what was the Gold Stage? maybe kinda a bad idea of mine? I think that it turned out real pretty, the stage in the courtyard at the Hammer Museum as part of my contribution to Made In LA 2014. I was trying to create a space for dancer people to be, to make their work but the stage I made was too much always in the line of site, it was too visible for making anything other than a performative work with an audience. there was always someone watching, no privacy. that year in Made In LA there were many collectives and I was invited to be part of the show as myself or Pieter Space or both and I did both. the people I worked with at the Hammer were actually incredible — Allison Agsten, Connie Butler, January Parks-Arnall. it was the first time in LA that I wasn’t fighting my own battles to 100% no’s to anything I wanted to do. I felt very supported as an artist and a person. unfortunately I realized that I just don’t like the art world market capitalism and the dances that I made and wanted to make were at odds with that conversation of “activation” or whatever the art world was interested in bodies doing. they were always going to be more interested in selling something and it is really bad form to sell bodies. and very difficult to sell dance performances. I enjoyed being at the Hammer that summer in 2014, the courtyard did feel like a public park in many ways because it was free to be in there so there were all sorts of people and there are not that many public spaces to hang in in LA.
I think in some ways the Gold Stage was my way of trying to have the art world recognize that dance is a whole process and the process is the majority of the work and our lives and not just the performance that happens at some point in the process. Dance making is about working with ideas and bodies your own and others and groups of people and ritual and history and lineage. Dance making is about working with space and nature and sounds and smells and touch and gravity. Dance Making is temporary and passed thru human to human and can never be collected or stored in a dusty temperature controlled room because it is alive.
