dance anywhere 2011 / Photo: Steven R. Holloway

Steven Holloway got involved with dance anywhere® initially through photography. A few years ago, he started taking photos and stop-motion videos depicting the dance anywhere® performances. In addition to stop-motion, Steven takes pinhole pictures, an effective and interesting method for capturing movement. While he started as a recorder and observer, after a few years he realized he wanted to get involved with the performance as well. Steven is not a trained dancer, but he has a passion for dance and movement. He feels that the spontaneity of performances with kids or site-specific works really encourage others to join in. He expressed, “that is the real spirit of dance anywhere…bringing dance and joy to the present moment of our lives.”

Steven is not only a photographer, but also a geographer. This combination of artistic and scientific interests explains why his favorite memory from dance anywhere® was “Dance of the Planets.” This piece, done in 2010, was performed at Thornhill Elementary School in Oakland, California, when Steven was working as a resident artist. The project combined science and art in one exercise as the 100 third-graders involved wore different color shirts representing different planets and stars and their movement represented the complex activity of the solar system. Steven noted his favorite part, at the end, where the students rushed him at center, surrounding him, and they all pointed up into the sky.

Berkeley Art Museum pinhole photo / dance anywhere 2009 / Photo: Steven R. Holloway

Where do you find inspiration for your work?

In the everyday living world around me and from my spiritual connection to this world that comes through both poetry and the beauty of science. Water, free flowing water.

What is your process for creating/choreographing a dance?

I have a practice that helps me to stop, to observe, and to respond. I try to listen and let the unknown gift come in and be realized.

Your past dances for dance anywhere® have incorporated themes of biology, space, planets, ecology, and nature. What is the relation you see between dance and these scientific fields?

Dance of the Planets is inspired in that interaction between the teaching moment (teaching third graders about the interrelated and complex movements of the sun, the moon, the earth and planets), understanding these movements for myself and EXPERIENCING them myself, and the great Sufi whirling dervishes dancing. So I put together the dance as a way to EXPERIENCE the movements, all the movements, the JOY of these moving planets. It is this interaction between science, art, and the spiritual or mystical experience of the event itself. This is also the case with the 8’19.2” piece I did last year which was a dance to a great poem by Antonio Machado. Once again in the experience of or the intersection of; the fields of winter wheat, accidental furrows, the poem, the moment of joy that happens when we experience life itself. So the dance is, for me, that intersection of both art, science, and the mystical nature of being alive.

As someone who is not a professional or trained dancer, is dance important to you? If so, why?

Ezra Pound once said, I think in his ABC of Reading that “music begins to atrophy when it departs too far from the dance; that poetry begins to atrophy when it gets too far from music; but this must not be taken as implying that all good music is dance music or all poetry lyric. Bach and Mozart are never too far from physical movement.” And, you see, I have been both a musician and poet in my life so I take this to heart that my words should arise from dance, from movement. I run every day, running is a dance, so my art arises from my movement touching the earth.

How does dance inform other aspects of your life?

Dancing, like music, is moving with awareness or organization, to paraphrase John Cage. So as I bring awareness into living, into moving (we could consider Vipassana’s conscious walking here) living becomes dancing.

You worked with children for your “Dance of the Planets.” Why do you feel it is important to get children involved in dance and/or dance anywhere®?

Because movement is the key to being alive. We soon fall asleep and spend the rest of our lives sleeping or trying to wake up. The joy of moving, which is dance, is the joy and happiness of loving. The excitement of the gift moving through us.

What does movement mean to you as a means of expression?

The notion of moving your body in space, with a lot of love and joy is such a wonderful concept…it allows one to appreciate dance as an experience, not just a performance.

Steven has no specific plans yet for this year’s dance anywhere® event. He knows that his piece will be in either Washington or Missoula, and he is letting his own life inform him. He does plan to do pinhole pictures and stop-motion and will be either dancing alone or with others. To Steven, part of the fun is showing other people they can do it, too.

You can view Steven Holloway’s Dance of the Planets stop motion video here.

Dance of the Planets pinhole photo / dance anywhere 2010 / Photo: Steven R. Holloway