Pools of light warm our feet as we stand in a circle facing one another. The sun is always high in the sky by this time. It comes together like setting mosaic tiles into a window sill. The tiles are pretty themselves, but it is where they are placed and where they face which produces the magnificence. We each share our own tiles. We add tiles of books, events, ideas, questions, discoveries... They are thrown together, mix & matched, broken down, reversed, and scattered about. We glue and re-glue. How will the image appear? How will the image be understood? As dancers, we must be masters of communication. Our bodies must act as servants to the dictations of the mind for information to be absorbed and interpreted eloquently.
Josh’s creation process pushes us to explore levels of embodiment which we do not previously conceive. What is a duet missing one person? What is a solo with two people? What is a broken expectation, and how is it explicated? How do we inhabit multiple perceptions of reality so we can understand how someone else understands? Each rehearsal is spent turning questions like these inside out and backwards, chewed up and spit out. In our most recent work, BUD, we are exploring questions surrounding sexuality in our world today. What effect does one’s coming out experience have on years passed? How do homo/heterosexual people view the word gay? What role do the generalizations and archetypes of homosexuality play in how we view ourselves and others?
The company with NY based multimedia artist Brian Kenny in rehearsal for Bud.
I appreciate the work for the manner in which it forms. Pieces are placed and moved and removed until the result is a snug fit. It is eclectic and tumultuous. The room for question and discovery pushes us to steer from habit and demand ferocious curiosity. There is no “this is how it should be, how it will be.” Everything is explored in order to find the clearest message. We erupt around the studio to Brandon Carson’s original drum score. We let the light produce little drops on our foreheads and spill to the floor.
