Dear Amy,
thanks for coming to the performance. here is a response that is to you but also draws on a few things I have been writing in the last day.
Please know that just because you don’t understand something doesn’t mean that it lacks sense or its own logic. Did you not see the diagonal line that the props were placed? (which have a relationship to the whole and to each other in function- do they have to be all oranges or apples?) It is the gestalt of the whole piece through time that interests me, one element will be more in focus than the other at any given time… they work together to create a living image. Potent art relies on the specificity of the artist’s vision, perception, and experience to create work that plays along the spectrum of personal/universal. When it doesn’t or isn’t allowed to do so, you get the blandest of works that is fit to stick on a street corner or in a waiting room.
The Feminine. What if that refers to softness, receptivity, non linear processing and creativity?
In reference to ‘the meaning’ what happens when a person is laden with beliefs, limitations, history,and patterns that are no longer serving them and then works to break those patterns through in depth self reflection and ritual, to reveal a purer version of themselves? you are left with with a human, in front of you, alive, honest, dancing in that freedom and clarity. BUT what if you didn’t get to know “what it means” on a conscious level? What is wrong with that? Can you still not trust that you are having an experience that is informed by what is in front of you? we do put a ton of weight into labels, language, compartments, knowing what everything is.. i was trying to combat that in my piece and celebrate the non linear experience… and the experience we have outside of our left brains. what we can experience without out our conscious knowing…we have intelligences and consciousness on emotional, physical, spiritual, energetic, soul levels that seek information and experience regardless of our need to control it.
In general, the arc of my pieces change over time like a spiral and come together by the end. This piece comes from a process of the last few years that is personal to me but universal in its theme and humanness. It is not a whimsical folly of throwing something together with all this free money from the AWARD Show grant. It is a reflection of my process as well as a device to use structure/ritual/metaphor to transform in the process of performance. If you are not open to the non-linear, and need everything handed to you, then my work is not for you. It is sophisticated in its own logic, nuance, mystery, movement language, among other things.
As far as I know, no institution or organization has license over the content or specific execution of the artist’s work. That is the artist’s domain. I would have made the SAME piece without that AWARD Show grant, just with fewer paychecks to go around or I would have applied to other grants to make up the costs. I follow the work and my body. It was my intention to free myself of limitation. I make ABSOLUTELY no apology for the freedom I used.
Cheers,
Amelia
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