Deeply grateful for the serendipity that brought me to this series of video works today.
Especially grateful for this work by Sally Morgan and Lou Sheppard, and Kinetic Studio for the series. So much of the threads of thought and feeling I (and I am sure many, many others) have been experiencing over the last months are encapsulated here.
Every day that brings sunshine that warms the skin and clear pavement to walk is a gift.
Being able to stretch, feel muscles move under skin; a little more awake and alive with every step under the spring-blue sky.
Fitting then, that I came across video of this mesmerizing sculpture:
For all the dancers I know. Thank you.
… and Chaotic Bodies will close at Spazio Performativo.
Amazing how fast the month has gone by – I’ve been too buried in the never-ending-cold-that-should-be-spring here to actually grasp that time is really passing quite quickly, and we are over 1/4 of the way through the year.
It has been a great experience re-working this project for static exhibition – being able to look at it again with fresh eyes, dig back into the ideas simmering inside it – and see what potential there was in the conversations between media.
My sincere thanks to Mile Zero Dance for the opportunity to show this work!! And my thanks to everyone involved in the RUCKUS dance project for allowing me to develop this project further, and to use the footage from rehearsals and performance in the video work!
SO: if you want to check out Chaotic Bodies before it disappears into storage again, you have until SUNDAY April 8th. I am striking the show on Monday!
If you have the opportunity, see the work both in the daytime and at night: I have a video work rear-projected in the window that is best seen after dark, and the installation and drawings are available for viewing during opening hours daytime at Mile Zero, and of course in advance of evening events.
If you get over there – drop me a line and let me know your thoughts! I’d like to hear from you.
I am excited to be presenting a dance-infused project in Mile Zero Dance’s Spazio Gallery!
The multi-media installation Chaotic Bodies will be on view in the window gallery until April 8th, so stop by Mile Zero Dance and have a look. (after dark the work takes on a new life!)
If you are in the area, please join us for the Opening Reception for this work at Mile Zero’s Spazio Performativo on Thursday March 8, from 6:30 – 8:00pm, and stay for Dirt Buffet Cabaret, curated by Liam Cody.
Chaotic Bodies is a series of works derived from photographic and video documentation of RUCKUS, a work-in-progress choreographed by Anastasia Maywood, Krista Posnyiuk, and Alison Kause. My goal with Chaotic Bodies is to explore the visual echoes of my engagement with the dancers and the choreography, with their bodies in space, and their responses through movement to the sculptural work I created.
I would like to extend my deep thanks to Anastasia Maywood, Krista Posnyiuk, Alison Kause, Ainsley Hillyard, Kate Stashko, & Alida Kendell for welcoming me into their work on RUCKUS (past & future), and for their generous an insightful feedback as I worked with them to make the ideas specific to their creative process tangible. I am grateful also for their permission to use footage and stills from rehearsals and performances in the presentation of this project at Mile Zero Dance.
I am looking toward the Opening of Chaotic Bodies this Thursday at Mile Zero Dance – and not surprisingly, I am thinking a great deal about relationship, space, and how our bodies convey information.
What we communicate with gesture and movement is so vital to our understanding – to meaning-making – but also to the way and amount of space we occupy.
All this to say: one of the things I wanted to consider in the creation of Chaotic Bodies was how bodies communicate ideas of control, balance, containment, connection, release … .
And then I came across the amazing work of artist/metalsmith Jennifer Crupi.
So much food for thought here: the controlled gesture. The canonization of particular movements that render them significant, understood as physical language that conveys information through relationship to other, to space.
aluminum, steel, acrylic, laser print, vellum,
8″ x 8″ x 6″
Power Gesture is an implement that requires the user to assume the authoritative “steepled fingers” gesture. This position exudes confidence and is often used by one who has the upper hand in a situation. Psychologists believe assuming a posture or gesture will make one feel as they would if they did the gesture naturally. So for a confidence boost, Power Gesture is the implement of choice. © Jennifer Crupi
I find the language here telling too. The Power Gesture object requires the user to assume a particular position, as do all of these sculptural objects: (con)forming to set positions to send a message.
Pondering further: if we wish to convey information bodily, how do we control or contain that which we wish to remain hidden? What if we can’t? What if our actions in space and in relationship express or reflect what we see around us, rather than what we feel? Or conversely: what if we cannot help but express the uncontrollable within us?
These thoughts & questions, amongst others, have informed the work in Chaotic Bodies. I have no fixed answers – but am enjoying the journey through the questions.
Wound up in the course of my day’s work wandering through the interwebs, and came across this:
It made me quite pleased that I allowed myself a little digression, a little roam through unintended places. Finding unexpected things can be pleasant.
Hope you enjoy it too.