THE SHIFT: Isak Enquist
Isak Enquist, in conversation with Tobias Macfarlane:
@isakenquist
T: Tell me about the structure of your class. Why did you want to put these elements together?
I: We've just done a class that takes bits of karate, contact, street dance breakdowns. I did a whole bunch of Shotokan Karate-Do (which translates to “Way of the open hand”) before starting to dance, and spent my teen years looking at videos of break dancers and studying the way they move. I was trying to learn a way of moving that had nothing to do with where I was living or the people I was around, on my own. I wouldn’t call myself a breakdancer or breaker, but I’m heavily influenced by that movement and connecting that to Capoeira and seeing throughlines between Shotokan Karate-Do, martial arts in general, yoga, break dance and floor work in general.
T: What was your transition from full-time karate practitioner into dance like?
I: Definitely a shift. My parents saw how interested and excited I was about dancing at home, so they put me in a dance class. I'm not sure whether it was the discomfort and not knowing, or the nervousness of being a 13 year old in a 17 plus hip hop class, but I was almost in tears the entire time and hating it, feeling so uncomfortable. Then my mom picks me up, says, “how was it?” And I was like, “It was great”. “Do you want to do the month?” And I said, “Yes”. As I got into Hip-Hop I started to notice Hip-Hop leads to Tap, Tap leads to Jazz, Jazz leads to Ballet, and eventually I found myself in a Ballet class.
There was all this really beautiful internal strength these dancers were working on, and the actual practice of Ballet demanded this vulnerability. Ballet injuries were the exact opposite of Karate injuries. Karate is all about exoskeleton; contraction, protection, expansion - pressing the external parts of your body; really thinking about internal rotation as a way of protecting yourself. I started asking what happens to a body if it's only focusing on opening and vulnerability? Or only on protection and closing?
T: What sort of injuries are typical in Ballet and in Karate?
I: It's basically knees and ankles in both, but different sides to it. In Ballet you're talking about twisting ankles, knees strained, dislocated stuff. In karate, you're talking about impact and structural damage. In Karate, the general stance is with bow legs, the knees pressing out, and this wrapping of the legs means the knee has pressure on one side of it. Ballet dancers, with their internal rotation and opening of the feet, you find the knees are collapsing in the opposite way. So it’s interesting trying to search for this balance.
T: Now, at an advanced level of dance and Karate, how do you use Karate to aid professional dance and vice versa?
I: Karate accesses muscles we don't use in a ballet class. We can use it to find those structures of the body. If our contact with the foot is a winged pointe in ballet, it is a flex sickle in karate, how can we find that balance? I'm often working with dancers experienced in ballet and saying, “let's find the opposite.” If we can find the two opposites - the two extremes - then we can play in between and start having techniques that support us no matter where on the spectrum we are.
T: And find a place of physical safety - keeping yourself safe when you're seeing injuries and concussions happening around you in both areas?
I: And then there's another side of it. I felt that in lot of the Western forms of dance training, we're asking for people to practice vulnerability without a lot of practice of the opposite body language. When you train in karate three days a week, you end up with a lot of “don't fuck with me” body language. And dancers generally practice a lot of ‘I'm open, available, excited, willing”. “I have permeable boundaries” energy, or “come take advantage of me” energy.
T: Without being taught how to close that down and then sit in the studio.
I: Yeah. I'm not saying that physical action or physical practice has a direct line through emotional way of being. But my opinion is that practising body language helps us practise a mental state.
T: We're here for your opinions, that's super interesting. Both of these practices teach you discipline, but martial arts in particular, especially Karate, have very serious training on discipline in the room. There are rules about behaviour, heavily enforced throughout. How’s that?
