Fuzion Dance Artists has shed its skin in a bid for reinvention and announcement of new intention, staking its place in the cultural fabric of the Suncoast as the Sarasota Contemporary Dance Company. “We’ve been here, we’ve worked hard and we’re ready to take on that name,” says founder and artistic director Leymis Bolaños Wilmott, who announced the rebranding at a celebratory performance September 18 in Alfstad& Contemporary for the 10th Season Kick-Off. “This has become my home.”
Taking The Stage
Performing on the road, Fuzion traveled the Gulf and East Coast, ranging as far north as New York City and looping through Louisiana and Alabama, before coming home. Wilmott remembers one early show in particular, performing at Backlot Arts, a now-defunct performance space in Tallevast hosted by Mark Marvell that also supported institutions such as the Westcoast Black Theatre Troupe in its fledgling days. Wilmott filled the entire space with sand for Fuzion’s performance. “I’d never been able to do anything like that,” she says. It apparently left a mark, as the show was a community-wide hit, placing the Fuzion name at the top of the buzz. “And the momentum started,” Wilmott says.
Crafting partnerships with local schools and collaborating with visual artists and musicians served to further cement Fuzion’s place within the artistic scene, and nearly within a year, Wilmott found herself entertaining invitations from cultural powerhouses like the Historic Asolo Theater, which invited the company to perform as the 2006 renovations came to a close. Wilmott performed “Aftermath,” a piece created shortly after the 2001 terror attacks and the one that can most aptly be called her masterpiece, having won awards for the choreography and been featured at the Kennedy Center.
Come the 10-year anniversary, Wilmott stood at the head of a full-fledged dance company with a community home, a year-round season of original work, award-winning guest choreographers and an assortment of classes and camps. “People from the dance world are now looking at Sarasota,” says Wilmott. But if word has spread through the dance world, Wilmott still found herself explaining the company’s name to audiences. Something wasn’t getting across and it was time for a change.
Making A Change
“We wanted to be very specific: This is coming from Sarasota, and when they go other places they represent Sarasota,” says Sam Alfstad, founder of Alfstad& Contemporary and board member for Fuzion-come-Sarasota Contemporary Dance, who brought a career in marketing and branding to bear for the project. “We changed the name to be more forward about what Fuzion is, and that is Sarasota’s contemporary dance company.”
But Sarasota Contemporary Dance Company wasn’t always the frontrunner and Wilmott recalls multiple suggestions that she utilize her distinctive name and take full symbolic ownership of what she built, something she ultimately resisted. “I never started the company for it to be about me,” she says, “and I want this company to be here after I die. I want to leave a legacy and a life and be of this community.” Another possible concern was losing the Fuzion name recognition earned over 10 years of performing, a concern Alfstad waves away. “You have to look at it the other way—it’s a way to get people’s attention.” Rebranding turns a decennial anniversary that could have symbolized little more than a continuance of the status quo into an event, he says, and a declaration of renewed purpose and a goal-oriented future. As for Wilmott, “I’m trusting the growth and have faith that we’re moving forward” she says. “I don’t want to be stagnant and I don’t want to be put in a box.”
“The only reason I started a dance company is because I wanted to create an environment that was nurturing,” says Wilmott, who describes the current state of the dance world as “cutthroat,” where young dancers face harsh and dogmatic critiques of their bodies, faces and form, something she experienced and felt no desire to pass on to the next class, recruiting dancers straight out of college for training, mentorship and to provide a place for them to experiment with their art. “When I was training, there weren’t a lot of people who looked like me or moved like me,” she says, “so I wanted to create an environment where trained dancers have this constant dialogue and collaboration, nurturing and growing.”
Moving Forward
Under the new moniker, Wilmott and Alfstad see an exciting future for the company as the destination for contemporary dance in a community already known as a cultural draw, and perhaps even giving the prominently traditional dance scene more of a pronounced youthful and experimental edge. “[The Sarasota Ballet] has done wonderful things,” says Alfstad, pointing to the institution as evidence of the area’s appetite for the art of dance, and also where the focus has traditionally been. “Sarasota Contemporary Dance is going to take that other side, fill it out and Sarasota can offer both.” Sarasota Contemporary Dance Company, he says, can do more to invigorate Sarasota’s young artists and audiences than other institutions, enjoying the freedom of the craft, which allows offbeat collaborations and non-traditional offerings, such as a dance performance set to heavy metal.
“Our work is accessible but also intriguing and you’re going to see something thought-provoking,” says Wilmott, gearing up for a season including an intimate performance at New College of Florida’s Black Box Theater this month, a showcase of emerging choreographers in December and a career retrospective in early 2016, among others.
“There is a momentum happening in contemporary art in the community, but we still have a lot to work on,” she says. “If I’m not paving the way for others to have a career in dance, then I’m doing a disservice.”
