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BREE EDWARDS: 

Welcome and thank you for joining me for Works in Progress, a podcast about artistic research, experimentation, and collaboration. My name is Bree Edwards and I’m the director of the ArtLab, a multidisciplinary incubator for the arts at Harvard. 

The ArtLab supports creative research and development and is a special initiative of Harvard’s Office of the President. While we commission new work and support course-based workshops, the artist residency program is the foundation of the ArtLab. In this podcast, we speak with the artists in residence at ArtLab and those that are working at Harvard about how they are grappling with contemporary issues and transforming ideas into art.  

BREE:

Ilya Vidrin and Jessi Stegall are movement researchers, dancers, choreographers, and educators. They were also artists in residence in the spring of 2020 at the ArtLab. Their residency was unfortunately cut short due to the COVID-19 pandemic and we were not able to share their research with the public. I’m delighted that we can be together again today.  

Alumni of both ArtLab and Harvard, Jessi Stegall and Ilya Vidran have connections across Harvard with deep and longstanding relationships with the Harvard Dance Center, Harvard Medical Center, the Box Center, the Theater, Dance and Media Departments, and the Graduate School of Education, as well as the Davis Center. They’ve returned to the ArtLab today for a special screening tonight of their new video entitled “Tethered”, which they created with collaborator Sue Murad and Raja Feather Kelly. And it was filmed inside the ArtLab.  

Ilya and Jesse have worked together as collaborators for several years and also have independent ongoing artistic practices. Their residency at the ArtLab in 2020 involved developing a multimedia toolkit for partnering. This included designing wearable technology that was used in interactive performance. To accomplish this, they brought together a team of collaborators that included dancers, neuropsychologists, technologists, dramaturgists, and violinists. So thank you, Ilya and Jesse, for joining me today. Really nice to be back together. 

ILYA VIDRIN:

It’s awesome to be here. 

JESSI STEGALL:

Yeah, it’s awesome to be back. 

BREE: 

So when you were working at the art lab, we were really focused on the work of the partnering lab and kind of going back in time. Ilya, you told me the story of how that work of the partnering lab was based on a traumatic injury that you had. 

ILYA: 

Yep. Yep. 

BREE: 

I was hoping maybe we could start there and you could sort of talk about the origins of that work. 

ILYA: 

Totally. So I grew up training in dance and when I started to dance professionally, I broke my back.  I had a stress fracture in my lower lumbar spine, which was the first major injury I’d had as a young dancer. It was – I think traumatic was the right word  -because I really wasn’t thinking about anything besides dance for my career trajectory. And when I started undergraduate, I really didn’t know what I wanted to study. I found my way into cognitive neuroscience and psychology, working with movement disorders. When I came to Harvard, I met Jill Johnson, even though I was here to study psychology with Ellen Linger.  It really blew my mind open to learn these new words like dramaturgy and choreology and be exposed to the work of William Forsyth. And when I started working on my PhD, I I found a way back into partnering because the injury that I had sustained was from partnering and I started thinking critically about not just the psychology of partnering, but the philosophy of partnering, what it means to be willing and able to establish and negotiate equilibrium with others.   

BREE: 

So, Jessi, how would you answer the question of what is the “Partnering Lab”? 

JESSI: 

Oh wow. I mean the Partnering Lab, I think, broadly is researching, questioning, discussing anything about the ethics of physical interaction. And so at its base, we are a group of movement researchers who are interested in practicing partnering, in practicing physical touch and considering how that practice is developing virtues like trust and care and empathy. But beyond that, we’re curious about our physical interactions in any spaces and medical spaces and business spaces. How we physically interact each other, what that says about the way that we are able to relate. What kinds of relationships can we have? How open can we be? How can we best get to know each other and work together by paying attention to these nuances and physical interactions?    

BREE: 

I mean, that’s an interesting evolution of your thoughts too. I’m wondering if partnering, and the work of the Partnering Lab, has evolved or how it has evolved for you and the work that you’re doing now.   

JESSI: 

I think that one of the key claims that we were able to come to out of our time at the ArtLab, in the work sense, is offering partnering as a practice that is beyond a metaphor for healing or beyond a metaphor for the way that we can relate to each other.  One of the things we are trying to bring out of our in-development partnering curriculum right now is how can we practice something like respect or practice, something like care, through a physical interaction, rather than saying “oh leaning my weight into you is kind of like leaning on you emotionally”.    No, they’re both skills that we can develop and they are different. Being a good partner might not necessarily make you a good person. So what kind of skills can we develop physically and what kind of skills do we continue to need to develop beyond the partnering space? 