I: Thank you. So in Karate, the training space, which is called the Dojo, is a really specific space. You bow when you enter the door and you bow when you exit. There's an understanding that outside the dojo, you’re in a different body and mind than when you’re in the dojo. And that's just all about making boundaries - so if I'm teaching karate, I can be your friend and I can talk and I can make mistakes and be a normal human being. And when we bow in, we enter a different structure. Your friend or your father or your partner becomes a Sensei (teacher) or a Sempai (senior student) or a Karateka (student). And I think that's really about creating portals for us to enter something that's really intense. We need to be able to take it off. For example, you get bopped on the nose and it starts bleeding. Usually what happens when you get punched in the nose is your eyes swell up, you start tearing. And so the practice is simple: you bow and exit, go deal with yourself, and don’t re-enter the dojo until you're ready to re-engage with the work. Similarly, if you get emotional in any way, you excuse yourself out the door and go deal with whatever is needed.
T: How is that different from a traditional masculine stoicism of “don't have emotions”?
I: It gets tricky. I think that there's a lot of work in understanding your emotions and being able to compartmentalise in order to make decisions.
T: How does that compartmentalization help you in the practice of karate? Or does it?
I: I find the structure really beneficial to be pragmatic when you're training, and when you're talking about violence. Then you finish the class, you sit down and you discuss. So there’s a way to say, “Hey, the way that you acted back there, I didn't appreciate that.”
But to enter that conversation during the class? The structure doesn't support an open dialogue because there is a Sensei training and pushing all the students, and there's a flow, and there's a focused energy. It’s a practice in understanding your emotions, and being able to make your actions clear.
T: There's also the fact that karate is a martial art, which is a form of violence, attack and defence. Whereas our general North American interaction with it is as training sport exercise. I appreciate that you seem to have gone to the whole of the thing as opposed to just exercise.
I: I think it’s nice to remember where and what karate came from. Okinawan martial arts, heavily influenced by mainland Chinese techniques, were developed by a group of people that were oppressed by their government. They were not permitted weapons and they were trying to create ways to defend themselves against chaotic violence. These techniques were used and developed through a real need to defend oneself without weapons. There's a seriousness in that, and a huge respect to the ways this training and technique came about - this is important. I also think that there are protocols around keeping the dojo a pragmatic, non-emotional space, because everyone's dealing with personal emotional stuff. You don't know what people have experienced, what traumas are under the surface, and so we can talk about the form and let the emotional journey be processed by the individual in their own personal way.
@isakenquist
T: If you could give an element of your experience with karate to contemporary dancers, what might it be?
I: I guess that's the class that I'm trying to figure out!
T: Let me know when you get there.
I: You're showing up to the dojo, entering and exiting through meditation, focusing your energy and clearing your mind so that you can focus on your own self. Karate involves meditation and seeking one's own self-development. There’s debate in some circles about whether that’s a spiritual, embodied, or somatic practice. I don’t know the answer.
But especially doing karate when I was young, I was working through a lot of intense emotions. I had a space to feel my emotions, then to express that through something physical - and in particular, something that was aggressive. Finding space to be aggressive and feel warrior/ predator energy without it causing hurt or damage. And I think there's something so healing about knowing that you're a deadly being. Knowing your potential power and your potential violence means that you're not going around the world trying to discover if you have the capability to be violent. Whenever I saw fights break out at school or in the city, I saw people trying to see if they had power through violence.
T: So, because you had an avenue to practice violence in a structure and in a form of spirituality, you never felt you needed to prove to yourself that you were violent or had the potential to be “manly”.
I: There was no reason to test the boundary, because you knew that boundary was quite intense. Someone wants to fight you; instead of thinking, “Oh, this is an opportunity to see how hard I can punch someone” I'm thinking, “No, I know how hard I can punch. I know that can really hurt someone. Maybe there's another way.”
T: You were taught restraint and safety and consideration for others.
I: And conflict resolution through humility rather than just obedience. I don’t often have to deal with conflict. I can’t say my dance work requires violence prevention - but I think humility goes a long way. I think we’re constantly battling the ego, and I'm proud of the times where I can check that ego, and think about trying to make space for others. I know that I can be big, I can expand and access that dominating energy. Then the question is - I know that it's there, do I need to use it right now? Do I need to be testing that expansion, whether through idea or embodiment? That’s just kind of the ongoing work. So thank you, Karate.
