User:Tyyy13/sandbox

Gesel Mason
Gesel Mason is choreographer, educator, performer, and arts facilitator. Currently, she is the Artistic Director of Gesel Mason Performance Projects and an Associate Professor at the University of Texas at Austin. Gesel has performed for and been a member of numerous well-established choreographers and companies. In her work, Mason utilizes dance, theater, humor, and storytelling to bring visibility to those voices unheard, situation neglected, or perspectives considered taboo.(Cite). Mason has cultivated a multitude of works and performances including her highlighted projects; Women, Desire, & Sex, antithesis, and No Boundaries.

No Boundaries
No Boundaries: Dancing the Visions of Contemporary Black Choreographers is an evolving repertoire of solos choreographed by various contemporary Afriacan American choreographers. This performance project originated from Mason’s interest to work with African American choreographers. No Boundaries feature works by Kyle Abraham, Robert Battle, Rennie Harris, Dianne McIntyre, Bebe Miller, Donald McKayle, Reggie Wilson, Andrea E. Woods Valdéz, David Roussève, and Jawole Willa Jo Zollar. Mason focused on black choreographers to switch the narrative of finding ways to African American works in the dance world and provide a platform that presents the impact African American artists are making on the field. She uses this project as a vehicle to understand the resilience of silencing, erasing, and appropriating African American cultural contributions. For over 15 years, Mason has been performing these solos throughout the country and the spark of the importance of preserving these works past the physical body after rupturing her Achilles in July of 2018. The choreograph process for each solo was intense for Mason and it was important to preserve its physical and/or emotional challenges by providing insights to these artists’ choreography, stories, interviews, and legacies on a digital archival platform. After collecting over seven decades of choreography, Mason plans to continue to update the platform to include younger and emerging artists and ignite discussions around the idea of Black dance and its impact. Dunning from the New York Times states, “Ms. Mason has put together a show that should be required viewing for students of dance history, not so much for the facts it touches upon but for the personalities and points of view revealed in excerpts from video interviews that accompany the dances.” (Dunning) By providing access to this digital archive, Mason focuses on highlighting and preserving these African American artists that could be relatively unknown to the general public, which further  expands on the initial theme of resilience by interrupting the possibility of African American legacies being erased or forgotten.

antithesis
anthesis is project that builds on the research from Mason’s previous project Women, Sex, & Desire by continuing to explore female sexuality and challenge how it is percieved, performed, and (re)presented. Inspired and expanding from poet Audre Lorde’s essay “Uses of the Erotic”, Mason explores the sensual and feminine energy within oneself by seeking to understand how the female body is seen, used, empowered, and comodified in public spaces in the 21st century society. Mason showcases the female body on display by colliding the worlds of displaying dancers in the dance studio or concert stage and in the strip club or burlesque stage. (Traiger) Mason aimed for antithesis to free the idea of erotic from oppressed structures that tend to limit female sensuality and sexuality. This project further questions whether female bodies are objectified and commodified based on their environment or it is embedded in the 21st century society. Mason navigates this question by having this work be a community and site-specific work. As the work could be staged in multiple venues such as a concert stage, art museum, or a strip club, this asks both audience members and dancers to embody contradictions of the culture of the work versus the performance space. This allows the work to challenge the oppressive structures that limit the female sensuality and sexuality and the audience to find their power within themselves.

Women, Sex, & Desire
Women, Sex, & Desire: Sometime You Feel Like a Ho, Sometimes You Dont is an interactive performance addressing how women navigate desire, sex, percepion, and choice. This multi-media performance consists of a comedy sketch, part talk show, workshop retreat, and dance performance. Mason creates a raw and personalized experience for the audience along with her dancers by combining their real stories, people, and movement ranging from postmodern to pole dancing. (Kourlas & Website) Mason began the dialogue of the delight and frustrations of being a sexual creature. Mason uses Women, Sex, & Desire to create a safe environment for people to expose their vulnerability while incorporating an entertaining, raw, insightful, and risky experience.