This week, our Confined Dancing Series of photo essays continues with a visual focus on black and white images. For many, the lockdown era has forced a stripping down of life to its barest essentials. Stark black and white analogously highlights the underlying structure of an image. With animating colors absent, shape, form, and composition come into sharp relief. New details may reveal themselves in the clearing out of everything extra. As the shock wears off, where is the beauty in this new minimalism? Four movers explore, colorlessly.
Julee Mahon
April 30, 2020
Philadelphia, PA
Re(Defined)
On the inside looking out.
An undefined space yet to be discovered.
The clock on the wall ticks and the window is just a window.
On the outside searching within.
A defined square feet of space.
Time is defined.
Before and after.
Past and Future.
Then and eventually.
The world beyond the window has changed.
Peering through to the outside.
Witnessing.
How to redefine?
The window is no longer a window.
The clock on the wall has stopped ticking.
Instagram: @julee_eeeee
Silvana Cardell
April 22, 2020
Philadelphia, PA
Vulnerable Bodies
This is a picture of one of my investigations of Disposable Bodies. I am thinking of the amount of animals that spend their entire life in confinement, how we exploit them for our consumption, how this relates to our own heath and how many human bodies are treated as disposable, a slow violence that runs unnoticed. In this image, I summarize my own feelings during self-confinement and the emergence of a new body that connects further with my own animality. I took the picture from a video I shot at Cardell Dance Studio.
Bronwyn Sims
January 2020
Persevere!
The photographer (Kiqe Bosch) and I were experimenting with physicality, emotions and vulnerability. This photo for me represents all of my anger, tension, anxiety, frustration, disgust, worry, helplessness, powerlessness over this disease and how my government is handling it. I’m so angry… angry at the world, angry at the government, angry at this disease, and at myself. We must persevere!
www.bronwynsims.com | Instagram: @sims.bronwyn | www.facebook.com/simsbronwyn
Anabella Lenzu
March 27, 2020
Brooklyn, New York
The night that you stopped acting/ La noche que dejaste de actuar
In this new, Zoom rehearsal process of my piece, The night that you stopped acting, I discovered that photography is my new tool for exploring character development and humor in dance. My work reflects my experience as a Latina artist living in New York, and comes from a deep examination of my motivations as a woman, mother, and immigrant. My piece was scheduled to premiere in June at La Mama, but now has been postponed indefinitely.
Photos courtesy of submitting artists unless otherwise noted.
Previous posts in the series: Domesticity, Frames
How are you dancing in confinement? Get in touch at confined@thinkingdance.net
Since it looks like Philadelphia will be under the stay-home order through (at least) June 4, we will continue to receive submissions through May 30. Please consult the guidelines in the original call to submit your confined dance.
