Sarah Bush is the artistic director of Sarah Bush Dance Project. She was born in Lincoln, Nebraska and lived there for the first seven years of her life. Bush then moved to the Bay Area for about three years before moving to Salt Lake City, Utah for eleven years. She has also lived in New York and Los Angeles before settling back into the Bay Area, Oakland. Bush has been dancing her whole life. She began in local neighborhood dance studios but has also studied dance at the San Francisco Ballet and at the University of Utah. With each she experienced a disconnect/collision with their structure and because of this she ended up leaving Utah early to move to Oakland.

Bush describes her movement signature as a fluid combination of hip-hop and modern dance. She found hip-hop when she moved to the Bay Area after Utah. When combining and creating her style Bush appreciates the finessed artistry, variety of expression and three-dimensionality of modern and the edge, soulfulness, beat and rhythm of hip-hop. When she spends too much time with one she leans into the other.

When talking about her influences as a choreographer and artist Bush talks mainly of her mother. Her mother was a feminist and while Bush was growing up she introduced her to the women’s music of the 70’s (music by, about and for women). Musicians such as, Cris Williamson (The Changer and the Change) and Holly Near inspired Bush in one of her first evening length shows Rocked by Women. In her earlier work Bush describes her work as more abstract and geometric with influences from her father who is a visual artist, engineer and teacher. Bush also spoke of landscape/mountain and desert, human story and expression, feminism, and women studies. Of the more academic and theory based subjects Bush stated:

I didn’t decide oh I am going to make feminist art, I didn’t consciously think that I want to show lesbian relationships on stage…I didn’t think through any of those as conscious decisions. I thought this is my life experience and I want to show honest human experiences and I can only really do that from my vantage point. The more honest they are the more likely they will resonate with audience members and even if the person sitting in the audience isn’t a Caucasian lesbian artist in their late thirties, that if it’s an honest story, that the universal themes will actually be that much more tangible for an audience member (19:17)

She is interested in the intersectionality between all these subjects and the themes that can bring them together. Overall, Bush considers her work to be more personal than academic.

She describes her understanding and personal relationship to social justice as the decision to make art that she wishes was being made. She asks herself “what is the social justice that is needed here? What do I need to see on stage?” (33:00). This inspires Bush to create work with strong female women and to break choreographic gender norms. Bush makes a conscious choice to only hire women. SBDP is an all women company. She also only hires and works with female collaborators, whether it be sound designer or videographer. Bush makes an extra effort to seek out women where men are conventionally thought of. Another strong feature of SBDP is its racial diversity. Bush makes an effort to hire all women, reaching out to the minorities. She follows her intuition and believes that if she feels there is something missing “then probably other people do to” and that they also “long for seeing it” (33:42).

My personal relationship to Sarah Bush was nothing more than a far off admiration of her work and the concept/themes it explores. I chose her to interview because she is inspiring to me. I am very interested in creating work that delves into women studies, feminism, queer theory, and much more. I have been struggling with how large each of these subjects has felt and it has left me feeling incapable of moving. Listening to Sarah talk about how she creates work eased how I felt about creating my own. Sarah works from a personal place that she believes can be political and I think that kind of work can be the most moving sometimes. This is also the approach I took in creating my senior project. I wanted to talk to someone who had been doing this professionally for a long time- see how they felt, worked, and if they had any advice.

In regards to performing arts and social justice I learned about how the personal perspective can resonate with the audience. Sarah spoke about honesty as a key factor in creating work, especially in creating work for an audience. She believes that honesty is what builds the connection and moves the audience. Overall, talking with Sarah eased me. I feel more secure in how I have traveled through PASJ here and what I am leaving with.

Transcript Excerpt (31:20 – 38:52)

Courtney King: …What do you think social justice is within performance art?

Sarah Bush: Oh gosh it’s one of those academicy sounding questions.

CK: Yeah but [you can…]

SB: [Say it again] what does social justice mean in the context of performance art? [rolls her tongue like a cat]. Well I mean- I think sortof we’ve been talking- I think it happens different ways. There’s people who are such good political performance art people like Keith Hennesy, Chris Kiefer always do good political work so it can- I think that- but I I I can’t- I can not make that kind of political work. So social justice, let’s see uhm…

CK: Hahaha I’m sorry

SB: No I think it’s a good- I mean I can speak to it I don’t know if I can answer it uhm…

CK: I’m- I only really care about your perspective. So it’s okay if...

