Thinking about the body...

Thinking about the body, about movement, about states of being. Where am i now? In a chair at my desk. Tea from mug still warm on my tongue. Unanswered bills, scattered lists of things to do. How does this dance of paper shuffling go? This is a state of being... observing, not trying, simply noticing.

I babysat today. Smiley, happy boy, so full of movement, eight months old. He's trying to find his crawl. Only managing some spasmotic Twister moves. Still able to truck along somehow, not very fast. Very interested in pulling himself up to standing though not really strong enough to do it without help. Neuron pathways still forming, coordination on its way.



photo courtesy new york weill medical center archives

My Dances Dance Me

The end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.
T.S. Eliot

photo from Cynthia's Polar Adventure

I build dances about the body and its languages. I pursue its eloquence, subtleties and intelligence while investigating the various ways we, as humans, communicate or might communicate. I look for the awkward and unusual to see who lives there, what lives there and what they are saying. My dances twist and grow in obscure ways, with surprising torques and redirections, as if they are trying to trick me.

I strive to not ‘know’ what the dance is about as I am making it, but instead to let movement and images surface from the subconscious, to bubble forth from improvisational states and daydreams. My artistic practice is about getting out of the way, getting lost, wandering. It’s about finding the venue for the subconscious. Much like a tree grows toward light I am striving to follow an organic path that is led by my guts and instincts, not my head and what I think you want to see or hear. But don’t be scared. I’m not interested in pushing your buttons or showing you my dark side. I’m really interested in the whimsical beauty in life, the way we talk and play with our bodies, I want to bring back our five-year-old playfulness and wonder with life.

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