Dance Works: Stories by workers who keep the city running
By Kristen Lawson
Dance Works: Stories of Creative Collaboration (Wesleyan University Press) demonstrates how we can create connection and community through making and sharing art. Author Allison Orr, founder and artistic director of Forklift Danceworks in Austin, Texas, details her career creating dances with working class people, whose jobs and activities are often overlooked and under-appreciated. Her dedication to community-based art-making, and the surprising outcomes of the works, are inspiring.
The people Orr works with don’t think of themselves as dancers. Most have never attended a dance show, let alone performed in one. However, she says, they are all experts in the movements of their profession: “The movements I observe at places of work are purposeful, spatially precise, and follow clear rhythmic patterns.”
This includes firefighters so practiced in their movements that they are dressed and ready to go within moments of an alarm, lineworkers who free-climb up to 100 feet in the air, and maintenance staff who wash windows or mow grass in the same efficient sequence for decades.
How does Orr get people on board? The book answers this question and many more, as the reader is guided through Orr’s more than 20-year career and equally long learning curve.
The first step involves Forklift and the community the company is working with getting to know one another, building trust and shedding biases. Many blue collar workers think of dance as frivolous, or something only professionals can do. Many artists think blue collar workers, like trash collectors, find their work menial or depressing. Neither of these assumptions are necessarily true.
With a background in dance and anthropology, Orr spends months going for ride-alongs and talking to individuals before asking them to participate in her choreographies. She figures out what motivates them, and what they want others to know. As she puts it: “We endeavour to give the partnering community a platform to share their stories on their terms, accompanied by theatrical lighting and original music.”
Sometimes all it takes is the realization that they are just being asked to do the same drills they do every day, only stylized and to a beat. Other times it’s about having a say in the messaging, or one-upping their coworkers. Lineworker Joe Alvarez took the handline he usually uses to raise and lower materials, and used it as his dance partner in front of 3000 spectators, but really he was doing it for his wife in the front row.
What’s most inspiring about Forklift’s community work is not the dances themselves, but their effects on participants. Firefighter Don “Doc” Murdock had never considered himself a creative person until performing in In Case of Fire (2001). After that experience he took up guitar, then started a rock band. Following Served (2018) by William’s College Dining Services, a group of students decided to prepare and serve an appreciation meal for the dining staff.
The Forklift project with Austin Aquatics was especially significant as climate change causes the city to get hotter and hotter. East Austin’s public pools, which are most likely to be used by working class people and people of colour, are also the most likely to be closed due to a lack of funds, while private pools in wealthier West Austin thrive. After My Park, My Pool, My City (2017-2019), there was a reported a rise in swimming skills, community pride, and understanding of community history in East Austin. The performances also generated support for a $40 million US Aquatics bond package, and a $1.2 million US a year increase in funds for maintenance and repairs. It’s rare to be able to point to specific outcomes from a work of art, yet here we see the project’s direct influence on city planning.
Dance Works demonstrates how live community performance can help us appreciate each other more. The spectacle reaches people in a memorable and emotional way that educational pamphlets or lectures simply can’t. Through performance, audience members gain a better understanding of the unsung workers who keep their city running, and beautiful.
