Kamala Fifield Presents In Between This Weekend at West Wave Festival 31

Kamala Fifield presents In Between, a performance that embodies a cosmic narrative of matter, sound, and human experience. Collaborating with Hannah Young, Kamala explores how the environment shapes decision-making, examining the interplay between our movement through the world and the sounds that influence our reality. This performance features original sonifications created by NASA, translating cosmic objects into sound.

Kamala Fifield (she/her) a dance artist and choreographer based in SF. She performed with various companies and taught in different settings, sharing the joy of dance and yoga. Kamala worked with choreographers such as Tara Pilbrow, Kim Epiphany, Kristine Damrow, Alexandra Pirici, Yaniv Abraham, and Guy Shamrony, Daniel Ezralow.

Black and white headshot of Kamala Fifield taken in a studio, the light casts shadows on her light skin. Chin slightly raised, she gazes at the camera with a smile, her long wavy hair draped over her bare shoulders. Photo Credit: Alexander Yakovlev

Chloe Cetinkaya: What inspired the title of your piece, In Between?

Kamala Fifield: The piece is connected with our experience of time in many ways. I wanted to touch upon the beginning of the universe and matter, but also fast forward to human experience right now, and look at everything that there is to see and to experience in between the present and the past. I got attached to this simple yet deep title because, in between the two time frames, there is a lot to discover. So, it implies a certain depth.

CC: Can you talk a little bit about your collaborator, Hannah Young? Who is she? What's her artistic discipline?

KF: Hannah is a contemporary dancer and music maker. I met her at Kinetech Arts Lab. That's a gathering space for contemporary artists and people who are interested in technology. There she was improvising with music scores and created scores for performances too. I really loved her style so I asked her if she wanted to work with me on this piece. I wanted to collaborate with someone who really understands sound and who is sensitive to the connection between movement and sound. Hannah was a very good match and I got to know her better. I'm really happy about our collaboration. It's been a very pleasant process, so easy and organic. 

CC: What kind of music does she play in this work?

KF: It’s electronic music. We worked with her original musical scores as well as the sounds of NASA sonification - that's the process of taking images of the universe, of the cosmos, and translating them into sound. I was interested in NASA sonification and had this idea to use it in performance for a long time, so I presented it all to Hannah, and she got excited about it too. We used a lot of sonifications in that music score. So, there are basically no live instruments, it’s all done in digital space.

CC: Will all of the music be recorded, or will Hannah perform electronic music live?

KF: We have a pre-recorded score and a pre-recorded mix of sonifications and there will also be live improvisation with sound and movement. So, Hannah will be playing and we'll create something on the spot as part of the performance.

CC: In your project description, you wrote that the environment shapes your decision-making process. Would you talk about how the environment shapes your decision-making process? How are you exploring that in this work?

KF: That is actually related to the improvised section where Hannah and I are observing each other in real time, and allowing the movement to shape the sound as well as the sound to shape the movement. This constant interaction builds upon the environment around us. The environment has a mood that's created by the sound as well as the actual physical domain of space. What got me interested in this process is the way that people move through our day-to-day lives, the myriad of things around us that can redirect our path and bring up new decisions, new thoughts and new ideas. We are interconnected with what is around us, including with the sound.  I really wanted to explore that connection in this piece.

CC: That connects with the next question. What did you mean when you wrote that sounds influence reality? Will you be using sound to influence the audience’s reality, and if so, how so?

KF: It's a good question. Starting from the last part of your question, whether the audience will be influenced. Yes, I think this is inevitable, especially when the audience comes with an open mind. But even if there is no open-mindedness about what you see, you are still being influenced by the place you are in and by the sounds in that place. You can feel it in your body and sounds can stir emotions in you. More bass sounds feel like they resonate within different parts of your body in comparison with high pitched ones. We are being affected, whether we feel it or not. Sometimes, how we experience sound depends upon our sensitivity and our interest in looking at it. But, we don't live in a vacuum, there is vibration constantly traveling through us and that interaction is happening all the time.

CC: What is the cosmic narrative that you're working with? How are you embodying that?

