Sarah East Johnson rocks a handstand.\u00a0 She is the founder and artistic director of the dance\/performance troupe LAVA Brooklyn<\/a>.\u00a0 Like everyone else in the company, she can probably spring up into this pose at the bank or the grocery store.\u00a0 My own handstand is a daily attempt, but I still have to kick up against the wall.\u00a0 So I\u2019m impressed.<\/p>\n “LAVA is more than a performance ensemble.\u00a0 It\u2019s also a community centered on a performance aesthetic: the body, gender-ambiguous, strongly supported in impossible positions, daring, earth-moving positions, upside down and on its hands.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n My first encounter with LAVA was at a performance of their original work \u201cTracks\u201d in 2014.\u00a0 I took my seat at Dixon Place<\/a> with no idea what to expect. \u00a0The show opened with a monologue, and I feared it would be \u201cartsy\u201d.\u00a0 I left about ninety minutes later minus my breath.\u00a0 Among many acts of pure strength and exuberant movement from rope-climbing to trapeze-dangling, I watched one human stand unsupported on top of just the physical head of another.\u00a0 As part of the performance, other company members spotted this act, eyes on the balanced human, hands in the air.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s a piece called \u2018Mountain\u2019,\u201d Sarah tells me at our meetup over lattes.\u00a0 \u201cAnd in watching the training..that was where the idea for the piece came from, it was like, god, that is just so beautiful, we are really just here<\/i>, like \u2018I got you, I got you\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n Sarah was one of the spotters in the piece.\u00a0 She\u2019s got long auburn hair and the warmest smile, but her rock-solid stance, muscular arms and concentrated gaze evoke the Man of Steel.\u00a0 Her vision for the company began with an interest in geology and an understanding that the earth is constantly moving, \u201cbut on a scale that we don\u2019t often get to witness.\u00a0 So it\u2019s like this movement that is so basic<\/i>, so essential and beyond us\u2026 but the results are astonishing<\/i>.\u00a0 You know, volcanoes, mountains, oceans. And I like that lava is a liquid and a solid simultaneously.\u00a0 It\u2019s creative and destructive simultaneously.\u201d<\/p>\n I wonder what Sarah\u2019s LAVA hopes to create and destroy.\u00a0 The company is all female and transgender, and there is a distinct political viewpoint in their movement which feels as challenging as it is joyous.<\/p>\n \u201cI think \u2018feminism\u2019 still captures it,\u201d she tells me, and she elaborates:\u00a0 \u201cWithin a feminist set of concerns are encoded race and gender and class, so that sort of then extends out to egalitarianism or anti-oppression work, trying to create ways of working and moving and training our bodies that can sort of undo some of the oppression of race and class and gender.\u201d<\/p>\n She founded LAVA Brooklyn in 2000, her dream of a dance company combined with a studio.\u00a0 The company works together to create original artistic works combining dance, theater and acrobatics.\u00a0 They employ an athletic physicality that centers on their own bodies, but also incorporates bungee cords and harnesses, nets, trapezes, ropes and hoops.\u00a0 So I wonder:\u00a0 Is this serious business or is this fun?<\/p>\n \u201cIt was inspired by my work with Circus Amok<\/a>,\u201d Sarah tells me, \u201cwhere we did political theater and traditional circus in city parks all around New York City\u2026 I started in 1989, and we were bringing really radical, gay political theater to neighborhoods where we didn\u2019t know anyone, you know?\u00a0 Where the city was kind of bigger then, and going to the Bronx, and being, like, men in dresses and women with beards and hairy armpits and big muscles was really, uh\u2026potentially threatening<\/i>.\u00a0 But then you juggle and walk on stilts and people are smiling.\u201d<\/p>\n LAVA performances may not rely on stilts or juggling, but there\u2019s a carnival-style appeal in their virtuosic balance and raw physical strength.<\/p>\n \u201cI think it\u2019s another sort of attempt at deconstructing what I\u2019ve found to be the limited oppressiveness of my dance training,\u201d Sarah explains, \u201c\u2026a lot of girls in a big dance studio staring at themselves in the mirror and comparing themselves to the girl standing next to them and the girl standing in front of them and the girl standing behind them.\u00a0 And it was caustic<\/i>.\u00a0 So, in working with an acrobatic vocabulary it totally subverts that setup, because you\u2019ve got \u2018well, you\u2019re different from you<\/i>, and that\u2019s good because that means that you<\/i> can stand on you.\u2019\u201d<\/i><\/p>\n The ensemble is diverse, and reflects Sarah\u2019s vision of a dialog between individual and group, the importance of making space for individual expression and individual difference while still paying attention to the health of the larger family:<\/p>\n \u201cWell, the fact that we have, you know, a white, gay woman who grew up in a comfortable class environment,\u201d Sarah says, referring to herself, \u201clike, okay, so as a woman and as a gay person I have experienced oppression, and as a white person and as a person who has never gone hungry, I have privilege.\u201d\u00a0 Sarah acknowledges that the company leans in the direction of whiteness and in the direction of feminism.