The Dance
This whole project sprouted from a day of contact improvisation dancing.
It spiralled out of the moment when surfaces of two individual human being came to a meeting point
I remember so clearly the moment when I could feel this energy of another human being entered through my skin, through our point of contact, and there were no more two individuals in the room.
It was such a powerful moment, there were tiny movements within the stillness of our bodies, energy moving throughout my body, and I was so aware in every passing moment, fully present in the now.
Driving home that afternoon, high on the dance, the touch, the skin conversations, the whole experience if that 7 hours we shared.
Especially right at the end of the strict Covid regulation, that day was so real, and surreal at the same time.
Touch was such a medicine, for the body, for the mind, and much more.
The energy was still circulating inside me, so special was the time we shared. I wanted to preserve that memory, as I always did.
I needed to creatively express the overwhelming energy that my body received that day,
and so it came out as words,
a poem.
So when I got home, under my yellow desk lamp, I translated that energy down into words on a random piece of paper.
There wasn’t so much thinking or planning involved, the words just flew out of me like water, in the same way that the energy flew into me through the dance.
Only way after, after rereading the poem over and over through this whole process, I could see the that the poem is such a representation of different stages experienced in many contact improvisation dances, as well as in many meetings of people and places in life.
The poem ended with a question, an open-ended one.
Will we ever meet again?
Will this be forever goodbye?
Once this physical connection is broken, was there something left behind?
Or will it be gone forever?
For me, this question also reflects on the impact of the pandemic, the fear of proximity and physical contact.
Has it changed our relationship with physical touch?
If so, how?
It was amazing to be able to put such an embodied experience into words,
yet words are sometimes so limited and suggestive in the process of interpretation.
So the next morning I got my colour and paper out, and started to paint.
The Painting
Paintings open up so many different ways of perception.
Some see skins, some see bodies, some see the spaces in between,
Some see the dances, the intimacy, the sensuality.
From my natural water colour palette, I chose the shades called Skinny and Pink Cheek to represent 2 bodies, and a lot of water on a super absorbent printmaking paper to create the flow.
To me, this set of paintings is the visual representation of my experience that day.
There was the meeting,
slowly coming together
the contact, the touch,
the merging, becoming one body
resting in each other’s presence
then, inevitably, the parting
once again, two entities, as we were before
yet it wasn’t the same,
the meeting changed something inside
irreversible, forever.
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Not only do the paintings tell the story of that one particular experience I had,
this cycle of meeting, connection and parting appears on every dance I have,
and in every interaction I encounter in life.
The Filming
From the moment I wrote that poem down, I knew it had to be turned into a film.
Quinn and Caleb, my two dancer friends, agreed to take part in the project. We did a rehearsal dance once when I asked them both to look at the stages ‘movement’ in the paintings, and dance the paintings out.
During that very first dance, as the end when they parted ways, Quinn started to cry and was supported by her partner who was also there. That moment, I knew I chose the right people for this particular project.
We had three filming sessions where they just started to dance contact improvisation together, and I walked around, documenting the dance with my camera. The filming process was quite simple and straightforward.
The editing, however, was not.
The Post-Production
My intention was that my friend, who is an amazing editor, was going to edit this piece for me, following my storyboard but she would have a lot of space to explore the aesthetics creatively.
Her first draft was more like a music video, beautifully crafted it was, but there was a lack of flow and sensing I was looking for. After she sent me the second draft, it occurred to me that I had to edit this myself.
The footage she chose was missing the intimacy between the skins. There was no ‘conversation’ but only a series of quick meetings. Soon I recognised that the intimacy I wanted the film to embody and portray had to be told by the one who has had this experience.
And because I embodied this experience so deeply, it was so effortless for me to piece the footage together and create the flow which corresponded with the narrative and the paintings.
The Music
Finding the music was the most challenging part. It was something I couldn’t do myself and definitely need to collaborate with another musician.
I contacted a few musician friends, some did try to create something for the film but it didn’t sound right. I kept looking our for opportunities and possibilities for over 4 months. I almost gave up and came to terms with the fact that I might have to either create something myself, or use someone else’s music.
Just then, I met Catie.
Catie is a sound engineer living and working in San Francisco. I was connected to her through a dancer friend of mine, who sent Catie the video and asked if she might be interested in collaborating with me on the film.
We barely discuss the matter, just exchanging a few sentence during Thanksgiving gathering, and a week or so later, she sent me the first draft.
When I watched that draft, I knew we were on the right track. On second draft we pretty much had it, the musical piece I had been searching for.
Catie shared that she chose to work with the guitar not only because of the practical reason, but conceptually she felt that 'the texture of the guitar with the reverb is responsive to the moment of impact and suspense in the dance, and carries the sense of breath.'
The sound of her playing guitar intertwined so well with the movement and the poetry. I could hear the transition from different stages like each painting that come together, even though she didn’t see the painting before. Everything was flowing in such synchronicity.
Once you stop searching for it, everything just come into place.