COLOR STUDIES
A transdisciplinary, multi-installment study of color, ecology + choreography. The experience and sensorium of Color - what it elicits, conjures, and conveys in, around, and beyond language. Stories and memories hidden in bones and flesh, tucked in the corners of homes long-since lived in. Vibration, frequency, afterimage, ephemeral, spilling surfaces, structure without containment - expansive, expressive, limitless, and pulsing.
red dirt glitter (in-process)
red dirt glitter (working title) indulges in color and other saturations—thick, earthy, quick-silver action with a guttural, mystic-warrior-ness… Fauvist-ly bent. Subterraneously, the project explores aesthetic conceptions through constellatory and compost-based processes, harnessing the phenomenological impact of interaction to catalyze new meaning and form.
Support: UMD-ARHU Junior Faculty Summer Research Award and the Maya Brin Endowed Professorship in Dance.
VIDEO:
untitled vital glacier (Cyan #02)
A response to living in dangerous consequences of progress and individualism, untitled vital glacier (2021) explores the colossal beauty and profundity of the natural world. From calving glaciers to geologic time, the work seeks kinship from Nature’s structures, intelligence, and ability to change.
Candace Scarborough (Marielis Garcia in performance), Kaitlin Fox, Christina Robson, and Sydney Lemelin. Original live sound by Adam Crawley aka DJ Plié.
Elegy for Mary (Cyan #01)
"I am six years younger than my mother's death." Shadow, chorus, haunting, reckoning. Using movement, text, and simple lighting, this study recounts a familial event - embodied, reshaped, and felt over time. It is a study of dis/re/orientation, relating to the present and future because of the past.
Conceived and performed by Kendra Portier. This footage is the first public sharing of this work-in-process, presented by Lion's Jaw Festival 2019 at Green Street Theater, Boston MA.
Burnish (Magenta #03, #08-1, #08-2, #08-3)
Burnish sources the phenomenon of magenta into choreographic study. With driving, elliptical rhythm, six performers yield to the experience of Color.
“Building, climactic, flirtatious, ecstatic, melancholic phrases, all set to a swirling electronic soundscape…”
Burnish #08: Kaitlin Fox, Laurel Snyder, Sarah Beth Oppenheim/Marion Spencer, Candace Scarborough, Anna Adams Stark, Jasmine Hearn/Kendra Portier. Supported by the Dorothy Madden Dance Research Project and an ARHU Seed Grant.
#08-3/ Dance Theater, Clarice Performing Arts Center at the University of Maryland, College Park
#08-2/ Alumni Gym, Bates Dance Festival
#08-1/ Jack Crystal Theater, NYU Tisch School of the Arts, Summer Dance Residency
Burnish #03: MK Ford, Leah Wilks, Kaitlin Fox, Lindsey Jennings, Alexis Miller, Natalie Stehly, Phoebe Ballard. Studio One Theater, Krannert Center, University of Illinois Urbana Champaign.
MEDIA:
Photo (left top) by Jonathan Hsu.
Photo (left below) by Natalie Fiol
Glorious Discoloration (Magenta #01)
Commission and collaboration with Zenon Dance Company. Presented at the Cowles Center (MN)
Color Studies (Educational Commissions)
COLOSSAL with The Wooden Floor
Commissioned by The Wooden Floor (Santa Ana, CA, ages 14-17): COLOSSAL explores the energy, texture, color, and poeticism of geologic mechanizations - the majestic and cataclysmic. Arriving like a movement painting, the dancers move through vibrant swells of action that cascade, careen, and skitter into quicksilver rhythms and simmering pools of patience and care. Complex patterns unearthed like hills shaped by time, rivers, and wind, the performers are the architects, the painters, the creators of a world built together.
goldfinch at UMD
A ballet-based study of color created with and performed by graduate and undergraduate students at the University of Maryland, College Park. Performed aspart of Faculty Dance Concert at the Clarice Performing Arts Center and ACDA at Slippery Rock University. Photo (left): Thai Nguyen
High Violet (Magenta #06) at UMD
Created with and performed by graduate and undergraduate students at the University of Maryland, College Park. Performed as part of Faculty Dance Concert at the Clarice Performing Arts Center, Millennium Stage at Lincoln Center, ACDA at Seton Hill College (PA). Photo (left): Jonathan Hsu
Double Chroma (Magenta #05) at Emory University
Created with and performed by Emory Dance Company. Performed at the Schwartz Center for Performing Arts (GA).