ARTIST STATEMENT

...architecture >> observation >> space >> identity

I desire to find embodied utopia through exploring the moving body and use this pursuit as a means for healing myself. This desire has no arrival point, but continuously fuels the work that I create.

My work values the immersion of disciplines, often using multimedia to challenge the boundary of dance. I present technological forms as choreography, conversing with the tension of the shifting Seattle urban landscape and increased digitalizing of reality.

I have an authority complex and aim to challenge authority. In response, my work disperses power in unconventional ways through utilizing real-time decision making within scores and improvisation. By creating alternative power structures, the work fosters collaboration and dynamic methods of creating. I build choreographic structures that enable alternative forms of relating to other humans. My work challenges the audience, not existing as propaganda, but creating a portal for artists and audiences to be disrupted, speak, listen, empathize, reflect, and transform.

I start with a spatial field. The field is a frame. That field holds all the possibilities, choices, and variations of movement. I enter the studio with my collaborators and we engage our subconscious through journaling or meditation. From this wide place of unknowing, we begin to ask questions. What is present in your body today? The questions lead to building structures within the frame. These structures or scores create space for movement to evolve from questioning. This process is repeated over time with a range of scores, from ones that are very precise (such as choreographic phrases), to ones that are very ambiguous (such as a texture or broad concept). The scores are physically researched through improvisation. I accumulate and accumulate material, and then ask more questions about context and meaning. Why is this coming from my body? What is the source of this movement and what is it in dialogue with? The work emerges and refines itself through this process of continual building and dissecting of choreographic structures over an extended period of time propelled by the process questioning. In this way, the process parallels my experience of my queerness at its core. The result of this process is work that is complex and layered, containing the experience, memories, and desires of each collaborator involved.