The couch:

After taking a sewing workshop I felt all the scrap pieces of fabric, buttons, zippers, and pins needed a place to shine. This is the set of the first draft of this piece, and what feels important to me is this couch. I can see it symbolizing so much of who I am, what my work is, and what it can be. I keep discovering ways in which it feeds me and I hope I can replicate it and bring it to the stage. Most intriguing is the fabric in the middle, a tropical drawing of parrots and palm trees which is the featured image for this page.

The first draft:

Everything else that is hot for me:

• In my last work, In one body, where I went in and out between social rhythms and improvisational prompts. It was special in that, I was semi-professionally showing my work for the very first time. It also keeps me questioning today, what is at the edge of social dance and abstract dance? How can they be more the same? Can they co-exist?
• The theme of going in and out of things.
• The theme of huge moments happenings, and then dissipating. When they’re gone we have to leave them behind and maybe they exist without us taking part in them anymore.
• In the theme of the last point, you can’t experience those huge moments twice. Every one of them as unique as the next, even when we attempt to repeat them.
• “For the select few that love a wheelchair user, the sound of that Velcro may well recall moments of intimacy. It is such a cultural moment… Of course, non-disabled people appreciate this moment. But what it actually means to see and feel strapping on stage, to hear and recognize the sound of velcro unfurling is different and more complex, for those of us in the disability community” – Alice Shepard. I love the idea of doing something that you and your people in the audience share, the sheer power to evoke and call back specific memories and feelings in the people in some people in the audience.
• Applying my research in a very intentional way. This could mean the very literal possibility of eye-tracking being projected during the final piece. It could also mean answering questions that came from my research and letting that be the guide for the final piece.
• Learning my process and what gets me in the zone. Not only the zone of creating but the zone of dancing, which one could say are both the same zone.
• Nameless movement.
• The bodies that ripple in my body.

Where I’m at:

I am very new to seeing myself as a creator, especially in dance. It is daunting yet such a privilege to be given the space/guidance to create, the stage to show, and an audience to witness my work. Thankfully I have been surrounded by people who believe in my artistry and who have found something interesting about what I’ve made so far. That instilled confidence empowers me to just keep thinking and keep making. In the end, I hope to make someone feel something through me.