T: In class you taught us that the shoulders are often called the ego. I found packaging something I personally struggle with, in a concept or an image made it so much easier for me to drop my ego. Are you bringing in concepts and philosophies into your teaching practice in a way that you find unusual?
I: It feels like a positive practice to address the symbology that comes with these body reactions as we are trying to train and hone them. And then there is also the negative side, where notes become personal. If someone tells me my shoulders are up, I have to think about, “oh, what am I doing right now? What am I feeling right now?”
T: “Why am I so full of ego?!” So, the shadow side is that it brings self-criticism and philosophy into something that was simply physical.
I: For better or for worse. I think notes can be really intense for a dancer because someone's commenting about your body. Especially if you start feeling fear. And I come from a family and socialisation where body language is real language.
T: A nice way of saying your family doesn't use words to communicate.
I: We share fewer words to say how we’re feeling. So, if I'm caving my chest and protecting myself, and a choreographer says “Isak, why is your chest caved in? Relax your shoulders back”, it’s a double whammy - I'm feeling criticised for the way that I'm feeling, and I'm also being asked to change the way that I'm feeling.
T: And so you might go “but you haven't made me feel safe.”
I: Maybe. Or you might just note to yourself “I'm trying to protect myself right now, but as a professional dancer, doing my best to enact a choreographer's vision, I'm…” It’s connected to the practice of taking your bags off at the door. Do you change that mental state so that you can say yes to body language?
T: The structures and these protocols and relationships, everything we've talked about: how are they shaping you becoming a teacher in the room that you are now in charge of?
I: As a teacher, I really believe in this portal or entrance and exit of class. When class is over, I want to be surrounded by my friends. The teacher has to speak to everyone, and everyone gets quiet so that they can hear the teacher - I don't want special privileges within those friendships. I want to find ways I can end that - take the hat off. How can we compartmentalise class so I can sit down with my friends? I can talk about, “how did that go? What did you think? How was it helpful when I said that? Was it unsupportive when I said that?”
T: How do you create the separation in a way that isn't asking artists to bow at the door?
I: My best idea so far is having a roll down, something really simple. We talk about hunkering (I’m not certain of this) but letting an energy leave you and vice versa, allowing giving you time with yourself to get into character, giving everyone a transitional moment of privacy so that we can we can end our conversations, end that social situation, and have this moment of meditation and separation and entering - that's the best I got. I'm still trying to figure it out.
T: It feels like you're thinking a lot about how classes can change so that the artist is a whole person and gets taken care of, as opposed to, just exercise, just training. What's your relationship to class as a professional dancer and class in Vancouver in particular?
I: Um, I'm a pretty lazy dancer. I took an assortment of classes throughout my training. We find little pockets of class, whether they’re in House, or Grooving, or Ballet, or Tap, or Karate, or trying to create a constellation of all these different practices. I wish that class was like seeing all of your friends from the neighbourhood. I wish the class was not a competitive energy. I wish that it was we - “that are getting better” rather than I - “Am I getting better than other folks in the class?” I don't think that's a criticism of Vancouver dance, but a reflection on dance in general and in a freelance context, where you're in this pit and you're trying to be the best.
T Systemically, what would you change to shift classes to that environment?
I Sometimes I think about a sort of academy model – maybe classes are free and your membership is connected to a certain amount of credits you accumulate each year – something less monetary and a bit more with the energy of “You don’t have to show up but it sure is nice when you do.” For example, at the moment, with the artists that I'm working with in my own company class for project art dancers, I struggle with whether I'm wearing the friend hat, because these are all my friends I'm working with. The friend says, “Do whatever you need to do. It's okay”. The coach and the teacher say “Get your ass to class.” How to separate that? So I can put on my teacher hat and say, “get to class, show up”.
