Why Double Exposure?

By Ryan T. Smith and Wendy Rein

The inception of Double Exposure dates back to Fall of 2012. We had a mixed repertory season planned for ODC Theater. In addition to making new work, we were hoping to revive a piece that we had performed abroad but never shared in the Bay Area. Unfortunately one of our dancers had a medical emergency and wasn’t able to perform. It didn’t feel right to replace him, to change his particular voice and presence in the piece, and we didn’t have the time or mental energy to create something new. So we took a chance. We invited four choreographers to each create two minutes of material on the two of us. We then performed the duets back-to-back with minimal transitions, changing costumes onstage as we went.

It was a huge gamble, but it worked. To our surprise, Ann Carlson, Joe Goode, KT Nelson, and Shinichi & Dana Iova-Koga all said yes to this crazy experiment. The duets they made were pretty wildly different from each other, but since they were all created on us, the whole piece somehow had an internal logic all its own. We’ve performed a number of duets over the years, but this is the first time we broached a piece that centered around that relationship. Not that any of these duets were “about” us – each choreographer made whatever kind of duet he or she wanted. But somehow all together, our relationship is a good part of what came through.

Our partnership is a rare one. We have worked together for almost half of our lives, having been paired together during our college years, and somehow that partnership has stuck ever since. Dancers we’ve worked with have often mocked us for finishing each other’s sentences and for our almost telepathic way of communicating. We have a far more extensive history and understanding of each other as dancers and performers than most partners in the field. We’ve performed separately and together for many other choreographers over the years, but creating Double Exposure was the first time we ever asked other artists to create work on us. We knew we were onto something.

Lucky for us, ODC Theater’s Christy Bolingbroke saw the original incarnation and felt similarly. So in 2014, we pitched her the idea of Double Exposure 2.0, expanding from four duets to a total of twelve, with artists based up and down the west coast, from Seattle to Long Beach. Each artist was given around the same amount of studio time, and we requested that duets stay in a 2-4 minute range. They all knew our ultimate goal was to weave the duets together into a cohesive, evening-length production. Otherwise, the content, music and, to some extent, costumes and other visuals were up to the choreographers.

ODC, and Christy in particular, has remained very active in the artistic planning and coordinating of the work. From the beginning, she was involved in brainstorming potential artists, helping us reach outside of our current network. We took about a year and half to ask artists to participate (working with some and seeing what they created before inviting the next round). Our goal was to truly share a snapshot of today’s west coast dance scene, offering a spectrum of styles, approaches and backgrounds in the form. Twelve duets still only provide a small sampling of diversity, but it hopefully is enough to start opening up some of how we all define contemporary dance.

We’ve been very honest with ourselves from the start that this experiment just might not work on the stage. We are the only through-line. While that worked with four pieces, twelve is a whole different feat. The duets are a set of puzzle pieces, and what we are trying to do is somehow fit them into the same puzzle. For us, so much of this project has been about experiencing the process, getting a firsthand account of what drives these artists, seeing how they all attack the same task in different ways. In his duet, David Roussève asks, “What can dance do?” To some degree Double Exposure has opened us up to twelve different responses to that question. We still don’t have the answer. Maybe if we did, we wouldn’t feel motivated to try such an experiment, but for now, we have a lot more information about what and how dance can try.

Double Exposure will premiere at ODC Theater in San Francisco July 28-31, 2016

For tickets please visit: rawdance-doublex.org/events/double-exposure

For more information, and a full list of artists, please visit: rawdance-doublex.org

Ryan T. Smith and Wendy Rein are Co-Artistic Directors of the San-Francisco based contemporary dance company RAWdance, known for transforming theaters and public spaces with intellectually and emotionally layered performances. They have been described by the SF Chronicle as a “genuine partnership, one of the more thrilling in Bay Area dance.”

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Related posts:

Mitchell Rose's "Exquisite Corps" (including Ann Carlson, David Roussève, and Joe Goode; these are three artists involved with Double Exposure)

A Modern Dancer's Guide to……the San Francisco Bay Area

Quote for Today: From Andrea Olsen

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