Founding idiosynCrazy

-Jumatatu Poe

idiosynCrazy productions’ Artistic Director, Jumatatu Poe, reflects on some of the impulses that drove him to found idiosynCrazy productions, and what keeps it feeling relevant for him. Take a look at some of the ideas at work, behind-the-scenes.

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I am incredibly inspired and driven forward by an amazing workshop experience I had in New York during Winter MELT at Movement Research.  The late afternoon workshops were led by dance artist Trajal Harrell, and were centered around choreographic and compositional choices, and what the social/political/economic inspirations for and impacts of these choices can be.  In my estimations, we addressed being clear about the audiences for whom we were making work.  We talked about the daunting challenge of addressing complicated ideas/themes/images/constructs/concepts within a work, and the (necessary) distance between (artist) intention and (audience) interpretation.  We talked about being clear, for ourselves, and making choices about how clear we wanted to be perceived by others.  Lately, as I question the choreographic work that I make and the (necessary) stakes of making that work for distribution within the world, these things were exactly where I needed to guide my thoughts.  Thank you, to Trajal and other participants of the class, for facilitating this direction!

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After the workshop, I consumed myself with ideas: about my choreographic work, about idiosynCrazy productions, about the way that I represent my body and allow/invite bodies to be represented.  About a lot of things.  But, what I am most drawn to today is the idea of idiosynCrazy productions – the idea of it today, my original ideas of it, and our (the company’s) ideas about what it could/will be… and what will be the impact for/on us.

When I left grad school and entered, more steadily, into Philly’s professional dance world, I knew that I wanted to make work: I wanted to be a choreographer/director of dance work.  And my desires were somewhat specific… I wanted to have a place to be able to explore really athletic (sometimes), pop-culture-and-urban-lifestyle-influenced (whatever that means), part narrative-abstract-experiential, messy (because, look at this city… it’s unavoidable), modular (being able to be performed in a vast variety of locations, in interaction with different folks) dance work.  I wanted to develop processes that would incorporate discussion of contemporary social phenomena.  I wanted an environment supportive of folks from all backgrounds interested in partaking in this contemporary, experimental dance world (frequently stigmatized as a world exclusively dedicated to White cultural expression).  And I felt like there were folks around me who wanted to do that, too, and that I really wanted to work with.

Having a company namesake was not, and still is not, my interest.  However, it seemed convenient to have some organizational body designed to produce the type of work that, then and now, I need to be making, whether I am directing it or not.  So, I founded idiosynCrazy productions…  Heh, that ellipsis seems appropriate.  Hesitation about the unknown was a significant part of my first interactions with the idea of idiosynCrazy productions.  When I graduated from college, I was one of the founding members of Green Chair Dance Company, a collaborative dance company also based in Philadelphia.  From then, I knew that the collaborative dance-making process (with multiple directors) was not for me.  Not at that time.  Since my last year in college, I had been dancing in Kariamu Welsh’s company (Kariamu & Company: Traditions), and felt fairly certain that the company-namesake model was also not up my alley.  But, I did want to choreograph.  And I also wanted to dance in works directed by others, who had interests in a similar world of ideas as mine.

With idiosynCrazy productions, I always knew that I wanted to have multiple directors of the company.  Growing up with parents who identified (especially in my youth) as socialist and Pan-Africanist, communal decision-making is a part of my developmental-DNA.  I also knew very early that I wanted to build this company with Shannon and Shavon; I have immense respect for both of them as artists and as visionaries.  Right now, the only choreographic work that idiosynCrazy productions has made was directed by either me or Shannon Murphy.  We have discussed soon having other directorial voices enter into the mix, and I am excited about this.  The traditional idea of the “dance company” is becoming largely outdated (especially in the contemporary, experimental dance field), but I am driven to keep working toward the future of idiosynCrazy productions – a future that faces today’s national economy realistically… AND revolutionarily.  There is a place for this work, particularly in conversation with Philadelphia’s communities, and I am excited to help make more of it happen.

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When I was 17, it occurred to me that I would always, with each new year, look back upon my past ages, tickled, while murmuring, “Wow, I really didn’t know much back then.”  It doesn’t serve me to presume that what I know right now is “much.”  Or that what I know ten years from now will be.  I am looking forward to a time when my current artistic interests and desires are laid to rest, or mutated enough that their resemblance to the past seems coincidental.  The works that I make now with idiosynCrazy productions will one day be less relevant for me, in my future present-tense.  And, if I am paying attention to myself, I feel like this is the only way (I say that now, so authoritatively… while not knowing much).  For right now, though, I am happy to be making work within idiosynCrazy productions.  The work feels like something that I need to be figuring out – and I still have so many questions about it.  Thank you, idiosynCrazy productions, for providing me the space to explore these things that feel so relevant.