NYC Calling: BamBam Frost
- C-print
- 1 day ago
- 5 min read
Our dance-loving editor Koshik Zaman interviewed BamBam Frost back in 2022 as she was about to present her work YES at MDT. A lot has happened since. We check in with BamBam, who has just returned from NYC, where she presented a new iteration of the work at the ongoing La MaMa Moves! Dance Festival at La MaMa, an iconic venue for drama and performance art in the city. “New York is my city. I came here when I was 19, lived in Theresa Traore Dahlberg and Mapei’s old apartment, and ran around town dancing, partying, and growing into the person I am today. I have returned to NYC regularly, surfing through different contexts,” she tells us.
C-P: Hi BamBam, it’s been four years since our last interview, when you were about to present YES at MDT. A lot has happened since. You’re now enrolled at the Royal Institute of Art but currently on maternity leave. While this move might not come as a surprise, what ultimately prompted you to take that leap?
B.F: Hello dear C-print! So happy to talk to you again! Yes, a lot has happened since last time! Right now, I’m in New York together with Lydia Ö. Diakité, my third (and last!) baby Mio, my partner, and my brother Maceo Frost. I’m performing an updated spinoff version of YES at La MaMa Theatre as part of their festival La MaMa Moves.
About Mejan (the Royal Institute of Art); I had been producing quite a lot of work in a short amount of time and honestly, I felt like I was in a loop. I didn’t feel grounded in what I was doing or like I was developing as an artist. I wanted to deepen my practice, think through different materials, get challenged artistically, and I was searching for a context for that. I wanted to do an MFA, and Mejan felt like an interesting new world in a city that is still my home. I finally tried my luck, and I am really enjoying my time there. I needed to give my artistic practice this time to breathe and expand.
C-P: What new forms or expressions have you been exploring during your time at Mejan?
B.F: For a person like myself, who loves being a beginner and trying new things, Mejan feels like a giant candy shop. I’ve been obsessed with learning new crafts, running from the glass workshop to the welding workshop, into the sculpture workshop, and back to my studio, where piles of fabric kept growing. Now that I have had a break, it has become clear to me that all of this laboratory work is an expansion of my choreographic and performance practice. It has been an interesting process thinking through carrying, cutting, molding, and welding. Exploring being a sensory body in negotiation and conversation with these different materials and machines. Timing, rhythm, weight, and resistance are all very present, just like when I work with dance. I also enjoy being in conversation with the other students, exploring new ways of thinking through their work.
C-P: You’re currently in New York City, presenting a new iteration of YES at La MaMa Moves! Dance Festival. I know your father, the legendary street dance artist Damon Frost, is originally from the U.S., but what kind of relationship do you have with the city?
B.F: New York is my second home. My dad is from Berkeley, California, and we used to go every year when I was a child. But New York is my city. I came here when I was 19, lived in Theresa Traore Dahlberg and Mapei’s old apartment, and ran around town dancing, partying, and growing into the person I am today. I have returned to NYC regularly, surfing through different contexts. This is my place in the world where I can feed so many of my burning interests. Postmodern dance, art, performance, ballroom culture, dancehall culture, entertainment, Latinx reggaeton culture, hip-hop culture, aahhhhh everything. I get SO much inspiration here. I haven’t been here in a while now, but as soon as I landed, I felt at home. I will need to go back every year to keep sane. I love immigrant NYC.
C-P: You recently presented up up up, a collaborative work with second-year BA Dance students at Uniarts Stockholm. How did you approach working with such a large group of predominantly young dancers?
B.F: My approach was to work with them in the same way as I do with professionals, trust their ability to solve problems and take on a good challenge. I also saw it as an exchange of knowledge. I have worked professionally for a long time, sure, and I'm always happy to share the tools I’ve been collecting. But they come in as seventeen people, with seventeen different backgrounds and sets of skills that I have the chance to learn from.
I was invited to do my first piece, SORRY, from 2018 with them. But I felt that SORRY had a place in time with the dancers, and dear friends, Bianca Traum and Ingrid Mugalu, that I worked with then. This time I was more curious about opening up the concept and diving into the students' relationship to mainstream pop and entertainment culture, inviting them to collaborate on parts of the composition as a way for me to get an understanding of their frame of reference and to also make the work more urgent for them as performers. They were so generous and dedicated, a true pleasure honestly. For me, it's a luxury to work with, learn from, and figure things out together with a big group, no matter if they are students or professionals. Unfortunately, that does not happen that often in this economy. I would love to work with larger groups more!
C-P: Once you’re back from New York, what’s on the horizon?
B.F: I’m always on to something! Together with my brother Maceo Frost, I am creating a piece for my dad that’s premiering in 2027. Right now, I am doing research for a group piece that will develop this coming year, and Lydia Ö. Diakité and I are dreaming and making plans for the future. I’m going back to Mejan after the summer and preparing for my solo next spring. I'm organizing the Last Minute Festival together with Erik Linghede, a work-in-progress performance, music, and dance festival. I’m not sure of the dates yet, but keep an eye out! Besides all this, I’m doing smaller performance gigs here and there. I live for performing, so you will definitely see me around!
All images courtesy of BamBam Frost.
Photos:
1-3. Maceo Frost
4-7. Private