2022 S P A C E Alliance Studio Residency

Another round of our S P A C E Alliance Studio Residency program is here! Edition 4 of this residency program offers the same rad opportunities for collaboration in the San Diego arts community. This program promotes the cooperation of local spaces and movement-artists, building artistic community, artist development, and provides a platform to share new work. In alignment with DISCO RIOT’s overall mission, we foster interdisciplinary movement-based art with themes of social change and storytelling.

DISCO RIOT’s community partners Art Produce, Balletcenter Studios, and Malashock Dance, will provide 40 hours of rehearsal space over a 10-week period to the selected resident artists from August 15 – October 23, 2022. In the spirit of community, collaboration and exchange, the residency program also includes master classes taught by the resident artists for their home studio communities, showings of each artist’s work-in-progress, and culminates in a final presentation of artists’ work at their S P A C E Showcase.

S P A C E Showcase Ed. 4

October 28 & 29 @ 7pm

City Heights Performance Annex

Meet the Artists

ARTIST

Rachel Catalano

ABOUT THE PROJECT

I am interested in taking this time to research and unpack religious influence and how it affects almost every aspect of life for one raised in a church or other traditional religious environment. I’m interested in exploring my frustrations with the toxic ideas or concepts that I was taught were “good” through the lens of religion. I have both experienced firsthand, and seen in the lives of people I care about how oppressive this kind of structure can be. I grew up in a “non-denominational christian” environment, so my perspective is specific to glaring issues like purity culture, homophobia, transphobia, and many of the other toxic things we often see christian churches doing or saying in the news. As I reflect on these religious concepts as an adult, I see this rhetoric driven by fear of anything that they can’t control, which is exemplified by the pro-life movement. I am also particularly interested in exploring the subliminal messaging around “saving your soul” by “earning” your salvation and your place in heaven by “works,” or being a so-called “soldier for Christ.” Inevitably, this perspective of oneself leads to internal collapse, because nothing is never enough. In contrast, we are often told that there is, in fact, nothing we can do to earn the love of God. I plan to explore this and other contradictions within the religious subculture.
I’m not interested in overt or broad bashing of religion. What does interest me is the idea that religious influence can often take us further from ourselves instead of closer to any higher power.
In the choreography of this concept, I would like to play with images and movement that are immediately associated with and tied to that space: hands in the air worshiping, over enthusiastic smiling, handing out flyers, kneeling, preaching, and more… and how when we really start to ask questions and research around these topics, these familiar and even previously safe movements and faces become limiting and oppressive.

ARTIST

Zack King

ABOUT THE PROJECT

Loyalty is the second installment in the trilogy, Project: Psyche. The first installment named Fear, was my senior thesis. Fear was an exploration of the fragile nature of ego, the resilience of artists, and the simultaneous feeling of the fright and sense of home I experience on stage during performance. In this dance, I work with the concept of fear in relation to my transition from student to professional artist. This concept was elicited from Kendrick Lamar’s album, Damn. This concept is embodied in the song FEAR. This song is self reflective and generates empathy. It cultivates an atmosphere of self-loathing, ambition, forgiveness, longing, resentment, acknowledgment, distrust, negotiation and acceptance. Through this concept, I worked to understand my desires, anxieties, shortcomings, and my ability to persevere in the face of uncertainty. In Loyalty, I hope to question the promises, pacts, oaths, bargains, and negotiations I’ve made with myself as a way of coping with my unfulfilled desires as an artist and my fleeting dreams of success. I will begin the making process by revisiting the remnants of Fear. By submerging myself into the movement research of the past, I hope to find new movement qualities to express my feelings as well as new strategies for exploring and refining my ideas of success and fulfillment. One of the ways I will research this project is by collaborating with a live musician to reimagine, extract, and channel essential elements from the most recent Kendrick Lamar album, Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers. Live music played a big role in the making and performing of the first installment. The thread of live accompaniment will ground me in the substance of the first dance while guiding me towards what is next. At this time I do not have an idea of what the piece could look like. I look forward to discovering that through the process.

ARTIST

Micah Parra

ABOUT THE PROJECT

The work I plan to explore will be primarily dance and movement based with some visual and auditory aids. There are two contrasting ideas I’d like to, with the allotted time, bring more seamlessly together. I have this vision of being able to interact with objects, people and feelings that aren’t actually there. Some of this would be done through a minimalist stage and simple objects, while others would be through stimulating, complex projections and sounds. I want to play with making “scenes.” A few integral aids (physical, visual/digital, auditory) to guide the narrative but the rest left up to interpretation. Making the implied feeling, area, or situation, evident. To me, this project highlights the similarities/differences between the internal and external experience of being human and existing with the natural world. That we ARE the natural world, and the juxtaposition of simplicity and chaos lives within us. How a profound personal moment can be so loud and encompassing, like an entire universe, while the vastness of nature, although complex and endless, can be distilled into these beautifully distinct and easily recognizable feelings. The paradox that is interacting with self and with “other.” A big task, but it’s waiting to get out!