Conversations with Creators: The Creative Force of Stefanie Batten Bland

"I think my signature in everything that I do is looking at belonging and the right to belong," says international creative and choreographer Stefanie Batten Bland. "And thus every piece at some point has a sense of right of community and self." 

Stefanie Batten Bland is a global maker and a 2023 Dance Magazine Cover Artist, straddling the artistic scenes of NYC and France. Born to a jazz composer/producer father and a writer mother, she was raised in the artist-led SoHo. Batten Bland’s work profoundly explores contemporary and historical cultural symbolism, cultural identifiers, and their influence on our global human relationships. 

SBB demands that we see proximity-based performance as charged spaces; she creates immersive worlds that answer the quest for belonging. As the Artistic Director for Company SBB, Creative Casting & Movement Director for Life & Trust,Performance and Identity liaison for Sleep No More, and the Artistic Director of the inaugural 2024 immersive theatre summer intensive CONCRETE, she is constantly pushing the boundaries of interactive art. SBB’s work has been recently presented at BAM Next Wave, Spoleto Festival in Italy, Lincoln Center, and Bates Dance Festival, and she has recently received Creative Capital, Dance Advancement Fund, NYSCA, and NEFA grants—she is an assistant professor at Montclair State University. Her 2021 film Kolonial, received thirteen US and international film awards and was nominated for three Bessie Awards.

 

When you entered the world of performance art as a dancer, how did your career begin?

I began dance professionally at 19 years old when I left SUNY Purchase as a sophomore. I felt quite burnt out from dance, actually. It wasn't until the incredible choreographer, Kevin Wynn, called me up one day and asked me if I was done pouting, and said he had a Joyce season. I accepted, and that kind of started my dancing in the mid 90s. Then I joined Bill T. Jones in 1998, and began began guest dancing for Pina Bausch in 2000. I then went into a Swiss Theater Company and began working in Europe.

Was your original interest in performing or creating?

I mean, performing was absolutely the love. I auditioned for this big Josephine Baker musical that was being mounted by the Paris Opera Comique house. I left that audition as the choreographer, which was a very wild accident.  I had been tinkering around with the idea of creating, but it wasn't really something that interested me. It was quite accidental why I started creating, and was mostly to help friends, noticing there was a shift in the audition space, with a weakness in improvisation. I enjoyed improvisation; my first piece came out of it, and the very lovely, complimentary life of performing and dancemaker began.

Was there a moment where creating took off for you, so to speak?

It wasn’t until director Jérôme Savary from the Paris Opera Comique house gave me the Opera House on a dark Monday to make my first large scale piece. He told me he saw what I did during warmups we’d do before the shows and was like, I don’t know what you’re doing- that contemporary dance stuff seems to be working, so I’ll give you the Opera House. The Paris Opera Comique House is for the people, which meant to me that it was going to be important to honor humor, accessibility, and providing content and narrative in accessible ways. The piece I created was titled ‘Let’s Hang Out like Wet Clothes’. Then, I began touring, and things started happening.

How did the transition from being a performer to creating feel for you?

It was a surprise, because I had no idea how much pleasure and satisfaction there was inside of making. I'm a storyteller; my directing is based in movement and my choreography has narrative. Whether that be linear or not, it is a great pleasure which has been incredible to feel. It was a wonderful, accidental surprise and still is. It’s absolutely thrilling to watch and bring performers to a place where they can tell story in ways that reach everyone. Even if work is not so concretely rooted in language, it can be legible inside of physicality. We can all relate and find ourselves inside of that. I realized how much joy I had in making and facilitating, which is so incredibly rewarding.

How does culture and roots inform your artistic voice and storytelling?

I think they're quite interdependent upon one another. I've always questioned the English language and how rigid definitions can be. I am someone rooted in jazz, and jazz has a framework, but we know how to flex in the freedom inside jazz. I’ve always been fascinated in how curation happens and who has the right to make what. With storytelling, I think everyone has a signature. I try to approach my non-profit and for-profit work in the same way to achieve the most incredible result. The only way to do that is to work for hours finding different access points for the subject.

