A Conversation with Kokoro Dance

by Shanny Rann

Barbara Bourget (BB) needs no introduction as the Artistic Director of Kokoro Dance and a leading figure in the dance scene of Vancouver. On October 6, 2020, just a few days short of her 70th birthday, I had the honour of speaking to the matriarch and her dancers-Deanna Peters (DP), Molly McDermott (MM) and Salome Nieto (SN). We talked about how COVID-19 has affected their practice as dance artists and their latest work Reading the Bones which was livestreamed on September 25, 2020. Throughout our conversation, it was heartwarming for me to witness moments of tenderness that speak of Barbara's relationship with her dancers over the years.

SR: How has the pandemic changed the way you work as artists?

BB: Well, just living, as a human being. It is completely altered. We are social creatures and it has been quite difficult, you just remove yourself from what you would normally do. You can't hug anybody...it’s quite isolating. It’s very hard but at the same time, it will be over at some point and we will survive it because artists always survive, don’t they, ladies?

DP: I feel I am really supported during this time by processes that I have established before the pandemic so I sympathize with younger artists who might be trying to establish themselves as I feel that would be really difficult right now. Being able to fall back on my routine has contributed to a sense of normalcy during the pandemic for me.

SR: Can you tell me more about the processes you have established?

DP: Just having a movement practice. I’m lucky to have access to a studio space. Being in the studio is a different sense of time, it's like a drug trip, you're in a different world or a dimension and when you leave, it's like you are back in that other time or dimension. I feel like I could forget about almost anything when I'm dancing. That hasn't changed.

MM: It was really wonderful to be in the process with everyone over the last few weeks working towards Reading the Bones. It did feel a bit like we are in this bubble away from COVID. It felt like a little oasis where we could dance, work and perform. That felt like I got to step away from the pandemic, I felt very fortunate.

BB: Because I have access to KW studios, I've been able to work on my own and Salome came in the spring and worked a little, but still it is challenging, people don’t seem to be reaching out the same way they did in the past. They're not going to the studio unless they have access like Deanna does or I have. Salome has some access to a studio in Burnaby. It means stepping out of some kind of bubble that they created. And important, I think, is the support system. At least you get to see a few people. Like our grandchildren, whom we were not able to see for a few months and that was difficult. Now, Jay (Hirabayashi) and I have gone back to the support system and that is really nice. Molly has a beautiful young daughter and Salome has three kids. Deanna has a great support system, lots of friends.

DP: I just can’t imagine what it is to be emerging right now. Emerging into what? Nothing is happening. There’s no way to meet people. So that’s why I feel that being established is a different experience than for example, “Oh, you are going to your training program”.

SN: There’s no training program. I felt very lost at the beginning. I was not functioning, it took me a while to find my way out. It was stressful because I have an administration job that I have to figure out the logistics, programming and all of that. So it was really great that I have Barbara. That saved me, thank you!

BB: KW Studio and Kokoro Dance did a process for about three weeks where we produced new artists, emerging artists, equityseeking artists. We produced 15 music, dance and theatre pieces where we covered all the costs of the studios plus we gave an honorarium to the choreographer, the leader. We're discussing how we're going to do that again because that's the kind of thing--artists helping artists--that really makes a strong community. The more we can band together for projects, the more we can become independent in a sense that we're not reliant completely. We have funding to help people. We will help people. That is important to recognize, there are people who are working that way and not just worrying about themselves and actually trying to help because the art really needs new people all the time. The energy of youth is great and the kind of wideeyed innocence like “Why can’t I do that?” from Ralph Escamillan. We have been doing the livestreaming of HinkyPunk and Farouche. That opened up another avenue for younger artists. It's going to be a while before we can sit in a theatre.

The more we can band together for projects, the more we can become independent. We have funding to help people. We will help people. That is important to recognize, there are people who are working that way and not just worrying about themselves and actually trying to help because the art really needs new people all the time.

PERFORMING LIVE FOR A VIRTUAL AUDIENCE

SR: Was Reading the Bones livestreamed? Have you performed the piece before?

