Raissa Simpson’s Push Dance Company performs at Joyce SoHo this weekend. Read on to learn a bit more about this artist and her work.
What is your dance background?
My dance background has a lot of classical training and influences from dancing in San Francisco and New York.
I graduated from State University of New York, Purchase (SUNY) in 2001. I left New York just 10-days before Sept. 11th. Since then I have returned as a performer and now for the first time I am presenting my own dance company.
My professional dance career started with Robert Moses Kin a modern dance company in San Francisco. Later, I began dancing for choreographer Joanna Haigood who works with arial dance, harness work and on-site public dance performances.
How did you come across a hip-hop opera? And, what interest you about it?
Working with the score for “The Black Swordsman Saga” (based off the music of JooWan Kim’s Great Integration: A Chamber Hip-Hop Opera”) was an opportunity to make a dance adaptation to an opera from the lyrics of MC Kirby Dominant.
I came up with my adaptation by creating characters that were more pronounced in today’s hip hop generation. They go through a lot of inner turmoil because they are demigods who are becoming aware of their own immortality. But, more importantly, I really wanted the audience to connect to different types of personas on stage.
For me, there was a great deal of intrigue leading into choreographing the hour long work. It was the first time that I worked with a voice coach and Ariel Dance. Due to the varying limitations of touring the work, the audience in New York will see a media video portion of the Ariel flying.
Any major sources of inspiration for your work?
I am inspired by art that blurs the boundaries of genres. Because I come from a very multiracial/ multicultural background, blending one thing from the other for me- comes quite easily. Collaborating comes natural to me so, I like to give my Collaborators a lot of room to explore what is interesting to them. In return, we all work in parallel towards the same goal.
