By Jill Randall

The other day I got to catch up with Tether Dance Project co-directors Teo Lin-Bianco, Tatianna Steiner, and Ella Wright. Tether is an exciting, new nonprofit dance organization in the SF Bay Area. Tether’s work explores community building, mutual artist support, workshops, and performances. Catch Flux & Form November 14-16 at the Joe Goode Annex in San Francisco. 
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Can you tell me a little bit about Tether — as a platform, a company, a multi-faceted project?

Tatianna: So, Tether Dance Project is a bay area based organization that offers workshops, performances, and opportunities for emerging artists and for the community to engage with modern dance and performance art.

Our first offering was our workshops; we have hosted two. Our first was Flow, an improvisational workshop back in July. Flow introduced the everyday dancer to modern dance and improvisation. Our second was a joint workshop with Pearl Street Dance Collective, Ignite. That workshop was geared more towards emerging artists, offering them a place to gather and a place to connect with one another, as well as a place to create together. We created phrases, and we also had a professional development panel come in to speak to the group.

And now we have Flux & Form, our inaugural production featuring 12 emerging artists.  Flux & Form is a showcase for emerging artists by emerging artists, and is curated as well. This year our theme is “reflection and evolution.” We’re hoping that Flux & Form will become an annual offering!

I think that’s what sets us apart as well; for the Flux & Form cohort, we hand-picked artists, we offered a retreat…as well as mentorship opportunities. We believe Flux & Form is a great avenue to bring emerging artists all together in a professional setting.

That nicely segues into the curatorial question. Can you share a bit about your curatorial process? Who’s been on your radar? Did folks approach you? 

Ella: So we had different approaches to this process. First, we asked people that we knew from our personal and professional circles, and then, we also just tried to get the word out as much as possible, like through Dancer’s Group.

For all artists,  we had them apply through a formal application process. We received more applicants than we expected. I think it was like 30, maybe a little bit more. It was rewarding knowing that so many people wanted to be a part of this.

When selecting our choreographers, we wanted to make sure that they were emerging, which can mean different things. Emerging can be a recent grad, who has had no professional experience, it can be an artist new to the Bay Area, or an artist also new to choreographing. So our meaning of emerging is diversified.

We also wanted to make sure Flux & Form would be a diverse movement experience for the audience. So it’s not all modern dance.

When you think about Flux & Form, what are five words or phrases to describe the project?

Tatianna: Building a creative village.

Ella: Questioning the status quo of modern dance.

Teo: Widening reach by prioritizing accessibility and inclusion.

Tatianna: Opening space for new artists.

Ella: Bringing the energy the scene’s been waiting for.

In the promo materials you shared with me, I believe it had used the phrase “mutual support,” and I’m always curious, what that means and how that takes shape?

Teo: Yeah, so as one of our phrases mentioned, we wanted to create what we call a creative village. And by village, what we are trying to create is something in which people can participate in and receive from as much as they want. When we’re doing specifically these types of showcases, a lot of the times you apply, you show up on tech day, you do your performance, and then you leave. And there’s not a lot of opportunity to actually engage with the art or engage with the purpose.

I was in APAture last year, and I was really honored to have been selected. I was surrounded by all these really amazing people, but we had no time to get to know each other. There was no time to ask each other about the pieces, and get feedback from one another. There was a tiny reception at the very end, and it felt a little bit disappointing that we had so much brilliance, so much talent and opportunity in one space, and we didn’t have an opportunity to actually flesh it out, to build connections that were really worthwhile. I know the people, but I feel like I wouldn’t say that I worked with them.

And so, what we wanted to do at Tether Dance Project is create a community in which people could be in each other’s pieces, offer feedback and constructive criticism, and to establish relationships that are beyond just being backstage or on stage with one another.

One of our goals with the Flux & Form cohort retreat was to get to know each other in a context that was totally outside of dance, and we had 10 individuals in total. It was a lot of fun! Just like to play games and be with one another. A lot of us are in the same age range too, and in similar places in terms of our careers and just our lives. I’m really grateful that we’ve had the opportunity to get to do that.