BB: Yes, it was livestreamed. We performed it at The Roundhouse where we did a series of eight performances. We produced it as Kokoro Dance in the fall of last year. We were supposed to perform it at the Playhouse but since March 14th, everything got shut down so we couldn’t do that.

SN: I have to say that I was very skeptical about the initial talks of doing a livestreaming back in April, not just by Kokoro, but just in general because I felt that the work needs to be presented live and it is about the experience. I was thinking we might as well just film a video and show it, right? But I really felt very excited once I heard about Kokoro’s vision for the work, the idea of livestreaming with several cameras and to consider the eye of the camera. It was fresh, new and exciting and I think it is the right way to approach a livestreaming. That has opened all the possibilities, not replacing live performance but it is now something really exciting. In a way, the pandemic has brought good things. It makes us stop, rethink, reset, slow down and be creative.

SR: Is it different performing for a camera as opposed to a live audience?

BB: I'm not an expert on cameras, or livestreaming, or making videos. Our son, Joseph Hirabayashi, decided that he would take it on as a project. He had to figure out how to do everything. We had a switcher, the cameras were choreographed by him. We did eight runs, five days, if you can believe it. Jessica Han, who is the lighting designer, also worked really closely with him. We have the cameras and Joseph would direct them. I haven't watched any of the recordings, but I’m sure every single one is quite different, they focused on different aspects of the work. The intimacy of the camera is what people really responded to, it didn’t feel flat, it had some depth. Within that context of that time and space, it had meaning.

DP: In terms of the experience of performing, I would say that it’s not very different in terms of what you bring, the embodiment, the concepts that you're imagining. If you think of the camera as an eye that you can relate to, just as you would to an audience, different camera work is going to speak differently to different works. Some of it really strengthened the work to have a multiple-camera view and it adds a formality to it. I would say that allowed for more of the meaning of the choreography to come through as opposed to the camera creating new meaning. I am also curious if I have a genuine experience, is that still going to be transmitted to the audience via the parasympathetic nervous system and mirror neurons through the pixels? That would be an interesting research for 2020! Can we actually send physical energy through the screen?

BB: The relationship between the dancers within the context of time and space can really shine through the intensity of it all. We did have quite a few people watching but we couldn’t see them. It was a heightened sense of performance. The four of us. I just thought we were really hot, really on the money each time! We did 8 run throughs and they were different each time. Sometimes we were very tired, sometimes very energetic. To me, it felt alive in the moment, which I think is what people responded to, at least that’s what I gathered through the comments sent to us. The aliveness with the cameras, someone switching, making choices. It wasn’t just a camera with a single focus, nobody paying attention, it did feel like a dance with all of us, including a cameraman who kept walking back and forth (chuckling). Dan, he was great! He had the close-up and he had to carry a camera for an hour and not trip over the cables and fall over.

MM: I wondered if I would miss having an audience in the space with me but I didn’t. I did feel as though people were watching. I felt the difference between the dress runs versus the performances but I can’t exactly say why. I definitely agree that the relationship between the four of us is very, very special and it is different than it had felt a year ago on the stage. Not that we didn’t have a meaningful relationship then, but this time it felt more intimate, more connected. I felt that heightened sense of awareness between the four of us. I felt, like Salome, the intensity of the movement, of our presence, would get lost through technology but I don’t think it did, judging from the way people have reacted to the piece. It seemed like people found it very emotional and visceral and could sense what you would sense

DP: I was imagining someone specific watching me. Did anyone else do that? I kept thinking about my dad. Has anyone read Anne Bogart from A Director Prepares? She has this idea of an ideal audience member that you are creating for. Did any of you experience that?

SN: All the time (laughing).

MM: Yeah, I think most of us have had people watching from other parts of the world. So that was special, that they can tune in and see a piece that they wouldn’t normally see. I definitely thought of those people. My aunt was watching and wouldn’t normally.

SR: As an audience, I felt the camera was guiding me to a level that was much more intimate and catching a lot more details then I would have sitting in a theatre, depending on which row I am at. With the camera, you feel like you have a privileged access, to be so close to the dancers for the first time. I wonder if the camera is now incorporated as part of the choreography. Does it feel any different as dancers?