BREE: 

I want to acknowledge and say that I appreciate how much the way you’ve talked about this work and the work has evolved that I think you know, you embrace kind of what the intention of the ArtLab is.  That, really, the laboratory is meant to experiment and try things out and cut things out that aren’t working or challenge our assumptions of things. I want to switch gears a little bit and move from healing into research. And what does artistic and creative research look, feel like, sound like to you? You are both engaged in really different types of research right now than you were in 2020, although I’m sure there are through-lines.  

JESSI: 

Yeah. Well, we’ve had so many conversations around this.  I mean I’ll be excited to hear what Ilya has to say because Ilia taught a course a couple of years ago on creative research at Northeastern University.  And one of the things that really came out of conversations between us when he was developing the curriculum for that course was the difference between research for an artistic product and artistic research. For example, you know I have no shame in saying I don’t think I’ve had any movement research necessarily go into my world premiere this weekend. But I have had a lot of research for this artistic product.  

My piece is about a woman’s life. You know it is historical and it was very important to me to to do a lot of primary research with her family, to read as much as I can to watch films. To buy her instrument and try it for myself. And so Clara Rockmore was a thereminist, which was the world’s first electronic instrument – the only instrument still to be played without any touch at all.  And I’m very interested in her story. And that’s what the theremin vignettes my my show this weekend is really about.  

However, along the way I had another line of research open up about a theremin-adjacent instrument called the terpsitone, which was Leon Theremin’s lost invention.  It was a life-size Theremin used to be played by the entire body, and it was made for his wife who was a dancer. Unfortunately, the sensors were so incredibly sensitive that no one could really get it. It was very difficult to play and sustain real notes.   And so, since the 1940s, no one has tried to rebuild one.  

And to me, that is an opening for some real movement and technology research separate from, you know, reading on Wikipedia pages and checking out books from the library. But using my body and using space and using technology to ask questions of what might be possible.  And maybe not even go in with a hypothesis, but instead just be gathering information about what happens when I put my body in relationship to this machine. So those are that’s kind of like a distinction that I might draw between research for artistic product and art Space Research. 

BREE: 

And it’s interesting to me that you’re making a work about an instrument that does not need to be touched. Given that, we just had this conversation about partnering.   

ILYA: 

Yeah, that comes up a lot. So I think this question of what artistic research is is really important because in some ways it can be hard to pin down. And pinning it down can flatten the possibilities.  But I think there’s a confluence of investigation, so empirical investigation, conceptual investigation and technical investigation. For me, the empirical is how many steps did I take or how many gestures did I make? Things that are countable? Then the conceptual is what is the, what is the movement mean to me or what am I trying to express in the movement? And if it’s more formal, I might not have an answer for what I’m trying to express in terms of emotion, but I might say it. Or I might say it’s about alignment. And the technical starts to open up this question of “how do these fit?”.   

So if I want the movement to be more expressive, what are the options I have available to me? So for me, research really begins with inquiry and becomes recursive. If there’s one answer and I’m stuck with one answer, I’m not really doing research right. One way I talk about it with my students is the difference between asking what time is it and you look at a clock, and saying “what is time?”.  Shifting that question around, suddenly we have to think more critically about what time means to us and what we try and express through our time with others or in relationship to our environment. 

BREE: 

Can I ask, do you think that research looks different to artists than it does to a scientist or a mathematician and how?  

ILYA: 

Jessi’s nodding vigorously. But I think yes and no. For those of us at home that can’t see Jesse nodding vigorously. I think you know I one of my very close friends is a molecular biologist and she when she was doing her PhD, would show up to the lab seven days a week and work with different media and pipettes. She was studying cancer and I would think, OK, like as a molecular biologist studying cancer, she is doing molecular biology and she’s showing up to her bench.  She’s taking measurements, she’s taking notes, and she’s producing some kind of output. And sometimes the output is a null result.  So they look at some kind of cure for cancer and they didn’t come up with it so they can cross it off the list and say let’s move on.  

I think in some ways as dancers, it’s similar, at least in the form that I show up to the studio on a daily basis.  And I have my questions that I’m asking and I’m tracking the changes as they appear, so at least in form. How we the fact that we’re asking questions, the fact that we’re tracking our questions, I think there’s an overlap there. And I think there’s an important overlap. For me personally, the research has to be tracked in some way. 

JESSI: 

Mm. 

ILYA: 

I think the research can absolutely be tracked within our bodies and we can sense what that difference is from day-to-day without externalizing it through a camera or through written notes. 

JESSI: 

Mm. 

ILYA: 

But if we’re not really tracking what it is that we’re doing, I hesitate to call it research because we can’t really see any kind of progress and what progress means.
 

JESSI: 

Mm. 

