Chris Walker: Responding with movement

When UW–Madison Professor of Dance Chris Walker first saw Emancipation Group, he couldn't stop thinking about a particular detail of the troubling sculpture. Walker talks with host Gianofer Fields about how he translated his reaction into a dance piece.

Meet Me at the Chazen is a podcast about the the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Chazen Museum of Art, the largest collecting museum in the Big Ten. As we report what’s happening here, we'll also explore what it means to be an art museum at a public university and how art museums can help enrich and strengthen the communities they serve. Meet Me at the Chazen theme and incidental music is “Swinging at the Pluto Lounge,” composed and performed by Marvin Tate and friends, and is used with permission of the artists.

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Transcript

 Chris Walker  00:00
 The color is very present and real for me, the red, white and blue. It makes me think of historically what these colors have represented, for me as colonial powers and imperial powers. But that's the framing of the entrance. And when you look deeper, it's inviting a different conversation. Immediately, there's something about the figures, the shadow figures standing side by side, that is on top of a historic figure, that's now flipped. It's supposed to be a reflection, but it's a future reflection. And so instead of it being a mirror capture of the past, the future is very different. And that, for me, is one of the most powerful things to look at inside of this red, white and blue frame.

Gianofer Fields  01:06
 Meet Me at the Chazen. I'm your host, Gianofer Fields. There are three things I would have said before my chat with Chris Walker. One, I know very little about interpretive dance, two I don't speak the language of dance, and three, there is nothing about the Thomas Ball Emancipation Group sculpture that makes me want to dance. Walker is the Director of the Division of the Arts and a professor in the dance department at UW Madison. We met for the first time in November when Walker was directing a choreographed piece in Gallery IV at the Chazen. The dance was filmed as part of a documentary featuring artists performing their responses to the Thomas Ball Emancipation Group sculpture.

Chris Walker  01:49
 All right, we're gonna go to the top. Let me see your opening pose, take a step to your left, take two steps forward. Let me see an opening. Yeah, bueno, that's good. Walk down, walk downstage, perfect, beautiful. So where you are now take two steps back. Good.

Gianofer Fields  02:39
 Today, we are in the Chazen lobby just outside the re:mancipation exhibit located in the Rowland Gallery. In this moment, he identifies as a dancer responding to a sculpture that he did not want to give any power by mentioning its name. It's clear to me that even when he's standing still, Chris Walker is dancing.

Chris Walker  02:59
 My response is the opening of the door. And even when I present the work, I imagined that the audience is stepping into the room for the first time. And it's how we engage the work that allows us to cross the threshold of that space that we've now entered. And the work helps us do that. I approach choreography in a similar way, I may have an emotional response, that becomes the impetus for an idea and how I may want to create this work. And that is then followed up by research, how have others responded to these ideas? What else can I find out about this, and all of those things will come into play in the decisions I make. When I'm working with dancers, I'm not just working with bodies that are instruments and tools to shape in space. I'm working with other individuals, collaborators, that we can come together and create something unique that I alone couldn't create.

 So we were reorienting a piece for this space, so that it is in conversation with the sculpture, but also your conversation with the gallery, and what's in the gallery, and the faces that are looking down, across, at, and upon these models, right. The piece begins with protest, heavy protest, and it's making a statement about the state that we're in and questioning emancipation, or liberation as an idea. The middle of a piece looks at love, finding more emancipation and liberation in each other. The end of the piece returns to protest, which too is a statement about having to continue to fight for the rights and freedoms that we should have.

So in the beginning, we're going to have a minute or two, we're going to have, you're clear with this line and putting these positions that haven't started. Because we're getting, we have a mindset coming down alongside here, both, for me is in conversation with this piece here. So we're seeing, we're seeing both going to be able to capture both of them back here, alright, perfect. So he comes down, his language is the key, he picks her up, right in there, in reference to these images on the wall, right? They come over here and pick him up. And all three of me, I'm talking to the camera. So all three start to move toward the sculpture, right? And they go into this sort of protest language. Alright, and that is happening in front ... they go through this whole protest language, and that's happening in front and around the thing. And they transition that to what is religious, spiritual vocabulary from the Black church experience, which is where lots of this resistance gets planted. So we'll see that church language from different parts of the diaspora happening around and you see that juxtaposes the ideas of protest language, hands up don't shoot, certainly.  

