploring histories of Black incapacity, whereas imagining a liberated future—premieres at New York Metropolis’s The Shed subsequent week earlier than embarking on a U.S. tour in 2025. She additionally not too long ago launched Circle O, a cultural group described as “by and for Black Disabled and different multiply marginalized creatives.” Along with these firsts, Hamilton not too long ago acquired a number of awards, together with a 2024 Incapacity Futures Fellowship and the 2023–2025 Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship.

Whilst she positive aspects momentum and institutional recognition, Hamilton stays deeply related to her roots. The identify Circle O honors her household in Texarkana, Texas, the place her grandfather, Oscar Hamilton, was the principal of an all-Black elementary faculty. Hamilton solely simply wrapped up her personal 12-year profession as a public-school educator—a path she pursued in tandem together with her dance work. She’s now poised to deliver her highly effective inventive imaginative and prescient to a nationwide viewers.

a headshot of Kayla Hamilton. She poses in profile in front of a light blue background. Kayla is a dark brown-skinned Black woman. She wears a long sleeve black & white striped shirt & her dreadlocks are down. She has a beautiful glowing smile.
Kayla Hamilton. Picture by Travis Magee, courtesy Hamilton.

I think about you’re in full manufacturing mode for How one can Bend Down / How one can Choose It Up.What has this course of been like for you?
I’m nodding my head and my physique is rocking ahead and again from the hips. I’m looking the window. I simply had a visceral response to that query. The way in which my physique is responding is the true reply.       

I realized quite a bit about myself by means of this course of, and I realized that the work I wish to put into the world is a life apply. It’s past simply dance, as a result of we’re undoing ableism contained in the apply. Dancers come into their coaching to get it proper, to make it good, however incapacity is the tactic and the topic on this course of. We’re actually good at being with incapacity as a topic in the USA. However there’s a lack of know-how of incapacity as a way, too.

How does incapacity as a way present up in How one can Bend Down?
After we ask of us for his or her entry wants, we’re additionally asking for entry intimacy with oneself. You don’t need to be Disabled to expertise ableism. There could also be elements of ourselves we let go of with a purpose to be like others. And whilst you might be able to masks your wants and wishes, go alongside to get alongside, the place does that depart individuals who can’t make their entry wants fade away?

I’m making an attempt to acknowledge the entire particular person, every particular person as a human being. It makes it more durable in course of, as a result of I’m not asking you to get the step “proper” in rehearsal. I’m asking you to deepen into what your physique is feeling, as a substitute of pushing by means of simply because that’s what the director requested you to do. You could dance in another way each single day, and I’m okay with that.

Do you discover that there’s pressure between the strategy you’re describing and the social {and professional} expectations to provide one thing that’s recognizable as a dance efficiency?
Sure, completely! How do I make it clear that what’s occurring in my course of is what’s occurring onstage? I’m doing this work to create space for each physique to have entry to bop as an artwork type. To perform that, we’ve to interrupt away from concepts of mastery, magnificence, and perfection.

We’re often advised that there’s just one choice or one option to entry one thing. I’m making an attempt to offer a number of entry factors inside a inventive experiment. The viewers can be taught one thing about themselves, as nicely.

Within the spirit of a number of entry factors, would you be keen to share some sensory impressions out of your rehearsal course of?
Individuals sitting in circles, together with our American Signal Language interpreters. You’d hear somebody say, “Did you drink water but?” You’d hear that repeatedly. Blue ground cushions and a fuzzy blanket. The scent of Tiger Balm. Laughter. You’d hear, “The place are we ranging from once more?” You’d hear Spanish language and Southern accents. A variety of ages. COVID assessments and masks. You’d hear a number of, “Huh! Oh…okay…hm…I see. So what you’re saying is…? Wait, maintain up.”

I noticed in your web site that one of many questions Circle O poses is the way to discover joyful and playful expression whereas concurrently holding the “crushing generational weight of systemic violence and oppression.” Are you navigating that query in How one can Bend Down?
Some elements of the present are heavy, however we use humor to deal with these concepts. Are you able to think about how drained I’d be with out humor? Intergenerational power, Black, Disabled ancestors, and enslaved individuals gave me the power to do what I do. There’s any individual round me, in my ear and coronary heart area, whispering, “Push individuals.” I can’t undergo life with out pushing pleasure—in any other case I’d burn out. And I’m not going anyplace, so I must snort and play.

What do you are feeling your self rooting into, amidst all this development and alter?
I’m rooting in love. I’m rooting myself in my very own rising fringe of curiosity—no matter I’m asking of others, I’m additionally asking of myself. Dance is therapeutic and non secular, and I would like each physique to have entry to that. I attempt to create containers by which individuals really feel cared for, seen, and valued, to allow them to start to dismantle hierarchies. Nonhierarchical buildings in a rehearsal course of are sufficient to shake the room. With freedom comes accountability and accountability. Im asking, “Do we would like it?”

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