KUVV
KUVV was a multidisciplinary, collaborative project organized by choreographer and performance artist Hayley Cutler, exploring the relationship between home, familial lineage, and the body.
Cutler writes about the project, “To live in a body is to carry with you not only your immediate past but the actions—some chosen, many not—of your ancestors. […] It is important that viewers of the culminating work understand that it is a shared physical expression of survival, strength, and persistence.” KUVV aims to be a platform for personal storytelling told through the body, considering what our bodies remember from generations passed.
About the KUVV Performance
KUVV culminated in an evening-length, live-streamed, performance on Saturday, September 26 comprising new work by six artists. Selected through an open call, Emily Ames, Antonius and Theresa-Xuan Bui, Jamie Garcia, Akela Jaffi, Juliana Ponguta, and Vyette Tiya worked independently and in conversation with each other to create intimate responses to Hayley Cutler’s prompt: How does your familial lineage live in your physical body today, and how does that contribute to your sense of home as it relates to your identity?
The program is as follows:
1. Antonius & Theresa Bui, UPON SKIN UPON STONE, 12 minutes
Responding to various Vietnam Veterans Memorials on the East Coast, Theresa and Antonius will complicate our understanding of the Vietnamese diaspora through intuitive movement and poetry. Oscillating between intense stillness and chaos, they explore the phenomena of reverb as a metaphor for assimilation. Beginning with references to their traditional Vietnamese-Catholic upbringing, their movements will echo into glimpses of an Asian-American futurism.
2. Akela Jaffi, parting gifts, 16 minutes approx.
“parting gifts” is a ritual piece to gain freedom from the past. a recollection of that which is no more, a portrait of mending fear into pride. This work is a funeral for my regrets and a public commitment to a stronger self. i am grateful for this gift of movement, what a powerful medicine.
3. Emily Ames, STAKE, 12 minutes
A direct descendant of Mormon pioneers, Emily Ames has a complicated relationship with her lineage. Generations of her family have settled on unceded land in northern and southeastern Utah and eastern Idaho, spanning the ancestral homes of the Eastern Shoshone, Goshute, Pueblos, Ute, and Shoshone-Bannock peoples. In her dance film “STAKE”, Emily feels the weight of her colonizer ancestry and meditates on what to keep and what to root out.
4. Jamie Garcia, Ako, 15 minutes
Familial burden, sacrifice, expectation, and pressure manifested from mental to tangible weight. Rice — the symbol of my culture, my foundation, my home. Living as Filipina American, I carry this rice as I carry my history, lineage, and legacy. My body is a reflection of my parents in society — their choices, failures, and successes. What do I bear? How do I bear? The heart is heavy, the backaches, the body is overwhelmed.
5. Juliana Pongutá, Muysua, 15 minutes approx.
Body memories, sometimes there are no words but memories are often kept in our bodies, what happens when you know they exist but you can’t recall them? “MUYSUA” is an attempt to remember in my body and with my body those that came before me, those that I didn’t get to know and yet, somehow inhabit this body. In this live performance, the audience is encouraged to participate. In preparation, the audience will receive an audio prompt to listen to before the performance. During the performance, there will be a time for the audience to offer their own memories and witness them reflected through this moving body.
6. Vyette Tiya, a small riot, 7 minutes
Spiritual and physical practices and research reveals that our deepest emotional histories are often stored in our hips. This site (hips) is where we find pleasure, bear weight, support life, begin anew, and house trauma. On my body, I see my aunt’s hips and feel deeply attributed to her. Among many attributed features, I’m interested in the inheritances that are internalized in our bodies: a fear of abandonment, a knack for recklessness, unending generosity… A small riot curiously explores the question, if we had the choice to inherit or leave behind a trace of our lineage, what would we choose? This work is intended to be experienced via active vantage. Spoken word is integral to this performance, and a small riot draws from various poets, most notably “Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth” by Warsan Shire. Site-inspired, this work is tethered to womanhood, journey, resistance, and origin. Universally symbolic and especially true in African cultures, this work is fixed to a common origin, represented by a tree. It then folds and unravels and rebels. It wants to go back to where it began.
Programs:
“Any body Home?” A participatory talk by ethnomusicologist Tomie Hahn
Thursday, September 3, 2020 | 7:30–8:30pm
Artist Talk with Jamie Garcia & Juliana Pongutá Forero
Thursday, September 10, 2020 | 7:30–8:30pm
Artist Talk with Vyette Tiya, and Theresa-Xuan & Antonius Bui
Thursday, September 17, 2020 | 7:30–8:30pm
Artist Talk with Akela Jaffi & Emily Ames
Thursday, September 24, 2020 | 7:30–8:30pm
