A show of crises, cultural silence in motion
Reached by phone at his downtown San Francisco office at 8:30 a.m., choreographer Robert Moses turned down the volume on CNN’s “The Situation Room With Wolf Blitzer” and began talking about the term “polycrisis.”
He said he recently learned the term — which sociologist Mark Swilling defined as “a nested set of globally interactive socioeconomic, ecological and cultural-institutional crises that defy reduction to a single cause” — from a board member of his dance company, Robert Moses’ Kin.
The concept certainly captures the roiling sense of complexity that fuels Moses’ explosive dances, on view at his company’s 29th home season at the Presidio Theatre starting Friday, March 15.
In less than an hour, Moses shared his thoughts on President Biden’s State of the Union address and the Republican rebuttal (“I thought ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ could never happen, and I was wrong,” he said), his meditations on the recent Alabama Supreme Court ruling on in vitro fertilization and the way it complicates tribal identities, and his insights on the case of the Black Texas student suspended from school for his hairstyle.
But the political issue foremost in Moses’ mind these days is censorship, specifically the wave of book banning in Florida and elsewhere that has received mass media attention.
“I’ve got two kids, and I think about age-appropriate texts for them, but to use the lever of a parent’s fear to bludgeon access is at the heart of this thing,” Moses said. “And so many of the books being banned are by folks of color and LGBTQ people.”
These issues will be up for conversation at “New Legacies,” a triptych of dances Robert Moses’ Kin is presenting by three up-andcoming choreographers: Robert S. Kelley II, Khala Brannigan and Natasha Adorlee.
A preshow panel discussion with the artists is scheduled an hour before the shows on Saturday, March 16, and Sunday, March 17.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Q: You previously created “Bootstraps: Lyric Legacies,” a program in the schools to empower youth. You’re also in an ongoing process with “Fugitive Legacies,” a body of your work about erasure. What are you up to with “New Legacies”? A:
A lot of younger artists are talking about not being heard, not being seen for their essence, (so I wanted to structure this in a way) to make sure people have a platform, but a platform that’s interested in the questions that Robert Moses’ Kin has been interested in.
Robert Moses’ Kin presents “New Legacies”: 7:30 p.m. Friday-Saturday, March 15-16; 2 p.m. Sunday, March 17. $8-$45. Presidio Theatre, 99 Moraga Ave., S.F. www.presidiotheatre.org