BB: I just want to underscore that we didn’t change the choreography for the camera. It was a collaboration in the sense that Joseph also wrote the music for Reading the Bones. He’s our son, and he has an intimate relationship with the work because he wrote the music and because he had seen the piece quite a bit and because we talked about how we don't want it to be static, we want the cameras to be moving, so I just want to be clear that we did not alter anything from the inside of the work. We just did it, we had to alter the spacing a little bit because the space is smaller than the stage, but it was very organic.

From left: Salome Nieto, Molly McDermott, Barbara Bouget and Deanna Peters

Photo credit: Vancouver International Dance Festival

Dancing with Kokoro has taught me that I can do anything. I feel powerful. Every other experience I've had since starting my first professional dance performance with Kokoro, I've been able to tell myself: I got this.

DP: Kokoro’s work is not 5-6-7-8 and choreographed. As much as I am musical, we all relate to time in our own way. It’s structured improvisation, even though the structures are quite small so just to kind of relay that. That’s a given that we all know about but maybe other people don't realize about the work. It's not choreographed in that sense, it is not steps on beats, except for one part and then it really stands out. It’s the only time you can’t f**k up when we are supposed to hit the right count at the right beat (laughing).

MM: Yeah, it changes and it breathes. Livestreaming it four times as opposed to just once is nice because it really did evolve and change because it is not choreographed.

A moment of silence, followed by Barbara exclaiming, “That's great to hear!” and everyone else erupting into laughter.

DP: It gives autonomy to the moment, to other things other than our own egos, but also gives space for our own ideas of expression and concepts. I do think that's an important thing to relay during this time to people because I feel like so much dance is so much about product and it's so normative, it has all this stuff over top of it, you're expected to be this gender and this idea of how a woman should move, so much of dance is so controlled and tight. What’s beautiful about dance in Kokoro is you are constantly being an artist...

BB: Making choices.

SN: Making choices.

BB: It’s really a key to expressions because you can't just do everything the same way all the time. It's so boring not just for the performer, but for the audience too. You can tell when people have made the same choices, day in and day out. So it is very freeing to work the way we work. I make steps because I can’t help myself but Jay never makes steps. Or when he tries to make steps, it’s really difficult.

SR: It's liberating to hear you talk about how the piece has affected you as a dancer, not just following steps the choreographer has decided. Do you think it's the freedom that butoh allows, for the dancer to have her own voice within a piece, or do you see that happening in other forms of contemporary dance too?

BB: Butoh depends on who's doing it, whose butoh it is. Butoh in my opinion is really key to the experience of the person who is creating it. For instance, Dairakudakan, Molly went with us to Hakuba and in fact the work they do is really on the beat. It is a huge amount of people, it’s like a ballet! Molly is being flung around, doing the Mambo. It was very rigorously choreographed but you could still be yourself within it. It was so fast and so short a time for learning that it was quite a challenge for this old body. Molly and Billy Marchenski were really great but then we have worked with other people who just give an idea--the rain is falling, walking in the forest and then you begin there and you begin to work. I think it's more imagistic sometimes than what contemporary dance works are necessarily but I don't think you can just say that because there are a lot of contemporary dance artists who also work very deeply and very imagistically. It's hard to put labels on the things that influence, to say butoh is this or that, it’s like saying Ballet is this or that. It’s maybe more interesting to talk about what influences choreographers and I think that’s a wide range. I love all sorts of dance and it comes in when I'm not even expecting it to.

So much of dance is about product, you're expected to be this gender and this idea of how a woman should move... so much of dance is controlled and tight. What’s beautiful about dance in Kokoro is you are constantly being an artist.

DP: I can talk about house dance in a whole other interview (laughing) and how that relates to my practice. We have all worked with lots of choreographers and there’s a process within it that is individual. Every choreographer is different and a lot of them do work imagistically. For me it's always about relating the image to my body, that's the only way I can do it. For example, the world has ended and there is a bunch of electricity and you are stepping in water... but for me, I'm not actually thinking that. There is that layer of interpretation, what is electricity? Electricity is in my body. How does it move through my body? That is my process. I’m sure it’s different for everybody. There are lots of things I am not good at. I see other dancers and wonder how is it that they can be so good at doing what the choreographer said? To me, it’s always back to the body.

