In this episode of As Grandmother Says, Brinda Guha hosts a conversation with devynn emory and Shinichi Iova-Koga.
In this episode of As Grandmother Says, Brinda Guha hosts a conversation with devynn emory and Shinichi Iova-Koga.
Brinda Guha: Welcome to How People Move People, a podcast about the impact that our words, art, stories, and lives have on each other. Each series' journey unfolds in a sequence of six episodes, and Series 4 is titled “Dida Bole Je,” or “As Grandmother Says.” Thanks for being here.
Welcome to “Dida Bole Je” (“As Grandmother Says”) on the How People Move People podcast, a production of the National Center for Choreography Akron. I'm Brinda Guha. My pronouns are she and her and I'm a non-disabled cisgendered caste-privileged queer South Asian woman with roots in Bengal and the Jersey Shore. Lenapehoking is the land I occupy today. I make things for a living and I bring together like-minded folks to make things with me.
In this series, choreographers, grief and health workers, musicians, activists and writers will connect with an artist in the same field but of a different generation. They will have conversations with each other, reflecting on stories of their grandmother figures, mentors and guides. Folks who may or may not have had the most profound impact on us, but who always seem to stand in the glory of their truth. Their hypothesis of what's coming, and their reflection on what was and what could have been. In this shared time, these impactful artists will speak on their processes, their understanding of the times that we're living in, and a moment in their lives when they fundamentally changed their mind.
Amar dida bole je, your body will tell you if something is wrong. What are your grandmothers telling you now?
In colonial frameworks, it feels like there is a concerted effort to push us towards a world of polarization and strain. I’m keenly aware of what seems like the presence of some other power that feels like it is forcibly moving us away from our connection to each other - and it feels intentional, too. History has made evident that divide and conquer is the oldest play in the book, because the more we feel disembodied and severed from community, the more easy it is to manipulate us and extract from us. I believe that in our decolonial past and future, we’re grounded in a rooted sense of who we are, and circular pathways of deep connection and empathy for one another.
What is our capacity for embodiment? What are the benefits of centering somatics and healing practices into our dancemaking? How do we create enough trust when we are to improvise with one another, inside and outside of dance? We can count on multidisciplinary practitioners to create these pathways and procedures that guide us back to what I believe is our most fundamental selves: our bodies that know the sky as grandmother, the atmosphere as mother, and the earth as home. For me, when dance and artmaking is embedded in nature and community, we can go beyond the value of performance for performance’s sake, and we can begin to approach the dance as a framework for actual healing. That is to say, we go beyond being a witness to someone else’s story, and we begin thinking of ourselves as part of the story that’s being told. Imagine every single person on Earth having a comprehensive pathway to our own healing every time we feel forced into silos and hierarchy.
Some individuals have found a way to think beyond only practicing codified movement and explore the expansion of those ideas into a modality for our own restoration. I am beyond grateful to our guests today, Shinichi Iova-Koga and devynn emory, who both combine ancient healing processes and breathtakingly creative movement and theater practices into what can transform bodies, ideas, and connection during this time of war, famine, and brokenness. They remind us that on the other side of this, there may be a world filled with gardens and abundance and meaningful relationships.
devynn says, “Weight has been one way that idea physically manifested . . . to see what the circumstances are when you put your body onto someone else’s or are trying to hold someone up. There’s nothing that’s really fake about anything that we do. We carry each other and lift each other. Bodies are heavy if you really give yourself over. Some of the thoughts that have come up in discussions about this weight-sharing are, If I push down, will you rise up to meet me? and, This head is so heavy, can you carry it?”
Shinichi says, “I must become fluid in the space between the slackness, the tightness, the heaviness, lightness, initiation, momentum, the thought and action. I’m fluid between all these things, and when I’m able to listen, experience and respond - then in that moment, I increase the capacity, the dynamic elements of the body in which my mind resides. Then the mind and body become faster and just a little bit more adaptable, and I believe that whatever I can do inside a single body can happen between bodies.”
And with that, welcome to the episode, with Shinichi Iova-Koga, and devynn emory.
devynn emory: You know I’m thinking about a mentor you and I both have in common Ralph Lemon. This is the conversation we just had two nights ago and I was talking about durational exhaustion that I think a lot of us either are coming from and still now in, in this new chapter, whether we're activists or artists or overworking in capitalism or just entering it. And he was talking about how exhaustion, exhaustion sometimes is such a gift. Like you can really create a lot of work from that place (Iova-Koga: Hmm). Or maybe I'm paraphrasing, it's kind of, it was in the soup of, between our bodies, what we were coming up with, kind of when exhaustion is a gift to create, or when it is an invitation to pause (Iova-Koga: Hmm).
Um, and that was so helpful because I think for me, when I think of exhaustion and sometimes I have a hard time understanding if my body's exhausted or not, or if it's just relaxed (both laugh), you know, it's like regular relaxation, which is great. And grief feels like this way too. It's just like, they all feel like a heaviness, slowness in the body (Iova-Koga: Hmm). And to me that's a beautiful place right now because I get to be really low to the ground. And if I don't know anything, I know that being close to the earth, the next right action will become clear (Iova-Koga: Hmm). Um, and that's changing my performance work right now as well. In fact, I will say ever since this eclipse happened, If I'm honest, I regret looking at (Both laugh). I don't know if you saw it.
Shinichi Iova-Koga: I was actually not in New York area (emory: Hmm). So I was in a place where I couldn't, didn't really have the option.
devynn emory: Mmm. Okay. I'm curious about how it impacted you energetically, if at all (Iova-Koga: Hmm). Um, for me, I just feel like ever since I need to physically get low to the ground (Iova-Koga: Yeah), there's something destabilizing about being up (Iova-Koga: Hmm). Um, and so my new performance work that I'm making is. repetitive lunging, which had you told me a couple months ago, I was going to make something that had repetitive lunging. And I would say, ‘no way, I'm not strong enough for that’ (Iova-Koga: No, no). It doesn't feel good for my body, but, um, it does, I suppose. it's my body's moving toward it and yeah, getting low right now.