Even if you're just showing up, you don't have to work hard, you don't have to be striving for the best. You have to show up and be a part of the community. And take that time for yourself, your own development.
@isakenquist
T: From what you've told me, you've gotten a grant specifically to pay professional dancers to take your class. And from what I've understood, this has shifted the dynamics that they are being hired to work on themselves. Is that the core idea of what you're trying to do?
I: It's a research grant. I'm researching my choreographic interest. But it's about the way that we're setting this up. I don't need these artists to show up every day. I need them to come if they want to be there. And I'm hoping to build a situation where we're building class and a way of working, and techniques that we're working on, and an understanding that everyone shows to be there that day rather than that push of “I don't want to be there, but I have to.”
T: Sounds like you're trying to provide a form of financial safety for professional dancers in Vancouver. It's not about profit, but it's about support and care.
I: I hope so. There's a tricky balance - as an employer, I wish I could pay sick days. There’s a frustrating system; at the end of the day, as a dancer, I'm a labourer; if I don't show up and I don't use my body, I don't get paid. I would love to get to where everyone gets paid and you can show up if you want to. Then, what's the motivation to show up?
T: If all the dancers that you've ever met were paid no matter what, would there be better dance?
I: I still think there should be accountability - in this utopian world, you have to arrive to the community. You have to engage in the conversation, show up to the table.
T: Well, I could pay every dancer in Vancouver with the price of a single house.
I: So we just need one donation.
T: Give us a house!
I: I also think there is a beauty in this structure so far. If you are booked and blessed and busy doing eight hour days working in a company, you don't need to show up to class. You're already practising. But when you have the time - you're unemployed, underemployed, between contracts, let's have the safety of spaces you can show up to and continue working on the craft. As a facilitator I'm hoping I can have this circulating group of folks coming in that are helping me guide this class, because I only know I only know what works when I see dancers working at it. I can't just sit in a studio by myself and figure out how to make a class.
T: You need a group. You need collaborators. You need artists. You need people around you to discover your own throughline.
I: I've been really focused on clarity through multiple perspectives. I'm not interested in the move only one dancer can do. I'm interested in the move that 18 dancers can do well, because if that works, it's transferable. I’m interested in moving away from just searching for these niche moves that only work with that length of femur and that kind of trick body. I'm interested in finding what truly works with the human skeleton.
T: You’ve now been a teacher, student and creator of the class.
I: And something I'm constantly wondering is “How can we be held in our practice, to feel good?” It has to be a practice, not a product. The actual work has to be something we're working on. How can we get further away from this “not good enough” culture of being frustrated at oneself? That's project-based work. That's elitism in dance.
The class I want to move toward is an environment that can feel like a place where we're searching for mistakes, and looking to failures in class, so that we walk away with a broader map of our body moving, instead of hyper-focusing on that perfection body. How can we keep researching dance as a failing, an ephemeral and beautiful human art form - so that when we're on stage and mistakes are being made that we're still activated and excited and extraordinary.
I think leading projects is a frightening endeavour. How do we keep that ego at bay? Rather than the notion of a director gifting dancers with opportunities, how can leading, choreographing, directing be a responsibility to the dancers? I would love to figure out how to shift that more.
T: What do you think companies need to do to support dancers in that context?
I: I’d love it if companies were run by dancers and hired choreographers, so the choreographer is auditioning for the dancer rather than the other way around. But the way art is sold doesn't exactly align with that. So, until we figure out a new way, I think I'm excited about the company that's a badass group of artists. I want to celebrate the company as the artists within the choreography. I go to Crystal Pite’s shows because I want to see Jermaine Spivey. No disrespect to Crystal Pite, but I'm saying that we go for the dancers. And so let's talk about the dancers being the thing we're showing up for. And thanks to the choreographer for getting them on stage and giving them the moves, but it’s the dancers making their work come to life.
T: Anything else? It was really thoughtful. It was great. I loved all the ideas.
I: Cool. No, thanks. I'm happy to share. It was exciting.