There are interviews I look forward to because the subject fascinates me. Then there are conversations that connect several threads of my own life at once—this one did both.

My guest Seth Eisen was one of my beloved instructors and mentors during my Arts & Consciousness MFA studies at John F. Kennedy University. Seth is an artist, curator, archivist and self-described “memory keeper,” and his latest work brings him into the extraordinary creative legacy of groundbreaking choreographer Jess Curtis.

Seth, along with LisaRuth Elliott, curated PLEASE. STAY. TOUCH. — Jess Curtis Experiments with GRAVITY, now entering its final weekend at Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture in San Francisco. More than a retrospective or memorial, the exhibition turns Curtis’s archive into a “multisensory experience” of movement, sound, touch, memory and embodied presence. Accessibility—including audio description, Braille, tactile surfaces and haptic tools—is built into the exhibition as part of its artistic language, not added on afterward.

Joining Seth for our conversation was the remarkable Tiffany Taylor, a blind interdisciplinary performer, accessibility consultant and GRAVITY board member who worked and performed with Jess.

After Jess invited Tiffany to perform professionally in Sight Unseen, she responded, “Jess, I’m not a dancer.” Jess simply replied, “Well, sure you are.” Tiffany describes how radically different that invitation felt after experiencing artistic and educational spaces where people simply did not know how—or were not prepared—to include her. Jess instead recognized that her lived experience, perception and way of moving had artistic value. That opens up a much bigger conversation between the three of us: Who gets to dance? What knowledge lives in our bodies? What happens when sight is no longer treated as the dominant way of experiencing art? How can accessibility actually generate creative possibilities rather than simply accommodate them?

Seth talks beautifully about the tension at the heart of the exhibition: presence and absence. How do you make present an artist who is no longer physically here when so much of his life’s work was devoted to helping people become more fully present in their own bodies?

Memory keeper at work: Seth Eisen with the Jess Curtis archive. Photo: Guy Albert.

And near the end of our conversation, he asks a question that has stayed with me:

“How do we transform by being present?”

LISTEN TO THE FULL CONVERSATION

The interview premieres on the radio Thursday, August 13 at approximately 9:20 AM during my KSVY Morning Show on KSVY Sonoma 91.3 FM, streams worldwide ksvy.org. Because our conversation ran nearly 40 minutes—and was far too rich to carve down severely—I’ll be airing it across two segments. S

THIS IS THE FINAL WEEKEND

If this conversation moves you, there is still time to experience the work itself.

PLEASE. STAY. TOUCH. closes Sunday, August 16 at The Store House, Building D, Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture in San Francisco. For the closing weekend, Friday through Sunday, August 14–16, the gallery remains open until 8 PM, with special curator-led tours at 6:30 PM and closing-weekend performances of ICE. CAR. RAGE.

The exhibition itself is free.

Listen to the conversation. Then, if you can, go stay, touch, and be present while this remarkable exhibition is still here.