Keyon Gaskin: A Dancer, A Performance Artist Speaks
Keyon Gaskin is a Portland, OR based dancer and performance artist from the Midwest: Arkansas, St. Louis and Chicago.
Seeing Keyon perform, it’s not a thing, his latest work one night at Yale Union I had some questions about him as a person, as a dancer and as one of the only black avant guard performers in Portland, OR.
So we sat down on a windy Wednesday to talk about the most pressing things on his mind as an artist: it’s not a thing, Identity Politics and Black Lives.
How did you feel when you were performing your piece?
I felt sadness. I always feel sadness when doing it too. I feel super amped and charged up at other times. The piece, it’s not a thing, is about doing things that I have contention about doing as well as the color black period. It’s dealing with blackness in these different ways…the color, in relation to people, abstractly, maybe absence, void, nothingness, death, witchcraft and space. So I’m dealing with its connotations and implications in society in relation to people: historically, culturally, socially and the international perceptions of black people.
One of the contentions is being really wary about presenting my body in this context to mostly white audiences and them framing my experiences. And we see it too in popular culture in how the black body is sourced, how black culture is sourced. It’s this thing of like how much do you get to frame your experience for yourself.
What I’ve seen is, it gets framed as this Black Lives Matter piece when that’s not what I’m doing. And I actually find that even kind of just as offensive in another way…like oh, so anything you see of difficult things I’m dealing with it’s about police brutality. You know? And this idea that, yes, I get that this is the current conversation, but this is not a new conversation.
It’s only new to people who haven’t realized for whatever insane reason, or because now we have video cameras that police have been this brutal to black people since forever. My worry is that folks just stop at seeing me as a black body. You just stop at this like, oh my god your life must be so whatever because…
And then it becomes edgy.
Yeah, right. It becomes this other thing…
I’m also very interested in doing things that get people to not just sympathize but find themselves inside of as well. When you just other and say you don’t have access to that experience, it’s that thing of just sympathy and not empathy. Of just like…oh, it must be so hard for you? But no, let’s talk about how it’s hard for you too, and just pain in general. Let’s talk about what this symbol means. Are you finding yourselves in this or are you yet again othering?
It’s interesting because as a black person, how can you not talk about it (police brutality)? Especially as an artist but as you said, at the same time it’s not always about that.
And it’s not just that. You know what I mean? Because in a sense we can’t parse ourselves out, especially with art, it shows up in some way.
But what I liked about doing the piece was really having people more in the room than trying to watch me, moving people around and getting away from people. It was a lot of fun dancing really close and having people move around the room.
Yeah. It was totally like forget y’all.
Haha. Right?! I wanted to engage and hold space emotionally while also being rigorous around concepts. A lot of what happens is emotionality gets really kind of demonized in a lot of ways in contemporary conceptual art. Not just in art making, but the kind of demonizing of emotionality that we see in professionalism.
I’m a very emotional person. Emotional intelligence is a very valid way of engaging and I think a lot of this world could use more of it. But it’s also nice to talk to people and hear how people engage the work and that feels supportive. It feels like, yeah, this should have happened.
Keyon performing i_t’s not a thing_ at Yale Union in Portland, OR
What is it like being an artist in Portland?
I’ve had a lot of opportunities to explore work that I’m actually interested in and opportunities to tour and travel internationally with companies; specifically from a project at TBA called Turbulence. Through that show and those people I’ve had a lot of other opportunities.
I think a lot of it has to do with being one of the only black folks involved in contemporary, experimental, abstract, Avante Guard whatever the f**k sort of work we’re performing.
I’m not talking affirmative action sort of shit. I bust my ass. I love working with people. I love investigating and I’m very curious. Because of all of those things, and my drive to be involved, I’ve had a lot of opportunities.
For a while I was very much not intentionally dealing with race and blackness directly at all, because there’s a lot of things that interest me as a person that aren’t just about being black. We all have things that interest us, and there are so many ways of engaging.
I also did not want to frame myself as just The Black artist. However, being a black person in this world is very much apart of my experience. It’s not something that I’m interested in parsing out or something that I can. But there is this thing now, Identity Politics, and it’s all the rage.
What is Identity Politics?
As far as I can tell, when you’re working in something (like art) and dealing directly with your identity and how you navigate the world, that’s your identity politics. In my opinion, nothing that anyone makes is separate from how they navigate this world. Of course genres exist but that’s one way that assists in further othering bodies: black folks, folks of color, women and any othered none white male and it’s highly dismissive.
I think a lot about the neutrality of maleness and whiteness and the neutrality of white maleness. For instance, someone that is part of the dominant power structure or dominant culture explores can be broader and more encompassing of concepts but something that another person explores is directly tied to their identity? How is yours not tied to your identity? It is!
I think it has a lot to do with who gets to decide what work is identity politics work. Are these artists saying that their work is identity politics work and if they are, is that because this is the category they’ve been told it is or that they’ve given themselves?
If we’re talking about academia assigning these things, how are people making these alliances or categorizations, and who gets to make those? These are all apart of this conversation that is not getting had to me.
How do you feel like you’re moving in the world right now?
I feel like I am consistently sliding through, doing a get in where you fit in periphery sort of thing. I have had to squeeze myself in without necessarily going through the front door, and the right channels. I think about terrible credit, people not seeing your opinion as wholly valid or valuable, but also thinking about how can I get around that and still do what I want to do. I think about that even within movement. In leaving theater, I began to think how maybe that wasn’t the way that I could really have an impact the way that I wanted to or be saying the things that I wanted to say. So, I went to find a way: ‘wait there’s this dance thing. No wait there’s this weird dance thing…’
It sounds like curiosity.
Yes, and very much investigation. I am also interested in moving through periphery and cracks and trying to wiggle my way in and not wholly disturb, but kind of disrupt things. But I think the way things are happening now, it’s getting to a level of doing things more forthright.
Do you feel like, at a certain point it gets tiring trying to wiggle your way through?
I think it totally does but I don’t think being here is about it being easy and I’m not saying coming through the front door is easy either. But it’s more satisfying to come at it from the side, and be like Aaaah; rather than, Here I am! You should expect me to be everything. I think coming through the front door is involved in a lot of cultural capital: political, social and economic power. I think about art stars. There’s a lot of weird, f**ked up shit that goes along with that, and that I navigate in some ways but not on those levels.
I’d rather be the underdog. There’s something about being the one whose opinion some don’t immediately respect but have to respect later on. But this is also how I’ve had to navigate the world.
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