On April 3-4 of this spring, the Barnard Department of Dance held its Senior Creative Thesis Showing at Minor Latham Playhouse. My piece, "circular room constellated with birds" premiered there, danced by the talented and endlessly creative Jules Bakshi, Emily Bock, Anina Hewey, Hadley Thomas Smith, and myself. The piece is inspired in part by the paintings of Spanish and Mexican painter Remedios Varo and the poetry collection, entitled "Night Journey," of Argentine poet María Negroni: both of these artists maintain a certain, slightly unsettling, but intriguing quality in their works, following the self-contained, abrupt logic of dreams and strange landscapes, and focusing often on mystic, female figures within that uncertainty. The piece uses the text of Negroni's poetry - literally written on the body and deciphered there - as well as both simple, task-like interactions and "dancey dance" (as we called it in rehearsals) to create this somewhat sinister, ambiguous landscape on the proscenium stage. Hopefully more pictures and video to come. Here are the program notes:
Title: circular room, constellated with birds
Choreographer: Tara Aisha Willis and dancers
Music: Joan Jeanrenaud, Quincy Jones, Philip Glass
Cast: Jules Bakshi, Emily Bock, Anina Hewey, Hadley Thomas Smith, and Tara Aisha Willis
"I will await you in a circular room, constellated with birds, on the
threshold of that door full of night and world, which opens onto the
unalterable. Like dedicating an unfinished poem to a little girl,
giving it to her to warp when suffering no longer seems a more
authentic, spacious land. I will elongate the road to the unsayable. I
will be the act of weaving. You, the leopard of multiple horns that
has just now appeared on the green brocade and is observing it all
like a herald, enigmatically." -María Negroni
Tara Aisha Willis is from Chicago, also majors in English and Creative
Writing, and thanks her parents with her whole heart. Sometimes
movement and language, space and the page are indistinguishable to
her, a tendency she'll explore further living in NYC after graduation.
The piece is partly based on Negroni's poems and paintings by Remedios
Varo: she hopes she's created a landscape on stage for you to dream
in.
Choreographer: Tara Aisha Willis and dancers
Music: Joan Jeanrenaud, Quincy Jones, Philip Glass
Cast: Jules Bakshi, Emily Bock, Anina Hewey, Hadley Thomas Smith, and Tara Aisha Willis
"I will await you in a circular room, constellated with birds, on the
threshold of that door full of night and world, which opens onto the
unalterable. Like dedicating an unfinished poem to a little girl,
giving it to her to warp when suffering no longer seems a more
authentic, spacious land. I will elongate the road to the unsayable. I
will be the act of weaving. You, the leopard of multiple horns that
has just now appeared on the green brocade and is observing it all
like a herald, enigmatically." -María Negroni
Tara Aisha Willis is from Chicago, also majors in English and Creative
Writing, and thanks her parents with her whole heart. Sometimes
movement and language, space and the page are indistinguishable to
her, a tendency she'll explore further living in NYC after graduation.
The piece is partly based on Negroni's poems and paintings by Remedios
Varo: she hopes she's created a landscape on stage for you to dream
in.
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