BB: Butoh is very much like that as well, it's always back into the body. SR: Was that how Reading the Bones came together? What was the process like?

MM: Initially, you were drawing from materials over the however many decades Kokoro has been working at…

BB: 33 years.

MM: Through that prolific period, we have a lot of materials to draw from. We revisited works from before any of us worked with you and then some that we have done before and then it evolved and got woven together and became Reading the Bones. I have forgotten that it was old material, it feels fresh and new. It says something about Barbara's work that it continues to be relevant, to grow or evolve. It feels alive and it doesn’t feel like steps to me. That’s a little bit of insight into the process.

SN: At the very beginning when I first joined, I was interpreting this process as if we were going to revisit what we have done, what's left in the memory in our bones. It was reconnecting with a lot of the work that we have done. As I am getting older with a different body, with new life experiences, the movement and the material just felt very different. There was an opportunity to understand it better. For me, it’s very much about what still resonates, what is left in our bodies, what can we still respond to all the choreographic works in the past. Not to say the past is stagnant, but it is still alive there and now it has a new form of expression. It is very rich and I get very excited and animated.

WORKING WITH BARBARA

SR: All of you have had many years of dancing with Kokoro Dance. Would you like to talk about your relationship with Barbara?

DP: I have been dancing with Kokoro since I was in university. That was in 2002. I hated everything about university except my experience with Barbara. I wanted to be pushed, I wanted to be utilized. I had a drive that I feel was not actually appreciated in other spaces. I'm from a sports background as well as an arts background so I don't associate aggression with being a bad person. I felt like a part of coming into the dance scene in Vancouver, there was a lot of this reckoning with me about the energy that my body creates or produces. Barbara sat down beside me at an art gallery opening while we were watching this video and she said to me, “Well, if you want to dance for my company, you have to come to my class.” So I just did that. Part of my journey as an artist has been choreographing and performing simultaneously. I have taken as long as a five-year break but I think a lot of value is in the history I have with the work. I can drop into the images easily because I've been trained in the form with Barbara and Jay. Even during Reading the Bones we didn't train a lot in butoh like we might in some other processes because all of us already have this background. During the performances several times I dropped into a golden thread, seeing it everywhere like images of the butoh body, but I got to say that dancing with Kokoro has taught me that I can do anything. I feel powerful. Every other experience I've had since starting my first professional dance performance with Kokoro, I've been able to tell myself, “I got this”.

BB: The depth of experimentation with my beautiful dancers grows every time I work with them. They're also working on their own process it's not like I dictate what they should be or who they are but I appreciate very much the desire to embrace the work in a way that is not egocentric but powerful in the sense of reaching out beyond your own sh** which we all have. The great thing about the freedom when you work that way, is that the world comes into you and when you start to feed it back, it is transformed already. You can really open people's hearts and minds and they can see through the process, at least the people who have commented on the extraordinary depth of feeling that the camera produced within this context that we did, which is something that happens in the theatre when you do it live but not quite with the same intensity because they saw the sweat close-up, sometimes it is somebody’s elbow on screen, and it’s other people's choices but I think it really worked as a team effort. Molly, Deanna and Salome have worked with Kokoro on and off over twenty odd years. So they have a sense of what the work requires and how it feeds them. You don’t want to do work that doesn’ t feed your process, where you are yawning and bored all the time. Jay and I work together and we have a lot of explosions in the room because we have a passionate relationship. We work together and we only do it in the room, we don't do it at home, which is a good thing or we wouldn’t be married.

SR: So you have the ability to separate between your personal and professional life?

BB: That’s a very hard line to draw, but we do make an effort. We just talk about dance all the time, which can be really boring. We run the Vancouver International Dance Festival and there's so much to do all the time anyway. Sometimes you just need to stop talking.

