Interview: Brett Ishida of INSIDE MY WALLS at Ishida Dance Company

Brett Ishida guides and runs the Ishida Dance Company. It is a dance troupe that asks questions, creates dreamscapes, and encourages artists to explore their passions through movement. They are about to premiere in Houston a new production called Inside My Walls. It opens on June 12th and runs through the 15th at the Asia Society Texas Center in Houston. Broadway World writer Brett Cullum got a chance to sit down and talk with artistic director and founder Brett Ishida about the work. 

Brett Cullum: So, tell me a little bit about Inside My Walls. I mean, obviously, I've seen your company's work before, and it's very distinctive, and you all are blending modern dance styles mostly.

Brett Ishida: Definitely, very contemporary. The dancers have classical training as well. So we're fusing that together with technique, but they're moving in more contemporary ways, I would say, and also more dramatically. They are utilizing these humanistic elements that also feel very quotidian and relatable. 

Brett Cullum: And this particular piece is actually inspired by a Japanese author. Is that right?

Brett Ishida: Yes, I'm a huge fan of Haruki Murakami. He is a renowned Japanese author, and I've read everything that he's written. He writes both fiction and nonfiction. His fiction uses magical realism, I'd say a lot of my work also has elements of that. I'm not retelling any of his stories, but I'm acknowledging how his craft has influenced my work and how I think about dance theater and storytelling. His most recent novel is The City and Its Uncertain Walls, which I loved. I found it very philosophical, and it just brought about more questions. I started writing the script for Inside My Walls, which will be a world premiere, before this came out, before I knew he was writing this book for his 3rd time, apparently, so that several iterations and the idea is obviously playing with real and unreal, but also just the walls that we create for ourselves such as the walls in society or the walls of reality. I think it is a fascinating take on that subject matter. I also was thinking, as I was writing this a few years ago, how do people change? What drives people to make a shift in something that you know they've been doing a certain thing for all their life? And so that was the question that prompted this narrative, Inside My Walls.

Brett Cullum: It's going to be at the Asia Society Texas Center of Houston, which I have not been to for a performance. 

Brett Ishida: The theater there is the Brown Foundation for Performing Arts Theater. It's beautiful. It's a Yoshio Taniguchi building. It's the only freestanding Tanaguchi building in the US. The aesthetic is streamlined and uses these beautiful materials, with a lot of attention to detail on the architect's part. There's a wonderful cohesion of aesthetics between Ishida Dance, the building, and the values of Asia society. We're excited. This is our third time being presented by the organization. It's a nice size, but also very intimate. Our works tend to invite these existential questions and intimate expressions. So it's a great space to approach our work in that manner. 

Brett Cullum: I love seeing your dancers up close! The movement and emotions are right there. And it's not that distant proscenium arch where you're up in a balcony way away. You can just see so much more of what they're going through and how they're making art out of the physical.

Brett Ishida: They're a special group. I'm really picky about who I invite and bring on board for these projects. They all are soloists in their own right, and many of them choreograph as well. They're collaborative and very creative, and they come from disparate backgrounds. Not all of them started in classical ballet. Some started break dancing, and then moved into classical ballet, and then joined a company, etc. Others started off in a more traditional dance company and then moved to freelancing. Some are also doing more commercial work, so they're choreographing, they're in videos, and film and television. Some are also trained actors. So there's just a wonderful, diverse group of artists. And when we get together, when we are in creation for these works, the type of work we're doing is fusing the dancers together quickly, and we drop down right into the heart of being vulnerable and truthful. They can't make up these feelings and what they're being. I'm inviting them and encouraging them to do with the physicality of their bodies, blending with these certain emotions. They have to tap into what they're feeling, and then see a reflection of themselves in the work. It's a very special process.

Brett Cullum: You have some special choreographers this time. Tell me a little bit about them.

Brett Ishida: One is Stephen Shropshire, and he is originally from Miami. He graduated from Juilliard and then immediately became an expat and lived abroad, based in the Netherlands. He had his own company there for decades, and he is mostly commissioned in Europe as well as in Canada. So we're very excited to finally have him create a work here in the US. He's very cerebral. He's finishing his doctorate there in the Netherlands, and he actually he was actually studying to be a tenor before, and then changed majors. He went into dance, which I've recently learned. He told me the music he's using is by Franz Schubert. Then we have Andonis Foniadakis. He's based in France, in Lyon. This will be a special treat for Texas audiences because, again, his work is rarely seen in the US. 

Brett Cullum: Tell me a little bit about Ishida Dance, just for people who are learning about your company. I have been a longtime fan, and I have seen several of your works, but I know we need to let everyone in Houston know how special this group is. 

Brett Ishida: We are a Houston-based company. We started in 2019, actually, with our 1st performances in January 2020. And you realize what an auspicious year that was! We started a performing Arts Company and then had to stop because of COVID-19. We've gone from one set of programs, one city, to now doing the premiere first in Houston and then doing a tour to Austin. It's wonderful for the dancers. They want to get to perform the works more than twice, or four times. Austin gives them another opportunity, and also to perform in two very different cities, and build up a following. There's nothing really like us in either city or in the United States. We're unique with what we're doing and our vision, and our productions.

Brett Cullum: It is very unique. I've been to several of your performances, and I agree that it is unlike what I normally see in the dance community here in Houston, or even when I look at dance in other parts of the country. It's got your personal touch to it! How did this unique style come about? 

Brett Ishida: Well, I originally started the company because I kept going to performances and seeing wonderful, different types of arts. But a lot of the contemporary dance work was quite abstract, which is beautiful. And then ballet can also be abstract as well, or it's a full-length narrative work, often a fairy tale, or could be a novel that already exists. Much of the time, I kept hearing people say about the more abstract works. “Oh, it's really beautiful! But I didn't get it.” And I thought, there must be a way to create really beautiful, high-level productions that people understand and walk away with meaning. Performances that are not traditional stories that we all grew up with. Starting the company and creating these works that are based on poetic narrative, I'm introducing them, or I'm bringing out the guest choreographer to introduce their work. We're trying to bring the audience in and share insights into the work. We're not telling anyone how to think or feel or interpret the work. That's completely subjective. And we're not saying everything about it. But we're giving them a thread of context. So people can relax and sit in tune into what's happening. And to connect with the work or see other parts of themselves, or someone that they know, to expand. To give them a sense of otherness. People have found the works deeply meaningful to them and and found personal things that they've learned about themselves because of the work. And the same thing happens with our artists, to the dancers. When we're getting together and we're working on this, these new works. As I said, I'm asking them questions. They're also asking me questions. We're dialoging often about not easy subjects. We go directly to the heart quite quickly. You can't always speak what you mean. And that's why we go to dance, right? There's something about movement and dance that conveys a message that words can't.

Brett Cullum: You know, that's interesting, because I am usually a theater critic. I have come to Ishida. Maybe it's because I actually connect with the narrative, and it's something that I can look at and go, “Okay. I got it!” Rather than trying to assimilate all of what's happening? Why are they doing that?

I remember there was a piece in one of your previous programs. It was just a relationship. It was a man. It was a woman, and it was the different stages of the relationships and the different dynamics of those. And they told this complete story of everything and different emotions, and different parts. You watched it evolve within just a few minutes. And I think that's what's cool. And I think that's why people should come and definitely check out Inside My Walls, June 12th through the 15th. Thank you for talking about your company. It's one of those that I just absolutely fell in love with from the 1st time that I saw your dancers perform. I was just like, “This is something so cool, and everybody needs to come!” And I remember I dragged all these people there. 

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