Chris Walker  06:57
That is the point of my response is that our emancipation, and therefore our liberation, exist in our ability to restore in each other. From the time of enslavement to now, 2023. We've had to push protest fight to access these ideas of freedom, or what you may call emancipatory practices. So yes there was a proclamation. But we're talking about over 100 years of Jim Crow, yes, there was a proclamation. But we're talking about the 60s and the fight for equal rights and justice on this land. Yes, there was a proclamation. But in 2020, the entire globe responded to the killing of brother George Floyd. Because we are not out of that world. And so the idea of liberation, for me, is rooted in our ability to love each other deeply, and to restore ourselves in each other when we are shaken and broken, and troubled by the day. And so the work that I created as a trio, three dances, it begins with the idea of the spaces that we have to move through are forced to move through, and those spaces are charged with energy. Right. And in the beginning, that energy is collective, it's folks moving together, there's a joyfulness to it. 

 But they're suddenly confronting something and you feel that tension shift. But they don't separate, they stay together, and they face that confrontation, because that's a part of their reality. As the piece progresses, we see two of them. Turn that focus on energy inward to each other instead of external to that force. They then take that energy to a specific space I call the tile, which then becomes a magical device that allows them to escape everything that is happening around them. The protest, the violence, the what you need to be the anything. And they escape into each other. Where do they go? Yes, we played around in the choreography. They show up in this place, his house, her house, her family, the Auntie said this, the uncle said that they show up to all of these plays, they show up to a memory on the beat somewhere they show up to that spot on the corner where they first met, they show up to that spoken word poetry where he first heard her speak they spoke to that they show up to all of these spaces because the tile allows them when couples dance and they connect to each other in a way that allows them to astral project and show up and exist safely and beautifully and absolutely free in different spaces. The peace, have them returning out of that experience and back into the protest and moving through space because he has unfortunately, this is still something we face. So yes, a proclamation was signed. But we find that year after year, we're still marching. We're still asking, we're still pushing. We're still demanding equal rights and justice. So yeah.

 Gianofer Fields  10:39
So let's go inside. 

Chris Walker  10:41
So if we can talk about, we're coming into the exhibit. And you look at your sculpture. 

Gianofer Fields  10:49
So one of the things I want to ask you is then, how do you in looking in in responding to the sculpture,  I'm really interested in how you translate this into movement. When? Yeah, that's my question, then how do you translate what you see into movement? 

Chris Walker  11:10
Firstly, there is a lot of movement in the sculpture itself. And as a choreographer, a part of my process, that's always the place to start, is what is the thing telling me, but I realized very quickly, I was not interested in this vocabulary. And so let's look at what this vocabulary is. And what I love about this exhibit is how it holds the piece apart. I was not interested in representing a liberator who was standing tall. Right? Grace, graciously. Right, creating space for me to exist didn't feel right, because my everyday does not feel like that. I also was not interested in this vocabulary. Because of this knuckling. It's not about the kneel, we need to pray. We kneel because we know that there is so much greater than ourselves, we genuflect to our ancestors all the time. There's so many on this planet who are greater than me as an individual. Yes, sir, I will bow down. You did that. That is a phenomenal contribution to society, right? So it's not about the kneeling for me. It's about the knuckles folded in the ground, dragging, dragging on the ground, right, which does not suggest that sort of power, or my ancestors relationship to the earth. None of that is coming through here. So I don't recognize that vocabulary. But it's important to study it, right. And so when we study the vocabulary, we understand the meaning of the gestures, and so on. But that is not my history. That's some other history of enslavement in Europe, that is transposed onto a sculptural identity that is supposed to represent. My history is one of resistance. So it would not look like that. 

Gianofer Fields  13:30
And it's always, I don't let it upset me, because I don't want to give it that much power. But it's this sis white colonial idea of being a benefactor. I'm doing this to you. And it's you exist because of my power, not because you have your own inherent power in humanity. Right. 

Chris Walker  13:55
Right. That That's exactly true. That's exactly how I feel about the work. And I wanted to create something that was speaking to our power. Now, there's a story that the people could fly. The people could fly, what do you mean, the people could fly? Of course, the people could fly. But we're human beings, our bodies aren't built for that. This frame cannot support wings, I would flop over. What do you mean, the people could fly? Because there's a story of 300 Ebos, who when the slave ship pulled up to the coast, and they step out onto the deck and they look out at the shores of the Carolinas and they look at the land and we don't recognize this land. We don't recognize this. We don't see our future. In this place, or ancestors are not here. And so history has it that 300 Ebo have committed mass suicide. But legend has it, that 300 Ebos, swam back and flew back to Africa. Every time somebody dies, where I'm from, we have a thing called a Nine Night. It's nine nights of ritual, and mourning, and the third night ritual is where we sing and dance and it's a joy and it's songs and it's games and, and so on and so forth. And we understand that to, that a part of that process is inviting the ancestors in because they're going to guide this new one back home to Africa. What do you mean the people could fly? The people could fly. So when I look in the face of this, I'm not thinking about this. I'm thinking about our own access to our own myths and legends. And how that can free us. 

