Interconnect: Process

Embodied Interconnection: Intermedia Performance as Environmental Advocacy

Read full distinction thesis:Download

The seed of this process started in 2017 with the creation of Tales of the Deep: the first time that I explored an environmental theme with my choreography that connected to my own philosophical perspective on our relationship to the natural world. I revisited this idea with Marshland in 2019, this time experimenting with improvisational responses to videos of the ecosystem in order to develop the material. In 2020, I approached yet another ecosystem with WASTELAND that emphasized a message of harm and change. Each of these projects felt just a little unfinished and my thesis provided space to revisit these with new perspective and interconnect them in a way that tied together my interests in environmental relationships, dance, and intermedia.

As I entered this process I was influenced by the writings of Adrienne Marie Brown, Lucy Lippard, Jane Bennett, William Cronon, Terry Tempest Williams, Richard White, Jennifer Monson, Jeffrey Ellis, Octavia Butler, James Proctor, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Giovanna Di Chiro, and Robert Harrison. I arrived at a few key ideas to guide the process:

  • All bodies will respond to the environment around them differently and I am more interested in how my dancers’ bodies respond than in making them try to match how my body responds.
  • I want to speak for something rather than against.
  • I am interested in what it looks like to embrace our relationship to nature in all of its complexity and oppose the assumed dichotomy between natural and human spaces.
  • I am interested in facilitation that embraces the creativity of matter and explores the relationship between the material of our bodies and those surrounding us.
  • I am interested in taking things slowly and digging deeply, taking notice of what is in the space and prioritizing that experience over the outcome.
  • All boundaries are permeable.

My previous projects approached three different ecosystems: coral reefs, wetlands, and temperate rainforests. I was drawn to each of these for different reasons. In middle school I was exposed to marine biology through summer camps and science fair projects that stoked my curiosity for the small and vulnerable organisms that held up the complex food webs of the oceans. When I moved to Ohio for college I lived close to the Olentangy River and spent hours watching frogs, ducks, and herons move through the riparian ecosystems that were such a vital part of the midwestern watershed and yet also some of the most highly damaged ecosystems in the country due to human impacts. Through my engagement with the Sierra Student Coalition during college I traveled to West Virginia to organize against mountaintop removal and got to experience firsthand the dichotomies in place within one of the richest ecological systems in our country but poorest human population.

As I began to interweave my thoughts about these ecosystems into one narrative it required some research into the ecological functions that they each fulfill. I discovered connected migration patterns, waterways, and uses. I kept being brought back to the question of “Where are the edges?” and realizing that there is no simple answer for these ecosystems any more than there is a simple answer for our bodies. I also discovered many long-standing problems that have been caused by human interaction with these ecosystems but that are more complicated than just ignorance or greed. I wondered what it would look like to build a new ethos of relating to these ecosystems and realized that in many ways it would mean a new way of relating to ourselves as well. At the same time I know that it will take us decades to undo damages and rebuild our relationships to each other and the planet. I wanted to focus, not on the seeming impossible journey ahead of us, but the reasons that we choose to embark upon it, the awe and wonder and presence that we gain when we realize our interconnection to the planet.

Two main questions arose that I wanted to explore with the project:

1) How can movement help increase individual and group awareness of the human body’s physical interconnectedness with the environment?

2) How can intermedia performance impact the audience’s perception of human relationships with the environment?

In order to investigate how our bodies respond and relate to each of these ecosystems, a vital part of the process was traveling to them and taking 4-5 hours for embodied research with each one. Using the key ideas I had developed over the summer of research and leaning on/adjusting the scores provided in A Field Guide to iLANDing by Jennifer Monson and others, I created a series of scores tailored to each ecosystem to help us explore our relationships with them. I prepared the dancers for the ecosystem with some information about it for them to read before our visit and have some context for the experience however, the main goal was to collect in the moment responses.

Cuyahoga National Park – Beaver Marsh OverviewDownload
Biscayne National Park – Coral Reefs Overview
Download
New River Gorge National Park – Temperate Rainforest OverviewDownload
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Embracing Yoga’s Roots Course

This summer I was able to participate in Susanna Barkataki’s Embracing Yoga’s Roots Course. It is an extra, in-depth course for Yoga teachers to learn about the historical and spiritual roots of Yoga and teach classes that more authentically represent all aspects of the practice. I wanted to take this course in order to decolonize my own practice and ensure that I was not contributing to the appropriation of Yoga in my teaching.

While my initial plan was to complete the Embracing Yoga’s Roots Course during the month of May, it ended up taking me the whole summer because of the depth of information that was included. There were four modules of specific course materials but a wealth of bonus content that I found really useful to dig into. Ultimately it was a summer full of deep practice and learning that I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to experience.