Shinichi Iova-Koga: When you say it, talk about getting low. I mean, I just respond and like my home body starts to feel like, “yeah, I like to have that drop.” You know, that drop is really something. I mean, it's, it, and it, it comes at different times that, that drop is sometimes when I'm really relaxed, you know, it's like, like truly deeply like, “Wow, I'm settled,” right? It comes then, but it also comes when there's something really dangerous about to happen (emory: Mm-hmm. Yes). Something really dangerous is about to happen. I don't know if it's exactly the same thing, but there is a kind of sense of like, Foom. Nothing goes up, right? (emory: Yeah) It all goes down, it all goes down. And there's some part of me that's just ready for action if, if it's dangerous. Uh, and then, but, and it's so strange that that's the same general direction to go in when I'm totally at ease and kind of happy, you know, I mean, if I'm like exuberant things go up again, right? So there's, there's different kinds of, I don't know, contentment, happinesses, at ease, all that kind of stuff. But when I'm like really joyous, it goes back up again, right? But then there's, there's something that's just settled. Like I feel, yeah, at ease. And that's when everything settles down again.
devynn emory: That's this language, right? Calm in a crisis. People say that to me in the hospital setting, like there'll be an emergency and people are like, I always know I can look to you and you'll be like, just grounded. And I, it made me think of, um, or it's making me think of the work that you are thinking about these days or something I read around or how I heard it, because I have an overlap with you in this, like how we inherit patterns, behaviors, perhaps move, what I'm really interested in is how that translates to movement and gestures (Iova-Koga: Hmm) and like mannerisms. When I think of calm in a crisis, I think about how I, I believe I may have inherited my father's stoicism (Iova-Koga: Hmm) and people always think, “Oh, you're so grounded. You're so calm.” Like they have no idea what's going on internally. It's not always (Iova-Koga: Hmm) feeling like that on the inside (Iova-Koga: Yeah), but there's a way that my father has this like very calm exterior. Um, and it helps me kind of feel grateful for that or just like feel closer to him in that (Iova-Koga: Hmm).
I was looking at, yeah, your work around inheriting patterns as well, and I just taught a workshop around having little funerals for the things that we've inherited that we might want to release from our bodies or to have like a little ceremony of celebration for things that we've inherited in our bodies (Iova-Koga: Hmm) that perhaps are other people's and you know my immediate of course is is lineage and family, but also I've had so many teachers and I mean, anyone, babysitters, you know, I'm like people that I was around for a long time, I might have their little tics and quirks and, um, it's a fun question to think about how that's shaped how I create choreography or movement or even how I gesture through the world or in, in conversation with you right now.
Shinichi Iova-Koga: Hmm. Yeah. in the piece that I'm working on, the, the clouds piece, my, um, my father was a big inspiration for that, uh, while he was alive and then he passed away. A little bit less than a year ago. And so he's been a different kind of inspiration and death, um, to, um, to me in, in the processing of this work. Yeah, there's so many directions I can go with where I go next, but one thing that occurred to me was that there was some moment in his, his last months where I observed him and I think he was unbelieving about like the state of his own body at some point, or that's my interpretation. He was sitting on his bed and he was watching his arm and his arm was just not, it was kind of twitching. He was just there with it. And it was, it was so disturbing. And because he was always a strong fellow, he was a judo champion (emory: Hmm). So he was always strong in my, um, my image of him. And then this weakness and this falling apart and then his own reaction to it. And then after he passed away, I did a piece in, in solo and I looked at that moment, you know, just trying to almost replicate that in my own body. And it was such a strong moment in my perception of it, but it was probably the weakest moment in the performance (laughs).
devynn emory: (Laughs) That's great.
Shinichi Iova-Koga: It was, it was my, I don't know, idea of him (emory: Mm-hmm), right? There was, there was almost just my idea of him and I was trying to portray an idea of him. And then I, I don't know that I can do that successfully, right? I think, I think there's something else that's, um, if I might just put it, that's naturally in there (emory: Mm-hmm). And then the question is, how do I, in the context of this kind of, you know, what David Bowie call it, that all performance is, um, somehow what he used a particular word, but it's, it's a put, it's artifice. I think he said that all performance is artifice. So you get the rock and roll guy going up there with a jeans and t shirt. That's just as much artifice as. You know, as glam rock is (emory: Mm-h). You know, it's, it's an image (emory: Mm-hmm). And so acknowledging that our performance work has, you know, there's an awareness of what it is I am putting out there. How is it that I can still access something that to me feels natural on some level? And sometimes the natural needs to be built in me, somehow, you know, that's, that's something I acknowledge. So I can't just go up there and just expect natural. But how is it that it becomes natural for me or within the context of the performance and the relationship to the audience, how does that become natural? And that's a real conundrum, I would say (emory: Mm-hmm), for me, at least.
And anyway, just circling back again to, um, father and, and body and how father and body become (laughs), I don't know, channeled, so to speak. I guess there's um, there's just a certain amount of observation that starts to, starts to happen. Like, ah, yeah, yeah, That's something that I inherited. I inherited that, that quality. Maybe it's that quality of, of, uh, like my father was extremely single-minded in certain kinds of things. And I have sometimes that ability to go into the single-minded, like, I just don't want to be doing anything else, but just this one thing. So either I should be, In a monastery or an insane asylum, perhaps like to be (emory: Hmm) so singular in that way (emory: Hmm) , which isn't always my, my case. Sometimes it's like, I'm so divided, like I'm doing this thing and that thing and this thing and that thing and the other thing. And I'm trying to incorporate so many things. Maybe I can just sum it up this way. It's like, I'm trying to process (emory: Sure). I'm trying to process what it is that I've inherited and what it is that I feel like I want to continue to communicate.
devynn emory: There's so much in here. I'm hearing, um, like perception versus projection. Something that came up for me and I, yeah, what am I interested in communicating these days? I haven't always borrowed from the choreography in my body as a nurse and woven it into my performance work. That, that really started, it paralleled my making, including like hard sciences and maths, like I hadn't done that for 20 years, like just really struggling with that, and I used to put a lot of math in my choreography. Mapping, mapping, counting, counting. I don't know if it's a response to dyslexia, or order and structure, where I feel like there wasn't, or is it, there was, I was coming from an absence of that or something. And now I think the, the trilogy I'm making really is a, a space to grieve, in public with one another (Iova-Koga: Yeah). And it's, I think I mentioned to you, I, my main collaborators are these medical mannequins who, I learned how to be with, they became my, like, my most safe beings in nursing school because they felt like they were like similar to my body in a way, like liminal beings or something that could bridge different planes or different perspectives and um, anyway, I think what I'm communicating that word communicating is interesting to me because I don't know if I'm like following my own guidelines of choreography anymore (Iova-Koga: Hmm).
