'The Secret History of Love': An Interview With Choreographer Sean Dorsey
March 25, 2013 by Matt Kailey
http://tranifesto.com/2013/03/25/the-secret-history-of-love-an-interview-with-choreographer-sean-dorsey/Sean Dorsey is an award-winning choreographer, dancer and writer. Recognized as the United States' first out transgender modern dance choreographer, Dorsey has won audiences and accolades from San Francisco to New York with his powerful dance-theater. Dorsey is the founder and Artistic Director of Fresh Meat Productions, the first U.S. non-profit dedicated to the year-round creation, presentation, and touring of transgender arts.
Dorsey's current show, The Secret History of Love, will be in San Francisco from March 28-31 as part of a 20-city national tour. Dorsey was able to talk to me via e-mail about the show, the LGBT history project upon which the show is based, and being out and trans in the dance world.
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MK: Did you become a professional dancer and choreographer prior to your transition? If so, how did your transition affect your career? If not, did you enter the profession as an out trans person?
SD: I started my dance training prior to my physical transition, but I was trans and queer identified. Changing rooms and gendered movement in dance were very challenging, painful. I would do everything I could to avoid using bathrooms or changing rooms, even once I started dancing professionally.
It was hard. I didn't know a single trans dancer in the world, had never heard of a single one. I became very driven to create space in dance for transgender and queer people – both through my choreographic work, and by founding Fresh Meat Productions (the nation's first nonprofit to create, present and tour year-round transgender arts programs, including our resident dance company Sean Dorsey Dance).