One thing that the course emphasized was that in order to teach a more honoring Yoga class, you must also have a deeper and more honoring Yoga practice. It introduced me to people, practices, and ideas that allowed me to explore my own Yoga practice deeper and use that to inform my teaching. While the course did explain how colonialism and cultural appropriation has impacted Yoga in the West, Susanna also encouraged all of us to use our own critical thinking for each situation that felt wrong to us and really develop our own sense of what is appropriate with the information she gave. She emphasized at all times that Yoga and antiracist work are similar in that there is no checklist that you can complete and say that you are done. Perfection is often not attainable nor does right action have to look exactly the same for everyone. I was pushed creatively in a lot of ways when designing my own Yoga class to avoid falling back on the appropriative ways of teaching that have become ingrained in Western Yoga classes, and instead to create something new that felt truer to my practice of Yoga. As my final project, I developed a Yoga class that includes pranayama (breathwork), dhyana (meditation), dharana (mindfulness), sankalpa (intention), yamas and niyamas (Yoga ethics), and asana (movement). I learned how to incorporate a land acknowledgement and a spiritual lineage acknowledgement in the opening of the class to ground my future students in the history of our space and practice. I also developed a plan for contributing to reparations toward the South Asian lineage that Yoga comes from, which is also part of the Yoga practice of asteya (generosity, non-stealing).

At the end of this training, I feel that my voice as a teacher has become more clarified just as my practice of Yoga has become clarified. I also feel like this was just the start of my journey. I still have access to the community that was taking the course and so many contacts and connections from the last couple of months that will help me continue this work beyond the course. My awareness and practice of Yoga has expanded to every aspect of my life and become a clarifying perspective from which to address complexity.

evolve

I had the pleasure of being in Angela Pujolas’ senior project this past semester. We worked on several group improvisation scores and explored how associations of color and feeling impacted our movement choices. It was a beautiful experience to persevere through the Covid restrictions with so many amazing artists, and the resulting performance was the first time in a long time that I was able to touch other dancers in a piece. It was really amazing for those of us dancing and for those witnessing.

Resilience, unfamiliarity, and joy with Moxy Martinez

This was a piece that I wrote after interviewing Columbus musician and DJ, Moxy Martinez. This interview was done in connection with Beverly Glenn Copeland’s performance at the Wexner Center for the Arts and as part of the Performance, Interpreted. writing cohort at Ohio State University.

View the full article on the Wexner Center for the Arts website: https://wexarts.org/read-watch-listen/resilience-unfamiliarity-and-joy-moxy-martinez

Onward

I was very excited to have the opportunity to choreograph a piece on Hillcrest High School Dance Company, my alma mater. After having the chance to teach for them during their August company retreat, it was really cool to see how they have grown as a company over the past couple of months. I had two challenges going into this process: 1) trying to keep everyone as spaced apart as possible to maintain Covid safety, and 2) somewhat limited time, with only about 8 hours of rehearsal to set the whole piece. Knowing that they will come back and polish all of the movement in March when they prepare for their show and leaving them with videos of myself performing the movement, I decided to focus on getting the material laid and the structure as clear as possible. Though looking back, I do think I could have spent more time emphasizing what the movement was meant to communicate and specifying textures, even if it meant less time to put the whole thing together. Last time I set a piece on 30 dancers it was three years ago when I was President of this very dance company, so it took a moment to adjust to how much time it took to do everything.

I was really excited about using some of the choreographic tools that I developed during my Independent Study project this past fall semester. The main one that I used was a score that prompted the dancers to create their own solos that were all unique but related in rhythm and texture. While this was challenging in some ways because the dancers’ choices were unpredictable, it gave them a sense of ownership for that movement and helped them find their own story within the dance.

Around this time we were starting to hear about the possibility that widespread vaccination might be completed by April or May 2021, which is around the time that their concert is set to occur. I was inspired to make something that focused on community, moving together and forward. The entire piece progresses from stage right to left as the dancers slowly shift their focus from what they left behind to what they are moving toward. The solos open the piece and focus on a tension and unwillingness to let go but by the end they are all moving optimistically in unison to a rhythmic beat that takes them off stage. I hoped for the dancers to find a space for themselves within the work and when they perform it in April it will give a sense of moving onward for everyone, as we hopefully will be moving out of this pandemic.

Music: Doll’s Estate by Youth Lagoon

Program Note: The process of moving on often means moving through stillness, tension, and unease, caught between the past and the future until we finally let go, and fall together towards what is next.