PUSHfest launches Oct 4 & 5 with an exciting lineup of nationally-renowned choreographers. Our exclusive conversation with Thomas DeFrantz, director of SLIPPAGE (slippage.org), whose experimental solo makes its festival debut, guides us through creativity and how to stay inspired as an artist.

1. Tell us a little bit about your dance background.

I went to high school in San Francisco and danced around town, taught little kids some and went to clubs a lot, then took dance classes anywhere I could until I decided to be serious (a little bit) and started making my own work. Danced in shows a lot and made dances for shows, nightclubs, experimental art spaces. Never stopped, even when I started writing about dance and organizing workshops of movement research.

2. What can audiences look forward to seeing in your work at PUSHfest?

An exploration of the terms of loneliness … something we are all familiar with much more than we want to be. 🙁

3. What are the major sources of inspiration for your choreography? What are you curious about?

How to generate a force of feeling from the attention of the group. I’m inspired by all the times we figure out how to keep going a little longer, even when it might be just as well to give up and stay home.

4. If you hadn’t chosen this career, what might you have been doing in your life?

I’m not really good at anything so I don’t know that I even chose this career.

5. What does your work respond to or activate, within this world or within yourself?

A wondering at what this moment could be, differently.

6. What advice would you pass on to an aspiring choreographer?

Make things because you must, not just because you can. And take the opportunity as seriously as you could ever imagine.

TIX: https://pushdance.org/festival

DISCOUNT: Support Thomas’s performance by buy $20 tickets to PUSHfest with the discount code: PUSHTHOMAS

MORE: https://www.pushdance.org/thomaspf25/