J  i  l  l  i  a  n    P  e  ñ  a

 

performances.research.manifesto

currentwhereabouts.resume.contact

statement of intent/artist's statement

 

Performance allows art a passage into the fourth dimension: time. My work focuses on both the viewer's and the performer's experience of time and on manipulating their perception. To do this, I create movement and environments that are constant, and equal from one moment to the next. Human perception of time is measured through change, so although the performers move, using a postmodern dance vocabulary, nothing ultimately happens. Performance can be approached from three distinct forms: physical, emotional, and mental. I am not interested in challenging the physicality of the performers in the work, nor am I aiming to draw out an emotional reaction. Instead, I emphasize visual qualities from a conceptual background. In the end, although it travels through space and time, my work is similar to two-dimensional art.  

I have been trained classically in dance and theatre since youth; always passionate about performance, but unfulfilled by the rigid traditions. In college, I was encouraged to transform my cynicism into creating works that emphasized my own ideals, incorporating contemporary aesthetics of architecture, installation, and fashion. Although my work is grounded in dance, using movement as a main component, I feel that a graduate program in studio art is best suited to my concerns. In order to progress my understanding of the body, I have remained in dance-based undergraduate programs. Now, however, I seek a community willing to view my work outside the limited definitions of the young art form of dance. I desire critical feedback from artists practicing alternative disciplines. School of the Art Institute of Chicago’s unique combination of a Performance emphasis within a Studio Art context reflects a synthesis of beliefs that are exactly what I am looking for in a graduate school. 

 

Currently, I am interested in transforming traditional theatre venues through performance and set design. Upon touring SAIC, I also noticed many alternative spaces for performances that captivated me, including the intimacy of the small, white graduate studios. I would also like to participate in collaborations—especially between interior architects and fashion designers. In the past several years, I have developed and defined my personal vocabulary and style—in the next years I hope to continue experimenting with these forms and push myself to create longer spectacle-like performances. 

 

Panoramic Still is a four-dimensional color field painting. From the audience, the color of the lights and my clothing vibrate against each other. To emphasize this, I randomly chose music that would also feel jarring and create friction against the yellow lights. Although on the video I come out clearer than in the performance, I fade in with the space, becoming, instead of a dancer, an oscillating line in the painting. I developed a movement score that was awkward and disjointed, but based it on the simple task of moving from one side of the space to the other. Thus, it is predictable--allowing the viewer to cease wondering about the future and passively watch. Together, the music, the movement, and the environment fade into monotone. 

I created Intermission as a study in relativity. By the end of the piece, I hoped the viewer would look back and not be able to distinguish any one moment from anther. For example, at the same time that Gina appears in your memory on stage right, she is simultaneously on stage left. The work is slow and flows directly, but becomes a blur after the ten long minutes of consistency. The movements are subtle and become habitual to the dancers, and thus to the audience--the only task the dancers have is to remain present, since their bodies will remember the precise order of the movements. Although I selected six very different women to perform, I hoped that nobody would stand out, and that each body would be equal to the next. I chose performers who resembled each other physically, and whose skin and hair color complemented each other and popped out against the white of the costumes and the black of the stage. The airy tulle outfits added softness and lightness to the grounded composition.