Another concept of mutual support for us is compensating people.There have been a lot of opportunities that we’ve taken that are for “exposure,” or it’s a stipend that’s really limited in how much it can help us. So something that was really important for us is to give emerging artists the compensation that they deserve. It takes hours and hours to create, and a little bit of your soul every time that you create a new piece, and we wanted people to feel like they were being compensated realistically for the amount of effort that was put in, and also to make it a little bit more sustainable for the people that are trying to do it full-time.

Compensation  is able to happen through our fundraising efforts. We are really fortunate to have funded this entire project through small donations and through ticket sales. We were floored by how much we were able to get through our GoFundMe campaign, and I think that that’s a testament to how much people really want to support the arts today.

And then lastly, we wanted to offer an opportunity for other organizations to get involved, whether that be other nonprofits or local businesses. We are in a city that has so many small businesses, and I think that’s something that has made Tether really successful, is that people are kind of accustomed to more of the mom-and-pop shops, as opposed to these really big corporations. So we started reaching out via email to small businesses. Ella’s been going in-person, which has been very effective. We’ve developed some partnerships with local businesses, including FitnessSF, and SF Skate Club

Additionally, we’re doing a raffle to help continue to raise money. We’ve gotten a lot of in-kind donations – another aspect of mutual support – and we’re really grateful to be able to work with other people that have missions that are similar to ours and want to support their community.

My last question, which I’m always curious about, is this idea of “the dream of the audience.” This phrase was the title of an art exhibit at the BAMPFA at UC Berkeley, like 15 or 20 years ago. I love that phrase….What is the dream of the audience? Like, who do you hope to be there? Whether it’s folks you’ve never met, or young folks who can look up to you and say, “Oh, this is what I can do.”

Teo: During our Ignite workshop, Stacey Printz made a really good comment about what success looks like, and for her, one of the metrics of success was having people in the audience that you didn’t know. Individuals that were just either interested in the work or fans of the work, but weren’t directly credited towards you. And I think that that’s something that I’m definitely curious about…through marketing or through word of mouth, I hope that there are people in the audience that are 2 or 3 degrees away from the people that are performing.

There’s obviously the friends and family, which we love to have, and they get to see us grow and evolve as artists. They’re fantastic. But I’m kind of curious to see how those connections work their way into the broader community, and to see if we can kind of recruit those outer circles, coming in.

We are very eager to have people in the dance and the art scene in San Francisco join us! We use the term art because a lot of our work is super multimedia and multifaceted. We’re very interested in collaborating with people that are not necessarily in the field of modern dance, and so it’s important to us that there are a lot of different artists in the space. We have a potential collaboration next year with a technology art space, and we’re really excited and always curious about expanding the boundaries of modern dance! That’s an idea we want to see reflected in the audience.

On top of that are also people who have no experience with dance. I took someone to the CounterPulse residency show recently, and it was his first time going to a dance show ever. That was really exciting for me because I grew up going to modern and experimental theater. So, it was kind of interesting to see how someone who has zero vocabulary about dance can react and kind of participate in experimental theater like that. That was something that I wanted to bring into the show for this. We were thinking, “What would it look like for someone with no dance background to see these pieces? How would they be able to engage with it?”

The audience for us is a place for everyone, and that’s part of the reason that we have a “no one turned away for lack of funds” policy. (Please email admin@tetherdanceproject.org if cost is a barrier.) We don’t want it to feel exclusive. We want Flux & Form to feel like a performance that everyone can participate in, no matter their relationship to art.

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Flux & Form, a curated showcase of dance exploring reflection and evolution, presented by Tether Dance Project.

Friday, November 14 at 8:00 PM
Saturday, November 15 at 8:00 PM
Sunday, November 16 at 3:00 PM

Joe Goode Annex, 401 Alabama St, San Francisco, CA 94110

Tickets: https://fluxandform.eventbrite.com

Flux & Form will feature nine original movement works by primarily Bay-area based artists, Elizabeth Wiehe, Ella Wright, Fosse Lin-Bianco, Abigail Hinson & James Jared, Lily Gee, Matt Barry, Mai Corkins, Tatianna Steiner, and Teo Lin-Bianco, alongside two dance films by Corinne Dummel and Ellis Emerson.