MM: Like Deanna, I also met Barbara at university back in 2006. I started working for Kokoro in 2007 when I graduated and have worked with them on and off since. I probably have been a part of most of their works in the past 14 years, not to echo too much of what has already been said but it did feel very refreshing to meet Barbara and there was no one quite like her who invests so much in me. Barbara invests so much in people who work for you. Both her and Jay always ask for more and I think that’s a real gift. I don't think that I've had a relationship like that in the dance world. I've grown so much over the last 14 years because of them. I don't want to get too soppy because I'll just start to cry.

BB: No, I’ve got tears in my eyes already. It’s too early in the day to cry.

MM: Yeah, call me again at 7pm.

BB: It’s too early for wine.

Deanna had to leave the conversation at this point.

SR: Salome, is there anything you would like to add about your 26 years of experience working with Barbara?

The heart shines out of the chest always in butoh. The heart is really what you are offering.

Photo Credit: Tea Mei

SN: I found Barbara and Jay challenging, in the challenge, I have been given so much. I was inspired by them, since I took my first class, I just thought, 'I'm staying here'. They have shaped my career , they have influenced me so much. I consider them my mentors. I feel blessed to have come to a new country and to have this amazing relationship and a beautiful career. It was difficult at the beginning because I came as a mother with children but it is so rewarding. Every class, at the end of it, I felt rewarded. At the end of every rehearsal, I felt rewarded. At the end of every performance, I felt the same. There were moments when I had so much self-doubt and freaked out quietly inside but there is this trust, that when you have put in so much work, just go on stage and do it! A lot of self doubt because it is so challenging but rewarding at the end. I am so happy, grateful. Thank you, Barbara!

BB: Thank you Salome! I have danced all my life since I was 3, I'm going to be 70 on October 10. I can remember the moment I saw Deanna and she walked into my class in 2000 and I was teaching at SFU and her energy pulled me right away. Same with Molly, when I met her, I was teaching a Repertory class and her energy and her presence just attracted me right away and the same thing with Salome. She came flying into my class 2 minutes late in 1990. Right away again, her energy is what attracted me to her and I mean all three of them could dance, that was wonderful, they have different training but they all attracted me because I'm always looking for dancers. They all have been wonderful in supporting our work. It is a beautiful thing because you don’t always find that. Our work would not grow as well if we have to keep retraining people. It’s so nice to be able to call them to ask if they are available for a project. I am always very grateful to my dancers. Without them, there wouldn’t be any dancing.

SR: Barbara, you have been a mentor to so many dancers in Vancouver. Who is your mentor?

BB: One of them was one of my first ballet teachers, Mara McBirney, who taught in Vancouver. She was a cranky Scottish woman who smoked cigarettes in the studio when she taught and drank whiskey. But she was wonderful, she had a passion for the arts. She taught Lynn Seymour as well, a Vancouver dancer who went to London’s Royal Ballet. Paula Ross who was a choreographer in Vancouver. She’s 80 and she lives in Nanaimo now. Arnold Spohr, who was the director of Royal Winnipeg Ballet in the 60s and 70s. Fernand Nault, the director of Les Grands Ballets, he and his staff. You just get so many mentors when you start dancing because everyone has something to offer if you really pick it up. I've been blessed really. And then Jay as well, in his own way, has been my mentor, my supporter. I continually learn so much from my dancers that I think of them as my mentors too. Dance does not happen in isolation, you can’t make dance without dancers, it’s as simple as that. You can make dance for kids, for people who aren’t really dancers but want to move and I've done all that kind of work but the real joy for me is to work with dancers with the dancer heart.

SR: Can you talk a little bit about this dancer heart?

BB: I don't know how to express it but it's a physical feeling. I feel it. I know that when we're dancing. I don’t know how to explain it. There's a feeling like electricity, like you're just so vibrant and the heart is shining. The heart shines out of the chest always in butoh. The heart is really what you're offering and that can mean different things to different people. But I can feel it. I mean the heart just pumps, it’s not really doing anything but it's heart, mind, spirit and soul all together that bring the meaning to work. We can all do steps and I can ride a stationary bicycle but it's not moving for people to watch me on it. It’s physical but it’s not just that, it has to be this connection. Heart, mind, spirit and soul that really come together for expression. You know when you see it. You just know. People get moved.

