When is a dance much more than a dance? You will get a chance to see for yourself at the Ag Fair on Friday, August 18, at 12 pm with Caleb Teicher and Nic Gareiss’ dynamic collaboration when they bring many different dance traditions together to celebrate something completely new.
The duo performs both in traditional theater spaces and outdoors, as they will at the free pop-up at the Ag Fair. “There’s something beautiful about a dark theater, but there’s also something beautiful about everyone gathered around to take in what we have to share,” Teicher says. “I find community agriculture and the performing arts are both ways we ‘nourish our community.’” But Teicher is continually surprised how people in these spheres don’t necessarily participate in the other: “I hope that with our program, there is an overlap of these communities…a space where health and culture can cross-pollinate and benefit from one another.” Gareiss says, “I think Caleb’s ideas to put the cultural forms I come from back in proximity to food systems is really interesting. We’re going to be close to the agricultural systems from which many of these dance traditions originate.”
Gareiss, based in Michigan, is a dancer, musician, and dance researcher who draws from many percussive dance traditions, weaving together clog, flatfoot, step dance footwork vocabulary, improvisation, and musical collaboration. Gareiss re-imagines movement as a musical practice, recasting dance as a medium that appeals to both eyes and ears. Teicher is a New York City-based dancer and choreographer specializing in musically driven dance traditions and interdisciplinary collaboration and has performed at The Yard numerous times over the years.
The two first met at a retreat in Virginia for dancers who focused on percussive sound-making as their practice. Gareiss recalls of Teicher, “It became really clear that there was a deep rhythmic connection and an interest in the way that physicality is part of rhythm making…and a shared joy and love of improvisation.”
Gareiss continues that in 2017, “Caleb was coming to do a show in Michigan, and I asked them who they would like to work with, and they said, ‘You.’” And thus, a collaboration was born that continues today with performances in both urban and rural spaces.
Teicher’s traditions mainly originate from urban environments, and says, “The legacy of jazz and tap dance in this country is mostly to do with the Five Points district in New York City, where a lot of lower-class people were hanging out and sharing a mix of styles from the African American diaspora.” Gareiss’ traditions, on the other hand, mostly hail from different geography — rural Appalachian and Canada, as well as Ireland and Scotland, areas that are associated with folk music forms.
Despite their differences, Teicher comments, “Nic was so fresh and exciting to me because I feel like we speak compatible but different languages, different dialects.” Gareiss adds, “Encountering Caleb, I was immediately enchanted by how they can improvise and work between forms, somehow getting to the heart of what that form is about. It became an immediate intimacy of sharing sound and movement together in a way I haven’t experienced with other dancers and sound makers. The heart of our collaboration is that shared intimacy, seeking pleasure in finding each other in moments of improvisation.”
Both the pop-ups and full show mix set choreography and improv. “But every time we do it, it’s different and fresh,” Teicher says, continuing, “It is about sharing space and time to play and perform just using the sounds of our bodies. There’s no recorded music. All the music is us dancing and singing. It’s a very acoustic show without instruments.”
The Ag Fair is just one of the places you can catch the duo, who will also perform a free pop-up at Morning Glory Farm on August 17 and full evenings at The Yard on August 18 and 19. No matter the venue, Gareiss explains that seeing them dance is like going to a concert because they are dancing and also making rhythm sounds — singing, clapping their hands, snapping their fingers. When the two speak about being committed to pleasure-seeking, they mean both in the art of their collaboration as two sound makers and movers…and for the audience. Teicher says, “We’ve had extremely raucous audiences over the years, which is great fun and is something you might not associate with a dance performance. It’s always a really great time.”
Free Pop-ups: August 17, 12 pm, at Morning Glory Farm, and August 18, 12 pm at the Agricultural Fair. Ticketed performances at The Yard on August 18 and 19 at 7 pm