I am a mapper of midwestern urban spaces, a maker of dances that envision what could be possible within a space- alternatives to accepted realities of spatial constraints. I am motivated by all that is tangible (the body, decaying materials, light, already existing pathways in the natural world) as well as imaginative makings. Positioning a single body upside down underneath a highway overpass while five lanes of cars rush by tells a different story than driving through that known structure. On a proscenium stage, maybe it is arms that forward swing again and again, like windmills, like wings, until the light blurs the actions and illuminates the possibility of the body to push past human form.
I arrive to the practice of dance making through home spun slowness, a no car childhood spent walking and biking everywhere, storytelling as the motor for passing through distance to get to place. A no car childhood introduced the choreography of walking through midwestern city to arrive to all the places of the daily, attentive to the dailiness unfolding, spatial practices as a way of organizing possibility.
Years as an olympic level athlete (captain of the usa national team/rhythmic gymnastics) now distill down to a seeing the O U T O F B O U N D S edges of the floor exercise, a desire to know threshold boundary (that no go area of losing the competition); a threshold of experiencing loss. A desire to re-know the dynamics of high-level sport actions of coil release precision as well as wild flop fall catch release. There’s a certain tempo and force of work within sport, muscles made to coil release ingrained so bone deep. What is the rhythm of this work and how can it be softly summoned forth? How to conjure our training histories, gently disorient their strong purposes to reorient our objectives, allow in new ways of being?
All this arrives me to building choreographies that are highly physical endeavors made bright with precision, knife edge of fingertips pointed towards what comes next. Thoughts of a cavernous interior heaving wide, performer enduring more rise and fall—running towards/trying to catch-see the desire to know this moment unfolding. Long stretches of nothing, or waiting, or slow unfoldings of durational chunks of material that once passed through, rush the work forward with focus and momentum.
in my making, i think about geologic time, fascial systems, the subterranean pulling downwards and weight of sky pulling chest up, the uprightness of the walk or the walk as an almost fall. i think about lineage and who/whose work and practices i’m inspired by/asking to (figuratively) join me in the space of dance making: (visual art/walkers) bas jan ader, helena almeida, helen mirra, (choreographers) ivy baldwin, beth gill, simon whitehead (writers) kazou ishiguro, joanna klink, don delillo, robert macfarlane. as a soft watery cancer, i think about sand crabs stumbling forward with shell on back, sometimes clumsily, sometimes with grace always home-ing, always searching for some temporary formation of home. I want that too, home-ing with each class, rehearsal, choreography I make.
image one: performing with wild space dance/performing in the milwaukee river (milwaukee, wi) image two: lAWRENCE UNIVERSITY/theatre arts’ MAINSTAGE PRODUCTION (APPLETON, WI), PC: ken cobb