Jack Kirven

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Jack B. Kirven (born Jacob Vernon Morris, 1976 - ), an American dancer, choreographer, multimedia performance artist and journalist, was born in Atlanta, and grew up mostly in Georgia and South Carolina in the Southeastern region of the United States. His work as a choreographer focuses primarily on social issues in the South, particularly concerns pertaining to racism, homophobia, and other forms of discrimination, and his clever use of literal images evokes compassionate enthusiasm from a wide variety of audiences.

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[edit] Early life

Kirven's childhood was marked by several divorces and constant moves as his mother experienced a long series of dysfunctional, and sometimes abusive, relationships. This lack of stability and security was a recurring theme in Kirven's work, and he is known to have moved frequently out of habit. Kirven's name was changed from Jacob Morris to Jack Kirven upon being adopted by his mother's third husband in 1982. This marriage ended in divorce in 1989, and Kirven moved once again to Aiken, South Carolina where he was influenced by his grandmother, Isabel Vandervelde (b. 1930, Isabel Reichert), a prolific regional artist and author. It is in Aiken that Kirven knew stability throughout his formative years, and his close relationship both to his mother and his grandmother have had profound influences on him artistically and personally.

[edit] Education

[edit] Coker College, 1994-1998

Kirven attended Coker College, where he began formal dance training. Under the tutelage of Nancy Bolden, Rhonda Blanchard Austin, and Alain Charron he learned to expand his aesthetic, and choreographed 13 dances before graduating in 1998 as the valedictorian of his class. Despite artistic and creative growth, Kirven was plagued by harassment for being openly homosexual, and his work during this time was very dark and violent. As a result of early childhood experiences, high school hazing, and college conflicts (most notably with athletes) he developed an aggressive style of dancing that served as a vehicle for expressing his frustration with the residual bigotries of the South.

[edit] UCLA, 1999-2002

Upon graduating from Coker College Kirven choreographed a series of short dances based upon the conflicting aesthetics of Charles Baudelaire, a French poet known for luxurious sensorial imagery, and Anton Webern, a German composer whose work was epitomized by sparse, dense compositions that are so short and quiet that they are barely audible. This dichotomy of aesthetics inspired dances that are characterized by unexpected shifts in mood, direction, tempo, and rhythmic stompings. This collage, Quelques images de Baudelaire: Les fleurs du mal, suite no. 1, contains a short solo entitled Le chat which served as the audition piece that earned Kirven a place at UCLA's unique Dance Department, The Department of World Arts and Cultures.

Kirven's studies at UCLA brought him into contact with David Roussève, Victoria Marks, David Gere, Simone Forti, Nancy Stark Smith, William Forsythe, and Erica Rebollar, among others. It is here that Kirven was encouraged to explore works dealing with identity and politics.

[edit] European Performance Tour

Kirven was performing in Berlin, Germany when the terrorist attacks happened on September 11, 2001. As one of three American performers in the international cast of Aside, directed by Jurek Sawka, he was asked if the performance should continue. "We decided collectively that this show, which was based on a play by Pablo Picasso written during the Nazi occupation of Paris, was about the danger of ignoring violence when it isn't happening to you directly, and that it's not okay to just write a play while people are dying - but how else do you contend with feeling so powerless? Well, that's what's happening here -- we're performing in a play and thousands of people just died horribly... We can't ignore it. How do we acknowledge it? What can we possibly do? We performed the show. We kept it deep in our thoughts that this entire performance was an ironic act of resistance. We went on, because that's exactly what the terrorists were trying to prevent."

[edit] Professional Activities

After completing the Master of Fine Arts Kirven moved to New York City to perform in 2002. He was a high school teacher from 2002-2004 in a severely at-risk school district in South Carolina where he produced provocative dances concerning teens and AIDS, racism, and religious violence. He is also known as a rigorous college professor who intermingles humor with demanding academic expectations. He has taught at Winthrop University, UNC-Charlotte, Columbia College, Coker College, Lander University and UCLA.

He is known for being a demanding teacher who expects students to be familiar with a broad range of topics that are not necessarily conventionally related to dance (an attitude he learned from William Forsythe, formerly of the Ballett Frankfurt).

Currently, Kirven is the Artistic Director of Viscera Dance Theatre. The company is based in Charlotte, North Carolina.

As of February 2007, Kirven has also worked as a columnist and writer for Q-Notes, the LGBT newspaper of North and South Carolina. Kirven writes the column Health & Wellness, as well as stories focusing on history, culture, and the arts.

[edit] Artistic Influences

Aside from his grandmother, a scholar, artist, writer, and historian, Kirven was deeply influenced by dance. Among those who know Kirven personally it is widely recognized that he has a deep passion for the artistry of Janet Jackson. Kirven has been known to admit that "I knew I wanted to be a dancer when I was 12 years old, well a choreographer specifically. I saw the video for Miss You Much, and knew it's what I had to do." Throughout his adolescent years this influence remained very strong.

As Kirven matured, his mimicking of Jackson's style was sublimated into a more personalized movement vocabulary marked by his experience in gymnastics, hip-hop dance styles, yoga, improvisation, and modern dance. His explosive style of dancing has been greatly tempered by subtler techniques, and as a result of his work with various teachers he has developed a personal style that is typified by wide ranges of emotion and dynamics.

[edit] Selected Theater Works

  • Quelques images de Baudelaire: Les fleurs du mal, suite no. 1 (1998)
  • daddy (1998)
  • ICON (2002)
  • Choices (2002)
  • The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog, nos. 1-3 (2002-2005)
  • 21 Clichés (2006)
  • Pravasana (2006, in progress)
  • Memoires of a Gay... shhhh! (2006, in progress)
  • Eternal Return, Part 1: Path: A Postmodern Little Red Riding Hood (2007)
  • Eternal Return, Part 2: Oven: A Postmodern Hansel and Gretel (2008, in progress)
  • Suites for the sweet: Valentine's Day Dances (2008, in progress)