KT Nelson, a prominent Bay Area choreographer, is set to debut a poignant new work titled ‘Nothing is Going to Make Sense’ with ODC/Dance during the upcoming Summer Sampler, taking place from July 17 to July 20.
This marks the first new piece that Nelson has created for the company since 2017.
‘Nothing is Going to Make Sense’ is a 23-minute meditation performed by ten dancers, encapsulating Nelson’s personal experience following the unexpected death of her husband, Doug Winter.
Winter, an early member of ODC, transitioned from dance to photography and graphic design before becoming a contractor after welcoming their son.
He passed away in 2023 due to an undiagnosed abdominal aneurysm, leaving Nelson to navigate her sorrow and loss.
“My world just turned upside down, like I couldn’t make sense of the world the way I used to know it,” Nelson reflected, speaking about how grief profoundly altered her reality.
Traditionally, Nelson begins her creative process with a distinct vision.
However, for this particular work, she approached the creation process with a more exploratory mindset, working closely and collaboratively with her dancers.
Rather than dictating movements, Nelson guided them through her healing journey, incorporating a variety of exercises ranging from physical activities to drawing.
One notable exercise involved an improvisational segment where dancers were instructed to move while connecting with their bodies and sensing the space around them, inspired by Nelson’s own feelings of isolation during her grief.
“I think that made me at ease working with them, and them at ease working with me, that the mystery of it connected us, made us share a world, as opposed to me coming in from a different world,” she noted, emphasizing the essential connection forged in their collaboration.
The ballet manifests in three distinct sections.
Apart from the final segment set to Gabriel Faure’s haunting ‘Requiem Op 48:7’, the majority of the choreography is accompanied by music from Bay Area composer Gabriela Smith.
Nelson first encountered Smith’s work one night while driving home, and soon after, she reemerged in her conversations with a composer friend.
The music created by the 33-year-old Smith often draws inspiration from the natural world, which resonated with Nelson’s own themes of grief and concerns related to the climate crisis, a recurring motif in her previous works, including ‘Dead Reckoning.’
In one section of the new ballet, the piece integrates ‘Bard of the Wasteland’, a collaboration between Smith and cellist-composer Gabriel Cabezas from their album ‘Lost Coast’.
The lyrics of this piece delve into climate change, establishing a contrast between its lighthearted melody and the darker sentiments expressed in the words, mirroring Nelson’s own grief journey.
“Understanding my new life has been realizing that love and grief are married. They belong to each other. The aloneness that grief brought but also the community—they live together not separately,” she commented on the intertwined nature of love and grief.
Through her work, Nelson also explores the delicate duality between reality and unreality, particularly in relation to the concept of death.
“There’s something so real about (death), like you cannot shift it. You try to. You try to talk to them, you try to bring them back. You try to change how they died. You try—you can’t,” Nelson explained, acknowledging the struggle to reconcile these conflicting realms of existence.
Known for her thought-provoking choreography that addresses social issues, Nelson’s most celebrated work may be ‘The Velveteen Rabbit’, ODC’s first full-length ballet launched in 1986, and consistently performed every year during the holiday season.
Contrary to the straightforward narrative of the beloved holiday classic, ‘Nothing is Going to Make Sense’ adopts a non-linear structure, which Nelson likened to a package adorned in various types of wrapping paper, reflecting the complexities of her creative expression.
“Going into the depth of the loss and the darkness and the dauntingness, the process of going in there and holding hands with others is our future,” she remarked, urging audiences to connect with one another through shared experiences of grief and healing.
Nelson emphasized the concept of play as a vital element of joy, which she believes ultimately fosters unity among people.
Despite the absence of a definitive narrative, she hopes viewers will embrace the ambiguity of the piece.
“I’m pretty sure this won’t all make sense to people, but I also feel like I’m on a longer arc of the journey that I’ll be able to understand better in five years than I do right now,” Nelson shared, reflecting on her ongoing exploration of grief and connection.
“Learning to share the loss gave me some hope and possibilities. And as much as loss can rip you from yourself, it also helped me connect myself to myself by sharing,” she concluded, illuminating the transformative power of collective grief.
The ODC/Dance Summer Sampler will showcase these works from Thursday, July 17, to Sunday, July 20, at the ODC Theater.
Alongside Nelson’s world premiere, the evening will feature the work of ODC stager Mia J. Chong, whose piece ‘Theories of Time’ will also make its debut, along with Catherine Galasso’s world premiere ‘10,000 Steps: A Dance About Its Own Making’.
Tickets for the performance can be purchased through ODC’s official website.
image source from：missionlocal
