Since relocating to San Antonio after a dance career in New York City, movement artist Tanesha Payne has mostly been on the periphery of San Antonio arts and culture projects.
She danced in the background while Andrea “Vocab” Sanderson rapped verses for a video shot at the San Antonio Museum of Art, moved in the mists during a haunting passage of Musical Bridges Around the World’s documentary film The Quilt and performed one evening during the Between Yesterday and Tomorrow visual art exhibition at the Culture Commons gallery downtown.
But Payne wants her beloved art form of modern and contemporary dance to move closer to the center of local culture.
To achieve that goal, in January Payne launched the SumRset contemporary dance company, using her maiden name, Sumerset. As stated on her website, the lofty goal of the new company is to “[increase] visibility, accessibility, and appreciation for movement as performance art in San Antonio and abroad.”
Communing and connecting
Payne feels that modern and contemporary dance forms communicate in ways that other traditional forms, including folklórico, ballet, jazz — or even club dancing — do not.
As an example, she said each Sunday morning, SumRset rehearsal begins with dancers in a circle. “We’re all equal points; there’s not really a leader,” she said. “We focus a lot on this shared consent of movement, there’s co-authorship amongst us.”
And their warm-ups are also non-traditional. Though most members have some formal training in ballet, jazz or modern dance, they’re “not doing normal [ballet] exercises like the pliés and the tendus,” Payne said. “We warm up our body rolling around on the ground and connecting with the earth. We connect with one another.”
For Payne, bringing that sense of connection to the performance stage is a primary goal. “It’s beautiful because we’re connecting,” she said. “We’re not internalized only on ourselves in the space, but we’re trying to see what we can do for others in the space at that same time.”
That sense of communal improvisation attracted Lena Dobecka to Payne’s Tuesday evening contemporary classes held at Diva Dance. “We’re all working actually together in mutual consent to create something unique and beautiful in that moment,” Dobecka said.
Dobecka later joined the SumRset company. She said that even when not dancing as part of the ensemble for a performance, members are invited to attend rehearsals and contribute their thoughts and ideas, something Dobecka had not experienced before in working with other dance companies.
“Even if you’re not physically on stage, your creativity, your presence, your part of being in this community is there,” she said.
Most companies encourage dancers’ competitive nature to foster growth, Dobecka said. Payne will push dancers to achieve, but “it’s constructive, it doesn’t tear people down. That’s probably the most unique part of dancing with Tanesha.”
Creative interpretation
Rhea Patterson danced professionally with a New York modern dance company and on Broadway for 10 years before taking a hiatus to focus on motherhood, a pause shared similarly by both Payne and Dobecka.
Patterson said she admires Payne’s ability to incorporate many different dance styles, from hip hop to ballet to improvisational dance, into her movement. “It’s like working with multiple choreographers at a very professional level, but it’s all coming from her. And that’s amazing,” Patterson said.
She also shares Payne’s desire to open a more prominent space for contemporary dance in San Antonio and said it’s only a matter of time before audiences gain the comfort level necessary to warm to the form.
Modern dance can feel intimidating in part because audiences might not understand what they’re seeing, but “there is no right or wrong,” Patterson said. “The choreographer … may have a narrative, they may have a story, but [the dance] is about the audience, what the audience member interprets. And that is just as important as what we created.”
She said that the more audiences see Payne and SumRset dance, the better they will learn that they share “a creative practice” as interpreters of what they’re witnessing onstage.
Immaculate polish
Sanderson said there is much to admire about Payne’s artistry. “I love her quirkiness and her ability to think on her feet. She always brings this immaculate polish to movement,” Sanderson said. “It grooves and it looks sophisticated and her lines are always clean and beautiful.”
When the two worked together as rapper and dancer, Sanderson said the interplay of her words and Payne’s movement became a call and response. “Whatever she hears, she is able to interpret in her body in such a cool way. And then we share the space and the energy.”
Payne’s energy also appeals to Marcela Leal, who has not danced professionally but maintains her own improvisational dance practice that she considers a form of fun, healing meditation.
Leal might be just the kind of person Payne envisions will help spread the gospel of contemporary dance throughout San Antonio. She is currently planning a participatory dance event at Mercury Project in Southtown, the first in what she hopes will be a series called Play Flow Movement, involving movement, meditation and dance.
The event will be open to anyone including those with no prior dance experience, and is meant to be “a safe place for people to dance like no one’s watching.”
Leal’s idea aligns with Payne’s fervent belief that “movement is in all of us. How we interact with the world on a daily basis is definitely through our bodies,” whether shifting to allow someone on the sidewalk to pass or darting to break someone’s fall.
And dance allows expression beyond language, Payne said. “Sometimes there’s something I feel that I can’t express in words, because the word doesn’t exist, or maybe it’s in a language that I don’t know. My body allows me to express it [when] I can’t find the words.”
SumRset will perform Jan. 13 with the AM Project at the Little Carver Theater for the opening event of Dream Week and will collaborate with the Agarita chamber ensemble for a free dance and music concert at McAllister Theatre Jan. 27.
