Last summer season Makisig Akin and Anya Cloud, co-directors of The Love Makers Company, got here to the Seattle Festival of Dance + Improvisation and offered the duet We Are (nothing) Everything. This yr Akin (a queer, trans Filipino choreographer and activist) and Cloud (a queer white artist dedicated to radical aliveness), return to work with a Seattle forged at King road station (July 19 at 6pm). Since they’ll be again to current one thing new, it looks like an excellent time to share some ideas on their work from final summer season and what to anticipate from their upcoming present.
Let’s start the place all good queer issues start: the membership. Not the metaphorical one — I imply the true, bass-thumping, no-words-just-vibes type. That’s the primary soundscape we’re dropped into in We Are (nothing) Everything, a duet by Makisig Akin and Anya Cloud that crashes by means of classes like a sweaty physique on a slippery dancefloor… besides this isn’t an ensemble. This is 2 folks. Just two. Dancing. Together. In a room stuffed with every thing. And nothing.
Makisig and Anya are already dancing within the house once I enter to take my seat. They are each merely wearing denims and tank tops, barefoot and actual. No costumes, no distractions. Their fingers are clasped — actually. Not metaphorically. In a singular grip that jogs my memory of thumb wrestling however the thumbs are down, the remainder of the fingers locked collectively. A dedication. A process. A promise. They maintain on for as long as they dance-moving out and in of the ground, with and on every other-it turns into a form of sacred absurdity. They dance with the partitions. They dance with exhaustion and affection.
This duet is superbly, intentionally tiring. They sweat. They flap. They fling themselves into motion. At one level, I tune out — my mind goes “wow this is nice” and floats off — after which I tune again in and somebody is balancing on one leg whereas the opposite is curled up on the ground and out of the blue springs to life, kicking. It’s playful. It’s bodily. It’s love. But not in an indicator card method. In a “I’ll follow you, or you follow me — just don’t let go” form of method.
Then, a shift.
The handhold breaks. They crouch and sit collectively on the ground in a sweaty tangle of denim. They caress one another’s ft with their faces (sure, actually). Then — like some horny queer Cirque du Soleil — they strip one another’s tank tops off with their ft.
Now shirtless, denims nonetheless on, they start to stability, carry, and climb each other. Akin lounges on Cloud’s again like a chaise lounge. Cloud foot-presses Akin into the air. They kind a literal pillar when Makisig climbs Anya’s shoulders and stands ten ft tall, surveying the room like a glistening, denim-clad lighthouse. Somewhere alongside the way in which, the music fades right into a distant thump. The queer membership is now in one other room. Or inside us.
Welcome to the full-spectrum queer contact zone — the place intimacy turns into a sport, choreography a dare, and vulnerability a superpower. There’s an extended second of wrestling, of grappling…that is contact improvisation that owes as a lot to the lineage of Nancy Stark Smith (who I first noticed Cloud carry out with at a Velocity contact improvisation second in 2016) because it does to highschool fitness center class. There is a repeated phrase on the diagonal, a second of straightforward and exhaustive set unison, crawling shoulder to shoulder operating and a leap, then crawling in reverse all the way in which again throughout the diagonal simply to do it … 10 extra occasions? !? Contact not for spectacle however for sensing, for sweating, for enduring. They lean into one another, our bodies wrapped like vines, after which — essentially the most radical second of all — they only… cease.
Makisig spoons Anya.
Nothing occurs. Except every thing.
They breathe. We watch. No dramatics, simply their breath slowing down from the very bodily first half of the efficiency. You can hear their post-exertion panting settle right into a deep relaxation. It’s essentially the most radical second of the night time. A dance of restoration. Of parasympathetic nervous system regulation. Of being, not performing. Of nothing. Could’ve been 5 minutes. Could’ve been twenty. Honestly, I might’ve stayed till dawn.
Then — simply while you’ve absolutely unclenched — they’re wrestling once more. The vibe is now sizzling, uncooked, and positively bringing huge butch vitality. Akin will get Cloud in a chokehold. Cloud pins Akin. It’s sweaty, it’s actual, it’s bordering on intercourse. Or sport. Or each. Is this wrestle about dominance? Desire? Communication? Consent? Yes.
