Robert Moses' Kin
As an artist living in the Bay Area I am of course influenced by the particulars of my surroundings—as I would be living anywhere. As an African American, a man in my forties, a father, my work is shaped through my particular lens onto the world.
And yet, I have made dances about things that we can’t seem to get out of the cycle of talking about—hate, love, race and racial discord, sexuality and sexual discord, longing, loss, hope for a higher being. Though much of my work focuses on social issues, I am concerned with the way these issues affect people. Each piece is different. Each piece interconnects with human life. The pace and variety of my work are central to the concepts in it.
My style of movement is taken from the way that human beings want to move and want to feel. It is created from the stuff of their lives and needs. When I was a child, I imagined what superheroes moved like. Now I try to imagine that and more for my dancers and the audience. The work is also built on things that people really do, how someone sits, smiles, turns their head. I will use anything from anywhere, as appropriate to the content of the piece. The movements are about human exchange, relationships between people.
For BAN5, my company performs both new and existing repertory.
—R. M.
Robert Moses and his company, Robert Moses’ Kin, (founded in 1995) have been honored with many prestigious grants and awards; among these are an Irvine Dancemakers grant, three project awards from the NEA, multiple Isadora Duncan Dance Awards (“Izzies”), and the Bonnie Bird North American Choreography Award. He has created commissioned works for Philadanco, Cincinnati Ballet, England’s Transitions Dance Company of the Laban Centre, and Dance Exchange in London. Mr. Moses has also choreographed for the San Francisco Opera. His work has been performed nationally and internationally, including in England, Italy, and Ireland. Mr. Moses is also artist-in-residence at Stanford University.