RENA BUTLER

“If you are honest, you cannot be wrong, you should defend what you really feel.”

Rena Butler is an amazing dancer who is working with Hubbard Street as a dancer and choreographer. She has danced in companies such as Kyle Abraham/Abraham.In.Motion, Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company, David Dorfman Dance, Manuel Vignoulle/M-Motions, and The Kevin Wynn Collective.

- You got your BFA from SUNY purchase but you also have an experience of studying in Taiwan. How was your dance education experience, and how did it affect your dance style?

“Being in the USA, being a black woman and growing up with African Dance, with hip-hop, classical ballet, Graham technique, and more, it makes me who I am today. And I was fascinated and surprised by the experience in Taiwan. I didn’t expect it would give me a lot of benefits. Kung-fu was super hard, we were training to all different styles I have never been exposed to, and I think overall I just became so much stronger. I have never had acrobatics before, now I know how to do flips. I felt myself like a melting path, of all different ideas and teachings in my body. So, my experience in Taiwan was amazing: my favorite travel experience, my favorite dance education, and the experience I have ever had. It has just opened my mind and my heart as an artist and creator because I also started choreographing. And watching performances and I have never seen anything like that before, so it really expanded my mind. I love cross-cultural education in which you can do more about the dance world. Every student in university should be required to study abroad, and should approach a language that they don’t speak so that you know what it feels like to be on the opposite side of that, and gain perspective and be uncomfortable.”

-What do you think about the relationship between culture and dance based on all the dance education and your career?

“One thing that I think is similar across the board, one commonality that we all share, is that dance is rhythm. It is an amazing musical commonality, we all have rhythm in our music, whether it is in Russia, Korea, US, we all have the rhythm that connects us. We all know how to move on the beat, whatever is the groove. I think what is beautiful about cultural diversity in dance is that you have so many different and beautiful qualities and representation of different countries. I think that what is really beautiful is sharing the rhythm and trying to connect all together. Even if you just clap your hands, every culture is different, it is just rhythm and a gesture, dance and it is a way to connect. There is also a rhythm in breathing and this is something that we all share also.”

-What did you get fascinated by Hubbard Street?

“I think I love the diversity in the repertoire: Jiri Kylian, Nacho Duato, and many others. All these different voices are in one company so I really felt I want to shapeshift and learn more. In Taiwan, I found different ways, how different cultures influence your artistry and I think Hubbard Street could bring that to me. I have never had a company before this. I really wanted something I was interested in and where to have a choreographic voice. And as a choreographer, I like to do different things at once. And in my community, surrounded by my family and friends and dance I wanted to go deeper, and I asked the art director if I could choreograph outside also, but he asked me to choreograph for the company. He really has believed in me, and he gave me the opportunity to try.”

- What do you mostly focus on when you choreograph and what do you want to transmit in your choreography mostly?

“It changes for every group I work with. I try to focus on inclusivity and connecting more to the audience members that are coming to see the dancers. I want to try to include everyone’s story, it can be through gestures and I just can start from there connecting something that we all are in through. Making work that can include all the people in the audience, even if someone has no interest in dance, I really want to find a way to connect as a human being. Because if we look at the world is such a mess, it is about how we divide, preserve our own things, instead of open, share. Sharing should be so special and valuable for us. We should realize the importance of each other. Every creation is about seeing something that maybe I don’t know, trying to find ways to stay curious and open-minded and represent people that are underrepresented, that don’t have a voice. And sometimes it is successful, sometimes it is not but I think I value more process over the product and I really find connections with my dancers all the time, just because it is about how I make them shine and feel who they are on stage. I have always been the underdog so how can I represent people for whom it is hard speaking up?”

-What do you consider the most when you pick dancers for your piece?

