It was 1998 and Marcos Duran was a 14-year-old high school freshman in San Jose, in a student body of nearly 4,000 students. On this particular day in the school’s main gym, he watched a group of 30 dancers perform to a student crowd screaming school spirit chants.
“I having a visceral gut reaction to this massive choreography down on the gym floor. I wanted more than anything to be able to them,” he says. “At that point, I was actually 250 pounds and my self-esteem was virtually nonexistent. I took it upon myself to dance in secret, behind closed doors in the middle of the night, seeking some kind of catharsis through repetitive movements to all different kinds of music.”
By his senior year, he’d enrolled in modern and jazz dance classes, moving out of his solitary, three-year practice that he says laid the groundwork for his future dance career. He went on to earn a bachelor’s degree in dance from the UC Santa Barbara and a master’s in dance theater from UC San Diego; works as a director, choreographer, lecturer; has been awarded numerous grants, fellowships, and an artist residency; and previously managed the Marcos Duran Performance Group in New York City. Most recently, he is one of 60 recipients of the first round of grants for the “Far South/Border North: Artists and Cultural Practitioners in Community,” a two-year regional program providing financial toward work increasing public awareness about public health, environmental conservation, civic engagement, and social justice. Duran received human rights advocacy training from Alliance San Diego, a community organization that works to increase civic engagement. This resulted in his “Dancing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights” project, educating high school students on the 30 articles in the document, through educational dance instruction. His public show, “Dancing With Dignity,” takes place at 3 and 6 p.m. Saturday at the Black Box Theatre at the City Heights Performance Annex.
Duran, 39, is also a dance lecturer at San Diego City College and UC San Diego, and lives in San Diego’s Morena neighborhood with his husband, Derek Weiler. He took some time to talk about his work on his “Dancing With Dignity” show and creating dances, and a dance environment, infused with diversity, inclusion, and increasing a sense of self-worth.
Q: Why was this particular project, focusing on dignity and human rights, something that you wanted to pursue?
A: I have always been interested in making dance works that promote messages of diversity, equity, inclusion, and liberation.
Q: What does your creative process look like for something like this?
A: I am performing in the work alongside dancers Fernando Castaneda, Nico Gilbertson, Lily-Rose Medofer, Gabs Nathanson, and April Tra. While I have been guiding the group, much of the featured movement material is the dancers’ own creative reactions to the articles within the Universal Declarations of Human Rights.
I decided to work in sections. First, I devised a scene of self-exploration for the dancers in relation to blue and black blankets and assigned articles of the declaration. The second section focuses on partners relating to one another, in addition to spoken articles of the declaration. The third is about joyful, communal possibilities featuring audience participation. The fourth is a dramatic scene that focuses on the cast of dancers going through intensely physical explorations together, in search of connection and some kind of unspoken, hopefully spiritual, liberation.
I direct these scenes as 50 percent choreographed (both by me and the dancers) and 50 percent improvised using very specific directives. I think working in this way is the perfect metaphor for the evolution of our understanding and implementation of the declaration. As the document has existed for 75 years, there is an immeasurable amount of structural work within systems, as well as improvised responses to egregious human rights violations, happening at every moment in this world.
What I love about San Diego’s Morena neighborhood…
What I love about my tiny neighborhood of Morena is that it acts as the perfect intersection of places to go. Whether it is north, south, east, or west, I can travel with relative ease, especially since I am a 10-minute walk from the trolley. It is also nice to get on my bike and trek to the beach along the San Diego River.
Q: What is it about dance that you were initially drawn to as your preferred form of creative expression, over something like singing or painting?
A: My first love was coloring and drawing, then voraciously reading books, and then thousands of hours studying movies. Dance theater has provided me with opportunities for complete physical and spiritual presence, enrapturing me in somatic wonder and imaginative adventure.
Q: There are questions being raised in this performance around defining and embodying dignity, inhibitions to or sacrificing dignity, and encouraging or denying dignity. How do you define dignity?
A: I define dignity as self-worth and realizing one’s own value. Collective dignity corresponds with caring to lift each other up.
Q: Why is it important to you to raise these questions of worthiness?
A: I have heard so many people talk openly about imposter syndrome. It wasn’t until 2022 that I began to learn that I had spent many years suffering from the same feelings of unworthiness. I suspect that there are many more people out there, especially in the dance community, who do not fully realize their own sense of dignity.
Q: What role do you think dance, bodily movement, plays in responding to these questions of dignity and human rights?
A: Dance related efforts have historic and current abusive methods in training, employing, and exploiting dancers. Dance authoritarians have and continue to dictate what our bodies are supposed to look like, how bodies are supposed to behave; what is and isn’t healthy, what is and isn’t beautiful; what kind of dancer is worth employing and what kind of dancer is not worth employing. Even more so, the competitive nature of dance can (not always) breed such massive disregard for human dignity. With this work, in large part due to the Far South/Border North grant, I have had the privilege to flip the script and “start with dignity.” For me, this has corresponded with my personal journey with non-religious spirituality and healing movement rituals. How can we approach dance making from a spiritually sound, mentally and physically peaceful place? Yes, it is possible to dancers economically while asking them to put their bodies, hearts, and minds on the line day after day, hour after hour; however, simply paying dancers by the hour is not enough. Dancers deserve so much more when they dedicate their entire existence to the integrity of their body as an instrument for the work of others.
Q: What do you hope people take from watching “Dancing with Dignity”?
A: I hope that this show helps to promote a fuller sense of self and collective realization for those who need it. I hope it inspires people to take a closer look at the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to assess for themselves the meaning of this relevant, yet imperfect, ever patriarchal, document.
Q: What’s been challenging about your work?
A: During my second rehearsal with the dancers, I noticed my habitual sense of control that I wanted to exert over the minute details of their physical and energetic expression. I wasn’t seeing what I wanted to see, and I could feel myself getting frustrated. That night, I went home and I realized that this way of working was very much the opposite of dignity. In fact, it felt like a very subtle, yet specific type of violence—both toward the dancers and myself.
Q: What’s been rewarding about this work?
A: I decided to let go of what the work was not and focus on what it could actually be from a place of collective research, , and discovery.
Q: What has this work taught you about yourself?
A: This work has reminded me of my personal value and to celebrate everything I have to offer, both as a working teaching artist and a fellow human being.
Q: What is the best advice you’ve ever received?
A: When I first met my husband in 2013, visual artist Derek Weiler, Ph.D., he was, ironically, the first person in my life to suggest that my artwork would be unequivocally the most important thing I could ever focus on. After that, I decided to dedicate all of my vision toward advancing Marcos Duran Performance Group in Brooklyn, New York, which was critical to fostering my artistic integrity through 2017.
Q: What is one thing people would be surprised to find out about you?
A: I have studied craniosacral therapy (an alternative form of medicine using gentle touch on the head, neck, or back to alleviate tension, according to Cleveland Clinic) and somatoemotional release (an expansion of craniosacral therapy focused on releasing trauma held in the body), in addition to being a certified pilates teacher for over 12 years, so all of my dance work is made through the lens of comionate discovery and strengthening the integrity of the human spirit, in addition to the body.
Q: Please describe your ideal San Diego weekend.
A: My ideal San Diego weekend involves unplugging from work and electronics to spend quality time with family and friends, soaking up the sunshine and eating good food. That, and performing a dance show or two, of course!
