Composing an Artist Statement

I've been grappling with an Artist Statement. Every artist needs one. I come up against the need to sound coherent, polished, sane, adult-like. I struggle to write in complete sentences or sound cool and hip, like I'm really the shit. Mostly I'm just trying to honor what's really true for me and that has to do with tapping the subconscious, with playing, with getting out of the way and letting the work come through. I'm trying not to work from my head; trying to let it come from the gut or heart or ovaries or whatever else wants to speak.

Maybe next time I'll have an Artist Statement to post.

It's January 2008 now and we just completed another successful run of Disarray. We were part of a group concert at the Community Education Center last weekend (11-13) called the New Edge Mix. I'd say we reached an even wider audience and got an even more enthusiastic reception, much to our delight. I really enjoyed reworking the piece with the same performers. Karin, Lindsay and Erin reached deeper into the work and found new levels of trust and play. And surprisingly, it worked quite well in a black box space so I'm glad I went against my first impulse which was to keep it in its original long, narrow configuration.

The performance went well...


photo by Chris Otto

"Disarray"

photo by Matthew Wright

"Disarray" is a poetic foray into chaos theory. I've beent thinking about chaos in regards to society – how we as humans evolve, have evolved, how we’ve developed our civilizations. Patterns, form, conform. Where’s the chaos? In the rebellion, the intuition, the radical thinkers, the expressers, the artists??? And what about the chaos due to the sheer mass of us? Is 'pattern' about organizing? How do we organize for what we want? Or what we don’t want, like a war in Iraq?

What is it about pattern that is so attractive to some? Why are others more comfortable in chaos?



photo by Matthew Wright

Kristin Hapke/tindance from New York city will be opening our show. She will be presenting "Cinder," an evocative solo that charts memory through a surreal landscape. Kristin's work investigates the dynamic performance potential of the body within the genres of dance theater, visceral physicality and improvisation. Hapke’s work has been produced in New York at The Joyce Soho, Dancespace, Dance New Amsterdam and Movement Research; in Seattle at On the Boards and Velocity’s Mainstage; in Portland and Eugene, OR, as well as internationally in Vancouver, Amsterdam and Poland.

Kristin rocks – you'll be happy you caught her.


photo by Steve Scheider

The Ring Crew

photos by Matthew Wright

Ring Dance Theater
In this new project, "Disarray", I am working with these three lovely ladies: Erin Foreman-Murray, Lindsay Browning and Karin Bookbinder. They are immensely talented and quite patient with my exploratory process.

The performance takes place September 5th & 6th, 2007 at 6:00pm. We are performing at Tower Gallery in Northern Liberties,
969 N. 2nd Street, just north of Standard Tap.

Joining us for the concert is NYC artist, Kristin Hapke. She'll be performing a solo entitled "Cinder."