In the midst of America’s political turmoil, arts institutions are parsing their place in the revolution. Over at Los Angeles’s Roy and Edna Disney CalArts Theater (REDCAT), participation is paramount. Chief Curator and Deputy Director Katy Dammers went into the fall lineup with one specific question in mind: How can art be a democratic process?
Performances by artist and technologist Mindy Seu, a film on the current “ecosexual” emergency, the return of the theater’s Democracy Sessions festival, and more programming will provide a plethora of answers. “Art is vital to our moment—and part of the legacy of CalArts and REDCAT is to support and create the new art that meets the moment,” says João Ribas, the theater’s Steven D. Lavine Executive Director and Vice President for Cultural Partnerships. “Our fall season brings together artists from LA and beyond that have new and urgent ideas for what art can be, and how artists and audiences can share and act together.”
Dammers is no stranger to weaving urgent conversations into public art programs. Prior to her work with REDCAT, she headed up the River to River summer arts festival and curated performances at the Kitchen in New York. Ahead of the theater’s fall season, opening Sept. 12, she sat down with CULTURED to talk about the power of participatory art.
This is your third year at REDCAT. What has been the greatest lesson during your time at the institution, and how has it informed this season’s curation?
The importance of collaboration and open dialogue. Working across many artistic disciplines and in conversation with diverse communities, I have been reminded time and again about the power of partnership–within our amazing team here at REDCAT, across our community with the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), throughout Los Angeles, and around the world.
Our fall season is a great representation of that commitment. I’m thrilled that we are working with Wild Up to be part of Democracy Sessions. One highlight of this multi-show program is a new commission from composer Shelley Washington that unites musicians and audiences of all backgrounds in a Collective Orchestra to create a collaborative performance—bringing over 50 people together on our stage.
Who is an upcoming performer in this year’s program that guests should look out for?
I’m excited about our New Original Works (NOW) festival this fall, which celebrates innovative and dynamic new work by local artists. This annual program is a great way for audiences to be introduced to upcoming artists and to experience the incredible diversity of talent here in LA. It’s been rewarding to work with these artists as they’ve developed their works over the past several months of rehearsal at REDCAT, and I’m truly thrilled about each of their performances to come.
Guests might look out in particular for choreographer and dancer Friidom, whose piece THE TETHER explores the connections that tie community together. An alum of CalArts, Friidom brings a variety of street dance styles together with live music in a propulsive performance about connection.
This season’s programming investigates an array of contemporary issues, from climate change to technology and the body to sexual abuse in the government. Take us inside your curatorial process.
Our fall season is a great demonstration of the considered research, conversation, and planning that goes into crafting each program at REDCAT. As I develop and oversee programming in dialogue with João Ribas, I am thinking about both bringing influential developments in the arts to REDCAT from around the world, and creating opportunities to present regional artists as they develop into national and international standing.
One example of this approach in our fall season is our presentation of The Ford/Hill Project, a work by Lee Sunday Evans and Elizabeth Marvel that transforms the Senate testimony of Anita Hill and Christine Blasey Ford into a gripping evening of theater. This Waterwell production utilizes the verbatim transcripts of these hearings—encapsulating a unique perspective on language, script, and performance that I am excited to share with LA.
I am thrilled that we’ve been able to work with Waterwell to cast this production locally—bringing LA talent to this production that will simultaneously be presented in three different venues across the USA this fall. As these two women’s stories resonate across decades, The Ford/Hill Project is a timely meditation on the courage it takes to speak truth to power and the impact it continues to make on our justice system today.
Before you joined the REDCAT community, you worked at arts spaces in New York. What could the New York performance scene learn from LA?
I have loved getting to know the unique, talented performance ecosystem here in LA. I have found that the sprawling expanse of LA can give artists space to literally and figuratively stretch out—whether moving through the natural landscape and/or taking new risks with their practice. This vast geography can give artists time and space to focus on making new work and to go deeper into their practice.
Early on in my time here in LA, I met with the choreographer and CalArts Faculty member Dimitri Chamblas, and he described the ways that LA and the California desert is a fertile incubator and important home base for his creative practice that often takes him around the world. We are thrilled to be presenting the U.S. premiere of his newest piece, Ulysse Marion, in our fall season—a work informed by an experience Chamblas had in the California desert that reminded him that seemingly empty spaces are often inhabited by invisible presences,
Mindy Seu’s A Sexual History of the Internet performances are particularly immersive and rely on audience participation. Is the participatory model something you want more of in future seasons?
I definitely think participatory performances are an important part of our programming at REDCAT. Mindy Seu’s upcoming program in our fall season invites audiences to consider the intimate relationship between our devices and ourselves. During the performance, lecture attendees will read histories and citations aloud from their phones and together collectively rehearse attention.
I’ve found that audiences increasingly are eager to take part in a performance—whether that means sitting around a banquet table and opening a box of archival materials in our presentation of Tania El Khoury and Ziad Abu-Rish’s piece The Search for Power, or cutting away pieces of the artist MPA’s clothing in recent performances of Yoko Ono’s iconic work Cut Piece we recently co-presented with the Broad.
Can you share a few works across your REDCAT tenure that have continued to influence your leadership and creative outlook?
There are so many great works I could choose! It’s been incredible to work with a breadth of diverse artists across my tenure at REDCAT so far. Here are a few highlights: nora chipaumire’s piece Dambudzo, which we presented last fall, utilized dance, music, painting, sculpture, and language to confront colonial legacy and immerse audiences in the power of resistance. Nora’s lessons in insistence, honesty, and generosity continue to inform my practice.
San Cha’s piece Inebria Me was a stirring, emotional, queer take on opera that utilized the telenovela form to show the enduring, free power of love to conquer all. San Cha is an incandescent performer, and it was thrilling to see audiences enraptured by her performance.
Calla Henkel and Max Pitegoff’s piece THE END IS NEW was an incisive, yet tender reflection on the utopian dream of Los Angeles, and what it means when it begins to unravel. I loved working with them to develop this work—their first written and directed piece in Los Angeles—and seeing how it ultimately became a love letter to the forlorn possibilities of a dream foreclosed.
NOW features a marathon of multi-media works across three weeks. What are you and the selection committee looking for when reading through applications?
The New Original Works Festival artists selected through an open call process and submissions are reviewed by a panel of readers and myself as part of a rigorous, multi-tiered process. I love reading through the applications and being introduced to new artists. As we consider potential participants, we look for works that can clearly articulate the big question they are asking and that approach responding to that query in an innovative, experimental way. I often tell artists in our pre-submission webinar that the strongest applications are those that are specific and have a clear perspective.
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