I think I just want to be with people. I want to be gathering with people. I want to be communing and, and giving space where I think the space has been compressed. I'm even, I've been inviting a lot of dancers into my work who would never identify as dancers. I think it's, I think I just want to spend time with them. Time feels compressed. You know, I used to be a hospice nurse and now I do, I do still take care of a lot of people passing in the hospital setting, which is, I would say probably most people don't think of themselves as, or their dream is to die in a hospital. Um, although it's very supportive in a lot of ways for, for, um, perhaps less, uhm make perhaps a more easeful in some physical aspects way to pass, although that's arguable as well.
But I'm thinking of a, a family who I felt like I was holding multiple barges back so they could have the kind of death for their family member that they wanted to have. And I, you know, everything moves really fast in the hospital around someone's passing. So I just felt like I was holding time, stretching time, so they could honor their family member. And someone said, please, please, please, I need to go get my mother's outfit that she wanted to pass in (Iova-Koga: Hmm). And I said, “of course, you know, I will do everything. That sounds so important.” It was a traditional, through their cultural lineage, this was so important. So I said definitely. Held time, held time. So I projected, in this moment, what the garment would be. What the garment would look like. I had this whole fantasy because I felt like it was my role. Like I had asked, they had asked me, and I said “yes.” And they came back, and they said will you help dress her and I said “of course.” And they, they, you know, got this outfit out of a plastic bag, and it was a sweatshirt and sweatpants (Both laugh). And, you know, um, after I, you know, I wasn't really paying attention, and I, you know, turned down the sheets and propped her up, and the shirt said, “Boo,” on it (Both laugh).
And it happened to be October also, which was extra funny. And the family was just laughing. And so I was laughing and ah, it was such a beautiful moment of like, wow, I really projected onto this family and this person, what sacred meant to them and like what my perception of like how, I don't know, it was just a really interesting moment. And then it re, reminded me that, you know, laughter is so possible in transition (Iova-Koga: Hmm), um, ease and connection. Like they just like really brought me into the fold and there's so many other things that happen in that and that within that family that I was not supposed to be doing, but I just felt like, yeah, it's such a strange, strange thing. And, and, and then here I am in the choreography with, you know, with them and their family member and dressing this person. I've taken a lot of that choreography into my performance.
Like, how can I repurpose some of the choreography of, um, there's a lot of steps that happen with a body post mortem (Iova-Koga: Hmm). How can I reclaim some of those movements and gestures and, um, have it be a beautiful act versus like a stressful time crunch act or something. And how can I bring other people into that? How can we be together and in the concept of decay, the concept of change? Kind of before the moment of crisis is what I'm always going for (Iova-Koga: Mm-hmm). Like in a regular daily act. How can we be with the concept of decay and change including on our own bodies? Of course, it's not just this one body It's our body. And so this third piece of the trilogy is really focusing on the laborers around the body who's passing. Like how, how does it impact our body?
Brinda Guha: That story devynn shared about the woman passing needing her most important outfit is hilarious for so many reasons. First of all, what a sense of humor! I love that this family found humor in transition. The sheer profundity and seriousness with which devynn took the job of watching over her while her family got her her death outfit was pretty much everything. Thinking there was some cultural garb to grab in time for this deep and insightful moment, only to find out that humor was the bedrock of how this family would survive this moment. That aliveness is in death. Death can be so sad and grief can be so heavy, but we can also remember that in our final hours, lightness is possible, at least moments of it.
It reminds me of the time my didu was dying. She was in hospice care at home, and at this point she only ate ricotta cheese and fruit. Her death was slow, and her decline was long. One night, she was moaning in pain - the morphine wasn’t working anymore, and we knew that that was the final night. She called my mother, father, me and my brother too, who was in town at the time. We all said goodbye to her one by one, as she cried that she didn’t want to die yet. She thanked my father for taking such good care of her for all these years. She held my mom’s hand in grace and pride, and kissed my brother and my hand and told us to live a long and happy life - to remember her differently than this moment. I was 16 years old and this was basically my mother, so no matter how long we prepared for this moment, I wasn’t ready.
Boom, it was morning and I quickly rushed to her room and expected to make full arrangements for the day with my parents. Not my grandmother sitting up on her recliner, watching the Andy Griffith show on full volume, laughing hysterically, and eating ricotta cheese with fruit!! I was like, “Didu, you’re alive!” She responded, “I guess?! I’m not done yet!” We had a good laugh and hung out for the rest of the day. 10 days later, around 4pm, she passed while watching her favorite TV icon: Oprah. The episode was a rerun about a granddaughter coming out of the closet to her family. Uhh, if only she stayed alive for another 10 years to experience that for herself….
Look, death is sad and sudden and permanent. But it’s also inevitable and natural. If we were to be here forever, we would never understand our power. That family that devynn cared for gave the rest of the family and devynn themselves a beautiful memory in their last moments. My grandmother poppin’ up after the world’s most dramatic goodbye gave me one, too. Like all transitions, there is room for laughter in the grief, and I suppose that paradox is what makes us fully human.
Shinichi Iova-Koga: The word you used, uh, communing, you know, the, that, that's a strong word for me right now. And, and I think a lot of the motivation I have for continuing to do work, there's, there's like on so many levels, there's, of course, there's collaborators communing with the collaborators and the people that we want to spend our time with, you know (emory: Mm-hmm), wrestling with questions that I think are, at least for me, deeper than they ever were in the past. And of course there's communing with the audience, which has always happened, but also on a different level and then just within myself. And then (laughs), and then, there's the feeling of communing with the dead, right? (emory: Mm-hmm) There is that feeling of that, especially right now (emory: Mm-hmm). Um, with, you know, in regards to my father.