\u00a0 \u201cBut as our community grows,\u201d she explains, \u201cand as the sophistication of activism is growing\u2026it feels like it\u2019s really shifting forward\u2026My sisters of color are doing a great job of helping me grow in my thinking about race.\u00a0 And I\u2019m trying to understand the places of men and maleness in our community\u2026I feel like the conversations are getting much more complex.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDo you have,\u201d I ask hopefully, \u201cany just run-of-the-mill straight women in your group?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYeah!\u201d she laughs.\u00a0 \u201cI mean none of them are run-of-the-mill!\u201d\u00a0 They may be hetero, but \u201cI don\u2019t think they identify as straight, and they certainly don\u2019t move through the world as straight.\u201d<\/p>\n Sarah tells me she\u2019s been doing a lot of exploration into the expressions of difference that aren\u2019t based on gender, starting with geology.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are two different kinds of rock,\u201d she informs me, \u201coceanic rock and continental rock, moving around.\u00a0 They rub up against each other.\u00a0 Sometimes they explode and sometimes they flow and sometimes they emerge and sometimes they settle.\u00a0 I feel like that\u2019s been really rich territory for me, and kind of thinking about our bodies as geology.\u00a0 It kind of gets us, like, pre<\/i>-gender.\u2026So how can we dial it back a minute<\/i>?\u00a0 Because we\u2019ve only been here for such a short time.\u00a0 Like let\u2019s look at stuff that\u2019s been around for billions of years.\u201d<\/p>\n LAVA is more than a performance ensemble.\u00a0 It\u2019s also a community centered on a performance aesthetic:\u00a0 the body, gender-ambiguous, strongly supported in impossible positions, daring, earth-moving positions, upside down and on its hands.\u00a0 Personally, I never encounter LAVA, whether at a performance, class or community event, without being seized by a relentless desire to express myself, a strange sense that someone just erased a bunch of outlines and more things are suddenly possible.<\/p>\n I found my way over to LAVA Studio to attend the LAVAlentines \u201cQueer Prom\u201d, and it took me an entire hour to realize I was the only person in the room wearing shoes.\u00a0 Whoops.\u00a0 Sarah feels the sense of \u201cintersectionality\u201d is an important element of the LAVA community, the intentional space of the studio bringing together of different \u201cpockets of people\u201d.\u00a0 \u00a0So rather than scurry back into my own pocket, I quietly parked the shoes and hung around to enjoy the wonderful DJ Tikka Masala<\/a>, Ballez<\/a> and Heels on Wheels<\/a>.<\/p>\n I made my way back to LAVA Studio to see \u201cNight of Renegades\u201d, works in progress by the company and friends, curated by company members Molly Chanoff and Ashley Brockington.\u00a0 I was sure to peel off my boots before slipping out of my coat, grabbing some wine, and perching on the edge of the folded up floor mats in the packed and noisy room.\u00a0 Sarah sat on the floor nearby in coveralls, a thermal tee and moccasins, directing an intense, kind focus on the proceedings.<\/p>\n Among other performances and presentations, company member Lollo Romanski looked like Clark Gable performing a counter-balancing trapeze duet with the ethereal Sarah Dey Hirshan to a recording of \u201cYou Don\u2019t Own Me\u201d.\u00a0 They wore shiny gold leotards and the routine was sexy.\u00a0 Molly Chanoff and Hilary Chapman improvised a dance duet to the improvised mouth noises of several others in the company.\u00a0 The dance was riveting, especially when a bright toddler wandered from the audience all the way into the performance area before s\/he was plucked away by Lollo Romanski, now in a street shirt.\u00a0 \u00a0The baby was innocently nervy, pink and gender non-specific.\u00a0 The baby just dialed it back a minute.<\/p>\n \u201cLet\u2019s break down some of these things that feel like they\u2019re limiting us,\u201d Sarah told me.\u00a0 \u201cAs a Californian, as a granddaughter of a pioneer\u2026I really like offering new possibilities, you know?\u00a0 There\u2019s a lot to be said to critique what\u2019s happened so far, that\u2019s just not where I tend to focus.\u00a0 I\u2019m really excited about, like, \u2018let\u2019s try it.\u00a0 Let\u2019s try this.\u00a0 Let\u2019s see what happens if\u2019<\/i>.\u201d<\/p>\n So If<\/i> I keep kicking up against the wall, maybe one of these days I\u2019ll finally hit that handstand.<\/p>\n LAVA is currently working on a new piece for their June 4th<\/sup> benefit which will take place at Littlefield<\/a> in Brooklyn:\u00a0 \u201cMothers:\u00a0 Roots, Rocks and Matriarchs\u201d.\u00a0 They will work with Dixon Place and The Flea Theater<\/a> for their next New York season in 2016-17.<\/p>\n![\"Photo](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/Photo-2-by-Whitney-Browne-LAVA.jpg?resize=620%2C412\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Photo](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/Photo-3-by-Whitney-Browne-LAVA.jpg?resize=620%2C412\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Photo](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/Photo-4-by-Whitney-Browne-LAVA.jpg?resize=620%2C412\")
<\/a><\/p>\n![\"Photo](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/Photo-5-by-Whitney-Browne-LAVA.jpg?resize=620%2C412\")
<\/a><\/p>\n
![\"Photo](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/posturemag.com\/online\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/Photo-6-by-Whitney-Browne-LAVA.jpg?resize=620%2C412\")
<\/a><\/p>\n