“The honesty in showing who you are. And what I mean with that is that there is something very genuine and generous energy that supports the work. And if they find themselves, this can only elevate the work. But I look for different looking, I don’t like the sameness, I don’t like everyone to have blond hair, blue eyes, it is not about that. It is a really important thing. I traveled 24/25 countries in my life because I love, even beside my work, to discover different cultures and countries and it is a really beautiful exchange and when I make pieces I try to reflect on what the world looks like, and not just a part of the world. I have White dancers, I have Black dancers, I have Asian dancers, Latino dancers, so that everyone can feel involved and considered in the work. Seeing every time the same story of two heterosexual whites, isn’t it boring? I don’t see myself, and I don't see my friends, I don’t see the world, and I don’t feel involved. I have always questioned myself about how I could create pieces where everyone can feel invited? There are so many wrong situations outside there, but how can you make art that reflects what we are and where we come from? And to do that, it is necessary to listen to all the voices.”

- Dancers do a lot of hard work physically, and sometimes, it can be really tiring and easy to give up. How did you keep making yourself continue hard work?

“In our work, it is really important to connect to where our body is in the moment. And I felt the quarantine as a gift to just relaxing and re-discovering some hobbies I wanted to do. And I think that this helps with the preservation and maintaining my groundedness and my peace with my body. Feeding other areas and other things that make me happy, make my body happy as well. Because if you have negativity in your life, it really comes through in an injury. If I keep my mind happy and healthy, I can feel my body healthy and stronger. Life, as dancers, is really hard, and the moment when you come home and you can watch the TV maybe, even if you see it already a million times, but I don’t have to connect my body to my mind: this helps me so much to relax. I’m sure that the next time we will go to the studio, try to work on some movement ideas, it is going to be something different. This period was also healthy in a way because we are usually all day in front of the mirror in order to be perfect, and this helps us to forget that and just enjoy ourselves, and I’m sure we will keep it in the studio as well.”

-How can you define “dance”?

“Dance is so many things. I feel it is our connection to humanity. It is the way for me to participate in the world of ideas. It is my way to just have a voice in the world of humanity. It is the language I choose to communicate with and describe what happens around me.”

-How important is it to be a dancer in society?

“I feel it is so important. It helps to organize your emotions and to find what emotional maturity is for yourself, the emotional intelligence. I think it is so important. Sometimes I feel that people don’t give enough attention to that. In the company also we are always the last to be regarded, even if we are the ones that the audience watch. Dancers should be paid thousand and thousand dollars, like the football players or pop star because we have to take care of our mind, take care of our body, always be in our better shape to do all the different things that are asked us, and also organize yourself, with people, in space, with your body. There should be a restructure and we need to be more evaluated and I think we are the most important people. We are hard-workers and we have a disciplined mind and body that allow you to do so many incredible, beautiful, and different things. I think we are superhumans! I hope that one day people will understand the importance of dance and art and will start to really take care and preserve that.”

-In society, there are so many social issues and happening about racism in the whole world right now, what do you think about it and what do you need to do as a dancer and a human being?

“It has been hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years of these problems. In the dance world still, I can feel the white privilege sometimes. And everyone is involved in these, everyone should take his/her own responsibility and fight for this. We are so less in companies compared to whites and sometimes they were staring at me. I am happy that now people are opening their eyes a bit, but still, there are so many issues like this and they don’t have the attention they need. And I can feel other people look at us as we belong to a “second series” of people, but our lives as valuable in the exact same way as anyone else. As a person, I want to make sure that the color of the skin doesn’t define the value of a person. And we have a medium like the dance in which we can reflect hard times sometimes: and if I put rap music in my pieces I make people very uncomfortable and it is not my problem anymore, and the others should figure it out where this feeling comes from. I want to use my art to speak out how I have felt for 31 years, just to be honest and continue my work, it is my role. And it is so important for the audience to see in order to understand, to let them step in our world of “diversity”, and take actions. And as a dancer and artist, if you are honest, you cannot be wrong, you should defend what you really feel.”

-Can you describe yourself in three words?

“Curious, ambitious, and multifaceted.”

- Can you give some advice to young dancers?

“You have to stand in your own truth and be honest with yourself as you develop as a young dancer. Just be truthful about what you want and what you need, because, in this way, you will achieve all the things that you deserve and all the things you have always worked for. Enjoy yourself, stay true, take care of the world outside of dance, your happiness, and your mental health, so that your body will be shiny as well. Rejection is not everything, don’t let someone stop you because of that. And believe it, you will find the right place where to share your specialness and beauty. We should preserve ourselves more.”

Thank you for this opportunity, Rena! It was an honor for us.