And it's, It's interesting how his death is different from, uh, this, I can't, I can't even express how many friends have died in the last years (emory: Mmm). It's just so many (emory: Mm-hmm) and younger than me, you know, I mean (laughs), you know (emory: Yeah), and, uh, and, and as sad and as heartbreaking as those deaths have been, especially the ones that are younger than me. Yeah, because that's tragic that someone should die before maybe they've, they've lived what we might think of as a full life. But still my father who died at an age that many go, “Oh yeah, well that's, that's a time that someone would die,” you know, and it is, and he did have a good life and he was at the end of his life. But nevertheless, I haven't known life without him until now (emory: Mm-hmm), and there's something different about that. There's something, um, so directly it's, the line goes straight to me.
So, and then thinking about the practices that I do, I'm involved in a lot of these, um, Taoist internal arts, and a lot of those arts are ultimately moving towards connection with soul or connection with spirit is on a fundamental level, wherever you start from physical moving to energetic, it's still somehow at its base level, fundamentally moving towards spirit or soul. One, and then the other actually sold and spirit (emory: Hmm). I'm thinking that fundamentally I'm just really preparing myself. To die, , I'm not preparing myself to die prematurely, you know, I'm not trying to hurry anything up, but preparing myself so that when I do find myself at that gateway or that moment, that I have maybe a little bit of humor in me and I have something like a sweatshirt that says “Boo” (Both laugh) (emory: Yeah). You know, just, just to have, I don't know, a little grace, you know, to have a little grace when the time comes.
devynn emory: Mm-Hmm. Yes, and I think the grace might come from this daily practice. I don't know. I think death has become so scary. Uh, in, in, in like Western perspective, like it's kept secret or something like the hospital is like a, no one knows what goes on there. It's really strange (Iova-Koga: Hmm). Um, which is I think why I feel like on a mission to kind of bring some of that to spaces. So we can almost practice being with. It's not, it's not scary. It just is (Iova-Koga: Hmm). And it's interesting to think about people dying. You know, I hear that a lot. Like, “Oh, they didn't have a full life.: I'm in a moment where I'm like, “Oh, they had such a full life.” Like my two matriarchs, both of my grandmothers passed six months apart from each other from COVID in 2020. And I had the honor of taking care of, um, one of them, um, mostly because I was a COVID nurse and, um, the doctors, it was in a different state than New York City. And they said, “Oh my gosh, you must know something. So come to this state and come be with us and tell us what you're doing.” So just by that small loophole, which was such a gift, I got to be with her (Iova-Koga: Hmm).
Um, but I feel in that since 2020 since then, I feel like almost the opposite. Like they had such a full life, such wisdom to give, it is, it's not fair for them to pass now before they get to pass all that down (Iova-Koga: Yeah). And then I think, “Oh my goodness, did I do enough to receive all their wisdom? Did I, did I listen enough? Can I remember enough?” Um, so I think I'm, I've been kind of practicing remembering and I'm, yeah, trying to put some of that into my work too, because the, I feel like we're in a gerbil wheel of forgetting and then trying to do the same thing again, forgetting and then trying to do the same thing again (Iova-Koga: Hmm). Um, and I, I think if we can remember and move from that place, perhaps the communing will be a little bit more accessible (Iova-Koga: Hmm). Lessons will be more palpable.
Shinichi Iova-Koga: Yeah. Does that gerbil wheel feel like, um, like I have an image of a groove, right? Where if there's a groove that's been made, then over our lives, the groove gets a little deeper and deeper (emory: Hmm). The deeper and deeper that groove gets, the more difficult it is to get out of that groove somehow (emory: Mm-hmm). Anyway, somehow that, that and the gerbil will go in my mind together and then, okay (emory: Thats…), so if, if that groove is getting deeper and deeper, then the energy required and the, I don't know, the, the, the willpower perhaps, but, um, to get out of that groove needs to become stronger and stronger to get, to get out. And I think that's, um, you know, whatever that groove might be, you know, it might be something mundane, but it might be something like kind of deep in our psyches somehow.
devynn emory: Mm hmm. And, and when I think of that image of the groove, I think, I think of like a, a half sphere in the earth and which makes me think of seeding that what are we seeding? When I think of hearing you talk about I think you said soul then spirit. What are we seeding? So then the roots can go even deeper. So then the, what grows from it is moving toward spirit. That's kind of what the image that comes (Iova-Koga: Hmm). And so what are we seeding in this time? Cause I feel like we're fighting, fighting a lot. Um, beautiful, very inspiring. And I want to make sure we're seeding at the same time (Iova-Koga: Hmm) and going deep to remember. Um, so we can just stay grounded while we fight. And I guess I'm coming back to some of the original thoughts. I think I have some fears of people burning out.
Shinichi Iova-Koga: Well, maybe in your thought about the, you know, if it's apocalyptic times (emory: Mmm), then if, if so, then maybe what you just said about seeding is the important thing to do in apocalyptic times is to plant (emory: Mmm-hmm) good seeds so that if, um, if a lot is destroyed. But something, something will always grow back, you know (laughs), somehow.
devynn emory: Absolutely. Yeah, someone, I heard someone in a conversation say it's, we're not an apocalypse, we're in a great unveiling (Iova-Koga: Hmm). All the truths are coming forward (Iova-Koga: Hmm). And that sounds like what we've been waiting for. The truth. Right? (Iova-Koga: Hmm)
Tell me a bit about, getting to know your father in a different way now (Iova-Koga: Hmm). I mentioned these masks (Iova-Koga: Yeah), which reminded me of these medical mannequins and their faces. I just ordered, um, to age one of my medical mannequins, you can order a face (Iova-Koga: Yeah). Like, it's just like a skin suit (Iova-Koga: Yeah) with elder features, and it made me think about your masks and how, how that's, that practice is feeling for you.
Shinichi Iova-Koga: Well, I'm at the very, very beginning of, of those masks. I was in Bali in April last, just last month, and I was working with a mask maker. And, uh, if you've never been to Bali, I feel like the culture is so steeped in the relationship of everyday life and spiritual life that the two just do not separate. And so the dance and the, and the daily rituals of life and all of that just, um, seems so different from the Western perspective. Like even though in the Western, the Western world is largely governed by Christianity, you know, in terms of like, its formation and its essential underlying ethos, even though there's lots of cultures within the Western world, it still has that overarching thing. And so that has never felt like, um, like I've never really felt the evidence of, of that in terms of, maybe the reverence that I see, uh, in, in Balinese culture for, um, things that you might call spiritual, um, or maybe there's a better word for it.
