“The Third”: Third Spaces in Practice at UCLA’s WACsmash
Image Description: A compilation of photographs of the WACsmash visual art gallery. Top left shows Maia Faith painting in the center of the gallery, with other installations visible in the background. Top right is Konani Chinn’s series of illustrations. Bottom left is Nina Schmidt’s sculpture. Middle left is Kiya Shimozato’s multimedia piece. Middle right is Kyland Talbott’s desk installation. Bottom right is Kayla Cao’s interactive installation.
If you missed out on this year’s WACsmash show, be sure to mark your calendar for next year. This impressive showcase of entirely student-choreographed and student-created work displayed the vast array of talent in the World Arts and Culture (WAC) and Dance departments (with a few guest artists in the mix). This year, the show was titled “The Third” as a representation of third spaces.
According to the WACsmash producers, “third spaces” look beyond the home and the workplace to provide a sense of community and unity. In the 1980’s, sociologist Ray Oldenburg first theorized third spaces, emphasizing their role in balancing the increasing privatization of home life and overemphasis on capitalistic labor as the only form of production. “[Third spaces] are the heart of a community’s social vitality, the grassroots of democracy, but sadly, they constitute a diminishing aspect of the American social landscape,” Oldenburg wrote. In his theory, third spaces can provide an important sense of connection, even leading to mobilization in social movements, but Oldenburg warned they are dwindling with the consistent demands of capitalism.
Within feminist theory, third spaces take on more contemporary and abstract meanings. Adela C. Licona explains that “third-space tactics” challenge traditional borders that define societal standards for gender and sexuality. Third spaces in this context are not necessarily physical places, but also practices which are “discursively disobedient” to colonial and imperial expectations within society. Licona takes other feminist theory, specifically Gloria Anzaldúa’s concept of borderlands and US third-world feminism as a form of third space feminism, to create a new meaning for third spaces: places and practices informed by lived experiences that “slip” in between and go beyond structurally imposed borders.
It may seem like a lot of theory to consider while discussing a dance show and gallery. However, even if the students weren’t using theory to create their pieces, Licona’s theory of third spaces speaks to a culture of resistance that is reflected in art. The act of creating art often resists typical capitalist expectations of labor, and many of the pieces reflect an unwillingness to accept borders—vital to creating third spaces.
The show opened an hour before the dance performance in the gallery next door, which featured art installations created by WAC students. Walking into the space, Nina Schmidt’s “caged bird/still sings” attracted the eye. Based on Maya Angelou’s poem “Caged Bird,” which was featured in the installation, the piece displayed a bird cage interwoven with zip ties enclosing a vintage-looking speaker. The speaker played a soundscape that blended classic protest songs including ‘A Change Is Gonna Come’ by Sam Cooke and ‘Ain’t Gonna Study War No More’ by Nat King Cole. Along with the songs was recorded audio from the UCLA Palestine Solidarity Encampment, which occurred last spring quarter, and other protests in the greater LA area. The caged audio represented a history of protests for liberation, illustrating a practice of third spaces derived from “immateriality,” as Schmidt wrote in the program for “The Third.” The soundscape echoed throughout the gallery space, setting the tone as viewers took in the other installations. Listeners were reminded that community creates third spaces by resisting borders enforced by repressive regimes.
With Schmidt’s soundscape in the background, the other pieces in the gallery came to life. Kayla Cao’s “In-Between” and Kyland Talbott’s “What Do You Learn About Today?” introduced an interactive element to the gallery, allowing the audience to physically engage with the third spaces the artists materialized. Cao’s piece invited viewers to write words to describe themselves on translucent paper, which were then projected onto a fabric background, creating a physical manifestation of the community that passed through the gallery. Talbott highlighted footage from a group called the Young Black Soulz, with viewers seated at a dorm desk that had unexpectedly appeared in the gallery space. They became part of the installation as they watched the media on a desktop computer. Both of these pieces allowed audience members to slip out of the borders of the traditional gallery space and immerse themselves in the installations.
Konani Chinn’s “To Live is Too Long” showed a series of illustrations described in the program as “created in a moment defined by clashing identities.” Their piece reflected Oldenburg’s acknowledgement that third spaces are dwindling, especially in today’s social and political climate. Viewers experienced a sense of unrest as they looked at a hand almost reaching towards them, overtaken in an aggressive red that bleeds into a more tranquil green of the illustration. Chinn reiterated that “perspectives are homogenized,” and the only option becomes opposition between two sides, leaving little room for the allowance of third spaces.
