Dance can — and should — contain a wide array of people and styles. And so should its audiences. That’s one of the messages of the Los Angeles-based dance company BodyTraffic.
The contemporary troupe will dance at the Myrtle Woldson Performing Arts Center at Gonzaga University on Oct. 19 at 7:30 p.m.
"In visiting Spokane, we are very much sharing a 'Best of BodyTraffic' program," company artistic director, Tina Finkelman Berkett said. "I'm trying to show people, 'Okay, here's the versatility of the company. They can do hip hop forms. They can do super balletic work.
They're such elegant and generous performers. I'm making sure that the pieces that we're offering offer all of that to the audience."
Part of that variety will be in the music the dancers perform to, which will include songs by Etta James, Peggy Lee, James Brown and Dean Martin.
Having familiar music is only part of Berkett's approach to making dance more accessible, as she explained to SPR’s Owen Henderson.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
OWEN HENDERSON: For people who might be a little skeptical of contemporary dance or just new to the world of dance in general, how do you describe the work of BodyTraffic? What can people expect at a BodyTraffic show?
TINA FINKELMAN BERKETT: It's interesting that you ask that because I often find that the audience I'm most interested in capturing is the audience of people who are skeptical of contemporary dance.
And for us, it's such a joy when skeptics come and they're kind of converted to being dance lovers.
The show that we'll be offering in Spokane is representative of the BodyTraffic brand in that it offers an evening of a lot of great music.
I found in the 18 years since I founded BodyTraffic that this is a beautiful way for us to get dance skeptics to feel comfortable in the theater.
It allows them to loosen up. It's music that's familiar and often that they enjoy. And then they start to kind of like allow themselves to take in contemporary dance, maybe in a way that in the past they were scared of doing.
OH: You know, a lot of people, they have this idea of dance as being kind of purely ballet and being this kind of elitist thing that needs years and years of training. So talk to me a little bit more about how accessibility plays into the company's work.
TFB: The company that we have right now is so incredibly diverse in that each of the dancers, they come from such different walks of life.
They come from such different places around the globe. You know, there's a variety in terms of age, perspective, life experience, ethnicity, sexuality. They're just such incredible people.
And one of my commitments is to sharing who they are as humans with the people that we encounter on the road and at home in Los Angeles.
I feel that especially our younger audiences, when we have children in the house, it's really important that they look on stage and they see someone that looks like them that they can relate to and say, 'Oh, wow, look at this, I could have a career in the arts.'
And so when I talk about accessibility, it's really important to me that the audiences are representative of the dancers that we have on stage so that the dancers can connect to people in the way that I just described.
And so often what that means is that we give tickets to local schools and organizations. We don't limit our audiences to people who can buy tickets. We want to give tickets away and give access to people who wouldn't otherwise be able to purchase a ticket.
OH: I saw also that BodyTraffic had been named cultural ambassadors to a variety of countries, Israel, Jordan, South Korea, Algeria, Indonesia. What does being a cultural ambassador look like?
TFB: It basically means that when we are overseas, most specifically chosen by the American government and sent by our country, we have a very specific agenda to share the cultural fabric of what we are doing as an American company.
So we're there in these other countries sharing our love for dance, teaching classes, giving performances, doing outreach programs that include connecting with people of all different ages and abilities.
And it really is amongst the greatest aspects of the work that we do at BodyTraffic. You know, it allows our dancers to have such beautiful experiences and it just shows them the impact of what they do.
The Myrtle Woldson Performing Arts Center provides financial support for Spokane Public Radio, but SPR News covers them like any other organization.