But in any case, uh, sorry, I had to go into that little (laughs), that little sidebar, but, but moving back into the masks, um, working with this mask maker, the whole process of making the masks was a process of discussing with him, uh, my father's characteristics, what he was like. Um, sitting there with him and his, and his family and his sons as he's, he's carving away at the mask, showing him pictures of my father, different angles, of course, to, you know, to find that the likeness and, uh, and then, yeah, and then the, the whole processes of trying it on is like, well, what do you think is like, well, he was, he was a person who really had a big personality, you know, he was, he, he liked to laugh a lot or, you know, he was, he was like this or he was like that. And then all these kinds of stories going into the process of, of making the masks. So there's something in the hands of the mask maker and my relaying of the stories of my father to him, that's going into these masks. And then there's a bit of Balinese culture, like there's, and there's Balinese, I mean, and Balinese culture is largely 87%, something like that, Hindu, right? So there's a, there's a Hindu perspective of the world. So these masks have a bit of Balinese culture, Hinduism, my stories of my father, all this kind of stuff fusing into these, these three masks.
One is my father is an old man, another one is a younger man, and then a spirit version (emory: Hmm), which is a conceptual idea I put to the mask maker and that he came back with his response to that. So now I have the masks in my, um, home and I've got them in the altar of my father (emory: Mmm-hmm). And at the altar every morning I say good morning to him. Sometimes I give him a little pancake that I've made for (laughs), um, my son, for example, or, um, you know, I'm burning some incense. And so there's this process right now of like trying to acclimate. And I feel like it's like the goldfish that you, you buy someplace and it's in a little bag (emory: Hmm) and then you put it into that larger thing, you know, so that it acclimates to the larger aquarium. So I've got these bags of these masks and I've got them, um, on the altar and there's this process of, I don't know, infusing them, so to speak, or maybe they're infusing me.
And so that's the question of, of the masks for me. It's like, how, what is it about my father that I'm going to bring into these masks? Or what is about my father, these masks are going to bring into me? And then what is also this other thing? Because there is another thing, because even in the processing, this mask maker and his life and his belief system, um, which is based in Hinduism. And, um, how do all these kinds of things fuse? I don't have to have answers, right? I actually don't need answers. Um, but the questions for me are part of the process of considering them. So I pick them up and I look at them and I look at the face and sometimes I see the mask. Sometimes I see my father's face. Sometimes I have the question of what am I going to do with this thing? (laughs) Am I going to put this on and pretend I'm my father, right? (emory: Hmm) I really don't think that will work. It's going to be like what I mentioned before, like that, the arm thing and whatnot (emory: Yeah). It's like, I can't, I can't imitate him, you know (emory: Mmm-hmm), and, and have it be feeling genuine or effective. So then there needs to become this something else. It is not my father. It is not me. It is not my spiritual practice or Hindu or, you know, it's none of those things, but there are all these little parts that are informing what is going to come out of it.
It feels like a new, you know, then it's leading towards a performance that is going to become a new life form in that sense, where all these different factors start to move into this, this moment of creation. And it's going to become its own own thing somehow (emory: Mmm-hmm). So that's, I guess that's my. perspective on the masks right now without having really gone into how I'm going to work with them, right? I'm just, I'm, in a way I'm planting the seeds for how the next steps go without really knowing how it's going to evolve.
devynn emory: Beautiful. There's such a beautiful space and like the shape of space to imbue. That's not, that's really relieving. It's really grounding for me. It makes me realize, you know, I come from a lot of formalism. Whatever that full really means, um, a lot of structure, that I like had a time period of rejection and I'm like returning to now, I think, because I just assumed formalism was like a lot of white lineages placed on my body, you know, I'm back in this, like, what have I received in my body? What would I like to shed? What would I like to keep carrying? (Iova-Koga: Hmm) And how formalism also creates like pattern. And how pattern and adornment is, is of my culture, indigenous culture. And so reclaiming some of that and having like leaning into the pattern, cause it gives me such satisfaction, something about repetition and, circling. And, I had a choreographer I love ask me, you, you repeat so much it's, you must be scared of death. He's like, “you're repeating almost as if you're in like an ecstatic state, like trying to stay here.” And I thought, “Oh, that's so interesting” (Iova-Koga: Hmm) I see it as like, degradation, like the moment will never have happen again and let me be at peace (Iova-Koga: Hmm) with this like ecstatic experience while it will never move again in my body both at the same time.
Brinda Guha: Shinichi and devynn talk about repetition, and this idea of repetition in movement is super subjective. We talk about values in our work a lot, what value are we reaching for or fueled by in any particular moment in a dance. If the value is performance, to entertain, to invite a witness into an experience that allows them to escape their reality, then repetition has a certain purpose. If the value is to invite a witness into a need that the performer has in the work in a particular moment, then repetition has a different purpose. Sometimes it’s both. I don’t know…I think about quote “classical” dance and I think about the roots of that - the patronage, right? entertainment, dignified work for the artist, paid for by the elite.
Repetition of something virtuosic in those moments could signify to the patron that there is beauty and technical difficulty that is impressive and interesting. That the artform is a forever project to be perfected over time without ever reaching perfection. But when I think about “folk” dance, repetition is used to be together, to be connected to the other artists, to create circles that imbibe the cyclical rhythms and settle into the consistency and trust amongst each other. I never considered that repetition could also mean degradation, the final moments of ecstasy before an ending to something. Perhaps it’s like, you know, that laughter before death we were talking about earlier, the return to the ongoing humor of life before it all ends or something. I don’t know, something to think about.
