statement on ghosted2

I question a body torn: my body, pulled in multiple directions by unfinished projects, processes that require justification within a capitalist framework, and choreographies that risk distilling rich inquiry into empty shells. As I labor to produce justification for process, I’m reminded of Erin Manning who writes, “what if knowledge were not assumed to have a form already? What if we didn’t yet know what needed to be taught, let alone questioned?”[1]

Ghosted2 wrestles with an anxiety of process that fractures and fragments clarity, resolution, and consistent artistic direction. I return to Franco “Bifo” Berardi, who states, “the mind is put to work in conditions of economic and existential precariousness. Living time is subjected to work through a fractal dispersion of both consciousness and experience, reducing coherence of lived time to fragments.”[2] The work includes a script of a conversation between me and another being, a mannequin named Armando, which I fragment, reorder, and randomly delete entire sections to consider a reduction of coherence and its inevitable tendency towards fractal dispersion of experience and understanding.

Within a set design that highlights this corporeal fragmentation, I also take up an inquiry proposed by choreographer Ligia Lewis. “How do I build a fugitive choreography, one that’s always in the process of escaping itself, then coming back to reaffirm itself, only to slide away again?”[3] My dancing, interacting and inter-reacting with the text, develops itinerant gestures and choreographed rhythms that elude fixity. I take aesthetic cues from Lewis’ deader than dead (2020), which utilizes bold and obscuring framing devices developed in post-production. In Ghosted, dramatic black lines and shapes interact with my corporeal impulses, at times obscuring, at times hiding, at times revealing and even exaggerating particular moments and punctuations within my embodiment.

[1] Erin Manning, The Minor Gesture (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2019), 9. [2] Franco “Bifo” Berardi, The Soul at Work: From Alienation to Autonomy (Los Angeles, CA: Semiotext(e), 2009), 132. [3] Catherine Damman, “Ligia Lewis by Catherine Damman,” BOMB Magazine, May 15, 2019. https://bombmagazine.org/articles/ligia-lewis/

Bibliography

Berardi, Franco. The Soul at Work: From Alienation to Autonomy. Los Angeles, CA: Semiotext(e), 2009.

Damman, Catherine. “Ligia Lewis by Catherine Damman.” BOMB Magazine, May 15, 2019. https://bombmagazine.org/articles/ligia-lewis/

Manning, Erin. The Minor Gesture. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2019.