Uptick

I made this piece after a failed attempt at choreographing a very mathematical solo using John Ashbery’s “Default Mode” as a movement map. It was tiring and the words weren’t sticking with the individual movements. I made a “seed phrase” for “They were living in America” that was repeated with different variations for each line. I didn’t get past “Does this doughnut remind you of a life preserver?”! 

I read “Uptick” and found it to be a rather chewy poem, meaning it’s terse but there’s so much there about time and sequence and viewing. After reading it about twenty times aloud in the studio with Marissa (my collaborator) I decided to make a duet that never left the floor where the dancers never touched each other. I was interested in extremes of timing and creating a certain reverberation in the air between the bodies. The piece, to me, feels like two different audio frequencies on one side of a very strange phone call.

Editing by Cory Antiel. Videography by Adam Fitzgerald.