Interview by Ashmita Biswas
Ashmita: What is your creative process?
Anabella: This pandemic changed all of us. Whatever creative process I knew about, I threw it out the window. So what is my creative process now in contrast to the past? For 30 years I have choreographed for the stage non-stop and right now, because of the pandemic, I started creating dance films in my home because it is a place where I feel safe, even though the space is limited. I live in a small apartment in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. I have 2 kids, a husband, a dog, and many belongings. It requires a lot of planning but at the same time I am very interested in exploring this environment that I live in, and I try to pour my personal and artistic life into this new creation. Since the pandemic, I have been studying filmmaking and video art at the School of Visual Arts, and I have also been doing a lot of research.
The pandemic forced us off the stage, and at this moment I can’t envision myself choreographing for the stage again! The stage isn’t the right fit for the ideas and images I’m working with now. The images are more cinematic in nature. In general, I’m a choreographer who uses strong images. Now I’m figuring out the length and how I frame these ideas. It also led me to frame the body in a different way. On stage I perform and show my entire body, but now I can just choreograph with my face or my shoulder or with my elbows, or just my hands. So it gives me more possibilities to reframe my body. I am also able to incorporate my private life into it. It’s not that my previous works were very different. At the beginning it was political, then it was more ritualistic, then more spectacular and the last couple of years I found my work to be more along the lines of an autobiography. More recently, I’ve been diving deeply into my identity as an immigrant and as a mother, so my creative process has changed drastically.
Ashmita: How different was your creative process before the pandemic when you were doing it for the stage? How would you approach it then?
Anabella: Well let’s see…for the stage, I was thinking about the whole spectacle, what we call the physical space or the body in space. I did many site-specific outdoor performances but my love is in the theater, in the black box. So from the perspective of a theatre, the idea develops in a different way, and perhaps there is more experimentation about movement. Now I’m thinking more with the outside eye. In the case of dance films, while researching I have a flash of a visceral image that could be a metaphor for something that could have textures, like smells and shapes. My husband is a professional photographer. He is usually the one who films and I direct him. We talk and discuss how much we want to show in the frame. Usually I do several shoot “studies” with my phone first, and then Todd film’s it with a nicer camera.
I look for different ways to capture the movement, the emotions.
Choreography for me is an “Apparatus of Capture”, it is a way to capture a moment in time, sensations… an intimacy that the stage can not provide me. It is another form of communication.
For example, I can give you a news by calling you on your phone or send you an email or write you a letter, or in person. It’s the same news but a different medium of sharing or communicating it. I’m excited about dance films because it forces me to work on my creativity in a different way.
This week we shot for 3 days with my daughter. It’s about women passing the legacy from one generation to another. I know that I will only have 1-2 hour windows to film this, so I discuss with my husband which day we can work on which scene. Then we improvise in front of the camera. This is different for me because I’m not an improviser, I’m a choreographer. But I feel that if I establish the texture and the environment for the film, I have the freedom to improvise. Then the choreography will happen in the editing process of the film. Of course I don’t have this opportunity when I’m doing a live show. In a film I can have many different versions depending on how it’s edited. I’m the creative head and my husband handles the technology, because I still refuse to learn about some of that stuff. I can’t do so many things at the same time. The whole process is fun!
Ashmita: You mentioned about the pandemic before and how it changed this whole process, so could you talk a little more about how the pandemic brought about a change in your views as an artist and how you adapted to this change?
Anabella: Last year, in June 2020, I was supposed to premiere a full length show that I was working on for two years (commissioned by La Mama) for La Mama Moves Dance Festival and when the show was canceled, I said to myself “I’m not going to throw all of this out of the window.”
Two years of research and I thought “What am I going to do with the show…do I wait for this pandemic to be over?” So in the spur of the moment, I decided to make a dance film. I immediately had a talk with my director Daniel Petrow, my dramaturge Naoko Maeshiba & the photographer/ filmmaker Todd Carroll, and I said we’re going to keep rehearsing through zoom and we’re going to make a dance film. I decided to shoot this film in one shot, instead of editing it, in order to keep the feel of a live performance. We made a 28-minute non-stop film without editing. I had to record it several times as I had many props, and the spacing was complicated. What the pandemic taught me is that we artists survive like cockroaches. No matter what happens, it is necessary for us to create and express ourselves and process life through art. If I don’t do that I would feel miserable and my body would feel crippled. I have to move and I have to choreograph in order to process reality. The pandemic taught us to be adaptive and because I have something that I want to share I find different mediums through which I can convey it. So I can write you an email or do a dance film, or I can perform live in the middle of the park. I don’t ask If, I ask How am I going to do it? I keep creating. Also the pandemic gave me a little more time because I wasn’t traveling like crazy all over New York for work and family. Last year, I had more time to do my research and read a lot of books. I had bought so many books over the last 10 years and stored them for exactly this time, it turns out. I feel that investing this extra time in reading gives my work a deeper meaning.
Ashmita: Well it was so insightful to hear from a prominent artist like you and how you adapted to this whole situation in a positive manner and how you see a silver lining instead of being like “oh no everything is ruined”.
Anabella: I feel that’s how we learn to survive and thrive and of course I cannot say that everything is rosy. There have been moments that I’ve been very depressed, but what kept me going is to wake up every morning and have something to learn and to create and that makes me start the day with enthusiasm. Even though I am at home and we don’t go out as much, there are not enough hours in a day for me to achieve everything that I want to do. Even when I have more time, it’s not enough, because it’s a constant hunger and thirst for knowledge, and that’s why I do Art.
Ashmita: Wow that’s really inspiring, thank you so much for sharing your knowledge.
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Ashmita Biswas, from Kolkata, started dancing Indian classical forms (Kathak and Bharatnatyam) at the age of five. While graduating in Business Administration (St. Xavier’s college), she completed a diploma course in Movement Arts from Rhythmosaic Dance Institute where she studied Ballet, Jazz, Contemporary, Tap and Kathak from Ronnie Ghosh and Dr. Mitul Sengupta. She then joined a Latin Dance company Vive La Salsa, Kolkata for three years where she trained, performed and taught Salsa, Bachata, Kizomba and Afro-Cuban Rumba under Aditya Upadhya.
In 2016, she joined The Danceworx, Mumbai where she trained in Ballet, Jazz and Contemporary. She was trained in ballet by ballet master Yehuda Maor from Israel.
In 2017, she moved to New York City to study Ballet, Contemporary and Salsa in the Peridance Center. She graduated from Peridance in 2020 majoring in Salsa. She is currently training, performing and teaching with a prestigious salsa company, Baila Society, New York (Directed by Ahtoy Wonpat Borja). Salsa Congress(Mexico), Boston Salsa Festival, New York International Salsa Congress, Connecticut Salsa Congress, etc are some of the festivals and events where she has performed. She has also studied and performed under renowned contemporary artists such as Anabella Lenzu, Apollonia Holzer and Martha Chapman. Being a Teaching Artist in Notes In Motion, she has had the privilege of teaching children(Pre-K to 12) in Public schools. Recently she taught Creative Movement and Salsa to children and adults in India through remote learning.
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