It’s additionally the place the uncomfortable pleasure kicks in — watching the viewers squirm as two queer folks present what it seems wish to actually need one another, to the touch with objective and pleasure. I’m giddy. We don’t see this sufficient — not in dance, not in public, not with such generosity and readability from such skillful transferring and pondering people as these.
Then they transition right into a form of absurd boy band fantasy. Akin begins to ham it up with muscle man-like poses, glistening, whereas Cloud tenderly caresses them. She’s singing — or possibly simply mumbling and Akin joins — however then their buzzing resolves into what appears like a 90s boy band monitor. A wink to the truth that, for a technology of queer and trans youngsters, these had been the closest factor to genderqueer icons we had. It’s playful, it’s nostalgic, and it’s one other layer on this ever-expanding portrait of queer embodiment.
They return to earth to rearrange the fitness center mats which have made up the dance ground for your complete efficiency previous this second into sculptural chaos: constructing, toppling, rebuilding. A gentle structure. The type you make with somebody you belief sufficient to knock down your partitions and nonetheless wish to maintain your hand after.
Eventually, they climb a ultimate stack of mats.They witness one another. The lights pulse. The DJ drops the beat. They take turns dancing solo as the opposite perches excessive on a mat mountain witnessing. The membership beat grows stronger and sooner (shout out to DJ Stevie Gunter for a tremendous set that enhances all elements of the efficiency). Now they’re dancing aside however collectively — related with out touching. A displaying off that sure they’ll contact however sure they’ll additionally keep in sync and in relation when not touching in any respect.
And then — they begin kissing. Rather a lot. Like, making out kissing. And dancing. And climbing by means of the viewers. Still kissing. They scale the rows, they climb up two ladders going up the again wall into the lighting grid above till they disappear. Still. Kissing. The total theater, reworked right into a queer utopia the place affection is endurance and kissing is choreography.
That’s how We Are (nothing) Everything ends: mid-kiss, mid-flight, mid-beat. An enormous, unapologetic, full-body YES to queer love, to tender danger, to horny mess, to the audacity of resting on stage and sweating on somebody you belief.
It’s a imaginative and prescient of what efficiency may be when it doesn’t ask for permission. It’s not for everybody — however truthfully, it’s not making an attempt to be. It’s for the queer, the trans, the passionate, the curious, the courageous. For anybody who’s ever puzzled if possibly, simply possibly, holding somebody’s hand might change the entire world.
This wasn’t only a duet. It was a relationship. A revolution. A sweaty and candy reminder that we — queer, trans, wild-hearted we — are (nothing) every thing. So thanks, Makisig Akin and Anya Coud, for displaying us {that a} dance of connection, vulnerability and shifting energy dynamics is a marvel to observe and that possibly — simply possibly — everybody must be allowed to take their shirt off with out it being an enormous deal, not simply cis dudes.
Like We Are (nothing) Everything, I anticipate their upcoming efficiency SWITCH: Post-Failure Potentials to problem us by witnessing the novel revolutions doable in relationships with different folks. I’m excited to see how they develop their concepts to incorporate a big group. They tease that they may ship the thrills you’d discover watching the Olympics or a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu match. They’ll be enjoying with the energies of profitable and shedding, drawing from martial arts, dance and improvisation. SWITCH additionally guarantees to incorporate the viewers as lively spectators! I’m excited to witness this collective reimagining impressed by the novel vulnerability and energy present in queer communities. They’ll problem us by asking the query: What if failure wasn’t the top — however the starting of making a greater world collectively?
We Are (nothing) Everything by Makisig Akin + Anya Cloud was offered at SFD+I August 2024 on the Mainstage at twelfth Ave Arts. More details about that present at https://velocitydancecenter.org/events/di-anya-makisig/
Makisig Akin + Anya Cloud’s SWITCH: Post-Failure Potentials will premiere JUL 19 at 6 PM at King Street Station (303 S Jackson St Top ground, Seattle, WA) as a part of Seattle Festival of Dance + Improvisation | Velocity Dance Center in partnership with ARTS at King Street Station. Tickets out there right here: velocitydancecenter.org/occasions/switch-post-failure-potentials