ILYA: 

To different people, I think it will be different, right? A scientist, I think, often wants to see proof of change and for artists, I think that change can be embodied in the way we move through the world. That might be, in some ways, ineffable. Which I think is part of the challenge for artists. It rubs people the wrong way to say, “well, if you’re doing research, prove it. And if you can’t prove it, then it’s not research” and I think that’s part of the paradigm that is important for us to shift. The way we move through the world matters just as much as the tangible artifacts that we produce. 

JESSI: 

I mean, I think a lot of artists get really upset when people claim that artistic research is different than scientific research. What they think they’re saying is artistic research isn’t serious. I don’t really care to say that they’re different because I think that they are, and it doesn’t take value away from one or the other. I think exactly what Ilya just said is right, that one of the key differences is the way that data can be stored, particularly for movement research, but also for a painting that’s been done over 10 times, and maybe we don’t ever see those iterations because no photograph is taken. But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t stored. That doesn’t mean the artist doesn’t have each iteration in mind.  

And the other thing that I think is a key difference -not the only one- is the results and what they signify for science as a whole versus dance as a whole. I think scientific, scientific research has no merit if it’s not novel. If it’s trying to answer a question that’s already been asked, nobody wants to fund that question. But there’s something to be said about something being new for me, or new for my body, or new for us, because we’ve never related before. And so there’s lots of ways that something can be novel for an artist without it being novel for the field of dance. And that’s still something worth pursuing. 

BREE: 

Thank you. I’d like to talk about collaboration. You collaborate with each other. You collaborate with a broad network of other collaborators, both dancers, but all disciplines of collaborators. I wanted to ask: What makes a good collaborator or collaboration? Or conversely, what have you learned that can really lead to not being an effective collaboration. 

JESSI: 

Hmm. 

ILYA: 

I think it’s a great question. Mostly because collaboration is this shiny word right now, and I think there’s a desire to do things collaboratively, but one of the things we talk about often is what it means to force collaboration. There are some projects and we’ve been sensitive to this. Where we want to work together, but sometimes the project doesn’t require collaboration. Sometimes what we want is a witness. Sometimes what we want is a sounding board, and that can be a kind of collaborator, right? There can be ways that we can facilitate. So I think good collaboration is about making the invisible visible, and it’s also going to be different for each project. I think sort of being generic or trying to be – trying to create a schematic for collaboration will fail because trying to apply insights from one project to a new project sort of tries to, we try to make a formula. I have my students often asking “what are the three steps to collaboration?”. I say well, one of them is showing up. One of them is making transparent how you show up and the rest is figuring out what it is that you want to do together. So naming your standards and criteria, but from there it’s kind of, you know, we believe in emergence. 

ILYA: 

I want to call out one of our collaborators, Mel Sue, who has this really beautiful way of framing questions, she often says “is there a world in which…” and that’s something that we’ve really taken with us into our process because saying, you know, “I don’t think this will work” is a very different – it creates a very different kind of energy than saying “Is there a world in which…”. This movement can fit with that movement. And if there isn’t “a world in which” then can we imagine one? Right. It opens up the space of possibility that is so much more generative than the kind of yes or no questions that can really shut down dialogue. 

BREE: 

You’re almost bringing that subtle gesture of a dancer into the language that you use. And you know, I have often said in in my own work, there’s a big difference between collaboration and cooperation, and that one is not better. We have to kind of name at the beginning which one it is, and both are necessary, but they’re not the same. So, because you brought up Tethered and the film that we’re going to show tonight, I wanted to – I like the way Sue who’s the cinematographer and the editor, describes this dance film, the short dance film, as “a creative dance documentary about our tethers to people, spaces and ideas”. I really like that and I’d wanted to just ask if we could end with the kind of conversation about specifically this film. How it came to be, what it means now, kind of a year later and being screened tonight. 

JESSI: 

Yeah, I mean. I wasn’t a part of the earliest conversations, I think, of Raja and Ilya brainstorming the idea of making a film together. We had worked with Raja in the past on one of his projects as consultants and dramaturg and so we already knew we really liked each other. But in reference to tethering: we started this film at a very interesting time of our lives, for all of us, and I can only speak for myself and I think Ilya can talk about our experience. But we weren’t the only ones navigating big personal shifts in our lives, and one of those shifts was Ilya and I deciding to end our four-year romantic relationship and wondering what it meant to continue to stay tethered across distance, in new kinds of relationship, as people whose work and lives and art were completely tethered to each other and not wanting to cut those. And so we were very open about that conversation with Raja and Sue, two people that we trusted to navigate this sensitive time very well. We had a lot of trust in each other and we let them lead us into prompts and exercises that at once were very formal and about movement and about line, but also generated a lot of interesting dynamics of our relationship. And now almost a year after we changed the nature of our relationship, it’s very emotional to watch back, but it also fills me with a huge amount of pride to see that you know, the tether is still very intact and we’re still negotiating it. And I think it’s really awesome to think about the way that I am connected to others in my life as being able to cut cords and build new ones without completely burning bridges down and to have this as a document of the process in real time and something that we made as a product is really a gift. And I always I think we’ll see it as a symbol of this big transformation in my life at least. 

