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Lorene Bouboushian!

9/20/2018

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OK. There is a theme on qt trash talk of me posting things months after they happened but this one is ridiculous. I got Lorene Bouboushian to internet chat with me almost one full year ago, today is September 20, 2018 and the interview was on September 29, 2017. WHy have I not posted this. It was on my to-do list like every single week since we launched this site and by some self-destructive recurring thing I just didn't get to it. 

I did this interview a few days before Lorene performed at a Queer Trash event at Silent Barn (rip) link here to a video of that performance and embedded at the bottom of this page. I was also late to this interview, late to that Queer Trash event. But you know what? The interview is here now, and it's terrific. and I apologize. 

NOW Lorene will join us THIS SATURDAY at QUEER TRASH the SYMPOSIUM!! Can't wait to talk to them more!!
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Lorene Bouboushian by Farrington Llewelyn
Lorene Bouboushian
Heyyy

Queer Trash - Eames Armstrong
hi hi how are ya? sorry i'm late

LB it's ok!
i'm pretty good i'm jamming some stevie wonder on vinyl
half crying but feeling good, as he does ya

EA oh nice!
i'm thoroughly enjoying the open window fall morning situation 
maybe we can start at the beginning, could you tell me about how and when you started making performance? 

LB i started in college. i knew i needed to but i was really uncertain about solo work at first, so i would do really despairing work in the studio alone then run away (which is a pattern that continues today). so i did a group work, which helped me understand the kind of energies i was interested in conjuring. i had gotten a lot of inspiration through artists who visited my school to work with students, as well as artists i was exposed to at american dance festival. i returned to solo work my senior year for my thesis, with the help of jill sigman (www.thinkdance.org) and then i ran with it from there on out...and eventually returned to more collaborative work and began teaching over the years. solo work is my rock, it keeps me going because i can work intuitively and i don't have to explain anything to anyone.
wait a second though
i actually started making dances to some degree when i was 13. my best friend and i decided we would make a super long dance to that song from Fantasia and we spent all summer swimming and in the studio doing that. then my sister and i made a dance to some brian eno in high school. and i was getting some coaching from my dance team and studio instructors but i was doing some solos on my own. so: let us not discount the work of our younger selves. i also made some work while i was spending summers at american dance festival. strange solos and little group works. it's all connected. all that energy i still feel now.

EA absolutely
I was organizing little concerts in my parents garage and basement at 13, and here I am still doin that

LB yes yes

EA and what you said about not having to explain anything to anyone really resonates with me

LB ah yes

EA do you think that comes about in reaction to pressures to over-explain in very particular terms

LB i'm referring to the process of intuitively moving, talking to myself (literally), trying things out, without having to explain to a collaborator/necessarily be on the same page
though i love collaborative processes as well
solo work can really be random and strange as you please

EA ah ah I see not just explaining in words in like an artist statement way

LB right. but explain your question...you mean presenters' or audiences' desire to "understand" or "get" it?

EA I think that's what I mean
relating to it really specifically thinking about crit in school

LB ah yes i didn't have "crit"
i didn't go to visual art school. but i did have some composition classes and feedback situations. some of which i set up myself
those kinds of things i loved because they can make for creative and no endpoints oriented dialogue around the work
but
having to try to be relevant in particular ways is something i play with and/or fight against in how i speak about my work all the time
like yes i am speaking about x, y, and z "important" things in this cis-passing white body, and yes i have an "identity" outside of that body most people can't see
but what i really feel is important is the work of performance and improvisation itself, beyond definitions, what it can do

EA what can it do? 

LB ohhhh come on
name me some feelings you've felt or memories that have surfaced or ideas you've had or all that while you've watched performances and i think you have your answer

EA hehe yes
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Lorene Bouboushian by Farrington Llewelyn
EA who are some artists whose work is particularly moving you recently? 

LB dominique duroseau, sophia mak, raki malhotra, erin dunn, kaia gilje, panoply, vitche boul ra

EA It seems like most of the work of yours I have seen is both context and site-responsive, how do you approach new spaces? 

LB responsively! i work somatically, socially (in both the physical and conceptual realms), spontaneously. i have a lot of artists/collaborators to thank for learning how to be responsive in that way: kaia, panoply, lindsey drury and jill flanagan for sure

EA can you expand a bit on what it is for you to work somatically? 

