falling queens. solo(nosolos) (all photos Owl Eye Productions)
This project has grown so much, and it's such a joy to be inside its development. We've begun working on falling queens. v.CALI, with a few brave souls trying to get present. I feel so blessed to have had a short residency with Show Box LA, and to have had the opportunities in the last year to work with folks like Danielle Agami / ate9, Sara Shelton Mann, Amara T. Smith/Deep Waters Dance Theater, Luciana Achugar and Ishmael Houston-Jones. Each has given me tools for re-thinking the body as a transmitter of consciousness, as a vessel for the dead.
It is, at times, painful.
Yesterday in the studio I was practicing backward-movement. I was thinking about the leap over the side of the slave ship and if it is possible to re-imagine that moment in reverse. To bring the dead back on-board to be with us, now. All this moving backward, and at some point my arms were out to the side, my body was tilted, and I was suddenly, sharply, reminded of a moment shared with my friend and partner a few days before. It was a simple moment on the beach, we were running like airplanes preparing for take-off.
Something struck me -- I mean, physically, like a thing striking one's body. The recollection of that moment and all the good feelings attached to it, but out of time. A disruption in the linear flow of time with a physicality that struck me down, and I began to cry uncontrollably. I must've cried for five minutes before I could stop. Really wailing, sobbing. Something out of time had come back into my body and disturbed me; it was beautiful and warm and utterly disturbing.
I am not a pro at this work. I hope to never be. I am glad to know I still have a feeling-body to be disturbed.













