The central questions of our research are: What can we do together that we cannot do alone? What is possible when love is stronger than fear?
The core of this dance research project is a queer love centred survival practice of time travel, communion, habitat, performance and ritual where everything deserves to breathe, while working with grand gestures that go nowhere: bonding, grappling, napping, fainting, professing love to each other, falling and falling together. We will be training contact improvisation, climbing mountains, singing love songs, soul shaking practices as well as hot sweaty dancing. Bathing in each other’s sweat will be what kind of bonds us, leaving us wet and pleased. How does who we are inform how we move and the politics of our identities / positionalities? How many ways can we move – move with – be moved by – each other?
Part of this research is how the participants’ knowing, questioning and research intersect. There will be durational scored improvisational dancing practices that include physical contact, disorientation, momentum, impact, resting and sharing. There will also be options and adaptations as needed. The research material includes building skills and practices of agency, consent, touch, positionality, generosity, endurance, risk-taking, decision-making and collaboration. We will develop our individual and collective capacity through dancing and verbal discussion.
We are particularly compelled to work with research-oriented dancers / movers who are queer, trans, and / or BIPoC who are already invested in practices of improvisation and identity politics; however, if you don’t identify as queer, trans, and / or BIPoC, but you are an ally and invested in the proposed topics, you are welcome as well.
Makisig AkinAnya Cloud