I think culturally, I learned many things due to having parents that were also artists. I learned to realize that the happier a person is, the more normalized we are, and we can attack anything. I think it’s a radical concept to think of art making as a normalization in society. On top of that, being African American, and the complexity that I think that is this country, then, yes, you've got enough complexity for a lifetime.

Do you ensure protection and separation of yourself as an artist from your subject matter?

It’s important to ensure that I don't go home with my subject, or I don't go home inside of my fiction and that my reality is protected. That way I can go home and be with my children or I can water my plants and be with myself. It's quite important to have the right to a full life. Right to a full life means you're going to have fantastic people that are satiated and full, which means you're going to be making fantastic work. 

If someone were to jump into the studio with you, what does the beginning of your process look like? Is there a ‘Point A’ you start with and go from there?

I think getting to know people comes first. It's discovering my vocabulary and the ways in which I approach making and researching. The magic of making is different for everybody, but I try to find common language so that they have access, whatever generation they are. ‘Point A’ is getting to know who's in the room, and then, of course, dependent upon what the project is, then it's really specific to whatever it is we're working on in terms of actual physicality.

How do you generate movement with new dancers or your company?

We are big improvisors! It will be in function of what the subject is; what are we working on? What are we researching? What is the piece about? It might start with a lot of storyboarding, and then start teasing new creations, what the language is going to be of that world. I tend to be visual first, so I like to see where a piece takes place. Then it depends on who's in it and what we're doing inside of it. We all tend to be in the space at the same time, from composition to cynic build. It’s important inside our immersive or proscenium work for all elements to be participating at the same level, because they’re all performative and have performative duty inside of the work.

How has your experience been in viewing your own work? Do you have a preference between immersive and proscenium performances or are they just two separate experiences?

Well, they're just two separate experiences. The proscenium has a specific frame and a fourth wall, whereas proximity-based work is literally in your face. For some works. I think the proscenium is preferable, sometimes immersive, sometimes a film  I think it’s more so, what is a work about and then which platform is correct? Commercial work is ‘I’m a part of a team.’ But when it’s mine, if I understand the ‘why,’ then I pretty much will understand how to make it happen. Right now with Coup d’Espace, I'm really interested in how spaces and their historical context are in relationship to present tense stories. I noticed with proscenium, it could be a thought or an idea which leads first. I do know what it will look like immediately as a creator.

 When do you feel most powerful?

When it's all going well! I think when I'm out of the way enough that the work is telling me it's okay. Art is magic making to me and it’s something that needs to be honored and supported. I think there is a real moment when pieces tell you what they need if we listen enough. I think great leaders are the ones that listen to their room really well and understand what it needs.

Is there anything you're hoping to change or inspire within the industry as you continue to move through it?

Oh, yes, I do hope that the right to play and invest in the self continues. I'm very aware in feeling that generations are feeling the pressure of needing to produce immediately, and I'm not seeing as much desire to become a part of things. I think it’s fascinating, because one, we’re such social workers, and two, we’re artisanal, if we don’t go through these passed on traditions. I’m quite concerned of what gets passed on. I’m noticing we’re not really moving in space anymore, and I find that frightening.

What are you most excited for next?

I'm super excited about Life and Trust, the big commercial show that I'm one of the four directors and a part of. It’s been a very thrilling experience alongside Teddy Bergman, Jeff and Rick Kuperman brothers. It’s a joy working with the team. And then I'm excited about the stage piece Femicide: Hunt of the Unicorn. I’m quite curious how we seem to be making so much space inside of language and gendering, yet I'm seeing them being erased more and more, so I'm looking into that and excited about it. I've got two big projects going on for the company, and I’m excited about CONCRETE. It's going to have its second edition at Montclair in the Summer, which I’m beyond excited for. There is a lot to be excited about.

Photo Credit: JC Dhien, Maria Baranova of Emilie Camacho, Alex Boener of Latra Wilson, Dance Magazine Cover Courtesy of Stefanie Batten Bland

 

 

To post a comment, you must register and login.