LB so i live in the legacy of many artists who have worked in this way. tools like body mind centering, body talk, feldenkrais, imagery guided physical work, somatic work with the voice. you can see more about this on the teaching page on my website. it's what guides my teaching in addition to principles around 'action' or performance art. in a performance space like what we'll be experiencing this sunday at silent barn, it's unusual to be a body based performer in such a direct sense, and that's exactly what i love about it. people are in a more social and casual state, there isn't a "vaulted" stage space, you can reach the outside pretty easily--aka not a theater space. so my internal work [to prepare myself and channel energies between myself and the space, the people, our histories, our presents through my mind and body] may be invisible or small or in a corner somewhere. and it's difficult and rewarding because people are in a state where they are more willing to thrash (literally or figuratively) with their own walls, up against me, against discomforts, when i combine the social, the physical, and the energetic as i perform
one person who did this kind of work in larger theaters was anna halprin. she's a huge influence

EA I was researching the Judson Dance Theater this summer and Anna Halprin was such a huge influence on those artists. It’s really fascinating too how she embraced and worked with folks like La Monte Young and she was doing sound experiments too

LB yeah music is just a nice area of openness to all kinds of performance
in my experience music venues and organizers allow for the most crazy shit

EA yea I wonder why that is?

LB well i think music has the biggest history of people "going off the rails" 
and is the least institutional in many ways. biggest diy communities are in music
you know like wild performers the crowd loves even if the venue is like merp merp
EA I'm reading Jacque Attali, Noise: The Political Economy of Music- do you know it?

LB no i don't!

EA he's a french economist and wrote this in late 70s, more or less saying that music actually prefigures economic and social conditions to come. p interesting but maybe I'm steering off here.

LB that's interesting. i was watching videos of john maus, a former philosophy professor turned avant pop musician, on youtube last night...he's saying that he's waiting for punk to show its politics more clearly/what is our punk politics. i think this is the words of a cis white male who used to be a philosophy professor so there's that. i think it's interesting to think about whether art is a response or art is a means of creating the political framings and desires and understandings. i mean there is almost 0% public interest in our work so that's not what i mean, though some artists are on the policy creating track which is one way. but it's like a chicken or egg thing.

EA I've been thinking about noise in relation to body, noise vs performance that’s meaningful or recognizable in some kind of dominant terms- and maybe this is similar to the end of the musing on your writing page from a few years ago-
"How about art as self ruination: a mess on purpose. Hard on purpose. Makes curators look away: revulsion. Revulsion is a looking away, but also a squirming away. A visceral and visual response. A very real one as well. A response that I seek, especially as a woman from a fucked up class background, I have had many experiences of revulsion, and grew up in a situation that would repulse most artists. Also part of why I do a lot, because you can’t possibly see everything I do. As much of a narcissist as I can be, I will always maintain some invisibility.”
is there anything else you want to say on that?

LB art is time travel, i was talking with quintan wikswo last week and she said that it takes a few generations to understand the groundbreaking creative work that is happening now. so that's why so many artists get "recognized" at institutional levels posthumously but more importantly how we both prefigure (nice word) and respond at any and all moments. which is why we want to cry all the time.

EA not just because of stevie wonder?
LB not because of stevie but INSPIRED by stevie. he is such a wildly channeling humyn

EA do you think that understanding process is accelerated these days or same as it ever was?

LB accelerated in general by people who watch art?

EA hm actually I'm tangling myself here- I'm going to pivot
Jacob Wick, who is also performing on sunday- and I also talked about time travel
time warp, actually
Can you maybe say more about art and time travel?

LB hahah pivot away
in truth we are past present and future all at the same time. i'm noticing right now a really amazing and wondrous trend toward ancestor communication/dealing with generational trauma plus also futurism. this of course is and always has been spearheaded by poc (shout out to sun ra) and now that more poc artists are being accepted and respected by the mainstream in avant garde communities and institutions, we are seeing it more. performance specifically is a time warp; we accelerate, trim the fat of excess time, or we slow things down to where it felt like an hour but it was only 20 minutes and how did you do all that in 20 minutes!? it's because time is a goddamned flat circle and we are playing with it like any other material.

EA hell yeah

LB going back to the somatic stuff, i've channeled memories and humans through the work i do. quintan took my workshop last week and was like "there were a lot of people here who were not here physically." that's some sorcery. when i was in college i had this really specific moment onstage where i was shaking against someone for a long time in a performance created by jeanine durning (HUGE inspiration) and visions of my father arose in my mind and i almost burst into tears onstage
of course many somatic modalities are tied to that kind of conjuring and release. performance ups the ante i think
because we are in this place of having to be super self and other focused at the same time. super grounded, kinda look at me narcissistic, very much connected to all energies at once so we can channel it into our own action and presence. 

EA its powerful that the incorporeal comes to us through the most physical processes 

LB but it all is corporeal
it all is body, it all is matter 
and i'm saying even if others who are not "us" have lived through it, if we are close to them, we have. i really believe that, on some level. not in that dumb epigenetics kind of way but in the way that we again are very porous.

