My work is about being present, healing and sharing life experiences with each other in simple yet profound ways.
Never having been to the Dominican Republic, I decided to do a piece that would enable me to share my initial reactions to this country with the people in attendance to the festival. The piece is based on my current body of work- Movement in Context. Which looks at movement as a practical means of expressive exploration in any given environment. It is about moving for a reason; i.e climbing a tree, moving with/around another person, moving around/with/ontopof furniture in a room with the purpose of being expressive. In this situation, Movement in Context takes on the shape of a roaming physical narrative. I arrived two days before the festival began to give myself time to experience the place and develop a narrative to share. I went around videoing my experiences with my iPhone. I also collected objects and materials during my journeys. For the performance I played the video on a wall of the museum behind me. I dressed as I normally would, carrying my backpack filled with the objects I had collected on the journey. In the video there are some of the objects I collected, as well as the process of collection. I stood before the projection taking objects out of my bag and one by one and dancing with them to re-tell the story of how I found them, and also my reaction to them as objects. Through the process of live re-collection I channeled the greater meaning of my recent experience and purpose of sharing. In this way, the work in it's reflective state, became present and cathartic for me. In the moment of performance I became overwhelmed by a sense of wholeness and unity with the people and the place. I felt the lines of all my recent experiences blur together in the golden brown of my skin. I felt the eyes of the audience listening and charging my understanding.This was the first half of the performance. For the second half I invited a friend from Miami, Sebastian Duncan-Portuondo to move with me live, playing with each other the space and the audience. We hid behind potted plants. danced on each other and around each other, went into the crowd and bumped against people, sang etc. This section demonstrated to the potential for live physical narration. Reflexion/Live is a piece that operates from the perspective that we live in a world that we can and should engage in in a more playful and physical way. Furthermore, Reflexion/Live is working to discover a way that we can tell physical narratives to each other. Returning to our roots as cave men and women but being inclusive of our beautiful and frightening intellects is where the piece is positioned