ILYA: 

Yeah, I think that’s right. The earlier conversations we were having because we were figuring out how to de-tether, how to disentwine – I don’t know if that’s a word, but I’m going to say that’s a word – how to how to detangle our lives. They were about creating something not on ourselves. So I had been having conversations with Raja about commissioning him to make something for us because we wanted to take a step back from being creators. And you know, I’ve known Raja for about 10 years and I’ve been following his work and we had worked on a couple projects together and really wanted to explore the space of having, of being performers, of being there for him to try things out on us, and Raja being the collaborative person that he is, wanted to start with dialogue.  

So he wanted to start from a place of “where are you in your lives” and we quickly realized that we were all going through major shifts and that became the kind of content that we were exploring. And I see myself and Jessi as performers within the piece and we contributed a lot to it, but it was Raja’s vision. Raja came with a series of prompts and a series of gestures and asked us to participate and actively engage with the kinds of exercises that he was bringing into the studio, and it was challenging from the very beginning. Stepping into someone else’s process, I can say, you know – Jessi’s nodding. – we were both one. We’re both very stubborn and two, we both have very strong aesthetics and so showing up openly into someone else’s process and receiving direction did not feel great at first. It is really about process and, as much as it is about these lofty concepts of tethering and relationship and partnering, it’s also very much about the relationship that Jessi and I had. 

BREE: 

Also, say there’s a kind of generosity of the film too, that it means something very specific to you. And to a viewer, you know it can also be about that relationship between being directed and being a performer, that argument can be about that tension if we don’t know about the personal layers for you. And there was something that really surprised me in watching the film, which was the kind of representation of this building, of this room, of the architecture. You know, I immediately wanted to share it with the architects of the building because I think that they would be so incredibly moved to see the building that they’ve designed for artists being used by artists in this way and I wasn’t expecting that. I was really surprised – a nice pleasant surprise for me.  

And it was also a good reminder that, you know, the bedrock for the ArtLab is really about following the lead of artists and I feel like you’ve both been very generous and generative with that relationship. You really brought this project to the ArtLab. You organized all of it, made it happen. And so it was also a reminder to me that these relationships between institutions and artists, or between curators and artists, does not need to always be extractive. We also need to listen to artists and kind of follow their lead, and I just want to say what you created was really beautiful. There’s lots of different layers of reading, and so there’s a kind of generosity to the work that I really appreciate. 

ILYA: 

I think it was only really possible because we’ve spent so much time in this space and I think it really gestures to the significance of establishing long-term relationships. If we had come for the first time, I think we would have been overwhelmed by the kind of possibility here, and I think that also is a testament to Sue’s artistry as a cinematographer and as a performance artist, as a person who thinks very critically about relationship to place. So much of it wasn’t about B roll, etc. It was really showing up and saying “where am I and what can this space do” and honoring the site, the circumstance, and also the kind of relationship. I think there is, inside, a tethering to space as well that is really significant for us. 

BREE: 

Jessi, I want to give you the chance to add a last word or anything that we haven’t talked about. The film or anything in this process of sharing the work that, you know, was made a year ago. 

JESSI: 

I mean, you don’t have to include this, but I will just say that it is kind of amazing to me. ArtLab has really been a milestone for a huge journey for me in the past few years and my growth as an artist. When I first did this residency with Ilya in 2019-2020, I was so new to dance and I was so new to academia. Umm. And I was so lost and having this space to really just experiment and have no expectations for a product was just something I had never experienced before.  

And to stay in touch with you, Bree, and continue connecting about my work. To come back here three years later and shoot a film with Raja, Feather, Kelly, Sumarad, and Doctor Vidran. And to feel that I had a voice in this space. You always encouraged me years ago, but I didn’t really believe I had it. It’s just beautiful to return here and be a very different artist, older and curious in a different way, and still so interested in experimentation. And so, I just really thank the space and I really thank you for being a part of my personal journey and my journey in collaboration with Ilya. 

BREE: 

I think that’s a beautiful place to end. Thank you. Thank you both. 

ILYA AND JESSI: 

Thank you. 

BREE: 

Thank you for listening to Works in Progress, a production of the ArtLab at Harvard University. It is located on the traditional territory of the Massachusetts people, the original inhabitants of what is now known as Boston and Cambridge. This podcast is recorded and produced in the Mead Production Lab and features artists who are working here.

For more information about the show, the ArtLab, and the artists featured, please visit www.artlab.harvard.edu. You can also follow us on Instagram or Facebook by searching ArtLab at Harvard. Thank you.

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