Bay City News
Demonstrating the fluidity and time-suspending qualities that are signature elements in his work as a performer, choreographer and teaching artist, Bay Area- and Hawaii-based Christian Burns is making a remarkable move. Not wanting to dwell on opportunities or relationships delayed or lost during the pandemic by reclaiming "busyness," Burns is taking a pause. Dividing his time between California and Hawaii, he is focusing on family, temporarily putting work on semi-hiatus and engaging in limited, select projects.
It's a deserved break. The accomplished dancer, improviser, movement coach and multidisciplinary collaborative artist on medium- and large-scale projects was busier than ever during the pandemic.
When 24/7 lockdowns shuttered performing and teaching venues, he was uniquely positioned. A highly sought-out instructor adept at digital and video technology, he filled his calendar helping professional and student dancers maintain their creativity and conditioning via Zoom lessons and rehearsals.
Even after studio work was possible, the resurgence did not cease. Soon, he was working digitally and in-person, maintaining a marathon-like schedule.
"I was almost busier than I had been before COVID," he says. "It was odd and so intimate, because I was working with dancers who were in their kitchens, with mom or dad behind them, cooking eggs. I was in their bedrooms and hallways, with family photos or personal items as backdrops."
In a career that spans decades, Burns has established himself as an itinerant master of invention and performance. Trained in classical ballet at The School of American Ballet in New York, he has been a guest artist of the renowned Forsythe Company in Germany, a member of James Sewell Ballet in Minneapolis and of Bay Area-based Alonzo King Lines Ballet.
Today, his multidisciplinary works are collected in a venture called Burnswork.
He co-founded Parsons Hall Project Space, a multidisciplinary arts center in Massachusetts in 2008, and has created dozens of works for professional and student dancers, including more than 70 for the now defunct San Francisco Conservatory of Dance, which operated from 2004-2018. In 2023, he lectured in Stanford University's theater-performance department, and he remains a longtime educator with Alonzo King Lines Ballet troupe and training programs.
His most influential collaborations demonstrate a range of interests and his appetite for stimulating projects that stir his imagination or prompt reconsideration of artistic practices and philosophies.
Perhaps the roots of his curiosity can be traced to his father, who taught him to see form and connections through drawing, painting and work in clay. Burns values not only academic and historical knowledge, but also kinesthetic and emotional intelligence. He asks questions that revolve around the audience-artist exchange and what constitutes a performance.
He cites choreographers Alonzo King, Alex Ketley, William Forsythe and dance improvisation artist Kirstie Simson among those who have provided meaningful elements in his career sofar. He says, "I rarely feel compelled to make dances from the solitude of my own imagination; thecreative exchange compels me."
In 1998 in San Francisco, Burns and Ketley co-created The Foundry, and through 2003, they jointly directed the acclaimed troupe, which presents dance, mixed-media art, installations and other contemporary performances. Ketley remains at its helm, and they remain friends after choosing to move their careers forward on separate tracks.
Burns says, "We had reached an apex by 2003 and our initial parting was to pursue more projects independent of each other. In 2006, we started to reconnect creatively and devised 'Imprint,' a multimedia piece co-produced with ODC that premiered in 2007. That was the last project we devised, choreographed and directed together, although Alex invited me to join one later project ['Please Love Me'] as a performer."
Sharing choreographic approaches and aesthetics with King and Forsythe, Burns values childlike enthusiasm, pushed physicality and an "anything can happen" attitude. He fuses ballet with hip-hop, skateboarding and animalistic movements portraying rage, darkness, reflectiveness and joy. He is dedicated to craft, be it a dance performed in a cornfield or concert hall.
Burns has formalized a new platform, a virtual school called Moving Practices created in 2022 following the proliferation of online teaching during the pandemic. He says, "I work with dancers, choreographers and artists in a focused one-on-one format to help them refine their craft of movement or provide a criticaleye for solo choreographicprojects."
He's pleased with another 2022 choreography video project by juniors studying for a fine arts bachelor's degree in Alonzo King Lines Ballet's program at Dominican University of California in San Rafael. "Heading(s)," which is on his website, features Rowan Williams, Drake Simon, Devin Jones, Brooke Terry, Madeleine Friedman and Maya Mohsin performing in their homes; the soundtrack has Williams on piano and Simon singing or playing the ukulele.
Occasionally, a dancer holds up a handwritten note with phrases such as "heading north," "heading home," "I've been there" or "you will pull through."
The video's takeaway message about the power of love mirrors Burns' comments about his career's important experiences: "Supporting the artistic goals of countless dance students over the past two decades is one of my greatest accomplishments," he says.
About upcoming plans, he adds, "I still have performing goals for the future. Some lean towards theater, and some lean towards working withcertain international directors.I will eventually write down my understanding of improvisation, composition and performance approaches."
At some point, in the "(hopefully not too far) future," he says, he will codify his approaches in ways most useful for everyone engaged in investigative movement and the human body's endless potential. Stay tuned.
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