Off White | Fading Fade Out
Gary Champi y Gabriel Mata
IN THE FLESH
IN THE FRAME
Gary Champi
Gary is a dance artist originally from San Diego, CA. He performs between New York and Seattle, drawing on experience with a variety of choreographers, touring nationally and abroad. As an educator, he teaches commercial dance and contemporary modern at the University of Washington, and has taught master classes and workshops for various institutions throughout the country. As a choreographer, Gary has presented work at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club (NY), Base Experimental Arts+Space (WA), On the Boards (WA), and Seattle Theater Group. He currently has projects with Men in Dance (WA), Dance Place (DC), sjDanceco (CA), and Chamber Dance Company (WA). He is authorized to teach Cunningham Technique® by the Merce Cunningham Trust (MCT) and also has experience restaging dance choreography. Gary worked in many capacities for MCT from 2011-2020, holds a degree in Cognitive Science from Stanford University, and is an MFA candidate at UW.
Gabriel Mata
Photo by Bill Cameron
Gabriel Mata (pronounced en español or like Gabrielle) is a gay Latinx dance choreographer, performer, artist advocate, and educator based in Washington DC. Born in Guerrero, Mexico, as of recent Mata navigates this country as a permanent resident to the United States. He received his MFA in dance from the University of Maryland - College Park. Currently, he is serving as a grant panelist for Mid Atlantic Arts, commissioned by DHPC in SF, and works as an independent artist engaging local dance artists in the DMV. As an educator, Mata focuses on practices of decentering concert dance through a humanistic and socially conscious process. He is currently an adjunct at UMD - College Park and Coppin State University.
Programme Notes
This project builds off of a dance film collaboration created in August 2020 that explores the navigation of brown bodies in predominantly white dance spaces. Specifically, Gabriel Mata, a Mexican-American, and Gary Champi, a Cambodian-American, reflect on their careers in concert dance and consider the influence of euro-centric ideals and training on their actual diverse embodied knowledge. Gabriel trained primarily in contemporary ballet and Limón technique. Gary trained primarily in Cunningham Technique. Both of which informed a singular perspective on how to approach and view dance generally, as well as how to be accepted in the particular structure of modern dance company work. An outdated structure that reinforces regular classes in ballet and modern techniques as the only quality forms of technical training; that “real” dance art is limited to a specific movement vocabulary; and that particularly white body types are more desirable over other bodies of more variable shapes and sizes.
The film work introduces the idea of unpacking and unlearning the weight of white influence and perspective on our own views of dance. This project is the actual physicalized exploration of breaking from that limited structure and returning to or rediscovering our own natural body movements, rhythms, and abilities – our authentic selves. The performance format includes two solos and a duet between the two collaborators.
