Video Post: Solo, Work in Progress

This is one of two solos that I am creating right now. This one is an assignment by the Dance Exchange's Associate Artistic Director, Elizabeth Johnson: creating a solo to be performed as a part of the site-specific performance next Sunday, October 20th.

This work is inspired by writings of Takoma Park's Poet Laureate Anne Becker, whose work is often tied to ideas of place and physical presence, examining the effect of the earth and the environment on the people who inhabit it, and our effect on the physicality of the world. While I was generating this movement phrase, I was working with the concrete structure of moving between round and crescent shapes in my body - and more abstractly, examining through movement the cyclical nature of stabilization and adaptation that occurs in the earth and in human beings. There is another section of the work that was initially generated by using Build-a-Phrase, collecting movements as Anne was speaking about her poem Berry Hollow, stylizing and shaping those gestures into a short phrase. I don't have a video of that part yet.

The next step for the section shown in the video is to find the places where the free flow can be stopped, changed, or broken - to explore using sharpness, bound flow and stillness to break up the rhythm.

Next week Anne and I have decided to meet up and chat about poetry - she has graciously agreed to read some of my work and give me some advice...very excited and also nervous, this will be the first time I've had an accomplished poet read my writing and give me feedback.