SB: [There’s no right answer] Social justice- I’m even trying to think what that word means. Uhm……I sometimes thought about, that I am making the art that I wish was being made soo some of my motivation at different points has been ugh god I am so tired of going to the ballet and seeing these, you know, stick twig women looking kind of broken and weak even though they are strong and incredible athletes, they look…the choreography makes them look broken and weak and the men are doing the strong muscular work that imp like oh god if I have to watch that one more time- and so I think okay I need, the social justice that is needed here, for me and maybe others, but for me uhm I need to see images of women being strong. That is what I need to see, I need to see women being strong and complex characters on stage. That’s what I need- in my entertainment of all kinds, hehe. What I want to be taking in in the world- it’s seeing that. So if imp not seeing enough of that then I want to be the person that’s making that and putting it out there so that other people can see that too. Cause I have a feeling if I think I need to see it probably some other people think they need to see it too or long for seeing it and I know like we all feel good when we see some aspect of our life experience upheld, reflected back, or represented in our media or in our arts. I think we all have a longing for that and if, you know- there’s certainly been a time when uhm relationships between women of any kind, whether it was mother-daughter, or sisters, or lovers, or friends was underrepresented in forms of media and art. And I don’t know if that is as true now as it has been in the past but uhm I think that’s still an area where there’s at least half the population that end sup feeling pretty glad that they’re experience is upheld in art and entertainment. They get to see that. I think that is a way of honoring people. By saying, your story is real and poignant and you’re not alone. So in terms of social justice, maybee that’s social justice. Is that social justice, I don’t know? Making-feeling like if there’s uhm people or causes or communities being underserved , underrepresented, doing our own little pieces to uphold them and celebrate them and represent them and put those stories and experiences out into the world and by making art out of something I think you celebrate it. I think you give it that- that gift and that honoring. Right? Like…So that might be my take on social justice and I don’t think that’s [laughs] everybody’s take on social justice but uhm that’s the way I can relate to it right now.

CK: Okay that’s- I think I agree on many accounts. Also I think that it is something very adaptable and changes…almost always …like it depends on the work, I suppose, as well. Do you feel that there are any other… cause you described how women and men are choreographed and represented on stage and that’s something I ‘ve definitely taken note of and it’s frustrating, do you feel that there are any other clear examples like that that you- that are in your company?

SB: Oh in my company?

CK: Yeah maybe just in your company.

SB: Oh I thought you were going somewhere else with that question and I’ll just add my thought to your question that didn’t get asked and then I’ll hahaanswer that one. But I was thinking of like- I gave that example of ballet which always feels sortof the most typical but I was realizing like- you had a comment about hip-hop and I was like oh hip-hop dance is another one of those that can get very gendered in particular ways and sometimes that will look like the men are doing, sort of like ballet, these muscular tricks and this machismo provato and uhm the women, in the case of hip-hop can sometimes be only seen as- what feels like sexualized objects. Uhm but, what drew me to the form of hip-hop was actually that it was a style that also allowed, encouraged women to take up a lot of space. To be big personalities and uhm the movement itself is wide and strong and low to the earth and encourages women to be thick- like just taking up more space and mass and having weight and mass to them. Uhm which was so different then the light, airy, twiggy ballerina thing. It was such a nice like- oh yeah let’s get down here and uhm was a place where it felt like women could express being angry and tough and strong. So I think that’s another reason why I’ve needed all of these influences so I can pull the pieces that I like best from certain art forms and also chose not to take the parts that don’t work for me haha suhm o there’s aspects of all of these art form that fit and ones that don’t, all these different styles. That wasn’t your question…[your question was]

CK: [Hahaha]

SB: Within my company are there other examples of…ways that I’m shhhh making art or showing things on stage that aren’t getting represented. Welllll uhm I always feel like its easy to tip-toe around this subject a little bit but- I have had a conscious choice to, a couple things I guess uhm one is in the last…several years I have chosen to have a company of all women. Uhm to not hire men. And uhm so all of the dancers performing the work are women and also all of the collaborators I work with are women soo if I’m working with a sound designer, video designer…