Brooklyn, New York
Born 1967, San Juan, Puerto Rico
Choreographer
Getting away from self-expressiveness, from projecting meaning, elucidating content beyond the immediate context of an action and doing so in the most difficult way possible, by using the body and even typically dramatic and expressive conditions - these are characteristics of my current working tendencies and processes. I work with thinking and corporeality.
Though I have been recently using a variety of media and technologies, cinema, sound installation, drawing, sculpture, my inquiry generally springs from questions about the perception and representation of the body, human presence, and my own subjective relationship to "dance." I am fascinated by the phenomenon of language, and its subsequent breaks, and failures. The body is the obvious and perfect bridge in those impossible gaps. Thinking is the fluid that lubricates the bridge.
Meaning is essential, but I believe that it is something that arises in tandem with the process, not as an arbiter of form. The dialogue between meaning and form is dynamic and mercurial. It's an old idea that the crystallization of form in action does not need to be contingent upon a pre-emptive understanding of its purpose, but it seems to still be an issue.
I see the work that my global community of artists who think has to do in the field of dance and live performance, and it is an infinite terrain of exciting possibility. I believe this potentiality, that resists a paradigm of artistic success or failure, is a crucial and liberating substance for our culture and society today.
1989 B.A., Dance, Bennington College
2007 Nottthing Is Importanttt, music by Zeena Parkins, lighting design by Thomas Dunn; presented at The Kitchen, New York, NY
2005 No Change or "freedom is a psycho-kinetic skill," sound by Seth Cluett, lighting design by Thomas Dunn; Context Studios, presented at Danspace Project Out of Space, New York, NY
2004 Coming Out of the Night With Names, in collaboration with Peter Jacobs, music by Michelle and Kenta Nagai; presented at Performance Space 122, New York, NY
2002 Dressed for Floating, music by David Kean; presented at Danspace Project, New York, NY
2001 Wind (The Eternal Return of the Same), in collaboration with Peter Jacobs, music by Guy Yarden; presented at The Kitchen, New York, NY
2000 The Handsome Execution of a Flower, music by Kenta Nagai; presented at Chashama, New York, NY
2006, 2004 Rockefeller Foundation Multi-Arts Production Grant
2003 Bessie Awards for Creation & Soundscore of Dressed for Floating
2000 New York Foundation for the Arts Choreography Fellowship
