Reorient the Orient by Lionel Popkin at REDCAT

Reorient the Orient, performed at REDCAT, on March 9 and 10, is a renowned choreographer and performer Lionel Popkin’s response to the dubious history of interculturalism (more on this later). Seeking to expand the discourse on how brown South Asian bodies inhabit contemporary art and performance spaces, Popkin draws from his nearly 30-year archive of dance-making. At REDCAT’s theater and gallery, dancers, videos, archival materials, rugs, sculptures, neon yellow wiffle balls, and the headpiece from an elephant costume invite audiences to make their way, choosing where to be and what to see. The durational (eight hours) and multi-modal event encompassed videos, objects, printed material, historical context, contemporary responses, and scored movement activities. 

As I meandered through the exhibition/performance space, it proved to be a relaxing, if not curious exercise. Indeed, a good way to forget about the many conflicts going on in the world today. At the same time, there was something grounding in the historical quotes on the gallery wall, in viewing yogic/somatic postures, the meditative music, those neon wiffle balls — and through examining some of Popkin’s archival materials.

One of those archives in particular was Rotating Right Angle, about the swastika symbol — (that was not calming). Growing up, Popkin was taught two things about swastika’s. He was raised Jewish and early in his life, the symbol went clockwise and stood for the hate and fear perpetuated by the Nazis. As he grew, and his Indian heritage became more prevalent, he was taught that the counter-clockwise symbol originated 5,000 years ago and stood for peace and good luck. He noted these stories and binaries of the imagery are overly simplified.

In his archival writing, including a crayon drawing of the rotating right angle, Popkin wrote he is disturbed by the intersectionality of how anti-semitism and caste supremacy are wrapped up in the symbol that has grafted itself onto his “subcons-ciousness.” 

He continued to write that he recently learned the image of rotating right angles can be found in the Navajo, Ethiopian and Greek archaeological records. Further, in 1983, a year after his Bar Mitzvah, Popkin’s childhood synagogue was firebombed and burned by white supremacists.

“How do I contend with the inner emotionality of the image, of any image, alongside the outer reality of how I am perceived next to it?” wrote Popkin.

For the artist to openly share a deep personal question that he sits with, to the public, was also calming, even heartening. This is what artists do. That we as humans have this capability, to be vulnerable, to share, it demonstrates our intrinsic connection to each other, how we understand one another. It’s also something that our “first-world” governments have largely disregarded. 

Popkin was born and raised in Bloomington, Indiana by an Indian mother and a Jewish father. He is a multidisciplinary artist trained as a choreographer whose work engages people, objects, and media to explore issues of hybridity, archival practices, historical inequities, and the confusions surrounding the representations of the South Asian diaspora in North America. In an interview with LA Dance Chronicle, Popkin “defined” what he means by contemporary response as part of this event. 

“The thing about Orientalism is it fixes the brown body in a kind of ancient cultural heritage place,” Popkin said. “I’m interacting with these things from a diasporic contemporary lens. I am not trying to reify an ancient wisdom or play in that because I vehemently disagree with that.” 

His artist statement reads: “With Reorient the Orient, I am not interested in perpetuating imagery that promotes an orientalist fantasy, homeland nostalgia, assimilationist whitewashing, the invisibilizing of Asian contributions, or contributes to the mirage of authenticity. Instead, I am investigating imagery that focuses on the trust, support, and risk necessary to survive the complex experiences of brown bodies within the American art world.”

As a performer, Popkin was principally trained in the western traditions of improvisation and somatic awareness, influenced by his prolonged study of Skinner Releasing Technique, various physical therapy regimes and multiple forms of yoga. Much of Popkin’s background is recognizable in the choreography of Six Positions of Uncertainty.

The composition encompassed: rug and performers with optional sunglasses and headphones. Performers, Jay Carlon, Wilfried Souly, Arushi Singh and Popkin, often moved in semi yogic postures, like down dog, three legged dog or squats and somatic motions (using what you feel to inform your movement). Each performer had six scores which they could do at any time, on any rug. Scores were titled: Stirring; Crab/Hover; Crouching Squat; Long Walk; Bumpy and Wait.

About this composition, created during COVID, Popkin said, “As part of coping with social isolation and the associated neurosis and fear, I have been developing a movement ritual that seeks to ground and root my brown hybridized body. My practice uncovers physical gestures and positions that resonate with metaphorical and associative readings, seeking to bring solidity to the uncertainty surrounding us. Being tethered can feel both comforting and suffocating.”

“The Attribution Game. One Hundred Years of Change?”
Posted on the wall facing the gallery is a list of four quotes in one column that correspond to the sources of them in another column. The viewer is asked to match the quote to its source. There’s a good chance many people may not be familiar with the sources and subsequently, have no sense of who to attribute a particular quote; but most people could recognize a figure who is related to two of them. The options, in order, are Uday Shankar (artist, dancer and choreographer who popularized Indian dance through his use of western theatrical techniques in combination with classical Indian dance); Ram Gopal (Indian film director, screenwriter and producer); Amala Shankar (artist, dancer and choreographer, wife of Uday Shankar, mother of musician Ananda Shankar and dancer Mamata Shankar and sister-in-law of musician Ravi Shankar – the recognizable name); and wall text for the San Francisco Asian ArtMuseum exhibition Beyond Bollywood: 2000 Years of Dance in Art.

The quotes are worth sharing because they do ignite deep consideration: 

1. 1. “The three-thousand year old vocabulary of the Hindu dance is still employed with its use of the hands, fingers, lips, brows, neck and head as well as the body.”
   2. India has a tradition of dancing that is today, perhaps the oldest and most detailed of all existing techniques.”
   3. “We come from a country where there is no such a thing as modern … anything we think of we have to go back two or four thousand years.”
   4. “Right now, far out in limitless space, the great Hindu god Shiva is dancing to set the rhythms of the universe.

Find the answers at the bottom of the story.

There was so much to see and experience in this event, one would actually have needed the full two days of its run to digest it all. What puzzled me initially was the meaning of the “dubious history of interculturalism” and how Reorient the Orient, or Popkins response, connects to this history. Then it became clear that his retort, as it were, is in the history, in the feeling of inhabiting a hybridized brown/South Asian body as an artist in artistic spaces. Popkin is telling (reorienting) history from its uncertain translation. History, feelings, customs; this is what encompasses  interculturalism. Simply put, it is promoting interaction, understanding, respect between people of different cultural and ethnic backgrounds. But if taken in the wrong direction, this can lead to misrepresentation of an art form or an ancient practice, such as yoga, into something refashioned.

Popkin is a resident artist at the 18th Street Arts Center. He is a Professor of Choreography in the Department of World Arts and Cultures/Dance and the Interim Dean for the School of the Arts and Architecture at UCLA.

Answer to the Attribution Game:
The quotes and sources are listed in the same order and directly correspond.

Details: www.lionelpopkin.org and https://www.redcat.org