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Done right, dance is about projecting stories through movement. The team at Smuin Contemporary Ballet kicks off the company’s 31st season bringing some emotionally charged stories to the stage.
The show “Dance Series 1” will tour the Bay Area between Sept. 13 and Oct. 20. The company brings the performance to the Mountain View Center for Performing Arts Sept. 13-15.
“Dance Series 1” features work by choreographers Jennifer Archibald, Matthew Neenan and Amy Seiwert, who is also helming the show as the company’s new artistic director.
Seiwert, who has been associated with Smuin for many years in different roles, took over from outgoing artistic director Celia Fushille in July. “There are certain things that feel absolutely the same and then there are times when I feel — ‘oh, that buck stops with me!'” she said about her new position, which she said that she slipped into quite organically. “It’s interesting.”
Being at Smuin full-time, especially after working the freelance choreographer circuit for a couple decades — something she describes as both “wonderful” and “exhausting” — comes as a welcome change. “To be able to be of service to an organization that has given me so much really appealed,” Seiwert said. She had, in the past, been mentored by the company’s eponymous founder, the late Michael Smuin. “The sense of being a part of a lineage is really wonderful.”
In addition to her leadership role, Seiwert is still an active choreographer at the company. For this tour, she is putting together a piece called “Renaissance,” which premiered in 2019 in San Francisco and has been re-staged a few times since, most recently at the Joyce Theater in New York this summer.
“The piece is about community,” said Seiwert, who drew inspiration from the 2019 “Women’s Wall” protest in Kerala, India, where around five million women created a 385-mile-long human chain to protest against gender inequality and patriarchy, following a hotly debated local socio-religious issue about women’s right to public spaces.
“I remember when I first heard the story on the radio I was fascinated by it,” she said, moved by several aspects of the initiative including the part where men formed a parallel human chain across the street from these women, in a moving display of solidarity. “We really just started playing with a lot of these different images that came up from me learning more about the protest and went from there.”
Seiwert’s passion for this piece is palpable. “There’s a section I choreographed four times — every time we re-did the ballet I changed this section; it just never felt right,” she said. “I finally think I have it right.”
“Renaissance” is complemented by an ‘a cappella’ soundtrack by Kitka Women’s Vocal Ensemble, an Oakland-based group that specializes in Eastern European music.
In her Smuin debut, choreographer Jennifer Archibald will put together a new piece titled “ByCHANCE,” which is themed around deep concepts like the power of fate, serendipity and chance encounters. The piece makes its world premiere in Dance Series 1.
“Conceptually, I try to create work that reflects the tender spots of humanity,” said Archibald, who is also founder and artistic director of the Arch Dance Company and program director of ArchCore40 Dance Intensives. “It is trying to take a moment and take in these experiences that sometimes you might ignore; you want to make sure you stop your busy lifestyle and really take in these memories that could shape your life in a really profound way — whether it’s running into someone at the grocery store or seeing someone on the train who resembles someone from your past. Those are moments you shouldn’t ignore because you never know how it could change the trajectory of your life.”
To some extent, Archibald drew inspiration for “ByCHANCE” from her own busy life. “There’s definitely things that have passed me by that I probably could have paid more attention to,” she said. In general, she endeavors to create work that reflects where she is in life. “It’s really that simple.”
She began brainstorming for this piece over a year ago when she received a call from Seiwert about working together at Smuin. “It’s important for me to be emotionally attached to the work that I do when I step into a new space,” Archibald said. “I also make sure I’m creating work that is unique to the company that I’m working with.”
For her, working with a new team of dancers is about getting to know them not just as performers but also as people. Moreover, in her book, what her dancers do on stage is more about the execution of concept than an execution of technique.
“It’s my job to learn about a human being very quickly,” she said. “You just have to make sure you’re really receptive and open to the bodies that are in front of you. That takes work — to take another vulnerable artist in front of you and let them land on you.”
The music for her piece includes contemporary, classical as well as an experimental mix of chamber and orchestral music by various composers.
Also on the program is choreographer Matthew Neenan’s theatrical work “The Last Glass,” that will be accompanied by eight songs from American indie-rock band Beirut. Neenan, who is co-founder at BalletX and resident choreographer at Philadelphia Ballet, will make his Smuin debut with this piece.
Smuin’s Dance Series 1 will be performed Sept. 13-15 at the Mountain View Center for Performing Arts, 500 Castro St., Mountain View. The show will tour the Bay Area between through Oct. 20, with performances in Walnut Creek (Sept. 27-28) and San Francisco (Oct. 11-20). Tickets are $25-$92. For more information, visit smuinballet.org.