I was taught that repetition in movement provided the habit required to deeply think about something, to actually meditate, to leave what you are doing to think about something else. That’s sort of how I position tatkar (or footwork) for my students. The continuation of a taal cycle underneath our bodies while the rest of our bodies reach for something bigger, higher, greater, or perhaps smaller and more sensitive and nuanced. Allowing something to hold us down as we stretch into another expression, another chapter. And then I think about values again, and I’m always in conflict around if I’m in a moment for too long - is it serving the audience? Is it serving me? Is anyone bored? Am I supposed to serve the audience? I mean, they paid to see this, right? Also, I’m the one dancing - so I guess if I need a couple more rounds of this, I think I get to have that, right? How do we create spaces of generosity so that repetition can be leaned into instead of feared, so that it can be a conduit to another chapter? I am not sure. But the work continues.
devynn emory: Your mask-making makes me think about how I, I set out to make a work and usually there's like four or five works in the work. There's like five pieces in one (Iova-Koga: Mm-hmm). Um, and sometimes I wonder if I should be working that out before I invite others to be witness, you know? (Iova-Koga: Yeah) Um, like the last work, uh, grandmother Cindy is what was called my eldest. medical mannequin who's I think playing the role of my late grandmother Shirley, who when she was passing, you know, cause it was COVID, I was able to do some video calls with her in the room. Thanks to the nurse. And so, and, and people still talk about that's just strange interaction to kind of be on video. Videos have not previously been in hospital setting. So I have these recordings. And so Cindy sessions became Cindy on Zoom. enacting, you know, conversation, telling grandmother stories, with people who came onto the Zoom room (Iova-Koga: Hmm). It was beautiful. And, and I think when I look back at it now in this conversation, like I was just, I was processing, I was reenacting almost. I was reenacting it. Like I wanted to, I don't know what, go on longer. There's something I needed to do. Here still I'm not sure (Iova-Koga: Hmm).
And then what came out of that is grandmother Cindy just like similar title But it was like maybe at the heart of what the work was and I'm not saying it's bad or good to perform these things but It came up when you were talking about like, I don't know what it is, and I'm like, yeah, what if what if I all the performances aren't for others to view? They're just for me (Iova-Koga: Hmm) to move through something. Yeah, I guess I'm in a question right now of like why why witness? (Iova-Koga: Yeah, Yeah) (Both laugh). And I'm moving away from the, from the body, the dying body, you know, each piece, someone dies in the work and then they become an ancestor of the next work. And so they've kind of accumulated these bodies, these forms who are now overseeing the body who's passing in the next work. And that's a nice cycle. But yeah, why, communing, why commune? I mean, or why commune as performance? Why performance as the communing? (both laugh)
Shinichi Iova-Koga: Just, uh, just had a moment of, of thinking about Ralph (emory: Yes). And, um, and I think it was the piece. Um, How Can You Stay in the House All Day and Never Go Anywhere? I think it was that piece (emory: Hmm). And during that piece, uh, quite a number of audience members walked out, um, like in the first quarter of the piece or something like that. And then after, after the piece, I was, I was, you know, talking about that with Ralph and he just laughed, he just chuckled at that and completely un, unbothered. And, and there's so many ways in which I felt that performance was, it was like, okay, it's fine that you, you know, audience that you witnessed this. But I'm, I'm working on stuff that is important to me right now. And I am not working to please you, audience. And so, that's an interesting place to be, and, and it's one that I, I find myself struggling with because I still find myself (sighs) wanting a positive response (emory: Hmm). There's still that, that happiness, I suppose, that comes when somebody responded with some kind of positivity, as opposed to like, I didn't connect to that at all or whatever. And to, and to not care. And at the same time, to not not be on the mission to alienate and that's a funny place to be too, because people sometimes go on that mission to alienate (emory: Hmm). Or to, to definitely push or push buttons somehow, but I'm not interested in pushing people's buttons so much. And I'm also less interested in pleasing people. And, and that piece by Ralph, and I'm sure other pieces as well, but that's the one that sticks in my mind, , is a bit of an inspiration for the courage, I suppose. The courage to, to not care. And at the same time, to not be adversarial. To just allow things to be what they want to be, and then that has so many competing distortions because of, again, the desire for some kind of validation, the desire for something to be considered successful, or whatever those things are. And they're fading for me, those needs. They’re definitely fading, but they're still there.
devynn emory: I was at a gala the other night where I ran into Ralph and a curator was being honored and people were saying, you know, the role of the curator is to bring community to the artist. Like, that concern should never be of the artist. Like, who's going to be there? What are they going to say? Da da da. Like, you are there to be with what you're working through, period. That's it. And it was so important. So relieving (Iova-Koga: Hmm) because I think that's the one thing I get swirled up around. I'm like, who's coming today? I invited enough people that I market myself and all that stuff that I would rather not deal with (Iova-Koga: Yeah). Um, I think for me, I'm usually, I, I'm moving my body as a form so I can connect with creator. That's, that's all it is. And that is one way that I do it (Iova-Koga: Yeah). And when I think about audience, if I, it's true that I believe that creator is in each of us, then I am just, whoever shows up is, I'm communing with them too (Iova-Koga: Yeah). That's why we're here (Iova-Koga: Yeah). Um, I had a film screening a couple of years ago that two people came to (Both laugh). And I didn't, I was one of those, like, I'm not going to get up, you know, I'm not going to market. I'm too, but I just like, it's going to be what it is. And it sure was, it was two people. And those two people were really connected and it was great. And they didn't have to be either. It was like. Yeah, if I can release and really believe what I believe in, which is like, yeah, we're here to commune and God is in each of us in this moment, then it's exactly what it needs to be.
Shinichi Iova-Koga: Somebody who didn't come up yet in the conversation, um, that I've thought of during the conversation a couple of times is Anna Halprin. And when she was leading some, students on creating scores, small performances, um, for, for classroom situation. Uh, she had, uh, a period of time when she was asking the students to create scores that were deeply meaningful to them. So scores came out about war or about, um, some kind of oppression or some kind of really traumatic event. So things came out and they had strength and they had power. And then after a period of that, Anna said, “okay, now make pieces about nothing.” And from Anna's point of view, I didn't see the pieces, but this is just a story that Anna told from her point of view, the pieces about nothing were much stronger than the pieces that had meaning in them. And I've, I've, I've thought about that a couple of times, especially since I have oftentimes. Proceeded and making work from the body and what the body will reveal. Um, and that's maybe a mystery as to what's going to come out.
