“What the Hell Happened in San Francisco!?” is a dance theater piece by Malinda LaVelle and Emmaly Wiederholt that looks back on the time they spent in their 20s living together in San Francisco while they were both studying at the San Francisco Conservatory of Dance and dancing for various Bay Area companies and choreographers. Now both of them live in Albuquerque, NM, and are in very different places in life. One night, they were reminiscing about their time in the Bay and posed the questions, “What the hell happened in San Francisco?!” The seed of the piece was born.
Malinda and Emmaly began working on the piece in 2021, and have since shown excerpts at Albuquerque Dance Connect’s choreographer showcases and choreographic salons, as well as at the Albuquerque Funny Fiesta. They are delighted to have been able to spend a week working on the piece in the Peñasco Theater. Now they know what the hell happened in San Francisco.
The hour and 15-minute-long piece problematizes power structures in the arts by looking at Emmaly and Malinda’s own memories and creating dance theater vignettes based on them. Fifteen years after the experience, they are reflecting on what they couldn’t see clearly in their early 20s: that companies and institutions value certain bodies and movement expression over others to the detriment of individual creative empowerment.
In the arts, there are clear gatekeepers who decide what art/bodies/expression is valuable and what is not. These norms are indoctrinated in eager young students, and it is only with time and distance that Malinda and Emmaly have been able to look at them critically and clearly. There is also an element of addressing their grief for the ways the art world manipulates and distorts young people’s passions. They are, in essence, reclaiming their young love for dance in a healthier way.
