Moving through muddy waters

Friends and strangers surrounded me on Saturday evening.

For the second time in four weeks, I unfolded the layers of my process and practice.

I believe dance and performance are service.

I believe dance is a vehicle for non-violent, positive social change.

I believe that artists who dance can be proficient in psychical technique, performance technique, and in the techniques of embodied empathy. (I'm learning and unpacking how to talk about, execute, and coach all of these).

I believe in story-telling and story-sharing.

I believe that in movement, we develop a better understanding of our bodies. In better understanding our bodies, we better know ourselves. In better knowing ourselves, we have the capacity to sympathize, empathize, and be patient with others. In patience, we can build bridges.

I believe we all have bodies; therefore, we can all move. We experience the world through these bodies and our bodies hold our stories.

The past few weeks have demonstrated that I'm not alone in these ideas. At this moment in time, these threads are very much needed in the fabric of our society.

Where do you need to be known? Be seen? Share your story? Move? Matter?

*    *    *    *    *    *

Thank you PhiladelphiaDance.org and The Whole Shebang for the In Process residency. Thank you to the friends, family, and supporters who participated in the 90 minute private showing for "Left Behind".

Thank you Widener University and the City of Chester for hosting the Dance and Creative Placemaking Workshop in June. Thank you to the friends and strangers who comprised the audience for the Friday performance and the workshop participants who collaborated and challenged each other to use dance as a form of community building.

Thanks, to each of you for taking a risk and joining me on this journey! I'm grateful for your trust as I continue to dig into the layers and depths of my process and slowly allow the murkiness to settle into clarity and understanding.

Until the next time...

Shedding, Molting, Emerging

In May I was awarded the PhiladelphiaDance.org's summer In Process Residency at The Whole Shebang.

Photographer, artist, creative spirit, mentor, and friend Ellen Rosenberg shared space at our rehearsals. Below are some of her impressions of the process of "Left Behind", through her eyes and lens. From her album "Creative spirit of women"...

"a moment of contemplation"

"all are connected.. a hand reading our to let us know someone is always there.."

"and the wall holds us up or keeps us silent?"

"Bearing another's weight always.."

"bring all into the circle with no judgement"

"no one shall be alone"

"Trust and connection"

Breach: Left Behind - The research gets real!

One of my fav quotes:

Last December, Lafayette College requested that I create a dance inspired by and in conjunction with Alison Saar's instillation, "Breach". Ms. Saar was inspired by the 1927 flooding of the Mississippi Riverbed; I received much of her research in the beginning stages of the project.

Reviewing the initial research from Ms. Saar's work left me questioning how I could insert myself into the storytelling process. I had never experienced a flood, but had felt left behind. While visiting Central Texas in late May, the research got (painfully) real.

If you were paying attention to the news and anything other than election coverage was playing in late May (before the shootings and trauma), you might have become aware of the flooding in Central Texas. I had the opportunity (?) to experience the amazing power and destruction of water first hand. In a sense, living my way into an answer...

Below are some images:

A water gap designed to control the flow of the water. The water decided otherwise. 

One of the town roads.

Slightly redundant... 

Heading into the river/ town road. 

That's the top of the truck in the right corner. The water was over the road and
destroyed the fencing along the side of the road. We were only able to get
through because Mr. Ted knew the roads and the landscape so well.
We didn't cross through anything unknown. 

Interstate 6 in Cisco, TX. The entire section of interstate
was swept away.

Check out the final process in September: "Breach: Left Behind"