Sell Out, A Series: 5 Questions with Kait Ramsden
/
Sell Out is a series by interdisciplinary artist Angela Fama (she/they), who co-creates conversations with individual artists across Vancouver. Questioning ideas of artistry, identity, “day jobs,” and how they intertwine, Fama settles in with each artist (at a local café of their choice) and asks the same series of questions. With one roll of medium format film, Fama captures portraits of the artist after their conversations.
Kait Ramsden (she/her) is a dance and sound artist. Follow her on Instagram (@communikait__), visit her website at www.kaitramsden.com and/or her YouTube.
Location: Federal Store
What do you make/create?
Wow. So many things. I make and create dances and performances. I make and create spaces to help people feel embodied. I make and create videos. I make and create online content. I make and create friendships.
What do you do to support that?
I do a lot of input for output. I always make sure I’m consuming things: reading things, watching things, seeing things, listening to things, seeing friends, eating food. Literally just consumption. I really believe in nourishment in all of its conceptual ways: eating, listening, breathing. I meditate, I sleep. But that’s the hardest part, because when I’m outputting and producing, I forget to eat anything, and then I burn out, and we don’t want that.
I definitely need money to live, that’s for sure. I often capitalise off of my performance skills through service. Working in service is a very direct way to access quite a bit of cash, which I need for my practice. It’s also a way to practice the hospitality needed for performance making, so that’s a nice coupling. I write grants. I’m constantly writing applications. I’m constantly thinking of new ways to monetise my skills. I’m trying to feel less shame around the amount of money that is required for my art practice, so I’m being more upfront about how much things cost and how much I need from people if they want to have an exchange of art or a teaching from me.
I do dance classes. I help people embody space. Teaching dance is my number one income. I feel so grateful and lucky because it is the easiest energetic exchange I have ever found. I have to hold myself back from crying every class, because I am just so happy to see people experiencing sensations for the first time in a safe way in their body. I teach contemporary dance specifically for beginners. People come with an open heart but also come very scared. I bring a lot of joy into my life by acknowledging their fear and how brave they are for trying something new. I feel really grateful to be able to monetise that experience, because it means that I can survive, and live, and pay rent! We love paying rent.
Describe something about how your art practice and your “day job” interact.
Facilitating people’s energies–whether it be through serving and hosting a table through a fine dining experience, or through teaching dance–is where I practice producing an energy or an emotion for a performance. I feel grateful that my job is deeply connected to my art practice, and that I don’t have to sever that energetic desire that I bring into my life. I don’t have to go to an office and not talk to anyone. I really think performance making and teaching dance is about being a very precise host, and that can be like, I want to host you well, or I want to host you poorly. In terms of performance, knowing how, having the range, and anticipating how something you do will make someone feel really helps your performance. If you want to make someone feel uncomfortable, grounded, curious, and so on... I get to practice that every time I serve a table. I get to practice that every time I teach someone a new dance move.
What’s a challenge you’re facing, or have faced, in relation to this and/or what’s a benefit?
It can be challenging to have boundaries with your energy, with how much you give in terms of hosting and facilitating. I think that relates to what I was talking about earlier about input versus output. In my experience, as an extrovert who really likes facilitating other people, I’m not very good at facilitating myself. I don’t wake up and think, “What’s the best energetic offering I can give to Kait?” I think, “Oh shit, what do I have to do today?” It can be easy once you recognize what you’re not giving yourself. It can be nice when you’ve honed so many skills to help others and you’re like, “What if I just turned that inward? That could be fun. That could be helpful.” I think that’s really challenging.
Being a performance maker is so outward facing; you put yourself out there so much. I feel like I’m being looked at by my students, by my tables in fine dining, on stage, online. That can be really confronting. To be constantly seen can really activate the negative self-talk that developed through being a femme body. Especially a femme body that went to ballet school. It is what it is, because I still want to perform, I still want to be looked at–obviously, I’m an extrovert, I’m an Aries, triple Aries. It’s just remembering the tools. It’s so easy to forget. It’s so easy to get lost in the sauce of being perceived. I think that’s another big challenge of being a performer and a facilitator.
A benefit is being an empathetic, rad, hot person that everyone wants to look at. I’m just kidding, don’t say that. No yeah, yeah you can [chuckle]. A benefit is being in community. A benefit is having connections and making friends. The benefits are pretty egoic, I'm learning through answering this question. I like being seen as a facilitator. I like being seen as a performer. I like being seen, I guess. She likes being seen, folks!
Have you made, or created, anything that was inspired by something from your day job? Please describe.
Yes, absolutely. I’m in the midst of making many works that come from my day job experience. Often my performances include a heavy dose of public participation, which some people find quite scary, but it’s something I’m used to, because I’ve practiced so much hosting–making the people who come into a fine dining experience not feel lost, getting on their level and being like, “Don’t worry, no one knows what that word means, and I’m going to tell you because I had to learn that word today as well.” Having that type of energy, rather than being like, “Oh, you don’t know.”
I think that tool has allowed me to make performances with public participation more inviting, so people can actually enter the work. I’m able to invite them in through many different doorways–almost like a yoga class where you allow someone lots of modifications to a pose, and you allow people to feel really empowered to choose what they would like to do rather than feel forced to achieve the form. For example, in performances, I’ll say, “Do you want to hold this object for me?” And that’s like level one, and level ten is like, “Come dance with me on stage,” which can be like the scariest thing in the world. I always inject some of that into my performances.
In terms of facilitation of embodiment, I try and interweave presence. A lot of my practise is about grounding the nervous system and feeling present, which is a direct link to feeling embodied. I like to encourage people who come to my performances to ground more into their sensations, which I think is a skill I hone through facilitating my dance classes.
The last thing I’ll say is that because I have worked in fine dining for so long, I have yet to have this opportunity, but I have a deep desire to work with food. The idea of the dinner party. The idea of coursing meals. In fine dining, we have five to six courses. How do you course meals and performances together? How do you do these pairings? What’s the wine pairing for this show? But maybe that's too bougie and embarrassing [laughs]. But I don’t know, there might be something there.
Angela Fama (she/they) is an artist, Death Conversation Game entrepreneur, photographer, musician, previous small-business server of many years (The Templeton, Slickity Jim’s etc.). They are a mixed European 2nd-generation settler currently working on the unceded traditional territory of the Coast Salish xʷməθkwəy̓əm, Skwxwú7mesh and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh Nations.
Follow them at IG @angelafama IG @deathconversationgame or on their website www.angelafama.com