EA right right 

LB if only people considered that more maybe empathy would become more important to people but in this hellishly oppressive world we become small.

EA that sounds like a solid way to end- I kind of lost track of time here ha. thank you! thanks thanks
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Dane Rousay Chat

9/4/2018

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On this episode of Trash Talk, QT Michael interviews FOQT (friend of queer trash) Dane Rousay in advance of Dane's participation in QUEER TRASH THE SYMPOSIUM coming up so soon on September 22 at ISSUE Project Room!
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Photo by Alicia Michelle
​Queer Trash/Michael Foster: so, Hey Dane
This is my first interview

Dane Rousay: Congratulations
thank you!
I'm happy to be your first

MF: So, tell me about yourself

DR: My name is Dane Rousay, my pronouns are they/them (she/her on a good day). I play drum kit and a bunch of other percussive instruments. I've been improvising around the U.S. / Canada lately and currently live in San Antonio, TX!
oh MY
Pro-enough for you MICHAEL?

MF: very professional

DR: And at this very moment I'm trying to figure out what to think of this Randy Peterson recording.

MF: I'm sure it's lovely
You tour often doing solo and collaborative performances around the US, but you also run a series out of San Antonio called Contemporary Whatever

DR: Seems like that is the way I'm leaning.
Yes! I do. Curate when I'm in town and take advantage of other folks' series when I'm not in town.

MF: So what's the community like in SATX for weirdo music / queer folx etc?
do you find that there's a crossover of the two 'scenes' or integrated?

DR: Weirdo music seems to be thriving at the moment. It is almost all done at a very DIY level (which is good/expected) but I am trying to elevate some of these performers/queer folx via Contemporary Whatever because we do have a nice venue to use and some funding as of recently. 
I would say the crossover seems to be my friend-group prior to establishing the series. A lot of the experimental performers identify as queer. There also seems to be a seperate scene developing as well that is just a ton of straight dudes who do noise (which i enjoy) but not necessarily queer-friendly.
SATX actually has a fairly large queer population (outside of just weirdo performance) but in my experience it is hard to find your “place” when you don’t really fit into some of the conventional queer boxes.. I’ll get local press occasionally and my pronouns will always present this issue for them (as if singular they is the end of the world/something Sooo revolutionary or new).

MF: In my experience touring Texas a year ago, I found a pretty remarkable overlap between queer and experimental performers that was more pronounced than most cities I've been to.
It was really surprising, how do you feel SATX compares to those other cities?

DR: SATX is definitely a little behind most of the cities you're probably thinking of. There is definitely a queer community here within the "weirdo music" scene but maybe our voices aren't as loud, ha.
I still constantly find myself in situations where I am having to out myself to people in the community (and it is a surprise).

MF: Do you feel your 'queerness' influences / defines / etc's your work as a percussionist?

DR: I’m comfortable saying that my queerness informs how I feel about and play my instrument (granted 1/2 my ‘instrument’ is like any object you can possibly hit).

MF: How so?

DR: I have mixed feelings about percussion these days, ha.

MF: omg UNPACK THAT PLZ


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Photo by Alicia Michelle
DR: Unfortunately, my relationship with my instrument can be toxic at times because of all the traditional attitudes surrounding drum kit (mainly within rock and jazz drumming). There’s this macho attitude that a lot of folks have and I definitely tried to attain for a while, that just is so hard to forget about. Leads to a ton of dysphoria for me personally. “Do I look silly?” “Am I playing this in too manly of a way?” “Is anyone taking me seriously?”

MF: HA, i feel similarly about saxophone tbh, b/c I also love some of those tropes that also feed into this hyper macho conception of the instrument

DR: And a lot of my identity is as a "drummer" specifically not a "percussionist".
It is the WORST
For me it is like, "If I truly am this femme person, what the hell am I doing behind a drum set? This is a MAN'S instrument anyways, right?"
right
Which is completely fucked to think. But I think it anyways.

MF: do you have any 'tools' or methods you use to combat this association?

DR: The sax tropes seem eerily similar

MF: yeah VERY similar
i.e., loud, brash, center of attention, always on top of the music, etc

DR: I am a relatively quiet person to begin with - maybe I am just wildly uncomfortable with who I am, who knows - but I try to use memories of social situations as reference points for how to play. It's possible to cower in an improvised situation just as possible as it is to respond with some insane macho thing that takes up a ton of space. I just try to navigate that space as much as I can as an individual rather than a "drummer/percussionist/etc"
Yeah, exactly! I did this tour with Jacob Wick and neither of us played " loud, brash, center of attention, always on top of the music, etc" and it was truly eyeopening.
I also stoped using cymbals in may because those things take up an infinite amount of space.
ahhhhhhhhhh