Viewers were reminded of the repression of third spaces in Kiya Shimozato’s “More Than Just a Seat.” The piece featured photos of benches across the Bay Area, interwoven with hostile wire emerging between them. Shimozato’s piece reflected the anti-homelessness structures that have expanded nationwide. She emphasized the connection between the physical structures and the public that utilizes them, calling for a preservation of what she describes as “authentic third spaces.” A question lingered after observing the piece: How can we create third spaces when so many individuals in our communities lack housing in the first place?
The final installation bridged the gallery and the dance performance. Centered in the gallery was visual artist, Maia Faith, as part of Sydney Richardson’s “The Story I’ll Tell.” During the hour that led up to the performance, Faith painted a new piece. Viewers in the gallery only caught glimpses of the final painting, watching as Faith’s ideas came to life in bright colors. Yet again, in a show of the transcendence of borders, Faith appeared in the performance in Richardson’s piece as she continued to paint during the dance. Finally, at the end of “The Story I’ll Tell,” Faith unveiled her painting, the story she’d been creating throughout the show.
As the audience transitioned from the gallery to the performance, the interpretation of third spaces expanded. The performance opened with Sakura Amano’s “3 Days,” a contemporary piece that explored third spaces beyond capitalist expectations. Parallel to Oldenburg’s critique of society, Amano addressed the lack of third spaces in the face of capitalist demands. The dancers were choreographed in a constant back and forth, unable to fully unite in their movement until the very end, when they collapsed as a unit, reflecting Amano’s note on the impossibility of separating work and “hustle culture” from third spaces.
Both Nissrine Elasraoui’s “Cypher” and Rhea Gill, Jae Hall, and Lazayah Lannigan’s “Dystopia” highlighted a specific split within the dance world. “Cypher” explored the division in street dance, while demonstrating how each story that dancers bring into a space contributes a different element of connection within the community. “Dystopia” reflected the detachment between commercial dance and street dance, while allowing the two groups to come together within the piece to resolve their tension. Both pieces showed dancers breaking the boundaries set by social expectations within dance communities to come together. They went beyond repressive borders imposed by historical structures through the practice of third spaces.
Quinn Wynacht’s dance film “Alive Again” explored the importance of nature to connect communities. The dancers in the film physically step into a representation of nature as a third space, starting alone but joined by others as they move further into this space. Wynacht explored the regenerative atmosphere of third spaces and finding community, while using film—a nontraditional medium for dance—to pass borders of physical space.
Widening the exploration of technology, Elena Bruce’s “The Turing Test” questioned the virtual sphere as a third space. An explosion of dance and martial arts, Bruce satirized the impersonality of virtual chat rooms during one section of the piece as dancers ran in and out of a spotlight, corresponding with the projection of their icons that had joined or left the space on the screen behind them. In the spotlight, the dancers fought each other simulating a video game, yet never touched or actively interacted with each other. It was comical as they ran in and out of the lit stage, but Bruce invoked a more sinister feeling as audiences pondered how sincere the community is within a virtual space, especially in the age of artificial intelligence. If this becomes humans’ only form of interaction, will third spaces disappear completely?
The performance concluded with Myles Mawa’s energetic ode to the queer disco scene, “My Disco Ain’t Dead.” Acknowledging the influence of disco in the Black and Brown communities of the ‘70s, Mawa reminded the audience that dance has long served as a form of connection and important third space to queer Black and Brown communities. Captivating the audience with a piece that spoke to many of them directly, Mawa showed that this third space remains alive, despite oppressive structures that impact our daily lives. Through dance as a third space, marginalized people continue to find and create communities as forms of resistance, especially when their existence is inherently political.
WACsmash’s “The Third” showcased a vast collection of visual and performance art that examined both physical manifestations and more abstract practices of third spaces. Drawing on Licona’s theory of third spaces as lived experiences that “slip” past repressive borders in favor of community, the WACsmash artists highlighted the importance of third spaces, whether they reflected on a physical space or addressed the lack of such spaces that provide community solidarity. The audience was not only reminded of the impressive talent exhibited by the WAC and Dance departments, but also of the value of amplifying student voices. We are the future—whether or not the world wants to acknowledge our perspectives. As Myles Mawa expressed, this performance should “spark joy.” But in the legacy of the third space as a site of mobilization, let it also spark resistance through community.
