As a New York City based, first generation american dance artist, I use the corporeality of the body to direct and choreograph environments that foster a sense of curiosity, stimulate creativity, and promote transparency and exchange.
By using improvisational scores, I attempt to build performances that are rich with possibility. My work situates the performer through a process of listening and openness that are in equal balance with spontaneity and suggestion. By inviting a sense of play and transparency in the movement of the performer, I seek to inspire viewers to connect to their own kinesthetic (bodily) being. Is it possible to create a performative event the pushes to enmesh performers and audiences in interactions that protect individual autonomy, and support active and empowered involvement for everyone. I am interested in dysmistifies the dance making process while turning it into a watchable event, and making the documentation of the performance a genuine artwork of its own.
In the past two years my work has been especially inspired by the millennial age, in which identity is an often difficult conflation of public and private persona, both on and off digital platforms. By creating video, theatrical, or site-specific productions I hope to demonstrate the vitality of the trained moving body and through that display the ephemerality of being. I am invested in creating performative events that engender a sense of duality for audiences and performers: belonging and impermanence, the corporal and spiritual.
In spite of my improvisational score building; I am inspired by my trained histories in classical dance forms including Balanchine, Graham and Limón. My practice is strongly influenced by form, technique and repetition. Using rigorous movement language and pushing physical limits of the performers, I aim to question, highlight, bring awareness to, and honor the body (as material, as container, as biology) through movement. Most recently I have developed a strong fascination with, inspiration from, and appreciation for the body as specimen (biology, muscle structures, bones, the scientific body) and I have been diving into what I have started to call the ‘conditional body’ (ie: Female, person of color, or other specific distinguishing factors of a non-normative body in motion).
I am caught between the human body as specimen (biology, muscle structures, bones, the scientific body) and my own conditional body defined by personal history, societal implications and my physical manifestation. When creating a new work I try to gain a deeper understanding of myself, my histories and biases; through that process I attempt to create performative events that connect me with others and in turn have others connect with others. I am invested in presenting works that show the inherent and inevitable unpredictability of performance using the forms of corporeality. I acknowledge that the body is not separate from the emotional, spiritual and self awareness of the people we are continuously evolving into. Is there honesty in any moving gesture? My work is a manifestation of my colliding roles as maker, performer, and audience; making me invariably dependant on the people, the bodies and the emotions of those who watch one of my works.
Sid Ceasar