Friday, June 8, 2007

photo by Matthew Wright


Time-based art
bodies moving moments around in space
practicing presence
being present
for the beautiful-ugly-weird-poignant-ridiculous-joyous
whims of the choreographer
who sees this madness?

I’ve been trying to deepen my practice of ‘being present’ lately, mostly through meditation. This seems to be bleeding over into how I think about dance-making. I’m trying to follow a very intuitive, instinctual process, listening to the body, allowing physical impulses to guide me. I'm turning away from my previous work which was content driven, narratively oriented, and am begining to think of myself as a formalist. Not completely sure about that, but that's what I think today.

In this over stimulated, highly mediated culture, I like to think that I (and choreographers as a whole) am reminding viewers to be in their bodies, to move it, to investigate the mind-body connection. I know this is entirely too hopeful and a little naive, but I hold onto the idea none the less.