KF: What got me interested in a cosmic theme in the first place was Michael Singer’s teaching. In his book, Living Untethered, he talks explicitly about the history of creation, what happens after the Big Bang, and how, on a gravitational level, the universe started churning, how the stars and all the elements were formed, and each and every element that was forged in the stars is now in our bodies. I was so inspired by this very clear explanation of the path: how we grew out of all of this giant cosmic material. So, moving through the piece, I wanted to go deep into this idea and try to feel it in my body. I wanted to feel the very beginning, the creation and destruction and creation again. And then, I wanted to bring that to the human experience, how humans grew from simple to more complex with all of our emotions, grew from being lost to being found. The narrative is our growth and movement from being matter to being human beings while remaining the same matter. That idea was very fascinating to me, so I wanted to put that into movement and experience it on a stage. 

CC: What attracted you to those concepts? 

KF: Overall, I think just contemplating the ideas of origin and thinking about creation in a deeper way is very inspiring for me. It brings more depth to life. Bringing the sound exploration and the NASA sonifications in, explores how everything in the universe is vibrating, including ourselves. From the biggest object to the very tiniest object in the universe. Everything is moving. These inquiries kind of organically combined and formed into this piece. It’s really been a process over a few years of having those interests and slowly being drawn into this work.

CC: Will this work engage the audience’s senses, such as their sense of vibration?

KF: There is not necessarily an accent on engaging the audience’s senses. But, I remember when you saw this as a work-in-progress, you offered feedback that you felt the vibration of the gong sounds traveling through your body. So, that was very exciting for me! I feel like human beings can really sympathize with what they see. We were made that way. Our neurons are built that way. So, I hope that the audience will be able to co-experience a lot of the things that they see on stage. And, I hope that the piece just takes them on a journey. Our ability to experience things can really differ. But hopefully, Hannah and I will create a container that will be equalizing for what we all take from the moment.

CC: I'm curious about how you’re thinking about your relationship with the audience, so these next few questions come from that interest. Who do you hope will come see this work and why?

KF: I hope some of my friends will come as well as people who I don't know. I hope there will be people who dance and people who are curious about dance. I also hope that people who need to get some new perspective, and who want to refresh their vision of day-to-day life, will come see this piece. This piece can be very meditative and it can slow you down, slow your thought process down. Hopefully, people who need to unplug a little bit from day-to-day thought patterns and their normal experience can come and reboot, unplug.

CC: What do you hope people will take with them from this work or bring to it? 

KF: People can bring their presence! To present work to an audience is always a way to deepen the work, to explore it even more and discover something new. It creates the volume of the piece. So, that's what the audience can bring. I hope they take away whatever they need the most from the moment. It could be one of the things I mentioned before, recharging, rebooting, getting inspired.

CC: What experience do you hope the audience will have?

KF: It would be wonderful if the audience could contemplate some cosmic questions or cosmic scale experiences. The contemplation to get connected, not on the level of mind, but with your body, with your imagination. The sounds feel like an easy pathway to connect with some of those vast scale ideas and I think that’s beautiful. It's like looking at the night sky when there's so many stars and finding a moment of peace. Some people may have a lot of that experience in life, and some people may not, especially living in a city. We don't necessarily detach from our day-to-day experiences of achieving, fulfilling, or human interactions. So, I hope the audience will get to experience something more vast, something a little bit beyond just themselves.

CC: Is there anything else that you would like the audience to know about this work?

KF: I’m just excited for people to come, see, and listen to the score. Hannah is very talented, so I feel like it's going to be a pleasant experience for many people, but maybe not. I hope people will come with open hearts and minds and just judge for themselves.

CC: Thank you for chatting with me more about your piece!

KF: It has been wonderful for me to talk about the piece. I really loved it. Thank you. 

West Wave Festival 31

Jan 9-19, 2025

PROGRAM A

Jan 9-10 @ 7:30pm - Zahna Simon / Kevin Wong & Matthew Wong / Kamala Fifield (ASL will be offered)

All performances at SAFEhouse Arts 145 Eddy St. San Francisco 94102

CONTACT: Joe Landini (415) 518-1517 or joe@SAFEhouseArts.org

TICKETS $25 (No One Turned Away) https://safehousearts.org/