What Does a Modern Dancer Look Like?
Even after spending nearly two hours talking with Gesel Mason and revisiting the interview before sitting down to write this article, I struggled to find a way in. Not only is Gesel a dynamic and powerful performer, she is also an intelligent and eloquent speaker, full of conviction. She is a dancer, a woman, an African-American who knows what she is about and likes to share that with others in the various mediums available to her. And by mediums I mean not only specific techniques--ballet, modern dance, hip-hop, African dance and step--but also the philosophies she has gained from her diverse experiences in teaching, choreography, academia, solo projects and the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange, among many others. These manifold and multiform techniques, companies, projects, teaching placements she has engaged in throughout her successful career helped shape Gesel not only as a dancer, but as a person. Gesel does not see herself as separate entities. So after some consideration, and a lengthy transcription of her words to typeface, I thought it best to let her speak for herself.
"I feel like all of it is about peeling away the layers to just try to get to--get closer to what I honestly believe and then that's when I started to really recognize, 'Okay, dance is about humanity.' So I didn't have to feel guilty about, 'Oh, you dance,' like 'Oh, that's such a luxury.' It is. But it's also life and death. It is what I do. That is how I contribute to my community."
Dancing is in Gesel's blood. She remembers a picture of her mother on pointe shoes and references it as evidence. When she and her mother are out dancing, having a good time, they do the same move unconsciously. But Gesel really gets the dancing gene from her grandmother. Her mother never wanted to perform, but her grandmother was a great swing dancer. So at eight-years-old, when Gesel first showed an inclination for movement beyond what the living room could provide, her mother signed her up for ballet class at a studio in Dallas, Texas run by Suzelle Kechejian because "it's just what you did with your little girl." When Gesel entered what is now called Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, what she knew as "Arts", the decision between it and a Catholic high school was a no-brainer. "I knew I wanted to go to Arts. This was Fame era, you know? So Fame came out, and I was like, 'I am so going to the arts high school.' There was no other option for me," she says with a hint of irony. There Gesel received influential modern dance, composition and improvisation training from Lily Weiss and Dr. Linda James. She graduated with Erykah Badu. Though encouraged to become a professional dancer after graduation, Gesel did not think she was ready and instead of heading to New York City--because that is what you do as a dancer--she attended University of Utah. One of the few freshman to make it into the repertory company, she was "over it" by her sophomore year. Her training at Arts was so comprehensive that though she was able to delve more deeply into her own understanding of modern technique at college, her training at University of Utah was somewhat redundant. She finished, however, and earned a BFA in dance as well as a teaching certificate. Her vision of the dancer's trajectory ending in NYC proved elusive once again as after graduating from college Gesel instead took a full-time job teaching dance at Apple Valley high school in Minnesota.
"That's when I realized I wasn't really just teaching dance. I was teaching humanity. And it's one of the reasons I feel really strongly about teaching. I really like to teach. I--I like seeing people change and grow and understand and think. 'Cause I had to believe what I was telling these kids. I couldn't just be like, 'Okay, you guys are going tendu.' Why? What is the purpose of tendu?" She was given the kids with "letters behind their names", and she taught them not to laugh at each other as they went across-the-floor. Her classes grew and she even garnered a contingent of boys. She still keeps in touch with some of her students. But after her two years, she left them and Minnesota for Washington, DC to dance with the full-time professional company, Liz Lerman Dance Exchange. Her kids protested, and she gave them this advice:
"Look. This is what I do. If you guys ever have the opportunity to do something you love, you should do it." And she did. For four years as a full-time company member of the Dance Exchange.
While continuing to appear as a guest dancer with the Dance Exchange, to dance with other artists (she toured with Ralph Lemon in 2005) and to teach as an adjunct dance professor throughout the country (she is currently teaching at Columbia College in Chicago), Gesel has come to regard Washington, DC as her home. Toward the end of her tenure with the Dance Exchange and with the help of Cheles Rhynes, whom she met while teaching in Minnesota, she created Mason/Rhynes productions, initially to support her own artistry. It's purpose now? "We wanted the DC community to recognize that there were some amazing dancers here; there's some amazing artists; there's some amazing choreography; there's some amazing work; there's some amazing artistic directors. And not just some of the bigger companies that you see."
Now nearing its tenth birthday, Mason/Rhynes Productions has become an integral part of the DC dance community supporting not only dance, but also film and theater, offering mentorship for artists, creating the Metro DC Dance Awards to highlight emerging or established talent and above all, giving artists, specifically artists of color a platform on which to be seen and heard. Gesel jokes about the company, "Mason/Rhynes productions: the little engine that could, or wouldn't stop, or that didn't know any better..." She cuts herself off with laughter and then recovers: "I want to put DC on the map as a place to be. If I'm here, I want DC to be a place to be too. I don't want dancers to always run away." Again she is thinking of NYC. But every decision Gesel has made has come from informed research; her choices have not been arbitrary. She goes where she is called. "There's this trajectory but there's also this thing that's in you."
Gesel does question one piece of her history. She is not sure of her company's name, Gesel Mason Performance Projects, or GMPP. One of Gesel's dancer's jokingly rapped during rehearsal, "Who's down with GMPP?" referencing the Naughty by Nature hip hop hit, "OPP." The new name? She doesn't know, but "I think it has gumbo in it somewhere." I might think twice about changing it. The hip hop reference is fitting as Gesel herself claims to be a part of that culture, and one of her solo pieces, "Flava" demonstrates the coexistence of hip hop and modern dance not only on her own body but in the body of contemporary modern work being created. We are all "dance mutts" she says of her generation. "What is modern dance? Who knows!" Gesel answers with a laugh. "It's weird." She continues, "Why are you so sad? Why are you throwing yourself on the floor? Why are you rolling? What is wrong with you? Help me understand--I want to understand!" Gesel searches for the truth and uses dance and lots of humor to find it. Doing so, putting the truth as she sees it out there presents a safe environment for the audience to explore along with her. "We have to be the ones to articulate that to people, 'cause they don't always get it. And because it's not held up as--" She considers and finds the truth once again. "You know, you're not making bank doin' this job. So it must be really important."