Starts confined and in an invisible integument
Photo by Joshua Cazoe
After I returned I continued the (White Dresses) series started in Berlin Why Did You Go So Far? with Where Are You Now? I performed as part of the CoCo (Contemporary Choreographers Collective) Festival at the Little Carib Theater.This series works out of memory almost as a kind of reenactment, the decision to repeat it is to dialogue with myself and hopefully take it out of myself as a kind of burden worn like second skin. This makes memory into ritual.
The actions were minimalist to get to a very raw aspect of memory. I start obscured by darkness, crouched and contorted underneath a chair and very close to the audience off stage. As the music starts slowly I start to move, at first I am swaying back and forth. Then the urgency to escape starts to rise within me and I need to break free even though I am not behind any actual bars. It is as though I am confined to an invisible barrier and I use my body in ways to make the most of my limited space. Eventually in my absurd struggle I make it on the chair and from that height it becomes easier to crawl onto the stage. Once I have made it to that distance I am not free, the more I try to rise and stand is the more I fall. But with enough practice I am now confident enough to bring that chair, that somehow both confined me and set me free, up with me. It is yet more struggle to drag it up on the stage and with the final pull I fall with it and we engage in a strange dance consisting of me trying to conquer the chair and make it be a chair- static for me to sit on. Only when this is achieved, when I was able to sit on it, was the performance over
After I went so far I had to sit down and ask myself Where Am I Now, Really?
Ends seatedPhoto by Karen Johnstone