So I've, I've been very comfortable with that mystery and very comfortable with like allowing what's going to come out to come out. And as I move into this period of time of A meaning and, you know, and so, you know, just the prompt of change, like how does change come? And so having this perspective of like, oh, well here's a meaning and here's something that's meaningful (laughs). Um, what would Anna say to me? And I think Anna, Anna would say that the very act of, of um, of putting something out there is, is all the communion we need. Right? Sometimes just the fact that we gather, just the fact that we collaborate, just the fact that we present something for an audience. And so whether we're talking about not caring what the audience thinks, or if I said that, or to care a lot about what the audience thinks, maybe, there's a certain kind of caring that maybe is, is not necessary. Maybe there's, is just a little bit more time spent with the moment. I, if I might put it that way, maybe it's the performative moment. You know, I'm not saying that as a, like, that's definitive for me, right? That's, that's absolutely what I believe. But I'm putting it out there as like this thing that I feel that, you know, as I, I hear these words from, in my mind from Anna about performance making, uh, I'm, I'm considering this, It's like, what is the meaning? Maybe it doesn't matter. What, what is the process? You know, and Anna was very much a process person. What is the process that we're going through together? How are we talking about these things together? How open are we in this process?
devynn emory: I just imagine like space as a shape (Iova-Koga: Hmm). When I hear you speak and that's just a relief. Um, and has been such a beautiful contributor, my goodness, to scoring and scoring. And she's influenced me as well. Cause I, again, I used to make like very hyper choreographed works (Iova-Koga: Mm-hmm). And scores allowed me to kind of be with the unknown, be with the curious. I'm just grateful for that (Iova-Koga: Yeah). Um, I'm going to bring in a few people to the space. I'm thinking about The International Council of Thirteen Grandmothers and they've influenced this trilogy that I'm working on.
Shinichi Iova-Koga: I want to hear more about them. It's a great title (laughs).
devynn emory: Oh my God. Yeah, Well the original I think was 1977 and then there's been in another council that Was formed I think in 2006 or ‘07 In Phoenicia, New York, grandmothers from all over the world came together. And they meet in a person's, um, country and they spend seven days in prayer in that tradition. And the first time they met, they were like, “Oh, we're a council.” And so now they meet every, they meet every year. Um, and they honor each other as they, each of them pass. It's, it's so stunning. They've really influenced this trilogy that I'm working on around grandmother wisdom (Iova-Koga: Hmm). They kind of came in strong in the absence of my two matriarchs passing. And I thought, “Oh my gosh, again, this feeling. Did I know enough? Did I remember enough? Did I write anything done? What else?” Um, huge influence thinking of them being together for seven days in prayer has made me think about this commun, communing that I'm, I brought up earlier. Like, how can we beat, like, what else are we doing right now? But being together in prayer (Iova-Koga: Hmm), whatever that, whatever prayer means to you (Iova-Koga: Hmm). Um, I don't need to insert that word as the, the word, whatever it means for people to be. with God together. Um, even if it's a vibration. And I'm thinking of, I took a, my first actually, laughter yoga class a few nights ago with Laraaji. I don't know if you know Laraaji. Um…
Shinichi Iova-Koga: I don't know laughter yoga, so I need to get informed (both laugh).
devynn emory: Uh, Laraaji is a elder, a sound artist, meditation teacher, yoga instructor of laughter, sound and chanting. I, I didn't read the invitation. My friend was like, “you are going to this tonight.” And it was my friend who was out of town who I really love and respect. So I said, “yes, anything you invite me to. Yes.” And I, I walked in and this being was just, uh, he, he was transcended. He was already in his, his form. I was like two minutes late and we were in, I just like, accept and sounding, um, um, Hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm. We'd repeat back, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm (both laugh). And um, And immediately it's just like, you know, ah, this is what I want to be. This is a prayer. My mind is clear (Iova-Koga: Hmm). My mind is clear and my body is present and I'm in resonance with others. That's like all I crave. It could take many, many shapes (Iova-Koga: Yeah).
Um, in fact, I was doing his tapping, um, of the thymus when we came in, when we had the God is in the glitch (Iova-Koga: Mm-hmm) technical moment, the thymus at the top of the sternum, um, supports your T cells, which is your immune cells (Iova-Koga: Hmm). And so tapping them, he also said 13, 13 times can, um, improve your immunity (Iova-Koga: Hmm). It's really calming for me too (Iova-Koga: Hmm). Um, and LL, I want to bring my friend LL who passed a few years ago, also of COVID. of complications and then got COVID. Beautiful, trans, masculine, Bruja, who was really the one that said, you know, you can be a trans person in performance. You can be a trans person as a nurse. Like, even if you don't see yourself anywhere, you're doing it. You must. Someone must, and it's you. And I believed him. He just was so, so convinced (laughs). And so I said, “okay.” And so I'm really grateful for that encouragement that I didn't really have passed down to me otherwise. So (Iova-Koga: Hmm) bringing him into the space. And then as far as the question, like something that changed you, I mean, I guess that was a change, not being sure, feeling like I, I have still in me some overworking to kind of, this internal, like proving that I'm allowed to be in that space or something (Iova-Koga: Yeah). Um, that was a change. But, um, I'm thinking about bell hooks too, bell hooks has changed my life. I'm rereading, I think for the third time, her book All About Love. I just…
Shinichi Iova-Koga: Oh. I have that in my bookshelf (laughs).
devynn emory: Uh. Let me know if you want to co-read it (Iova-Koga: Okay). It's everything. It's everything. It's, um, she changed my perspective as a young activist thinking I had to convince everyone of what was true and just. If they didn't see, I had to be the messenger (laughs). I was so young, I started activism as a young, very young, pre teen. I was like the kid at fur protests throwing the ball. The fake blood at people (Iova-Koga laughs). I am horrified that I did that now horrified. I can't believe I shared it. Um, but it was my entryway to a lot of other movements and beautiful people (Iova-Koga: Yeah) and community. And then someone gave me that book and I was like, Oh, it's not attacking, which I see it now as attacking. I, um, it's, it's not that it's love (Iova-Koga: Hmm), love. And I, I can admit that I have gone in and out of, um, shame about the concept of love being the agent of change. I think because I, I don't know why I could go on and on about maybe why, but love, I think sometimes I have thought, oh, it's not enough. Like, we also have to be, we have to seek action (Iova-Koga: Hmm). And now, Mama bell, I think, teaches me that, like, without love, in my own body and with others, no action is possible. It just isn't.
Shinichi Iova-Koga: Yeah. To me, love and openness are connected (emory: Hmm). How, how can I be tight and closed and have love? (laughs)
devynn emory: Yes.
