Conference 2018 Keynote Address

 
The mission of Robert Moses’ Kin (RMK) is to produce opportunities for art and community that support what is specific and unique in our varied  human natures and  to use those opportunities  as a platform for the respectful use of race, class, culture, gender and more as mediums through which we gain  greater understandings of each other and through that action voice the existence of our greater potential and realizable possibilities. Our mission is a testament to the expressiveness of the human spirit and to the concern for the honor, dignity, truth and potential of everyone. These values are enshrined in RMK's mission. By working with multiple populations as both individuals and groups, RMK strengthens and blurs lines that define and separate us. As an African American male, a father, a parent of two children of blended heritage, an educator, a dancer, a choreographer, a lover of the Bay Area, and an intellectual explorer, Moses also seeks to speak with all the voices of his heritage, to uncover and use to its full potential an  informed aesthetic to inspire all of us honestly respectfully, and clearly tell tales that seek to be heard.

Artistic Director Robert Moses is an award-winning choreographer and educator who has been an integral part of the Bay Area dance community since 1984 . Under his artistic leadership, RMK has produced home seasons for the past 21 years and worked with hundred of Bay Area dancers, choreographers and artistic collaborators on the more than 80 pieces he has created. He was on Stanford University’s the dance faculty since 1995, beginning a lecture, moving on to become the Director of the Committee on Black Performing Arts, and completing his time there as Artist -in-Residence there for 11 years. In his capacity as Administrative Director of the Committee on Black Performing Arts at the university, he worked closely with visiting  scholars and artists including Renne Harris and Saul Williams, African American artists working other disciplines and helped to produce a number of bay area artist on campus. Moses also mentored a number of Bay area artist as part of Black Choreographers festival . in the past He has worked with such youth groups as Youth Speaks, SF Boys Chorus, SF Arts Ed, and others and taught in the SF public schools. Robert Moses founded his company in 1995 as a platform for his artistic work, which focuses on the expressiveness of the human body and is influenced by his African American heritage. Many of the 80+ works he has created for RMK have gained important regional, national and international recognition, as well as garnered a host of awards: four Bay Area Isadora Duncan Awards (Izzies), a Bay Guardian Outstanding Local Discovery Award in Dance (Goldie), and a SF Weekly Black Box Award for Choreography. In 2011, CBS Bay Area called Robert Moses’ Kin one of the Bay Area’s top five dance companies, alongside such companies as the San Francisco Ballet and Alonzo King LINES Ballet. Critics have called the work “electrifying” (NY Times) and “jewel-like dances built on classical form and enhanced by swivels, quirks and reverent pauses (LA Times).

The diverse 10-member company is known for its eclectic movement vocabulary, demanding choreography, ferocious dancing, and provocative themes. RMK has performed throughout the US at a number of prestigious festivals, performing arts series and venues, including Stanford University’s Lively Arts series; Bates Dance Festival; Colorado Dance Festival; Dance Center at Columbia College; Dance Umbrella; Sun Valley; Maine Festival; and City Center's Fall for Dance Festival in NYC. It also performed at Jacob's Pillow, the country’s longest-running international dance festival. RMK has performed and held residencies at Stanford University, University of Washington, University of Nevada, University of Texas, Bates College, Orange Coast College, and many others. A 2014 tour took the company on a three-stop tour to India to in Kolkata, New Delhi and Chandigarh as part of the International Festival of Alternative and Contemporary Expressions. In early 2015, RMK traveled to the East Coast to take part in Lincoln Center Education’s programming for young audiences, where it presented a 60-minute excerpt of its piece NEVABAWARLDAPECE.