Each and every day, I lose myself in the immediacy of the moment, find myself in the joy of the movement. Each and every day, I learn more and more...and, within that new knowledge, realize that I have so much farther to travel.

Shallom Johnson is a contemporary dance artist, visual artist and freelance writer based in Vancouver BC. She holds a Bachelors of Fine Arts degree in Contemporary Dance from Simon Fraser University, and has been active in the Vancouver dance community as a choreographer, performer, and instructor since her graduation in 2004.

Shallom is interested in art in public spaces, site-specific performance, interdisciplinary collaboration, and community involvement. Her street-based artwork, performance and photography examines and documents who gets to make art, where it gets made, and where/how the creative process and product is viewed. In the future, she hopes to explore this theme further via new media and technologies, new methods of creation, collaboration and community engagement.

Sunday, September 30, 2007

Video Post: On The Verge, in rehearsal

I am currently rehearsing a piece by the lovely Samantha Speis, choreographed on Gesel Mason's company, Gesel Mason Performance Projects. Sam also works as an adjunct with the Dance Exchange, and Gesel is a former company member who still works with them from time to time. She just got back from touring Ferocious Beauty: Genome to Toronto, and was kind enough to stop in and give us some rehearsal notes after watching a few runs of what we'd learned so far.

This is my second rehearsal with Samantha, and I am still learning the movement sequences and trying to get them "into my body". So what you see here is definitely rough and needs a lot of work. The choreography is beautiful, when Sam does it...on us - not quite as brilliant. It's a huge departure from the way my body likes to move...but every time I do it, things feel better and better.

Still going to be sore tomorrow, though. My triceps are feeling the burn from moving into and out of the floor.

I'm the dancer in the turquoise teeshirt, in the middle. To my right (closer to the camera) is Laura. Or maybe Lora? Lauren? Sorry, we just met today and I'm horrid with names. To my left is Meghan, also an adjunct artist with the Dance Exchange, and working with Kelly's company, Contradiction Dance. I know, so much overlap, it gets confusing...everyone is working with/for everyone else, it's rare to find a dancer or choreographer who only works with one company. Yet another reason why making connections, networking is sooo important.



This is the beginning of the piece.



This section happens closer to the end.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow, these are some very... unusual dance moves. And i can really see how doing those movements is going to feel "unnatural" - it looks unnatural too. I mean, that the body would move this kind of way. Interesting.

~ Olga from LJ. =)

Anonymous said...

These movements are simply awesome and the dancers makes it special. I love it.

SophistiHippie said...

I just became so overcome with emotion from the music and the movements. I am crying at my desk at work. Thank you for reminding me how much I love dance. I have sort of put that part of me behind and haven't danced in years and now I ache for it. Thank you.

-It's Megan from LJ and Facebook btw.

shallomj said...

Thanks lovelies. It is a very special piece of choreography. Unfortunately my role has been given to someone else, and I will not be performing the work in New York next month.

Anonymous said...

this piece is lovely..i saw it performed in Gesel Mason's project @ Joyce SOHO..it's been on my mind since then...thank u, thank u , thank u for posting this !!!
it is such an inspiration!!

BTW, i love your blog...

Anonymous said...

im very interested to know...
what was the story behind the movements?...it seems that you were marrionettes or puppets.....