Shinichi Iova-Koga: Yeah. So I have to be, I have to be, I have to feel open somehow to, to feel love. And if I feel open, what is, what is that? You know, is that I think there's some part of that that's actually just purely physical (emory: Hmm). There's a physical component to being open, you know, there's tissues of the body (laughs), you know, there's spaces in the body. And if those spaces are closed, you know, that's a reflection of my psychology. And then if my, the spaces in my body are open, that's also a reflection of my, my psychology and I feel like that quality of openness is one that I have been striving for on some level and, and through practice and trying to, um, trying to be more in the love, you know (emory: Hmm), in, in that process.
I feel like change, just coming back to that word as well, change and love, change, change has never in my recollection, um, been like a sudden moment. For me, change has been slow, arduous, step by step, little by little, I-am-moving-in-this-direction kind of process and, for, for better, for worse, right? You know, maybe if I was, I mean, if I think about extreme or sudden change that I hear in stories of other people, it's either it's maybe somebody in a wartime situation, perhaps (emory: Mm-hmm). Or some story of this monk who became enlightened when, you know, between the sound of two crows cawing or something like that, right? It's, it's these kinds of stories and I can't say that I've ever really experienced that. I've had moments of like feeling like I glimpsed something that was like, Oh my goodness. But those moments were not change for me. They were maybe like a little peek into what could be or, um, a reality that I don't currently inhabit, but they were like little glimpses that made me feel that, okay, there's (laughs) something (emory: Hmm), there’s something. I'm not there (emory: Mm-hmm) at all, none the the least, but I feel like, all right, there's, there's, there's something to, um, and I'm going to use the word strive because sometimes the word strive is, is not, uh, positively associated with, I don't know, something connected to, to spirit, for example. But I feel like there does need to be a little bit of work before I stop working.
devynn emory: Hmm, that sentence. Ooh, I, there's more, yeah, work before, I think I'm in a cycle of trying to do less (Iova-Koga: Hmm) because I think something that I have been incorrect about is that if I just know more, if I do more, I will be contributing to something more. Like more doesn't mean more (Iova-Koga: Hmm). It doesn't mean more, and I can trust, I can trust, um, that I have choice, I think is what it is (Iova-Koga: Hmm). And that from that choice, I can respond and not react (Iova-Koga: Mm-hmm). Because I think when I feel like, Oh, if I could just keep going, do more than I'll contribute more than I'll be, that more will be happening and more. And now I feel like my life isn't set up this way yet. My life is only toward more. And it's, I'm in a dissonant space right now where I, I'm not sure who built that life. It's the future. It was the previous me, but now I want to sit back and choose because it's more, more comes from choice and, and, and, and love (Iova-Koga: Yeah). And, um, where's possible then, unless I'm always forward of my body reacting from that place, um which I guess is probably somewhere down my subconscious responding from fear.
Shinichi Iova-Koga: Yeah.
devynn emory: Which I don't want to be responding from fear, I want to be responding from, um, like a 3D awareness. And I can only respond from that perspective if I am, you know, present. I was wrong about Western medicine (both laugh).
Shinichi Iova-Koga: In what way?
devynn emory: Well, I just thought it was a sham, you know, I just thought I still, I, it's not a sham it's overused. And it's a miracle when needed, just like anything it's in the balance. You know, I didn't want to study Western medicine. Now I'm getting another degree and becoming a psychiatrist right now. I think I, I'm wrong about having a fixed thought about anything (Iova-Koga: Hmm). I'm like, psychiatry is old and corrupt and carceral. It is all those things (Iova-Koga: Hmm). And it is an opportunity to make other choices. Like if I have a degree and have certain infrastructure, just how the world works. I can treat people and have a practice in which I move from my own ethics.
Shinichi Iova-Koga: It seems to me like these modalities, whether the modality is Western medicine, Eastern medicine, Chinese medicine, you know, whatever it is, there's, there's everywhere. There's quacks. There are quacks in every, everything, uh, you know, or even if you just think about the food you're going to eat at the restaurant, right? It's like, okay, I like Indian food, I like Japanese food, but it's, it's like, you can have totally crappy Japanese food, totally crappy Indian food, and you can have fantastic of each as well. And, and I feel like that's, that's maybe the, the thing within all the modalities who is channeling that modality? And maybe that's the big question is: Who? (emory: Hmm) you know? Who's, who's channeling it? (emory: Mm-hmm) And, and that person, that who has got this whole psychological, whatever, whatever, you know, and, and that affects then what comes out, somehow (emory: Absolutely) And so I think changing who we are then (laughs) in, in that regard, um, can be, can be a super important thing in terms of like whatever, again, Western medicine or Chinese medicine or whatever becoming more useful, effective, um, relevant, whatever, whatever the word we want to choose.
devynn emory: Being in choice of how to contribute, how to be part of the conversation.
Brinda Guha: What a meaningful dialogue between these two healers. I hope that when they redefine the space in transitions like devynn and Shinichi seem to have been able to, and I can definitely hear their grandmothers now…
devynn emory: Dida bole je, Don’t ever let anyone let you down.
Shinichi Iova-Koga: Dida bole je, Trust your body.
Brinda Guha: How People Move People, is brought to you by The National Center of Choreography at The University of Akron, or NCCAkron. This podcast is produced by Jennifer Edwards, associate production by Lisa Niedermeyer, and editing by James Sleeman. How People Move People theme music by Ellis Rovin, and “As Grandmother Says” theme music by Roopa Mahadevan. Transcription is by Arushi Singh, and cover art is by Micah Kraus.
A massive thanks to this episode’s brilliant duo, devynn emory and Shinichi Iova-Koga, for this beautiful offering of healing practices and how to lead with curiosity. To be invited into their world of art -making and to meet their dynamic grandmother figures is important to me, and I hope for you too. Gratitude to Anjali Roychowdhury and Bani Guha, my grandmothers. And a huge thank you to the cohort of creatives I brought together that held me accountable in this curatorial vision, including: Eva Yaa Asantewaa, Farah Yasmeen Shaikh, Barkha Patel, Sydnie Mosley, Stacie Webster, Candace Thompson-Zachery and Christy Bolingbroke.
Special thanks to The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation for their continued support of NCCAkron programming. To learn more about NCCAkron, please visit us online at nccakron.org and follow us on Instagram or Facebook @nccakron. We hope you enjoyed this episode and encourage you to subscribe on your favorite podcast streaming platforms by searching for How People Move People. Dida bole je…
Free every person in the world fighting their oppressors, and listening closely for their grandmothers, too.