These videos are part of the qualifying process for Bodytraffic company’s annual winter intensive at LMU, Los Angeles. All the videos were shot at about the same time during the year during similar conditions: last minute footage collecting via working and travel, healing from injuries, and struggling through the editing platform. These are labors of love
ANTICS is a crew that has some deep roots with some of the best. My time with Antics hip-hop company has been an awesome and strange ride. All of the stage work that I’ve done for Antics so far revolves around a body of materials named Sneaker Suites. There’s an idea in yoga that as one narrows the focus, one widens the perspective. Inside that material, I got to live as a poet and about a hundred flavors of bboy.
My experience with Antics in the Quad Cities (Iowa and Illinois) was life-changing. All of us came together through tough weather. Four Antics members was already there, snowed-in for almost a week. Workshops got cancelled, so did flights out of Chicago. Amy (our director) fought for us to get our luggage, rented a white Suburban for the ladies of Antics and me, and drove out to the conference center. Same show that night for the sponsors of our trip, small stage, rough wood, no spin. Big show was next night; we bickered and adjusted and workshopped for hours with one rehearsal, like all good dance families do, and rocked it.
In the week of slight thaw after, four of us stayed. We did three show/workshops a day. The school kids gave us so much energy. I remember one day I woke up feeling so empty, and when the shows were done, I felt deeply fulfilled. What hit me the hardest was sharing poetry and movement with a Christian youth group in Rock Island, “where everybody knows how to rock” - Guillotine.
In the big old space of the hotel, I feverishly put together some modern dance improvisation and poetry to beat a deadline....
Working as a Fantastikal / Fae character was a challenge. No speaking, 8 hours in the sun, full bodysuit and make-up, no items except for a straw to forage water from fellow actors and patrons. Somehow at the end of the day I leave with more energy than I started with. Renaissance Faire is an amazing community. Picture credits go to Lightcrafter, Joanne Wilborn, Ron Frary, and World Domination Design.
These videos spring from the rich and raw and mundane pain and experiences that I encounter in my travels. Life is full of ups and downs, injuries and health, love and loss, and times of serenity and stressful chaos. The life of a dancer does not reward me much in terms of money, but I am wealthy beyond measures. I am blessed with space for my own soul as well as the trustiest, most solid friends who accompany me.
project: translate + incorporate modern dance movements into bboying. About 1.5 sleepless weeks of shooting and editing with a camera on loan from best buy.