Gianofer Fields  16:16
If I remember, just from as a kid reading African myth and folktales and that idea, in order to become your full self, you have to either go through water or travel through air. And so it's this idea that this is just a vehicle. And what's important is your soul is your spirit and how that moves. And as long as no one can contain that you're free. 

Chris Walker  16:44
You're free. That's what even this song is addressing, in this piece, right? I have a sword in my hand, helped me to use it. We're speaking in metaphors. And it's our ability to do that, that allowed us to escape the realities of slavery. Rex Nettleford calls it the exercise of the creative imagination, and the exercise of the creative intellect. So you could create spaces where others can't see that it exists. So the title for me represents my ability in the 21st century to step into that magic, to know that when couples dance, and they step on a towel together, and they hug on each other, that in that moment, they have the ability to escape, to leave this space, and to journey together into new futures into past histories into present possibilities. And that is what excites me about how to then take my understanding of what we as Black people have in our toolkit to respond to this. So I didn't want to pull this forward, I was interested in, okay, let's find a space that we restore each other, let's find a space that we can lean into love, in spite of whatever. And that's the title of the piece. 

Gianofer Fields  18:04
Let's move a little bit closer to the speaker because we have impeccable timing, because as we're talking, the music is playing in your dance and the dancers are performing. Yes. So in the body meant of, of language in the conversation of dance. What am I seeing? Like, how do you like I can understand it as protest, but the movements and the gestures and getting there. I don't know, as an outside person looking in, if I should be looking at every single movement.

 Chris Walker  18:35
Tell me Tell me, what are you seeing? 

Gianofer Fields  18:37
I'm seeing someone, three people sort of moving away from in wrestling with getting away from the idea of who that scope of what that sculpture is trying to tell them who they are. They're resisting that. They're fighting against it. And then it to me, it looks like it's a hard fight. It's a struggle. They're fighting, but they're finding some strength in each other. And in looking away from it, they're finding strength in in moving away from it. Yes. Yeah. That's, that's what I get out of. Yes.

 Chris Walker  19:13
Yes. Absolutely. And then if you take the sculpture now as a metaphor for current society. 

 Gianofer Fields  19:27
Oh, yeah, that's a movement, that it's there's still danger that we're not safe, yet. There's danger. There's bloodshed, there's trauma. And even as some are able to stand and resist, there are others who are still taking care of those who are traumatized and wounded.

 Chris Walker  19:48
That's a powerful interpretation. 

Gianofer Fields  19:50
That's what it feels like.

 Chris Walker  19:52
That's, that's a part of it. Right? Is not letting him go down. Her restoring him in that moment, is saying, Yeah, we're not superhuman, we will fall. That was a bullet. Right? But it's the restoring her ability to restore them and them getting back together, you know. It's this moment of them removing the armors. All the bulletproof vests are sticking it off, because with each other, they're fully safe. But outside of that they're armored up.

 Gianofer Fields  20:29
It was hard for them to get to that place of safety, it wasn't guaranteed was the fight to get there. Yeah, they had to get to that.

 Chris Walker  20:36
They had to work for it. They had to work for it. And that's why I think the tile as a device is such an important device to keep speaking to, our ability to find liberation in each other is when it feels the most impossible. If I look around and see a brother or a sister, there is an immediate nutrient even before conversation, and even if a hello never happens, sometimes it's just the visual connection.

 Gianofer Fields  21:26
I call it the breath. When I see someone who looks like me, when I see a woman or a man of color that looks like me in a space where when we're not normally seen, I can take a deep breath. It's just like, Okay, I see you we're safe here with together, I got you. And now let's see what we can do while we're here.

 Chris Walker  21:44
And if you is brave enough to give that little nod?

 Gianofer Fields  21:51
The nod is everything or a little wink, like what's up?

Chris Walker  21:56
Yeah, your presence may be nutrient but that nod, a wink is medicine!

Gianofer Fields  25:37
Oh, it is.

 Chris Walker  22:07
I'm telling you, it's a powerful thing. And so I keep saying  emancipation or liberation is in each other. It's in how we're able to restore and face the world and the next day. The acts, the proclamation is a part of the process. I would never deny the significance of that signature on that document. But if we think of it as a part of the process, then we all see ourselves in process. The version that is performed in the concert space, on a stage, proscenium stage with an audience is a concert dance version of the work. And so when that is performed, the sculpture isn't present. But the ideas that they represent, are very much present. I see the protest section. So you have to imagine the concert stage now. And you can see the Lincoln, I see the protest section, as Lincoln, in this dance, embracing the entire concert stage as a 3-D projection. So the protest is happening under this embrace. And the duet section where they remove that armor. On the concert stage, the freedman now shows up at the front, and he is witness looking upward to that love story, to that future, to that beauty. And so we use projection as a way to bring the sculpture into the proscenium theater space. But it's not there, to take over the space, it's there to inform them how you're seeing that movement in a different way. Because he is here kneeling, I'm changing the why, he is looking up to our future, this beauty, this ability to love and escape whatever.