SR: Dance is a language that speaks across boundaries. Are most of your pieces intergenerational? Is working with different age groups something you are passionate about?

BB: I don’t know if I can assess my work on terms like that. I am moved to do what I am moved to do. I have choreographed for kids at high school musicals. There is something joyful about working with all sorts of people.

SR: I'm asking because for example, when you choreograph for kids, you are working with dancers around the same age and training, but there is something when you put significantly different bodies together, be it age or background. Something about the fusion makes it special and sometimes challenging for the audience.

BB: You mean because there's an old lady on stage? I will dance, I will continue to dance until I can't dance anymore or die. I don't think in terms of that. I think in terms of expression, of power. You can find that with younger people. Today is quite different than it was 10 years ago, even 20 years ago. There is a lot more anxiety about the creative process, a lot more in my view, wanting to be many, many things without focusing on training. It's the way the world works. My experience was training, joining a company, being looked after, all of that and then when I went out on my own and it was also creating a company. So I never did anything like the freelancing thing people have to do now. I really enjoy being with younger people, middle-aged, older people. It's all good. They all bring something to the process. It was fun choreographing 8 musicals for the Kitsilano High School. It was really fun, but impossible to talk. “Shut up and listen to Barbara!” some of the kids would say to each other.

MM: In my experience, over the years of working with Kokoro, there has been a variety of age groups. When I started with the company, I was the youngest. Most of the women in the company then were in their thirties and forties. I really value that and that they don't just hire all twenty-year-olds. I learned a lot from those women and obviously from Barbara and Jay. There is wisdom for different ages of bodies as they continue to dance. I really appreciate that, you call it intergenerational but I don’t think it is necessarily intentional. You just work with who you want to work with. The different life experiences that we all bring to it. We can’t look at the same bodies and same age. I really appreciate that.

SR: I think it sends out a positive message because dance is known to be a career that is short-spanned.

BB: Now, who says that? Excuse me. This is not correct. There are tonnes of dancers who dance their entire lives. It is a false narrative to say dance is only for the young. Arthritis is a big enemy, the joints. Jay is having another knee replacement but you have to keep moving or you stiffen up. Then, you have trouble. You can’t sit down or you can't stand up once you have sat down. Keep moving is my advice. SN: People often say you can't move because of all that you put your body through, you abuse your body, all these false notions and obviously you are using your body, working, you are physical. If I stop moving, I can't move. There are a lot of misconceptions of what dance is, what a dancer should look like, how long a dance career should last but there are misconceptions in everything. We just do what we need to do.

SELF-CARE PRACTICE AS ARTISTS

SR: Would each of you like to share what your self-care practice is as artists during this pandemic?

SN: Baths, a lot of baths. I've tried to connect with family and friends, keep my connections alive because isolation affects everybody. For me, self-care is to keep moving.

MM: I'm trying to find ways to stay in shape while also caring for my daughter. She’s almost 2 now so she requires a lot of energy. She’s part of my practice now. I’m learning from her, it's just one of the most beautiful things I have done, to have a kid. I have less time to do the training I used to do pre-child, but I will get back to it eventually.

BB: Pretty much the same I mean our self-care revolves around our four children and our five grandchildren. We have a daughter in Toronto, a son-in-law and two grandchildren there whom we haven’t been able to see, so that’s been difficult. We have been doing Zoom meetings. We have three kids here and three grandchildren here, so we're able to stay in touch because family is really important for our inner strength as human beings. We live in a co-op, and there are people here living alone, self-isolating and it’s really distressing. Dr Bonnie Henry talked about the stress of living alone. We are such social creatures.

SN: I miss my children. I have not seen them that much during this pandemic so that has been very difficult on my part. I have only seen them twice or thrice from afar. Virtual hugs.

SR: Thank you so much for your time this morning. It's been a pleasure watching your performance and having the chance to talk about it.

Photo Credit: Vancouver International Dance Festival