Robyn Mineko Williams On Slowing Down, Balancing Family and Career, and Her New Whim W’Him Commission
When Robyn Mineko Williams was named one of Dance Magazine’s “25 to Watch” 10 years ago, she was on the precipice of a choreographic career after 12 years onstage with Hubbard Street Dance Chicago. She created at a feverish pace through 2019, but since then, Williams has slowed down, taking on fewer commissions and working on protracted, site-specific, independent projects further developing her signature ethereal style. She spent two years on Hisako’s House, an interdisciplinary immersive performance that premiered in 2023 at her late grandmother’s home, exploring the internment of 120,000 people of Japanese descent during World War II. In June, Williams became an inaugural recipient of the Walder Foundation’s Platform Awards, an unrestricted $200,000 grant for mid-career Chicago artists. This month marks the premiere of her first commission in nearly two years, her first for Seattle’s Whim W’Him.
What are you exploring in the new piece for Whim W’Him?
I’ve engaged Nate Kinsella to create some music for it, which I’m really excited about. We’ve never worked together in this capacity and I’m a big fan. Thematically, it’s a lot of stuff I’ve ended up returning to in the last few years: memory, loss, nonlinear timelines, and how we absorb our interactions with the people that we meet along the way. Being midlife now, I’m looking forward and back a lot, observing how memory disintegrates as we age.
I suspect the Walder Platform Award gives you the flexibility to be choosier with which projects you take on.
Even before the Platform Award, I had already felt my priorities change personally and artistically. What is my thing? Where do I feel really in my zone, creating something worthwhile? That’s something I’ve been grappling with since right after Echo Mine premiered in late 2019. I decided to slow down to be at home more. And I decided to make Hisako’s House with people I want to work with on my own timeline—whatever that means. It feels great to be able to look at these works I’ve made independently and start to recognize where I can share my voice in the most authentic way.
With Whim W’Him, you’re returning to a more conventional creative model that you’ve intentionally veered away from. Can you bring what you’ve learned back into the studio?
I hope so. We’ll see what comes out. Getting older, knowing yourself a little bit better and having more peace with who you are, hopefully I’ll be able to take that into this environment and still do what I do now.
You mentioned wanting to be home more, too. You’re watching your son, Knox, play soccer as we talk. Are you finding a balance between your family and your career?
When I first had Knox, I immediately went to Baryshnikov Arts Center with him in my BabyBjörn. I just kept going. He got to this age, around 5 or 6, where I couldn’t take him with me everywhere around the country. And he doesn’t want to do that. He’s creating his own life. He’s almost 10 now and I will not miss out on this time with him.
What about the things that are just for you? How do you unplug?
Music has always been a great escape and a great comfort for me. I like to keep a collection of friends that have very different jobs and lifestyles. I like to go out and not talk about dance—it’s nice to have friends that have a lot of varied experiences. I feed off of that.