 Gianofer Fields  24:35
I was going to ask you, Chris, if the dance ever transcended the sculpture and the sculpture will become unnecessary.

 Chris Walker
Absolutely.

 Gianofer Fields
But it seemed like it kind of did from the start.

 Chris Walker  24:47
Oh, yeah, absolutely. That was important to me. That's, that's what I said. I didn't, I was not interested in the vocabulary. I was interested in the study. Yes, I was interested in everything that's here, the scroll, the whipping post, what is the meaning I was interested in, in the hat in how he's dressed. He's naked. You know, I was interested in the story here. And I did not reflect or represent that. I honestly went back to how I felt that very first moment which was, that's not us. How dare you? No, we are, we are ... And I started to defend it. You know, or "our liberation is, in this, and it's in this, and it's in" ... And so I went back to that first feeling: what are those things. And they boil down to each other, our ability to love ourselves and each other? The moment we question the deep love of our melanin in each other, then we fail that process.

 Gianofer Fields  25:50
One thing I've enjoyed about this conversation, is it your points, you make your points in movement. You know what I mean? Like you in some people talk with our hands, you talk with your entire body. Like the hair on your head down to the soles of your shoes, you speak with your entire body.

 Chris Walker  26:11
This is a podcast, none of this is being captured! 

Gianofer Fields  26:14
But you can see you can hear it because you move away from me you come back around like this, you create, it's almost like standing here looking at you. You're it's not performative. But you create an entire, you create a world, when you talk, it's not just about the words, it's a movement and you create this entire you create a scene, I'm not just in the Chazen, I'm in a real real place, does that make any sense?

Chris Walker  26:46
It makes absolute sense. Because when I step on the tile, I really believe, the ability to astral project and show up in that space and experience that space fully. Because I've had those experiences. So do I believe I carry that magic? I don't know. But I trust that if I embody those ideas truly, or truthfully, in the moment of expression, that something may translate and transfer, so that you experience it. That was great feedback, thank you. But I believe the thing deeply. And so I'm able to speak about it from a very truthful place. And that place is also space, how my body feels in space, so it occupies space, it probably says that I'm very comfortable in the way this is deconstructed. And so I feel open, there is an openness. I really respect the exhibit, in terms of how much information and learning happens, as you move through it. This mirrored section here, I can't deny any part of it, this sort of deconstruction, and then of course, this section, which is asking you to see it from all these different angles, right, and then here sitting in the center, where you're able to move around it. But in doing so you're engaged, right, with the juxtaposition of these two ideas. In terms of black and white representation, and who gets represented and how this is, look at this curation right here, just this storytelling. It's not lost on me. That these, this wall here, the portrait, and this wall here is juxtaposed with impeach the precedent. Right? And so what is the precedent that they're, the curators are asking us to interrupt in our understanding, and who are the folks there? It's us who responded to the work that is on that wall that is juxtaposed with this bit of 18th and 19th century.

 Gianofer Fields  26:59
So when does this, when does this, or does it ever leave your body? When you're working in this environment? What you're working with this heavy text and images? Do you feel it leave your body when you're done? Does it come from the notion that you may be if you're ever done with it? Does it come from your body? Or does it come from your head?

 Chris Walker  29:37
For me, it's my body and I know I'm not done with this work. So it's inspired a couple responses, which is fine, but I feel a deepened sense of curiosity. I thought I was done actually until I came to the exhibit. And I thought I understood the story of the freedmen and I, I was quite satisfied, well, I was okay with our representation of Blackness in my work in spite of whatever. But when I came to the exhibit, and I recognize how little of the freedman as a person was actually in this form, then I became more curious about what it would look like to explore that idea as a form. So I started to look back at a lot of the research we're doing as a part of this process, how the Black body is represented in emancipation sculptures all over the world. And then using those forms to inform the vocabulary, and then stringing those vocabularies together like animation, to create a phrase, studying that phrase, and then using that as the core language to develop a new solo in expressing that idea. So that's something that came out of this study that made me know I'm not finished. Because I'm still even working those ideas through my own body. And then of course, my process will, of course, ask other dancers to work through the similar ideas. So I'm excited about diving into that probably next year.

 Gianofer Fields  31:49
You've been listening to Meet Me at the Chazen. Our guest, Chris Walker, is the Director of the Division of the arts and professor in the dance department at UW–Madison. Meet me at the Chazen is production of the Chazen Museum of Art on the campus of UW–Madison in Madison, Wisconsin. For more information about the museum, it's collections, and exhibitions, visit chazen.wisc.edu I'm your host Gianofer Fields. Thank you for listening.