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Radway: My name's Becky Radway.

I'm the artistic director and managing director

of Triskelion Arts here in Brooklyn.

Our mission is to foster and develop

the presentation of the performing arts,

so we do that through both our presenting programs

for choreographers and other types of artists.

Split Bill was started both to give artists a chance

to make longer works,

so they are either artists that have done full-length pieces

but are now creating something new

and in the middle of that process,

or they're artists that have really only done shorter works

and are looking to branch out into something longer.

People have a hard time finding an opportunity

to show work at that stage,

that sort of in-between 20- to 40-minute length.

And having to show that in front of an audience,

I think it makes them really consider their choices

and think about where to take it

once they leave the Split Bill program.

Off, you guys.

Yeah, do it.

All right. Oh, hey. [ Laughs ]

My name is Cameron McKinney, and I'm a choreographer

and the artistic director and founder of Kizuna Dance.

When I was thinking about founding a company,

I definitely wanted to have something that was my own.

I also am interested in exploring

some different ideas to the company

that I wasn't really seeing on the scene at the time,

those being the Japanese culture,

but translated through more

of a street-dance-influenced contemporary aesthetic.

The word "kizuna" is a Japanese word

for the bonds between people.

And I named the company that because I believe

that community makes for a strong performance.

So what really makes the company stand out

are those bonds that you can see between them --

those bonds of faith and trust --

onstage that translate into something

that's tangible for an audience member.

For me, myself, I have been studying the Japanese language

and culture for 12 years now,

and it's what I did before I began dancing.

So now I just try to combine those two passions together.

The piece that we're performing tonight is called "Koibito,"

which is the Japanese word for "lovers."

The main meaning that I'm working off of

is this idea of there are three businessmen,

and they are kind of the core focus of the piece.

And each of these businessmen goes through

a sometimes-dramatic, sometimes-inspiring episode

as they traverse through their day.

And it comes from both this stereotypical life

of a Japanese salary man, who works all day

and perhaps doesn't have as much time for his family,

and it also comes from a very personal place,

in terms of me having to run a company

and do everything else that I have to do in my life.

Sometimes I can get overly focused on just the company,

and I work and I work and I work,

but I still also want to be around my friends.

I still also want to have intimate relationships with people.

And that kind of gets pushed to the side

in light of my company sometimes.

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My movement has a really strong street-dance aesthetic,

is what I've come to call it,

that influences the contemporary movement.

Although, at its core, it's mostly contemporary.

And then in a subcategory of that contemporary,

I'm more interested in floor work

and existing on a lower level

than I am in being upright all the time.

So there's a lot of different mixes of things

and concepts and aesthetics that I'm still trying to find

a clear line through.

But the only way to find it is to keep doing it.

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There are scenes in very mundane places --

subways, office places, things like that.

And then in each one of those scenes,

it starts off in a normal --

whatever "normal" is -- in a normal situation

and then breaks into a scene of chaos.

And eventually, these characters either succumb to that chaos,

or they triumph over it.

Which characters do the triumphing or the succumbing,

that's up to you as an audience member to decide.

That's really what the piece is about.

It's about that balancing of a desire to be intimate

and also a desire to be successful

and whether or not you have to give up one to have the other

or find a balance between the two.

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This piece has been very different

for me, choreographically,

because I don't normally choreograph using emotion.

I normally choreograph using spatial components

and creating interesting shapes and space

and creating movement

that's really exhausting, is normally how I work.

This process, I really checked into

where I was in my own personal life,

and in choreographing that for the company,

I never specified the emotion

until the very, very end of the process.

I didn't say, when I was choreographing in the studio,

that, "This comes from this real place for me."

Instead, I kept them very distant, actually,

in terms of their understanding of what the work was,

which was perhaps overly successful in creating --

in creating a certain kind of mood for them onstage,

where they, themselves, as they perform,

feel checked out and feel a little bit removed

from what's happening.

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[ "Japanese Farewell Song" plays ]

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♪ The time has come for us to say sayonara ♪

♪ My heart will always be yours for eternity ♪

♪ I knew some time we'd have to say sayonara ♪

♪ Please promise that you'll be returning someday to me ♪

♪ I'll remember our romance until the day that I die ♪

♪ I'll see your face in the moon and stars in the sky ♪

♪ So hold me close

♪ Before you say sayonara

♪ And promise that you'll always keep me ♪

♪ Near to your heart

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♪ I'll remember our romance until the day that I die ♪

♪ I'll see your face in the moon and stars in the sky ♪

♪ So hold me close

♪ Before you say sayonara

♪ And promise that you'll always keep me ♪

♪ Near to your heart

♪ Always keep me near to your heart ♪

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I think what I would like the audience to take away

is a question.

And that question is,

"What am I sacrificing for my own goals?

Do I need to sacrifice that?"

Because whenever you keep your mind focused on something,

things fall by the wayside.

And some of those things are actually really important

for the human experience,

for actually living life and enjoying life.

So I think I'd like an audience member to think about that --

to wonder to themselves, "Am I giving up something

that is actually enriching to my life experience?

And can I balance that drive to succeed

in this city where everybody's trying to succeed

with parts of my life that are actually enriching and supportive?"

[ Man singing in Japanese ]

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Man: Slide.

Reidy: I'm Jessica Reidy.

My piece tonight is "Lift."

And I'm a collaborator and choreographer

with Treeline Dance Works.

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Tonight we're showing a first draft of our piece.

It was inspired by various cultural rituals,

ceremonies, traditions,

and the ways that they draw communities together

and how people attach meaning to something physical.

[Insects chirping ]

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We started with that initial concept of ritual and ceremony

and took inspiration from different cultures

and started noticing some of the similarities

in practices that carried through from culture to culture.

Since I am in the piece and it's hard to step back

and actually see what's happening when you're in your own work,

we found ourselves

just throwing all of the ideas out there sometimes

and then just really paring it down

to its most essential element again

and then re-developing it from that point again.

so it was a lot of, like, ups and downs in the process

of throwing stuff out there, removing stuff,

and then building it up again.

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[Insects chirping ]

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I think modern dance, like any form of abstract art,

might seem intimidating to begin with.

I think what I notice from a lot of people

that are new to modern dance --

they come into it feeling like they need to understand it

or that there's something that they should be seeing

that maybe they're missing.

And when we're creating work,

that's usually not at all what we're hoping for.

We're really open to whatever the audience's interpretation is

and interested and excited to hear

what they might see in the work that we didn't plan for.

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When I've gone through periods of time

where I'm not using my body, I just don't feel as happy.

It feels great to, like, move really large.

And I don't think we get that same kind of opportunity

in our day-to-day life

to just really move in an exaggerated way.

And movement is a part of our everyday life.

It's part of, you know, daily body language, conversation,

but we don't really get to, like, see it on such a large scale.

We're pulling out a part of our language

that is more subconscious -- body movement --

and really blowing it up.

So it's a whole nother way to get an idea across.

Through the research of this piece,

we noticed a lot of the practices and ceremonies

and rituals that we were looking at

were often done with the purpose of uplifting.

So that's something that I would like people to leave feeling --

like, a transformation of coming to a brighter place.

If watching dance maybe inspires somebody

to just wiggle a little bit in their kitchen

or go to a yoga class

or something to just move their body,

I think that's definitely an accomplishment.

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[ Music ends ]

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