TECHNIQUES FOR POSSESSION: BECOMING HOLE

Techniques for Possession: Becoming Hole is an hour long structured improvisational piece that explores collectivity and disorientation. The hole in question is an over-arching metaphor for abjection, for longing, for absence. The hole refers to the fleshy holes of the body—tubular anatomy—the body splayed inside out. The hole is the wormhole that allows us to tilt sideways, slip through alternate realities, to queer formalism and symmetry.

I am interested in the multiplicity of ways we can “together”. In Western concert dance this has often looked like unison movements. Queering this idea of “unison”, we will make it a verb “unison-ing” and ask what are the underlying structures of desire or sensation that bring us together. We ask: “what is the weight of your reality meeting mine? Where is the pleasure in the friction between you and me?” As an ensemble, we morph in and out of individual and group forms, becoming a furry mass, a globular being, a herd of caribou, and a school choir.

What happens on the other side of disorientation? I think it allows for a state of greater sensitivity. For me, disorientation practices are ways of practicing surrendering.

How is looking like touching? How is sound touching me? What if I could caress you from across the room and you really feel it? What would it mean to insist upon everyone in this room as a part of one large organism? If the room were a body and each of us were an organ, how would we function? Using the sensuousness of organs and skin as our starting point.

As a maker, I work with processes. I am interested in building shared practices, languages – a culture is formed within each process and extends over time. Creating a culture, a community. This is the ground from which the work springs.