MF: well, i guess two things come up with this
like 1) do you find yourself working more with queer artists than you did in the past or making a more concerted effort to do so?
and 2) you also play drums in church and christian rock bands, so that's pretty different from the above

DR: I make an effort to do so. No doubt about it. If someone makes me uncomfortable within a conversation/email/talk/etc why the fuck would I want to be on a tour with them.
^ this answers why I am basically jobless or soon to be jobless at the moment haha

MF: oy vey welcome the club

DR: Ahhhh haha. I had grand dreams at a point of becoming a session drummer. I walked into a few nicer sessions and the gigs never ended. Both those things are huge in Texas so it is definitely a dream-gig scenario for some people. I’ve recently left most of these gigs though. It is just too hard having the incongruence of my personal life and life in these hyper bigoted situations. I’m constantly having to “come out” to people or cover up all my actions to save myself in a situation that could potentially be dangerous.

MF: yuck

DR: It is absolutely the worst feeling. I realized all this when I was scrubbing my nail polish off the night before a weekend tour and my fingers were raw and bleeding
haha jesus christ
its my kink, what can I say

MF: i know recently you've been performing / touring / working with a lotta queer musicians (i.e., ME, jacob wick, etc)

DR: I have!
I am so fortunate to have people much more experienced than me agreeing to these insane tours.
Making friends with queer people in experimental music means so much to me. It will completely change how I feel about a situation if there is one person in the room I respect and know is also queer.

MF: yeah, it really can feel like a blessing when it happens haha
like when i first came out and was involved in "non-idiomatic freely improvised music" / whatever, id be SO happy to find other queers involved in a similar thing

DR: It is this bizarre connection that really does take priority in almost all situations.
PicturePhoto by Anaiah Lupton



MF: totally, i know for me its made me try to diversify my approaches to improvising / the instrument / music / etc

but i guess I should ask you about INFLUENCES and all that jazz

DR: lol basically everything BUT jazz
is what you mean
jk

MF: haha NO
i  jazz
i just want to know who you're stealing from

DR: haha, ben bennett
jk again
hahaha
Influences question is hard. I always just say cecil taylor and leave it at that cause I am scared to find out what actually influences me
Usually things outside of "the music" though
Youtube vloggers maybe, haha. It sounds silly but tons of these girls on youtube cover trans topics - shaving my legs, buying clothes, doing my hair and all that is so new to me so these transgender women on the internet that talk so openly about themselves have really helped me out. I think anything helping you dig that deep into yourself is a massive influence.
no to get too #deep

MF: that's a nice #overview
cecil taylor is a good one who im always pretty surprised not everyone knows is 'queer'
/was 

DR: ahhh 

MF: and i usually wonder WHY that's not as common knowledge
which begs the question: how do you feel about your queerness being part of the discussion of what you do do?

DR: Even more so recently, You take one look at me and you know there's something up. I'm comfortable with it being a part of the discussion.
I divide my time almost evenly these days with trying to figure out what it is I do. Like within improvising. 
And the other half is trying to figure out what the hell my gender is/means for my sexuality.
It is a super weird mix of always being "in transition"

MF: right, i know Cecil said something to the effect of "you can't define me with a simple 3-letter word" (G-A-Y)

DR: yeah, i love that. it is so silly
and i am sure he knew it

MF: ya, it feels like a different thing now
in terms of how it informs the work

DR: Elaborate

MF: well, for YEARS i would always hear some variant of "ya we all knew _ was a fag but no one cared cuz they could play" etc etc

DR: oh god, yeah that definitely fits right alongside "even though she was a woman, she ripped"

MF: haha right
and now it seems like these discussions of queer identity are more present in the discussion of someone's work

DR: I feel like that is only natural. A person's life determines their work in one way or another.
Plus, really how long has it been since you could openly ask and talk about your gayness at all? especially within a published piece of writing
It all seems kinda new. even to me. and i'm a baby

MF: well, speaking of NEW
what NEW stuff do ya have coming up???

DR: I just got home from a tour of the western U.S. with recent queer trash interviewee, Jacob Wick. I had a great time and am still adjusting to normal life without my  #0therh@Lf . I’m playing NMASS Fest in Austin, TX tomorrow - Already Dead Tapes’ annual festival in Michigan in August / a show at Elastic in Chicago / Sonic Transmissions Festival with Parham Daghighi and curating some shows here in San Antonio for my series I run.

MF: oooo lovely!!!!!
thanks Dane for tolerating my newbieinterviewerstyles

DR: hahah, I am not very good at being INTERVIEWED
so it is completely fine

MF: yaya ok we did it


Interview took place online July 20, 2018 with tiny edits made for clarity


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