Photo:  Pam White;  Sculpture:  Gillian Jagger

I will be performing on June 28 as part of the Body-Mind Centering Association conference at Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, NY.  The performance is billed as “a showcase of somatic choreographers.”  I am not sure what that means, and there seems to be some disagreement online.

For the moment, I am liking what Barbara Mahler, from the Naropa Institute has to say about it: “I believe we, as a culture, have come to think of somatic work as having a loose and undefined physicality, as well as the opposite, which is dance as a conglomerate of outer-worldly movements and contortions, acrobatics and legs wrapping around one’s head. That is not all there is to choreography, dancing and performance.  For me, choreography has form, structure time, design, composition, emotion, perspective, clarity, movement invention, and rigor; and the many parts make up a whole.”

I will be performing the full-length version of SPEAK, which is rooted in my curiosity about language and the absence of language in its usual form.  It was sparked by work with my autistic godson and some physical research into aphasia, apraxia and synesthesia.  In the dance, I obsessively manipulate a number of bodily “languages:” gestural, postural, spatial and dynamic.  Are somatics a part of that?  Absolutely.  Was that my point of entry in making the dance?  Absolutely not.  Could somatics be a point of entry for making a dance?  Absolutely.  Do somatic explorations thread their way through my dancemaking practice?  Absolutely.

I will be sharing the program with Veena Chandra, Chrissy Nelson, Elaine Colandrea, Kate Morgan and a film by Lauren Kearns.  Should be a lovely evening.  Contact me to inquire about tickets.