Artist's Statement 2001-02

For the past year and a half I have been concentrating on solo and group work.

Solo Work

Premature Release: for Nonie Spring 2001, and Premature Release: for P and N Spring 2002

My solo is the response to a circular path that my life took. Originally from Roanoke, VA, I spent my youth on the Hollins University campus. After leaving this area for four years to explore new environments, I found myself wanting to return home. I originally conceived my solo as an opportunity to confront issues from my past. The challenge was at first mental and with the solo’s transformation, physical. The work is not only an intense exploration of past events, but also an exploration of how these and other events have formed my present identity. Throughout this process, I learned that it is best to remove one’s self from the core idea of a work in order to reach an objective level in which one can constructively critique the work.

With the second version of the solo I wanted to concentrate on how the work felt as a whole and how the work reflected my identity. I chose to create the sound score in order to have absolute control over my artistic intentions. However, I did not allow myself to become dependent on these sounds and thus, I chose to work with other types of music and silence. The movement had to stand-alone just as I do in everyday life. This work is most definitely about making a statement to myself. I invite the audience to watch the transformation of my mind and body on stage, but ultimately, this dance is about being secure in my identity and accepting the past.

This piece is dedicated to my grandfather Noël Fassié, and my childhood imaginary friend Nonie.

Group Work

MirrorPhase Spring 2002, and Experimental Underlay Spring 2002

My desire to make a group piece with rave movement comes from my passion for raves and electronic music. Rave parties were the first places at which I truly experienced improvisational movement. At sixteen I began to develop my own movement vocabulary, which combined all my knowledge of dance. Naturally, as I progressed as a dancer my dancing at raves became more complex and fully integrated into my body. The music and the atmosphere at raves pulled me in and gave me a safe haven where I could fully express myself. Raves, much like the disco scene, are a place where ‘anything goes’. In this atmosphere I am comfortable with my movement and have thus learned to really lose myself within the music. A rave has many ritualistic qualities which can help channel people into a trance. This trance is most often the result of the powerful combination of music and dance. Raves can also be a place for spiritual rejuvenation: dancing all night allows me to release stress from my body and mind.

As I was not raised with a religion, dancing at parties is my method of either tapping into my psyche or escaping it altogether as the music takes control of my body. It has always been this choice that has attracted me to the rave scene. The driving rhythms, undoubtedly a reflection of the beating of the human heart, establish a sense of continuity, which one can choose to consciously follow or ignore, but which nevertheless controls one’s movement. A participant at a rave has a choice to directly be affected by the music or just allow it to pass by them.

MirrorPhase is about identifying patterns in my movement, isolating them, and setting them on the dancers. Experimental Underlay is much more about what an actual rave experience is like for me : the personal and spiritual concentrated and intensified. After spending two semesters working with the same dancers I now truly see how their movement and mindset have been transformed by my rehearsals. Since I have spent most of my time ‘inside’ of the movement, my rehearsals have enabled me to see how uniquely each dancer interprets my vocabulary of rave movement. In the future, I hope to be able to continue my study of rave movement in different venues.

 

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